The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three

by Mike Marlinski

Chapter Seven

  In the highest chamber in Tyrran’s Delendra Tower, Core cautiously crept towards the narrow opening, into the Gate Chamber. His eyes remained fixated on the small, spiral shaped singularity, gently tugging at the metal beams, rotating around it.

  Once the dome had been split open, by Core’s assault on the security system, the room was instantly filled with the sound of creaking metal, coming from the platform beneath the wormhole. The singularity was a mesh color at the time; a combination of the colors of all the objects in close proximity to it.

  Its powerful gravitational force bent the light inside the chamber, creating a swirling stream of silver, red and black. The silver streaks came from the spinning metal beams and platform. The red was a result of the burgundy colored walls and carpeting inside the chamber, as well as the tiny flames that seemed as though they had been sprinkled across the walls, floors and ceiling.

  The black blob at the center of the wormhole, represented the planet Siren, at the other end of the bridge, which was now nothing but a cinder and as black as the space around it. Despite its morbid origin, it was one of the most beautiful things Core had ever seen.

  He tightly gripped the Talin in his left hand, as he squeezed inside the chamber. The creaking sound from the spinning metal before him had become louder than ever. Remarkably, even in a fully pressurized environment, the singularity itself, didn’t make a sound. Core had rehearsed this moment in his mind countless times, but his dreams were finally becoming his reality, and he couldn’t help but be consumed by fear.

  Because the Talin was made of such strong materials, it was the only thing capable of breaking the spinning metal beams from their bond to their platform. Core took a deep breath and raised the Talin over his head with his left hand. He paused for a second and then reached as far back as his arm could stretch, as he prepared to slam the Talin’s flawless casing into the wormhole’s stabilizers. Core knew that his actions would lead a quickened destruction of Tyrran, as well as his own immediate death.

  “It’s time for you repulsive beasts to pay for what you have done,” Core thought to himself. “You shouldn’t have come back. You should’ve kept your demonic husks, tucked away in whichever disgusting corner of the universe, you came from!”

  With only the destruction of the Architects in mind, he summoned the courage to land his first blow onto the Gate Chamber. But as he swung his arm down, he suddenly felt a violent tug on his arm, causing the Talin to fall to the floor. He whirled around to see that Daelon had managed to sneak inside the dome, without him noticing.

  Daelon had never fallen back unconscious and was merely waiting for Core to let his guard down. Core was briefly frozen in place and Daelon took complete advantage of the situation. He returned to his original plan of charging Core’s massive legs and pulling them out from under him. Core fell to the floor and was nearly struck in the head by one of the metal stabilizers, which were still quickly rotating beside him.

  As he laid there, still very much in shock, Daelon snatched the Talin up into his arms and carried it to the Gate Chamber. Under normal circumstances, the rotation of the chamber would automatically cease, upon the detection of a traveler’s presence. However, since the security console for the chamber had been destroyed, Daelon could only stop the spinning platform, if he forced it to stop. Unfortunately for Core, Daelon had no intentions of doing this.

  Core got to his feet and made eye contact with Daelon, who was still tightly gripping the Talin and standing mere inches away from the edge of the platform.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Core asked him. “You said you wanted to salvage that device. You don’t seem to be acting in your own best interests.”

  “The gate still spins,” Daelon answered. “The bridge is still complete. There’s still something on the other side, holding it all together.”

  “On Siren?” Core scoffed. “You must be joking. Nothing could’ve endured the firestorm. Certainly nothing that could keep you safe! You’re just choosing a different path on which to end your life!”

  “You forget that I’m a man of faith!” Daelon yelled, as the sound of spinning metal began to drown out their words. “I have faith that somehow, our legacy will be protected down through the ages, if I pass through this portal. Just as I have faith, that my brother would’ve wanted it this way.”

  Core cautiously approached Daelon and shook his head with disapproval. “You’re a fool,” Core said. “I knew your brother better than you ever did. I know exactly what he wanted. He wanted you to be a better, stronger man, worthy of your name. He wanted you to do all that is necessary to vanquish our enemies!”

  Daelon closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Once he opened them again, he softly replied, “That’s just it, my old friend. These enemies cannot be vanquished. That fate is reserved for us. But fortunately, there is a way for a small part of us to live on forever.”

