by Mikayla Lane
They had been looking through past and current news around the planet and reviewing information on the weapons in use, and the military protocols of the different regions. And Gracus already had the computer’s working on incorporating the different languages into their translator devices, so he wouldn’t have to keep converting the information into their own language.
“Sir, from what we can gather right now, the distress signal is coming from a remote, mountainous area of what is called the United States. And although we’ve found signs that at one point, the Relians were on the planet, we haven’t been able to detect a prolonged presence of them anywhere. Which is strange since the planet is rich in resources that they would be interested in. And we’ve found no signs that their language is among any of the languages currently spoken. It looks like they had tried at one time to plunder the planet, but they just vanished. I’m not sure what to make of it.” Niklosi told Scaden. It was obvious that he was just as excited at this turn of events as everyone else.
“I’m not sure what to make of it either. It looks like there had been more than one civilization on the planet that had seemed to vanish throughout different points in their history. Aztecs, Anasazi, Mayans… and that’s just in the regions around the United States. There were many others throughout their world. I wonder if the inhabitants at some point rose up and defeated the Relians but had called them by one of the names used for the vanished civilizations. Considering their budding technology though, I’m not sure how they would have accomplished such a feat. If they did, they must be quite a resilient race and stronger than we think. We don’t want to underestimate them, if we plan on landing a transport on the surface.” Balduen added with a hint of respect for the planet's inhabitants.
“If we decide to transport, it would be fairly simple to avoid detection. The biggest problem we’d have is navigating through the non-functioning satellites they have still orbiting the planet. But even that wouldn’t be hard to do. It surprises me that they are advanced enough to put them in orbit, but can’t seem to get rid of them once they are no longer useful.” Another Tactical Team member said.
Scaden ran a hand through his hair and shook his head at the strange and conflicting information that they had been reading for the last few hours. Not much of it made any sense. There was some piece of this puzzle that they were missing. However, none of them could seem to figure it out. Nothing about this planet or its inhabitants was even remotely ‘normal’ from the last report that had been filed to the information they were looking at today. No race that they had ever encountered had shown such a major difference in so short of a time.
Scaden looked up as the MedLab Commander, Amun Nassur entered the room. He seated his six foot five inch frame into a chair next to Scaden and turned to him, looking serious and a little flabbergasted. He didn’t have to wait long to find out why his childhood friend had decided to join them in the Tactical Room.
“Scaden, I really don’t know what I’m looking at anymore. I’ve been trying to figure out the anatomy of the humanoids on the planet, but nothing is matching up. Based on the last reports we received almost two thousand years ago from the Outpost and what I’ve learned from the satellites, the vast majority of the occupants on the planet are different. Vastly, and impossibly different. Even the skeletal structures are different. And I have no explanation for it. At least, nothing that makes any sense to me.” He said with frustration clearly evident in his voice.
“What exactly have you found, Amun?”
“Apparently, the people skipped a few thousand years of evolution or another race of people took over the planet since the last time we were here. In fact, even the inhabitants know there is a vast difference between them as they are today, and the skulls of earlier people that they have found around the planet. They have scientists, known as Archeologists, who have dug up many different skulls and bones. And even they have not been able to explain the differences in the skeletal remains that have been found. The one thing I can say for sure is that some of the skeletons that were found were Relian, and some were Valendran.” Amun told them with sadness evident in his voice.
Several surprised gasps were heard from the Tactical Team members as everyone tried to absorb this unexpected information. Scaden looked at the members of his team, and saw that they looked just as shocked as he was. His mind worked quickly to try to piece this new information into the puzzle.
“Amun, how many Valendran bodies do you believe have been found on the planet?” Scaden asked.
“From the limited amount of information I’ve been able to gather; they've only discovered about a half a dozen Valendrans. The problem is that it seems the various religious organizations on their planet, and governments don’t want a lot of these unusual discoveries to be released to the public, making it very difficult to determine a true number of the casualties. I can tell you that there were far more Relian bodies than there was Valendran. But there could be a lot more on each side that hasn't been discovered yet. In fact, a lot of the Relian bodies were found in different stages of shapes. Which is an indication that a lot of them were killed while shape shifting.” Amun replied.
“From what I’ve gathered so far, it seems that the religious and government bodies have kept a lot of information from the people. In fact, the planet; the people call it Earth, have been regularly visited by the Balal’s, but the governments refuse to acknowledge this to the people, even though they have recovered a few of their crashed transport crafts. They call them UFOs, Unidentified Flying Objects. Thousands of their people claim to have seen them and been abducted by them.” Balduen added.
“What is the reasoning behind keeping this information from the people on the planet?” Niklosi asked.
“It seems they are afraid that it would cause the people to turn away from the religious organizations that have been ruling the moral compass of their people, and cause wide-spread chaos. The religious organizations on the planet exist due to their ability to convince the people that their particular way is the only way to find peace in the after death.”
