War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past

by Conner Walworth

  "I presumed you were hiding information," Camillus seemed to grin. "Humans are so naive when it comes to some things."

  "What made you think that?"

  "Giustino's reports show the lie detector went off for one of the questions. That's all I needed to see to know you knew a lot more than you revealed to the officers," Camillus told him. "Why keep information from them?"

  "I was going to kill them in vengeance at first, but I'm not doing that anymore."

  "Did the Queen change that? She changed your mind?"

  "How do you know I went to see the Queen?"

  "I know a lot of things," Camillus smiled. "And Giustino also puts a lot of things in his reports for me to read. Without his knowledge of course."

  "So you didn't tell anyone that you thought I was lying?"

  "That's not my job. They keep me down here secluded from everything, so why should I help them?" He walked over to the computer. "I'll help you find what you're looking for though," He said over his shoulder while typing things into the computer.

  "You need the names," Anlon walked over.

  Before he made it to the computer, all three of the races had popped up on the giant screen. Their pictures were displayed along with a little bit of personal information that was available.

  "How did you know who I was looking for?"

  "I'm following your case very closely. I find it most intriguing," He put a hand on Anlon's shoulder. "I am deeply sorry for your losses."

  Anlon looked up at the screen. "Erebos? They're on Erebos?"

  Camillus nodded. "It seems their ship Cerberus has been seen there quite a bit over the past couple of years. I have already done all the investigative work for you and this is what I have come up with. They have been to Erebos more than any other planet, which leads me to believe that Donnchadh is doing more than just visiting."

  "Where's Erebos exactly? I didn't pay attention to moons much in school."

  "It's one of Plouton's moons," He informed him. "So you were close when you thought they were on Plouton. That planet, and all of its moons are filled with criminals, so it's not surprising that they're somewhere near Plouton."

  "Can you find out where exactly on Erebos they are?"

  "I'm afraid not," Camillus shook his head. "Finding where they are will be a little bit harder. They haven't been seen at the spaceport in some time, so I assume there is someplace that they're hiding out. I've been trying my hardest to pinpoint an exact location, but I can't find one."

  "Why did you stop me when I came down if you knew I was going to search for these races?"

  "I wanted to see if you'd tell me why you were really here. I wanted to know if I could trust you."

  "Well, thanks for finding everything for me."

  "Not like a humanoid has anything else to do down here," Camillus winked. "That's why I let Kanti look for her parents. It gave me someone to talk to for a little while. It gets very lonely down here staring at black screens all day and night."

  "I'll come back to see you when I've found where the Deimos Brotherhood is,." Anlon promised. "Thank you so much for helping me out."

  "You're welcome, Anlon. I'll see you again soon," he waved.

  Anlon got on the elevator, inserted the key, and entered the code again. The elevator lurched up and he waited for the doors to slide open so he could quickly get out of the prison.

  "Anlon?" He bumped into Kanti on his way off of the elevator. "What are you doing here?"

  "I..."

  "You're the one who took Giustino's key from his desk!"

  "Why were you looking for it?" Anlon stepped back.

  "I was going to use it for something personal," she admitted. "The more important question is, why were you in the database alone."

  "I was handling personal stuff too."

  "What kind of personal stuff involves breaking into a prison and stealing information from the database?" she squinted.

  "Kanti," Anlon started. "It's really complicated and I wish I could tell you, but I can't right now."

  "Complicated," she mocked. "I got kicked off of your case because I was standing up for you, only to catch you doing this. You're all dressed up like some sort of spy and who knows how you got in here. Looks like Giustino was right about you."

  Anlon shut his eyes. "I promised to tell you what was going on when I got back from Hera."

  "Then you snuck back to Gaea so no one would know you were here," She crossed her arms. "Why? So you wouldn't have to tell me what's going on?"

  "You have to promise not to tell anyone," Anlon grabbed her hands. "This is very serious stuff. Dangerous stuff."

