by Jim Reilly
All of a sudden, the transports stopped before reaching the training facility. Then the guards pulled them out of the transports into a big rotunda in the center of the ship. Marcus looked toward Matt to signal, what is this?
Matt then signaled back that he did not know, and they should wait and not panic. Then other transports pulled up and dropped off other races and their guards. When the transports stopped, there were hundreds of races with their harnesses on gathered in the rotunda. While they stood and wondered why they had been brought there, Ancient Visitors appeared on balconies and stood over the many races below. Some Ancient Visitors walked among the gathered races.
Standing near Matt was Lango, and the tall alien spoke to him, “This will be remembered for all of existence as the moment the Prince became the most powerful being of all time. Now when we battle for the Realm, we will win and take all from the Ruler of the Realm. This will help us all be rewarded with untold riches for eternity.”
Matt tried to ask Lango to clarify, “I am not sure I follow. Can you tell me what exactly is happening?”
Lango showed contempt for the lower species but grudgingly told him, “We have gathered the power of this universe to transform the Prince into a being more powerful than he was before we left the Realm. We harnessed the power of the stars so that the Prince can defeat him. We transformed him from the physical being to one on a higher plane, and now he will be able to have power much like the Ruler of the Realm. Then once we harness the power of this ship combined with the other three, we will be back in the Realm with our army.
“You see, Matt. This is not so much a ship as it is a tremendous particle accelerator. It is creating the power to end this universe, and that power is stored in the belly of this ship. When we unleash it, time will cease, light will cease, and this existence will cease. Then we will arrive into the Realm and force the Ruler and his army to be submissive to us. Then the Prince shall rule all, and we will take our rightful place at his side. You were brought here to witness the Prince in all his glory. He will be the ruler of all and your God. When he appears, bow down and worship him, and he will reward you with the riches of all existence.”
When Lango finished speaking, he turned from Matt and gazed toward the center of the giant rotunda where a large red mist started to take shape hundreds of feet in the air. That mist formed a large swirling cloud with violent electric discharges shooting out in all directions. It was tremendous; the size of a tall building -- when they looked into it, there was a darkness that accompanied it, a loneliness that made them feel cold inside.
Matt looked at it and felt anger, anguish, and despair. This was another obstacle and something they were going to have to contend with if they were going to have any chance of succeeding. He was not the only one with a little more doubt than he had possessed a few minutes before. As he looked at the others, he noticed that that the same feelings were written on their faces as they looked up at this thing they were trying to comprehend.
Then it formed into a large cloud and spoke! “My children, I am your God and creator. Without me you would have nothing, for I breathed life into your bodies and gave you the reason to live. For that alone you must worship and obey me. For your obedience I will give you ultimate riches and power once I ascend to the throne of the Realm and take my logical place at the center of all. I am the one, and there should be no other.”
As the dark entity continued to spew accolades onto itself, Matt thought that this might be the right time to strike because there were many captive races and guards assembled, as well as interior ship transports they could use to move along this giant ship to vital systems. So Matt leaned over to Marcus, as the entity spoke, and said, “Start releasing the nanobots.”
With that, Marcus used his mind, activating the microscopic machines to start up and launch their purpose. It triggered their computer brains to perform the program they were designed to do. Inside Marcus’s body, hundreds and hundreds of the little machines headed to his fingertips through his blood vessels. Once there, Marcus just needed to touch a machine, and some of the nanobots flew out and attacked it. Within seconds, Marcus’s shoulder harness deactivated and fell off. Soon the others did so as well, freeing themselves from their bondage. Marcus went to Uloog and freed him.
A confused Uloog asked, “What do you do? I don’t understand.”
Marcus replied, “We are fighting back. I know you are not happy being their slave, and you want freedom for your people. So you and all the guards now have the choice to either join us to fight for your freedom, or let your masters keep you and your people in bondage. It is up to you.”
As he said that, Marcus grabbed the weapon Uloog was holding, while Matt and the others passed the nanobots to the guards and other races in the rotunda. More harnesses began falling off, and they took many of the guards’ weapons and started firing at the Ancient Visitors. As the Ancient Visitors began to fall, it gave the other races confidence to fight back as the humans tried to overtake the Ancient Visitors. Marcus took aim and fired at Lango, who fell to the ground dead. With many races attacking them, the Ancient Visitors near the interior transports were overwhelmed, and the human teams headed for the transports. While the fighting went on, Matt and many from his team entered a nearby transport and headed for the control center to find the brain of this large ship.
James was one of fifteen of them, and as the transport flew up toward the control center, he saw many of the other transports being taken by the other teams. The giant dark entity used electrostatic discharge to destroy some of the transports before they reached their destinations. Then it aimed its wrath toward many of the teams and races on the ground, killing scores of them. As they lay dying, more Ancient Visitors appeared and started firing weapons James had never seen before, accurate and deadly. The Ancient Visitors quickly moved through the crowds, firing at anything that moved.
