AREA 51: IMORTUM

by Stone,Kord

  Eneria looked at him and asked, “Why this suit?”

  Jerren had concern etched across his face as he said, “Because of what you said last night. You were correct, your body can endure mortal damage now, and I don’t want to see you injured.”

  Eneria was not sure how the outfit would help seeing as how it was so thin and asked, “What protection can it provide?”

  In response, Jerren turned to her, “This for one,” He drew back a fist and struck her in the stomach.”

  Eneria flinched expecting pain, but the only thing that happened was a slight thudding sound as Jerren’s fist came in contact with the region of her stomach.

  Jerren looked down and shook his fist, “The last time I did that, I hit Jason’s suit and it hurt pretty bad, so I didn’t hit as hard this time, but Jason couldn’t feel it at all. That was before I had my suit, but as you see it will protect your beautiful body. Watch this,” Jerren drew his weapon and vanished.

  “That is nice, it must work kind of like the time displacement suit,” Eneria said in wonder as she passed her hand through the location Jerren was standing.

  “Yes it is. You’re able to hear me because you have a suit on as well. When Justin and Jason did it before I was unable to hear or see them until I had my suit on. Draw your weapon, Jerren instructed her.

  Eneria drew her sidearm and a moment later a full head’s up display engaged, and she was able to see Jerren standing in the same location as when he disappeared, “This is the best thing I have seen on this ship. It is far better than the Time Dilation Suits.

  “When your brothers first came on this ship I could sense an anomaly, after you boarded and dawned the suit I tried to scan for you, but I could not detect you. The time dilation suits cannot even do that. I only knew where you were for sure because of the binding disk.” Eneria said as she peered around the room taking in the functionality of the suit.

  Eneria saw Jerren holster his weapon and a moment later she did as well.

  Jerren smiled as he said, “I can think of a few outfits you could wear that would make it hard for me to concentrate, but these suits should be the safest for us I think.”

  Jerren appeared to look her over thoroughly, and then he said, “Although, this suit fits your body quite well and now it’s making me think I want to see you out of it again,” Jerren then kissed her ardently.

  At Jerren’s words, a fluttering seemed to pulse throughout Eneria’s body. She looked toward the bed, and was about to suggest they take up where they had left off the night prior when Jason’s voice interrupted them.

  “Jerren, when you have a moment will you come over here?”

  “Sure, ten minutes sound good?” Jerren asked.

  Jason replied, “That’ll be fine, we’ll be on the second level.”

  Jerren took Eneria’s hand, “Would you like to leave the ship for a little while?”

  Eneria felt a great warmth that she had no recollection of ever feeling before. In the last hundred and twenty thousand years, she had not been asked a civil question, almost every exchange from the former commander was a command, and hostile at that. Eneria smiled at how Jerren made her feel, and said, “I would like that very much,” and then she stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

  Jerren looked from her to the bed and shook his head, “Not nearly enough time,” He said with a smile that promised untold delights.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Eneria and Jerren arrived on the second level of TDS 1 to find Justin, Calia, Jason and Alise already seated at the table. Jerren pulled out Eneria’s chair for her, and once she was seated he took his next to her.

  Alise said, “Sure he buys his beautiful bride a nice outfit and I am stuck with these rags.”

  Everyone around the table began laughing and Calia interjected, “Seriously though, how did you find that suit for her? We looked and couldn’t locate one for us.” Calia indicated that both she and Alise had been looking.

  Jerren thought about it a second, “I was trying to remove my suit and didn’t know how, so I searched the database. Removing my suit was easy once I found the instructions, I used a phased swipe to remove and replace it. When I went to put the suit back on this morning I noticed in the database that my suits identifier was a rotating thirty digit Deca-Decimal address. I found that there was a second suit, and once I knew where it was, I phase swiped it on to Eneria.

  Jason closed his eyes a moment, “I found it,” Jason said as he swept his hand over Alise’s body, and a moment later she had the new outfit on as well.

