Ga’an stared at the old priest’s hand, seemingly lost in thoughts. It took him a few seconds to come back to his senses and retake his seat. He bowed his head like a storybook king—an apology, Ray realized. Yet their eyes were wary, and Sarah repositioned herself, leaning on a nearby cupboard, watching the alien like a hawk.
“It is an Arinar,” the tall man said finally. “It is part of a five piece lock to keep the Baeal coming from their plane.”
“A lock?” Ray asked.
“A plane?” Brother Cavil added.
“My Ancestors had stories about these stones. They were said to be created for protection, or so we know. Legends spoke of an evil, dark race forced to leave the planes long before our time because of their sin against the gods, but who promised to return one day to claim their home,” he answered. “There are five stones, each to block a different path and, as a whole, form a barrier against the Baeal.”
Ray raised a brow. “Said?”
“The stones predate my people. Their origin is unknown.”
“Five pillars to focus their light, five guardians to keep haven safe. Five angels to hold the line and bar Them from invading life,” Brother Cavil quoted.
“You are speaking from the Tome of Julyiarn.” Ga’an nodded; his voice tender, nostalgic.
“Why didn’t you use stones?” Ray asked.
“According to the lore, the Arinar only reacts to a special blood. No one in the Empire had that. The Wise Ones tried—”
“What’s a Wise One?” Sarah asked.
“Like a religious leader. Wise Ones studied the spirits worlds and prophecies.”
“A tale-preaching priest,” Ray folded his arms and he earned a hot glare from Brother Cavil.
Ga’an looked at the stone and humphed. “They tried to unlock the mysteries of the Arinar for years but had no luck. Inquisitors of the Emperor searched for the pure blood for cycles without luck. The Emperor himself tried to activate the stones but they were nothing but dead husks. In the end”—Ga’an paused a moment—“all we could do was fight with what we had. Our ships and our courage. Now, tell me how you ended up finding one of the five stones.”
Brother Cavil looked at Ray as if willing him to speak.
Ray cleared his throat, thinking where to begin. “Someone gave it to me back on Bunari.”
“Who?” Ga’an insisted.
“A hooded figure with glowing symbols on his robe appeared while I was imprisoned there. He told me I’m supposed to find the stones and stop the Nightfall, which was triggered with my arrival on Bunari.” Ray himself seemed to have a hard time believing what he’d just said. “He asked me if I was prepared for my family’s return to claim what was theirs or something like that.” Ray pursed his lips. “Also said the real threat was something other than my family.”
“It cannot be,” Ga’an whispered.
“What cannot be?” Sarah said impatiently. “Stop talking mysteriously!”
Ga’an pushed the Arinar toward Ray. “Touch it.”
Ray waved his hand dismissively. “It just glows when I touch it.”
“Touch it!” Ga’an barked.
Ray sighed and reached for the artifact. At his touch, the statuette glowed, first with a pale blue light and then as a shining beacon. The Milky Way swirled inside the statuette again, each star with its own gleam.
Ga’an’s jaw clenched. He stood up slowly, moving away from the table, his eyes fixed on Ray. Ray’s muscles tensed but to his surprise, the tall man knelt on his right leg, and touched his forehead in a ceremonial gesture.
“Lohil.”
Ray raised his eyebrows. “Come again?”
“Savior,” Brother Cavil said, watching with awe. “It means savior.”
“I pledge my loyalty and my arm to you, Lohil,” Ga’an spoke softly, still on his knee. “I will honor my duty in your fight against the dark and I will die a glorious death when the time comes.”
“Oh, snap out of it.” Ray reached for Ga’an’s arm and pulled him back to his feet, leaving the stone back to its dead state. “What’re you babbling about?”
“We lost our battle because we could not close the gates. Only the line of Lohil, the Savior can use the gate stones and seal Baeal. I always thought it was a myth. A prehistoric joke, giving us the hope with the Arinar but leaving us short of a Lohil.”