  "I promise. I'm not on your case anymore, so what does it matter what you tell me?" She cocked her head and smiled. "I'm not required to tell Giustino anything anymore."

  "I lied to you and Giustino about how much I knew that first day I was questioned," Anlon admitted.

  "Giustino knows as much and I got kicked off the case because I insisted that you weren't hiding anything. Obviously I was wrong about that."

  "I'm sorry Kanti," he replied. "I wanted to find the races myself. I didn't want you guys to get to them before I did."

  "Why Anlon? That's our job. Why wouldn't you want us to find them for you?"

  "I wanted to kill them myself. I didn't want someone else to do it for me after what they did to my family."

  "That's foolish Anlon! You can't kill these races yourself! Look at what they did to your family! How could you possibly think going after them is even a good idea?"

  Anlon held his hands up. "It's different now. I'm not going on some crazy quest to kill them anymore."

  "How is it different? You're obviously still trying to find these races."

  "The Queen called me to Hera because she had a feeling I knew more than I told you."

  "She was right," Kanti muttered.

  "While I was there, those same races showed up to assassinate the Queen!"

  "What? The same ones that murdered your family?" she asked. "I haven't heard anything about the Queen surviving an assassination attempt."

  "It happened in her Palace," Anlon said. "But they were the same exact races! They tried to kill her Kanti!" Anlon exclaimed. "My father was only the first part of their plan. The Deimos Brotherhood still plans to do much more."

  "How did she survive?"

  "I saw them and ran to the Queen to stop the poisoned food from getting to her. That's when she told me that she needed help finding where these races are staked out."

  Kanti raised her eyebrows. "Your help? How could you possibly help her find them when she has the GSOU and all of those other resources at hand?"

  "It's complicated. She has people inside the Palace that are working for the Deimos Brotherhood and I'm the only one she can trust not to leak any information. If I don't find them, then Orion is doomed."

  "You don't have any experience or training in this type of thing. How are you supposed to find these races?"

  "I'm training at Moran's and he is going to help me with getting weapons and a ship to get to the Deimos Brotherhood."

  "Were you able find the races in the database?" Kanti asked, seemingly intrigued at the new developments.

  "Sort of. They're on Erebos, but that's as much as I know. It's a start and it's further than the Queen would be able to get without someone sticking in false information. It's now my job to find their hidden base and report it to the Queen."

  "When are you leaving for Erebos?"

  "Soon. I have finish my training first."

  Kanti took a step towards him. "I'm going with you when you leave."

  "You can't come with me, it's dangerous! Plus you work here, you can't just get up and leave to go with me."

  She grabbed his hands. "I was going to the database to look for my parents one last time before I left here for good," she admitted. "I know you, so I would rather leave Gaea and stay with you instead of leave alone to start a new life somewhere else all over again."

&n
bsp; "It's too dangerous to go with me," he insisted.

  She shrugged. "No more dangerous than sneaking off to another planet where I could just as easily be killed or made a slave. I won't truly be safe anywhere if I'm on my own. I'm better with someone else that I know."

  "Are you sure this is what you want to do?" Anlon squeezed her hands.

  "Yes," She nodded. "I only came here to find my parents and it looks like I have none after all. You're the closest person left I have to family. We need to stay together."

  "I can ask Moran if I can take you along."

  "I'm going either way, so you might as well tell him I'm going along with you."

  "I'll try to," Anlon nodded, not sure he'd have any success. "Here's the key. I need to get out of here before I get caught by any guards. I'll keep in touch with you."

  Anlon went back down the hallway that he had come down and made his way back up to the roof. He hadn't spotted a single guard the entire time he had been in the prison, which was strange, but that didn't mean that there weren't any roaming around. After reaching the glider, he hopped on and activated the pulse jammer, before speeding off into the darkness.