“They believe the revelation of the existence of other intelligent beings in the universe would call into question the people’s beliefs. They think this would stop people from donating money to the religious leaders and organizations, causing the organizations to collapse. There seems to be a lot of organizations, who use the power they hold over their people to subjugate them, and cause them to violently kill one another under the guise of their particular ‘God’ figure wants them too. I’m having a hard time understanding all the different reasons why the people are allowing this to continue.”
“Nonetheless, the governments rely heavily on laws and rules, but are also influenced by religious advisors as well. They seem to be influenced by greed. They want more advanced technology than the other governments in order to take over their resources. This would explain why they have never admitted to acquiring the crashed Balal ships. In fact, the information gathered on the religious organizations that are most predominate on the planet reflect a lot of Relian influence.” Balduen explained.
“So we can confirm that some of our people made it to the planet alive, and there may still be survivors of the Outpost on the planet. And we might be dealing with government’s and religious factions that are controlled or influenced by Relians. But we still have no way to confirm or deny that the distress beacon is a trap. Can we get on the planet, in close proximity to the location of the distress beacon, without being discovered?” Scaden asked the room in general.
“Our best course of action would be to hide the Adaria behind the Outpost planet; they call Mars and use the transport to get to Earth. The current technology won’t be able to detect us if we take a small transport to the surface and use the cloaking shields. They apparently have placed moving robotic units on the surface of the Outpost planet. But the Adaria will be in a location where they can’t detect our presence. The distress beacon hasn’t seemed to change location sin
ce we’ve been monitoring it, so we should have no problems locking onto the signal and landing the transport any distance from the signal. We can get as close or as far away as we need to. Sensors indicate that the signal is coming from a very remote area, so we shouldn’t have difficulty finding a suitable location to land. I do believe we should go in during the area’s dark time, so that it can aid in hiding our arrival from any local people.” Gracus advised.
Scaden ran a frustrated hand through his hair trying to comprehend all the information they’ve gathered and the ramifications of that information. There were far more questions than answers at this point, too many for his peace of mind. He didn’t like feeling like they may be headed into a hostile environment, which may well be a trap with what little information they have right now.
He also felt an urgency that he was meant to be here, at this time. And it excited him. He couldn’t explain it. It baffled him as much as the situation did. Nothing seemed to make any sense. It was like he was finding a lot of pieces, but not all of them went to the same puzzle. Directing his question at Amun, he asked, “Is there any way that we can scan the planet, specifically for Valendrans using our body’s unique signatures? Is there a way to determine if there are still survivors, without landing?”
“If we had years… maybe. But with the equipment we have, there is no way that we could accomplish scanning the billions of people on the planet. We can’t even scan the area where the signal is coming from. The dense population of the natural vegetation, minerals and rocks prevents the scanners from determining the different biological signs. If we were closer to the signal, we might be able to detect a Valendran signature, but I wouldn’t be able to know for sure until we landed in the area.”
“I can’t guarantee we’ll be able to once we land either. We’d have to be able to log the cell signatures of the different plants and minerals into the computer to give it a basis of structures to exclude when scanning. Even that could take months, and it would only be useful for areas that contained those specific cell signatures. We’d have to catalog the entire planet in order to do a scan of that magnitude and have it yield any results. And even that would take years,” Amun replied in frustration.
“All right, continue sending all information to the comm’s. I want a plan of action developed to get us to the planet and the distress signal, including any contingency plans in case it’s a trap, by tomorrow morning. We’ll finalize the plans then. Everyone is dismissed.” Scaden said to the team.
He watched each man leave the room until only he, Gracus and Amun were left, knowing his friends wanted private words with him as much as he did them.
“Scaden, we need to contact the Council and let them know everything we’ve learned and find out if they want us to go to the planet. You can’t just make that decision yourself. Your Father and the Council will strip you bare of your rank if anything goes wrong on this mission. You have to get their approval for this.” Gracus stated firmly to his friend and Commanding Officer.
“I am going with you to the planet, my friend. I want to begin the cataloging of the natural signatures in the area. And if we do find some of our people, they may be in need of medical care. We have no idea what they may have been exposed to on the planet, nor do we have any idea if what they have been exposed to is contagious and can infect the rest of the crew. I may have to bio-shield them for the sake of all the crew and themselves.” Amun stated trying to contain his excitement at the thought of going to the strange planet.
Scaden looked at both of his friends. The three of them had completely different personalities whom you would think would never get along together, yet they’d been the best of friends growing up and stayed that way through their young years. He sighed, having no answers or explanations for his behavior, just a gut instinct driving him not to wait on the Council to review the mountains of information they’ve acquired. They would argue over it for months and maybe years before making a ‘safe’ decision. He didn’t want to wait that long. He wouldn’t wait that long. His mind was made up, and he’d damn the consequences later.
