Hectal pointed to footsteps in the direction we were heading. “He was here.”
“What’s the heir to Motrill doing alone on this island in the middle of a cyclone?” I asked, knowing no one had the answer.
“You’ll have to ask him when we find him,” Kimtra said, smiling at me in the bright flashlight beam.
I could still hear the storm blustering above us, but it all stopped in a heartbeat as we crossed the room.
“Did you notice that?” I asked the group.
Kimtra stopped in her tracks, raised a finger to her mouth, and stepped backwards. “I hear the storm now. Do you?”
I shook my head and joined her, two yards behind the others. The sound of wind thrashing trees about echoed to my location. We stepped forward, and nothing. It was like we’d passed through an invisible sound barrier.
“I’ve never heard of this specifically, but there is something that could do this. A portal field.” Kimtra walked away and headed for the wall. I followed her, and so did the others.
Kimtra ran her hand along the wall, and I noticed the variation along the dirt. The right edge was darker than the left. When I stepped to the left, I could hear the storm again. “I think we passed through a barrier. A portal to somewhere else,” she said.
“A portal?” I asked, confused. We used portal stones, which took you somewhere, but this was unlike anything we’d ever seen.
“Embedded in this room, there’s a device that stretches across the walls, making us think we’re still underground in the same cavern. But clearly the wall is different, and the storm is gone. Theoretically, of course.” Kimtra ran to the other side of the wall and found the same thing.
“Couldn’t it just be a sound blocker?” Slate asked.
“I don’t think so. Those are common enough, but they don’t change the pattern of a dirt wall like this,” Kimtra answered.
“Are you saying we’re not underground on the island any longer?” I asked nervously.
“We might still be on the island, but I don’t think so,” Kimtra said.
“To what end?” I asked.
“That… I don’t know. Let’s continue and see what we find. Polvertan went this way, so do we.” Kimtra started to walk, and we went after her. The cave still seemed dank, but now that I knew there was a difference, I could swear the smell was off, the moss a different shade. It was eerie to think we’d traveled somewhere else. If technology like this existed, then what need did the portal stones serve any longer? We could free the last of the Theos locked away inside and let them rest for eternity.
The end of the room was a dead end. “Now what?” Rulo asked as she lowered her minigun. “No doors.”
“Oldest trick in the book,” Slate said. “Make a fake room no one will notice. Hide a doorway so anyone who comes here turns around and leaves.”
“Unless the storm was going on, we would never have noticed the sound difference.” I got close to the walls, looking for a secret doorway. “Come on, there has to be an opening here.”
We spread out along the walls and searched high and low before ending back together, exhausted.
“So much for the oldest trick in the book.” Hectal shot an angry glare at Slate, who ignored the jab and took a drink from his water bottle. I joined him.
“What other purpose would this serve?” Rulo asked.
That was when I saw it. Standing up, the light didn’t cut through, but sitting on the ground, resting my weary legs, a sliver of light hit my eyes. “Over here!” I yelled, rushing over to the dirt wall. Even up close, I lost the line but quickly found it again. “It has to be what we’re looking for,” I said, running my fingers along the rough edge of the crack.
“We don’t have time for this.” Rulo motioned for us to step back, and she grabbed a pulse rifle from Hectal’s pack. When we were clear, she fired three quick shots below the hole. When the dust settled, we had our doorway.
“Guess that was faster,” Slate said. “That’s what I usually do.”
When Rulo stared blankly at him, he added, “Dean, tell her that’s what I always do.”
I walked by him and patted his arm, before taking the lead through the pulse-made opening. It passed into a hall, but not a dirt one. The walls were some type of resin-based substance, designed with slight detail and color. They were light gray with red border lines painted on. Computer screens sat inside them every few yards, an indecipherable language written under each, labeling them.
“What have we found?” Hectal asked as we all stood there, looking around at our surroundings. The lights were off, and his voice echoed down the corridor.
“I think this is a ship,” I said as I took in the surroundings.
“A ship? I think you’re right,” Kimtra said, taking the lead.
She was a few yards in front of me when I saw a red glow emanate from the floor ahead of her. She was looking back at me, and my body sensed the danger before my mind did. I ran to her. “Stop!”
She kept moving, but I reached her just in time to grab her, pulling her back, covering her with my body as a grid of red beams shot up from the floor to the ceiling. It was a booby trap, clearly meant to prevent unsuspecting visitors from getting any further.
“How did you know?” Kimtra asked as I rolled off her. Hectal, Rulo, and Slate all stood with guns at ready, looking for an unseen enemy.
“I didn’t. I saw a red light and assumed it wasn’t there to greet us.” I stood up, helping Kimtra to her feet before going up to the red grid of light blocking our way in the corridor. It covered the entire space from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.
Kimtra was already attempting to get into the closest computer. “I’ll see if I can deactivate it.”
“If there was one trap, we can expect more,” Rulo said as we watched Kimtra activate the screen. She tapped away at it, somehow accessing a program in the unknown language.
“Do you recognize the language?” I asked her.