  Alise stood up and spun around.

  Calia stood up as well and said, “I will be right back.”

  Jerren smirked at how fast Calia had bolted off for her ship, Alise appeared to be checking out the suits phasing, as she was disappearing and reappearing, and a minute later she holstered her weapon and took a seat.

  Jerren said, “It looks nice. I think it’s strange however that we had to attach a weapon belt to our suits, but theirs came already attached.” Shrugging off that oddity Jerren looked at Jason and asked. “So, what did we need to discuss?” it looked like Jason was about to begin talking when Calia reentered the room.

  Calia drew their attention saying, “this suit is insanely sweet,” She had holstered her weapon and appeared to everyone’s amusement.

  Calia took her seat next to Justin, and Jason’s face took on a serious expression, “Now that TDS 5 is no longer a threat, we need to decide what to do about the rest of the family in stasis.”

  “You told Jason you did DNA scans of the family long before picking him up, correct?” Jerren asked of Alise.

  Alise nodded and Jerren continued, “Aside from the threats we knew of is there any reason we can’t bring the family back to Earth?”

  Alise seemed to ponder the question a moment, then said. “Our ship, not to mention TDS 5 were in the area too close in time to the church explosion to prevent it, we cannot occupy that same space again, but we could perform a cleanup of the cloned corpses we left there and transport everyone back and out of range of the explosion, and make it look like a gas leak. That should ensure their safety.

  “The only problem we may run into is with your cousin Jeff. He was in prison and murdered in there. He will either need a new identity, or we will have to purge all of his information from every database, and hope nobody recognizes him and knows he was in or died in prison.” Looking at Eneria, Alise asked, “How did Enyali arrange Jeff’s death?”

  Eneria looked saddened as she replied, “Enyali was playing with him, she had her pet plant drugs on him and enjoyed wrecking his life first, then she had her pet kill everyone on the prison transport. Enyali’s pet was about to kill Jeff, when the probe found that Jeff would be killed in prison, so Enyali allowed that timeline to continue, having her pet make it look like Jeff had done the killing. That way he would suffer before dying at the hands of the other prisoner.

  “I detected a temporal anomaly at the moment of Jeff’s death, but I did not alert Enyali to it, and after what Jerren told me, I now know it was caused when you rescued him,” Eneria looked over to Jason, “you did the universe a great favor when you killed her pet, I was unable to do anything about that one and he was just as insane as Enyali was.”

  Jason shook his head and replied, “Actually he killed himself. I had a head lock on him, and tried to get him to give up so I could question him about TDS 5’s commander, when he tried to shoot me in the back. I had just eaten the Ambrose, I didn’t know why at the time, but my body reacted like a capacitor, the energy weapon charged me up, and the discharge electrocuted him.”

  Jerren sighed and drew everyone’s attention, “Even if we can purge the databases and return Jeff to Earth, Tim and Uncle Tom will still be an issue, I don’t think they’ll be quiet about what happened. The government may think they’re just crackpots and pay them no mind. But if they convince the government, it could get dangerous for the rest of the family. And I’ve no idea what
to expect from the preacher Alise dropped off before we activated TDS 3.”

  Alise said, “Before I dropped him back on Earth, I explained the dangers to him. He seemed to understand, and when I probed to the point of the event horizon, he was still silent about it.”

  Eneria said, “We could perform memory wipes on them. It has proven effective in the past.”

  Alise and Calia shook their heads at one another and Alise asked, “How do you do that? I know I have never performed one.”

  “It is not difficult; every memory has an amino nucleic signature. They can be identified chronologically in the medical unit, and it is a simple procedure. All you have to do is find the time frame you wish to be forgotten and remove the amino acid from that location and the memory is no longer accessible. And if for some reason a stray amino acid bonds with that neuron at a later date, and they remember something, the person just attributes the memory flash to a forgotten dream or Déjà vu.”