“So…”
“The stone reacts to you and only you, Raymond Harris. You are your species’ and every other life’s hope. It is my honor bound duty to serve the Lohil.”
“I’m not one of your people, Ga’an.”
“You are the Lohil. You are above species.”
“Didn’t that hooded figure call you Lohil as well?” Brother Cavil reminded.
Silence fell again. Ray watched the statuette’s cold stone surface. Savior? Me?
Brother Cavil broke the silence. “I guess that explains a lot.”
“It does?” Ray whispered.
“Think about it, son. They tried to crash your ship into the temple and destroy the stone. Now you are being hunted by an assassin at every turn and you bumped into an Ancient.” Brother Cavil touched Ray’s shoulder softly, “It would be quite a coincidence, Raymond.”
“It doesn’t explain that much, old man,” Ray narrowed his eyes. “What does this have anything to do with the Consortium?”
“I cannot explain that.”
“Do we even know Agent Caius’s a Consortium agent?” Sarah asked.
“What do you mean?” Ray raised his head. “He’s faking it?”
“No, I don’t think so. But what if he has ties other than the Consortium?”
Ga’an answered. “We had our own traitors who would sabotage the Empire’s operations in the name of Baeal.”
“Stockholm syndrome?” Ray asked but rephrased his words as he saw Ga’an’s confused look. “I mean, people supporting the enemy.”
“I am not certain, Raymond Harris,” Ga’an’s stare moved on to the Arinar. “The Inquisition never found a cult of followers or a group. There were only sabotages and the saboteurs would disappear without a trace. I do not know how, but we were infiltrated from the start.”
“But how could that happen?” Sarah protested. “Ray?” she turned to the captain.
“At this point, I can believe anything,” Ray said. “There’s a lot to explain about how we ended up here, but things are way too wild to ignore. A Consortium agent in league with these Baeal is another matter to wonder about.”
“Maybe he’s Baeal?” Sarah said.
“He looks human to me,” Ray argued. “And how does a Baeal look anyway?”
Sarah rubbed her eyes, sighing. “I guess we’re not going back home.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Ray said. “They crashed our ship, killed thousands of people and now they’re haunting us at every turn. We need to find the reason why, and—” he gave Brother Cavil a faint but thankful smile, “—it all revolves around this statuette. And me.”
“Well, Canaar was our home anyway.”
“There were five stones.” Ga’an bowed to Ray. “Five Arinar. We need to find the others.”
“We need to find out more about these stones as well. Aliens or not, we don’t know anything about this trinket besides a few lines of religious hem and haw,” Ray said. “Sorry Brother.”
Brother Cavil chuckled like a prankster. “You are right. I guess it is time to find Reverend Marcus!”
“You know where he is?” Ray asked, surprised. “I thought he disappeared after he was cast off Bunari.”
“He disappeared from Bunari,” the old man shrugged. “He did not disappear from the face of the galaxy.”
“I thought he was dead or something!” Ray looked at the priest in disbelief. “All this time, you knew where he was!”
“Of course I know where he is,” Brother Cavil snorted. “And heaven forbid, he is still alive. After all, he is my father.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE FOX
“Lo
ok what I found!” Sarah entered the cabin with a calico cat in her arms. “She was wandering around in the cargo bay.”
“Cute.” The animal seemed fine with being in company, but from Ray’s experience, cats seldom liked being hugged and kissed unless they clearly expressed it themselves. Ray had always had an uneasy friendship with pets back on Earth, not that there were too many left to live with on the completely overbuilt planet. Still, he felt uncomfortable around them.
“Come on boss, she won’t bite.” Sarah cuddled the now-purring cat. “She was frightened to death when I found her. It’s a wonder she survived with a company like Joe’s.”
“Yeah, probably for a reason,” Ray agreed, not seeing Joe’s people as the cat-lady type. He watched the animal purr and close its eyes in comfort. I really know nothing about cats.
“I think I’ll call her Darty.”
Ray smiled this time. “Sure.” It felt good to see something cheerful for a change, no matter how small or furry it was. “Darty it is.”
