It had left the voyager to carry out its mission, and explored the world the best that it could in its present state, as it had been still evolving itself into the entity/life form that it had been programmed to alter into.
It had been surrounded with mind-bending wonders and visions as it had explored what it could, seeking answers, and it had returned to surveying the GX1 when it had landed, and later on it had detected some of the humans leaving it, and going outside the energy screen again, and it had examined their free thinking states and realized that it could reproduce one of them easily, as it had been programmed to do, and it had made them all unconscious and had replaced one of them with an identical copy, which it could control and exist in, to enter the energy shield of the GX1.
Chapter 5
The Second Crash
The vehicle was racing along when there was a firm shudder, making them jerk up and down, and it when crashing down into a pool of water below, thumping into the edge of an area of mud, splashing mud and water everywhere, over the windows, blinding their view, and Kruger turned and hit the side of the vehicle, hurting his elbow.
Though Major Ripley seemed to be the only real one to get hit by the impact, and grasped his leg and held it for a few minutes, from the pain of it being bashed against the controls at his front.
“What the hell was that?” he moaned, trying to see out the vehicle, while checking the instruments confused, trying to get what was happening. “This place will be the end of me ...”
“It seems to have happened over again!” Larsen stated, still believing they were doomed to death, as if they were only temporally avoiding death.
“But why are we not unconscious this time?” Major Ripley replied swiftly, trying to get what he had missed. “We’ve barely made an hour of our journey from the spacecraft, and have crashed again ...”
“Perhaps this world is different from the other world in the void, and there is something else here that is causing it ...”
“What something else ...” he moaned, lifting his knee, examining it, and placing it back down. “I don’t know whether to be glad with that thought ... If this thing is the original alien, then we have had it. But if it is something new, are we better off ...?”
“The others were killed ...!”
“Great! So now it is down to how bad a death we may receive!”
“Exactly!”
“So how quickly and painfully did that thing in the other vehicle kill them then ...?”
“I would say they were about the same ...”
“Great! Absolutely great!”
Kruger tried checking the instruments from where he was, and gave up, as they never showed anything.
“What condition is the vehicle in then?” he finally asked.
“It is not working, and it does not have anything on what the cause of it ...”
“We’d better contact the others then!”
Major Ripley started using the communications equipment to contact his old friend Major Douglas, and told him, “Our vehicle is down! We have crashed into a pool ...”
Major Ripley tried seeing through areas of the windows that had thinner mud over them.
“Your vehicle has crashed!” Major Douglas spluttered out, staggered at what he had told him. “You’d better get out of there now!”
“Why?”
“Just get the hell away from the vehicle ...!”
“How will we get transport to move on ...?”
“There have been reports of other crashes since all the vehicles crashed earlier, and the occupants have been killed ...”
“What direction will we go in ...”
“We have your location! Go to your right, and I’ll have a vehicle pick you up as soon as possible! But get as far away from there as possible!”
Major Ripley shuddered, and switched off the communications equipment, and yanked a switch and the vehicle doors all opened up, and water and muck came pouring in, flooding the vehicle, making it sink, and they looked around for an area to get out to.
Kruger pointed at an area near him that was the nearest to solid ground, and he rushed through the outside bog, of thick black chemical stinking muck, going up to his knees, and the others followed.
They were lucky they wore waterproof spacesuits or they would have been soaked in it, and they reached the land and rested their legs, and looked around them.
“We have to go right of the vehicle!” Major Ripley announced, and started leading them in that direction, marching firmly.
Kruger marched after him, and watched Don and Larsen walking together behind him, talking about the crashed vehicle, and examining the damage to the front of the vehicle where it had crashed, and they watched it until a strange vapor cloud shifted about it, like it had some form of intelligence, and the vehicle vanished out of sight.
Chapter 6
The Time Being
A miniature white explosion magically hovered inertly in mid-air, frozen in time, in front of the time being as it concluded its experiments on the newly acquired explosive.
It allowed the explosion to progress at a slow rate, as it walked up to it and studied in every detail, which it had planned to do.
The room was at the top of a high tower of a structure that was not an advanced structure but a building that resembled an ancient fairy-tale/horror film castle, made of square stones barely stuck together, centuries old, which had crumbled away in large regions, and rested high in the air, above any human structure, on a massive rock pinnacle, towering over the mind-bending world, surrounded by a sky that would have startled any alien in the universe with its stars and phenomena, covering almost every square inch, resting on the opposite side of the world from where the GX1 was positioned.
