Of Myths and Legends (Emerilia Book 9)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Let me know if you need any help with the coding. I don’t have any projects currently on my hands,” Malsour said.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me.” Dave smiled at Malsour. The two of them worked well together.

  “Sensors have picked up a shuttle departing from the Sprite,” Gelimah said.

  “Well, let’s go say hi.” Dave smiled. They disappeared from where they had been walking, Dave once again using his teleportation abilities.

  ***

  Captain Xue sat in the shuttle’s main bay. Ten people were within the bay, eight of them crew members who had advanced weapons training. All of them were armored up. Their armor covered their entire bodies, leaving only a black face shield. They were all carrying standard rifles and side arms.

  Underneath the armored exteriors, there were multiple coded panels that augmented the people underneath.

  If Dave was to look at them, he would think that there were a lot of similarities with his original Abscondita armor.

  All of their weapons had faint runes on them that had been machined into them.

  Captain Xue wore armor as well but his face plate was clear, unlike the others.

  The two pilots were talking to each other and to the Sprite as they flew from the ship toward a massive asteroid. Even with scanners going at full blast, they hadn’t been able to detect anything within this monstrous rock.

  They proceeded to the marker that was set down for them.

  “All right, remember we’re here to learn and meet with these people, no overt combative actions. Only on my command or unless we come under fire are you to react. We are here as representatives of the Deq’ual systems. Make sure that your Mirrors of Communication are active at all times and report anything suspicious.” Captain Xue repeated the same instructions he had given them before boarding the shuttle.

  The repetition calmed them down.

  “Five minutes till we reach the way point,” one of the pilots reported.

  “Check your weapons and your safeties,” the chief in charge of the security detail said.

  Everyone pulled back the charging handles, chambering a round, and placed their weapons on safe, pointing them at the shuttle’s floor.

  Captain Xue connected his visor; the shuttle’s sensors allowed him to see in front of the shuttle. Just as they were about to reach the way point, a section of the asteroid depressed inward a few meters, rolling apart in sections to reveal a tunnel with running lights leading into the asteroid.

  “Captain?” the pilots asked.

  “Proceed inward.” Xue sounded calm even as inside he felt his nerves rolling about.

  The shuttle stopped decreasing its speed and instead increased, passing into the tunnel.

  The asteroid’s walls closed behind them. They were covered in runic lines that started glowing as soon as all the sections of the hatch were once again in place.

  Xue was looking at the walls that were made out of what looked like a smooth glass-like material.

  “What are the walls made of?” Xue asked.

  “The composition looks to be soul gem,” the secondary pilot said.

  We’ve been experimenting with making the inside of large areas with soul gem constructs, but even those areas are not even a hundredth of the size of this. If this asteroid is all made out from soul gem on the inside? How much power must that take? Xue knew that soul gem constructs needed a ton of power in order to keep growing and running. The coding that was placed on them was highly complex. To cover this entire asteroid was a massive achievement.

  Armored doors opened ahead of them and closed behind them as they passed through. Finally, an armored door opened and they found themselves coming out of the side of a massive open area.

  Xue’s eyes went wide as he looked around. They were inside a massive shipyard.

  There were slips for new ships along one of the walls, floor, and roof. It was clear that the shipyard was still under construction by the fact that mining drills were still cutting away sections of the wall to create more room for slips on the floor and roof, as well as carve out more slips on the wall. To either side of the shuttle, the asteroid stretched outward, excavators and mining drills at work to expand the interior of the shipyard.

  “We have been given a way point to a landing position,” the secondary pilot said.

  “Take us in slowly,” Xue said, still looking around the massive shipyard. It was already three times the size of the third shipyard in the Deq’ual system. He looked at the slips where superstructures were being formed even as soul gem constructs were growing over them. He looked at three destroyers that looked almost completed from the outside as well as the massive battleship that calmly looked over all, its hull complete. But shuttles and various automatons crawled all over it, entering and exiting through hangars and access points to work on the interior. Another battleship was being created behind it.

  The rest of the slips were filled with the same miners that sensors had picked up on the asteroid, as well as the massive excavators that could hollow out asteroids.

  How are they thinking of getting these massive ships out? How did they do it before with the battleship? Xue looked at the battleship and then the rest of the base. There was only one access point in and out of the asteroid base right now and Xue had entered through it. Shuttles now moved past them, leaving the asteroid to go and pick up cargoes from the various miners and excavators around the asteroid belt.

  So the question remained, how did the battleship leave?

  Xue’s eyes fell on a slip that was growing something completely made from soul gem constructs. He was linked back to the Deq’ual system and was able to talk to them. He opened up a channel to them through his Mirror of Communication. “Does anyone know what this is?”

  “It—it looks like a portal.”

  Xue was shocked as Edwards’s voice passed into his ear. He never thought that Edwards would be there.

  “Isn’t it a bit large?” Sato asked.

