Eon Gate (The Eon Pentalogy Book 1)

by Mitchell T. Jacobs

  “It's not what it looks like.”

  Lauren heard a clicking sound.

  “You're a fiction writer. Don't you know how cliché that response is?” Nina asked, her aim not wavering for a moment. “Not only that, but it's a tacit admission of guilt.”

  “I assure you, I'm not guilty, and you're completely mistaken.”

  “I see. I'm also the one holding the gun, so if you have an explanation then it better be quick, and it better be good. Why are you here with Eon Path?”

  “In all honesty? Because I didn't have a choice. I didn't seek them out. They came and found me, then essentially kidnapped me and brought me here.”

  “I see. So where did they take you from?”

  “Goethe Tertium. Where I normally make my residence.”

  “And when did this happen?”

  “About a month ago? Maybe two?”

  “And in all this time no one reported you as missing, and no one ever went looking for you? That's rather odd.”

  Lauren watched the conversation with growing alarm. She didn't know much about Dr. Hammond, save for the fact that he had been friends with Professor Hallas. Leon Skare had told her most of the information she possessed about him. But everyone else had their hands on their weapons, and none of them looked like they trusted the man in front of them.

  “I live alone, in an isolated area,” he said. “It's not unusual for me to go off the grid for months at a time. It's peaceful there. Natural, undisturbed.”

  “Right...”

  He shrugged. “That's the truth, unfortunately, and I can't come up with any lies that would be satisfactory. I can only give you the truth, even if it seems completely unbelievable.”

  “A pity, because it does seem rather unbelievable,” Nina said. “You can't tell me that no one ever missed you? You're that isolated?”

  “You don't have to mock me for it.”

  “I'll ask you this again. Why are you here? And how did you get here?”

  “It's like I said. Eon Path came looking for me and asked me to come along,” he said.

  “And you just accepted?”

  “I did.”

  The frankness of the answer surprised Lauren, especially coming from someone attempting to protest their innocence. She wanted to say something, ask her own questions, but Nina dominated the entire situation. Even the rest of the bodyguard team seemed content to ignore what was happening in front of them.

  “So, you just accepted. Any particular reason why?” Nina asked. She kept her weapon leveled at him.

  “Because they showed up and asked me for their help. Of course, they were carrying weapons with them, so I didn't believe that it was prudent to refuse. Who knew what kind of reaction that would have caused.”

  “If they bothered to come find him then they probably would have just dragged him along,” Soko said.

  “Noted. But you have no ties to Eon Path?”

  “None at all?”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Until they showed up on my doorstep I had never encountered them,” Hammond said. “Doran Hallas ran into them more than once. Why aren't you asking him these questions?”

  “Because he's dead.”

  A look of surprise crossed his face. “Dead?”

  Lauren decided to speak up. “Eon Path shot him on Caleth.”

  “She was one of his students,” Nina explained as Dr. Hammond made a curious glance toward her.

  “I see. And I'm sorry to hear that. But I know very little about it. Your father would also know more than I would. Speaking of which, I don't think he'd approve of you holding me at gunpoint.”

  “Well, he isn't here now, is he? And no one's contacted you in months, so he'd be none the wiser, would he?”

  “Shooting me solves nothing.”

  “On the contrary, it prevents you from becoming a rallying point for Eon Path. A terrorist organization. A terrorist organization that killed one of your old friends, and has spent the past few months attempting to kill all of us.”

  “Or it turns me into a martyr for them. And when they find my body-”

  Nina laughed. “Oh, how is that going to happen? You do know how vast space is, right? It's hard enough to find planets without a map. What do you think will happen if we just toss your body out into the void? Do you actually think anyone will ever find you?”

  The talk was beginning to turn far more bloodthirsty than Lauren was willing to stomach. And another question hovered in the back of her mind…

  “Why did Eon Path bring you here?” she blurted out.

  “Now there's an intelligent question,” Hammond said.

  Nina scowled. “Not the best way to talk to someone who's holding a gun to your head, but I'll allow it. I'd like to know it as well.”

  “If you'll lower your weapon, please?”

  “Of course.” Nina holstered her handgun and glanced at Soko. “If he tries anything, kill him. Preferably with a gut shot.”

  “That's a little overboard,” the older man commented dryly.

  “Then shoot him in the head if you don't like it. Or the chest. I don't really care as long as he's a corpse at the end.”

  “Noted.”

  She turned back to Dr. Hammond. “So, why did Eon Path bring you here?”

  “Because they needed my expertise, or so I was told,” he said. “They have data. Information that needed to be interpreted. And I was needed for that because of my specialization and field of study.”

  “Fiction, hm?”

  He smiled. “Oh, you should know better than that. Before I happened to find my talent for writing I went to school for something quite different. Your father never told you that?”

  “He may have, but it was one detail in a sea of them, so forgive me for not remembering that.”

  “I suppose I should. Anyhow, my field of study was history, and my specialization was Ulic studies, particularly their literature. An obscure field, to be sure, but one that deserves particular attention. You can learn a lot about a culture through their writings.”

