What was most impressed on them was that these people, kindred humans, if changed somewhat, took the dark spirits, the black spheres, as a very serious threat. That threat seemed palpable considering how impressive the Gadoni were already. Kale could sense a genuine fear among the chiefs should the black spheres find their planet. Furthermore, it would appear that the black spheres were a threat to humanity in their colonized sector of the galaxy. Kale needed to find a way to get back and tell anyone about this possible threat. The Alioth navy was a good place to start.
Kale couldn’t go because he was already the natural tie to the Gadoni and was being requested to visit several other chieftain meetings. Gheno and Karai declined immediately, stating their research, whether historical, biological or gravitational, was more important. Ayia was the natural selection. She was the most diplomatic of the group.
Sentinel, under the guise of the fake Captain Wayne, had arranged for Ayia to fly up and dock with the Galaxy. Sentinel would fly the ship up for Ayia. Ayia understood she was the best person for the job, but was beginning to resent the fact that she was being left out of the exciting parts. Deep down though, she was a bit glad to leave the planet. She had been to many planets in her life, and even more after joining the crew, but there was something so foreign about this planet that she carried a level of paranoia with her. What she really resented, though she refused to admit it, even to herself, was the attention the exotic woman was placing on Kale. And beyond that was the fact that when she thought about it, she had no reason to, since they had nothing to begin with.
So she accepted the trip up to the Galaxy. What she failed to tell Kale was that she would be making a pit stop at the Vahe that had brought them to Gadoni and picking up Cruxe. She knew when Kale found out, he’d be furious, but it wasn’t his call.
3127 – Orbit around Gadoni, Alioth Navy Capital Ship ‘Galaxy’
Marcus stood at the hangar deck along with Jayne. Graham would be joining them shortly. He had at first thought of just letting one of his officers meet the woman from the human ship down below, but he felt that perhaps with the little that they knew about all the events that had taken place, that it would be better for him to get the first reports.
The transport ship was a generic Lion transport, one of the mainstays of the Solar Merchant fleet. It was an ungainly ship, a floating box. It was, though, a reliable ship and while nothing to be in awe over, it was a respectable vessel. It floated into the hangar deck via the Galaxy’s own slave tractor and lowered into one of the bays. The outer doors magnetized and the pressure was reestablished in the hangar. The large doors opened and Marcus and Jayne walked out to greet their visitors. They had already inoculated themselves with the nano-bodies, and the rest of the crew was nearly done as well. The two humans on board had indicated they were not affected, but that didn’t mean they weren’t carriers. A small hatch on the transport hissed as it popped open, and it lowered down a small set of steps. A woman with plain brown hair, shortly cropped, and a larger man with long black hair walked down. She stepped forward looking around, making contact with the Admiral immediately. She walked up and held out her hand. The Admiral took it and shook her hand.
“Hello, I am Ayia Augusto, and this is one of our crew members, Cruxe,” she said, as Cruxe nodded his head.
“Welcome aboard the Galaxy, Miss Augusto,” Marcus said.
“Ayia is fine.”
Marcus turned to point the way out of the hangar then stopped when he realized he hadn’t introduced his sub-commodore. He did so hastily. This wasn’t a job he usually had to deal with. Most usually introduced him.
They were joined by two armed marines. It was purely for show, but Marcus still wasn’t too sure of what to expect. Graham still insisted it might be an overly complex plot by the Dominion. Jayne had simply said the Dominion wasn’t complex enough for a plot like that.
The two civilians followed the Admiral down to a small adjoining room. There were tables laid out. The Admiral explained it was the best he could arrange in such short notice, especially with all the damage the ship had taken in combat.
“The black spheres?” Ayia had asked.
The Admiral could only nod.
They sat down and Ayia immediately began explaining everything she possibly could. She began back with their replenishing and repair job for the research station, their attack by the Crusaders, then by the black spheres, and their consequent rescue by the Gadoni. She then relayed as much as she could possibly remember from everything Kale had told them. Cruxe sat there wide-eyed, hearing all of this for the first time as well.
She rarely stopped to breathe or take pauses. She wanted to get it all out there and see how these navy types would react. She had been guaranteed by Sentinel that he was 100% sure this was THE Galaxy that everyone had talked about and that unless someone had stolen Alioth’s greatest and most modern capital ship, that these were Alioth Navy men. They had a good reputation in the galaxy.
“The biggest concern they have, sir, is that they are afraid you are here to attack them,” she said, finishing her long presentation.
Marcus took a deep breath. He looked back at Jayne. She had a grim look on her face.
“Sub-commodore, could you please do me a favor and find out where our other Captain is?” He ordered, “And we ask Ensign Gustavo to put together a team for me. I need a lot of research done.”
She stood up, nodded, and left the room.
Marcus then turned around to face them.
“Here are a few things you need to understand,” the Admiral began. He crossed his arms and sat back in his chair. “That man next to you is a wanted criminal for a piracy incident nearly four years ago. Your ship has a false registration, and it’s actually registered to you. Presently, I am rather thinking I will just arrest you and throw you in the brig until we get back and just impound your ship.”
