Annals of the Keepers - Deception

by Christiaan Hile

  “We have more company, Rels.”

  I looked back over the cart’s edge. There were a couple dozen Comondons approaching from the streets. All began to fire up in our direction. Rounds impacted the cart and the tower structure.

  Then, a jolt. The cart stopped at the top. We were protected for a moment by a walled barrier. This would give us cover from the ground fire, but not from our pursuer below, who was making good time in catching up to us as she climbed the tower.

  I sent a volley of rounds down at her. They flashed off the girders and cross-beamed sections of the structure.

  Another jolt came from the cart as we were placed in line of the mag-track and started our rapid movement down the line away from the lift.

  “That was a close one,” I said to Mistuuk.

  “I’m not sure about that, Rels.”

  I looked back behind us. The Vrae had made it to the top and was in an ore cart as well, about four behind us.

  “Who is she?”

  “She’s a Vrae–”

  The explosion almost knocked the cart from the mag-track. That one was larger than what a sniper rifle could dish out.

  The round had come from the ground, where the Comondons were located. They had set up a plasma launcher. It also didn’t help that our Vrae pursuer had leapt to the next cart, getting closer.

  I fired off a barrage of rounds, hitting her cart to keep her head down and remind her that I wasn’t a bad shot myself.

  “We’re sitting tameraks up here, Rels.”

  “I just noticed that myself, bounty hunter of the obvious . . . or whoever you are.”

  He just gave me a blank look.

  “We need to find another way,” I said, looking around, “There. Another mag-track below us. It’s coming up. We could jump down to the lower one. It looks to be headed to the other side of the pit, close to the ruins. It’s going to cross our path in a few moments.”

  Boom!

  Another projectile impacted the track ahead of us. The cart jostled from side-to-side, scraping the mag-coupling above, the only thing holding us to the mag-lev system.

  “They’re trying to shoot the coupling,” I said.

  “Really, Captain Obvious?” Mistuuk shot back.

  “Funny. Just get ready to jump, pudgy Cuukzen.”

  The little guy was actually anxious to jump. Who is he? He was just as excited about getting jojo fruit as he was about jumping from a moving ore cart fifty meters above the ground. Things couldn’t get any stranger.

  A few more close shots came from the Vrae.

  I fired a few more rounds back at her.

  She had lifted up to return fire, but was no longer in the third cart from us. She was now in the second.

  How’d she get to that one? How’d I miss that? Whoever she was, she knew what she was doing. She was no amateur or lackey for that matter. This girl has skills. I was impressed, and a little worried, about my own skills right about now. Jumping from a moving cart fifty meters above ground to another one ten meters below, moving in the opposite direction; yeah, that’s a smart move.

  I fired a salvo at the second cart to our rear, just in time to see a projectile arc towards us from the ground near the Comondons, “Go, now!” I yelled.

  We jumped from our cart to the one moving below. I landed square in the middle of the empty hauler, but the Cuukzen missed it by a foot and toppled over the side. I reached over. Was I too late?

  The Comondon rocket hit the coupling and, in a flash, the cart above detached from the mag-track, careening into the tower junction point with a bang, falling the now fifty meters down into the pit

  I looked for Mistuuk. He had caught himself on a metal rung on the side of the cart.

  “You lucky little kizard.” I reached my hand down.

  “It has nothing to do about luck, Rels.”

  I pulled him up into the cart, “Call it what you want. It’s still good to have you here, pudge.”

  “I wouldn’t miss it for all the jojo fruit in known space.”

  A plasma bolt zinged past Mistuuk’s head, sending him back against the cart’s edge.

  It was the Vrae.

  She must have also jumped to the lower carts as well, and was still two carts behind.

  “I’m done with her,” I took careful aim, as the Vrae and Comondons were reloading, and fired the weapon up near her coupling. “Two can play at this game, my dear.”

  One more discharge and the cart detached, dropping to the rocky pit below, “So long, sister.”

  “That’s what I was about to do, Rels. I thought you two played far too long with each other.”

  “I need to get the ship to meet us on the other side of the ruins. Too many close calls on this trip if you ask me.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask,” he joked.

  “You have some questions to answer to, mister bounty hunter of information.”

  The command log just showed up on my holo-wrist module when another explosion erupted to our front.

  The Comondons had knocked off the lead cart.

  “Hang on. We’re not out of this yet,” I said, looking around at our options. “We could possibly jump to the cart behind us. We don’t have much further to go before we are near the ruins and the tree line. They won’t have an angle on us then.”

  Another explosion rocked our hauler.

  “That one was closer, Rels. The next will hit the coupling.”

  I stood up to gauge the distance of the rear cart when I saw the streak of black flying right at me.

  The Vrae female was still alive. She must have jumped from her falling cart and grabbed onto the next one’s casing.

  We hit the front and toppled out, falling to the ruins below.

  Data Cell 33

  Splash!

  The next thing I knew from falling from the cart was landing in cold murky water. A mining pool near the ruins had saved me from certain death.

  I looked around the water’s surface. I could not see the Vrae. I looked up just in time to see the plasma cannon strike the coupling, sending the car with Mistuuk falling. It was heading towards another pool.