  Chapter 17

  Jahdiel sat in the commander seat above all of the crew working intently on navigational computers below her. She was in the Mother Colchian, the supreme commanding ship of the Crodillian fleet. The Colchian was unimaginably large to anything she had ever seen before being outcast to the Black Hole with its oblong oval shape and hangar in the center of the ship. This was the very ship that had intercepted her all of those years ago when she had been floating aimlessly through space after surviving the impossible journey through Black Hole.

  The Crodillians had made contact with her and had ordered her to land the ship in their hangar. It had looked like they were initially going to fire on her, but for some odd reason they had held back. There had been other broken ships floating in the black space around her, obviously destroyed by them, but none looked anything like her ship. She had obeyed their orders without question and landed on their ship, praying that she live another day.

  After landing, strange looking beasts had approached her ship, but she had still lowered her ramp and allowed them to enter against will of her mind. The beasts looked even more hideous close up, but she had been confronted with only friendliness, despite their monstrous looks.

  The monsters were a very thin and frail race with a yellowish hue of skin and a curved spine that made them appear as if they were constantly slouching. They had egg-shaped head that glowed and viscous teeth coming out from their mouths that matched the long claws on the ends of their hands. Without much as a single word, they had brought her to their commander Merikh and he listened to her story of being wrongly outcast. He believed that she was innocent of any crimes and had agreed to let her live among them, even though she was obviously not one of them and would have a hard time fitting in.

  She had started off as simple crew member doing tedious jobs, but quickly worked her way up to soldier, and eventually, commander of the Mother Colchian. She was second in command to only Merikh and she was in charge of leading attacks against the Crodillian rebels.

  The final attack on the rebels had just ended in success. This attack had been fully planned by her, utilizing four of the Crodillian fleets at max crew and fire-power. All four fleets had been organized to attack the remaining rebel fleets simultaneously from different locations in the Galaxy to obliterate them in on final, and fatal, blow.

  She stared out of the window at the rebel wreckage floating aimlessly through space around her ship. Rebel bodies floating torn in pieces aimlessly through space, all long dead from prolonged exposure to space. The rebels had become weak after fighting for over twenty-five years and had finally given up in one hopeless last stand.

  Jahdiel called Merikh on the ship's communication system and made it so that all of the crew could see his face displayed on the cockpit window. "All four of the fleets have taken out the remaining rebel forces, Merikh."

  Merikh slowly nodded. "Excellent job, Jahdiel. We are glad to have taken you in as one of our own. You have just played a tremendous role in taking out the enemies that have been trying to wipe us out for countless years."

  "There are still going to be remaining rebel ships that didn't take part in the battles," Jahdiel pointed out. "We should pursue them until there are none left. We can't leave a single rebel alive if we can prevent it."

  Merikh held up a hand. "Do not worry about the remaining rebels. They are too small in numbers to pose any real threat to us and our future plans."

  "Are you sure Merikh? We should wipe them all out, just to be sure there are no future attacks."

  "I assure you that they will no longer be a problem. You have shown great dedication to the Crodillian race since being taken in. You have not seen your race in many years and have lived side by side with a strange race. I can honestly say it is more than I could ever do."

  "There is no other race that I would rather live with," Jahdiel smiled. "You have shown me love and compassion, while my own race showed me death and hatred."

  "I think it is time that we talk about what I have planned next, now that the rebels have been taken care of. I have some other plans that I am very eager to carry out and I'm sure once you hear them, you will be too."

  "Right now?" Jahdiel asked.

  "No," he shook his head. "I will be landing on Mother Colchian very soon. We will speak in private then."

  She nodded and closed the communication, quickly leaving her post to meet him in the hangar. The hallways were crowded with celebrating Crodillians, making her push her way through to get to the hangar as soon as possible. By the time she reached the hangar, Merikh had already arrived and was walking right to her.

  He smiled at her, revealing his sharp teeth. "I think it is time I reveal some very exciting and important news to you Jahdiel. Very few know about it, but soon all will know."

