Relic Worlds: Lancaster James and the Lost Scepter of the Kings

“Lost Scepter of the Kings is in the Altar of Obedience.  Location – Ministry building in town surrounding spire.  Expedition sent to recover.  We are still in our craft.  Nestled safely inside mouth of the spire near canyon wall.  Will leave and return when expedition returns...  Beware the dragon.”

It was a rough translation, to be sure, and one that had been decoded by students at Sabereaux University.  But it was likely the closest anyone could come to getting a true understanding of what the words in the 150 million year old transmission meant.  Some of the more descriptive words, like “dragon” had been shortened translations of longer descriptions.

Little was known of the mysterious species xeno-anthropologists named the Trag.  None of their worlds had been discovered, but their occasional signals had been picked up in deep space in various parts of space humans now called the second quadrant.  Whenever scientists had followed a signal to its source, they had found no Trag ruins nor any sign they had ever been there.

The transmissions that were detected were used to piece together what scientists currently knew about the Trag.  The present signal had been intercepted by a passenger liner, and thus had been recorded along with everything else that happened on board.  Luckily for scientists trying to understand the Trag, the ship’s sensors commander had taken enough interest to locate the source of the signal and found that it had come from the Vinithra system.  She then sold the information and the communication to the school for a hefty profit.  The price was worth it, however, as it provided scientists another lead to try and find a Trag world, or at least one on which they had settled for a time.

The Trag themselves had vanished, as had every other species in the known galaxy, many centuries before humans ever took to the stars.  What had happened to them and why they disappeared remained a mystery; one that came closer to being solved with every explored world.  The Trag had been one of the first space faring races, traveling first in sub-light spacecraft which took them decades or even centuries to venture into outer systems.  When they later developed spacecraft that got around the light speed barrier, the newer explorers set out to reconnect with the older colonies.

Researchers at Saberaux theorized that this most recent intercepted signal was a later expedition that had gone to examine one of the older settlements.  A Scepter of the King was the symbol of the seat of power in the early days of Trag exploration.  If one was to be “recovered” it meant that the government had fallen, or everyone in the colony was dead, and so they were going to bring it back.

This could mean that the human expedition could find nothing except for some empty buildings and whatever the Trag left behind, but this would at least provide an insight into how they once lived.  The expedition may also find the remains of the recovery ship itself.  After having discovered the signal, the sensors operator of the passenger liner had kept a line open toward the star system from which the signal had come.  Nothing more had been picked up, and therefore it was concluded that the ship may never have taken off.

This was what Lancaster James was hoping as he climbed the giant spire on the rocky world of Vinithra 2.  (The world did not yet have a name as it had not been explored by mankind yet, despite being in the habitable zone of its solar system.)  This was the best match to the short description in the intercepted communication.  It rose in the shadow of a tall canyon with a gaping hole approximately three quarters of the way up.  The hole in the spire was large enough for a ship to fit inside, and even resembled an actual mouth.  It would be a tight fit for a vessel to slide into, (it was too tight for his partner’s ship, Odin’s Revenge,) but this was alien technology after all, and might be able to make the tight turns.  Why they would land up here was another question, but he supposed that would be answered once he knew more about the Trag.

Right now Lancaster was more concerned with the ever steepening cliff-side, the occasional loose rocks, and the “dragon” spoken about in the transmission.  When he heard a high pitched roar he looked up startled and his foothold slipped from under him.  His hand instinctively found a grip he had located a few moments earlier in time to stop his fall, but the sudden motion caused his hat to drop down, tapping the rocky spire while it danced in the breeze on its way down nearly a half kilometer to the surface.  It was, in fact, the wind which had caused the noise that had startled Lancaster.  He’d have to get used to the sound, as it was growing louder the higher he climbed.  He didn’t have much longer to go, but his destination couldn’t come soon enough.

Lancaster was relieved to hear the familiar rattling inside his bag that was slung around his shoulder.  He still had the Scepter of the Kings.  Whatever had broken off inside it caused a clattering noise whenever the scepter was jostled, reminding Lancaster it was there with every sudden move.  It had been distracting earlier, but now he found it a comfort.  He hadn’t gone out of his way to recover it only to now see it smash hundreds of meters below.

#

He had located the scepter inside a cave; ostensibly the ministry building.  Once he and his partner had located the spire, Lancaster had explored the area around it, finding only one entrance.  If there had been a colony here in the past, it had long since crumbled and been swallowed into the environment.  The occasional holes in the rocks might have denoted entryways into long-ago structures, but he saw no sign of anything inside them; not even architectural walls.  Each could be a cave entrance for all he knew; but he was certain he had reached the correct area, especially when one of the entryways delivered a discovery.

Rising out of the floor closer to the right side of the cave was a stalagmite formation that came up approximately to Lancaster’s waist.  It was the perfect size for a former altar, though it no longer bore any discernable architectural shape.  About halfway up the stalagmite was a gap in which sat a metallic item.  It was thin in the middle with a round globe on one end and a rectangular protrusion on the other.  There were few, if any, precious metals on it, though it was so crusted over that some could be hidden.  When he took a closer look he found some decorative paint below the caked on dirt, but he found no jewels or usual royal ornaments.  Nevertheless, Lancaster was certain this was the scepter.

He was careful not to take the artifact right away.  He needed to study it; consider whether there may be some hidden traps.  There were several sections of the cave where the rocks formed boxy shapes, and he sat on one that felt like a natural chair.  It may even have been the throne at one time, with a pair of quadratic frames forming on each flank of the seat, though one was lower than the other.  He would have time to study the décor at length later.  For now, he wanted to study the stalagmitic altar and its prize.

The shrine had worn down with time, and now looked more naturally part of the cave than the boxlike walls.  Though rough, Lancaster could find no markings that would spring any type of trap.  He glanced over the walls and saw dozens of tiny holes; a sure sign of darts or some other weapon to attack him should he try to steal their treasure.  Pulling out his Illuminator, Lancaster studied the holes, trying to locate what might be inside them, or attempting to locate a power source that would operate their weaponry.

He found nothing but the bones of tiny animals.  Mice-like creatures, it seemed, with an unusual style of burrowing.  Their walls were steep and smooth with sharp corners, much like the equilateral walls of the cave.  In one he found a tiny, shining jewel sitting upon a small, orthogonal mound; likely one they had gotten off of the scepter.  Lancaster figured he would probably find all of the lost jewels scattered about the holes, but he didn’t want to spend the time.  He had determined there were not likely any traps, so he approached the ancient lecturn.  He spread out his legs, bent his knees, and placed his eyes level with the scepter’s cradle.  He studied it closely again, looking over ever part.  He lifted his hat and brushed away sweat, then readied his hands.  For a moment, Lancaster stood still like an animal ready to pounce, and then he did just that.  One hand swept into the hole and grabbed the scepter, then tossed it to the other hand.  It was a trick he taught himself in case one hand should be chopped away by a trap; at least the artifact would be going into the other.

All was still and silent, save for the occasional whisper of wind outside.  He was startled when, a moment later, a howling bat flew in rasping as if chewing him out for disturbing his home.  The animal, whose wingspan spread approximately two feet, circled Lancaster at a safe distance, enough for them to size one another up, but not close enough for either to be in danger.  Lancaster found that the center of the animal had more in common with a lizard, and would probably resemble one more when it landed than it would a bat.  But for the moment, it was hard to ignore those fleshy wings with needle-sharp points along them.  It seemed to be giving Lancaster warning before it spun by the entrance and flew out.

