NEBULAR Collection 7 - Guardians of the Continuum: Episodes 31 - 34

by Thomas Rabenstein

  On the central display, the carrier was moving closer and closer. Two of the eight star-like prongs glowed already dark red. The weapons of the Atlantika or the previously deployed space mines had devastated these two sections of the enemy ship and already weakened it. Now, since the opponent knew who he was dealing with, he changed his strategy again.

  »The enemy ship is turning and starts to rotate around its axis!« the first navigator shouted alarmingly. »Enemy goes on collision course!«

  The carrier ship aimed toward the Atlantika like a gigantic, rotating saw blade, firing at the same time dozens of plasma weapons on each rotation.

  »We’ll fly toward the eight-pointed starship at full speed, and at the last moment dive under its hull,« Hellas shouted to his weapons master. »You’ll make sure that every deck gun, no matter how small, opens fire as soon as the enemy is at the closest distance!«

  Vasina nodded, giving Hellas permission to execute the high-risk maneuver.

  Either it's us or the carrier, there won’t be a stalemate! she thought.

  Relieved, Vasina watched the central display as the Neo-Sapiens eliminated the invading Looter drones one after the other while also suffering losses.

  I’m afraid of the moment when I must decide what to do about the infected men and women. I can’t save them. They are already lost, she thought worriedly.

  At this moment, Tranos shouted a warning and jumped before his Queen, raising his shield.

  Directly in the center of the command central, a deformed black figure had materialized, sitting cross-legged on a hovering, large seat cushion, looking around with angry, glittering eyes. All the members of the command central crew seemed as if they were paralyzed, even Hellas looked at the stranger with wide open eyes.

  »Oh no!« Vasina gasped, instantly feeling a strong, gripping, mental presence whose thoughts were about to subdue her. Progonaut Princess, the fight is over, I’ll take over your ship!

  Some command central crew members awoke as if they’d been in an evil dream and immediately opened fire upon the intruder, but the protective field of the infected Kokradian could not be penetrated. The brave men and women died in the same second, killed by a flash of energy.

  Step aside, shield bearer! echoed the evil thoughts of the creature in all heads. I want to get your Princess!

  Tranos jumped from the stand toward the Kokradian with a huge, almost panther-like leap, pulled his short sword and stabbed the blade directly through the infected Kokradian’s body. His sword had penetrated the protective field, which had been designed to protect the bearer from energy weapons. With his lunge, Tranos had cut the gnome and the seat cushion into two halves.

  Tranos landed in a stooped position on the ground, cushioning his landing with one hand while looking up to the attacker. The shield bearer had acted intuitively, uncompromisingly, and quickly to protect Vasina.

  At first, it appeared as if the cut-up attacker wanted to fall apart in two pieces, but then wire-like strands extended from both halves of the body and rebuilt the figure. Moments later, the Kokradian moved again and laughed maliciously. The two halves of the body again formed one unit, although both sections were not perfectly aligned. The stranger looked horribly obscure and terrifying.

  With a bright flash and without mercy, he killed Tranos and caused Vasina to scream in despair. Her shield bearer fell to the ground in a cloud of ashes. His sword and the golden shield also fell to the floor with loud thuds.

  »Tranos!« Vasina scream horrified, making the Kokradian produce an evil grin.

  I knew very well that one day you’d come to this unworthy system, the malignant thoughts of the gnome sounded in Vasina’s head, while in the meantime, the carrier was racing toward the Atlantika.

  »Tor!« Vasina shouted desperately, fighting her tears. »Kill this beast before it kills us!«

  »You can’t kill me,« the former Kokradian laughed cheerfully. »I’m already dead. Your Hybrid freak can’t harm me.«

  »This being has no life aura!« Nexus Tor yelled alarmingly. »He’s just an empty shell. I can, I must …«

  Nexus Tor suddenly twitched. The Hybrid suffered a lot of pain and was shaken by spastic convulsions. His eyes were fixed on the black Kokradian, but the rest of his body failed him.

