by Worth, Dan
‘Maybe,’ said Rekkid. ‘We should see if we can get any of these systems up and running. See if we can find the base commander’s log or something.’
‘Oh, those things are trouble. Mark my words,’ said Katherine and shot Rekkid a crooked smile. ‘You never know where they might lead.’
They set about exploring the small base. It had been formed from prefabricated modules that had been bolted together to form a roughly cross shaped habitat, not unlike some of the early bases constructed during the early days of human space flight. From the long central living module, two large modules led off in opposite directions. One contained the cramped living quarters for the crew, whilst the other was given over to an engineering section that included the base’s power-plant and a small hangar containing a couple of small rudimentary looking craft loaded with tools and other odds and ends. At the opposite end of the living module to the airlocks, lay a section given over to what appeared to have been the base’s command centre and which contained numerous consoles of primitive looking computer equipment similar to those that they had seen in the underground base back on the devastated planet. However, the equipment was dead and without power, and despite trudging back to the engineering section to have a look at the relays coming from the base’s power-plant, they were unable to figure out how to power up the base beyond its essential systems. The scout ship’s scanners were unable to provide them with any clues. They would need one of the Shining Glory’s engineers on board with them if they were to make any progress in this regard and that was not likely given the current circumstances.
They headed back to the command centre and, using the torches built into their suits, began searching for anything else that might shed some light on the events that had transpired here. They opened desks and storage cupboards, searched through piles of discarded technical documents but drew a blank. Eventually, exasperated, they returned to the base’s living quarters and began searching through the spartan cells that the crew had called home. There were a great many personal effects to be found here; the usual clutter that one found aboard bases and ships, discarded uniforms, photographs and favourite pictures and so on. In many ways it was difficult for Katherine not to see the Akkal as human. Were it not for the alien features staring back at her from the faded images in the glare of her suit lights and the odd sizes and designs of the furniture and garments that they came across, this could have been the living quarters of a human installation.
Eventually, they found a larger room at the far end of the module which had a row of small windows along one wall that looked out over the wreck. The centre of the room was dominated by a large, low table and the larger space had allowed the owner to decorate it a little more lavishly and make it more like home. There were a few reproductions of artworks stuck to the wall within metal frames, the dried remains of long dead plants and a glass fronted cabinet filled with dog eared books. Clearly, this room had belonged to the most senior member of the crew.
It was the books that drew their attention. Rekkid crouched down in front of the cabinet and, shining his torch beam onto the ancient volumes, began to carefully examine them one at a time. Most were of little immediate interest, being mass produced fiction or technical manuals. One appeared to be a list of rules and regulations. However, it was the battered volume balanced on top of the other books that proved to be of most interest. Its cover had been carefully re-covered with sheets of a paper-like material bearing what appeared to be an official crest and additional sheets had been jammed within the covers to provide extra pages, pages that were filled with cramped handwriting in the now familiar Akkal script. Though the writing was severely faded and difficult to read in the gloom and the pages so brittle that they almost came apart at a touch, it was clear what the book contained. It was the base commander’s personal journal.
‘Come on,’ said Rekkid. ‘Let’s get back to the ship and have a look at this before it falls apart in my hands.’ He activated his suit comm. ‘Steelscale, this is Rekkid. We’re coming back to the ship. We’ve found something.’
As quickly as they could, Katherine and Rekkid made their way back to the waiting scout ship. As Kurano helped them out of the suits, Steelscale took the diary from Rekkid and held it delicately in one massive clawed hand, before placing it carefully in a sample container where it floated free in a small anti-gravity field. Using the manipulator wand that accompanied the container, he gingerly manipulated the fields within to open the diary without laying a finger on the pages themselves.
‘Ah, business as usual,’ said Rekkid, stepping out of his suit at last. ‘Bunch of dead guys in a floating tomb.’
‘This is their writings?’ said Steelscale.
‘One of them, I think. Possibly the commanding officer.’
‘Can you translate it?’
‘Of course. If we look at the later entries, it might tell us what happened to them. Let me get to work.’
‘Anything from the Shining Glory?’ said Katherine.
‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ said Kurano. ‘The ship is still motionless and appears unable to communicate. It may be best if we undock from the base. If anything were to happen, it may save us vital seconds.’
‘Agreed,’ said Katherine, suddenly remembering the table surrounded by those long- dead faces. Although the scout ship had its own jump drive, it appeared that only the Shining Glory with Eonara aboard had the ability to open the Progenitor portals. Katherine had no wish to become marooned in this part of the galaxy and left to her fate as those poor souls had been.