  That caught Lauren's attention. “If you studied Ulic culture and literature-”

  “Then why have you never heard of me?” Hammond asked with a wry smile. “That's very simple. I was never one for the academic world. It didn't suit me, and I didn't pursue it beyond a few short years. But I did do a few things. Have you read Rings of Anthar?”

  “I have.”

  “I coauthored large parts of that, though I was more than content to give Doran all the credit. And why wouldn't I? Academic works were always his field. I preferred having my name attached to works of fiction. And he was always the one digging up the new discoveries. I was simply the one to interpret them.”

  Lauren frowned. She didn't remember Professor Hallas ever mentioning that fact, although she never asked about it either. He seemed to prefer field work to writing.

  “And they brought you here to study this structure and what it holds, is that right?” Nina asked.

  “That would be my guess, thought the actual station wasn't their goal. I'd be rather useless for that. But the information inside of it...”

  “And how did they manage to follow us here?”

  “This was all part of their plan, apparently,” Hammond explained. “They knew the location, but they didn't have the proper equipment to excavate the site.”

  “What? They can get their hands on a battlecruiser, but they somehow can't get their hands on the equipment they'd need to excavate an asteroid? What kind of sense does that make?”

  “That was what I was told. I suspect the real reason they had was rather different. They seem to think you were a nuisance, and they wanted to deal with you. In a permanent manner.”

  “Then why not come here ahead of time and ambush us? Wouldn't that be simpler than going through all the trouble with the stealth ship and the fight?”

  “Ah,” Hammond said with a smile, “but that's the real question, isn't it? They told me tha
t they knew the location, but I suspected that they weren't telling me the truth about that. On the voyage here they fed me the information they had, but it was incomplete, corrupted. I suspect whatever directions they had to this place were corrupted as well.”

  That made the most sense. The data chip on Caleth had been a stunning find because intact Ulic artifacts like that were extremely rate. Off the top of her head Lauren could only think of about a dozen discoveries like it.

  “And now that all your guards are dead, what are you planning on doing now?” Nina asked.

  “First, thanking you for rescuing me. Even if it involved pointing guns at my head.”

  “And what will you do after that?”

  He shrugged. “I assume that you're here for what's contained inside this place.”

  “You could say that, yes. Obviously there's a lot of Ulic technology that would be very valuable.”

  “Of course. But is that all?”

  “Hm. What do you think is in here?” Nina asked.

  “Likely the same thing that you do. This is no ordinary space station. The Ulics built it for a purpose, and they built it to last. It contained their greatest work, or so the data that I found told me so. Whether that's true or not I don't know, but I thought that it was worth investigating. If only people believed it was fact rather than fiction.”

  “Oh?”

  He nodded. “You haven't heard, then? Part of the reason I left academics was because they saw fit to ridicule my theories. Without even trying to consider the knowledge behind them, or break out of their own echo chambers. That's what the universities are these days. Echo chambers that trade in self-fulfilling prophecies.”

  Lauren wanted to protest that, but she kept her mouth shut.

  “And what were those theories?”

  “That the Ulics had built something out here in the Central Expanse. Something far greater than we could ever have imagined. Something of immense, almost cataclysmic power. And here we stand inside of it. I assume you found evidence for it as well?”

  “We did,” Nina confirmed. “Lauren deciphered it from a data chip that Doran Hallas found on Caleth. It stated that this was the place where the gate came into being. What that means is anyone's guess.”

  “Oh,” Hammond said with a smile, “so you don't have complete information on this place.”

  “Do you?”” Lauren spoke up.

  “I do not,” he said. “The data I've found has usually been corrupted. Unusually so. But I've still been able to learn many things, and it sounds like they weren't in the chip that you acquired your data from. So perhaps cooperation is in order? We can accomplish more by pooling our knowledge. And I have no love for Eon Path.”

  “Perhaps,” Nina said. “Though that all depends on what you really know.”

  He shrugged. “Well, I'll share this tidbit for free, then. You said that this is the place where the gate comes into being. That's true enough, but it's not a metaphoric term. Everything I've read indicates that there's an actual physical structure here. Aside from the station that we're standing in, of course.”

  “We suspected as much, but we didn't have any real confirmation,” Nina said.

  “Yes. And it has a name. In the Ulic language it's rather obtuse, but it translates simply enough.”

  Lauren spoke up again. “What is it?”

  “They called it the Eon Gate.”

  THEIR NEW COMPANION began talking with Lauren, but Mirko didn't have time to listen to what he was saying. Nina drew him aside, though it probably didn't matter. Everything they were talking about was far outside his area of expertise.

  “So we have Dr. Hammond with us,” she said.

  “Noted.”

  “And he's switched sides to us, apparently. Or he was taken captive by them and is now completely indebted to us, or something like that.”

  “You don't sound very convinced.”

  “Don't tell me that you are,” she said. “He won't give straight answers, and he's withholding information.”

  “Do you want us to extract it?”

  Nina made a face. “Do you really have the equipment for that?”

