They soon came out of the massive clouds of objects and flew straight into a mass of rocks and asteroids of various sizes and diameters.
Kristen was amazed at the sight she beheld. There must have been tens of thousands of them, all revolving around at different speeds. To her, they appeared to be like numerous sports cars competing for space on a wide and very busy racetrack. Some were moving faster than others. Some seemed to not be moving but remained stationary, content with simply rotating on their own axis or not rotating at all. From the distance they were located, some of the bodies looked as small as beads and marbles, while others were as big as ping pong balls. In comparison, there were those that looked as large as tennis balls, basketballs, and a few like beach balls.
But that was for the bodies that had circular shapes. There were those which were simply flat, like flat bricks. Others were more rugged, with jagged and very rough edges. Some looked as if they had been crossed between a spherical ball and a flat brick plane.
Others had what appeared to be a massive chunk of mass ripped out of their former spherical whole. It was to one of the latter-shaped bodies that the wasp ship was heading for. And because they were on autopilot, the Atlantis had to follow suit. From the image Kristen was watching in front of them, it appeared as though both ships were flying towards a ball of clay. The ball was blue in colour but with yellow stripes which appeared to have been painted on it with a thin brush. This ended up giving the planet thin stripes of yellow on its blue surface. What would have been a perfect image of beauty and almost similar to planet Earth was ruined, by a deep gash that was very visible. It looked as if someone or something had torn out or dug out a huge chunk of the planet, leaving a gaping hole that revealed the insides of the planet, a space that was formerly occupied by almost a quarter of the planet. What could be seen in this dented gully was just brown, grey, and black jagged surfaces.
After avoiding some mountainous regions, the wasp ship eventually landed on a flat surface. The Atlantis equally settled down close to it.
Kristen got up from her seat. But before she could proceed to the door, an announcement came over the radio.
“Captain,” the colonel’s voice said, “You and your crew members are to remain behind while I and my contact go on the assignment. None of you are supposed to disembark.”
“I understand,” Kristen replied, and sat back on her seat.
“What is wrong with these people?” Lynda asked. “It’s their show,” Kristen replied. “Frankly, I think I am relieved not to be going down there. Who knows what is on this planet. Or even what they might encounter.”
***
Only Estramos and the colonel disembarked from the wasp ship. They were both carrying laser rifles. “Why did you not invite your friend on this excursion?” Estramos asked. They were walking through a bushy path that was littered with rocks and gravel.
“I want us to be focused on the mission at hand,” the colonel replied. “The human will only be a source of distraction for us.”
“I am never distracted, Colonel. I keep on telling you this but you just don’t want to believe me.” “I believe you, Estramos. I am only taking precautions,” Colonel Havlun said. “Precautions and more precautions. Too much of caution is not good for a soldier,” Estramos remarked. “It can make you paranoid. And paranoia is not a good trait for fighting on the battlefront. I know because I have experienced it firsthand.”
“Please stop all the preaching, Estramos. I already told you the humans are yours already. You don’t have anything to worry yourself about. Let’s just finish the job and then you will get what is yours. That’s all.”
“Okay. No problem. What is your plan for the supplier?”
“I was figuring you might give me some suggestions,” the colonel replied.
“Me? Give you suggestions? I thought you already knew what you wanted.”
“Sure. Of course I do. It is just to get the Seeds and then we will be off.”
“That’s it? You will just take the Seeds and then you leave? How will you settle them?”
“I have still not decided,” the colonel replied. Estramos stopped in the pathway. “Wait a minute. What do you mean by you have not yet decided?” “That is just it, Estramos. I am still figuring out how to handle the situation. Once we get there I will decide on the best approach to adopt.”
“Are you not making any payment? You know it’s not as if you can get them on credit or some sort of deferred payment.”
“I understand, Estramos. I will think of something when we get there. Let us first meet with the suppliers and then I can know how much quantity they have available and how best they can be settled.”
“Okay. But just don’t try to be wise or funny with them. These guys are dangerous. They make the word crazy look like child’s play.”
“No problem, Estramos. Let us just get there first.” They soon came out to what appeared to be a dusty and untarred road. “Are we going to go across or not?” the colonel asked when she saw Estramos stop at the edge of the road.
“No. We are going to wait for a means of transportation to convey us deeper into the city,” Estramos replied.
After waiting for a while, a small vehicle pulled over by their side. It was shaped like a pear and had three tires, one in front and two at the back. The doors opened and when the colonel stepped into it, she discovered there was no driver inside.
She paused briefly, looking at Estramos. He had already gotten in and strapped on his seat belt. “What are you waiting for, Colonel? Are you not coming with me? It is driverless, controlled by AI—artificial intelligence. This is the Gaius Nebula. Everything is way more advanced than you can imagine,” he said.
The colonel got into the vehicle and put on her seat belt.
“What is your destination?” the on-board autonavigation system asked.
“Pharnaxiv Avenue,” Estramos replied.
