“Dean, I think you should stop,” Slate said, but he didn’t come anywhere near me.
The room was at least one hundred yards wide, and I could see it all now, basking in the cool blue light. In each corner, manufactured pillars were erected, fitting from floor to ceiling. In the center of the pillars, which were spread out the full distance of the room, stood a table of sorts, made of the same material as the columns. The gemstone hummed a near-silent but constant song, and the blue rays pulsed in it, seemingly in time with my own heartbeat.
I neared the gemstone, squinting against the bright light, and saw the table had small illuminated icons on it. There were at least fifty of them, each a unique image of hard lines and squiggles. My hand settled flat over them, moving of its own volition, and I heard Slate calling to me.
The words were getting louder, and I turned to see him rushing toward me. I felt my finger touch down on the table. The icon it hit grew bright and bathed the entire room in green light. Slate collided with me, but something told me he was too late.
____________
The light was gone, along with the pounding of my heart on my eardrums. I lay on the ground, recalling walking away from Slate, and knew I wasn’t in control of whatever had taken over me. It left me feeling dirty and used.
“Slate?” I asked, not able to see anything in the dark room. I fiddled with the LED controls for my suit and they flicked on, casting a white glow over the larger man beside me. He groaned, sitting up before feeling himself for injury.
“Dean, just what the hell were you doing? First you pass out on the way over here, then that?” His voice was raised, telling me he was at his wits’ end with me. Slate liked things he could understand, and what had happened didn’t fall into that category.
“I have no idea. My blood was burning, pumping hot and fast, then my brain disassociated, allowing something else to move me. I’m sorry for pointing a gun at you. I swear it wasn’t me.”
“It sure looked like you,” he muttered under his breath. Slate turned on his own suit’s flashlights and stood up, taking stock of our situation. We weren’t in the same room we’d just come from. The air felt stale and thin. Slate unzipped a breast pocket, unfolding a breathing mask from inside, and I followed suit. With the mask against my face and strapped to my head, my breaths took on a smooth flow once again.
“How do we get back?” he asked.
“Don’t you want to know where we are?” I asked, scanning the room. It was a far cry from the rocky floor we’d left behind. This room was manufactured, the floor a solid metal alloy, the walls silver and smooth. A stone, much like the one in the cavern, sat behind a glass case; the same icons were visible on the screen. I walked away from it, seeing the drawings etched on the metal walls. Wherever we were, it was eerily similar to the place we’d just come from.
“I’d prefer to go back and help the others.” Slate was touching the glass screen above the stone, but nothing illuminated or moved. It was dark.
He was right. They needed our help. My fiancée was in danger and trying to rescue my sister. If I ever needed to get somewhere to assist, it was now.
“Why did it work back there?” I asked under my breath. My heart rate was fine now, my mind clear. “You felt nothing? No draw to that room, or to the light?”
Slate shook his head. “I felt angry. Angry at you for walking into it blindly.”
I couldn’t blame him. “Let’s look around, and maybe we can figure out how to get back. This has to be some sort of teleportation device. I wish we knew where it sent us. Probably to the opposite side of the planet.” I held my gun up, moving to the side of the room, wishing there were lights so I didn’t have anything jump out at me from out of the darkness.
“This time let’s stay together, okay?” Slate grumbled, moving in front of me. If he wanted to take the lead, I’d let him. I’d already shown there was a glitch in me. My back twitched, reminding me of being shot on one of the Kraski vessels during the Event. I had Mae’s… Janine’s blood in me still. That was it.
“I think the device picked up on my blood being alien. Maybe it recognizes the Kraski DNA and allowed me transport.” I was grasping at straws, but it was the only thing that remotely came close to an explanation.
Slate looked thoughtful a moment before turning to me, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Dean, if that’s true, what was it doing on New Spero? I thought this was an unspoiled planet. If there’s a device that allows Kraski transport, then –” He stopped talking, letting go of me, his shoulders sagging slightly. “We aren’t on the other side of New Spero now.”
I didn’t reply. Instead I walked to the doorway, which didn’t open. The power was down here. Slate grabbed hold of a manual lever, and pulled hard, the cords of his neck straining as he did so. Eventually, the door popped, hissed, and slid open.
The hall beyond was dark, ominous. My imagination told me there were creatures out there, ones that would attack as we passed any corner. Another part told me we were on a station where the entire crew was killed in an intergalactic attack, their spirits lingering and angry, waiting for redemption. With a quick shake of my head, I tried to let my childish fantasies dissipate, leaving me calculating the facts.
“If there’s no power, maybe we can find a backup system and turn it on.” If we could get power to the area, the touchscreen with the icons might lead us back to the cavern. It might have worked because there was no power needed for the carvings.
Slate didn’t reply; he just began moving quietly and efficiently down the hall. I tried to emulate his movements, making more noise than him, but not enough to put a target on our backs. We tried a few rooms along the way, manually opening the doors, but none of them proved helpful. It all had an unused feel to it, like it had sat empty for a very long time. I was left feeling queasy, and suddenly wished we were back at Magnus’ farmhouse, sharing a meal and laughing about the rescue we’d successfully pulled off. I focused on that feeling and set it as my intention. Now I just needed to get from here to there. That was the hard part.