“All right, girl, now Sarah has to talk with the captain,” she cooed, putting the cat down. As if to complement her name, the animal darted into the hallway the moment she was free of Sarah’s loving touch.
“She liked you, Sarah.”
Sarah looked after the running animal and shrugged. “At least I named her right.”
Ray turned his attention back to the Arinar sitting before him.
“We’ll make the station in less than an hour,” Sarah said, sitting opposite. “Brother Cavil thinks his father can tell us something concrete about the Arinar and we can be done with whatever this is.”
Ray nodded. “What about supplies?”
“This thing has ceytelium plating, boss!” Sarah’s voice was full of awe. “I thought they only had those on military ships.”
“Smugglers do smuggle ship parts as well, Sarah.”
“Yeah, well, the power core is top-notch black market work. The ship has a small jump drive that can cover some nice distance and we have enough afterburner fuel to skywrite the ship’s manual,” Sarah suppressed a yawn. “We have enough food for three months or so and the water treatment system looks fine. Oh and the thing has radar cloak. I believe we’ll be safe from that agent of yours.”
Ray nodded again without a word.
Sarah narrowed her eyes, examining him.
“What?”
“Something has changed about you.”
“Hmm?” Ray broke his gaze, “What do you mean?”
“Something’s different about you.” She leaned forward. “The Raymond Harris I know was only interested in staying on the road and delivering his cargo. He wouldn’t even take the shore leaves.” Sarah’s eyes looked him up and down, trying to glimpse the truth behind his transformation. “What happened on Bunari?”
Ray put the artifact away, sinking back into his chair. He ground his hands into his eyes as if he could take away the memories. When he spoke again, his stare was distant.
“How many innocent people died because of an artifact they didn’t even know?” It wasn’t really a question.
“How bad was the crash, boss?” Sarah whispered gently, reaching for Ray’s hand on the table.
“Brother Cavil says over a hundred thousand—” Ray tried to keep his voice from cracking “—burned and buried alive.” He raised his stare to meet Sarah’s, “We need to learn why. We owe those people that much. I owe them that much.”
The computer’s voice announcing their approach to the asteroid station saved Sarah from the despair of not knowing what to say. “I’ll get on the horn.” She rubbed Ray’s hand, then made her way to the cockpit.
“All right, enlighten us Reverend Marcus,” Ray murmured, following Sarah out of the room.
In the cockpit, all the others—including Darty—stared at the station in silence. The cat quickly lost interest, focusing instead on batting the blinking lights of the flight console with its paws.
“What are we looking at?”
Brother Cavil nodded at the station. Something inhuman distorted the station’s silhouette.
“What is that thing?” Ray’s lowered his voice to a whisper, as if trying to avoid alerting it to their presence. “It’s almost as big as the station.”
“How big is the station? Three thousand meters?” Sarah leaned forward to see the upper end of the dark silhouette.
“Two thousand, give or take,” Ray answered.
“That thing is bigger than a dreadnought!”
“Is it what I think it is?” Brother Cavil asked.
“It is Baeal,” Ga’an said.
No one else dared speak. They stood watching the black, spider-like craft in silence and in terror.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
K’TA
“I still think this is a terrible idea,” Sarah said one more time.
“Reverend Marcus is our only lead, Sarah.” Ray said, reaching for the airlock doors. “That ship’s here for a reason.”
“Do we really have to learn why?”
“Yes.” Ray looked over his shoulder. Brother Cavil looked afraid but determined. “Besides, would you like to explain him why we’re leaving his father behind?”
“Ray!” Sarah whispered, “For all we know, he may be dead by now.”
Ray didn’t say anything.
The doors to the docking bay corridor hissed open. The station was illuminated only by orange emergency lamps mounted every few meters. Ray had hoped to bump into security guards or scientists trying to escape the station. Instead, the hangar bay looked like a ghost town. The place was deserted and Ray didn’t think the personnel had abandoned B-533.
