by Jesse Wilson
“Voltarice, start the engines, we are leaving,” he said to the ship and there was a great shudder as the engines came to life. “Yes, sir,” the computer replied.
Rex got to the bridge and turned on the intercom.
“This is your Commander speaking, our destination is thirty miles outside the wall, we will have three hours before we get to the wall so use this time now to get some sleep, eat, rest, do whatever. Once we get there it's all hands on deck, so enjoy the off time while you can,” Rex said into the intercom and shut it off. Rex sat in the helm control station.
“Alright, help me take us out as easy as it goes,” he said to the ship. The Voltarice rose into the air of the ground and the docking door opened. Slowly the silver ship exited the castle docking bay and rose into the misty air. Rex was nervous, the last thing he wanted to do was scrape the side of the castle with everyone watching, including the King. Thankfully for him he was able to maneuver the thousand foot long ship out of the way of any danger.
“Good deal, Voltarice, set a course to sector twenty three on the wall, tell me once we get there and I'll take it from there,” he said to the ship. “Yes, sir,” the voice responded to him. Now all that was left was the waiting, at least for now.
The trip took almost as long as Rex said it would, all was quiet on the ship.
“All senior officers report to the bridge,” Rex's voice came over the intercom. The still worn out crew forced themselves to the bridge one at a time. Rex was waiting for them to show up already. Evie was the first one in the door and looked out the viewing window.
“Look at that wall, legend says that Elrox built it in one day from the bones of massive sea dragons that threatened to drown the world,” Evie said and stared at the massive thing in the screen.
“I don't know about legends but I do know it spreads out for thousands of miles protecting the outer edge of the Western Kingdom,” Rex said, neither of them saw the wall very often but it was always awe inspiring. The others came through the door on at a time.
“Haven't been out here since my training days,” Nymie said as she the saw it. “Ditto,” Drask said but Boz wasn't impressed. “On my off time I come out here all the time because doctors aren't common out here. It's a living,” he said, trying to one up all of them, but he didn't get a response.
Tayne crossed his arms, but didn't have a comment.
Before them was a great wall of shining, sparkling green stone that stretched out from left to right as far as the eye could see, and nothing else but the blue green waters of the Yalo ocean on the other side of it.
“Beyond the wall are the wild, untamed ocean lands. I'm not sure why anyone would want to live way out there,” Tayne said as the ship flew over the wall.
“Hello Voltarice, nice to see you out this way again. Good luck over the wall, we'll wait for your return,” a voice said through their speakers and continued, “This is the Emerald Watch, signing out,” the voice said and the speakers went dead.
“I guess that's their way of telling us goodbye,” Drask said as she gazed into the endless ocean beyond the wall. “We're all nervous, don't worry about a thing, I think we'll be fine,” Rex replied.
In just a few minutes the Voltarice had cleared the wall and flew out to open water.
“Drask, Tayne, enough standing around, get to your stations, Boz keep an eye on our surroundings and let me know if anything is about to eat us, you're the science officer now, I guess,” Rex said and looked at Evie. “You make sure nothing is watching us. If you sense anything, and I mean anything, let me know,” he said and was relying on her the most here, magic could sense things sensors couldn't and there were plenty of nasty things out here.
“So, I have to know something,” Drask said to Rex and continued, “How does it burn anything underwater, why was there a Pyro here, at all. None of this makes any sense,” she asked and Rex shrugged. “There is only one way I can think of this could have worked if it was a Pyro, but it still seems very much impossible. Listen, let's not speculate too much, let's do it like any other thing and work with the evidence we find,” Rex replied. Drask just nodded.
“All stations, prepare to dive in five minutes,” Rex said at once through the intercom and waited for all stations to report green. One by one all the lights on his panel began to turn green. It only took three minutes before all stations reported to be ready.
“Well, they work fast,” Rex said to himself, flipped the intercom switch. “Diving now, please report any leaks if you see them, thank you,” Rex said and shut the thing off.
The thousand foot ship stopped in midair and slowly sank to the surface of the sea, then the silver metal giant slowly disappeared under the waves with barely enough force to disturb the ocean. Within seconds it was as if it was never there at all.
Chapter 5
Despite the darkness of the water, no one detected any amount of danger around them. “Are you sure there is a monster down here?” Tayne asked and stared at the radar, bored out of his mind already. “I am sure there are lots of monsters down here, but most of them aren't dumb enough to attack a ship this big, don't worry we'll be fine until we get there,” Rex replied and resisted the urge to roll his eyes.
The rest of the short trip to the crime scene was easy.
“Well, will you look at that,” Drask said as they saw the village on the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by a massive shield.
“Very weird, the outer villages only turn their shields on for about three months to get supplies they can't make on their own during the calm weather,” Boz said and immediately knew there was something of a problem going on down there right away. “How weird is it really? The Emerald Watch got here before we did, use your head,” Drask replied.
“Oh, well, yeah it could be them too, I guess,” Boz replied as he was embarrassed by Drask.