  "What is it?" she asked. "It sounds like you've been planning it for quite some time."

  "After you appeared out of the Black Hole all of those years ago, I sent scientists to it to start making observations and further studies on it," He informed her. "After countless bloody years of war, they have completed a piece of groundbreaking technology. It was taken from the rebels to tell you the truth, but it was improved upon greatly by my scientists. This piece of technology, can send you back through the Black Hole."

  "The rebels had technology to travel through the Black Hole?"

  "They did," he nodded. "We have no knowledge of them using it, so we don't know if they actually knew it could take them through, but they had the technology my scientists were looking for. We can only guess the rebels invented it to go through the Black Hole, but it may have just been a coincidence. They were fighting us to keep us from going through, so I'm a little baffled this technology was in their possession since they were so against the idea."

  "I think I know where this is going," Jahdiel started to smile. "You want to travel through the Black Hole."

  "Well, do you want to go back to Orion?"

  She shook her head. "No. In all honesty, I don't want to go back."

  "Why wouldn't you want to go back to your home Galaxy?" Merikh asked. "This Galaxy has sadly fallen apart after years of war and will never be a good place to live."

  "There is no one left for me in Orion," She looked at the ground. "They all think I'm a traitor and that I'm dead. Even if this Galaxy is dead, I'm seen as a hero here, not an outcast. Why would I want to go back somewhere where I'm seen as a traitor and will be sent to death?"

  "But you're not a traitor! You were wrongly accused."

  "We both know that I'm not a traitor," she agreed. "But the rest of Orion will never agree. I was sent here as a traitor, time won't change their perception of me."

  "What if we traveled with you, back to Orion and protected you from any threats?"

  "Then I would be glad to go back," Jahdiel forced a sm
ile.

  "Is that your final decision? Are you ready to go back to Orion?"

  "After all these years, I think that I'm finally ready," Jahdiel replied. "Let's go back to Orion together. A wrongly outcast human and Crodillians."

  "That is just what I wanted to hear," He grabbed her shoulders and smiled. "We will do great things, you and I."

  Chapter 18

  Anlon rose from bed after getting very little rest due to his run-in with Kanti the previous night. Getting caught and the fact that Kanti now wanted to come along with him on his mission to find the Deimos Brotherhood had nagged at him all night. He knew there was really no stopping her from coming, and he actually wanted her to come along, but he wasn't sure if he was ready to face something happening to her. Anlon cleared the thoughts from his mind and focused on his new mission at hand: finding the clue the Queen had asked him to retrieve.

  He quickly dressed and grabbed his usual toaster-tarts to eat on the go as he got in his truck and entered 301 Burklebee Street in the mapping system. The directions led him to a high class neighborhood, lined with enormous and luxurious homes that all had luscious green lawns.

  Once he arrived at the address, he pulled the truck to the side and shut off the engine. There were no cars or cruisers parked in the driveway, so he figured the home was empty and took a shovel off of the rack in the bed. A large tree was in the middle of the yard with a small garden surrounding it and Anlon knew at once that's where he was going to find the clue. He began for the tree and picked a spot to begin.

  After a couple minutes of digging, he hit something hard and grasped his hands around the object after wiping dirt off. He got a good grasp of it and pulled out a heavy metal container covered in rust. The container wasn't very large and he was able to put it under his arm as he picked up the shovel and left the mess he had just made. Anlon tossed the shovel in the back of the truck and hopped in the driver seat to get home.

  After the short drive, he ran up to his dad's office and tossed the box on the desk while searching the drawer for something to pry it open. A screwdriver was buried under some pens and he took it, prying open the rusted box. Anlon started going through papers inside and saw that some of them had Armino's name on them, but nothing about the Queen's missing daughter. He kept digging through, hoping that something would tell him where the Queen's daughter was located and was awarded after several minutes of rummaging. A small hand written note was at the very bottom of the container, perfectly preserved: