by Stone,Kord
Justin let out a groan and Calia asked, “What now?”
“If I’m not mistaking Eneria just pointed to Vatican City,” Justin said as he rubbed his temples. Justin seemed to know she was going to ask so he continued his explanation, “That city is a country unto itself. There are rumors that the church had been collecting and hiding anything that disproved their holy doctrine.”
Jerren had an idea, “Alise can you scan both locations for me?”
Alise nodded and a moment later she said, “Area 51 as you call it seems to have something still blocking our scans… one moment.” Alise input a command and they waited for the probe to reposition for the next scan, “There we have it. Vatican City appears to be situated on a labyrinth of tunnels that are honeycombing deep beneath the city. The deep scans are not being blocked and show they are indeed hiding ancient and alien technology,” Alise stated.
Jerren’s heart rate picked up, “Is the dark matter bomb down there?”
Alise shook her head, “No, if Gebb was right and it is on this planet, then it is most likely at Area 51 where we are unable to scan.”
Jerren was peering at the display and asked, “Is there any people down there or anything dangerous?”
Alise sifted through the results, “There are pieces of several spacecrafts. Some of their components can be dangerous, one second.” A moment later she continued, “There, all of the hazardous or dangerous items have been removed. As for people, the closest living beings down there are on the third sub-level. It appears as if they are guarding the vault door to the catacombs below.”
Jerren asked, “What do you mean living beings?”
“There are three hundred and nineteen bodies in some form of decay down there, the scans show twenty-one of them are of Alien descent and the rest are either human or Alien Human highbred.”
Jerren shook his head in disgust, “Anything to keep their religion safe. Is there any way to tell how they died, or when?”
Alise shook her head, “Not without performing a medical scan, but the rate of decay would indicate that most have been dead for over two thousand years.”
Jerren looked at the monitor in resignation, and said, “I don’t think there’s anything else for us at this location. Let’s focus on Area 51.” The overlay appeared and Jerren asked, “I know you said your scans are being blocked, but how far could you penetrate before they were affected?”
“The probe encountered interference at one hundred and twenty feet below the surface, why?” Alise asked not looking as if she was going to like his answer.
Jerren smiled and asked, “Could you scan the shaft under the elevator for me first? I didn’t get a good look at the shaft the last time you had a probe down there.”
Alise did and Jerren examined the shaft and smiled, “I thought I was right, that elevator is propelled using four worm drive gears, one on each corner. It’s a high-security design. It makes it impossible to scale the inside; the whole shaft is unobstructed, with no cables.”
Jerren smiled knowing he was about to get flack over his next suggestion, “We can monitor the elevators and when it’s above that level, I can be transported beneath it. I’ve safely performed a base jump at one hundred and fifty feet. I would need the chute configured to deploy in the same shape as the shaft. The shaft should be pressurized so when the chute is fully deployed the pressure will slow my descent,” Jerren finished excitedly.
Eneria had a panicked look cross her face and stated, “You do not intend to do that, right?” she asked a bit hostilely.
“I do,” Jerren said defiantly, “I’ve done it before using a modified miniature T-11 parachute that was designed for emergency escapes from Skyscrapers in an escape tube. They were envisioned after the 9 11 terrorist attacks and I was the first to test it in two thousand six.” Jerren stated adamantly.
Jerren wasn’t sure, but he felt his first fight was brewing with Eneria. Luckily Calia beat her to it.
“That is insane. I will tell you what I told Justin. There is no point using a wind drag device, we have gravity belts. Your plan is sound however. The added bonus of using a gravity belt over your parachute idea is that the gravity belt can ascend as well as descend,” Calia said with a grin.
“Well, we have the beginning of a plan at least,” Jason added, “Who is going down? And who is staying on the ships?”
Alise and Calia volunteered to stay. When Eneria said she was going down, Jerren almost came undone, “I want you to stay up here where it’s safe.”
“You do not think I can protect myself? Or do you think because I am a female now that I am unfit?” Eneria snapped at Jerren.
Jerren knew he was being overly protective, and knew Eneria could protect herself better than the rest of them combined, so he relented. He took her hands and looked her in the eyes, “I’m sorry, I didn’t say that to demean you or imply you couldn’t handle it. I was just being protective of you, and I don’t want to see any harm come to you.”
“So, you do not have a problem with me accompanying you three?” Eneria asked with the raise of a quizzical brow.
Jerren sighed and said, “I have a problem, but it’s mine to overcome. Aside from that I would love for you to accompany us.”
Eneria smiled, stretched up and kissed Jerren then she said, “Okay, we need to get our belts on then.” Eneria turned and said to Alise. “I think we should transport everyone from a single ship and leave the others just out of range and phase of each other. What do you think?”
Alise nodded and said, “That will be fine, you will all have to go to your own ships to get the gravity belts though, I summoned Jason’s, but mine will not appear, and I cannot summon any others either.”
Jerren looked at Jason who was putting on his gravity belt and the moment he fastened it, the shimmering gold suit seemed to devour the belt, “That’s strange. What happened to it?” Jerren asked.