“Get us into teleporting range we're all going down there so be ready,” Rex said and stood up, he hated sitting too long in one spot because it made him restless. “So many damned questions, none of this makes any sense,” Nymie said what most of them were thinking.
Drask just wanted another mug of hot rum and to get back to sleeping. If there was a rogue Pyrohorn down there, it was going to pay for ruining her time off.
Voltarice made it into teleportation range and floated above the village.
“If you need a weapon you know where the armory is, choose your weapon wisely, because there is no telling what could be down there and grab an Aquarian Star too while you're at it,” Rex said and continued, “whatever weapon you pick make sure it can work underwater if need be,” he finished and turned to walk out of the bridge.
“Zola, you have the bridge,” he said and she looked at him in surprise. The officer shot to unexpected attention, and surprise as her black eyes widened.
“But I, I mean yes sir,” she replied. She had only run the ship in simulations before and had no intention to actually run the thing at any capacity. Rex nodded with a smile. “Don't worry, the worst you can do is blow the thing up and kill everyone, I think you'll be fine,” Rex said before he left the bridge.
She swallowed nervously in response, then was determined to do the best she could.
Zola felt there was no need to worry the rest of the crew over a maybe, however so she kept it to herself. The senior hunters quickly put their stations into auto pilot and locked them into place before getting up and leaving the bridge one by one, she made her way to the Commander's chair and sat down. The rest of the crew looked at her.
“We'll be fine, monitor the situation and start scanning the village for anything, I don't know, weird,” she ordered and the rest of the crew got to work.
“This is your Commander speaking, the senior officers are going to be going to the surface, until then Lt Zola is going to be in charge, listen to her as you would me,” Rex said into the intercom from the transporter room, waiting for the others. An Elroxian crewman was manning the teleportation console.
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p; “Sir, do you think that Zola can be trusted,” he asked Rex.
Rex turned to the man and glared at him. “I have to trust someone, and until I have reason to otherwise we will continue to do so,” he replied and the crewman felt scared for speaking like he did out of turn as soon as Rex finished, but the Commander let it go and stepped on to the transporter without saying another word.
“The others will be here soon,” he said and wondered what was taking them so long.
The others were in the Armory of the ship and they were all deciding on what weapons to pick. Boz wasn't a fan of weapons, he picked up an electric blade and swung it around a couple of times for no reason other than to see that it wouldn't fall apart mid swing.
“Evie, could you waterproof my blade for me,” he asked her and she smiled at him. “Yeah, I can do that but wouldn't a bow and arrow be better for you, elf?” she asked with a smile and Boz cast a narrow eyed glance in her direction. “How much more racist can you get?” he asked and she smiled.
“Kidding old man, Cheltax,” she said and a flash of purple light covered his electric sword for a brief moment. “There it's proofed for about fifteen hours, that should be more than enough time,” Evie said and repeated the spell for all the weapons, just in case it was needed.
“There, how hurry up and pick something,” she said to them. Tayne reached on the rack and picked up a combat shotgun with a magical ammo chamber. Drask picked up a plasma rifle. Nymie picked up an enchanted battle axe and placed it against her back, the enchantment held it in place. Each of them picked up an Aquarian crest that was hanging on the wall beside them and hung it around their necks.
“Alright, let's go see what this black unicorn nonsense is all about so we can all go back home,” Drask said to them and they all agreed with that. The five of them made their way back to the teleporting room where Rex was waiting.
“What took you guys so long I was about to take a nap,” Rex said to them and they just scowled back in response.
“Alright, damn, it isn't like I accused you of treason or anything,” Rex said as they all stepped on to the platform. “No, but you are the only one who seems to be in a good mood about any of this,” Drask replied and Rex just smiled. “I just have to remain positive as much as I can, negativity is infectious,” he replied, it was true, too.
“At best a pyre horn did attack and wipe this place out, at worse we have to find a way to deal with a mythical beast no one has ever seen, it's not a good day either way you look at it,” Boz replied to him. Rex decided that the time for small talk was over.
“Energize,” Rex said to the operator. In seconds they were all gone in a blue light.
“I will need as many ash samples as you can get out of section A through F, I think that is where the attack started,” Chief Moreno said to an Elroxian in a bright orange hazmat suit. “I'll get a team on it right away,” the agent responded and shuffled away. Then the blue light cut into the air behind him and he turned around, never noticing the massive ship above the village due to how dark the water was above him.
“What the hell took you guys so long?” Moreno asked them. “We got here as fast as we could, what do we know?” Rex asked and got right to the point. “Pyrehorn blasted through here just before sunrise. The ash is spread out starting over here. People ran, it blasted, you know the rest. The ash isn't telling us much but then again, we aren't experts. You may want to wear a mask down here, without circulation the ash will shred your lungs,” Moreno replied.
“We don't plan on being here that long,” Tayne replied.
“Unicorns are what we deal with, we're experts in the field, we'll be fine,” Evie said and stepped forward.
“Yeah, if we work together we can figure this out a lot sooner than you think, I'll bet,” Drask said to the chief. The man in the uniform looked away, he wanted to say more but at the same time needed to keep it professional with people like these.