  With those last words, Daelon carelessly tossed the Talin into the singularity’s event horizon.

  Core watched, as the Talin spiraled through the tunnel of swirling light and faded from his view. He screamed angrily into the shadows, as the room had become nearly pitch black, causing the wormhole to turn black as well. From out the giant glass windows behind Daelon, Core could see that the sky had been blackened by the joining of the Architect vessels’ tentacles and that the lightning storm had stopped.

  This indicated that the end was moments away and that the Architects were preparing to unleash one final firestorm; one that would bring death to all of Tyrran’s remaining citizens. He then looked back at Daelon, who smiled at him from beneath his teary eyes and said, “You can join me if you wish. Or are you a coward?”

  Core’s eyes widened with rage again, as he watched Daelon jump onto the spinning platform and hurl himself into the singularity, after the Talin. Core was beyond convinced that he would die whether he followed Daelon or not. So finally, after weighing the options of which death better suited him, Core dove head first into the wormhole. He decided that he would much rather die in the mind set of heading into a fight.

  The skies of Tyrran had been completely overtaken by an organic layer of slimy black tentacles and other thick, thread shaped extremities, which stretched down for miles from the dozens of Planet Farmers, orbiting above. Every inch of the layer, simultaneously secreted a red mist into the air, which after a few seconds, ignited every last square inch of oxygen, causing the atmosphere of the planet to melt away like candle wax.

  The joined ships then began to pulsate in unison and produced a faint blue shockwave, which forced the spherical wall of flame in the outer atmosphere, down onto the surface of the planet. The oceans evaporated in seconds. Every last piece of land, vegetation, man-made structure and life-form was instantly bathed in fire and reduced to ash. And although it was a horrific display of the Architect’s technological might, some citizens of the two worlds were grateful in their final moments, because the speed in which they were to die, eliminated the possibility of pain.

  Minutes later, as the dust settled and the Architects were satisfied that they had eliminated every last trace of human life on Tyrran, the Planet Farmers parted ways and left their orbital positions, separately. They then sped away at an incredible speed, which caused them to disappear almost instantly, leaving behind only a glowing trail of white energy, in the wakes of their powerful, circular rear engines.

  The Architects never again returned to that particular region of the galaxy and spent the next several thousand years experimenting on other worlds. They sought to genetically engineer the perfect eco system and single dominant sentient life form, that could endure indefinitely and one day become the dominate force in their galaxy, second only to the Architects, as a testament to the Architects’ wisdom.

  It wasn’t until they had nearly succeeded, in a solar system on the rim of what would later become the Milky Way Galaxy, that Aia, the Master Architect, decided that the race s
he herself had created, would have to be made extinct, in order to ensure the survival of a natural universe.

  She was deemed female by the historical records of her people and had appeared to them in their early stages, introducing herself as their mother. As she herself was a natural product of the universe, and endowed with a natural ability to create life in whatever form she desired, she both nurtured and marveled at the Architects for billions of years, all the while living in denial, out of love for her children. She knew all along that she had created monsters, in the truest sense of the word, and that her eons of turning a blind eye to her great mistake needed to come to an end.

  Nearly 14 billion years ago, Aia used her own life energy and the energy of the hundreds of billions of stars around her, to create a specialized shockwave, designed to specifically target her people. She later referred to it as The Great Storm. It was a rapidly expanding, circular energy ribbon, which originated from Aia’s position, at the center of creation. Ravaging the twelve galaxies that made up the entire universe at that time, the storm destroyed every last Architect vessel and settlement seeded throughout existence, and brought about their extinction in a matter of hours.

  The death of ancient man was merely the beginning of this unfortunate chain of events. Aia always had a special place in her heart for man, and had even made an emotional connection with Daelon from afar, out of respect for his passion.

  Minutes before the destruction of Tyrran and the final departure of the Architects from the human worlds, Daelon and Core were still violently spiraling through the man- made portal.

  As violent a place as wormholes are, Daelon was operating under the assumption that something was still holding the singularity on Siren, in balance.

  “Are we to arrive at a safe haven, or an ash smothered grave?” Daelon thought, as he saw a stream of glistening silver light reaching out to him, like an outstretched hand. “Most likely, the latter…”