More sparks flared up as the transport took an unexpected hit from behind. Chevallier checked the computers and noticed additional red dots appear in sensor range behind them. They were closing in fast.
“Well, right now, these ships see us as a target,” Chang said as they took another hit. “Yeah, you might want to stay away from any computers back there, this ride is gonna be a helluva rough one, starting now!”
Chang commanded the transport to once again engage in slick maneuvers, this time maneuvers that would allow them to dodge the fire between the Carl Sagan, the Architect’s ship, and the three or four oval-shaped drone ships from behind.
Fifty evasive rolls later they saw the interior of the Carl Sagan’s transport bay as they neared, and hoped that once they crossed past the irised shields of the Carl Sagan the bogies behind wouldn’t come on in for the ride.
They neared the opening in the shields, Chang increased their speed and plowed toward their freedom.
Ten seconds left.
Five seconds left.
They crossed, and the shields and overshields behind quickly contracted. Everyone waited a half second in anticipation for what would happen next.
The four drone ships collided with the shields and exploded on impact.
24 WILLIAMS
ESRS Carl Sagan, Bridge
SC-149 AKA Meroien orbit, Sirius C system
May 22, 2050, 02:54 SST (Sol Standard Time)
“The transport is safely docked.”
A smirk appeared on Williams’ face, it prompted him to spool up the sub light speed engines. “Getting us out of here!” he said, while his fingers activated and established a communication link to the recently docked rescue team. “Chang, get up here on the double, I’m not an ace pilot like you!”
It pained Williams slightly to see the Architect’s ship move out of view as the Carl Sagan moved to break orbit. Foster, if she was still alive, was still aboard and if the recent battle proved anything, fighting the Architect head-on wasn’t going to get her back. Pound for pound, the Architect’s ship was stronger in both offensive and defensive departments. Williams was going to need a new plan, one that hopefully Chevallier would be able to assist with. After all, she was with Foster during their disappearance, so perhaps she knew more about the situation than he did.
This was all under the assumption they lived to see the next hour. The Architect’s ship was faster than the Carl Sagan, and its weapons continued to fire and create havoc on its aft shields during their not so successful escape out of the sector. Williams hoped Chang’s skills at the helm would give them a better advantage, for he was all out of ideas on how to escape from this situation, Williams was a commander not a pilot.
“Commander, it is imperative you do not let that ship get any closer,” Tolukei said.
“It’s faster than us. FTL versus sub light speed, this is going to be a one-sided race.”
He heard Tolukei sigh, and remain silent for a solid minute. He was focusing on something; something that had to do with his psionic powers, that much he could tell. “Do not bother to engage the sub light speed engines,” Tolukei finally spoke.
“Why?”
“We are surrendering to the Architect.”
“Like hell we are!”
“I have ceased protecting the ship with overshields, I suggest you come to a full stop and prepare to be boarded.”
Not the plan Williams was expecting; never mind the fact Tolukei was acting as if he was in command calling the shots. If Tolukei had suggested they should surrender, yes that would be different. But he didn’t suggest anything, he straight up forced it to happen without Williams approving. It did nothing but piss him off and probably put the whole ship at risk.
“Tolukei, what are you doing?”
Williams got his answer as brilliant blue light flashed and brightened the bridge. Once it subsided he saw that armored Architect soldiers had boarded via a teleport, the same ones they had been battling since they arrived in the system. None of them fired any of their laser weapons, they simply aimed them at the crew. Williams knew the drill, so he stood up and raised his hands, there was no security aboard after all, the Carl Sagan was officially a POW and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do about it.
Amongst the Architect intruders stood an individual that projected the demeanor of a supreme leader. It wasn’t like the overlords who stood behind the grunts, this one was different. Its armor was red with sharp spikes protruding from the side of its large helmet, while two spear-wielding overlords stood either side like bodyguards.
Tolukei moved away from his station and stepped toward the spiky crimson-armored leader. “This is the psionic mind I spoke of, Commander,” Tolukei said to Williams. “This is the mind I spoke to, this is the Architect.”
“Tolukei . . .”
“Please surrender the ship to him. Please do not make me look like a liar.”
The Architect clapped his armor-clad hands three times signaling to his soldiers to detain everyone on the bridge and move out to the rest of the ship, most likely to capture the rest of the crew. Williams noticed that Tolukei was the only one on the bridge that didn’t have weapons aimed at his head as he was dragged in front of the Architect by two grunts, and forced to bow in front of him like he was a god. Williams tried to resist fighting off the two undead that held him down, only for his body to become numb, paralyzed via telekinesis. His body sank, his head lowered, and his knees and hands flattened against the surface of the floor.
Afterward Williams’ felt his head forcibly shift upward to glare at the large helmet the Architect wore. He wasn’t a Hashmedai. The mind shield would have prevented him from teleporting aboard, and from using his powers on the bridge. Poniga perhaps, since they confirmed his soldiers were one. The only problem with that theory was that Tolukei said the Architect’s mind was familiar. Poniga minds shouldn’t be familiar to Tolukei especially with the language barrier, unless he was lying this whole time.
