“This must be why it’s called a void in some old texts,” Balkava said. “If you look from far away there is nothing here.”
There was more to it then that. There wasn’t a star in the sky. Not even the light from Errikus had made its way here. It didn’t seem possible that we were so far away from stars that there wouldn’t be some light from them. People began talking telling stories about dark matter refracting the light around us. That was why this place could only be reached by the immer. It was a hidden wild area of space. This was why some called this area the void. We had finally reached our destination.
It took three days for us to find the planet. It wasn’t what we thought. Two of our drones were flying through the goldilocks section of space when they disappeared. We went to full alert preparing ourselves for attack. When we were close enough several of us went on recon. We found the planet. It was massive. It was a super Earth. Its mass alone was ten times that of Earth. Traces of Earth elements existed but the planet itself was burned. It was black and dead. There was nothing there but darkness.
Several drones flew down to the surface. They found water full of acid. Clouds rained poison. There were small traces of life - extremophiles, bacteria that found a way to adapt to the harsh environment. This was not a hospitable word and it had not been for nearly a million years. Other parts of the planet looked like they had been torn apart, stripped or broken by some large asteroid impacts.
We continued to follow the coordinates we found on Parcae. The Erebus shifted and moved on its own disregarding the dead planet. That was when we found it. An orbital. Scans made it look like four massive cones had been set on top of each other with a small core shaped like a sphere in the center. Jagged edges and spines spread out in every direction around it piercing space. It was almost as big as a planet and three times the size of Parcae. Every spine would have been long enough to stretch the entire length of Errikus.
Sensors picked up an Earth like environment inside. We were weeks away with the ion drives but we had reached our destination. We could see our new home.
“Sev, I have a favor,” Balkava had come to see me.
“Before we get too close I want you to start using the nexus again.” “What if I don’t want to?” I said.
“This isn’t a request,” She answered.
Once again I was going to be forced to use the nexus. Turns out the last user they had been using got burned out he couldn’t see anything past the antliods. In a way I was happy. I had kept myself so busy with First Descent I forgot the thrill of seeing through time. The rush that came from living someone else's life. There was always that hope that glimmer of chance I would see something good ahead for all of us.
Black Island – 1944
EN SVENSK TIGER
Red Queen He had already given away too much before I shot him. I didn’t want to. Nobody likes shooting another man. Right? He was about to give away everything. I’m not a killer; this is what we have to do. You can’t fight a war with rules there is no choice but to maim or stab someone in the back anymore it’s them or us. I couldn’t let him say a word. I couldn’t wait to see who it was on the other end. I couldn’t confront him later. If there is still a chance I might survive this... that I might get home to Anna it is a chance I must take.
- Joseph June 1944 The war is almost over. I can feel it slowly crawling to an end. A few more months there will either be nothing left or we’ll all be dead anyway. Nothing but ghosts wandering ruined remains of cities watching the decay. Shadows of ash displayed on cracked walls broken reflections of ourselves trying to survive stranded in dust. Yesterday before we took off I shot a man. I had survived a trench on the front beside this man. There were dozens of times I would have taken a bullet for him, a couple of good men did. He was a spy. Working for the Nazi regime. There is evidence now he was reporting to the Fehr himself. Apparently he had family in trapped behind enemy lines who had the unfortunate happen to them and they became prisoners of war. The third Reich has their hands in just about everything now: weapons, occult, espionage, blackmail. I wonder sometimes how they can keep on fighting. I guess I would have to ask myself that same thing.
I was nothing more then a pretty good shot. A soldier on the front, a sniper, I never imagined becoming a member of any kind of special team. Since becoming a member of cold squad I’ve found myself doing several dozen things I never imagined; torturing prisoners, fighting behind enemy lines, rescue operations, and now killing a spy. We take our orders specifically from two entities; the white rabbit and the red queen. The white rabbit for the most part feeds us information from behind the lines. I believe it’s a she. A young British girl that’s managed to gather Intel on all kinds of Nazi party plans. The red queen on the other hand. She’s always had a more hands on approach.
It was night when we made the jump onto Black Island from the B17-G we were holding onto. It was a risk. A huge risk. We were flying over Japanese territory in the South Pacific. Our pilots name was Mika. For a woman she was the best. She could fly better then anyone I had ever met. She was a looker too. Not like my Anna though. Before my last letter out I got a picture. It’s the first picture I’ve ever had. Apparently my mother and Anna saved up so that she could have it made. It was sent to me straight from a professional photographer. It’s the only thing I keep close to my heart these days and the only personal possession I carry with me.