The vehicle turned and drove up the hill in the opposite direction. When they got to Pharnaxiv Avenue, the vehicle dropped them off at a street. It had a lot of oldlooking buildings with dilapidated windows; old walls painted in paint that had already faded. Very few vehicles were seen passing by, with equally few pedestrians walking by. The entire area was dark, and barely could one see what was ahead of them. The few streetlights there were either weren’t working or their bulbs were dim showing very faint light.
The colonel was not comfortable with their environment. On instinct, her hand fell to the belt on her waist. She quietly unclipped the holster which carried her pistol.
“Estramos, where did you bring us?” she asked as they walked through the street. “I thought you said this nebula is advanced. Why do I see squalor all around us?”
“Relax, Colonel,” Estramos replied. “Remember what I told you about paranoia? Well, this is no battlefield. It is just where a lot of bad guys hang out. But they will not harm you as long as you just mind your business.”
“That seems easy for you to say,” the colonel replied. Her hand was still on the holster. She could see aliens from different races moving around, talking and whispering in soft and low tones. They were different heights and sizes, with different features as well. However, because of the lack of sufficient illumination, it was difficult to see anyone properly.
He turned down the street and walked up to a door on which was a sign written THE MONASTERY. He knocked twice on the door. Someone peered through a peephole and a thick voice asked: “Who is it?”
“It’s me. Estramos.” There was a pause before the door slid open into the wall. It revealed a passage but there was no one in the doorway.
Estramos pointed at the doorway. “Ladies first, Colonel,” he said.
“I am not a lady, Estramos. I am a soldier, a warrior. Enough of all this flirtation and let us go in.” “As you wish, Colonel. But you’d better watch that paranoia. I keep on telling you this is no battlefield,” Estramos stated and walked in through the door. The colonel followed him.
They must have been walking for about half an hour before they came into a dimly lit hall. Inside, there was a set of seven empty chairs placed in a semi-circle formation.
Estramos took a seat and pointed to another one. “Why not make yourself comfortable?” he asked. Colonel Havlun cautiously sat down and looked around. “Estramos, is this a sort of game? Where have you brought me?”
“To where you wanted me to bring you, of course,” Estramos replied. “Well? Where are they?”
“Where are who?” Estramos asked.
“The people in charge, of course.”
“What people are you referring to?” another voice asked. The voice had sounded so abruptly that Colonel Havlun was startled. On impulse, she drew her gun and pointed in the direction where the voice had come from. There, seated on one of the seats at the end was a man wearing a blue and red robe. The robe completely covered him and his arms and legs. His eyes were glowing in a yellow colour.
The colonel was certain it had only been she and Estramos in the room when they had arrived. So where did he come from? She was wondering.
“What people are you referring to?” the man asked again. The colonel looked at Estramos, who was shaking his head as though he was disappointed. He grinned to reveal his set of sharp teeth again. “I told you, Colonel. This is not a battlefield. You need to work on your paranoia or else you are going to ruin everything. Please put away the gun.”
The colonel looked back at the man whose eyes were still glowing. Reluctantly, she replaced her gun in its holster. “I am sorry,” she apologized. She felt awkward and tried to relax in her chair.
“Apology accepted,” the man replied. “Estramos. How have you been?” “Well, you can see me. I have been busy. First I was busy with work. Then work got me into prison. And then this old friend of mine came to burst me out of prison. And now I am here.”
“You are welcome,” the man replied. “But you are not complete. Where is the third party?”
“Third party?” Estramos repeated. “There is no third party. It is just me and she that came.” The man shook his head. “No, there is a third party. I sensed her presence when you all landed on this planet. Why did you leave her behind and come alone?”
Estramos appeared confused. “Was there anyone else who was supposed to come?” The colonel shook her head vigorously. “No, it is just me. He cannot be referring to my soldiers. Or could he?”
“It is not your soldiers. One of your hostages. The leader of their mission,” the man replied. “Who? You mean Kristen?” the colonel asked. “But that is; I mean, she is, they all are my prisoners. They have nothing to do with my being here.”
“But you brought them along. And I must see them as well. Or else I see no one at all.” The colonel was infuriated. She glared at Estramos, who simply grinned. “I think it is best that you do as he says. Especially if you really want to see those Seeds.”
The colonel tried to calm herself down. “Okay. No problem. How do I go back to get her? I barely know my way around here.”
“You need not go anywhere. I will summon her to come here,” the man replied. He then shut his eyes and the illumination in the area around the chairs dimmed. When the colonel looked again, she saw that the man was no longer there. He had simply vanished.
The colonel was now worried. She looked at Estramos, who was very relaxed and not showing any signs of fear or concern.
“Estramos, where did you bring us? And who is that man?” she asked.
“Just calm down, Colonel. All in good time.” “But how did he know about my hostages?” the colonel asked. “What is there he does not know?” Estramos asked. “We could have avoided all this delay if you had heeded my initial suggestion and allowed the human to come along. But no, you kept on insisting you wanted me to be focused. Imagine. You are telling an old veteran like me to be focused.”
“I did it for your own good, Estramos. Besides, how was I to know I had to bring her?” “Anyway, maybe you are right. You would probably never have known where we were coming to or who we were coming to meet. Just try to relax, especially when he comes back, so we can get what we came for and leave in good time.”
