Williams looked back at the horizon and the edge of the dome where mountains and the landscape burned and baked with radioactivity. “Stupid question; has anyone been out there to check it out?”
“Probes and orbital ship scans or whatever, nothing major from what I was told,” Bailey said. “It’s just a hot wasteland beyond the dome, with little else for the UNE to be interested in. And again, was only us locals that saw it, UNE thinks it was a meteorite or something.”
It would make sense for the UNE and IESA to discredit their claims as much as it pained Williams to admit it. Had the Carl Sagan detected it, a more detailed scan could have been made. Performing detailed scans based on the request of a displaced Chef and primitive Poniga? Such an act wouldn’t have transpired, never mind the fact it was years before Earth-based ships flew in the system after the Carl Sagan’s disappearance other than transports.
“So, let me get this straight . . .” Chang said. “This place is now a holy land because of what you saw that night?”
“Not just that, mon,” Bailey said, guiding their sight to the Poniga and Undine making their living in the hamlet. “They are all psionics; they sense something from the direction where the object landed.”
“I do as well,” Nereid said, fixing her face to the horizon, where the object from space supposedly landed. “It’s not very strong, but when I stand here, closer to the canyon, I can feel it.”
“What do you feel?” Williams asked her.
Nereid’s eyes shut, placing her mind in a short psionic trance. She gave her reply seconds later. “A cry for help.”
“I might not have psionic magic, but I too, at times, feel like there’s something out there that only we know about,” Bailey said. “My time away from the city is spent here, meditating and feeling out the land, hoping to communicate with the spirit that lives out there.”
“You know it would be a lot easier if we got the IESA to check it out,” Chang said to him. “And you wouldn’t have to live like a monk.”
Williams laughed at him. “Didn’t you just finish saying earlier you wouldn’t mind living here?”
“Hey, I was totally down with the tits in the water deal until you told me that creepy-as-fuck story, man. But now? I think—” Chang halted his speech, wiping away the grin on his face. “Okay, we’re getting off-topic here, aren’t we?”
Williams’s eyes rolled. “Yeah, we totally are.”
“Sorry, guys.”
“The Poniga won’t allow it, anyways,” Bailey continued. “Ever since that night the Carl Sagan disappeared, the Poniga refuse to share anything with outsiders.”
Radiance, and their activity in the system, didn’t help since they tried to acquire the Poniga and Undine into the Union, encouraging them to follow their strict religious beliefs.
Throw in the protected world act, and the UNE and IESA would need a permission slip from the locals to study something the Poniga would consider to be sacred.
“I guess you’ve heard the news about the invaders?” Williams asked Bailey.
“Some details, yes.”
“From what you just said about the storm appearing above these skies, it proves they did take us away, and probably the Sword as well. Then after that, something dropped out there . . . something that Nereid not only senses but can feel emotions from.”
“Emotions,” Nereid’s voice murmured softly. “I did not think of it like that . . . but yes, I do feel that from what lies out there.”
Williams looked at Nereid as her blue hair quickly began to dry in the heat from the large white star. “Can an engram contain emotions?”
She nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“I don’t need to be a psionic to know what’s on your mind there, buddy,” Chang snickered.
Williams grinned and stood from the rocky landscape he sat on, keeping his face aimed at the edge of the dome. “I think we might have found our lost memories . . . in the form of an engram, waiting to be recovered. We need to check it out.”
Chang stood next to Williams. “Out there? Man, look at that, it’s hell in space.”
“We’ll need EVA suits with strong shields, and probably psionic overshields for extra protection.”
“Something neither of us have access to or will get, I doubt the UNE will bend the rules on their protected world act just for us.”
“We got Nereid for psionic support . . .” Williams said, smiling at her. “If you’re down to come.”
“Of course, I will assist in any way,” Nereid said. “I too would like to recover my memories from that fateful night.”
“I may be able to assist,” Bailey offered. “But first you all should eat and rest.”
Food, water, and rest, it had been a long hike, one their bodies took quite the punishment for on their way up.
“Yeah, so Chef . . . I know you aren’t in the kitchen ‘cause you’re doing your thing out here and all but . . .” Chang stood in front of Bailey. “Would it still be possible to get a steak, or something cooked by you?”
“Bro . . .” Williams snorted
“Dude, I fucking miss steak night, that stuff was so good.”
31 Foster
Rezeki’s Rage
En route to Amicitia Station 14, Arietis system
August 10, 2118, 13:58 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster always wondered how Hashmedai ships, doors, and computers managed to operate correctly despite the cold temperatures and slight frost buildup that should by rights short out electronics. The sliding door that led her out from the temporary quarters she, Pierce, Vynei, and Eicelea made use of, for example, saw tiny crystallized chips of ice fall off as it opened, then automatically shut.
The same thing repeated when the four entered Peiun’s office located next to the bridge. The two humans, Vorcambreum, and Rabuabin all displayed similar signs that the cold environment was getting to them, hopping up and down, shivering, or blowing warm air into their fists. Foster was surprised none of them went into hypothermia during their ice-cold sleep.
“You think it would be too much to ask them to turn the heat up a little?” Pierce half-jokingly said to Foster.