Gracus knew as soon as Scaden got that look on his face, that he wouldn’t be notifying the Council. And he knew nothing he said would change his mind. He was too stubborn to listen to reason. The only option he had now was to mitigate some of the potential problems that would come from another one of his rash decisions.
Giving Amun an angry stare for not trying to stop their friend from making a terrible mistake he relented. “I’ll stay on the ship and make sure we stay hidden from the robots on the Mars surface and maintain communication channels with you and your team. I’ll have the images of all the members of the original outpost sent to the comm’s. Amun can make sure you have the cell signatures, so if you do find survivors you can make sure they are ours and not shape shifted Relians.”
“From the ship we’ll monitor all the planet’s military installations to ensure that they do not pick up on your arrival and departure. And we need to make sure that the translators are all updated with the languages of the inhabitants. We won’t know for sure what you may encounter, so it won’t hurt to put all of them in there.”
Scaden clapped both men heartily on their shoulders and gave them both a huge grin. “This, my friends will be a fantastic adventure!” Scaden said with an excitement he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He knew something about this mission would change their lives forever.
Chapter Three
It had been several days since the trip to the store, but Cari couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched. When Uncle Randor wasn’t watching, she’d pace the small cabin and look out each of the windows trying to find any unusual movements in the woods surrounding it.
Although they hadn’t been anywhere near the town or its people since the supply trip, she knew someone was lurking around, someone watching and waiting. For what she didn’t know, but she was scared. She knew she needed to tell her Uncle, but she couldn’t bear to have him angry at her for not telling him about Vince Baker when they were at the store.
Besides, she kept reasoning with herself, she was probably just being paranoid, and she shouldn’t upset him over her own unreasonable fears. However, deep down, she knew something was wrong. She knew it in the way she’d always known these things. And she could feel the excitement and impatience of the person watching.
She wasn’t sleeping or eating and knew Uncle Randor was getting suspicious and would soon confront her over what she was hiding from him. Making up her mind, she vowed to herself that if the feelings of being watched didn’t stop by tomorrow night, she would tell him what had happened at the store with Vince Baker and let him decide what they should do.
Feeling better about her decision, she headed into the kitchen to make their dinner. She puttered around the kitchen grabbing the pots and pans needed to make their meal, not really paying much attention to the charming little kitchen she was in. They had been so many places, that after a while the thrill of another new place had worn off.
It was still a cute little place though. Nestled in the mountains, with a quiet stream running through the woods on the other side of the dirt road that led to the cabin. Being completely surrounded by trees and underbrush had originally made it seem so quiet and peaceful. The last few days though made it seem more ominous than anything else.
Built in a rustic design, the cabin had only two bedrooms and two bathrooms on opposite ends, with a small kitchen with a door that led to the back porch and the living room off to one side. The furnishings were worn and all in neutral earth tones, but had given the cabin a ‘homey’ feel. Now the shadows in the corners of the rooms played tricks on her eyes, seeming to move around the cabin following her.
Her only comfort was knowing that Uncle Randor was in the living room on his laptop computer, as usual, and close to her in case whoever was watching decided to come up to the cabin. He’d always been there for her, and she loved him like the father she’d had so many years a
go, but didn’t remember. Brushing aside those thoughts she tried to concentrate on dinner, pulling ingredients out of the refrigerator.
The last thing she remembered was an extremely loud noise like an explosion, and a bright light before pain enveloped her head and then darkness.
*****
Scaden and his team crept quietly among the trees heading in the direction of the distress signal. “The signal is coming from the building on the other side of the water Commander. Initial scans show no other humans in the area, and we are showing one heat source in the main room of the building, that is not moving. The building is blocking our ability to detect if it is a human or Valendran.” Balduen stated.
Scaden looked at the darkened building that Balduen was referring to. There were no lights on, and there was a faint smoky smell in the area. It was now or never. “Surround the building. We’ll go in on my command when everyone is in position. Be ready to stun only. We need answers and if this is an unwitting human that came across our beacon and figured out how to activate it by accident, we don’t want to harm them. But be ready for anything. Upon entry activate the light stones, so we have visibility.” Scaden ordered, moving across the shallow water to what looked like the entrance to the building.
Scaden and four of his ten team members crouched in the bushes in front of the building waiting for confirmation that the rest of the team had reached the other side. “Commander, it looks like there used to be a door back here that was destroyed. There’s a hole in the building.” Niklosi warned.
“On my command I want everyone to enter, be on alert; this still may be a trap.” Scaden stated, taking position at the door. “Go, go, go!” He shouted into the comm, and then broke down the flimsy door, throwing a small white crystal that immediately began lighting up the room.