  “It isn’t if you mean to put ships through it!” Edwards said excitedly.

  “Still, it isn’t operational and I don’t see any way that the battleship would have been able to get out of this shipyard,” Xue said.

  “Well, they must have a way to jump in-system then,” Edwards said simply.

  Even with the things that Xue had seen, he wasn’t able to stop his eyes from going wide at the revelation. To have the ability to teleport in-system was something that had only been theorized. One would need extremely powerful sensors as well as a jump drive that was calibrated to the highest degree so that there was no chance of it being off course.

  “Seems that Dave has been busy,” Sato said. Xue could hear the amusement in Sato’s voice.

  “It looks like he’s come to understand the Jukal portals to the point of knowing how to build them himself. He’s probably the only person outside of the Jukal Empire,” Edwards said.

  “Those ships are heavier than ours and look at the rate at which they’re being completed. With those soul gem constructs, the power usage must be astronomical—however, they’re completing one as fast as it would take us to build a stealth craft,” Adams added.

  Xue was silent, taking this all in as the shuttle made its way across the shipyard.

  Here and there, the sensors on the craft picked up people who were working on different items. Most of them wore magically coded clothes and shoes but they didn’t wear atmospheric suits at all.

  “Are these readings right on the atmosphere outside?” Xue asked.

  “Yes sir—little atmosphere, low gravity,” the secondary pilot reported.

  “And they’re out there working in pants and shirts,” Adams said, sounding shocked.

  “Seems that Dave is well ahead of us,” Edwards said.

  Xue looked at the different people around: dwarves, elves, Beast Kin, demons, orcs, gnomes, and all manner of races that he had only read about in fantasy books. It was all a bit too surreal.

 
The shuttle slowly came in to land. There was no one to greet them as the shuttle passed through the hangar bay doors, into an area filled with containers and shuttles. There were automated carts collecting storage crates from the massive containers and whisking them off across the asteroid base.

  One second, there was no one near the shuttle; the next, there was a party of six standing at the rear of the shuttle.

  “Individual jumping? How is that even possible?” Edwards said incredulously.

  “Ready to lower ramp,” the primary pilot said.

  “Everyone ready!” the chief reported.

  “Lower ramp,” Captain Xue said.

  The ramp at the rear of the shuttle came down, revealing the soul gem-covered hangar and the six people waiting for them. Four were humans; one was a dwarf and the other looked to be a taller dwarf.

  Xue recognized Malsour and Dave. Dave wore casual pants and a t-shirt; Malsour wore a black cloak and leather vest with comfortable black pants.

  The other humans also wore cloaks with various colored interiors.

  The dwarf studied everyone as they filed out of the shuttle, crossing her arms as she watched. She wore a tool belt and her beefy body filled out her smithing clothes that were burnt and stained in places.

  They were talking among one another but Xue couldn’t hear anything.

  The protection detail looked around, alert but not overtly hostile.

  Xue left the ship, passing the security detail, and moved toward the group of six.

  Dave moved forward, saying something, before he frowned. He continued forward more.

  Xue’s armor’s sensors registered that he had passed through a barrier of some kind that had breathable atmosphere and was comfortably warm inside.

  “Sorry about that. Forgot you didn’t have the party chat feature and weren’t in the same atmosphere as me. My name’s Dave. You must be Captain Xue. You got Sato and Edwards listening in?” Dave held out his hand.

  Xue took the hand and shook it. “Thank you for having us. That’s correct and they are listening in,” Xue said with a nervous smile, his actions wooden. He was still in a bit of shock. This was the first time anyone in the Deq’ual system had ever shook someone’s hand who didn’t come from the same system.

  “All right, well, have we got the tour for you!” Dave smiled, letting go of Xue’s hand. “What do you think of our asteroid base?”

  “It’s rather impressive,” Xue said.

  “Pretty cool. Though we’re in the midst of expanding so should be a lot more going on in the near future.” Dave smiled and then looked back to the group that had come closer. “Malsour, what’s the plan for the tour?”

  “Well, they’ve seen the asteroid base, so on to Ice City, have a look around at various ongoing projects—some food and talking. I was thinking the moonbase but their Mirrors of Communication won’t reach that far in signal,” Malsour said.

  “Shame—that’d be pretty cool. Oh well, on to Ice City?” Dave looked to Xue.

  “Please, lead on,” Xue said. Whatever he had been expecting, it had not been that Dave would treat this like just showing people around his house. He was so relaxed and laid-back that Xue was a bit in shock at it.

  Dave did so. His group held off to the side as Xue’s security detail did the same on the other side, looking around for threats and also keeping a close eye on the people who had come to greet them.

  “Okay, so here we’re building some large projects—warships, portals and the like. We hope to use these in order to attain Emerilia’s freedom. To supply this, we’ve got many miners and excavators working in the surrounding asteroid, as you saw. All of those raw materials pass through here, and currently go to a refinery in Ice City, located on the ice planet that you lot found out about from the spectral analysis I asked for,” Dave said.