  The Kokradian is attacking Nexus Tor! Vasina thought in ascending panic. But Vasina was wrong, it was the other way around.

  Suddenly, bloodcurdling screams sounded through the command central, and Vasina realized that the Kokradian, sitting fluttering on his seat, had made these terrible sounds. Nexus Tor closed his eyes, and the gnome unexpectedly glowed from within. On his skin, large, boiling blisters appeared, and the inside of his body seemed to have caught fire. The parasitic technology implants, visible on the outside of his skin, liquefied and evaporated. With a loud bang, the gnome suddenly disappeared. Nexus Tor collapsed, moaning. Vasina jumped over to him. »I’ve driven him out,« he whispered, losing consciousness.

  At the same time, the two big battleships passed each other at the shortest distance. Hellas seemed to be awakening from a nightmare.

  »Full broadside! All weapon systems!«

  Vasina held her breath and stared at the central display. A bluish, flashing zone formed between the two battleships. Hundreds of energy charges were flying back and forth between the battleships, and a new sun was rising as the protective fields of both giants touched each other.

  Self-sustaining system

  The men carefully advanced into the interior of the large dome and swam upward inside the tight circular tube system of the entrance.

  »We also use this uncomplicated airlock system in our underwater cities due to its ingenious simplicity,« said Atilla Scott, delighted. »The air pressure inside the underwater dome prevents water from entering the dome. At the end of the tube, you simply get out of the water and come to a dry section. We are on the other side of the galaxy and find that same simple principle.«

  »It’s another confirmation that the laws physics are the same everywhere,« Zedos commented mockingly.

  »It probably used to be a pressure chamber or airlock, but now the entire system is defect. Fissures and signs of material fatigue are visible everywhere,« commented Hunmoos. »This habitat, and presumably the rest of the city, is in a state of decay.«

  »Don’t count on an air bubble inside the dome,« Zedos said. »The pressure loss within the installation is certainly widespread. We need to swim through the interior.«

  Zedos was right. The men carefully swam into a small spherical room, presumably used as a safety airlock or transitional station. Now, this room was completely flooded.

  »Like the habitat at the outside, the rooms also shine inwardly. This system is simple but very effective,« praised Scott. »This light gives us a good view through the clear water inside here.«

  »Obviously, the former inhabitants accepted that this light source can’t be switched off,« Hunmoos joked.

  The three men looked around attentively and systematically inspected every corner of the room. They touched the walls, but found no door, leading into the central dome. The small room in which they were located didn’t hold any surprises and was empty.

  »I can’t find any evidence of previous residents,« Atilla Scott said and activated his breathing aid. »This room has the charm of an old nuclear air raid shelter on Earth.«

  »There must be an exit somewhere that leads into the habitat. Maybe we’ll find out more there,« Zedos hoped.

  »Let’s look at the walls again,« Scott suggested, swimming elegantly to a circular indentation in the wall. »These fugues here might indicate an oval lock.«

  »Is there an opening mechanism?« Zedos wanted to know and appeared next to the Merinian. »We should consider that the former inhabitants were probably not humanoid life-forms and used different locking means.«

  »May I look at it, please?« asked Hunmoos kindly, quickly propelling himself using his DPV and throwing his body against the said indent
ation.

  A dull, grating and splintering noise sounded upon the impact, and Scott watched with amazement as Hunmoos broke through the wall.

  The men were caught by a sudden suction and flushed into the adjoining room. This room was also flooded. Confused, Attila Scott was trying to stabilize his swimming position, rowing with arms and legs, Hunmoos surrendered to the power of the vortex and slammed, after several somersaults, against a black cuboid shaped object. He held on to it and stabilized himself.

  After the pressure difference between the two rooms had equalized seconds later, the Neo-Sapien let go off the cuboid and shouted over the communication channel, »Scott, Zedos, where are you?«

  »I’m here,« replied Scott, who also clung to one of these blocks.

