The rising blood rose to their waists, while their shields whistled alerts at the constant damage they were receiving. They didn’t have long before their shields shattered, and the armor melted from the rising heat. They would burn to death before they drowned.
“Why does it have to be burning hot blood?” Maxwell panicked, looking down at their impending doom.
“I guess it keeps the ship warm when it’s flying through space,” LeBoeuf said.
“Well it’s not in space now, why can’t it—”
“Maxwell, I don’t know how these operate!”
“Everyone, shut up!” Boyd said, and brought up a holographic window . . . smiling. “Chevallier was right, this must be the edge. I can get a signal.” Boyd waded through the rising blood standing next to the thick flesh of a wall. His HNI-conjured hologram listing all UNE fighters in the region. “This is EDF lead to any fighters in the AO; I need multiple airstrikes at my signal, ASAP.”
Static was the reply, Boyd tried again.
Static. Time was running out, as indicated by the now chest-high blood and Chevallier losing count of how many times Maxwell screamed, ‘fuck.’
“Copy that, EDF, ships inbound, ETA, forty-five seconds.”
The submerged communication window vanished.
“Multiple?” Maxwell asked.
“According to my HNI, they’ve been bombing this thing without doing any damage to the inside,” Boyd said. “If we want a hole in the wall, we’re going to need everything thrown at it at once.”
The four stood back, making rippling waves through the chest-high blood and flashing warnings that shield power had dropped to 23 percent. “If you guys have any powers left, now would be a time to use ‘em,” Boyd added.
“Might be able to deflect shrapnel with telekinesis, but not much,” LeBoeuf said.
“We’ll take anything.”
“Twenty seconds.”
“Get ready.”
A countdown on Chevallier’s HUD ticked away as the tactical scanners projected seven tiny yellow dots streak away from seven blue dots above them.
The plasma explosion that followed flung everyone backward, sending rays of sunlight into the darkened insides of the wyrm. The blood that had encircled them poured out like a rushing waterfall, taking them along for the wild and fast-paced ride. One by one their bodies fell onto a sandy beach and hastily rolled away to save what little shield power they had from the boiling and steaming blood that still poured.
Chevallier retrieved her rifle, limped up, and gasped. The wyrm had made landfall before it died. They were too late.
The beach they stood on, and the city before it, became a warzone infested with dragons.
21 Foster
Ancient City
Jacobus, Kapteyn’s Star system
August 9, 2118, 15:33 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster and Pierce’s two plus hour tram ride across the rocky surface of Jacobus came to an end, bringing the two uniformed IESA personnel to a security check situated outside the tram station. As they approached, Pierce directed his finger to a visually frustrated Vorcambreum woman arguing with a security guard, and a Rabuabin man with a magnetic rifle slung over his shoulders.
“Those two, right?” Pierce asked her.
Foster looked and confirmed on hearing the raging voice of a four-foot tall woman yelling upward at the human guard, it was none other than Eicelea and her partner Vynei. “Yep, that’s ‘em all right and they look mighty pissed.”
Foster approached first with the holo pad containing Eicelea’s approval in her grasp. “Excuse me,” Foster said.
Foster’s voice instantly got Eicelea to spin away from the security guard and stare up at her. “You!”
“Yes me, and I gots your permit to enter.”
Foster handed it off to the guard. He flicked through the holographic screen of the pad, nodded, and gave it back to her. “Alright you four are cleared to enter,” he said.
“Four?” Eicelea said with her hands wrapped around her hips. “It’s just the two of us going.”
“All IESA members are allowed to enter,” said the guard.
Eicelea and Vynei walked past the checkpoint as Foster grinned and looked out at the ancient city in the distance and its high rising skyscrapers that sat at the feet of majestic mountains. An ancient city full of discovery, adventure, and ancient tech, it was the type of work she was doing in Sirius, the type of work she should be doing now.
“Travis, let’s take a walk,” she called out to him, waving him over to the checkpoint.