Lancaster had what he needed, and he saw no reason to loiter.  He wanted to see if the alien ship was still on the spire, so it was time to go.  As he placed the scepter into his bag, he heard it rattle for the first time.  He looked at it briefly, and realized it was lighter than it should be if the relic was solid.  Something had clearly broken loose and was jangling around inside.  That would be something to look over when he got back to his partner’s ship.

The clattering sound made one last dramatic jolt as Lancaster yanked himself up over the lip into the cave on the spire.  Once on the solid, flat floor, he was certain to roll over onto his back in the opposite direction of his bag.  He did not know how strong this artifact really was.  Lying on the cave, Lancaster caught his breath.  He felt his chest lifting and dropping rapidly, then slowing bit by bit until deep breaths were giving his body the resemblance of calm ocean seas.

Sufficiently calmed down, Lancaster brought himself to his feet and peered into the cave… Nothing.  Even when he pointed forward his Illuminator and increased it to its maximum intensity, all he found was the wall at the far end.  There was no ship.  It was empty; a dead end.

The aliens could have taken off and made it home.  A part of Lancaster was happy for them, but disappointed for history.  Locating their ancient ship would provide a lot of insight; and with a bit of luck, they might even have data as to their original location or destination coordinates inside their antique computers.  But nothing was here, not even the remains of a ship.

Lancaster had to remind himself that it was a longshot anyway as he strolled to the edge of the cave.  It was a beautiful view at least.  He could see why they had chosen to land here to get a better perspective over the alien city that once sat beneath them.  Despite mostly facing the canyon wall, Lancaster could see a long way to the left and right; and he could even see much of the land in front of the canyon that stretched out into a rocky desert.  Lancaster tried to imagine what the colony might have looked like, despite his little knowledge of the Trag.

In trying to do this, he began to be confused by the fact that there was no sign at all of the Trag’s civilization; not even ancient foundations.  Typically there was some sign left behind, even if the alien culture didn’t want it to be found.  Here it seemed as though a conscious effort had been put into erasing all signs that anything was ever here.  He considered the extreme age of the site, but he had found other signs of civilization that were almost as old.  Why was this so drastically different?

Lancaster now considered also how far away the cave where he found the scepter had been.  Though within the general vicinity, it was further away than he’d imagine anyone wanting to travel; and there were plenty of landing locations that were closer, even if they wanted to land on higher ground.  True, they were not spires, but if the Trag voyagers had wanted to land with a good view over the colony, they could have done it much closer.

Lancaster began to wonder about the scepter itself.  Was it what he thought it was?  He pulled it gently out of his bag as it rattled its hello.  He squinted, studying it closely.  There were little holes beneath all the dust.  He blew off the age-old dirt and scraped off the caked-on ancient mud to reveal the painted designs he had noticed earlier.  They were shapes in orange and purple with violet and yellow trim outlining ridges and small holes.  Scraping at these holes, Lancaster came to realize they had translucent material over them.  At the front these holes were long slits with one circular hole in the middle.  Tapping his fingernails against the see-through material, he realized these were windows.  No sooner had he asked himself why one would have windows on their scepter than he began to find more small windows all along the side.  Few were on the bottom of the scepter, but many of them dotted the round “head” of it.  ‘Had this been where the jewels had gone?’ Lancaster wondered.  Then it struck him like a knock to the head.  He had to tighten his grip on the scepter to keep from dropping it and grasp the edge of the cliff-side to keep from falling off.

This was not the scepter.  This was the alien spacecraft.

He blew down the middle section revealing more of the texture that resembled a fuselage.  Additional windows were exposed, and a small hatchway came into view.  It all looked like a model, and it still could be if his theory was wrong.  He scraped at the hatchway with is fingernails, trying to pry it loose, but the centuries-old mud was keeping it sealed.  Lancaster reached into one of his many jacket pockets and pulled out a plyer-blade which he used to slice into the tight gap between the door and the wall.  Once inside, he twisted it down and pried open the door.

Immediately several bones tumbled out.  He recognized a few ribs, a limb or two, and a couple broken ones he couldn’t identify.  Then there was the head.  It was tiny, about the size of a mouse, with the shape of a raccoon.  Then Lancaster remembered the ones he had seen in the holes in the cave; the perfectly shaped walls of their burrows; the square homes they had carved into the walls of the cave on which he had so carelessly sat.  That was the colony.  The stalagmite he had mistaken for the ancient altar was the spire, for to these tiny creatures that would have been a high climb.  And from the hole halfway up, they could look over the settlement while still having a reasonable climb down, (much smaller than the one Lancaster was going to have from his current perch, which he presently made after replacing the bones back into the ship.)

By the time he got down, the planet’s star was low on the horizon.  Lancaster’s partner Little Jack asked if he wanted to be picked up, but Lancaster asked for a little more time, and he returned to the cave.

Inside, he saw the room with whole new eyes, realizing the cavern wall was what constituted the giant cliff.  The flying lizard, which now sat perched threateningly upon the thin rock outcropping, was the dragon.  Every small hole was an entrance to a home or a business, and the tiny bones inside were the people.  He now noticed tiny roads that connected many of them, and zigzagged up the wall face to reach other rectangular structures.  How had they died?  Lancaster doubted it was the “dragon’s” ancestors.  The skeletons would not be so intact in their homes, and would, at best, be in a pile.  Perhaps it was a disease, or possibly something in the air they could not breathe on a long basis.  Whatever it was, it had worked fast on the ship’s crew and claimed their lives before they had had a chance to take off; and the Trags had been wise enough not to return to this world with more explorers.

There would be many things to learn, and it would take a great deal of time and study.  This would be aided by having everything where it had been when he discovered it, which included the ship.  Normally, Lancaster would bring back artifacts and discoveries, but this was different.  It felt disrespectful.  He didn’t know why, but it did.  And so he slowly approached the miniature spire to return the craft.  The flying lizard pulled its head back, its eyes narrowed as if threatening to strike.  It watched Lancaster suspiciously as he crept forward, his legs spread, his arms held up to his side in an expression half of defense and half of surrender.  He pulled the craft out slowly and showed it to the lizard, whose head cocked slightly while it focused on the relic.  It recognized the item, and seemed to relent ever so slightly.

Lancaster took a cautious step toward the stalagmite first with one foot, then, slowly, with the other.  The lizard gave him a sidelong, warning glance, its eyes on his, its jaws parting to reveal a hundred or more tiny sharp teeth and a couple fangs.  Lancaster assumed it was probably poisonous.  He considered leaving, but he really felt this object belonged in its place.  He froze, then again held the object aloft, as though reminding the creature of what he was doing.  The lizard seemed to grant permission again, as it leaned away from the hole in the side.

Gently, Lancaster took one step, then another, letting each foot move independently, as he edged his way toward the spire.  When still a meter away, Lancaster stopped moving his feet and instead leaned his torso in along with the hand holding the ship.  The other hand remained behind him, but ready to swing around and punch the animal if it came at him.

It just kept staring at Lancaster with a warning written on its face.  Lancaster’s own said he understood.  He looked away for just a moment, long enough to make sure his hand was entering the hole and the tiny ship was fitting in the sides.  At his closest, the creature screamed its raspy, strained voice, as though telling him that was far enough.  Lancaster’s fingers unwrapped from the hull, and he pulled out his hand, making sure not to bring the ship with him.  He then leaned back on his legs, his eyes always on the lizard’s eyes.  Its torso matched the motion of Lancaster’s, leaning forward as Lancaster leaned backward.