  About a hundred meters away, Zedos drifted backward with extended arms through the clear water and examined the room and the high dome. The semitransparent dome was lit in a delicate yellow and emitted a warm, pleasantly gentle light throughout the habitat. Long, dark, and jagged cracks, however, disturbed the picture, making the dome’s static questionable.

  Hunmoos looked up critically. He also had noticed the shell fractures.

  »I’m afraid the tidal forces of the ice giant also affect the building materials of the dome. These cracks in the main supporting structure are a direct result of advanced material fatigue,« concluded Zedos.

  »Zedos is right. The best times of this city are long gone. Perhaps, the inhabitants abandoned them,« Hunmoos speculated.

  »Anyone who can erect such a city in the ocean of this moon can also maintain it for an extended period of time,« Scott rebutted.

  »Can anyone tell me what these blocks are supposed to be?« Hunmoos asked, pointing puzzled at the black cuboid that grew out of the ground in front of him.

  »They are everywhere … just look,« Zedos said. »The entire inner sidewall of the dome is covered with these blocks all the way up to the middle. The objects were embedded into the wall at regular distances and project vertically into the room. They are grouped into rows between which colorfully marked traces can be seen. It almost looks like a series of corridors, running along the wall.«

  »Very odd,« Scott said, swimming toward a group of these cuboids with strong arm and leg movements. He wanted to measure one of the objects with his laser. »I’d say that these objects are at least three meters long. The visible part measures slightly more than two meters, but, I can’t say exactly how deeply they are sunk into the wall or into the ground.«

  Hunmoos swam upward, trying to figure out how many of these objects were there.

  »Zedos is right. There must be a hundred thousand, at least. The entire habitat is full of them.«

  »The narrow top of this cuboid is half-transparent. It looks like tinted glass,« Scott discovered and swam closer to the black cuboid next to him. He covered his eyes with his hands, to reduce the light reflections and to see better. With a surprised scream, he backed away.

  »There’s a life-form inside this cuboid!«

  »Is everything ok with you guys? What was that scream?« Polamus asked via the comm-channel.

  »We’re all right,« Scott replied quickly. »We’ve made a discovery.«

  »The allotted time for our exploration mission is slowly running out. I’m steering the landing craft closer to the shining city to pick you up easier,« Polamus reminded the team.

  Hunmoos had also reached one of the cuboids and carefully looked inside it.

  »Remain calm, my friend. These beings are long dead. Most of the former body tissue has already decayed. The bones or cartilaginous remains look petrified.«

  Hunmoos swam to the next cuboid and examined it.

  »Here, too, lies a dead being. I recognize cartilaginous structures and the hardened remnants of several tentacles.«

  The three men examined about thirty more cuboids, all of them with the same result.

  »Damn, what is this? A sort of giant underwater cemetery?« Scott asked himself in a hoarse voice.

  »The degree of disintegration of these bodies is equally advanced,« Zedos analyzed emotionlessly. »Either they died at the same time and were buried here …«

  »… or they were still alive, retreated into these cuboids and died together,« Scott finished the sentence, shivering.

  »Both possibilities are tragic,« Hunmoos commented, with regret in his voice, and swam deeper into the habitat. »They were some sort of mollusk-type beings. When we first started out to find remnants of the builders, I didn’t expect to find the builders themselves. If every cuboid contains a dead body, then a mass extinction took place here.«

  »Maybe, these beings better preferred to die than to mutate into Looters. We shouldn’t forget that this system was repelled by the Parasite Galaxy,« Zedos threw in. »We don’t know how the potentates of that galaxy ruled there. Perhaps, all the peoples of the Parasite Galaxy were taken over by parasitic or degenerated technology.«

  »I didn’t even think about that,« Scott admitted.