The Architect began to speak to Williams, his voice sounded like an angry warlord yelling into a rusty tin can. Tolukei provided a translation. “He wishes to know what became of the Nereid and Dr. Pierce.”
“The ner-what?”
“He will release the Captain and control of the ship in exchange for those two.”
Williams snorted. “I got nothing to say to him.”
More chatter came from the helmet of the Architect. “He says you have one day to comply.” Tolukei translated as he moved in closer to join the Architect and its two body guards. “As they say on your world, Commander, farewell.”
The Architect and Tolukei vanished from the bridge during an unexpected teleport. Williams felt his body return to normal as the telepathic paralysis faded away. The Architect soldiers remained onboard, their weapons still aimed at him and all bridge personnel, while the rest of their soldiers pushed through, deeper into the Carl Sagan. Williams hoped that the crew did the smart thing and stayed safe.
If the Architect could control the dead, what was stopping him from controlling the bodies of dead crew personnel? The crew putting their lives on the line to fight back might do more harm than good.
25 FOSTER
The Architect’s ship
En route to Sirius C system, Interstellar space
May 22, 2050, 03:08 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster had a feeling her captors didn’t want her dead, at least not yet.
She was brought out of the holding cell she shared with Mavron under the firm and painful grasp of two overlords. They assertively escorted her through the ship. Its halls were dark and gloomy and its engines made very little sound, allowing her to better hear what was going on in other compartments of the ship. She heard voices, chatter, people talking. Crew members on their off time perhaps?
They passed an assortment of pods attached to the walls, she saw the grunt soldiers strip out of their armor and place themselves into the pods, they all looked human, rather, Poniga. Their bod
ies were covered in wounds that should have been fatal or at least debilitating. One grunt’s skin was heavily charred like he had been caught in an inferno, another had a wide hole through his abs. She saw the interior of the grunts armor and the control triggers for the lasers that were mounted on the sleeves of their armor. She caught a glimpse of unarmed overlords passing by, they lacked major wounds on their body, and their heads were heavily augmented with cybernetics.
Her unwanted trek through the ship came to an end inside a room at the far end of the ship. It was surrounded from the walls to the ceiling with windows that peered out into space, it almost felt as though they were in space, like a massive balcony patio floating in the void. A swimming pool was below her, and above the pool was a footbridge that led toward a raised platform where a wide golden chair adorned with jewels lay in front of the window looking out into space.
The overlord escort dragged Foster across the bridge. She looked down and saw creatures swim through the pool below; they looked like mermaids and mermen. One came up to the surface of the water, she flicked away the beads of water that drenched her sultry face and watched Foster as the overlords hauled her across the footbridge. She grinned at Foster in an evil Siren-like manner, and then laughed. A second rose up to the surface a brawny male with a chiseled chest. He too, began to point and laugh at her while lights in the bottom of the pool gave them an exotic glow.
The walk across the footbridge ended, and Foster was pushed onto the floor next to the wide golden chair. She got to her feet and looked at the figure that rested on the chair. It wore armor like the soldiers she had seen, only it was crimson red and had sharp spikes that arched away from the sides of its massive helmet.
Half-naked male and female servant Poniga sat with the armored figure wearing loincloths and half-robes. Some held trays of food for it to feast on, others held and poured bottles of wine for the figure to drink from, three others from behind carefully glided towels across the sleek surface of its armor, keeping it glistening and shiny. The Poniga looked at Foster negatively as if she had done something to offend them. Foster took a step toward the golden chair which triggered the servant group to step in front of the crimson-armored figure attempting to shield it with their bodies as the two overlords next to her used their spears to block Foster’s path.
The crimson-armored figure touched its Poniga servants on their shoulders as it rose up from its rest and whispered into their ears. Slowly they began to fan out, creating a path which allowed the crimson-armored figure to walk toward Foster and circle around her, its helmet moving up and down as it examined her body. It stopped in front of her spreading both its arms apart, two Poniga from behind began to remove parts of the crimson armor away from its body, leaving the task of loosening its spiky large helmet for last.
The armor fell off first, Foster saw the leathery skin on the body inside of it. Then the helmet fell to the figure’s feet as the two loyal Poniga servants retreated backwards. Foster couldn’t believe the face she saw from under the helmet.
A large reptilian head.
Four eyes.
It was a Javnis.
The Architect was a Javnis.
“Oh, my lord,” Foster said.
“You are different,” The Architect replied in a strange language, Foster recognized it as the Poniga language from her recent engram experience.
“Architect, I presume,” Foster said in the alien tongue.
“You speak the language of the Poniga, good.” The Architect walked circles around Foster again, this time examining her with his own four eyes. “But . . . you are not Poniga; your technology is far too advanced. I took many steps to ensure they didn’t advance beyond what I allowed the Qirak to provide for them. Therefore, you came outside of the system.”