Without missing a beat, Ayia countered. “This man is indeed that criminal. He was, at that time, attacking my ship. It was a horrible misunderstanding that is long in the past. The ship is indeed mine, but I felt it better to try to fake it while I investigated an Alioth navy ship that was just as far off of normal human space as we were. It was a precaution on my part. You could arrest us now, but then you’d never find out if what I said was really true.”
Marcus smiled first, then let out a laugh. He leaned forward onto the table.
“These Gadoni, they are truly human?”
“Yes. They are. They have just adapted to this planet in a unique way. This entire system is, well, unique,” she said.
“That it is,” Marcus said just as Graham entered the room with Jayne.
Just two minutes later, four other men in uniform came in and Ayia was forced to retell their whole tale once again. They typed and scanned their tablets furiously, as they attempted to put together her information, especially about the Gadoni and their origins, against all the historical data they had. There were some gaps, but everything fit.
“They are truly afraid of these black spheres? They call them dark spirits?” Graham asked.
“I find that interesting as well,” Jayne spoke up. “We saw them in action against the spheres that nearly destroyed us. They seemed ideally built to fight them.”
“Their greatest fear is that they will find their planet,” Ayia mentioned.
“But you say they can’t seem to find these wormholes the Gadoni travel through?”
“The spheres cannot seem to find them, no,” Ayia replied.
“Then they should be safe,” Graham replied.
“Unless they can find a way to find the wormholes with our technology,” Ayia pointed out.
Marcus turned and looked at Graham. He quickly looked down at his tablet and began scanning through documents, searching for something.
“What is it, sir?” Graham asked.
Marcus kept scanning until he found the after battle casualty reports. He flew through the list, found what he was looking for and slid the t
ablet over to Graham. He looked at it and saw the list. It counted the missing people from on board the Vega and had a list of all the Jaguars. One was counted as missing and presumed destroyed at the battle with the black spheres. Just under that entry was an inputted message. It read –no video footage to confirm destruction-.
3127 – Gemini 53
Jorg checked all the seals on his suit and attached the recycler. He checked the o2 status and then checked the battery on the gauges. The battery would keep a charge as long as it was within range of the Jaguar’s gravitational reactor. He had locked the Jaguar onto the side of the sphere, which now appeared to be far larger than he had ever imagined. He checked his suit one last time, then sucked the atmosphere in the small cabin back into its containers and opened the hatch that released him into the blackness of space.
He had flown around the sphere multiple times looking for any form of entry into it until, in his seventh time around, he found a crack large enough for him to fit through. He managed to squeeze through and found himself inside a mess of lines that crossed and crisscrossed everywhere. They were spongy and flexible and he found he could simply move them out of the way to move through. He shone a powerful flood light directly in front of him. The outer shell of the spheres was incredibly hard, but the inside was soft. He began moving through the lines, taking great care not to get tangled in anything. He had absolutely no idea what to expect. For all he knew, this was a living creature and he was crawling inside its body. Whatever the case, his only hope of leaving the system was if he found how these creatures jumped.
He dreamed for a moment about bringing back the body of one of his gods for his fellow crusaders. The thought excited him for a moment. He lost his focus and quickly tangled his foot in the tubes. He concentrated and began trying to loosen himself in the zero gravity. His whole body swung on his stuck foot and he made contact with something hard. It was another barrier. He shown the light down and found himself in a far less dense spongy area. Ahead of him were several smaller spheres, not unlike the ones that had been flying around outside. As he scanned with his light, he counted over one hundred such spheres. He also began to find several gaps, like hallways, through the spongy tubes. He began following these down deeper into the creature.
He checked his watch. He had been inside for twenty minutes now, but was still within power range of the Jaguar. All of his readings were fine. He had nearly eight hours of o2 in his suit. He continued following the spaces towards the center of the sphere. He finally stopped counting the smaller spheres. It took him nearly an hour of swimming down the open corridors until he reached another barrier. This one was not a sphere through. It was flat, and as he shined his light in each direction, it was flat as far as he could see. At least as far as the light could shine. He started to follow the contour of this new barrier. It seemed to have no end. After twenty minutes, he stopped and tried to feel at the wall itself. It was solid, with miniature lines running up and down it every half inch or so. The lines were grooves in the metal, but as he shown the light directly at the wall, he couldn’t tell how deep the grooves were.
He reached down on his leg and took out a knife. It was a small blade, standard to pilots as a last stand weapon. It was really for show. Any pilot knew that if death came in space, there would be no need for a knife. In this case, it came handy. Jorg took the tip of the knife and stuck it into the grooves. He just wanted to see if the tip would fit, but he startled himself when the whole knife slipped in to the hilt with ease. The lines hadn’t seemed that thick when he had first looked at them. He began wiggling the knife and the entire set of lines he could see began widening. He worked them a bit more. As he continued the entire wall began to open up. The grooves grew wider and the wall where he was standing began to vanish. When he could reach his hands in, he did, and began pulling the wall apart. He couldn’t explain how, but the entire barrier in a twenty foot radius vanished.