  »There’s something unusual over here,« Hunmoos said. »I’ve discovered a table-like construct about fifty meters away. Come over to me and have a closer look. It looks like a holographic site map.«

  Scott turned away from the cubical tombs and swam with quick movements to the new find. Hunmoos pointed with his outstretched arm to a transparent table top, about ten centimeters thick, resting on a sturdy support frame. »You can see fine lines in the table top! A hologram!«

  Scott estimated the table top to be ten meters long and about six meters wide. He looked at the abstract-looking work of art for a few seconds and swam along the display. Then he suddenly realized, »This is a map of the city!«

  Hunmoos tilted his head and tried to grasp the content of the table display. Zedos was already floating above the table top, looking down, confirming, »Here are some of these ornate towers that project beyond the sea level, which separate the outer parts of the city from the rest of the ocean and vanish into the depth of the sea. This prominent line probably marks the bottom of the sea, where the foundations of the towers are anchored and which is likely to be very hot. The deeper we go, the more the water temperature rises. Shortly before reaching the bottom of the sea, the water must boil or turn into steam. That’s why the glowing city was designed to function as a floating city in the depths of the ocean and not constructed to rest on the seabed.«

  »We’re looking at the functional description of a self-sustaining system,« Zedos said, suddenly self-confident. »The tidal forces of the ice giant heat the core of the moon and the bottom of the ocean as well as the water layer above it. These underwater currents, whose function we have not understood at first, allow the hot water to rise helically. They transfer the heat from the bottom of the ocean to the upper layers and support a constant circulation of the water. At the same time, they carry hot water upward. This helps the ocean to stay liquid and prevents it from eternal freezing due to the cold temperatures in outer space.«

  »The unfortunate beings inside these black cuboids understood the particular astrogeological circumstances of this moon, recognized the settlement potential and transformed it to fit their needs,« summarized Scott.

  »I’m sure that this would have been a beautiful settlement world for the mollusks,« Hunmoos said softly, but then added gloomily, »But now they are all dead!«

  Scott shivered and glanced over to the countless tombs.

  »We document everything and return to the ship,« Scott said thoughtfully. »There’s something wrong with this solar system. My inner voice tells me that we’ve made an important discovery.«

  Return

  Atilla Scott, Hunmoos, and Zedos sat thoughtfully inside the crew deck of the landing craft. Polamus just slightly shook his head as he examined the data.

  »I’ve been listening to your communications all the time, but these pictures make me speechless. Our experts on board the Atlantika will try to analyze the material. I’ll surface immediately and then go into th
e orbit of the moon to return to the battleship as soon as I can.«

  While Polamus retreated to the cockpit, activating the underwater propulsion system for the ascend, the other three men thought about their discovery.

  Atilla Scott rubbed his fingers across the ridge of the nose and said, »Basically, the luminous city is not the habitat itself, but the entire moon had been transformed by the mollusks. The system of currents and streams is genius, and the more I think about it, the more I conclude that a tragedy must have taken place here. Nobody puts so much effort into this place, knowing that the end is near.«

  »Maybe the mollusks wanted to hide from the rulers of the Parasite Galaxy and had chosen this moon,« Hunmoos speculated. »Or did the mollusks only wanted to create a new habitat, a colony far away from their world of origin?«

  »What killed them and why?« Zedos asked the perhaps most important question.

  »We’ll leave the ocean in a few minutes, and start with full speed. Get ready,« Polamus announced. »Until we return to the battleship, the communication ban remains in effect.«

  Atilla Scott nodded slightly.

  »I almost forgot that we were in the enemy’s solar system.«

  As soon as they broke through the ocean’s surface, the gravitational drive was immediately started up, and the small ship darted forward. Polamus pulled up the ship vertically, aiming at the last known position of the battleship. Carefully, the pilot performed a passive scan of the space sector and said startled, »The Atlantika is no longer at the rendezvous position!«

  Zedos looked up and activated a holographic info terminal next to his seat.

  »That’s strange. Hellas was to protect our mission from space. The ship must be there.«

  »I’m detecting several ionization traces, typical of plasma weapons,« Polamus reported gloomily. »This doesn’t look good. Maybe, the carrier returned, and there has been a fight while we were under water.«