Once his torso was aligned with his center of gravity, Lancaster stalled a moment.  The creature did as well.  There was a quiet moment when Lancaster wondered if, now that it had back its prize, it might pounce.  The transmission had said “Beware the dragon.”  Maybe it would even breathe fire, a thought that excited Lancaster as much as it terrified him.

Nothing happened, but the face of the lizard denoted a hint of impatience, so Lancaster moved one leg back, then followed with the next, and one step after another made his way backward out of the cave.  The flying lizard watched him go, visibly relaxing its muscles as he went.  Just as Lancaster left the cave, the animal made its way down to the hole, and curled up around the metal craft.

As Lancaster watched the ground drop beneath him from the window of Odin’s Revenge, he wondered how many more Trag worlds had been discovered but they were never noticed.  Perhaps there were other sentient species, even whole empires, that were simply overlooked.  What were thought to be the remains of rodents, or even toys of other races, could be entire histories of long-ago civilizations.

And as his mind wandered, Lancaster also considered what the universe would appear like to such small creatures.  Worlds would be much larger; a single cave could constitute a nation.  Hills would be mountains, and mountains worlds.  All would be more wondrous, yet more frightening.  An animal that was a nuisance to humans would be a monster to them.  Short distances may seem insurmountable, and therefore what bravery would it take to explore the galaxy; yet how much more exciting?

As Lancaster pondered over the thoughts of stature and saga, Little Jack made a single, annoyed observation as they emerged from the bubble of the atmosphere into the cold blackness of space, “You lost your hat again.”

The End

Tales of the Black Lotus: The Gate of Eternity - Part 4

Ricard Tenac learned about the troubles on the ship through a mind message Gizi sent him.  His own ground team was in a bind, being escorted down the trail to a long rope bridge across the gorge that accompanied the river.  They were surrounded by approximately 20 armed Dark Agents taking them to who knew where, but it was clearly somewhere that they were all supposed to die.  He had obviously already known they needed to escape, but now that he knew the trouble facing Gizi, he was all the more determined.

The bridge was the place to do something.  The agents at the front had to narrow down to single file, as did the prisoners behind them.  Everyone was vulnerable here.  The drop was more than a hundred feet into a river whose current would sweep away the body as though it had never been there.  He studied the anchor points at the end of the bridge as he approached them.  They were staked deep into the ground, but could be cut easily with a single blast from a pistol, or possibly a harsh swing of a knife.  He felt the sharp, cold metal of a gun push him forward.  He wanted to swing around and knock its barer on its back, but he knew he’d be dead before he got halfway around, so he kept his temper in check.  It was not his window of opportunity yet.

Shasa was at the front of her landing party, just behind the agents.  The rather scrawny young one that had stepped out of the hut closest to Shasa and captured her was directly in front of her.  He was walking sideways, his pistol perpetually on her, always level despite the rocking and swaying of the bridge, as he used his other hand to guide himself on the rope and walked across like a crab.  It did not slow his motion.  In fact, he was slightly faster.  The agents wanted to get across the bridge as quicklyn as possible.

Otto, directly behind Shasa, was none too pleased at the speed up.  It increased the wave-like motion such that he felt as though he would tumble off.  This would not be so bad if he thought he could survive the fall, or he could make the agents tumble off before he would.  But neither was true by his estimation; so he held tight to the ropes on each side and tried to slow them under the guise of steadying himself, which was not entirely a lie.

Dr. Brody, behind Otto, was lagging behind anyway, and Otto’s slowdown was merely closing the gap.  “You still with us, old timer?” Otto asked.

“I’ve hiked mountains that wore you out just ganding at them, snapper!” Brody responded.

“You ever go through something like this with my parents?” Otto asked.

Someone shouted at them not to talk in line, and to hurry up.  Brody answered anyway, “They never took the wild chances you kids take.”

An agent near the front made a noise.  There followed a short argument.  Shasa peeked around the scrawny captor to see what was happening and spotted an agent at the front holding Vera as if ready to shoot something with it on the opposite side of the bridge.  Looking forward, Shasa saw the rifle was pointed at one of the glider monkeys, like the one that had been spying on them near the landing spot.  It was standing at the end of the bridge, staring at them curiously.  Cackling spread first across the tress ahead of them, then echoing into the trees behind them.

The agents at the front didn’t seem to notice.  One of them said he was going to shoot the glider monkey; the other one said he’d destroy the bridge if he did.  Shasa secretly hoped he’d fire.  If the bridge fell, at least some of the agents would fall, and she and her crew would have a better chance of holding onto a falling bridge than they did of shaking these guards before they took them to their doom.  Otto was just anxious to see his “girl” in action.

The glider monkey dashed Shasa’s hopes as it jumped off the bridge and swept majestically into the canyon.  The path was clear, and they could continue.  But the agent with Vera followed the animal and fired.  The beam hit the glider monkey squarely in the back.  What parts of the torso didn’t explode hung loosely on the glider wings, flopping in the breeze as they sailed slowly downward.

“That’s my girl,” Otto said, callously disregarding the useless murder of the animal as the agents started them forward again.  Shasa focused on the rising sounds of the chattering through the trees.  They seemed to be objecting to what had just happened, and they were growing increasingly agitated.

The front of the line was mere steps away from laying their feet on firm ground again when another glider monkey landed in front of them, closer this time.  Then another landed closer still.  They folded their wings in front of them, as though guarding themselves.  The agent with Otto’s rifle Vera lifted it and took aim.

Then the roaring cackles from the trees emerged, bathing the sky in a deafening continuous chattering.  There were so many diving from the branches on both ends of the gorge that they nearly blotted out the sun.  No one knew how to react at first, too uncertain were they as to what the gliding monkeys were doing.  Then Shasa took a guess, looked back at her people and motioned to the ground.  They all got down low to the planks.

The Dark Agents did not notice what the pirates were doing.  Their eyes were skyward, and soon their weapons were, too.  They did not want to add to the fury of the animals by firing again, but it soon did not make a difference as the dark brown cloud of small bodies descended on them.  The Dark Agents fired, knocking a handful of fury bodies out of the sky, but it was a few grains in a rain of sand that poured over them.  Many of them tumbled over the edge.  Some stood their ground, and the monkeys latched onto their bodies, their limbs, their faces.

The scrawny man next to Shasa screamed in agonized horror.  The claws of the glider monkey’s feet were dug into his neck.  Its little hands were clawing into his eyes.  His whole face was covered in blood as his legs tripped against the rope railing and he somersaulted off the side.  The glider monkey let go of him halfway down and flew away.

Shasa motioned forward and she and her team rushed ahead.  Sergeant Tenac was grabbed by a Dark Agent at the back.  He turned to punch the guy, but just then they were both accosted by a glider monkey.  Both agent and pirate struggled to peel the animals from their bodies as another couple latched to them.

The raider turned and, not considering the critters, punched the Dark Agent several times to get him away from his commander.  One of the other Dark Agents who had now peeled all life off of himself fired at the raider, missing him, but hitting the rope railing, weakening it.  Sergeant Tenac managed to remove the two glider monkeys from himself.  Holding one in each of his large hands, he spotted the freed Dark Agent, and he threw the small animals at him.  The agent shot one out of the air, but the second, seeing the execution of its friend, latched onto the man’s arm and bit deeply into his hand, causing him to drop the gun.