  “Once materials are refined, they’re sent to factories in one of the bases to be turned into useful components that are shipped out to various bases in order to fulfill their needs. We’re using a network of portals to move materials and people from the different bases. Makes it a lot easier to move items and faster. However, it’s a massive power draw,” Dave explained as they walked.

  Captain Xue naturally knew about the portals; they were one of the biggest reasons that humanity had been pushed back and then destroyed. They were seen as the backbone of the Jukal Empire. They allowed fleets to pass over vast areas in an instant, allowing the Jukal Empire to continuously bring fresh forces up and send back their wounded ships and people to bring them up to fighting condition.

  This was how humanity had been destroyed: the Jukal, with their unending waves of reinforced and re-armed fleets and forces.

  Dave was talking about them as if they were as simple as a wooden doorway.

  Xue pushed down his immediate reactions, thinking on the portals that he had seen being built in the shipyard. If they were to be completed, then they, too, would allow the forces under Dave’s command, to move between systems.

  “I see that other than the weapons on the ships that you don’t have any personal items,” Xue asked, perplexed. His people were all wearing armor while Dave and the others were just in simple clothes.

  “Not everything is as it appears,” Dave said. In a moment, he was wearing armor and twin batons; the next, they had changed back into his normal appearance.

  “Also, those guns don’t mean much of a threat to us. With their highest power setting, it would take hundreds of rounds to penetrate any one of our barriers here. Also, the runing on the powered armor—while it is good and allows you to move freely—your power sources and the power retention in them isn’t good enough,” Dave said. “I have the ability to look through nearly anything that isn’t stealth runed—which, by the way, good work with the stealth ships there. They’re not bad. We’ve been constantly working on upgrading our ability to sense stealth ships as well as increase our own stealth. Tell Edwards to start working on improving—I’m not going to give him the answers every time,” Dave said in an admonishing tone.

  “Well, I would if it wasn’t for that damn board jumping all over my ass saying that I’m going to blow up the shipyard,” Edwards, who was still connected to Xue’s headset via the Mirror of Communication, mumbled.

  Xue felt awkward, being in the middle of the conversation between these groups.

  “Malsour, am I forgetting anything?” Dave asked.

  Malsour had been watching all of them, studying their actions and their gear. He seemed like a reserved man, but in his eyes; he looked like a wise old man, even with the appearance of being in his late twenties.

  “Most of the people you will see here are not military experts. They haven’t been in battles. Most of the people here are actually researchers and those we have taken on in order to lighten the load of the work we have been placed under. So please don’t react with hostility. There are a number of children about as well in Ice City. Everyone has been informed that you are coming, so there might be a number of people staring and talking to one another,” Malsour said as they stepped out of the hangar and into a main corridor.

  They were now deep in the asteroid’s side. Runic lines ran through the walls. A strip of them created light; the others connected to the various ships.

  They passed a corridor where people were walking up and down, some of them on carts. There were various workshops and different rooms, all with runic lines going into them.

  “Ask what those lines are,” Edwards said.

  “What are the lines on the walls and floor?” Xue asked.

  “They’re called runic lines. The magical coding for this place, if it was to be all laid out, would need something like fifteen times the size in order to just fit them all. The AIs compressed down the magical code, thought it didn’t work when carving it out. We found that with the soul gem constructs, it is possible to create runic lines. They can carry information, power and even be turned into light sources,” the dwarf said.

  “That�
��s Sola,” Dave said.

  She grunted to them all.

  “I never thought of magical coding being compressed down to such a state. If that’s possible, then I could tear out those old cannons and replace them with the modified cannons we’ve been working on!” Edwards said in a rush.

  “Edwards, we’re here to watch what’s going on. Make a note of it and stop dancing around.” Sato sighed.

  Xue kept silent as he listened to the byplay.

  “That’s impressive,” Xue said.

  “Well, it certainly makes things easier,” Malsour said.

  People looked up from their work and stared at the party. All of them wore magically coded clothes but didn’t seem affected by the fact that there was no atmosphere within the asteroid base.

  “What’s this?” Xue asked as they walked toward a hardened-looking building that stuck out of the asteroid. There were rune-covered machines patrolling the area.

  “This is a portal location. We have automatons on staff so that they can deal with any threat that comes through these portals. If one of the portal locations is found out, we can shut down the network and make sure no one else comes through,” Malsour said, his voice somber.

  “We didn’t have the manpower to hire not only people to help with the projects but also those who could help with defense. We don’t have much room here and the more people who are helping out here, the more who disappear from Emerilia. Too many people and then the Jukal and the AI might start paying attention and then bring everything right down on top of our heads,” Dave said.

  Malsour sighed and shook his head.