Black Island didn’t exist on any map. The only reason we know about it is Intel we collected on our own months ago. This was supposed to be cold squad’s first officially sanctioned mission. Then of course this and that happened one thing led to the next and now it’s our third, fourth, fifth, maybe sixth mission. . There were six others in my squad. Two were French; they were a part of the French Resistance. Another was Australian, and two more British. I was the only American. At one point we had another American but got caught in some crossfire when we were rescuing a German scientists behind enemy lines. Officially Cold Squad doesn’t exist. Each one of us has had to temporarily cut ties to our families, friends. We don’t even use our names anymore. We’re simply A1, A2, F1, F2, B1, B2, when we’re on the field. In a way it’s easier. We work together as an instrument, a tool to be used by the rabbit and queen. In the trenches it makes you human to think about your family, to think about sports, to think about the promises of life. In cold squad we do our mission and move on to the next. We think about the quickest and easiest way to kill an enemy. When the red queen plays her cards the rivers run red.
My chute opened at just the right time. Low enough to not be spotted by any patrols and high enough I could glide and land in a clearing. F2 wasn’t so lucky. One of the French had made a mistake and pulled too late and landed in a tree. When we got to him we hid behind a bush. This is where we got our first real look at them. We were in the South Pacific but none of these soldiers were Japanese, they were from the Thule Society, the Vril although some also knew them as the Black Sun. They were a division of the Third Reich that specialized in the occult, mysticism, magic, and just plain weird. We had stopped one of their ritual sacrifices before - in fact that is what led us here. There were four of them desecrating our team member’s body with their rifles. It was easy pickings for us to each find a quick target.
We burned our friend’s body watching as both his parachute and the tree he crashed in went up in flames. The compound we were trying to locate was a small munitions factory located near the center of the island. There was a vast cave network connecting to it that span all around but we had no way of navigating unfortunately this meant we would have to go up top. Our mission was recovery. The Thule were using this place to store what our spies and prisoners claimed were weapons that could cause mass chaos, chimeras and beasts that could melt people’s faces. We had heard everything from yetis to the spear of destiny. It was even rumored they had found the Ark of the Covenant. It didn’t matter what they had we were either going to destroy it or steal it.
Considering h
ow important this island was to the axis we should have seen a lot more action through the woods but instead we had only a two - hour hike and plenty of darkness left to strike. I guess they got cocky and thought they had done a pretty damn good job wiping this place off the map. We were equipped each with De Lisle carbine, a silenced rifle that was great at a distance and a silenced bolt action Welrod all supplied to us by British Commandos. We also had plenty of dynamite to blow this island off the map for real. Quietly we made our way to the front door. My lungs move in and out. I slowly let out a breath and together with two of my men we fired our carbines killing the guards. The Australian makes quick work of the alarm system while we dragged the bodies behind bushes and planted a small mine on the ground were a vehicle could drive up. The explosion from such an act would be a great distraction and warning on our end. Any chance we had to kill some Nazis was a chance worth taking. From there we made our way inside crouched around corners piercing the air with single shots quietly and efficiently taking out the enemy. We left a trail of bodies in our wake but our shots were clean. There was barely any blood the only evidence we had been there were the bodies we tucked away inside the shadows bent under tables and dragged inside ventilation shafts. After ten maybe fifteen minutes inside we had cleared the building and planted mines around it so we could know when or if someone came. There was nothing. A few sten guns lined a wall worthless and rusted. Shells of bullets shot long ago lay out on the cracked ragged ground. This place was clean – too clean. We began searching around. We knew enough about Black Sun to know they good at hiding things whether it was the truth spun around lies and manipulation or physical objects.
It was there in plain site. A statue set on a pedestal next to a faux wall. The statue was a depiction of Zeus holding a lighting bolt. Twisting the lightning bolt unlatched a bolt hidden behind concrete and opened the wall like a door. We stood there ready to fire expecting a legion of soldiers to welcome us inside their dungeon. There was nothing. The room was small but inside there was a long stairway. They must have built down into the caves below the island. These passages would have taken years to carve out. We walked down the stairs and inside the caves and then we could see around us behind the dirt and lime were skulls and bones ancient and deformed from time. We were walking inside catacombs. This place had been an ancient tomb probably carved out centuries ago when pirates or Vikings discovered this island. It was damn likely that they had become stranded here and maybe they had even lived here for a few generations before dying out. Now there bones were desecrated they were nothing more then ornaments the Black Sun used to enchant and decorate their base.
We continued for twenty minutes through dark tunnels lit by small phosphorus bulbs that swayed and hung nailed to the ceiling. Wires were rigged and taped together and stapled to the walls some even ran through the eyes of the ancient dead. There was someone down here there had to be after all they wouldn’t leave the power on for nothing. The tunnel seemed to open up ahead of us. The Australian was the first to enter the open sanctum. Our
guess had been right. Before us we saw a massive ship from the 16th century wrecked on the rocks the bottom half submerged in shallow water and muck. It was a pirate vessel just like something you would hear about during the time of Blackbeard. The cave must have led outside at some point but openings always have a way of mending. We wouldn’t put it past Black Sun using some type of explosives on the outside either. The pirate ship had been ransacked and deserted. It was nothing more then a landmark now. Swords and treasures were probably pillaged to fund this base.