  Calia seemed to fidget in her seat, and then asked, “How many times have you performed this procedure?”

  “A few thousand,” Eneria stated with a shrug.

  They all looked at Eneria in apparent shock, and she went on to explain, “As you know Enyali was sadistic and insane.”

  They all nodded in wholehearted agreement so Eneria continued, “Well she did some pretty horrific experiments on people. I was powerless to stop it, but I tried to help the victims as best I could under the circumstances.

  “Enyali would usually torture and maim the subjects, and after she was finished with them she would have me transport them to the surface of whichever planet we were nearest. If she was not in the room at the time I would use the medical unit to heal them, but the mental damage was harder to repair. Over the years I perfected the process and for a long time Enyali did not know what I was doing.”

  Calia asked, “What happened that she found out?”

  Eneria’s face turned as pale as paper and she almost looked as if she was about to pass out. Jerren grasped her hand. A cold chill coursed up his arm a moment, but the contact seemed to put her at ease.

  Eneria replied, “She was evil, and the memories I have from my dealings with her… well I sometimes wish I could use that procedure to remove them.”

  Jerren saw Calia give a slight nod and figured Justin must have told her something, because a moment later Calia said, “I am sorry you had to experience that. You do not have to tell us any more about her. My imagination was bad enough and now I know it was far worse for you than my imaginings.”

  Eneria nodded and sat back leaning against Jerren’s side.

  Jason sighed, “I think that will be the best solution then, thank you Eneria. However, I think we need to let at least father, mother and Jeff keep their memories of what’s transpired.”

  Jerren looked at Jason wondering why he would want them to remember, and Jason continued, “Father was devastated by both of your deaths and I can only imagine what he was going through after he thought all three of us had died. I don’t want him to endure that pain again.

  “I also think Jeff needs to remain in the loop because his situation will be more precarious. If we come up with a new identity for him, he will still need the knowledge of what happened and where, so he doesn’t run across anyone he knew, and even if we can wipe him from all of the criminal databases, he would need to be aware of what happened. We do have another option at our disposal as well. We could stick with the original plan and return them to Gloran.”

  Eneria sat forward and said, “That would not be a good idea. There are spies for the consortium on that planet. That is how Enyali found out that TDS 1 dropped off refugees. After that confrontation, it spurred on the hunt for Elgon. Even with Enyali gone, the consortium is still a viable threat to anyone associated with this ship or Earth especially now.”

  Alise sighed, “I wondered about that, there was no way TDS 5 could have beaten us to Gloran after our incident trying to rescue your great grandfather. Well for safety sake I say we stick to the memory wipe plan. All in favor?”

  They all raised their hands and a moment later Jason summoned a massive gavel that was the size of a hammer one would find in a carnival to ring the bell and he smacked it on the table saying, “Plan approved.”

  Everyone in the room began laughing, then Jerren asked Eneria, “what did you mean by the consortium is a threat to Earth especially now?

  Eneria said, “The attack on TDS 3 when the ship was restarted was incidental. That attack force was supposed to be the first wave of an invasion fleet. It was originally intended for conquering Earth as a trap for TDS 1.

  “After our ships systems reset and Enyali found that her pet had been killed, Enyali contacted Horuisis to set up the attack on Earth, knowing TDS 1 had just been there. Once Enyali knew the fleet of ships was on the way, she had me take TDS 5 back to Earth to coordinate the attack with the hope of drawing TDS 1 back so she could attack it when TDS 1 arrived to prevent the invasion.

  “We had been orbiting Earth when the DNA tracker activated, and we detected one of your DNA signatures behind the moon.” Eneria gestured between Jason, Justin and Jerren, then continued, “The tracker only showed for thirty seconds, but it was long enough to get a general location lock, so Enyali ordered the invasion fleet to that location, and when the lock activated the next time, Enyali ordered the fleet to attack.

