by Sam Coulson
“So what do you think is here?”
“The Skins have their fairytales,” he continued. “Evil monsters who can devour minds and gobble up worlds. Most of it is mythological trash, but I believe there is some truth in it. The story of the destruction of the star Vasudeva is true enough. Though the flux points have all collapsed and we cannot see it first hand, we know that there was once a young and vibrant star, and that it was destroyed. Think about that. The power to destroy a star. Whoever they were, the aliens who lived here had technologies that far outstripped our own.”
I breathed slowly.
“As the legend goes, after they blew up Vasudeva, their command ship escaped,” he continued. “The stories become a patchwork at this point, but all of them point here. They fled with all of that knowledge, and all of that technology. For the longest time, nobody knew where. But we know, don’t we boy? They came here, to this little world. And don’t get me wrong, it’s not the power to destroy worlds I’m after. To get to that point they would need advanced manufacturing, a grasp of energy physics well beyond our own and a host of technical and scientific disciplines that would make life easier throughout the Protectorate and the Collective.”
“So why terraform it?” The question that burned in my mind slipped out through my lips. “If you knew this is where they went, why move the colonists out here?”
“Well, yes, that was unfortunate. It complicated things,” he paused to take a breath. “Originally, we had decided to terraform this world as an agricultural center to help support mining operations we plan on developing in this region. We didn’t come across the final clues that pointed to this world until after the terraforming had begun, horrible timing really. I came out here in hopes that maybe something remained. Our scans showed evidence that there may have been a network of unnaturally formed underground tunnels up in the mountains, and I set my prospecting crew to start scanning the area for mineral deposits. I had a bit of luck when they found the chamber.”
“What about the people who were here—the aliens?” I pressed. “What happened to them? Did you just kill when you terraformed the world?”
“Ha! Don’t be absurd,” Growd waved his hand dismissively. “They were long dead before we got here. Maybe their numbers were too few, maybe they died of disease, or infighting. The aliens were already weak, maybe the Draugari clan that used to hunt in this sector found them and wiped them out.”
“How do you know they didn’t move on?” I pressed. “The records said that the Terraforming crew found no active technology on this world. If you didn’t find any technology here, what makes you think they were here at all? The keys could have been wrong, you could have misread the signs.”
“The evidence we found is irrefutable.” He answered coolly. “We’ve found stone carvings, magnetic imprints, alien debris, and all sorts of other clues. Clues left by the aliens themselves calling their brethren home. All of them are signposts pointing back to the safety of this little world as their haven. They were here. There is no question. The symbols in the cave prove it. And we both know that the map they left in that cavern pointed to a location here on this world. They may have died off here a few hundred years ago. They may have gathered what is left of their people and moved on. What happened to the aliens doesn’t matter. What matter is that they are gone? The symbols on that cave say they left something behind, and I will find it.”
“And if you’re wrong?” I asked. “And nothing is here, or what if they come back?”
“We’re hunting for treasure here boy,” he responded. “Wealth and power. Fortune and glory. Nothing is for certain. But, if there is a chance, some slim chance, that they hid one of their vessels, or a cache of their technology here on this world, then I will move moons to find it.”
“And you think I will lead you to it?”
“Drop the act,” Growd answered. “I think you are as curious as I am, why else would you come back here? Besides, the choice is pretty clear, if you don’t help me, I will kill your pilot friend and torture the girl.”
“Pilot? Loid?” I asked. “He’s alive?”
“For now, yes,” Growd answered. “Talkative fellow, he told us all kinds of interesting things. He told us that you were the only one who knew the way, that you would be back, and that if we tortured the girl, you would do anything we asked. So now, let’s get to it.”
My mind raced. Loid had said I was the only one who knew the location. Clearly, this wasn’t true. Loid himself knew. He had run the simulation and left us the location on the map. What was his game? Had he been lying to buy himself time, or did he have a plan?
I realized that it didn’t matter. I thought of Ju-lin, Loid, and the burning question of what lay hidden. Growd was right. I would help him.
“Sir,” Commander Teigan approached, he was holding his arm up to his ear.
“Yes, what is it now Teigan?” Growd barked back as he continued to focus on me, his lips were pursed tightly together as he waited eagerly for my answer.
“I sent my pilots into high orbit to conduct long range scans.”
“And I told you not to waste the fuel,” Growd, slowly and deliberately, turned to look at Teigan. “I don’t think you understand our arrangement, you work for me.”
“The girl was right,” Teigan answered, ignoring Growd’s scowl. “There are well over 200 vessels in high orbit, Celestrial and Draugari, they are engaged as we speak. We need to evacuate.”
“What?” Growd’s eyes widened. “Evacuate? That’s absurd. Soon we’ll have the most advanced technology in the galaxy in our possession. What are a few dozen fighters? Commander, prepare to scramble your ships for colonial defense if needed. Keep four in the air and have them ready to escort my shuttle.”
“Yes sir,” Teigan said coldly as he looked at Growd. He began to turn, looked back and glanced at me, and left.