*** At that moment, Kristen was in the Atlantis with Mahmud and Lynda. They were all checking some readings on the screen.
“I have never seen such a pattern before,” Mahmud was saying as they pored over the pictures that were being displayed. It was close-up shots of the planet which had been taken on their arrival. The deep gully in it could be seen.
“An asteroid must have knocked out that portion completely,” Lynda replied. “If that was the case, then that means that the particular chunk should still be floating somewhere within the nebula,” Kristen added.
“Will there be beings on that chunk of land? How will they be surviving?” Lynda asked.
“That is, if they even survived the impact in the first place,” Mahmud added. There was a bright light within that appeared in the middle of the bridge and a man in a blue and red robe appeared. His body was completely covered by the robe. His head was clean-shaven and when he opened his eyes, they emitted a yellow glow.
Kristen, Lynda, and Mahmud were completely startled at the sight. So were the other crew members. But before anyone could react, the man looked directly at Kristen. “Please do not be afraid. And tell your crew not to entertain any fear whatsoever,” he said.
Kristen looked around at her crew members and waved at them. “Everyone hold on. Let us not panic,” she said.
The man looked around at them and smiled. “You are all messengers on a mission from your planet Nivrus. It is a noble mission,” he said.
Kristen was sure he must have been speaking in an alien language because his looks were strange. She was glad they all had on their multilingual vocabulary chip. It was effortlessly translating all the alien said to them.
Even though he had the build and stature of a fullgrown male human being, so many attributes about him revealed he was an alien. His eyes kept on emitting a yellow glow. There were no eyeballs inside the eye sockets. Just a yellow glow that kept on pulsating and beaming at the same time. The only part of his body that was exposed was his head. The rest of his body was completely covered in the robe. However, the contours of his body could be seen underneath the robe. The contours showed that it was the shape of a man that was underneath the robe.
His head was all that was exposed. The skin on it was green with purple lines. He had a nose, a mouth, and two ears. And when he spoke, Kristen was sure she could see teeth inside his mouth, but she was not sure if they were normal teeth. All she could see was the whiteness of the teeth inside.
He had been looking around at the startled faces on board the Atlantis. After he gazed at all their faces, he let his gaze fall on Kristen.
“You are the leader of this mission,” he said. He was not asking a question. He had made the comment as a statement of fact.
Kristen nodded. “Who are you?” she asked.
“I am the one your captor has come to see. They believe they will be able to get the answer to their problems from me. But I did not want to begin my consultations with her alone when I knew you had also accompanied them on this trip to my world, even though you did not come on your own.”
“Consultations?” Kristen repeated. “Yes. I am going to consult for all of you. And I will not miss out on anyone. This is why I have come here, to take you along to where they are waiting for me.”
“I really did not want to come,” Kristen said. “You were not invited by your captor,” the man said. “But I am insisting that you come with me. So you can get to know the things you need to know.”
Kristen was hesitating. She was not sure what to make of the man’s invitation. She knew quite well she did not want to be in the presence of Colonel Havlun, especially since she had not wanted her to come along with her.
“Why not go along with him?” Mahmud urged. “You heard what he said. You can get to know what we all
need to know.”
Mahmud is right, Kristen thought. The man in their midst seemed to know a lot, if not everything, about them already. Perhaps this would be an opportunity to hear from someone like King Zeropta, who had told them a lot of truths.
“Okay. I will come with you,” Kristen agreed and she put on her helmet. She turned around and looked at her crew members. “I am sure I will soon be back with information that will be of relevance to us and this mission.”
The crew members watched as the man closed his eyes, shutting out the yellow glow that had been emitting from them. He then raised his head upwards and a bright light surrounded him and Kristen. They watched as the light increased in intensity and engulfed the two of them. And then the light disappeared, taking both of them with it.
***
Colonel Havlun was restless. And it showed in the manner in which she was behaving. For the past couple of minutes, Estramos had watched her pace around the chairs in the dimly lit hall.
“Why not calm down, Colonel,” he asked when he saw her sit by the edge of one of the seats and bring out her pistol.
“Calm down?” she repeated. “You don’t know anything about calming down. How do you expect me to be calm when my visit here is being jeopardized?”
“Jeopardized? How can you say such a thing? Were you not the one who refused to bring along the human? And my contact has insisted he will not see only the two of us unless the woman is present. What can we do?”
She pointed at him with her pistol. “This is all your fault. You brought me to some weird person who has suddenly taken a liking for my hostages for reasons I am still trying to fathom.”
“Not your hostages,” Estramos corrected. “You seem to be forgetting that they are all now mine.” “Yours indeed. When I have not yet known if I am going to get the Seeds. Just pray this visit turns out to be worthwhile, otherwise you are not going to get anything other than a taste of my wrath.”
Estramos grinned, revealing his teeth. “Ohhh. I cannot wait to see that side of you. But in the meantime, quit pointing that thing at me and relax. I never knew this was how he operated.”
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