The child inside me, hell the child inside anyone would have been jumping for joy. We found a real life pirate ship. How often does this happen? The truth was much deeper then this though. There was something about the ship, something so familiar and yet far away like a dream half remembered. It was a feeling like déjà vu. We boarded the ship and looked around nothing but rusted nails and worn out planks. The bottom half of the ship had rotted and withered parts of it blended to the rock it sat above. This ship wouldn’t last another hundred years. If there was anything worth finding it was gone. Even the crew, the bones of skeletons had been taken away. There was a black flag still hanging on the mast of the ship. It was worn but you could still make out the dark grey skull that had started fading decades ago. I don’t know why but I made room in my pack for it. I wasn’t normally one to take mementos from skirmishes but there was something compelling about it something too familiar.
We continued through leaving the ship behind. It was a glorious find but in the end it was meaningless if we didn’t make it out of here alive or find whatever the hell the Nazis were keeping hidden here. One of the Brits began rambling on and on about an ark. Saying he had heard stories before the war when he was a history teacher. The ark was said to be a chest handed down to man from God. He spoke about how it contained the very stones that the commandments had been inscribed on. He spoke about how it had been taken to Mount Sinai in the Valley of Edom in the 1180s. There it was found by the knights Templar and taken to an estate in England. It was possible then that estate had been ransacked by pirates and somehow ended up here but that was only a theory. There were hundreds of artifacts that could have been onboard that ship that would be important to Black Sun and all we could do was speculate.
We crawled through tunnels to try and avoid the wide-open spaces that appeared deeper and deeper inside the cave. The walls were wet and the father down we went the colder and thinner the air became. We heard the mines we placed outside the base explode one after another. They echoed through the cave signaling anyone alive to our presence. We no longer had the element of surprise on our side all we had were the shadows. I could see a glimmer of light ahead of us. For a moment I wondered if we were dead had we died in this war, maybe we had died a long time ago and this was our hell to fight for all eternity until our spirits eventually wither and we truly become ghosts echoes of the men we once were.
If not for this war I would have a wife.
I would be a loving husband. A father even.
If not for this war I would be wrapped in the arms of a woman that loves me. My last letter I told her to move on to leave me.
My last letter I let her go.
No longer am I the man worth waiting for. No longer am I the righteous soul that vowed to take her hand and walk her down an ail.
War has changed me.
Taking the life of another man has become my second nature.
My hands have become cold and calash. I don’t even feel pain the same anymore. Before the war a scratch or bleeding wound that would have made me go see a doctor is now nothing more then a tickle. I have scars down my side cuts from barb wire laying in the muddy trenches. Bruises come and go each day my as heart pushes me further and further. Violence becomes me.
Headshot. Each of us timed our shots accordingly. We were good. We didn’t even have to speak to each other anymore as we communicated with eye contact and hand signals. We could see two to three moves ahead just by glancing in each other’s eyes. Our souls were twined together in battle. Each mission molded us closer and closer brothers in arms, a family of foreign outcasts.
We crawled out of the darkness. The bodies of the occult lay dead before us. Blood covered ruins they had carved on the wall. It was a familiar scene. We saw around us the bones that belonged to the crew of the pirate ship. They still wore their long dark coats and tunics. Some even still had rusted swords hanging down their sides tied to belts that had been torn and broken and tied together again. A part of me wondered if we had stumbled upon another human sacrifice. What demon were they trying to conjure now? There were no sacrifices though. Instead in front of us there was only a single door. Black knight armor stood on both the right and left sides. It was medieval looking. The Templar cross was etched into the chest plate on both pieces. This cave was feeling more and more like a museum the longer we stayed.
Two of our men guarded the door while B1 and B2 looked aro
und studying the manuscripts and papers scattered throughout the small chamber. I went to investigate the door and see what was behind it. My first mistake was going alone. My second mistake was being me. I opened the door and stepped inside my head began to fog up. For a moment I saw a flash of light. I was standing on a bridge but it wasn’t like any bridge I had ever seen. There was a city that looked much like New York but much bigger surrounding me on both sides. It was immaculate. I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t move my hands or turn my head. All I could do was fall. It would have been less than a minute before I hit the water. It probably only took a few seconds but it felt like an eternity. I knew fighting this war that I could die. I had made my piece with that a long time ago.
Before I hit the water the strangest thing happened. I saw in the dark river a face staring up at me. A face that wasn’t my own. Then everything turned white again and I was holding a rifle inside a trench. I was back in the war only this time it wasn’t my war. Strange ships filled the sky firing blasts of light out from the wings on their side. The ground we fought on was rocky and reminded me of the frontline. Again I couldn’t move or control my body. It moved for me. I felt like I was drowning. I wanted to breath but couldn’t. I could only watch and listen. I couldn’t even close my eyes or scream to wake myself up. A giant beast came over the top of the trench. It was a worm like creature with teeth that must have been several feet long. Then it was gone. I was back in my body staring at into the darkness.
Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) Page 18