As Rekkid worked on the diary, Katherine went and sat up in the ship’s cockpit with Kurano as the Arkari busied herself amid the holographic displays and nano-form control surfaces with routine tasks and monitored the status of the Glory that still hung massively above them. There were no cockpit windows as such. Instead, the nano-form surfaces surrounding the pilot’s position displayed a seamless image of the view outside, giving the distinct impression that Kurano was sitting in the middle of open space. Normally, the piloting of the ship would be done partially or wholly by the Glory’s own AI via a remote link, but with the Glory’s systems offline, Kurano was in sole control of the vessel. Although the scar underneath the Shining Glory’s nose appeared to have healed, the ship was still motionless and was not responding to communication attempts. Katherine sat and gazed out at the incredible vista of glowing gas clouds and shattered ships and worlds, using the ship’s controls to examine different areas more closely. The more she looked, she realised that the huge number of wrecks had settled into a ring about the one remaining star, forming an artificial asteroid belt of their own and arcing across her vision. One of the melted cinders that had once formed the core of a mighty gas giant planet was currently passing between their position and the one remaining sun. Idly, Kurano focused one of the ship’s cameras on it and zoomed in on the fused ball of iron that stood out harsh and black against the yellows and reds of the clouds that formed the remains of one of its parent stars. The other star was close by, a quarter of an AU distant, dominating the sky aft of the vessel where it shone with a blinding intensity and still provided the power source to the portal through which the Shining Glory had hurtled into the system.
‘You know, I don’t think I ever expected to see anything like this when I decided to become an archaeologist,’ said Katherine, reflectively. ‘I thought I’d be spending my career in muddy holes in the ground or inside dusty tombs.’
‘Sights like this are why I decided to join the Navy,’ said Kurano. ‘The Arkari worlds are wonderful, fine places, but everything is so managed and sterile. We may be in enormous danger, thousands of light years from home with little chance of return, but whatever happens, I’d rather be out here on the edge. No-one else has set eyes on this place in ten thousand years, and before that, perhaps billions of years. All those years and people have forgotten about this place. I wonder if they were like us, the people in those ships, fighting and dying here to defend their v
ery existence against the Shapers.’
‘Yes, they were,’ said Katherine. ‘I met one, once.’
Before she could elaborate further, Rekkid entered the cockpit with an excited look on his face.
‘Found it!’ he said proudly. ‘Come and have a listen to this.’
In an aft compartment of the scout ship, Katherine and Steelscale gathered round as Rekkid read aloud from the ancient, fragile document.
‘This is, as we suspected, a personal diary, by a Senior Engineer of the Order of the Sacred Way named Kosral’ he began. ‘He or she appears to have been keeping it for some time and there are entries about their team being assigned to explore beyond the portal. There had been a program of exploration beyond it for some years since its discovery, but to be assigned to the program was a great honour. There’s a lot of day to day stuff that’s of little immediate interest, however there’s plenty about the discoveries made by other teams before them. It seems that the Akkal were able to salvage quite a bit from the wrecks around us: lots of spacecraft technology, obviously, but they seem to have learnt much about advanced composite materials and in particular they uncovered some well preserved medical facilities aboard some of the vessels that were of great interest to them.’
‘They were in the middle of a war,’ said Katherine. ‘I imagine anything that held out the promise of being able to save more of their injured people would have been very attractive.’
‘Quite. Here’s where it gets interesting, however. It’s clear that the Akkal had realised very quickly that the shipwrecks in this system are from two opposing sides. Listen to this: “We have found a great number of wonders here, of that there is little doubt. But there is a much about this sacred place that unsettles both myself and the rest of the crew. Amongst the floating wrecks are a great many ships that once belonged to Those Who Made Us, but there are others that did not. We have journeyed a great distance from the portal and into a concentration of wrecks that are quite different to that which initially led our people here. These great, black vessels are monstrous, ugly things and I and the others can’t quite escape the notion that they are watching us, that these long dead, nightmare things are merely sleeping. We have attached the base to the remains of one of the golden ships rather than these evil looking vessels. Our dreams are disturbed by nightmarish images and whispers in the dark. One of my crew put it to me that if the golden ships are the weapons of the gods, then these terrible black things must be the servants of altogether darker powers. I am inclined to agree with him. Perhaps these things were trying to reach the Home of the Gods beyond the second portal that was opened to us.” ’
‘I’m sure we’re all aware what sleeping Shaper vessels are capable of,’ said Katherine, suppressing a shudder as she recalled their experiences in the Hadar system. ‘No wonder they were afraid.’
‘And we should be careful as well,’ said Steelscale. ‘We do not know who might be watching us at this very moment.’
‘Quite. It does indeed appear that the team suffered similar experiences to the Commonwealth personnel working on the dig on Rhyolite. There are numerous mentions of crew members suffering from terrible nightmares and hallucinations. One even killed himself. What’s also interesting is that there are references to other missions exploring beyond the aforementioned second portal.’ Rekkid consulted his notes on a slim hand-held device. ‘Ah, here we are: “Yet another exploratory fleet returns from the Home of the Gods. Enviously, we watched them pass on their way back home. We would all dearly love to get a chance even to set eyes on that most holy of places. If only those of us in this blasted place were able to find such an abundance of treasures. We have all seen pictures of course, of that vast fortress that the gods made for themselves to encase their planets against all comers, but I would very much like to see it for myself. Perhaps if we can earn the right...” ’
‘It sounds like he could be talking about the Progenitors’ home system,’ said Katherine. ‘After all, the map of the jump gate network showed that it’s only a single hop away from here. Hopefully it’s still active, if we can find it.’