The raider was now locked in combat with the Dark Agent, their arms grasping one another as they wrestled for the upper hand.  Neither noticed the glider monkeys coming at them full speed until they knocked into them, and threw them against the weak railing.  The rope split, and the two men fell over the side, tumbling down into the abyss.

The rest of the bridge jilted sideways.  Sergeant Tenac grabbed the railing on the other side.  A handful of agents who lost their footing slid off, and others managed to keep their feet until the bridge steadied.  Otto grabbed R. Brody and tossed him forward onto land where he overcame Shasa dashing into the woods.

The Dark Agent with Vera saw her and aimed at her.  Just before he could fire, Otto slammed into the man.  Furious at someone who had stolen his “girl” and tried to shoot his sister, he slammed the rifle into his jaw, stunning him.  He yanked it away and swung it into the only other agent on land, knocking him out cold, then brought it around again to knock the man who had stolen his rifle from him off the edge into the abyss.

Sergeant Tenac was in his own rage.  Having lost another raider, and aware at the danger his girlfriend was in, he didn’t think to run, but rather swung at everything in sight.  Leaning to the left to stay on the bridge, he swatted glider monkeys like they were gnats and rushed the few remaining agents on the bridge.  He kicked one, sweeping him off the bridge, punched another, then put a third in a head lock.  A couple wild shots fired his way, but the animal bodies were too thick to get a good aimed shot.

At last Tenac heard the shouts from his commanding officers, and his sense of duty kicked back in.  He threw the agent he had at his fellows and turned to the edge of the bridge.  Then, hobbling toward the left, he hurried across to the other side.

Gizi got the message that Ricard and the others were safe.  She needed to pull off a similar miracle, but she had no glider monkeys to help.  She did, however, have Domi Marida, an engineer whose clever mind had kept the Black Lotus flying despite a shameful lack of necessary resources for years.  Oftentimes her patchwork repairs involved using or creating assets that were more mechanical in nature than electronic.  Gizi now wanted to know how many of those systems could be used to get at least part of the ship running again.

She met with Domi in the engine room so she could see the parts for herself.  As soon as Domi started pointing them out, Gizi knew she was in over her head and that the trip was wasted.  As Domi pointed out the long pipes, the joints, the rods, the engines and all the electrical wiring that was now almost entirely useless, Gizi just took her word for everything.

“Bottom line, Chief Marida.  Can you rig enough to give us anything?”

Domi sighed and looked hard at her engine parts.  “I can rig enough with compression and mechanical parts to give us a little maneuverability, maybe some missiles, but not a tril more.”

Gizi smiled slightly.  That would be perfect.  One of her sensors operators had managed to use what little power they had to detect a weakness in the enemy ship.  Its rear was weak in its point defense system.  A well placed missile could take out their engines.  It wasn’t much, but if they then remained in the rear arc of the enemy ship, they might be able to remain hidden from any firing long enough to repair their power.  She gave Domi the go-ahead to start making the alterations, and she returned to the ridge.

Shasa and the remains of her landing party crept through the jungle, avoiding the road for fear of more agents who might find them.  There weren’t many animals to fear among the trees; the majority of them seemed to have attacked the bridge.  Shasa slowed them when they heard drums beating and voices.  It sounded like some ancient, tribal ceremony.  They moved quieter now, approaching a drop in the landscape, staying low, Otto with Vera pointed forward, and Ricard Tenac with a pistol he had taken from the unconscious dark agent at the ready.

They arrived at the edge of a wide, round valley; a large crater overgrown with grass and moss with trees ringing its edges.  At the base was a large, modern campsite complete with light stands, air conditioned tents, amenities such as mobile restrooms and cooking facilities, etc.  Scattered among these human setups were ancient stone ruins.  Some were statues, some were partial buildings.  It looked like a half destroyed alien version of the same campsite, but more permanent.  Men and women in the usual dark outfits of the cult walked among the structures.  They were all dressed in their uniforms, and Shasa wondered if they ever dropped their formal façade.

Near the center, the majority of them were gathered in wide arcs, half surrounding a partial stone pyramid.  Stairs on one side led to a flat top.  Carved into the stone center of the flat top was a round symbol Shasa could hardly make out.  Four broken columns stood at all corners of its plateau, and they were continued by modern rods which held up a tarp.  Hanging from this tarp was the vertical flag of the Dark Agents, a red eye against a deep black background with a star at its pupil.  It was almost as if these eyes were watching everyone around them.

Also dangling from this overhang were four bodies, both men and women.  Their throats had been cut, and their blood drained down into drains that ran along the sides of the steps where it collected into a pool.  An altar sat in the center close to the steps.  Behind it, a large, muscular, shirtless man with ceremonial paint drawn in stripes stood ready.  His black dress slacks and polished shoes clashed with his tribal appearance, but they were mostly hidden behind the altar.  He also wore his goggles, apparently the true sign of a Dark Agent cultist.

Coming up the stairs were two more muscular men with their faces painted, though they wore modern clothes from neck to toe, the black and white uniforms of the Dark Agents.  Also, unlike the man at the top, they had shaved their heads and painted lines on them, almost as though to make up for their lack of tribal dress.  They were dragging with them a woman dressed in an earthen colored outfit and a vest that was covered in pockets.  She also wore a utility belt, two of the surest signs of an archaeologist aside from their rambling on about ancient alien sites.  She was doing no such talking at the moment.  She was screaming and crying through the gag in her mouth.  Her most horrified and sustained call came when she looked up and saw the shapes of her friends hanging dead from the rafters.  Weakened from the site, her legs barely resisted, and they drug her almost faint body up the stairs.

“This isn’t our fight,” Dr. Brody said.  “There’s nothing we can do for them.”

“He’s on the bull,” Sergeant Tenac said.  “They outnumber us.  The bridge will probably be clear soon.  We can hypo back to the shuttle without anyone knowing.”

Otto agreed as well, despite his enjoyment of a good fight.  “We came for a profit,” he said.  “They’re not going to buy that thing.  They’ll just kill us for it and take it.  We can find someone else who’ll buy it.”

Shasa didn’t take her eyes off the woman being dragged up the steps.  There was something familiar about her.  It took Shasa a moment, then realized what it was.  She would be the head of the archaeologists, Professor Gustav’s daughter.  The guys were right.  This was not their fight.  But she could not shake the memory of what lengths the professor would go to find her; the passion in his eyes as he pled for his daughter’s life.  His last act was in trying to save her.  Shasa then spotted the female Dark Agent who killed him.  She was standing near the base of the stairs.  Though she held a stone cold expression behind her black goggles, it appeared smug to Shasa.  If nothing else, she didn’t want that worm to win.

Shasa stood and held the rod above her head.  “Hey!  You’re going to need this if you want to have your little ceremony!” she shouted.

The entire ceremony stopped.  All noises stopped save for the distant rumble of animal life in the jungle.  Dozens of goggled eyes now stared up at Shasa.  The muscular man with the ceremonial blade stared at her in disbelief.  The archaeologist and her two escorts looked up in confusion, almost as though no longer antagonists to one another but sharing in a bizarre moment together.  The smug woman with the blank face looked up at her, too.  She looked surprised that her own agents were not with her, but pleased that the pirate captain had joined them nevertheless.