“This place feels wrong,” Slate said, whispering the words near my ear. Our speech was muffled slightly by our oxygen masks, and I wondered at how much time we had breathing from them. We hadn’t had enough time yet to have their newly advanced technology explained to us.
“It feels old.” It all felt very far-future, but ancient at the same time.
We kept moving, seeing no signs of life anywhere. Eventually, we made our way to a large doorway, which opened into a massive room. Clear crystals glowed ever-so-softly in the middle of the room, casting an unwelcoming glimmer over the entire area. As we neared them, we could see they were encased in a tall glass cylinder that stretched from floor to ceiling, appearing to go on for at least fifty feet.
“Either this is part of a ship’s engine, or this powers the facility we’re in. I wish I knew more about advanced alien civilizations.” I meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but even I couldn’t smile as I said it.
“I think we know enough for my liking.” Slate looked intense, like he was reverting from the fun-loving soldier we’d started to see on our journey together.
I turned to him, looking him in the eyes. “Other than the obvious,” I said, waving my hand, palm up, around the room, “is something bothering you?”
He seemed like he was going to slough off my question, but his mouth twitched. “I was up there, flying around space, avoiding being blown to smithereens by some inept New Spero station pilots, and I got to thinking, what if? What if I do die here? What if I’ve lived my whole life bent on revenge for my brother dying, before finding out there was no one to blame? The Event nearly destroyed our world, and many of us came out different people, but I was still a soldier for the same people I hated for sending us to war in the first place.”
“That’s in the past, Slate,” I said softly.
He ran his big hands over his close-cropped hair, and I could feel the frustration emanating from him. �
��What if I never find a good woman? What if I never have a family of my own? What if I die here, never getting an ending to my story, when it’s been so full of anger and resentment up to this point?” His words were getting quieter as he went, and I wanted to give the guy a hug and tell him it would be all right. But truth be told, I could empathize with his story, even though it was so far removed from my own.
“Tell you what. Let’s figure this out.” I pointed at the crystals in the tube. “Then we can find our way home and you can retire, meet someone at one of the colonies, and live that dream out on New Spero.”
“Do you think we’ll actually ever be safe, no matter where we go?” he asked.
I didn’t know, but the threat looming over our heads with Earth and the Bhlat clouded my thoughts. I resolved right then and there to make it my business. We’d been thrust, whether fairly or not, into the middle of the battle between the Deltra and the Kraski, and then the Bhlat over all of them, and unless we resolved it, we would never be truly safe.
“I’m going to make that happen.” I felt foolish for saying it, but Slate nodded, accepting that I meant what I said.
His jaw took on a hard line, a new resolve that we’d need to figure this puzzle out. We spread out over the room, looking for anything that might have power left in it, or a manual switch to turn on. A half hour later, we’d both found nothing and were back in the same spot we’d started the search from.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We keep searching.” I led the way back out of the room, upset we hadn’t found anything, but sure the answers were out there, within the metallic walls of the strange structure. The weight of the bag of supplies on my back was starting to get heavy, and I knew I was about five minutes from asking Slate to carry it for a while. I was glad I’d brought provisions into the caves. It looked like we might end up needing them after all.
Once again in the hallway, we kept going, avoiding the smaller side rooms, which at this point were fewer and fewer. Maybe the exterior of the hall walls was touching outside at this point. That would explain a lot. It could either be a pedway, if we were above ground, or just a corridor to connect two structures together.
Eventually, a door appeared at the end of the walkway. A small glass window allowed us to see through the thick metallic door, and I peered into it, expecting to see more of the same.
Someone was looking back at us from the other side.
SIX
“Get out of the way,” Slate said, shoving me to the side and raising his gun.
“Hold on. It didn’t look armed.” Whatever it was, it looked as startled as I’d been to see someone there.
Slate waited a moment, his back against the wall beside the door lever. He held his finger in front of his oxygen mask, telling me to stay quiet. We heard nothing. After staying like that for a long minute, Slate snuck over to the glass and looked through it.
“They’re still there. Sitting on the ground, arms in the air. What the hell is that?” he asked, and I moved beside him, looking in. The alien was stout, a dark uniform adorned its body, and it looked like it had multiple limbs. Two were in the air, another two fidgeting nervously in front of it. It was dark in the hall, but when I shone my light through, large eyes looked back, reminding me of a baby seal. Underneath the eyes, a protuberance emerged, not unlike an anteater’s snout, but only about five inches long. The whole effect was non-threatening, but things in nature often appeared that way to lull their prey. I wasn’t going to be fooled.
“What do you think?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Maybe it can help us get back home.” He said the word home, and for a second, I thought of my house in upstate New York. That wasn’t my home anymore. We didn’t have one.
I agreed, and we decided to open the door, but cautiously, and with rifles pointed at the defenseless-looking creature.
The door popped, then hissed as Slate slid it, and I kept my rifle pointed at the alien, who scrambled back, all four of its arms now raised and waving around. It let out a series of squeaks and squawks in the process.