“No announcements, no sounds,” Sarah said, walking cautiously toward a door at the end of the hangar bay that she guessed connected to the base. “The utility tugs are still parked and that’s a shuttle at the far end.”
“No nothing.” Ray followed her.
All except the priest carried sidearms Sarah had found aboard the Fox, though none of them had any idea if guns worked against a Baeal. Brother Cavil refused to arm himself, saying it was against his core beliefs. Ray had had no intention of giving a weapon to the old man anyway, but he kept that to himself. He had no desire to get shot by mistake long before facing Baeal.
“You think these guns will work?” Sarah asked Ray.
“I really don’t know. They’re projectile-based, so there’s that. Careful with your ammo.”
“I wish we had some of those military grade laser rifles or piercing rounds. These’re junk.”
“I wish we were somewhere else, in a bar preferably.”
At the main door Sarah hesitated, looking to Ray for approval. The silence in the corridors was eerie, disturbing. He nodded slowly, raising his pistol and hoping he was ready for what might be on the other side of the door.
The duo dashed into the room, weapons searching for targets, but it was as empty as the halls. Ga’an moved behind them silently, observing the chaos in the room. Oh, boy…
“By the Light,” Brother Cavil murmured, looking around in disbelief.
“Now we know where everyone went.” Sarah said.
Brother Cavil covered his mouth with his hand, resisting the urge to puke.
The reception room was no larger than twenty by twenty meters. One would say it was tastefully decorated, if not for the scattered furniture and bodies. The walls were splattered with blood, and Ray was thankful the low lights saved them the full view of the massacre. However, even the dim light of the emergency lamps was enough to measure the scale of gore.
Ray looked at the bodies, torn to pieces by something large and with claws by the looks of it. The bleak texture benighted the otherwise neat, almost sterile looking room. The terror of the moment was carved onto the scientists’ final expressions; their hollow eyes staring beyond the plains of life and into unwelcoming darkness. Ray knelt to close a female scientist’s eyes, trying not to look below her belly, where she was missing both legs.
“Here,” Sarah called, pointing at a terminal near the info desk, “a station map.” Gritting her teeth, Sarah pushed down a severed arm and wiped the blood off the screen. “God…”
“Do you know where your father is, Brother?” Ray asked, leaving the woman’s body to join Sarah at the terminal.
“N-No, I…” Brother Cavil babbled. He was trying to avoid looking at the spoiled bodies. His face was pale, almost yellow and more than once the old priest had to lean on a chair or a sofa to keep from losing his balance.
“Station time’s way past midnight,” Sarah said at the information computer. “He may be in his quarters.”
“If he is still alive,” Ga’an said, voicing the possibility no one had wanted to say out loud.
Ray broke the silence that followed. “Well, it’s as good a guess as any,” he said, looking at the cracked terminal screen. “There,” he pointed. “Two floors up, in the parallel wing. Crew quarters.”
The group left the hall, following the map. They moved fast—Ray was unsure if it was purpose or because they were all hoping to get off the station as fast as possible. Most of the corridors were empty and clean of the stench of desecrated bodies, but twice they bumped into similar scenes of horror. The first was the lower two-thirds of a body, sliced into two just above the abdomen, stuck in a semi-closed elevator door. The elevator shaft was too dark to see through the small crack between the doors. Their best guess was the owner, a male, had gotten stuck between the malfunctioned elevator doors, the moving elevator having done the dirty work for his pursuers. The second instance was a copy of the reception room; another butcher shop where several guards lay dead, their body parts severed.
“Why was your father here?” Sarah asked Brother Cavil. She felt as shaken as the old priest looked.
“Keep it down!” Ray whispered harshly.
Sarah waved her hand apologetically and Brother Cavil whispered “He moved here last year when he learnt there was a new expedition. They found new ruins of the Nucteel, the Ancients,” he explained. “We only wrote each other every few months,” he said regretfully. “I do not have any knowledge of the extent of his research.”
Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) Page 20