Then James and the others heard the dark entity speak with anger, “You ungrateful little maggots, you have no idea what you are giving up. I was going to give you minions to rule over and riches beyond your belief, and this is how you repay me. I will wipe you all from existence.” Then it killed scores and scores without regard. But not all: Marcus was still down there fighting. As the fight became fruitless and the races started to scatter, Marcus grabbed an injured Uloog, and they headed toward the interstellar transport bay with some of the survivors from his team.
Matt flew the interior transport to the level they believed held the computing brain of the ship. It crashed there, far from the control center as James and the others were thrown about. When they could open the door, they were faced with many Ancient Visitors poised to attack them with their array of weapons. As their door opened, the aliens fired on them, and the team was trapped. Matt thought that they were finished and fired the only weapon they could muster up. While doing so, he hoped that one of the other teams could be more successful in reaching the control center.
But then there was an explosion that rocked the whole ship and scared the Ancient Visitors. Some left the fight to get to their stations on the ship. Matt surmised that at least one of the other teams had been successful in causing an explosion with the plastic explosives they had smuggled on board.
They hit the power storage area and caused systems to go down and additional explosions to go off within the main ship. In the confusion, Matt was able to hit some of the Ancient Visitors, and the team was able to exit the transport and find cover. Once out, Matt started to direct the team to advance to the Control Center when an Ancient Visitor came around a corner and fired on Matt. It killed him instantly, and D’Shawn quickly picked up Matt’s weapon and fired back, killing the Ancient Visitor.
The death of someone who had been their leader and friend for so long made them feel lost, and they doubted themselves for a moment. As they looked around trying to figure out how to find the control center, Steven saw someone in the distance he had met on the first trip to this ship. It looked like Gabrie
l Peters. They thought he had been killed, but now he was waving them to come his way. So D’Shawn covered them as they ran toward Gabriel.
There was another explosion, and plumes of smoke filled the corridor. When they arrived, Gabriel was not there, but they could see what they believed was the control center in the distance and Ancient Visitors heavily guarding it.
D’Shawn said, “I’ll fire and rush them. Maybe some of you can get through.” But then he saw Gabriel again signaling to come toward him at the opposite corner of the control room level. Without hesitating, the remaining team headed toward Gabriel.
Cynthia was the first to get there to see Gabriel, but as before he was not there, only a hallway that took them around to the back of the control center where fewer of the Ancient Visitors stood guard. Along the way, some of the team picked up weapons of Ancient Visitors who had been struck down. Even with those weapons, they were badly outnumbered.
At the back of the control center, D’Shawn took up the mantle of leader even though he had thought that the plan was fruitless from the start. Unsure of the course of action to take as he frantically went over the options in his head, he briefly saw Gabriel again standing by the ship’s computerized brain in the form of a liquid pool. When he blinked Gabriel was gone.
He quickly organized the remaining team and planned an attack. “We with the weapons will cover the others as they try to get the nanobots into the pool. Cut your hands and let the blood with nanobots flow into the pool. We need to get as much as we can into the pool to disrupt the ship. Get ready…go!”
The Ancient Visitors saw them coming and quickly fired on them. The barrage was intense as the Ancient Visitors were quite accurate, and it repelled them. As they went back, more of the team dropped from being hit with the weapons fire. The Ancient Visitors were deadly proficient and hit all but D’Shawn, Cynthia, Steven, and James. As they retreated, D’Shawn covered them as Cynthia, Steven, and James found cover.
Suddenly, D’Shawn was hit by a shot that ricocheted off a wall and struck D’Shawn in the back as he tried to get behind a doorway. It was not lethal, but it rendered him unconscious with his body shaking from the hit. Steven and Cynthia reached out and pulled D’Shawn back behind the wall. Then they picked up weapons and started firing back, but the return fire was heavy and increasing as the Ancient Visitors closed in to finish them off.
Terrified, James thought that it was hopeless, and they had come all this way only to fail as he looked at Steven and Cynthia frantically firing back at the approaching aliens. As he continued to look at Steven and Cynthia fire away, time slowed down in his mind to almost a complete stop as he thought about the life he was about to lose as the Ancient Visitors closed in. The things he reflected on most were his friends and family.
He remembered Jennifer asking him something their first year at the university. “You should know what you want to do after you graduate. Me, I want to do something that makes a difference and is bigger than I am. But all you can think of is sliding through classes and getting a job after graduation. James, you have to have a purpose in life. So what is your purpose, and how are you going to make a difference?”
David once told him as he spoke about the stars in the sky: “Those lights are thousands, millions, or billions of light years away from us and thousands, millions, or billions from each other. You would think that it would make you feel small and unimportant being part of something so big. For me, though, it makes me feel that I am part of something grand and that I matter, because for me to be born a host of things needed to be done. The universe needed to be created, this sun needed to form, the Earth needed to be the right distance from the sun so life could grow, life had to fight to live on this planet, humans needed to evolve, and my parents needed to meet and fall in love. When you look at it, it is a miracle I am here, and I believe that makes me unique. That makes you, James, unique as well, and you matter in this universe.”