Alise frowned, “It is not in the database any longer, mine either. It did the same thing it did to the life monitors,” Alise looked around the group with a shrug.
Jerren was about to re-propose his plan when a thought came to him. He extended his arms and thought Oma.
A second later he was fully enshrouded and thought ascencia, and he began to float upward. Chuckling to himself, he thought to descend. And when his feet hit the floor he dropped the armor, “it would appear these suits have that feature built in,” Sighing Jerren said, “How much longer until we reach Earth?”
Alise said, “About three more seconds.”
They all looked up to see the monitor and the second they came to a halt Eneria’s hands flew to her head and breathed heavily.
Jerren hurried to grasp Eneria’s hand, “Damn, I forgot about that.”
Jerren told Alise, “We need to train her to block out the multi-phasic neural associations.”
Alise rushed over to assist when Eneria pulled away and said, “It is okay, I have a handle on it.”
“Wow that was fast. The rest of us took just over ten minutes each to finally throw it off completely and that was after practicing for a while. How did you manage it so quickly?” Jerren asked.
“It was a meditation technique Flintis taught me. When I felt the assault I withdrew, then I erected a barrier. I never expected to have to use it,” Eneria said sounding slightly out of breath.
Jerren appraised Eneria a bit worried, “Are you going to be alright?”
Eneria smiled and touched his cheek, “I am fine now,” looking between Alise and Calia, her expression turned stony and she said, “I think the Lantins or at least some of them may still be alive.”
Alise nodded and replied, “We think so too, but we have not had the time to figure a way to get to them yet. I tried to locate them just after the incident at Lantis, but there is a temporal rift I could not rectify. The Lantins are on our list of things to look into, but Inola side tracked us in having us deal with the consortium and the eleven first.”
Eneria didn’t look h
appy about not doing anything about the Lantins at the moment, but nodding she said, “Alright we need to get this done then. I will phase our ship and be right back.” Calia said she would do the same, and they both entered the master control room.
Chapter Eighteen
The elevator had just passed a hundred feet and rising and Alise called out, “It is time,” and she activated the transport.
Jerren, Jason, Justin and Eneria were slowly drifting downward, they had their weapons drawn and were completely invisible as they descended, and it was a good thing too. The shaft was protected by a laser alarm system. If they had only been armored they would have obstructed the beams and the alarms would have gone off.
As it was, the beams passed either around or through them, it was hard to tell which as they descended.
The four of them made it to the bottom of the shaft and they increased the ascension just enough to get them to the lowest elevator door. Jerren saw the internal safety latch on the elevator door and called out, “Get ready.” They all had their free hand ready to pull them into the corridor once the door opened, Jerren kicked at the latch and the door slid open.
A second later, they were standing and staring in awe at a massive battle ship across from them, “How did it get down here?” Jerren asked as he peered around.
Eneria sighed nervously, “That looks exactly like the ship that was on Anukan.” Looking around she added, “If I had to guess, I would say it was already here and they dug their way down to it, like they did on Anukan. Many thousands of years ago, this part of the planet was under a vast amount of ice. See the walls? It looks as if they poured the walls after unearthing the ship.”
“This heads up display is crazy with the readouts, it seems to be scanning everything,” Justin said
“We really need to find the dark matter bomb so we can plan the extraction.” Jerren said nervously, “Let’s clear this level then proceed to the next.” He had just said that when Jerren noticed two SP’s headed in their direction. Jerren cautiously said, “Follow me.” And he led the others deeper into the massive cavern.
Walking around Jerren soon realized the lowest level actually had two ships on it. The first was the Imortum battleship and the second was TDS 4, but TDS 4 was enclosed in a large modular building at the rear of the cavern.
Approaching the modular building, Jerren heard muffled talking from within and Jerren’s display could make out the figures just on the other side of the wall, kind of like a thermal image. When the figures moved past the entrance and a distance away, Jerren signaled for Jason, Justin and Eneria to enter, and once inside the modular building Jerren found six people performing various tests on the ship, and in the nearest corner, the two men who had just passed the entrance were talking.
Jerren signaled for Jason, Justin and Eneria to spread out and continue searching as he crept closer to listen in on the men’s conversation.
“I still don’t understand how she could’ve survived. Everyone else in here was charred beyond recognition. Hell I was told that even her clothes were melted off but she didn’t even have a mark on her,” the balding man in the lab coat said rather loudly.
The general standing beside him snapped in a whispered voice, “Not so loud,” the general looked over at the other four men then back to the man who had been speaking.
In a whispered voice the balding man said, “I’m sorry, it just scares the shit out of me. What were they doing down here in the first place? These ships have never worked and we can’t even get into them.”
Jerren looked around the room, he had seen the effects of a transformer explosion before and this room had the same appearance only with a greater magnitude. Jerren looked at the Major General, and found his name plate read Green, then Jerren looked at the man in the lab coat that general green was speaking to. The scientist looked familiar but Jerren couldn’t quite place him, Jerren looked for any identification, but the man’s ID was hanging around his neck on a lanyard and facing backwards. Jerren crept even closer to hear him better, and listened intently.