The time being came from an ancient race that had advanced science to incredible lengths, and had colonized an entire galaxy at one time, and after many genetic alterations had turned themselves into a master race, with abilities unheard of before, but had eventually altered themselves into a more warlike race, which had eventually killed itself off in wars, and which had been remembered throughout galaxies for thousands of years.
The few survivors of the race were condemned by other races all over space, as well as being condemned by their own race, and they never attempted to rebuild their empire, which had eventually turned into new types of entities/time beings, who were immortal, and used time travel.
The time being had made a mistake when it had been younger and had been captured and imprisoned on the world, and had made itself the ruler of the world, with its powers, which had grown progressively, over centuries.
Its powers were now colossal, especially in the central galaxy, and it did incredible things, and worked away in its mountain castle carrying out its experiments and explorations, separated from the outside universe.
It created bright flashes of light with its mind, and a loud whirling sounds appeared, similar to a whirlwind, growing from a whisper to a loud mechanical whirl, and it became mingled with a crackling, like a crackling fire, from within it.
The room vibrated around the being as it exploded with power that shuddered through the whole tower!
The room looked like a medieval laboratory, but was full of highly advanced scientific objects, with the being’s other things, which included pieces of strange creatures.
A diagram was sketched across the center of the floor, with symbols around it, and above it the being turned into a bright white light floating and spinning through the air.
It whirled fast, and sparks of colored light went around its fringes, and thousands emerged and spread out across the whole of the room, while the sparks of energy created flashes of light over the damp stone walls, and sounds from it became deafening.
The center of where the time being was turned bright like a sun, and it continued to become brighter, and the whirling increased louder, shaking everything furiously, including the whole stone tower, until it looked as though it would go crashing down
and over the cliff, to the fantastic world below.
An explosion of light and sounds blasted out and it suddenly vanished, and the time being traveled away into the past.
Within seconds it made a reappearance, and reformed into what it had been before it had left, reforming into its original self.
The air from it blew everything light around, and a whispering came from somewhere, and its long shape formed, and sounds vanished and altered to a voice from it, chanting strange sounds.
The being screamed as it formed back into a being, and the tower blocks stopped shaking under it, and the energy turned to a whirling light buzzing around its shape!
Shapes and colors formed within it, and an upright almost human-like form appeared, and glowed within the light. The being was over eight feet tall and at least four feet wide at the top, and flickers of its unusual skeleton became visible inside it.
A blast of brightness exploded out with beams of colored light, and vanished away into a cloud of smoke, and the noises stopped, and its massive shape stepped out of the white smoke.
It wore a large black medieval-type cloak, covered in stars and strange symbols, sketched over it, and where its eyes once must have been there were glowing red lights.
The time being had traveled back in time and had carried out its mission, and had reappeared seconds after it had left, and it continued with its experiments on the miniature white explosion, and made it magically hover inertly in mid-air.
Chapter 7
The Lost World
A deep intensely cold haze edged its way over the wonderland world that surrounded them, as Kruger stood examining some vegetation near where they had stopped to rest. It was nothing like anything that he had seen on any of the other worlds that he had visited or seen elsewhere.
He could not get if it was the strange environment about him or all the strange stars blanketing the sky, or something strange existing there, or the universe that they were in, or a combination of them that created different reactions.
Strange vapor clouds shifted about their sides, always following, shadowing them, at a distance – probing them, and analyzing them for some purpose.
He had stopped wondering if they had intelligence a few miles back, when he had proved they had, he had seen Major Ripley realize it too, and he vaguely watched it linger over deep meteorite craters in the mind-bending landscape.
He watched it now to find out what form of life it was. What did it use to exist? What was it doing?
He felt like getting some samples from it, but decided to wait until he was with the others, and they could check if it was dangerous.
A peculiar whisper of something came from an unknown place far away, and he considered if it was from the clouds or something else, and what else it could be.
Major Ripley moved in close to him, with interest.
“How the hell did that happen? The sun rose just before we left the GX1!”
The sun was sinking deeper into the skyline, and areas of fog illuminated like the luminary rays of bright alien moonshine – from the rays beaming from powerful stars.
Gusts of air blew and withdrew in the opposite direction, blowing and sucking, giving Kruger the feeling that something invisible nearby was breathing over him, or something was there and the environment was reacting to its presence and its paranormal powers.
The two paranormal scientists would love it, he was sure. They were out there in another vehicle.
It had been them that had first found the world, and come out with the idea of the GX1 going to the world.
They had become great and famous celebrities aboard the GX1 since saving everyone from the alien, when it had been found out by all the media there, and were now adored by the military and the president, who had been at deaths door when they had saved them, and took them away out of the universe to where the alien could not go.