“Considering we never did for Tolukei back on the Carl Sagan? Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Peiun joined them as promised after he finished speaking with his bridge crew. “I am pleased to see you all have made it; I trust your slumber was of little issue?”
“It was cold . . .” Foster grumbled.
“We will be docking at the station soon,” Peiun said. “And with that, I shall be contacting my government in regard to what we uncovered, which is why I gathered you all here. I need assurance you all will do the same.”
“You can rest assured my government will hear of this!” Eicelea said. “Between what happened to Foster and the monolith, I need my people to know of what we uncovered to credit me appropriately.”
“What we all experienced may be deemed farfetched by our people,” Peiun said. “I know the Empire will be skeptical of the story of Foster guiding this ship through the maelstrom. However, if we all reach out to our respective governments, they will be forced to take our reports seriously.”
“Not us,” Foster said drily.
Peiun looked at her with a peculiar look. “Why is that?”
“We awoke from cryo with our ship flying in formation with the invaders when they arrived at Earth,” Pierce added.
“The UNE doesn’t trust us,” Foster said. “It’s one of the reasons why they forced us out to these parts. What we need is proof.”
“Are the logs of my ship not enough?” Peiun asked Foster.
“For what happened in space? Yeah, but on the surface? Not really.”
Peiun nodded and strode over to his desk. “You said you had a vision when you touched the monolith, yes?”
“Yeah, an engram one,” Foster said. “But I sure as hell can’t remember all of it. Even then, it didn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps I could assist,�
� Peiun said as he reached for a small triangular-shaped object that slipped into the palm of his hand. “This is a memory recorder.”
“I’ve heard about those, you can literally view and record memories of an individual and convert it into video to watch,” Pierce said.
“As long as you still remember partially what you experienced, I should be able to record it. You can use this as the proof you need to convince your people what happened on the surface,” Peiun said.
Partially remember? Well so much for using that to recover our lost memories. “I’ll pass . . .” Foster said, shaking her head.
“He’s right,” Pierce cut in. “If the UNE can see the monolith was responsible for your tattoos and view the engram vision . . . This could be what we need for them to take us seriously and stop vilifying us as sleeper agents for the invaders.”
Peiun approached Foster with the device and waited for her to give him the okay. An okay she wasn’t happy to give. “Fine, just don’t go too far back in my head, got some embarrassing moments in there.”
“We all do,” Peiun said, applying the device to Foster’s forehead. “I remember the first time this device was used on me during my training. My instructor uncovered memories of the first woman I inseminated.”
Foster winced at him. “I took my ex-boyfriend’s virginity, so let’s stay away from that moment please.”
“Ex-boyfriend?”
“A former mate, as your people would say.”
“Ah, I understand,” Peiun said. “This virginity you speak off, you took it from him and now he wants it back, but you refuse it as you two are no longer partners.”
Foster’s face flushed, Pierce’s face struggled to contain laughter. “Ah . . .”
“And in your memories, you know where you hid it from him.” Peiun brought up a large holographic window as it began to receive footage from Foster’s memories. “Rest assured, if I were to accidently view where you kept his virginity hidden, I shall keep it a secret.”
“Let’s just get this over with . . .” Foster groaned and hoped the first image that appeared on the hologram wasn’t that first romantic encounter with Mike.
Foster’s point of view appeared on the projection, moments before she touched the monolith. Everything in the view played out exactly how she remembered it, including the translucent woman in her natural form that embraced Foster. The spiraling wonder of the Milky Way appeared next as the engram vision had begun to play out. The five stood in awe.
“This is all the same stuff I saw when I got hit with the engram,” Foster said, pointing at the galaxy as lines appeared superimposed over it. “These lines, that’s the stuff I sensed in the maelstrom, it’s like tunnels the invaders use to travel.”
“According to Alesyna, when in the maelstrom we leave normal space and time,” Peiun said. “We assumed it was aether space.”
“Aether space . . .” Eicelea grumbled. “The Lyonria wormhole on the planet Oyuri was supposedly able to bridge a connection to such a theoretical place.”
“Same with the one we found in Sirius,” Foster said. “Marduk was obsessed with it.”
Such a theoretical plane of existence was also where Marduk sent Poniga and Undine he favored to gain godly psionic powers. He even offered Foster a chance to become a Goddess-like figure, had she agreed to his terms, by assisting him with the conquest of Earth, the Empire, and Union.
“Sirius, Marduk, the invaders, Kapteyn’s Star system, what is the connection?” Foster said.
The illustration on the projection changed and melted into a fortress, or perhaps a palace on a desolate and highly volcanic planet. A beautiful woman wearing a full-body cloak stood in the shadows on a balcony, glancing down at the garden below. In the garden were people, the humanoid invaders without their bronze armor on, and they were singing praise and worship to the woman above them. They chanted a long string of words none of the five understood.
Except for one word.
Tiamat.
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere,” Foster said, and pointed at the mysterious woman at the balcony. “That is Tiamat.”
Pierce’s eyes lit up with excitement. “Of course!”
“What’s a Tiamat?” Vynei said.