  It didn’t make it.

  The cart smashed on the rocks, shredding its metal container to bits and showering the ruins with debris. Mistuuk?

  I swam to the pool’s edge. I got out and looked around.

  The debris of metal and rocks lay strewn all over the place. He couldn’t have survived the impact, could he?

  I continued my search when. . .

  “I guess I get to see the ruins now, Rels?”

  “You had me worried for a second. What’d you do? Jump after me?”

  “Yes. I jumped because I saw the plasma round coming, and saw the water below. Made sense.”

  I froze.

  I reached for my pistols. They were gone. At the bottom of the pool, I thought.

  “Missing something, Rels?”

  “Look over there,” I pointed across the stagnant water.

  Crawling out, on the other side, was the Vrae female.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have your Slammer on you, would ya?” I asked.

  Mistuuk searched his holster, “Nope. Mine’s gone too. But, don’t worry, I think we can handle her, Rels.”

  “Look beyond her.”

  In the distance, came an assault craft hovering across the pit floor.

  “In the ruins,” I said, turning to run.

  “Yes!” He exclaimed in sheer jubilance, since that’s where he wanted to go in the first place.

  We made it to the entrance of the largest structure when the assault ship began firing a salvo of plasma bolts at the structure’s entrance, causing rocks and metal to explode and shatter.

  Mistuuk and I moved further away from the flying debris and destructive blasts outside. The ruins’ corridor guided us to a small entry room with a high ceiling.

  The Temple of Zinta-Dumm was from a lost race thousands of years ago. The stone and metal structure was advanced for the
time, as indicated by the architecture. I knew little of the place, but I made a guess; my little partner knew something about it.

  I stopped in the room and brought up my ship link. It gave off a faint light from the holo-image, “I don’t know where to land the Relentless. I don’t even know if there is more than one entrance to this place.”

  Mistuuk turned on a marker-light he carried in his bag. The light covered the whole room. If we had to move deeper, which I expected we would, we would be lost in total darkness through the many cavernous chambers and tunnels in this place.

  “How’s that, Rels.”

  “Good. What do you know of this place?”

  “I like ruins. This place is great. I’ve been here once before.”

  “You don’t say. Are there any other exits?”

  “Yes. I know of one.”

  An explosion erupted from the entrance, “Stay here,” I ordered Mistuuk.

  I ran out of the room to peer down the main corridor towards the entrance. The Comondon assault craft had blasted through the debris at the entrance and the reptilian bulls began to enter.

  Moving back to the room, I opened my ship commands, “They’re coming in. I’m going to place the ship in orbit, cloaked. We can call her down when we find an exit.”

  “I need Blink, Rels.”

  “We don’t have time. Let’s move.” I exited with the marker-light, heading down another corridor leading deeper in the structure.

  “Rels, I need her for calculations to get us out.”

  I stopped, “What? You mean you don’t know them by memory?”

  “Yes. No. I’m not sure.”

  I’m heading into my own grave here, I thought. “Fine, If Blink can make it to us. If not, we’re relying on your memory.”

  I activated the ship ramp, acknowledging Blink to find us and bypass the Comondons, if possible.

  “Let’s move.” We continued through the darkened corridors of the ancient ruins until we came upon an even larger room with massive steps leading down to an open area. The marker-light couldn’t illuminate everything. The height of the room was unknown, as the ceiling hid from the light.

  We descended the steps to the center of the cavern. The marker-light picked up large, stone tables and broken, metal machinery of sorts.

  “This is where trade and commerce took place,” Mistuuk observed.

  “How do you know that?”

  Mistuuk walked over to a wall on the west side. I shined my light upon it. An ancient alien text was carved into the arch overhang on the wall.

  He pointed with his hand, scrolling along the text, “I had come here once. It speaks about trade and what you would call bartering. This is where all the tribes from the area would gather twice a week to peddle their wares and goods.”

  “Does it say where the exit is?”

  “Yes. Here, Rels.”

  “‘Here’, where?”

  “Well, this would have been an exit, but part of the ruins collapsed and now it’s covered.”

  “This does us no good. We need to find an exit now. Let’s go,” I said, turning away from the scribble on the wall only to bump into a hanging vine of some sort.

  I shined my light on the vine, which was actually a black rope. I raised the marker-light above, following the rope line, a dark figure fell towards me.

  I dove out of the way. The figure landed on the stone floor where I had stood, flashing a bladed weapon in my direction. I got up and shined the light at my assailant.

  Damn.

  It was the Vrae female, again.

  She lunged at me, twisting and slicing the blade through the air. I managed to dodge the swipes, but she was getting closer.

  I tossed the marker-light at her and tucked into a roll near her legs. I spotted the hanging rope. I grabbed it and, dodging her strikes, started to wrap it around her.

  I ducked an incoming blow, but I didn’t dodge her boot that followed.

  I landed on my side, trying to roll and reposition, as the blade stabbed down, sparking when it hit the stone floor next to me.

  Before I could sweep her legs out, a large stone smacked her in the back of the head.