The media on the GX1 had given the story full coverage for weeks, and the president and military had given the two paranormal scientists full military protection around their laboratory and scientists and all the equipment to investigate everything that they could about what had been experienced by everyone when they had left the universe.
What everyone had experienced there and had said had been a mass of confusion, and many people thought that something else had happened!
Hundreds of scientists all over the ship were now working on finding a way to get them back to the normal universe.
Even though many did not want to leave, and wished to investigate everything there for the totality of the voyage – as they were sure they would not experience anything like it throughout the rest of the voyage, and perhaps their lives.
The surrounding space was incredible, and was packed with a density that was not thought possible, and had been for a long time, and such a state of density and such large suns would have caused the whole region to collapse into a huge black hole or at least an immense sun or suns, and scientists and everyone else aboard had been and were investigating it and thousands of other discovered phenomena.
Many scientists and others thought the whole place was a central galaxy where all the rest of the universe was imploding to, and that there were outer small galaxies being pulled into.
The two paranormal scientists had tried informing others of their investigations of paranormal disturbances there, and had soon withheld their research from them, as they had soon found out that they refused to accept anything of that nature, and they now avoided giving any details of anything of that nature, especially to the military.
They had given Kruger some of their findings and thoughts of paranormal activity and strange occurrences occurring there, and he had given them his thoughts about it, and that he was not fully sure what to make of it as they had only proven that large amounts of strange energy surges and energy reactions were coming from there, and it was then that they had informed him of the discovery of the world that they were on, and that they had detected it as one of the high energy spots being investigated by them.
Since the main point of investigation of the GX1 was worlds, and that nobody had else found any proper worlds, it was soon a major place to investigate, and the scientists all voted to go to the world, and the two paranormal scientist were congratulated with another major discovery when they found it not only inhabitable but full of advanced and unknown phenomena, and mind-bending wonders, which were detected from the GX1, and with there being so many scientists and others being on the voyage for such discoveries, a hundred vehicles were allowed out to map and investigate it.
They found the remains of some form of advanced civilization, at the opposite region of the world, from scans of the world from orbit, before it had landed, and many wanted to see the site.
Kruger had been amazed at the findings of the scientists on the day before they had left the ship. There were energy surges and strange occurrences all around the world, and sightings of life forms and what was thought to be entities all over the world.
Nobody, not even the two paranormal scientists, knew what was there, and many even withdrew from visiting there, especially after the encounter with the alien.
The other scientists ignored that and continued with their explorations.
Kruger had wished to join the two paranormal scientists at first, as he knew they wished to visit somewhere in particular and that they had found something there, but he had decided not to disappoint Major Ripley and to join him.
Kruger wondered where the two scientists were, and if they had crashed like they had, and he watched the pale sun vanish into the thickening gray mist, which started to surround them.
Chapter 8
The Fog
On the horizon a big moon brightly shone more light across their path, as it rose over the horizon, with its lunar radiance reflecting intense starlight, and Kruger studied it with surprise, watching swirled clouds shifting over its surface, as he had not seen a moon with an atmosphere and clouds, and he even saw areas of water a
nd green shades of what had to be large vegetation.
The fog crept over the landscape and began covering most of the swamps, and thickened so much that the powerful beams of starlight could only penetrate thin areas of it.
As they marched on behind Major Ripley almost walking into it, while ignoring it, Larsen started getting nervous and began complaining to Major Ripley, who ignored him at first, with being so determined to get away from the region of the vehicle.
His legs became stuck in a deep bog of stinking vegetation, and Kruger saw he was getting tired, and watched the others and noticed that they were complaining too.
It was then that Major Ripley finally slowed, and Kruger looked about, and saw that the fog made a circle around them, at the same distance all the way round them, and was intensifying rapidly, and he knew that they were trapped in it.
“Where are we going ...?” Larsen moaned heavily, tired, fighting for air, angry that he had been put into another situation.
Major Ripley stopped annoyed at the way things were going, and walked back towards them.
“What is the problem? We’ve hand held weapons that have been used on worlds all over our galaxy – which have beaten some of the most largest, deadliest, invincible, and advanced aliens and civilizations ...”
He swiftly removed his weapon like an ancient gunfighter, and swiftly smashed an immense meteorite boulder into dust, and disintegrating the rest in seconds.
Kruger and Don got his point, and it amazed Kruger that the vehicles had seemed so defenseless against attacks. On normal worlds their hand weapons were enough, and as powerful as the largest bulky weapons on most aliens worlds, and were probably of actually great use here if their imaginations never kept throwing situations up of what could exist, which the alien in the void had done, since it declared war on them.
The Deadliest Haunted Castle Page 11