“Alright spread out and see what you can find, report back to me with anything. Oh by the way, this place has a name. It, well it used to be Naber. Now it's just a ghost town,” Moreno said to them and continued, “Also, we are pretty sure the beast is still here somewhere, when we got here, the shield was already up. There hasn't been any sign of the thing, but you know they can suppress their fire when needed,” he finished and walked away from them.
“Alright team, figure out what happened here, if you find the beast, banish it. You are all capable of doing it on your own,” Rex said and they all agreed on that with a silent nod. They all knew the stakes. An entire village of people had been wiped out. It was easy to get angry, however they all suppressed those feelings. One moment of distraction could have meant death. They all went their separate ways to find information.
Chapter 6
Boz immediately stopped when a drip of water hit his hand and he looked up.
“Shields don't usually leak,” he said but didn't see where the water could have come from. He walked towards the center of Naber and found what he was looking for. The rest of the crime scene investigators were too busy collecting ashes and looking for clues that no one was bothering to look at the shield tower generator. He had been to enough of these small villages to know they all had one and how they worked. He walked up to it and opened the maintenance panel, there was a computer screen to greet him.
“These are the worst investigators ever,” Boz said to himself and started to punch in keys to get a status read out, it was all he could do without the access codes to get deeper into the system.
“Hours ago, the shield was turned on at half strength by user twenty three for a routine test of the shield crystal matrix,” a quiet voice said to him.
Boz typed in the screen, who is user twenty-three?
“User unknown to system,” the voice replied and Boz scoffed at the inconvenience. “A shield at half strength would have let water through, it would have looked just like, or been similar to rain for as long as it was half power,” he looked up and wondered why anyone would do something like that.
A man in a hazmat suit walked up to him. “We already checked this, user number twenty three doesn't have a name. The shield was still at half strength when we got here, it was how we got in to this place, we're working here mister Elf, don't be so harsh,” he said to Boz, but the elf was not fazed. “Next time just ask,” the man in the suit said and Boz narrowed his eyes at the screen he was looking at.
“You might be a member of the Emerald Watch, but make no mistake, talk to me like that again and I will make you regret it,” Boz said with a deeper voice. The man behind him took a step back.
“But you raise a good point to ask anyway, but still if we can access the system we can find out what happened. These towers often act as silent guardians, watching everything, it's a little secret they use to keep crime at a minimum out here. If you have a Tech guy send him my way so we can get to the bottom of this?” Boz half asked and more demanded and the hazmat man seemed shocked by this information.
“Yes sir, right away,” he replied and shuffled off noisily. “Rookies,” Boz said as he walked away from the tower, waiting for someone to show up.
Drask walked down mud path and made her way into the local bar that was called The Golden Fish. It was one of the most primitive places she'd ever seen. Everything was made out of stone and coral. This place was made to exist and function underwater so it made sense but it was nowhere near comfortable to her.
But she moved right up to the counter and around it. There was a black bottle of Deloid Rum, common drink of the Elroxians and it was unopened under the bar. Oddly, it was the only bottle left in the place. “Weird,” she said to herself.
She picked it up and twisted the cap off to take a big swig of it. The liquid immediately burned her throat and she winced, placed the bottle back on the counter. “We'll just pretend that never happened,” she said and looked around, the burn fading away just as fast as it came.
Oddly enough there were no burned
shadows on the wall here. Well, she just figured that this attack happened after the place closed.
She decided to check the place out a little more and walked into the back where the dish room was. She figured doing dishes underwater must have been pretty easy, but when she walked in the light turned on and there she found a dead body with two black knives through the eyes of the victim and their chest was carved open. All of their insides were removed and inside was filled with broken glass.
“Oh, what fresh hell is this,” she said and immediately took a step back, picked up her communicator. “Rex, I have a victim that looks like he's been ritually sacrificed, it's a scene right out of a movie in here. I'm at the Golden Fish, you need to see this, bring a couple of those investigators, too,” she said into it and all she could do is stare at the victim.
“I'm on my way,” Rex replied.
At least now she knew where all the other bottles went too. With any luck, there would be fingerprints on some of the glass shards to give them more clues. One thing was for sure, a unicorn didn't do this.
Tayne wasn't very impressed with what he was seeing so far but didn't mind the whole no sun thing down here. If the constant exposure to the water didn't have such a terrible effect on the undead like himself, he would have lived here himself. He grabbed an Aquarian star for the extra protection from the element.
This place was dark in more than one way, besides the investigators there wasn't any signs of life. No pets, no people, nothing. The place was almost completely sterile, even the weak life force of bacteria could barely be detected. What kind of flame only burned flesh to ash, but left the buildings standing?
Tayne worried because he'd never seen anything like this before. He walked down the muddy path and stopped when he felt that something was standing there behind him. It was less something he knew and more of a suspicion.
He turned around and standing there was a machine woman that had clearly been burned. Half of its skin was melted off and the silver steel was blackened. “Help me,” it said and started to walk towards him. “Okay, what happened here. I can't help you until I know what happened,” Tayne said and tried to get some information out of it. “Help me,” the machine said again and started to walk faster.