“Why do I get the feeling you are going to regret this?” Pierce said.
“My post has been vacant for two hours, I’m already in trouble,” Foster said. “Might as well make the best of it.”
The guard gave Foster and Pierce the nod to enter. Beyond the checkpoint was a human-built pathway that led to yet another station platform that was perched along the side of a cliff. Looking down below, beyond the safety railings, Foster witnessed the nearly perfectly preserved streets, and elaborately decorated buildings that made up the ancient city.
A gondola lift was suspended over much of the ancient city and took passengers down into its central core area. Said gondola was where Foster and Pierce found Eicelea and Vynei making preparations to board.
“Hey, wait up,” Foster called out to them.
Eicelea looked up at the two with a warm smile, no doubt ecstatic that Foster came through with her promise. Eicelea gestured for the two to hurry up and board the small, cramped four-seater lift. Once the all clear was given, the gondola moved across its overhanging wires and slowly descended across and below to the downtown ancient city core.
The view from behind gave Foster a better look at the cliffside platform and walkway they had just left, as well as the high-rise tram tracks they rode in on. Window seats entertained the four with the off-world mountain valley where the ancient city rested for millions of years at its basin, untouched until the first human explorers had arrived.
“A Lyonria city virtually untouched by the test of time,” Foster commented, looking out the window.
“This planet is the only one that features an entire Lyonria metropolis throughout its terrain,” Eicelea said.
Pierce’s eyes opened wide at her comment. “Metropolis? As in, there are others?”
“This entire planet was once covered with their cities,” Eicelea said. “This one, however, is the most preserved city out of them all, and the humans kept its secrets all to themselves!”
“That brings up an interesting question,” Pierce said.
Eicelea laughed at him. “Why are you humans so greedy?”
“No . . . Why are you Radiance folks here?”
“As I explained to your friend,” Eicelea said. “I am the expert of the Lyonria civilization within Radiance. No, the galaxy! But humans, they want to surpass the technological advancements of Radiance and the Hashmedai, and hope that they’ll unearth secrets within these ruins.”
“And you’re here to help humans?”
“I’m here because the humans have conceded.” Eicelea shifted her dwarflike body to the front of their ride. She motioned to a large flat gold-colored and rectangular object hovering two feet off the ground within the center of the city. “For years, humans have tried to unlock the secrets of that monolith and failed. Just recently, however, it activated.”
Foster joined Eicelea up front locking her eyes onto the monolithic device. The shadow it cast on the ground revealed its thin shape as it hovered above the raised platform it was on.
“A thin, gold, glowing, floating thingy, that magically turned on for no reason, huh?” Foster commented.
“Puzzling, isn’t it? Hopefully we will be able to discover its secrets without being shot at,” Eicelea said, then cocked her thumb upward to Vynei. “But that’s why I have him follow me around.”
Foster eyed Vynei and his brawny Rabuabin body as he stood silently with his rifle. “Why the h
ell do you need a bodyguard?”
“Being an archaeologist is much more dangerous than you think, human!” Eicelea said. “Exiles, pirates, salvagers . . . I’ve been attacked more than you could imagine. A few decades ago I thought I’d be smart and leave the Morutrin system and all the danger it sent at me and study the ruins in the Barnard’s Star system.” Eicelea’s voice became haunted. “Religious cults had other plans. Every time I step foot into newly discovered ruins I run into trouble.”
“That makes two of us,” Foster said.
“Three . . .” Pierce chimed in with his arms crossed.
Foster shot him a smirk, he wasn’t wrong after all. Foster, Pierce, and Chevallier had their fair share of debacles within ancient structures in the Sirius system.
“Well, if we’re going to be so precise then four, as Vynei has been with me through it all,” Eicelea said.
Lyonria in Barnard’s Star system . . . Eicelea’s words, and Foster’s reminiscing mind of Sirius, got her thinking about the Lyonria wormhole hub they uncovered. And the engram experience she had, where she learned the primary wormhole within that structure had been shutdown automatically due to an incident in Barnard’s Star. An incident that happened ten years prior to their Sirius expedition.