The other pirates were down in the bushes, too hidden for anyone in the valley to see.  But they glared up at her with wide eyes.  “What are you doing?” Otto asked in a repressed shout.

“I have no idea,” she responded through gritted teeth.  “Keep your weapons trained on them and don’t let them see you.”

Otto and Sergeant Tenac had no choice.  They readied their weapons.  Dr. Brady grabbed a rock, aware it would probably be of little help.

Shasa stepped away from them and onto the trail.  Her footfalls were labored.  She really had no clue where this was going.  But there was no turning back now.  As she walked down into the valley, her footsteps were the only sound.  The large camp of easily more than a hundred people added nothing.  They all just watched her, trying to guess the plan that was non-existent.  Shasa really knew she had reached a point of no return when she passed a wall of Dark Agents which then closed behind her.  She would not be getting out but fighting, or somehow bargaining.

She marched up to the female Dark Agent she hated so much wearing her best Poker face.  “I won’t ask you how you got away from my boys…”

“Good.  Then you won’t waste any more of my time,” Shasa said sternly.  She sometimes even surprised herself how well she could turn on this persona.

The woman was visibly taken aback, and a little intimidated.  “What do you want?” she asked.

“To make a bargain.”

“A bargain?” the woman almost chuckled.

“Yes.  I give you this rod.  In exchange, you let go of her, and whatever other archaeologists you have, you get the power running on our ship in orbit again, and we leave you alone.”

The Dark Agent paused, trying to read Shasa.  She then said, almost cautiously, “How about this counter offer.  I kill you, take the rod, we do whatever we please with the archaeologist, and we blast your ship out of the sky.”

Shasa paused before answering.  It was a sign of weakness, she knew, but she had to think.  Her response therefore needed to be more powerful.  “Anything happens to me, and we’ll do the same to you that we did to your friends that tried to bring us here.  Here’s a little demonstration.”  Shasa held aloft her hand with the rod.  Her intention was to signal to Otto to have him take someone out.  He could do it on his invisible setting where the blast was not seen.  Someone just simply fell with only the source of the sound to belie from where the shot came.  But in this environment, the sound should echo everywhere, so they’d never know where he was.

But just as she raised her hand in the air, a strange thing happened.  Just above the platform at the top of the short pyramid, a swirl of vapor formed.  It turned and twisted, condensing as it did into a thick fog.  Then it ripped apart, a bubble of blackness forming in the middle.  As it widened, dots of light were visible.  Distant colored shapes of gas appeared.  As the view grew, it became clear they were stars and gas clouds.  This was a celestial sphere summoned forth by the ceremony and the rod.

Shasa’s hair blew past her face toward the dark globe.  The wind was picking up and blowing everything, dust, loose particles, smoke, everything light directly toward the source.  Even the trees that ringed the crater leaned inward, as though bowing to it.  Its expansion slowed, then stopped approximately ten meters off the top of the half pyramid.  It was as large as the structure over which it hovered, and its edges shimmered, as though it was barely keeping its shape.

Everyone was transfixed, including Shasa, who never took down her arm.  “The Gate of Eternity,” the Dark Agent woman said next to her.

It was now time for Shasa to play the bluff to its maximum.  “Yes.  I alone control its power,” she said.  If you want it, you will provide us safe passage.”

Now the woman was truly smug.  She turned on Shasa with a large grin on her face.  “Nice try,” she said, and she calmly pulled out her pistol.

Shasa’s arm dropped in reaction to the move, as though slightly panicked.  The movement seemed to affect the globe, for as soon as she did, the shimmering around the edges collapsed, and a flared ring appeared along the edges.  The wind picked up, the trees bent further, and heavier objects were now thrown toward the epicenter.

A shot rang out from somewhere distant, and the female Dark Agent fell back.  Her feet no longer planted on the ground, she was lifted into the air and fell up the pyramid toward the globe, screaming along the way.  One of her feet caught on a stair and she tumbled head over heels toward the altar.  There she smacked into the hands of the shirtless ceremonial leader who was now holding onto the altar to keep from being sucked in.  Upon being hit by the female agent, his fingers let loose, and the two tumbled head over heels into the globe, disappearing in the blank darkness of space.

Others, too, were losing their grips to the ground, and were tumbling into the abyss.  It soon became clear to Shasa, who had witnessed her share of hull breaches, that this was indeed a gateway, but not to a pleasant eternity, but rather open space.  The inequality of pressure meant everything in the area was being sucked inward.  Utilizing her training, she grabbed onto the nearest immovable structure, a stone ruin left over from whatever aliens lived her before, and she locked her hands with the rod stuck up her sleeve.

The force pulling at everyone became greater, and soon, many people were being sucked off their feet and tumbling into the dark globe.  Tents were being yanked off their stakes and flying through the air like colorful ghosts.  The makeshift roof collapsed and sucked in.  Some of the larger Dark Agent structures crumbled and drifted in piecemeal.  Even some trees were ripping out of their roofs ad flying in.  Human bodies added to the mix like rag dolls in garbage heaps.

Otto, Tenac, and Brody were hanging on to trees the prayed would not get uprooted, but who knew how much stronger this thing would get.

On board the Black Lotus, they had regained just enough power to get a few basic systems running, including a few of their sensors.  They detected the anomaly on the planet, and though they did not understand what it was, they knew the Dark Agents would be distracted by it.  The time had come to strike.  Gizi sat down in the captain’s chair and called to engineering, “Go for it, Domi.”

Domi and her entire engineering crew were inside the large room where they had rigged all of the levers and gears to manually operate the ship.  It looked more like a steam ship from the early days of sailing than it did a starship.  All at once, they pulled what they needed to, and the thrusters engaged just enough to give the ship some momentum.

“Starboard high, 20 degrees!” Gizi shouted into the communicator.

“Starboard high!  Twenty degrees!” Domi repeated, not only to confirm she got the order, but also to inform her crew.  They ran to the proper gears and turned them, though not perfectly, and Domi had to correct them over the loud noise of grinding engines and steaming pressure valves.

The ship floated up and slightly over the Dark Agent vessel, but they felt a bump as the shuttle bay grinded against the Dark Agent top.  The element of surprise was gone now. They had to do this quickly.  Gizi stood and leaned over the holo-table, looking intently up at the view screen the way the captain always did.  Now she understood why.  Every ounce of her muscles were tensed.  Her blood was pumping through her veins at an impossibly fast rate.  As soon as she saw they had cleared the back of the enemy ship, she shouted to twist port.

The fast dance continued in the engine room, turning nobs and yanking levers, turning some back to their original positions, turning others to new positions.  The noise intensified.  A pipe burst, blowing steam out and threatening to domino into more damage.  Domi shouted for repair teams to hurry to it.  She reported to the captain that there wouldn’t be much more from her end.  They might have reached the end of their capabilities.

This had to work.  Gizi’s eyes were wide as the screen panned past the planet ahead.  The move made her dizzy and light headed.  She had never admitted it before, but sometimes when the ship made quick maneuvers, especially near planets, she looked away at her consoles.  Now, as captain, she couldn’t do it, and she sucked in an urge to vomit as she held firmly onto the holo-table.  “Ready the missiles,” she blurted.