Kimtra shook her head. “No, but the mathematical base of it is enough for me to find the back door.” She kept typing away, and within minutes, dim lights glowed in the halls. Another five breaths, and the red grid of death dissipated into nothing.
“Suma’s going to want to meet with you later,” I said, knowing how much the Shimmali girl would like to learn from Kimtra.
“Consider it done.” Kimtra picked up her pack, and we moved down the hall, Hectal taking the lead now. We moved much more slowly, looking for signs of other traps, but didn’t encounter any. We were indeed on a ship, or something like one, but none of the small empty rooms we entered along the way had windows or viewscreens.
“We could be on a different planet,” Slate said, touching the wall.
I thought about the Bhlat outpost’s similarity to this, so he was right, but my gut was telling me otherwise.
The corridor ended, and a larger doorway sat closed. “Step out of the way,” Rulo said, raising the pulse rifle again. I stepped around her and smiled.
“You never know,” I said and tapped a button on the side of the door. It slid open with ease, and a lift rose to greet us.
“Show-off,” Rulo said, but she smiled back, her sharp teeth seeming a little less threatening than usual.
We piled inside the elevator hesitantly, and there was just enough space for all of us to stand with our supplies.
Kimtra messed with the console and found what she was looking for. “There appear to be six stories, but which one do we check first?”
“Can you see where the lift just came from?” I asked, wondering if it could be that simple.
“Great idea. It shows the lowest level. We’re on the highest now,” Kimtra said.
Rulo said it again under her breath. “Still a show-off.”
The door slid closed, and we proceeded downwards. In seconds, the door opened, and we were no longer in a corridor. It was a large room, crates upon crates piled high to the twenty-foot-tall ceilings. Some were locked metal boxes, others wo
oden, yet others made from unfamiliar materials, all in different shapes and sizes.
“What is this?” Hectal asked, stepping into the room with us all spreading apart, looking for signs of danger.
Something fell from the far corner and slowly rolled toward us. A being followed it, looking down to the ground as it walked. It muttered something I couldn’t make out and stopped when it picked up the object. It looked up, meeting our gazes. Rulo and Hectal had guns up, ready to fire if necessary.
The man had dark gray armored skin, was bald, and had the same snake eyes as the Keppe.
“It looks like we’ve found Polvertan,” I said quietly.
The Motrill raised his arms in the air and gave us a rebuked grin. “Don’t shoot?”
FOURTEEN
“We’re here to bring you home immediately,” Rulo said, walking toward our target. He stumbled backwards, gripping the object that had rolled toward us.
“You can’t do that,” he said, this time with authority. It was as if he’d suddenly remembered his rank and power.
“And why is that?” I asked, my foreign words translated so he could understand them.
“Who or what are you?” he asked, squinting in the dimly-lit room.
“My name’s Dean Parker, and this is Zeke Campbell,” I said, motioning to my friend.
“Slate, call me Slate,” he said, rolling his eyes at me.
“Polvertan, we are ordered by your father to bring you home safely. What are you doing here?” Kimtra asked, her voice softer than Rulo’s had been.
“Call me Pol, please. Only people that hate me call me Polvertan, which would include my parents,” the Motrill prince said. He wasn’t as thick as the Keppe, but you could tell they were cut from the same cloth. Yope had said they could reproduce together, and their story of sharing a new colony added up now that I saw the two races side-by-side. It made me wonder if New Spero should expand to a second colony, somewhere like Haven, to live among other races. A handful of humans already lived there, but not on a permanent basis.
“You didn’t answer her question. What are you doing here?” I asked, asserting myself.
He looked at me and hesitated. “Dean, is it?” I nodded, and he continued. “I can’t tell you. How did you possibly find me? I did everything to keep my location hidden.”
I pointed at Kimtra. “She’s the brains. Tracked your engine residue all the way to the water and knew there was only one way to go, which was down. It was easier than I expected,” I said, making it seem like we did this every day, all day long. “Also, you left a location tracker outside the crevasse above.”
Pol’s straight back loosened then, and he slouched forward, his hand going to his face. “I found it. I seriously found it, and now you’re here.” He sat down on a crate, and I walked over to him, sitting on a nearby wooden box.
“What did you find? Where are we?” I asked, genuinely curious. Part of me was in a rush to grab him and drag him out of here, but we seemed safer here while a hurricane was going on outside on the island.
“We’re a hundred thousand light years from home, that’s where we are,” he said, and Kimtra took a quick sharp breath.
She hustled over and knelt beside the Motrill man. “What do you mean?”
“Have you ever heard of Fontem before?” He asked the simple question, and I shook my head. The others did as well, except Kimtra.
“Sure, but only in passing references. Wasn’t he some famed collector from a few thousand years ago? Terellion, if I’m not mistaken,” she said.
“I’m impressed. Not many have heard the tales of Fontem. He wasn’t just a collector, he was the collector. He had artifacts from every single race to ever exist,” Pol said, his hands and eyes animated as he spoke.
“Even the Theos?” I asked casually.
“Even the Theos. I found a crystal in his catalog said to be from their homeworld.” Pol stopped talking, probably wondering if he’d said too much.
“Where? Here?” Kimtra asked, getting to her feet.