“Yeah, we kinda moved in a few days ago.”
“Linl? No, the markings on your outfit do not match their language, and I instructed them to never travel to this realm again as long as I rule, punishing those that defied me. You are too primitive to be Lyonria.” His finger pointed backward toward his gold chair, Foster saw her ePistol and EAD resting on it, the electronics and wiring on the inside of them had been pulled out.
“Well shucks, you got me, I’m not Lyonria.”
The Architect pushed his face closer to hers. Close enough for her to feel the heat from his body and smell the alien odor from his face. “Where are you from?”
“Los Angeles.”
“Where are you from? What is your place of origin?”
“Oh! Tennessee, Nashville to be exact, but it doesn’t exist anymore thanks to the empire.”
The Architect’s hand rose up as the EAD was pulled off the chair into its hands via telekinesis. The holographic screen of the EAD activated and its contents displayed, snippets of data files pertaining to the Carl Sagan’s and Radiance database. She cringed at the thought of how many security protocols he managed to bypass to get that far. True, Foster was well aware psionics had the ability to access computers with their thoughts, but such a skill required years of training and cybernetic implants. The Architect had no such visible implants and probably never experienced any Radiance psionic training, what he was doing according to Radiance’s knowledge of psionic powers was impossible.
“You are human, according to this,” The Architect said. “Impressive, I did not expect your kind to advance this fast. When I last visited your planet you were extremely primitive, using spears, swords, and arrows as weapons.”
“If you knew that already, then why did you ask?”
“I needed to test you,” he said as he looked deeper into her eyes. “I needed to see where your loyalties were.”
“Did I pass or fail?”
He smirked at her. “You tried to hide the truth; you tried to deceive your god.”
Foster laughed at his statement, and mockingly said. “You’re a god now?”
His telekinesis wrapped around her arms, legs, and back, forcing her body to the floor and to kneel in front of him. It was painful, especially when she tried to move on her own terms. Simply thinking about moving her legs or arms sent sharp pulses of pain into her muscles and joints.
“I am a god!” he yelled and pointed at the Poniga and Sirens swimming circles in the pool below. “These Undine and Poniga know the truth. They know that I am the Architect. I am the one that created life in this system, I am the one that allowed them to live, I am the one that provided them with a planet which they can call home. I am the one that protects the Poniga from the heat and radiation of its parent star; I am the one that sought to forgive the Undine for their devotion to Tiamat rather than wiping them out. And I have asked for very little in return.”
“We got a word for that on Earth. Narcissism.”
She felt an agonizing telekinetic thrust hit her square in her gut, and it felt as if someone had punched her. Being bound by his telekinesis meant she couldn’t tense up and brace herself. The pain she felt afterward was worse than the ones in her joints and muscles.
“You are human,” he said to her as his hand firmly wrapped around her jaw. “You will address me by the name your people gave me. You will address and worship me as the king of gods, Marduk.”
“Rather not, if that’s all right with you.”
Marduk’s mouth twisted, clearly upset at Foster’s defiant glare and words. “You don’t fear me, do you? You don’t worry about what might become of your farms, homes, and families?”
“You’re a Javnis, nothing more.”
“There was a time when you people bowed in my presence, did what I asked of them, worried if they had upset me.”
“The Babylon civilization is long gone,” Foster said.
She briefly remembered studying about Mesopotamian mythology in school when she was younger, as well as the legend of Marduk. It didn’t take much for her to draw the conclusion that he must have visited Earth during an ancient time and convinced the people at that time he was a god with his psionic abilities.
“Can I get up now? Legs starting to cramp up.” Seriously this floor is rock hard.
“It’s now clear, you and your ship did not travel here to reconnect with their absent god.” His fingers snapped. “Tiamat, your people have returned to worshiping her, haven’t they?”
“We’re peaceful explorers and settlers, we had no idea what was in this system until we arrived.”
“Lies, all lies! You came here to find and resurrect Tiamat, why else would the first planet you visit be the one with her tomb and former command center of the system?”
That planet around Sirius B . . . That would explain why his soldiers attacked us. “Didn’t realize that was a tomb.”
“You took great interest in that planet.”
“It had a lot of ice water we needed.”
“Your lies anger me, human.”
“Let me return to my ship and I’ll prove it to you.”
“I have all the proof I need.” He clapped his hands at one of the Undine in the pool. Her head popped up from the waters as her eyes shut to focus. Psionic trickery was incoming. Out from her hands materialized a glowing engram orb, its bright white light levitated into the palm of Marduk’s hand. “This is a memory engram, the Undine and a few Poniga use it to—”
“Share knowledge and experiences, yeah, yeah, been there done that. Spare me the exposition.”
The engram orb morphed into a blue and white holographic projection of the Carl Sagan engaged in combat with oval-shaped ships similar to the ones outside in the orbit of SB-417. The planet that led to all their troubles. “This is your ship, correct?”
The Siege of Sirius Page 23