“You,” Growd nodded at the nearest armed MineWorks guard. “Have my shuttle prepared, we’ll leave immediately. Hovers would take too long.”
Finally, he turned back to me.
“You see, if there was nothing here, than why are the Skins rushing to find it? Why is there a Draugari fleet?” Though his voice was calm, his eyes looked anxious as he turned his attention back to me. “What will it be? Torture the girl, kill your friend, and wait for the Skins or the Draugari to come down and bomb us to dust, or join me in the shuttle and lead me to our salvation?”
I took a deep breath.
“It’s really not a choice boy,” he bared his yellow teeth as he smiled.
“Let’s go,” I responded.
Chapter 32.
We set down the Carrack a few hundred meters from the bladestones, smoke still filled the air as I watched from the command deck.
“Tren and Jen’tek,” I ordered. “Go and retrieve them.”
“Retrieve?” Tren asked. “You mean Capture? You want to take them alive?”
“Yes,” I answered. “I know it’s unusual, but we’re far from home, the whole mission is unusual.”
“I can’t argue with that,” Tren grunted as he got to his feet and turned to leave. Jen’tek grunted in agreement as he got up and followed him out.
Once they had left I stepped up passed Kel, who was still resting in the pilot’s seat, to look out over the surface of the world. It was easy terrain, flat, trees, plenty of good stones for cover. The blaze from the fire was gone, and the bladestones were now blackened with soot and char. As I stared out into the distance I saw two shapes moving. So small, so frail.
“Evolution was not kind to them,” I said quietly.
“What?” Kel asked.
“Look, there, the humans,” I pointed out the viewport. “They are so small, so weak, and so stupid. Unarmed and running toward us. Running toward the enemy. How are there so many of them out there? How do they survive?”
“Maybe they survive because there are so many of them?” Kel suggested. “Our people understand the value of breeding, only those who
prove themselves the strongest and wisest are given the honor. The humans breed at will like mar-rats. It’s disgusting.”
I grunted in agreement as I watched the two humans continue to run toward Tren and Jen’tek. As they grew closer, Tren fired twice and the first one fell, the second continued running forward! Tren shot again, and the second dropped to the ground.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
Growd’s shuttle was a luxury model, designed to carry over a dozen passengers in stately comfort. Though two guards maintained a close eye on me as we boarded the shuttle and settled into our seats. Growd ordered them to holster their weapons by explaining that I “was not a captive, but rather a partner from here on out.”
As soon as we were on-board I was led to a comfortable seat next to an older woman, she had deep set eyes and dark brown hair peppered with stands of gray.
“Lexin Piter,” she offered her hand. “So you’re the navigator that Growd’s been looking for?”
“Navigator?” I asked. “If you call it that.”
“Enough Piter,” Growd grumbled as he approached and handed me his Slate with a detailed map of the planet. “Piter here is our archeologist.”
“Xenologist,” she corrected him.
“Treasure hunter,” he countered. “And a mercenary one at that. I hired her to piece together the clues that led us to this little rock. She did her job well. Just like you will do yours.”
He nodded to the map of the world floating on the Slate screen.
I slid my fingers of the display, spinning the image of the world until I was looking at the northern pole. A minute later I had the image zoomed in to the spot that the map had indicated. The high resolution scan showed what looked like the mouth of a cave that had collapsed in a landslide.
“Take us,” Growd said as he handed the tablet to the pilot. “You four, unpack the sonic imaging kit, prepare the laser drills and have some explosives on hand, we need to get through it as quickly as possible. Also, order four of the fighters to join us as escorts.”
“Sir,” a tall man in a flight suit who I took to be the copilot responded. “Shouldn’t we leave the fighters to defend the colony in case the Skins or Draugari break through?”
“Priorities,” Growd waved his hand dismissively. “Just do as I say.”
The other man nodded as he followed the pilot to the cockpit. A minute later we were airborne flying toward the site.
The trip from the Downs, which was located near the equator, to the northern pole would have taken hours in a land-based hover, but as our shuttle’s thrusters engaged and I saw the landmass sliding below us in a blur, I was realized that in the shuttle the trip would take mere minutes.
“So,” Growd said conversationally as he leaned back in his seat, looking across at me thoughtfully. “Elicio isn’t it? You sure fell in with an interesting lot. The McCullough girl will have some legal trouble to sort out, ship theft is a serious charge. And we will most likely turn Loid over to the authorities. He’s wanted for smuggling by a minor colonial legal authority near Orion. It’s not a serious charge but he will be put away for a few years, long enough.”
A pretty young woman came up the aisle with a tray with two drinks, Growd took the first and immediately brought it up to his thin lips and took a long and savoring sip. I took the glass as she offered it, but didn’t drink.