The weapons officer said they were ready.  They could see the butt of the Dark Agent ship now.  The engines had fired up and it was turning.  They might be just too late.  If it turned enough, the point defense systems would render their missiles useless.  But this was their only chance.  “Fire them all!” Gizi said.

A flurry of gray trails burst from the Black Lotus.  They arced through space at the Dark Agent ship, fingering their way at the enemy.  Sparkles of light appeared on the Dark Agent ship, their point defense system taking out some of the missiles.  But a few of them got in behind the glow of the engine, and the next thing they saw were a short series of bursts, and the engine glow stopped.  The Dark Agent vessel ceased to move, and the Black Lotus floated in behind it.

Gizi waited until they were safely in position, then she spat the contents of her lunch onto the floor.

On the ground, the gate was only expanding, and the force of the wind was increasing.  The globe itself was even growing, slowly but surely.  Its base was almost on the pyramid.  Many of the Dark Agents, most of whom had not been near anything to hold onto, had been sucked inside, so Shasa found it to be the right time to stop it.  She dropped the rod into her hand again and raised it up, believing that would close the gateway.  It didn’t.  She tried pointing it down.  Nothing.  Her arm holding the ruin was now tiring so she slipped the rod back down the sleeve again and held on concerned she wouldn’t be able to stop this at all.

One of the Dark Agents on the stairs suddenly caught her attention.  The two who were there and the archaeologist with them were holding onto the steps for dear life.  They were down to grasping with their fingers, and one had lost his grip.  He tumbled up the stairs, over the lip at the top, hit his head on the altar, and flew into the abyss.  The other slipped most of the way too before grabbing something else, but he was soon to falter as well.  The archaeologist dropped a step or two as well, and would soon lose her grip.

Shasa thought that she might be able to crawl away from where she was.  But she now realized that she simply couldn’t live with herself if she abandoned the professor’s daughter.  So she let go of the ruin and let herself be pulled to the half pyramid.  There her fingers found one of the lower stairs and she held on, her feet dangling at a 50 degree angle into the air above her.  She saw the archaeologist about ten steps up.  Beyond her, the last Dark Agent was grasping onto the altar for dear life.  He lost the struggle, and was sucked into the bubble.

Shasa crawled down the steps as calmly as she could, remembering a hull breach when she was a child where she had to hold her breath and make her way to safety along an inverted ladder.  Her parents had called her a brave little trooper then.  No one would be there to call her anything here, especially if she failed.

She got to the level of the woman.  There she reached out to grab her arm, and just in time, as the archaeologist lost her grip and began to fly back.  Shasa held her tight with one arm, and kept her grasp on the stairs with the other.  She struggled against the overwhelming pull of the gateway.  It was a fight she was bound to lose, for she had to let go of one or the other in order to climb back down the stairs.  Sweat and increased pressure were like time bombs to foil her, and the globe itself was expanding and would eventually reach them anyway.

Shasa remembered what her mother had said to her after the ladder climb against the hull breach.  She told her that the best thing she had done was to keep her wits about her; to continue to think despite the pressure.  She had remembered not only how to hotwire the hatchway to open for her, but even more importantly, how to make it close behind her.

There was no hatchway to crawl through here.  But then again, she had a gateway.  And the rod was the key.  And keys lock as well as unlock doors.  She remembered what Professor Gustav had said about the rod having a gravitational force, and she wondered if that would have an effect on the gateway.

Shasa still was unable to get the rod out without letting go, so she knew it was an all or nothing risk.  She looked up to the row of trees where her brother was.  She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there.  She hoped he could see her expression, and hoped he’d read her wish that he get back to the ship and fly away if this plan didn’t work.

She let go of the stair, much to the chagrin of the woman she was holding.  They both tumbled backward, smacking the stone steps as they rolled upward.  Shasa shook her arm, trying to bring the rod down out of her sleeve.  After a couple more steps it dropped into her hand.  She pulled it all the way out as her helpless form rolled up to the top.  The woman was at the altar now, grabbing onto it with both hands.  Her legs dangled off the end, her toes almost touching the globe.

Shasa flung the rod into the void.  It plummeted end over end, flying through the globe’s event horizon.  Her hands now free, Shasa also grabbed onto the altar and held on for dear life.  Side by side, the women kept hold of the stone slab as their bodies arched up toward the slowly expanding black bubble nipping at their feet.

The pull suddenly increased, causing their fingers to both slide, and they screamed all the air from their lungs.  Looking back, though, Shasa saw that the globe was collapsing, shrinking smaller and smaller to the size of a marble.  The pressure increased until at least their fingers were pulled loose, but they were thrown only to the opposite side of the alter where they fell to the cement ceiling of the pyramid.  There they lay, panting from exhaustion among the debris left behind by the gate’s rampage.  It was gone now, everything was still.  Even the animals were quiet, sucked in, retreated, or just plain humbled by the Gateway of Eternity, they had nothing to say now.  What few Dark Agents survived retreated into the woods in case something else was to happen.

Shasa looked over at the woman lying next to her, and through panting breaths asked, “Is your… last name… Gustav?”

“Doctor Gustav… Yes,” the woman said, another confused look on her face.

Shasa just nodded and laid down her head.

By the time the landing party returned to the Black Lotus with Dr. Gustav and some artifacts that might bring in a tidy prize, the Dark Agent vessel had repaired the damage to its drives and zipped away.  It seemed to use some form of extra-light drive other than the standard spectrum drive that all humans used, but Shasa and her crew couldn’t venture to guess what it was.  Nor did they want to at this point.

They were just ready to get their own repairs done, and find somewhere else to make money.  They now had an archaeologist who could appraise values more effectively; someone who may not stick with them for long, but owed them a favor and was willing to pay them back in services.

She was also able to escort her father’s body to a proper burial spot; somewhere perhaps at the top of a lonely mountain among many ancient relics he once loved.

Shasa was back in her quarters for a couple days taking a well-earned rest.  The ship only needed to go trade in some of the relics they had found for cash, and then needed to get repaired at a port they trusted.  Lieutenant Sioban could handle that.  Her handling of the Dark Agent ship proved she was not to be overlooked.  Shasa was just glad she had Sioban’s boyfriend as the ship’s sergeant to keep her from leaving and finding her own command.

Shasa was nearing another dip into blissful sleep when she heard a deliberate clearing of the throat in her room.  Only one person made such an obvious and poor attempt to get her attention, and he was also the only one who barged into her room uninvited so much.  “What is it, Otto?” she asked.

“My room smells funny.”

“Your room always smells.  I keep telling you to clean it up.  You probably have something growing under all your stuff.”

After a beat, Otto said, “I’ll never vis monkeys the same way again.”

Shasa smiled with a brief chuckle.  “How did you look at them before?”

“As funny little people in cages.”

“That’s ‘cause you always saw them in zoos.”

“And that’s where I want to vis them from now on.”

“They don’t usually claw people’s eyes out.”

“Yeah, well.  Just case of it happening.”  Another long beat before Otto finally said, “You know, next time you aprend what a device does, you can tell me.  No need for all the dramatics…”

“I didn’t register what the rod did,” Shasa sighed, still trying to keep her eyes closed and relax.

“You what?  You really had no idea what you were going to do?”

Shasa shook her head.

“You may be a chick, but you’ve got bigger balls than all us guys on the ship combined.”

“You’re a poet, Otto.”

“Your stunts are going to get us both killed.  You comprend that, don’t you?”  Otto got up and started walking out of the room.

“No one says you have to stick around.”