Green said, “There was an incident a few months ago. Our sensors down here went haywire, there was some kind of power surge, and the sensors burnt out, so General Hallance ordered the advanced research physicists from your department at DARPA to find out what occurred. I would have thought they would have notified you of that, with you being the DARPA Liaison.”
“I’ve been out of the country until a couple of days ago. I was ordered back to the states, there was an incident in Colorado Springs I had to investigate but it turned out to be a false alarm, and I only just returned today and was informed that there had been an accident down here.” The balding man said.
Something about the man’s statement, or the way he said it made Jerren feel as if he were not telling the truth. He considered scanning his memories, but was distracted when the General continued speaking.
“Anyway, Colonel Tones was the OIC on the night of the power surge and she was ordered to investigate the incident, which is the only reason she was cleared to be down here. A month later she was down here monitoring the techs when all of this happened,” he had swept his hands around indicating the damage to the room, “but she swears she had nothing to do with it, and doesn’t know how she came out of it unscathed.” The General stated.
The bald man looked fearful, “You don’t think she’s an alien, do you?”
General Green sighed and said, “I’ve known her all of her life. Her father and I served together in Vietnam, I had just returned from overseas and I was there when the babies were brought home from the hospital. So no!” General Green said the last word a little louder than Jerren thought he wanted to. Something about the Generals statement didn’t ring true either, and Jerren wondered if any of the people on the base would openly tell the truth to anyone about anything.
One of the technicians near the ship shouted, “Did you need something General?”
With a frustrated look, the general snapped back, “No, get back to work.” The general looked at the bald man again and said in a whisper, “I went to see her after the incident, but Major General Hallance isn’t allowing me anywhere near her now. I’ve been restricted to modified quarters on sub fourteen and given babysitting duties here until this is all sorted out, but I was told Colonel Tones is still locked up on sub twelve. You have pull with general Hallance, could you try to persuade him to let me see her?”
“I can try.” The balding man said.
“Please, could you do that today? I found out they are bringing in Bias U’san to interrogate her, it was an accident for god’s sake.” The general said sounding worried.
The bald man blanched and put his hand on the general’s shoulder upon hearing that, “Damn, I’m sorry,” the balding man paused a moment then asked, “What are you going to tell her parents?”
Jerren felt amusement coming from the balding man when general green asked for help, and Jerren realized he didn’t like this man at all.
The general got a pained look and said, “He and his wife died in a plane crash many years ago. I became Colonel Tones and her sister’s legal guardian when they were children and I raised them, and it’s only the girls left now.
“They haven’t briefed me yet, but from past experiences I would say they’re going to make it look like an accident.” General Green stated.
Jerren felt as if he was going to get sick. He felt real anguish emanating from the general, and he wanted to lash out and he almost did just that, but a loud voice rang in his head saying, “SAVE HER!” it wasn’t as loud as before and Jerren figured Inola finally realized she didn’t have to scream at them. He heard the group ask, “Save who?” in unison.
“Come back here,” Jerren explained what he’d overheard as they approached, “Eneria, I want you to come with me. We need to rescue this colonel,” Jerren saw that Jason seemed to be overly interested in the two men talking, “Jason… Jason?”
Jason snapped his head back to Jerren, �
��Yes?”
“I want you and Justin to probe these guy’s minds. He and or the general may have the information we need,” Jerren said.
Jason had a smile cross his face that looked a mixture of pleasure and fury.
“With pleasure.” Jason stated.
Jerren raised a questioning brow at his eldest brother over his statement.
“I’ll tell you later. Go rescue that woman before Inola gets loud,” Jason said with what appeared to be forced amusement.
Justin nodded and said, “We’ll follow as soon as we get the information.”
Jerren and Eneria had made it back to the elevator shaft. The two guards had just been informed that SP and CE teams were on the way down to evaluate the elevator door and sweep the level, and they had been ordered back to secure their posts.
Jerren waited a couple of minutes for the guards to be far enough away before jarring the elevator doors open, and once he and Eneria were in the shaft they began ascending. They were almost to sub level twelve when Jerren looked up and saw the elevator was making its way back down and he rushed to open the elevator door. Jerren shoved Eneria through it and pulled himself in just as the elevator passed the level on the way down.
Jerren stood there baffled, “That should have taken my ankle off. But it only felt like a bit of pressure.”
Eneria looked at the elevator door and back to Jerren, “These suits must phase our bodies enough to still interact with the surroundings, but not enough to make us fall through the matter or be damaged by it.”
Jerren sighed, “Must be, it’s a good thing too, I would hate having to go by the name Captain Pegleg.”
Eneria smiled warmly at him and said, “I would never have called you that.”
Jerren smiled back at Eneria and said, “No…but my brothers sure would have,” They both chuckled as they made their way down the hall.