“Of course, whatever we find down there will be the physical and intellectual property of the MineWorks Corporation,” he continued. “I can’t cut you in in that. But I don’t see why this has to go badly for you. With Loid’s legal trouble that still leaves us with, what I believe we can call: an abandoned and derelict vessel. Legally, we’ll have to leave it on the landing pad for three weeks before we can declare it abandoned, but at that point, the law says that anyone can claim it as salvage. And I, as colonial governor, can issue you official documentation of salvage to give you ownership free and clear. Though I’d get it repainted if I were you, the figurehead is a bit gaudy. So, how about this: once we have finished this little trip, we will put you up in a comfortable room, and fill your account up with a respectable credit balance. The three weeks are up, you can claim his ship and the sky is yours. How’s that for a deal?”
While he was talking, my mind was racing as I searched for an opening or opportunity to take over the shuttle. I had to protect whatever my people had hidden. I had to save Ju-lin and Loid. I had to figure out how to get the colonists to safety before the Collegiate fleet overcame the Draugari fleet and buried the colonies in flames. But I saw no options. There were a dozen crew and guards on the ship.
“Sounds fair,” I was certain he knew I was lying.
“Excellent,” he thrust out his hand. “A deal then?”
As I shook his hand I was fairly sure that he was planning on having me killed the second we gained access to whatever lie buried ahead of us.
“Coming around now,” the pilot’s voice broke in over the speakers. “We’ll be setting down at the site in two minutes.”
I sat quietly, looking out the window as we made our approach. The area was rocky and the soil was thin and barren. As the pilot struggled against the crosswind on his approach, I realized that whatever the terraforming had seeded in the area had already died and blown away.
“What a wasteland,” Growd commented casually as he leaned over beside me. “Still, the scans show that these stones have abnormally high lead content, and there is an unusual concentration of Tevarite which would shield the area from any orbital scans. A Thar’esh command ship or weapons cache could be down there, buried for centuries.”
I looked over at him, the corner of his lips twitched.
“All that technology, ready to be reverse engineered, used, sold, it’s the dawning of a new age my boy, and you’re here to see it.”
I glanced over at Piter, her face was an expressionless mask.
He patted me on the back as the shuttle set down with a jolt. As it did, everyone in the cabin of the ship went into motion. The four survey technicians immediately opened the rear-bay doors and began hauling equipment, two of the four armed guards that came with us went down the ramp as well, I watched out the portal window as one of them walked around with his gun at the ready, surveying the area. The guard circled out of sight.
“It’s clear,” one of the two remaining guards nodded to Growd.
“Good, let’s see what we’ve got,” Growd got up, nodding to me.
I got up and followed him out. The two guards fell in behind me, weapons at the ready. Apparently the hospitality ended when we left the ship. I looked up and saw the four Falcons circling overhead.
I squinted against the afternoon sun as we walked down the ramp, the dry wind whipped across my face. Growd slipped on some mirrored sunglasses and walked forward. We were standing at the side of a large crag, boulders were piled against the southern side of the ridge.
“Piter, what do we have?” Growd asked.
“There is a cavern beyond the rubble,” she said as she read her scanner. “It’s large, can’t tell what’s in it, but there is definitely an open air space, the walls are sheer.”
“Sheer?” Growd’s eyes raised.
“Yes,” Piter answered. “It doesn’t look like a natural geological formation, someone, or something, carved this out.”
“Clear it,” Growd nodded.
At Piter’s direction, the two other engineers opened up a case containing what looked like a steel-plated backpack with a large, stubby laser attached. As I watched, the second engineer slid the backpack on and took the laser in hand.
“Digging through the rubble would take far too much time,” Growd commented as he handed me a pair of thick sunglasses. “The laser-mining drill will handle it quickly. Put these on.”
I slipped the glasses on as the engineer leveled the laser at the pile of rocks and flipped on the power. Though the beam itself was invisible, I immediately felt the heat radiating off of the stones. As I watched, a meter-wide s
ection of the stones toward the top of the pile began to lose their shape, and melt down into the stone below. The engineer made slow and steady passes, left to right and the stones continued to melt. After about ten minutes. He’d carved through four meters of rubble. He powered down the laser drill and stepped aside. The air stunk heavily of sulfur, but the drill had done its work. I stepped forward to get a better look and saw the darkness of a cavern beyond where the wall of stone had stood.
The stone had melted into slag and was spilling out from the mouth of the cave, black and smoking.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Growd said as he squinted into the darkness. “Cool off a path, we need to get in there.”
Without question or hesitation, the engineers returned to the ship and came out with a long hose and attached it to the shuttle’s water system. The first spray of water sent huge plume of steam and further spread the sickly sulfurous scent. As the newly melted stones began to cool, they cracked loudly. After a few minutes, the water had ceased to evaporate and began trickling down the hill to our feet.
“That’s enough,” Growd ordered.
As the steam cleared I could see that beyond the newly-made hole there was a square corridor about six meters wide and high carved cleanly at a downward angle. A clean and level floor led down into the depths.
“We can get in how it is. Piter, you two guards, and you, kid, come with me. Everyone else, work on expanding this entrance to the full size of the passage, we need to make sure that we can get out whatever the aliens left in here.”
“It’s deep,” Piter commented as she looked down at a scanning device she was holding. “It opens up about a half-mile into a large chamber.”