The crates around us started to make more sense. “Are you saying this is his collection?” I asked, looking around.
Pol smiled lightly and adjusted some metal bands on his forearms. “It is.”
“How did you find it?” Kimtra asked. The need to know burned through her question.
“I’ve spent over a decade trying to track it down. And I did, and now you’re here to take me away, back to the life I don’t want. Do you have any idea how hard it is to be someone you’re not? To step into someone else’s shoes and deal with things you have no desire to deal with?” Pol’s eyes were large and glossy as he asked the question of the room.
I answered. “I do. I know exactly how that feels. And you do it because you have to. Because they need you to.”
“I suppose you’re right. Is there any way you can let me go through the rest of the catalog before we leave? I have to find it,” he said, but I didn’t believe his words. He’d given in far too easily.
“Find what?” I asked.
He wouldn’t answer me. “Something I need.”
I didn’t like the sound of this. Was it a weapon he was searching for?
Rulo smiled faintly, and a shiver shot down my spine. “I suppose we have some time,” she said, running a hand along a stack of metal crates.
____________
I stood at the end of the room, looking out the now-activated viewscreen at a vision that was far away from home indeed. We were in a ship, a cloaked one, hidden from any sensors or eyes, according to Pol.
“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Slate asked me quietly.
“No. No, I haven’t,” I said, in awe of the colorful glow among the distant stars. A planet was close, only twenty thousand kilometers away, with three moons around it. Oranges and pinks danced on the edges of the moons, and I had no idea what kind of anomaly we were seeing. Kimtra wasn’t even sure.
I left the viewscreen, feeling sick to my stomach that I was so far away from my family. Mary and Jules were in orbit around the small world where an island was under threat from a storm, and we were one hundred thousand light years away, on a two-thousand-year-old ship.
Kimtra was working closely with Pol, searching through the records.
“Did he expect someone to come looking for it?” I asked, knowing nothing about this Fontem the Terellion.
Pol shrugged. “I’m not sure. The clues weren’t easy to find. The last clue came from the library on Bazarn Five.”
“I’ve been there,” Slate said casually, and Pol’s eyes widened. “Dean didn’t make it. He went to see the real library while we were there.”
Pol stood. “The real library? What are you speaking of?”
“The real secrets are held under better security. Obviously, you didn’t need it.”
“I may, because the manifest is under a code of some sort. Why would he go to all this work to hide the artifacts, then not allow access to someone smart enough to find them?” Pol asked.
“Maybe he figured someone with enough resources to find his secret cache would have done so with credits and not honor. He was protecting the universe from whatever’s in here,” I suggested. “What have you found?”
Pol sat back down, deflated. “Fontem has a lot of cool things. I found the portal web, like the one used when you enter the cave.” He pointed to a section of shelving he’d set items on in a specific order. I walked over to it, seeing the small devices clipped together.
“How does it work?” I asked.
“One side is placed at the destination. It sends out an invisible beam until it touches any surface. The entire wall becomes a live portal once the other side is activated in the same manner,” Pol said. “Trick is, you have to manually add them to each spot,” he said dismissively. He wasn’t worried about something like that; he had bigger fish to fry.
“What else?” I asked, sensing value here. I swore I was done when I got home. Done with saving the world, done with endles
sly traversing through the universe by portals and vessels. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t going to happen. The Kraskis’ return was too much to ignore. They knew I was alive, and they had the backing of one of the most powerful men out there, Lom of Pleva. I wasn’t going to get the early retirement I wanted.
Whatever happened, I’d keep Mary and Jules safe. If there was anything in this room that would help ensure that, I was taking it with me.
“Voice changer. Simple technology that’s been used for years, but this one is a translator too. I’ve seen them as two plug-ins before, but not in one,” Pol said. “Worked with my existing system.”
“Where’s that one?” I asked.
“Second shelf. Small black box.”
I grabbed it, opening the container to see a button. “How does it work?”
Kimtra came over, and in moments, she had it functioning. “It will work in your EVA.”
“Mind if I…?” I asked.
“Go for it,” Pol said dismissively.
I slipped it into my pocket. “What else?”
____________
“It’s time to go,” Rulo said. Almost every crate had been opened. Some were marked with dangerous symbols, and Rulo had the most interest in those. She and Hectal piled those to the side. They seemed to have no interest in anything that wasn’t directly related to weapons.
I did. I took various tools, things that could give me an edge, instead of weapons that could accidentally blow me up.
Pol glowered in anger, frustrated he hadn’t found what he’d come for. “It has to be here. I know it is. He hid it among this junk. But where?”
It had been a full day, and I was getting anxious to get word back to Starbound that we were okay.
“If you tell us what you’re after, maybe we can help,” I suggested for the tenth time.
“I can’t. It’s too dangerous,” he said.
“Pack it up, Polvertan. Time to bring you home.” Hectal flipped out something from his cart. It unfolded to a flat frame. When he tapped a button on the end of it, the center of it glowed green, and it hovered. It was a portable dolly. He began stacking the found weapons on it, the cart not lowering from the added weight. I’d been wondering how they were planning on transporting the crates out of here. I wasn’t about to carry them.
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