  “I can improvise.”

  “Hold off on that thought for now. Maybe he's telling the truth and is willing to help us. Or maybe this entire thing was planned and this is all a charade.”

  “A rather complicated one.”

  “Then maybe he's just adapting on the fly and trying to play the situation to his advantage,” Nina said. “At any rate, we should be willing to keep him around for his information. But we need to keep an eye on him as well. There's no telling what his motives are, or what he's willing to do.”

  “Is there anything we should know about him? Anything dangerous? Has he done military service?”

  “Other than the standard universal service no. But he's highly intelligent and has nerves of steel. Notice how he didn't even panic after the firefight?”

  Mirko agreed. Intelligent people that kept their wits about them could prove to be especially dangerous.

  “So what do we do about him?”

  “We keep our eyes on him at all times. And we stay wary. Spread this around to the rest of the squad as quietly as possible. Keep an eye on him, and don't let him manipulate us. And if he shows signs of betrayal, then we're going to have to liquidate him. Code for that will be cutthroat.”

  “Is that a suggestion as to the method of that liquidation?”

  “Whatever works for you,” she shrugged. “The point is that I still don't trust him. I just have that feeling, you know.”

  “I know.” Mirko looked over at him. “I don't think that he's completely lying to us. And I'm not sure that he's affiliated with Eon Path. This is just my sense of things after seeing him for a few minutes, but he's smart. Too smart to be caught up in the things that they were doing or the methods they were using. He seems more subtle.”

  “He does. But that makes him all the more dangerous, doesn't it? I get the sense that he's a fox. He's willing to play both sides for his own benefit.”

  “Then the key to avoiding any problems is to make sure that our side is always the most beneficial.”

  “Easier said than done,” Nina said. “Now come on. Let's see what this place has in store for us.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Now that he had time to view the interior without being shot at Kei began to observe more details about the Ulic structure. Or rather, it was the lack of details that he noticed. Everything in here seemed to blend together, a mass of blackish-grey metal with a single doorway leading further into the complex.

  “I guess I can see what you mean,” Rappa said when he mentioned it. “But isn't that the same thing we see every time we go aboard a human station? Or a recently formed colony? Everything is modular.”

  “No, I get what he means,” Salim said. “You can feel it around us. Smell the air.”

  “Huh? What about it?”

  Kei smelled the air as well, though he wasn't quite sure what Salim meant.

  “Can you smell it? Can you taste the difference?” Salim asked. “This place is old. Very old. And that would make me think that the air would be musty. Stale. But it's not. It's not fresh, though. Not at all. It's more… sterile. That's what I want to say. It's more sterile than anything.”

  Kei sniffed the air again, and for a moment he thought he could smell what Salim was talking about. Everything in here seemed so stark, so plain. It didn't have the grandiose aura that he might have expected out of such an important place.

  But then, if this was a military installation like they thought then the builders had probably aimed for efficiency over form. It still showed the hallmarks of Ulic construction, like their love of huge, cavernous chambers, but the rest of the structure seemed relatively tame by comparison.

  Or maybe it was because this had been built to last, to endure the ravages of time and space. The simpler the construction the better.

  “Maybe it's just from the
systems,” he said. “In order to have an atmosphere in here they'd need to continually scrub the air. Either that, or they'd need to have some way to produce oxygen, like a biodome.”

  “Still, that would need to be functioning after thousands upon thousands of years,” Elsner said. “And even that's stretching credibility. I know the Ulics were advanced, but having something that can go that long without repair or replacement seems unlikely.”

  “Then maybe it's not like that,” Salim said.

  “What else could it be?”

  “Maybe there's a system in place that repairs or replaces everything? That would be possible, wouldn't it? A lot like the semi-autonomous systems in asteroid mining that process material and produce replacement drones?”

  “Maybe. Which means that the systems here are still active.”

  That could mean that any automated defenses remained active as well, though he would have thought the entrance would be defended if that were the case. Maybe Eon Path had destroyed them when they arrived.

  Speaking of which…

  “What do you think of him?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder. Dr. Hammond walked beside Lauren and Nina, though he also noticed Soko close by with his weapon out. And then there were the orders the team had been given concerning their new companion.

  “Not much to go on,” Rappa said. “I don't know much about him. Apparently he's a recluse or something.”

  “Does seem odd that he shows up here in the company of Eon Path,” Elsner said. “And whether he's telling the truth or not about being kidnapped, I don't know. But if he's an expert on this sort of thing then we can't afford to waste him.”

  Kei nodded. “I'm surprised that we didn't bring a bigger team for this. Or an entire fleet.”

  “I don't think that this expedition was liked by some of the higher-ups. At least that's the impression I got. We're here doing due diligence, not because they actually thought we'd find anything. Although with the reinforcements on the way...”

  “Provided we hold out that long,” Salim said. “And I think we're going to have trouble soon enough. Won't be long before Eon Path figures out we're inside the ruin and we have the doctor with us. If he's as important as we think, then they're going to want him back. And they're going to want to get rid of us as well.”