He pointed his light into the hole and could see nothing. He swung himself in and floated just a bit off of the wall on the inside. There appeared to be nothing inside. There was nothing to pull himself further in. Jorg began to reach back out but when he turned, the wall had closed in again. He put the light right on the wall but couldn’t find any of the grooves. The pilot began to panic a bit. He was surrounded by darkness all around and the light could only focus on the wall. He kept pointing it around until he saw the small spindly extension reaching out from the wall, leading down into the darkness at the center of the beast.
He had gone this far, and had nothing else to lose. Jorg regained his composure and with a boost off the wall, pushed himself towards the line. He took a hold of it and began pulling himself towards the center. It was then that his light began to pick them up. It had startled him at first, until he noticed they weren’t moving. They were like spiders, a small round body with four, sometimes five small legs sticking out of them. They were metallic in nature, and the same black hue the spheres were. The bodies weren’t spheres, more like egg shaped. They were simply floating about. As he continued to move towards the center, he lost track of how many were floating.
His watch beeped as it warned him he was beyond his ships energy source. He would have six hours left now, about the same amount of time with the o2. He pulled himself deeper, pushing aside the small creatures. There was a uniformity to the design, but nothing else. Each one was unique, in size, leg distribution or shape of the body. They all appeared dead, if they had ever been alive to begin with.
He saw the center, the middle of the being. It was yet another sphere, maybe forty feet in diameter. Long spindly fingers came out of it in every direction, similar to the one Jorg had been pulling himself on. They all attached to this sphere. The greatest concentration of the spider beings were around the sphere. It took some effort in zero gravity to brush them aside. As they collided into each other, they went bouncing off in all directions. He worked to clear a path to the center sphere and had his back turned when he felt it. The sphere felt soft. He tried to turn around but found he was stuck to hit. He struggled for a moment and felt himself being dragged into it. It was like quicksand. He stared off into the blackness of the creature. The small spider creatures reflected his lamp as he fell into the sphere.
Then he fell.
He landed on his rear on the floor of the inside of the sphere. He quickly stood up and shined the light up. The sphere was translucent and he could see through it. It was a dull amber color. He spun about to look around the room he had fallen into and nearly fell back. His light shone up and he began stumbling backwards. He felt a set of cold hands take a hold of him. As he looked up, he gasped again. This was not the god he was looking for.
A short, red-headed woman was before him. She would be fully naked if there was much of her body left to be recognized as naked. Half of the front of her chest was missing as dozens of tubes ran into her cavity. Her hands and feet were missing and tubes fed into each arm and leg. Jorg looked on in horror. He didn’t know if they were tubes of blood, or wires. Everything seemed intertwined. Jorg looked behind him and saw metal arms holding him. He followed them back up and around the human body. Several more long arms came out from behind the body. The head of the woman, still with the full set of red hair, swung up and looked out. The eyes were mechanical in nature, and he could see them zooming to focus. It was at that point that he saw all the glowing wires that came off the top of her head.
“What are you?” he uttered. He realized he had his helmet on.
The human body twitched and then extended its human arms out. It began floating towards Jorg, held in suspension by the long metal arms that gripped the side of the translucent sphere walls. It reached up close to Jorg. The pilot was held in place by the arms. It pulled him up and towards her body, until they were face to face.
“I am your past,” the body spoke. It had a woman’s voice, intermixed at several octaves and over the top was a deep artificial voice. The sounds drowned out fast in the sphere.
>
“I am your future.”
3127 – Gadoni, On the eastern coast of ‘Between Shadows’
“Once again, lost brothers are reunited.”
Three days after their visit to the Galaxy, Ayia had brokered a treaty of sorts between the Alioth Navy and the people of Gadoni, at least those represented by the council of chiefs. Of course, it had been Kale that had represented Alioth in front of the council. He didn’t pretend to think that he had been instrumental in anything. In fact, he continued to try to get out of being a figurehead.
The Galaxy had suffered some serious damages during its encounter with the black spirits, a term they had picked up easily. Engineering reports had the repair time at nearly two months. What they really needed was a space dock, but for the immediate future, the coast of the land the Gadoni called ‘Between Shadows’, the smallest of the three continents, would do. Working on the giant capital ship would be easier in outer space, but they had to resupply and they needed a large amount of metals the Gadoni had told them they had available. It would be easier to land, fill their holds with their supplies, and launch back into space. The Galaxy was designed to fly in the atmosphere for this very purpose.
Its entry into the planet’s atmosphere and its landing on the coast was a grand event. What seemed like the entire city emptied out onto the beaches to watch as the gleaming silver beauty sliced through the thick clouds. As it broke through the last cloud layers, oohs and aahs gasped out from the thousands on the beach. To Kale and his crew, the sight was certainly impressive, but they were not as impressed as the locals.
The Lost Tribe (Sentinel Series Book 2) Page 21