“Part of the overly complex stories of human mythology,” Eicelea said to him.
“Only, they’re not stories,” Pierce said. “Not from what we’ve experienced at Sirius, and not from what this engram is trying to tell us. Mythology did depict Tiamat as being either a dragon, or stunning-looking woman who was the creator of dragons.”
Foster eyed the projection more, noting the dragons that glided in the skies of the alien planet. “The invaders look like dragons.”
“That’s because they are dragons,” Pierce said. “These must be Tiamat’s minions. Think about it? It all makes sense, what we saw in Sirius? Dragon statues, dragon figures on Nereid’s Voelika. Even the design of the structures within the Undine capital city had forms of dragon influences. Why? Because Tiamat once claimed that system as her stronghold. The Undine worshiped her as a Goddess and took it upon themselves to create dragon-like figures as a means of that worship.” Pierce paused for a moment to process his thoughts, facing Peiun. “My God, is there anything else we can recall from her memories?”
The projection changed to Foster’s sights as she fell to the ground after the experience in front of the monolith. “That is it, as I said earlier, we can only record what she can remember,” Peiun explained.
“They think we did it,” Eicelea said, snapping her fingers.
“Did what?” Foster asked.
“Is it not obvious?” Eicelea said. “I admit I read the alleged fake news reports of your expedition into the Sirius system. This Marduk you spoke of was a Javnis, no?”
“That’s right,” Pierce said. “He killed Tiamat, he was from the Milky Way, and Javnis are members of Radiance.”
“Not Marduk, he was taken from the Javnis homeworld before the Aryile uplifted their race,” Foster said.
“But, put your feet in the shoes of the invaders?” Pierce explained. “How would they know the difference? They see Javnis as members of the Radiance Union as with the Abyssal Sword which fought Radiance cults that were experimenting with Lyonria technology. Myself and Miss Eicelea had a lovely conversation on how one could easily mistake Lyonria ruins with those of Tiamat’s people, being the invaders. Now, with that said, perhaps the Radiance cults uncovered something they thought was Lyonria tech but turned out to be lost invader technology. That tech did something to the Sword, resulting in it becoming compromised, which would explain why it upped and left and traveled to Sirius.”
“Sirius was Tiamat’s last known stronghold,” Foster said. “When the Sword arrived, it must have learned of her death and who was responsible for it, Marduk. Then enter us waltzing in to colonize the system.”
“Eicelea is right,” Pierce said. “The invaders think we all played a role in Tiamat’s demise. The Abyssal Sword made it happen.”
“We should find Marduk and bring him before the invaders then, it’s his fault, not ours,” Peiun said, breaking his silence.
Foster scratched the back of her head. “Yeah, about that . . . we kinda vaporized him.”
“Then justice has been delivered,” Peiun said.
“Not if they think we played a role in Tiamat’s death and know nothing of our victory over Marduk,” Foster said. “We vaporized him, his ship, and bumped off most of his army, there ain’t no proof that he bit the dust, just that he can’t be found. The galaxy is a big place, I reckon they probably think he’s gone into hidin’ or somethin’.”
“So, now what?” Vynei asked.
Foster smirked. “We find a way to deliver the truth to the invaders.”
Imperial Arm, Airlock
Amicitia Station 14, Arietis system
August 10, 2118, 15:00 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Battle scarred, tired, and covered in a substance of extraterrestrial o
rigin. The Rezeki’s Rage slowed and latched its side airlock onto the arm of Amicitia Station reserved for the Hashmedai Empire. Hashmedai inside were promptly notified of the dire condition of the ship and rapidly sprung into action to conduct repairs and receive critically wounded crew members of the Rezeki’s Rage.
And to remove the substance that clung to its hull, though Foster knew damn well it was to study its chemical composition in secret. I only hope they share whatever secrets they learn with the rest of us, Foster mused as she and the five passed through the airlock onto the station. This is not the time to be gaining tactical advantages over the invaders and keeping the rest of the galaxy in the dark about it.
Eicelea and Vynei hastily slipped away out of sight into the winding corridors of the Hashmedai arm of the station, keeping their faces down and their lips shut. Radiance folks were never welcomed in these parts, lucky for them, the Radiance arm was only a tram or two’s ride away.
Foster and Pierce had a lengthier journey ahead of them to reach the UNE arm. Which meant a lengthy amount of time would pass before the UNE was notified about what they experienced, neither of the two had HNI to make contact with anyone, and the Rezeki’s Rage communication systems were still down.
“Thank you all for your assistance,” Peiun said to Foster and Pierce.
“We’re even,” Foster said.
“My ship will be stuck here for several hours, if not days, while it undergoes repairs,” Peiun said, looking back at the station’s Hashmedai repair teams storm past them into the airlock. “Perhaps we could share stories as to—”
“We have matters to attend to,” Foster snorted drily. “Like notifying our government of our discovery.”
“Of course, by all means do that first,” said Peiun. “Please allow me to show you the way out,” Peiun offered, extending his hand toward the corridor before them. “The journey to the human arm is a long one from here.”
Foster exhaled warm air into her numb hands, rubbing them together as she said. “We’ll find it.”
Celestial Incursion Page 31