“Hey, Eicelea, when did ya’ll study the ruins in Barnard’s Star?” Foster asked her.
“That must have been . . .” Eicelea scratched her silver hair.
“Seventy-eight years ago, boss,” Vynei said.
“Silence!” Eicelea roared at her hired gun. “And yes, it was seventy-eight years ago if memory serves me correctly.”
“That was ten years before we arrived in Sirius,” Pierce said.
Foster put the final pieces in place. “And ten years before we arrived, something happened in Barnard’s Star that caused the primary Lyonria wormhole there to stop working and piss off Marduk. So, that was you guys?”
“I had nothing to do with that!” Eicelea spat. “We were victims of a violent cult and things escalated rapidly with catastrophic results.” Eicelea erratically stroked her chin. “Marduk . . . why does that name sound familiar?”
“He was a human mythological being, boss,” Vynei said.
“No, no, no,” Eicelea’s face became lost in deep thought. Before Foster and Pierce could provide her an answer she snapped her fingers and said. “Sirius . . . that’s right. There was a fake report spreading across the galaxy at one point claiming that Marduk and Tiamat were real and had influence in the Sirius system. Thankfully, the human scientific community debunked those rumors—”
“They did what?” Pierce cut in with intense furiosity in his tone.
“Javnis Muodiry are not deities, neither is the imaginary Tiamat and her empty tomb,”
Eicelea said. Each of her words were daggers being pushed into Pierce’s heart. “And the Undine? While similar to their Sirens of human legends, the argument that they are them is quite preposterous. You humans and your fake news, it’s a miracle your species made it this far.”
Foster, in some way, wasn’t surprised given what she experienced thus far. She and the crew of the Carl Sagan had proved that the legends of the Dogan tribes in Africa were true, along with the existence of Marduk, Tiamat, and possibly other figures from Earth legends as with the Sirens. Society didn’t change in the way she would have expected, yet her time being held captive by EISS showed that they did indeed believe.
The UNE government covered up most of their findings and most likely ordered IESA to keep silent. Pierce and Foster exchanged depressed glances. “Our discoveries,” he groaned.
Foster shrugged. “Guess that’s what happens when you uncover the truth then vanish for more than half a century.”
“Whoever told you those reports were fake are full of it,” Pierce said angrily to Eicelea. “They are real.”
Eicelea rolled her eyes at him. “And how would you know?”
“Because we were there!”
Foster pulled on Pierce’s arm, convinced he was about to do something stupid, something that might get him shot by Vynei. “Down, boy!”
Eicelea climbed and stood on top of her seat, using the newfound height she attained to gaze directly into Pierce’s face, examining every aspect of it. Eicelea’s mouth opened in awe. “You couldn’t possibly be?”
“Doctor Travis Pierce? Yes, that’s me.”
“Oh, my Gods!” Eicelea’s flabbergasted face and voice shifted toward Vynei. “Why didn’t you tell me we were taking a misguided human scientist with us?”
“Sorry, boss, humans all look the same to me.”
Pierce went to set the record straight. “First of all, the ruins we found in Sirius were not all Lyonria; some were built by whatever species Tiamat was.”
“Nonsense, you merely encountered a different type of structure,” Eicelea said, and then pointed to the ancient city the gondola was above. “Like this city for example, it’s Lyonria, it was merely constructed many years prior to the ruins commonly found within the galaxy.”
“Let it go, Travis,” Foster said, holding onto his shoulder. “We know the truth at least.”
“I can’t,” Pierce said, shaking his head, and directing Foster’s attention to the statues in the city now they were closer to them.
Foster looked out the window. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Well . . . shit.”
The statues that became visible to them, were that of dragons.
The same dragon figures the two found within the Tiamat’s tomb.