‘Yes indeed. It sounds as if only the most worthy, the most honoured members of the exploration effort were ever allowed to go there,’ said Rekkid. ‘Competition was fierce. I suppose that the Order of the Sacred Way must have used it as an incentive to spur their men on to greater efforts. I suppose in their eyes it was literally like being able to go to heaven. Listen to this though: “Team Fifteen appear to have made a great discovery amongst the wrecks. There has been a great deal of fuss made about it, so no doubt they will be the next to be picked to visit the Home of the Gods. It appears that they explored the remains of a great vessel. It was a portion of what must have been a vast ship - a great, jagged black thing. They have found some sort of weapon system within its hull. Efforts are now under way to remove it. Rumour has it that this is something that could win us the war but hard facts are difficult to come by for obvious reasons. I do not like it. I do not think that we should be using the weapons of these terrible vessels. These were the enemies of our creators. Something tells me that this is very wrong indeed. One rumour has it that our scientists have described this thing as a world-killing weapon, one of the very things used to extinguish one of the stars in this system. Another says that its discoverer was led there by dreams and visions.” ’
‘That’s it, isn’t it? That must be the weapon that the Akkal used to destroy their home-world?’ said Katherine.
‘I believe that it may be,’ said Rekkid, and continued. ‘ “Our fears have been confirmed. The World Breaker Cannon, as they are now calling it, was removed from the wreck today and transported back to through the portal under heavy guard. I believe that it may be the last thing to make the journey. The portal is closed to us now. I think that we have angered the gods. That terrible thing... we should have left it be! Now we are trapped in this Gods-forgotten place with only limited supplies. The portal does not respond to our pleas and later in the day we found that the portal to the Home of the Gods is also closed to us now, with many of our people still trapped on the other side. We are beginning to fear the worst.” ’ Rekkid scanned through a few entries. ‘As you can imagine, they were in a desperate situation. No means of getting home, limited ability to move about in this system and their food supplies were running out. The other teams scattered throughout the system were in similarly dire circumstances. They had all been dependent upon ships and supplies coming through the portal from the home system and now they were trapped here. They made a number of desperate attempts to communicate with the portal and get it working again but they didn’t have any success.’
‘Are we to assume that it was the Shaper weapon that caused the portals to shut down?’ said Steelscale.
‘I think it’s a distinct possibility,’ said Rekkid. ‘Perhaps the AIs detected that the Akkal had retrieved something terrible of Shaper origin and decided to seal off the system.’
‘The Shapers must have led the Akkal to that weapon,’ said Katherine. ‘It was the Shapers who caused the Akkal to destroy themselves! Why? What threat did these comparatively primitive people pose to them?’
‘Perhaps they had their reasons. Perhaps the Akkal really were creations of the Progenitors, like Ushild said, and the Shapers saw that as reason enough to destroy them?’ Steelscale ventured.
‘Perhaps,’ Katherine replied. ‘I suspect we’ll never know. What happened after that?’
‘Well, the Akkal trapped here survived for a surprisingly long time, although the team on this base gradually lost contact with the others in the system as they succumbed. Eventually they had the idea that if the presence of Shaper technology had closed the portal, perhaps the presence of Progenitor technology might open it again. The base had a couple of engine modules used for moving larger chunks of debris, so they rigged them up and tried to move their base, and the hunk of Progenitor starship below us, towards the portal. Only they weren’t able to manoeuvre its large mass
accurately enough and the chemical rockets ran out of fuel before they could correct their error. In the end, they decided to try and hold out as long as they could, eventually being left with the choice of resorting to cannibalism to survive or ending their own lives. It seems that they chose the latter, being unable to face the former.’
‘That doesn’t even bear thinking about,’ said Katherine, and shuddered, remembering the dead faces of the people sitting in the dark.
‘At least they died honourably with their dignity intact,’ said Steelscale. ‘Although, it was indeed a terrible choice to have to make. Better to die like that than those fools who took their prize back home to win their pointless war and die in the process.’
‘So what now? Is there any clue in that diary as to where this second working portal might be located?’ said Katherine.
‘None as far as I can see,’ said Rekkid. ‘Although somewhere in the vicinity of the remaining star would be a good place to start. Without the Glory fully operational though, we don’t stand much of a chance.’
Rekkid returned to his study of the diary, poring over the delicate and ancient handwritten volume in order to translate its faded scribblings. Katherine and Steelscale, meanwhile, began to go over those portions that he had already worked on for any clues as to the location of the portal that could lead them out of the system and, they believed, to the Progenitor home-world. If they were not successful, they would need to return to the base below them with engineers from the Shining Glory and attempt to access the base’s surviving computer systems, if such a thing were to prove at all possible. They also began to search the diary for any reference as to the possible locations of the other Akkal exploration teams that had been scattered through the debris belt, in the hope that their facilities or craft could be located and studied.