“Yeah, but who will be ranging over your shoulder.”

“You may get your limbs yanked off by monkeys,” Shasa said, laughing to herself again.

“I can spare a limb.  I have two of each,” he said.  Shasa stopped chuckling and looked over at him quizzically.  “I only have one sister.”

The End

Tales of the Black Lotus: The Gate of Eternity - Part 3

Otto, Tenac, and his raider fanned out as soon as they landed, scanning the tree line carefully for an ambush they were certain was prepared to spring.  They kept low and kept moving, making themselves hard targets and trying to do the work that normally required twice their number.  They moved their rifles from the trees to the crates to bushes to the ground where they could be hiding in foxholes.  Nothing.

Each said in turn “Clear,” though none said the word with much conviction.  The Dark Agents were around somewhere.  If they weren’t, the archaeologists would be out here welcoming them, or asking what the hades pirates were doing landing near their camp.

Considering that this very fact might be the reason for the archaeologists to hide, Professor Gustav exited the shuttle and called out to his daughter.  He shouted in every direction, hoping for an answer from someone, anyone.  But he was met with only the chattering noise of the jungle.  There was one sound that stood out from the others as particularly obnoxious.  A sort of cackling that was interrupted by an occasional whistle.  Otto got a quick glimpse of the source of this sound; a sort of gangly monkey-like creature with a torso as small as its head, and bat-like wings connecting its left leg to its left arm and its right leg to its right arm.  The whistle came from it sucking in air after it had blown it all out from its cackling.  This came in rapid succession with its lungs being as small as they were in such a tiny body.

Shasa exited as well, striding over to the crates, one hand always close to the pistol strapped to her leg.  She laid her hand on the metal as though inspecting it by touch and sight.  They were plain, worn, well-traveled metal crates with a fading stamp “Universalis Arcanum”.  She felt confident enough in their authenticity that she opened one.  Inside were dozens of individualized shrink-wrapped meals ready to be heated with any portable cookery.  The sealed container she had opened was lined with preservation materials to keep them from spoiling, but regardless, Shasa guessed they hadn’t been here long.  If they had, either the archaeologists or the Dark Agents would have consumed a number of them, and there was no sign that they had been so much as rifled through.  Only the top couple layers had been taken out, enough to feed a team of a dozen for a day or so.

She opened another crate briefly to see replacement parts, picks, brushes, and electronic gadgets for finding old relics; stuff Shasa had no idea or interest in how to use.  Her job was to get the valuables once they were out of the ground, or sell them to people like the ones currently missing.

Speaking of which, it was time they were located so she and her own crew could be on their way.  She abandoned the crates and stepped toward the only cleared trail away from the landing area.  It opened immediately into a second clearing with erected huts.  These were not ancient stone structures Shasa had seen on some alien planets where long ago civilizations had once thrived.  These were temporary, recent homes for humans.  The archaeologists’ camp, she gathered.  “Otto!” she called.  “I want your opinion on something.”

The last sentence made it clear to Otto that his sister had an ulterior motive.  She wouldn’t be simply asking for his opinion.  He met her at the crate to see what she wanted.  Shasa opened the door and leaned as far as she could inside.  Otto leaned in with her, confused.  “The agents are hiding inside the archaeologist huts,” she told him quietly.

“How do you know?” he asked, equally conspiratorial.

“Isn’t that where you’d set the trap?” she asked.

“Away from any support from the ship,” he concluded, nodding.

“I’m going into the camp with the howling professor and the doctor.  You take the two raiders through the woods and moze in behind them.  Comprend?”

Otto stared at his sister with worried eyes.  But he knew she was right.  They had ambushed merchants and traders in the past using the exact tactic she was suggesting the Dark Agents were using.  Whenever he did it, he was so focused on the target that if they had someone around the perimeter, he probably would miss it.  He couldn’t argue with the plan, so he lifted his head from the crate and called to Sergeant Tenac and the raider, “I want you two to go through these crates!  You’re going to apprend whatever clues you can about where their owners disappeared!”

Shasa in turn gathered Professor Gustav and Dr. Brody to her.  She would not tell them they were bait.  Brody would throw a fit, and at best would reveal so much fear that the agents would know there was a trap, and she had no idea how the professor would react.  She just pointed out the huts and herded them in that direction.  As she predicted, Professor Gustav began shouting for his daughter and Dr. Brody wanted to rush to the huts to check for survivors.  Shasa had to slow them down long enough for the second team to slip into the woods and make their way around to the flank.  She used the pretense that she wanted to check for traps first to keep them from hurrying past her.  When Dr. Brody began to ask about Otto, Shasa interrupted him saying they should check everything outside the huts first.

Assuming there was a reason Shasa didn’t want him to ask the question, Dr. Brody didn’t ask again, and got to work searching.  Professor Gustav was too involved in his search for his daughter to even notice they had reduced to half their original number.

There were close to ten huts in all, some of them with small enclosures next to them that housed necessities.  One of them, ostensibly the meal hut, was larger than the others.  None of the fires were smoldering, nor was there smoke emerging from any chimney, so there was no sign anyone had just been there.  A couple of the crates had been brought into the area with a remote control dolly which was parked by one of the huts.  One was open, but did not look ransacked.  Above, the canopy of trees shrouded over the clearing to hide their location.  On the opposite end, another trail cut into the depths of the jungle

Shasa was trying to appear interested in the search, but she kept running her eyes across the huts, trying to catch a glimpse of the people she knew were inside them.  She spotted no one, and began to wonder if she had been mistaken as she approached a small chest near one of the buildings.  Opening it, she found it full of old relics no doubt discovered in the alien ruins.

At last she heard the words she had been expecting.  “Put your hands up.”  The same was repeated at other huts, directed at the professor and the doctor.  Shasa was just glad they had attempted to capture them rather than firing first.  These guys were fast… and quiet.  She had thought she would hear them with just enough warning to go for cover and to tell the others to do the same.  But they had surprised even her ears, not an easy feat to accomplish.

Shasa and the two men raised their hands obediently.  Her hands didn’t go high.  They wouldn’t be up for long.  She now saw her captor.  He was not a big man, not someone who would rely on his brawn.  But his pistol was perfectly steady in his hand, as though held on a tripod, and his gaze was unwavering.  Or at least that’s how it seemed.  She could not see past his dark goggles which covered most of the upper half of his face.  He wore a black suit with a hint of white near the front collar, almost like that of a priest, but more narrow, and able to be folded over to hide all hint of lightness in his attire.  Every part of his clothing was so well pressed, he appeared more prepared to enter a board meeting than fight on a battlefield, or search ruins in a jungle.  He wore a hat with a thin, crisp little rim and a gray feather whose front point was directed straight at its target.  His pistol, too, was all black, but with switches and nobs of which Shasa was unfamiliar.

Gustav began blithering, “Please.  I only want to be abso my daughter is safe.  What can I offer you ensure her safety?”

The agents did not answer.  A few more emerged from the buildings; all of them dressed the same.  Someone took Shasa’s pistol and communicator.  She waited for her brother to emerge.

Gustav turned to every member of the gathering crowd and pled with them.  “At least one of you must be a father!  I implore you as a parent, please tell me what has become of my daughter!”  Still no response.

Shasa continued to wait for her brother.  Where in hades was that idiot?