  She fell forward, hitting the ground and sending the bladed weapon flying into the dark recesses of the room.

  “Good timing, Mistuuk,” I commended, breathing a little heavy, “I was just about to take her down.”

  “Yeah, I saw that, Rels.”

  “Okay. Who the hell is she?”

  Mistuuk walked up to her unconscious body, “Her name is Kayasa. She’s a Vrae assassin who works for the Kryth.”

  “I’m sorry, but excuse me? A Vrae who works for the Kryth?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know I should have stayed in bed. Okay. Okay. First, let’s get out of here. We can use the rope since it leads to an opening. That’s how she got in.”

  I didn’t even finish savoring the thought of climbing up the rope and setting off in the Relentless before our other friends showed up.

  Their lights flickered as they approached from the hallway.

  “Too late. Let’s go,” I said, scooping up the marker-light and leaving our downed assailant.

  We moved towards the other side of the steps as the Comondons came through the corridor. Plasma bolts lit up the room, striking stone. We ran up and through the other passageway.

  “Do you have any charges in your satchel?” I asked, gesturing towards Mistuuk’s bag.

  “I have one left.”

  “We may have to slow them down and blow the tunnel. Happen to know another exit?”

  “Yes, Rels.”

  “Okay. You’d better be right about this. Let’s find a choke point up ahead and set the device.”

  We moved through several corridors until we got to a room full of pillars.

  The chamber was vast, with fifteen meter tall stone pillars spaced about every five meters. Each stone column had black, metal hieroglyphs from top to bottom.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  Mistuuk beamed with excitement, “This is what I need.”

  “First, I want you to deploy the trip device back into the corridor. We’ll let it blow to give us some time.”

  Mistuuk went back into the tunnel to set the device. I began to look at the markings on one of the pillars. The metal symbols were embedded into the stone. An ancient language of some sort.

  “It’s set, Rels.”

  “Good. Get back behind one of the columns. We’ll let the Comondons trip it and seal us in.”

  It didn’t take long. Their lights flickered the closer they got, etching the walls with their varying beams that all went out at the explosion. Debris and dust washed between the pillars from the blast.

  I just hoped this Cuukzen knew another way out, because I may have just sealed our fate with that gamble.

  Data Cell 34

  The swirling wormhole fluctuated and pulsed in space, looking as if it was taking deep, purposeful breaths, laboring in its own existence.

  Commander Takkar sat in his command chair monitoring a holo-image.

  He took a sip of coffee. The steam rising from the cup mingled with the projection of light above.

  A red light flashed.

  “Commander, we have three unknown vessels emerging from the wormhole,” the female ensign called out, “They have stopped and are positioned about one kilometer from the distortion.”

  Takkar looked through the anterior view port of the command bridge.

  “I’m running a full scan now, sir.”

  The commander got up from his seat and moved closer to the window, leaving his coffee behind.

  Information began to transmit across the front console screens.

  The ensign relayed it as it came in, “Each of the three ships are the same size, about four hundred meters in length,” she continued to view the info coming across, and giving it to the commander as fast as possible, “Sir, they do not register with any ships in our data base.”

&n
bsp; “What’s our distance from them, Ensign?” Takkar asked.

  “We are at . . . one hundred kilometers out from their location, sir. Would you like me to reposition the ship?”

  “No, Ensign. Don’t move, just scan,” the commander responded as he activated the comms link on the console to his front, “Kason, we have company. We’re watching three ships emerge from the wormhole.”

  Kason’s response came over the bridge, “Roger that, Commander. We’re almost ready here. Are they Kryth ships?”

  “Unknown at this time; but, on initial inspection, they don’t seem to be.”

  “Keep us apprised of the situation, Commander.”

  “As soon as I have information on their systems and layout, I’ll relay them to your team’s pods. Takkar, out.”

  Takkar turned to the male ensign, “Ensign Hynes, I want you to send all real-time data on the situation to Ordinance Command. Let them know I will report as soon as I can.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The commander zoomed in on one of the ships to get a closer look, “Interesting. I haven’t seen any ship like that before.”

  The triangular ships stood out from the green wormhole behind them. Traversing the length of the unknown ships were what looked to be layered stripes of reflective metal, each coming to a point near the curved, forked bow. The winglets on each side of the hull blended into the body, meshing with what seemed to be organic components.

  “They’re scanning us, sir,” the female ensign noted.

  “That’s okay, we’re doing the same thing. Anything on them yet, Ensign?”

  “We do have a basic shield structure. It looks to have the shield strength of one hundred IPs.”

  “Well, well. That’s pretty strong for a ship that size. Ours sits at one hundred and fifty. Do we have anything beyond the shields?”

  “No, sir. We have tried varying cross-section scans, but nothing so far.”

  “Keep trying. Send formal greetings and attempt to establish contact. Once you get more information, send it to Lieutenant Bender and Ion Launch Control.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  ∞∞∞

  Kason’s team exited the ready room in their R.A.S. armor and approached the Reaver launch center. They entered through two doors, separated by a compression chamber for when the launch room is filled with the vacuum of space as the Reavers launch towards their targets.