His mother told him after he was injured in the terrorist attack and was feeling responsible: “I see that you are depressed. Don’t be. I believe everything happens for a reason, whether we know it or not. Each experience is a building block as we learn who we are to become during life’s long journey. It is these building blocks that help us develop and form the person we become in life. The person you are now is not the person you will end up being. If you take that difficult experience and learn from it, you will grow as a person.”
His father told him when he had decided to go with the other abducted Super Homo sapiens: “I am scared to death for you, and I wish I could talk you out of it. With that said, James, I’m proud of you. You have come a long way, and I don’t mean physically. You have evolved from someone who thought of himself first to someone who thinks of others and appreciates life. Now, I know you may have some difficult challenges ahead of you, and you may be confused as to what to do, but do what you think is the right thing to do.”
He thought about what he had said to Matt and the others when he asked to go with them: “Many of you probably look at me as the cause of your anguish. You were taken from your families and changed, and now you are told you are needed to sacrifice yourselves for the future of the people of the Earth. I am really sorry. I wish I had never fallen in that hole in Kibish, Ethiopia. Maybe if I hadn’t, the Ancient Visitors might have left us alone or forgotten about us. Or maybe I was destined to do it. I don’t know. Either way, I am sorry for many things I did and said. I wish I could take it all back because many were hurt or died because of me. I can’t take it back, but I would like to help. All I will tell you is that I will give it my all. So I beg you to let me go with you and let me help. I beg you. Please.”
James’ mind was racing, and the last thing he thought about was something his mother brought up to him when he was trying to disprove religious beliefs. She asked, “Don’t you remember, when you were a child you used to speak to God?”
Well, he thought. I don’t know if you are listening. Please help me do what I am going to do. I don’t know if I am strong enough or brave enough. Please give me the strength.
At that moment his mind was back in real time with Steven and Cynthia firing at the Ancient Visitors and looking as if they believed the fight was hopeless. Their weapons were blazing at the Ancient Visitors, who were firing back and closing in. It was down to James, Steven, Cynthia, and injured D’Shawn lying next to them.
Without hesitation, James ran toward the pool in the center of the room past Steven and Cynthia, even as they tried to stop him. He ran through the weapons fire, and when he got to the pool, he jumped right in. He squirmed for a few seconds and died in the pool that had the knowledge of the universe and managed this enormous ship. Out of James’ body came hundreds and hundreds of nanobots that looked for ship systems to disrupt. As the nanobots spread throughout the internal mechanisms of the ship, disturbances occurred in many parts of the craft.
Right before James’ body completely went into the liquid, Steven and Cynthia watched as the Ancient Visitors dropped their weapons and frantically tried to fix the massive liquid computer. As Steven and Cynthia put their weapons down, Sintdon looked at them and yelled, “You ruined everything. Our ship is going to be destroyed because you inferior life forms did not understand our great purpose. Now the ship’s systems that controlled the energy from the particle accelerator will not be contained. Your primitive explosives damaged its holding chamber. All is lost, and you will die here with us.”
Not waiting to hear any more from Sintdon, Steven and Cynthia ran out of the control center, while carrying D’Shawn. They ran back to the interior transport on which they had arrived. Steven got to the controls and tried to dislodge the trapped craft, but he couldn’t. He yelled to Cynthia, “We will need to find another way because the transport is jammed in too tightly.”
Cynthia said, “I guess we will just wait for the next bus,” and they sat back waiting for the aliens’ ship to explode. As they sat there, glad that they had accomplished their
mission and nervously awaiting the coming doom, another ship flew up to the control center level. It was Marcus flying the much larger interstellar transport. He turned the transport so they could hop into the opening at the door.
Marcus asked as they came in, “Is there anyone else? Matt?”
Steven just shook his head no.
At that, Marcus flew by the dark entity, which was still taking weapons fire from some of the other worlds’ races. Marcus then landed the transport and collected the survivors of the other teams to head back to Earth. He waited as long as he could and then turned the transport toward the docking bay. As he flew toward it, he saw Uloog, who after helping Marcus get to the transport bay was trying to save his people from being caught in the destruction of the massive ship. Uloog was in one of the transports Marcus had secured for the other races, some of whom were still fighting the Prince or dark entity.
The ride was not smooth because the transport was not made to fly inside the massive ship and because explosions were going on around them as the huge ship started to break up. He could not find a direct path to get out. Marcus banged it along the giant corridors, and as the giant ship started to break up, he flew it toward a crack in the bulkhead and out into space. In the rear of the transport, Steven turned on the viewer to see the massive ship. As they watched the cataclysmic event, they also noticed many other transports. Marcus and the human survivors watched as transports filled with survivors who had fought the Ancient Visitors escaped the massive ship. After small explosions, a massive one strewed debris in all directions.
Marcus yelled, “Hold on to something!” as debris hit the side of the transport. But as they pulled away from the debris field, the outward debris field then imploded back on to itself, creating a black hole that sucked in everything in its reach.