Her question was soon answered as he was led out of the jungle into the clearing along with the sergeant and the raider, no weapons in their hands.  They were followed by Dark Agents who did, some of whom were carrying Otto and Tenac’s rifles.  “They got Vera,” Otto told Shasa.

Shasa didn’t know how to respond.  This was their one play, and it was foiled.  Now what would happen to them?  The same thing that had happened to the archaeologists?  Would the same thing happen to their ship?

As if appearing to answer her questions, an older, female Dark Agent emerged from one of the huts.  She wore her goggles on her forehead rather than over her eyes.  Her curly strawberry hair rippled out from under her hat, and her suit bore flourishes of white.  She began by addressing Otto, “And we will take good care of her, First Officer Otto.”  She then turned on Shasa and approached her.  “Captain Kerikova.  I regret to inform you that you will not be receiving compensation for your contraband.  All I can offer is a short extension of your lives in exchange for a peaceful passing of the artifact in your possession.”  The woman’s voice was as crisp as her outfit.  Every consonant was enunciated with sharp precision, yet her eyes were gentle, as though she was trying to ease the blow of a break-up.  The Dark Agent officer held out her hand in front of the captain.

Shasa saw no choice.  She unbuttoned the pocket of her pants in which she kept the rod and pulled it out.  She wanted to smash it against the woman’s cheek, but knew she wouldn’t get halfway before she’d be shot down.  Instead, she shoved it into her hand.  The woman held it up to her face, examining it, as though the mouth of the rod was opening to her.  “The gateway to utopia.”

“You can’t really believe in that,” Shasa said sardonically.

The woman looked piteously at Shasa like she was a child who just asked where babies came from.  “If you set eyes on only a small percent of what we have vised, nothing would seem impossible.”

“But…” Professor Gustav blurted.  He paused, confused, then at spoke again, now with the officer’s attention.  “You’re organization is bent on destroying artifacts.  Suppressing all knowledge of its existence.”

“Professor Herod Gustav,” the Dark Agent officer said, striding over to him.  “One of the prime collectors of ancient xeno-artifacts.  Your collection was impressive.  I’ve vised images of your confiscated stash.  Just before they were demolished, of course.  But even garbage men hold onto a memento or two.”  She grinned sardonically, as though sharing a private joke with Gustav.

His will overcome at the knowledge of his life’s work ruined, he could think now of only one thing.  “M… My…” He blubbered, trying to speak.

“Your daughter?” the woman asked, her voice cold like iron on a frigid day.  The old professor nodded.  “We are not a cruel people, Mr. Gustav.  Despite what rumors may spread about us.  And as such, I cannot in good conscious take you with us.”

“Why?” he asked, both fear and relief in his voice.

“Because,” the woman said leaning into him so she could speak softly.  “I would not wish you to go through the trauma of vising what we have done to her corpse.”

Professor Gustav’s eyes widened with fear and anger.  Tears welled up immediately.

Before he could begin crying aloud, the woman swung the rod into his head.  The sound of his skull cracking echoed into the trees and disturbed the animals, who cackled and fluttered.  She beat him again and he screamed in pain as he fell to the ground.  She lifted the rod higher this time and brought it down on his temple with a mighty blow.  It cracked open the left side of his face.  His right eye fixed in place, and faded.  His raggedy, slight form went limp.

Dr. Brody had already started toward him, but had been grabbed by two agents who held him back.  When the professor was still, Brody exclaimed, “You dirty, cowardly malfas!  The man was helpless…”

“It was a mercy kill,” she interrupted.  “You will all understand soon.  Though you’ll have to push through the pain to see it.”  She strutted toward a shelter next to one of the huts and dragged out a magnabike while she ordered her agents to take the prisoners to the city.  She’ll race ahead to get the rod there for the ceremony.  She activated the bike and it raised up over the ground, ready to go.

“I have one question,” Shasa said, speaking like she was giving someone an order.  She wasn’t about to grovel now that she saw they were all to be killed in any case.  “How do you expect to leave?  You’ve got no ship, and ours is guarding the planet.”

“Oh captain,” the woman said, her eyebrows drooping on the sides as though she was disappointed in Shasa’s stupidity.  “We have all of that arranged.”  With that she hopped on the bike, and turned into a blur zipping down the trail.  A moment later the other agents urged Shasa, Otto, Dr. Brody, Tenac, and their raider along, leaving behind the body of Professor Gustav in the remains of his daughter’s camp.

*          *          *

Gizi wanted to get everything right.  She didn’t take the captain’s chair very often, Shasa and Otto hardly ever leaving the ship.  And even during those very few times, someone else usually took over.  She wanted to prove herself up to the task.  Her first obstacle to overcome was her shyness.  Though often very well liked, especially by men, Gizi had always been extremely insecure.  She had no trouble speaking up to those she knew well, such as the members of her sensors crew.  But when it came to larger numbers of people, such as the six people on the bridge, or calling to the entire crew, her voice became breathy, as though she was standing at a great height looking down, another fear of hers.

The first few orders she gave had to be repeated when crew members heard she was saying something, but couldn’t make it out.  It was unimportant at the moment, they were merely keeping orbit and monitoring the landing party.  They had just departed the ship and half were heading down a path while the other half were cutting through the woods.  Gizi wanted to make sure their scanners did not lose them.

Gizi overcompensated by imposing an overbearing formality.  No one called her Gizi, first of all.  She was Lieutenant, or Acting Captain Sioban.  No one was to use the shorthand language they often used to say things quickly.  They weren’t in a rush, so there was no need to cut corners.  She even tightened the belt straps of her outfit to give it a more brisk appearance.  Though the bridge jackets and trousers were indeed uniforms of a sort, they were so individualized and worn so loosely that they didn’t look like they were.  She would change that while in command.

She had a thought that might help the captain, and would certainly help them keep an eye on the group from above.  She ordered one of her sensors personnel to switch the view to infrared so they could keep an eye on the landing party.  They may also see danger up ahead.  As soon as the view changed, it most certainly was helpful.  They saw the heat from the bodies of men and women lying in wait inside the huts of the archaeology camp.  It was a trap.

Gizi lunged to her feet and ordered communications to hail the captain.  Before he could open the channel, the ship was knocked so hard from the side, it felt like they had been rammed.  Sparks flew from the consoles, and the lights blinked out.  Reserve power brought back a couple small spots of light and the view screen, but little else seemed to work.  It was as though someone had flipped the power switch off.

Then the starry sky on their view screen was replaced with a stern, unflinching face with a bald head and only one eye.  His left was covered over with a mechanical and electronic monocle, and this seemed to be peering out at them more than the real eye.  Gizi whipped her head around at Comm. Officer Marin, but he leaned out of his little room to shrug his shoulders with confusion.  He had not opened a channel, the man had just appeared there.

“You have been blasted with an electronic surge,” the man said.  “You are unable to escape.  Remain where you are, and you will be processed in due time.”  And just as quickly as he appeared, he disappeared, replaced by the planet and the stars beyond.  A sensors operator turned the view behind them so they could see the enemy ship.

It looked like a beetle in both color and appearance.  Its slick black form made it almost impossible to see in the dark sky.  Its aerodynamic form made it look like a wing in space, save for the wing-like shapes sticking up over the top, giving it more of the appearance of a flying insect.

“Closer in,” Gizi ordered.

The image zoomed into the jutted out wings.  It was just as Gizi feared, they were bristling with weapons and missiles, enough to blow them out of orbit.

To be continued...