  “After the fleet had been destroyed and compacted into the mass and hurled toward Toralis, our ship had encountered an anomaly. Once I righted TDS 5, Enyali had me take us to Toralis to get more ships before the mass arrived and the Toralins realized what had happened to their people. But a couple days after arriving at Toralis we encountered the anomaly that I now know was caused by the GMP you performed.”

  “Wouldn’t the mass of ships deter the Toralins from returning to Earth?” Jason asked.

  Eneria nodded, “for the Toralins probably, not that they matter anymore after the GMP, but a lot of those ships were from other consortium controlled planets as well, and the consortium as a whole might still retaliate against Earth or anyone from Earth for their ships destruction, thinking Earth is responsible. How did you do that by the way?”

  Jason said, “These TDS ships have the ability to form event horizons, I made a micro event horizon while testing the weapons systems, and it may have been that technology that did it, it had a similar effect. Did Jerren tell you about Inola yet?”

  Eneria nodded and Jason continued, “We don’t really know how the ships were destroyed, seeing as how TDS 3 was still powered down at the time, and that technology draws energy directly from the ships power, but we believe it was Inola who did it.”

  Eneria nodded, she had heard rumors and legends about the Imortum over the years from her past commanders, and if this Inola was in fact an Imortum, then that could definitely explain the destruction she had witnessed.

  A moment later Jerren said, “When should we implement the plan and wipe the families memories?”

  Jason said, “I would say after we finish this mission and take care of the dark matter bomb on Earth, unless we can discover a way to disable or destroy the ship with TDS 2 embedded in it. but for now I think we should see where the information we get from Osiris or Isis leads us if we can locate them.”

  Jerren said, “That sounds good to me. Our ship will arrive at Abydos in about twelve days. I will launch a probe once we’re in range and scan for any traps,” Jerren stood and Eneria followed suit.

  Jason said, “We’ll be about two hours behind your arrival, be careful approaching the planet. If there’s nothing else,” Jason looked around then smacked his giant gavel on the table again, “Meeting adjourned,” Jason finished with a bark of laughter.

  Jason then asked, “Do we want to have a meal? Or is it too soon.”

  Jerren and Eneria said they couldn’t eat anything at the moment and Justin and Calia agreed.

  “Okay, we’ll hold off on the meals until we complete the mission then.�
�� Jason stated.

  Calia turned and addressed the group, “It is our turn to host anyway. We will contact you about the timing of it later.”

  They all said their goodbyes and headed for their respective ships.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jerren awoke as a sense of panic washed over him, and he felt Eneria thrashing around in bed. Looking over he found Eneria was apparently having yet another nightmare. She’d been having them nightly since they set off for Abydos, but never this bad before. With concern mounting Jerren reached over and caressed Eneria’s cheek in an effort to calm her down as he did the prior nights. He was unable to calm her down this time though, and decided it might be best to wake her.

  Jerren’s initial attempts were unsuccessful, and after the third attempt, he raised his voice, “Eneria! Wake up!”

  That did it, but there were consequences. Eneria’s eyes shot open, and her fists began flying with blurring speed in all directions. Her eyes momentarily took on the same appearance of swirling smoke with electrical arcing in them as Jerren had seen in the others, and one of her fist shot out landing firmly into Jerren’s chest. He felt a familiar cracking sensation, and he knew he had at least a couple of broken ribs. Letting out a pained breath, Jerren managed to get out, “Eneria, it’s alright, you’re safe now.”

  Eneria seemed to take in her surroundings, then she must have realized what she had done, because a moment later she began crying and apologizing profusely.

  Jerren managed to get her to calm down after a few minutes, by telling her he was not injured badly, and it was not her fault, “what was the nightmare about?” he asked.

  Eneria looked ashamed, and despite the pain Jerren was feeling, he pulled Eneria closer and kissed her cheek.

  “I dreamt that Enyali was back, I killed her in so many different ways, but she kept returning to life, and there was nothing I could do about it.” Eneria stated as she wiped a tear from her eyes.