“Hello,” I said, lowering my rifle. Slate kept his pointed in the alien’s direction, but I took the lead. “I’m Dean, and this is Slate. We’re lost and need help getting out of here.”
It clearly didn’t understand me and kept chittering away, the noises a mix of bird and dolphin. “We don’t know what you’re saying.” I pointed down the hall from where we came, hoping it would know we’d emerged from the room with the solitary gemstone and hieroglyphics. I drew one of the symbols in the air with my right index finger and repeated it a few times before the alien seemed to acknowledge it comprehended.
“You coom from fer away.” It spoke in squeaks, and a speaker on its suit repeated in near-English. Once again, I was amazed by the universe’s ability to translate language. The more I spoke, the sooner we could speak fluently together.
“We do come from far away. Very good. As I said, I’m Dean,” I paused, putting a hand on my chest, “and this big man with a gun is Slate. We mean you no harm.” Slate lowered the gun beside me and tried to smile, but it looked forced and a little scarier than the gun. I glowered at him and he stopped, giving me a real smirk.
A few more squawks: “I am Suma. I mean you no harm.”
“That’s good. I was getting worried,” Slate said, noticeably relaxed in front of the short alien.
“Stay on guard. We don’t know anything about Suma here.” I whispered the words, but the alien got onto its wide feet, and I saw it was even shorter than I’d initially thought, no more than four feet tall.
“I stuck here. Want father.”
I clued in. This was a child. “How did you get here, Suma?”
It pointed the way we’d come. “Same way you did. Through the Shandra. The Stones.”
My blood turned cold at hearing the name. Shandra. It was as if part of me understood the word: an ominous portent of things to come.
“Slate. That name. The puppeteer guiding me through the caves. I think my Kraski blood led me there, and now I feel as though I know the name. Shandra.”
Suma’s eyes went wide when I said Kraski. “You not Kraski,” it said matter-of-factly.
“No, I’m not. But have some of their blood pumping through my veins.” Suma took a step back at that, like I was some sort of freak, hell-bent on stealing alien blood. “It’s a long story, and it was given to me freely to save my life. If we can travel through the Stones, let’s go. You can show us how it works.”
It squeaked a couple times, the translator not picking up what Suma said. “I cannot show you.”
“Why?” Slate asked, his jaw muscles flexing.
“Because we are stuck here.”
The thought of being stranded on this alien world turned my blood to ice. I needed to get back, to help my sister, but that outcome was probably already decided. I could only hope it ended with Mary and Magnus leading those people out of the cave, and back to their homes.
“How did you get here?” I asked Suma, who looked like an admonished child as it spoke.
“My father is the Gatekeeper on my world. I was playing with my brother, and I hid inside the Shandra. I somehow turned it on, and I came here by accident,” Suma said, and I was ninety percent sure Suma was a female of her species. I couldn’t bring myself to ask, in case I was wrong, or in case they didn’t have different sexes.
“Why won’t this one work?” Slate asked.
“The stone needs to be charged, and this one is too weak.” The translator was working almost perfectly.
“That means we need to find the juice to light this building up,” I said. “Do you know where we are? Are we still in Proxima?”
Suma looked at me, head cocked to the side, like she was trying to comprehend the name I’d just said. “I think this is one of the outer cities: a civilization that vanished thousands of years ago. My people haven’t studied all of the planets thoroughly yet, but I believe this is one of those abandoned.”
Thousands of years. I looked around at the hall we were in. To think a race of aliens walked them centuries upon centuries ago was mind-boggling. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to them. “You’re saying the stone can transport us to any number of planets, and they all have a similar room where you appear and can travel from?”
“Yes. Some are buried deep on worlds that have no idea the Stone exists. Others have been destroyed over the millennia. My world is one of those in charge of keeping them active where possible.” The squeaks and squawks became softer. “I’m going to be in so much trouble.”
“Do the different drawings on the table represent different worlds?” I asked, excitement at the possibilities causing my hand to start shaking.
“Yes.”
I glanced over at Slate, whose gun hand was at ease. He leaned against the hallway, deep in thought.
“How do we power up the stone?” I asked.
“I don’t know. There has to be a backup system somewhere, because my people have been here and returned before. I’m not permitted to see the logs yet.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because… I’m still a child in their eyes.” She looked down, her snout wiggling in discomfort.
“Suma, we’ll find the power and get you home safe. Right, Slate?” I asked.
“Right, boss,” he said, giving me a determined look.
“How long have you been here?” I asked the smaller alien.
“Two cycles of Saaranla.”
“Is that long?” Slate asked.
“I’ve had to sleep once.”
I slung the pack from my back, getting a bottle of water out. I opened it and passed it over. She looked at me dubiously, big black eyes glistening in the dim light. “It’s water. Take it. We have more.” I did have more, but only enough for a couple days, tops. When she found a way to stick her snout into the bottle top and slurp some liquid up, I passed her an energy bar, which she told me tasted like Laaran. I took that to mean something bad, judging by her reaction, but she ate most of it before tucking the last few bites into a pocket.
The Survivors Box Set Page 48