The lift’s ride came to an end, and its doors slid open with a slick and smooth sound. The four made a lengthy walk throughout streets of the ancient city, across its diamond and gold decorated walkways and stairs, walking past towering building after building that blocked out the dim red light from the star through the yellow haze in the skies.
The same dragon and serpentlike statues appeared periodically on their journey, allowing Foster and Pierce to take a closer look at them. The two confirmed without a doubt, these were the same, right down to the size and material used to craft them. Whoever built the city, also built Tiamat’s tomb.
“So, expert of the Lyonria,” Pierce drily said to Eicelea. “Do the Lyonria normally have statues such as these?”
“In this region of space? Yes, but, as I said, the Lyonria here predate the Lyonria ruins found in Radiance-controlled space.”
Wait, Foster thought to herself upon taking another glance at the statues. These statues look like dragons . . . so do some of the invaders.
“How old do you suppose this city is?” Pierce asked Eicelea.
Foster’s face grew pale. “Hey, Travis—”
“One second,” Pierce interjected. “I’m having a moment here!”
Eicelea gave her answer. “At least six and half billion years old.”
Invaders, look like dragons, dragon figures are in Sirius . . . hell even Nereid’s Voelika had dragon figures on its ends, an uncomfortable eerie feeling wrapped around Foster’s mind. Too many things she never noticed were being noticed . . . and making sense.
“And the ruins found within the Union?” Pierce continued.
“We have determined the ages of those to be between two and five hundred million years old,” Eicelea said.
“Okay . . . so what about the ruins in Sirius?”
“That is . . .” Eicelea’s face cringed slightly as she tried to remember the facts. “Approximately, one hundred-twenty million years old.”
“This star, and its planets are of the oldest ones in the galaxy,” Pierce said. “It was created eleven billion years ago and existed long before Sirius and its planets, which were created around three-hundred million years ago.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that,” Eicelea said.
“So, if the Lyonria that built these statues predates everything else,” Pierce said. “Why would they exist in Sirius? By your logic, those Lyonria would have been a thing of the past during that time.” Pierce’s words stopped
Eicelea’s footsteps. Her wide-open eyes said it all. She was proven wrong. “Gotcha.”
“In my defense, the UNE, to this day has denied Radiance personnel from studying those ruins,” Eicelea said. “All my knowledge from that system, I admit, I read from the notes of humans that studied them. And, as we established already, humans love fake news.”
The four approached the floating golden monolith that hovered slightly above a circular platform. Blue-colored orbs decorated the edges of the monolith that shimmered and glowed as Eicelea directed everyone’s attention to it. “As you can see, it has powered on after remaining dormant for a great many years.”
“When did you say this became active?” Pierce asked.
“Seven days ago,” Eicelea said. “At approximately 15:18 Earth time.”
15:18 SST.
Those numbers flashed before Foster’s eyes, bringing her memories back to when she was in the Carl Sagan’s cryostasis chamber, saw the time, then discovered her hair had been cut short and asked EVE shortly afterward why were they back at Earth.
15:18. It was the exact moment Foster had awoken, and the exact moment the monolith activated.
“You mean it activated the day the invaders arrived?” Pierce asked.
“Indeed, their timing was impeccable with the matter,” Eicelea said.
“Travis,” Foster said slowly. “This thing didn’t just activate when the invader’s arrived. It activated the minute I awoke from cryo. And I was the one and only person awake for the first few minutes.”
Pierce’s eyes filled with terror. “Please stop making sense in the creepiest way imaginable.”
“Oh, I’m not done,” Foster said, pointing at the dragon statues. “Look familiar?”
“Didn’t we just agree these looked like the same ones we found in Sirius?” Pierce said.
“Yeah, and they also look like the invaders.”
“Oh . . . my . . .” Pierce whispered, giving the statues a look from another angle. “You’re right.”
“Humans talk too much!” Eicelea said, facing the monolith rubbing her hands. “Let us put our collective intelligences together and figure out the mystery that lays within this device—”
Celestial Incursion (Edge of the Splintered Galaxy Book 1) Page 22