The outer entity had monitored what it could, and had detected its madness with some fascination, as it had never known it!
For a long time it had been studying everything and trying to find another way to get the spacecraft!
After careful examinations of the spacecraft’s outer energy shield it had begun to realize that around the energy bubble there were small amounts of weak energy that could be used to attach some of its energy forms, and it had made a shield of energy made from itself around the energy shield, which would remain hidden there, so when the spacecraft left it would travel with it, and when possible, and they removed the energy screen, it would form into another entity/life form, capable of far more than the entity/human that it had put aboard, and it would become a vastly improved version of it.
Chapter 3
The Mind-Bending World
For a moment Kruger was staggered as a dazzling radiance blinded him, and he thought he had been thrown out of space and time all over again, and he realized that the space vehicle that he was in had crashed.
The sky outside the front of the vehicle was a mass of intense light, from immense stars nearby almost covering the sky there in white and gold, and it was so strange that he was sure that it was not even in another universe anymore, or was at the outer limits of the big bang of a universe, at a distant point.
He switched on a light screen, which shaded the intense light flare blasting into his brain, which now looked like the sun on Earth covering his entire front, and he checked the other two passengers of the vehicle, Major Ripley and Don, which he could now properly see near him.
Even after traveling beyond space and time the world that they were exploring was so mind-bending all the crew were virtually staggered at it all of the time. There was at least a billion light years of what must be the most compact region of space possible, and the world had to have the weirdest landscapes and scan results possible, which was another reason why they were exploring it.
The world about them was so altered from the normal the others never said anything and occasionally gave muffled gasps!
“So it has happened again?” Major Ripley moaned, and sniggered, glancing out at the world through a side window, with his hands shading his eyes, searching the outer landscape, in wonderment – wondering what they had thrown at him this time. Yet he like new occurrences and such excitement, and getting out the spacecraft.
“But I’ve not lost any memories of anything!” Kruger stated, checking his memory of everything that he could.
While Don nodded in agreement, he replied, “I have not forgotten anything either!”
The vehicle had crashed again as it had done on the world in the void, when the alien had wiped away most of their memories of the people in the vehicles to cover it being there, to get aboard GX1 spacecraft, but this time it was different, and Kruger gasped at the thought of the thing still being alive, and up to something.
It made him shiver thinking of all the occurrences that had happened over the past weeks, and wondered what the consequences of it all would be.
“The alien may have changed itself and its tactics, realizing the situation is different ...” Major Ridley announced.
“Yet if it was aboard, why did it come out here? And why would it make us crash? And why would it even risk it – as it would know that we would not fall for it again. It is pointless ...”
“It could have been an accident this time? Perhaps we have hit something?”
“But why were we all unconscious! That is a rare occurrence!”
Kruger felt his head for bruising – which he confirmed never existed ...
“I do not recall us actually hitting something,” Major Ripley finally announced, after some thought, looking about outside, and below the vehicle. “Look! We’ve only skidded to a standstill into a bog of yellow crawling slime – and the vehicle has stopped itself automatically! Kruger! You’re the scientist here! You work it out for us!”
“Perhaps this time it was gas ...?”
“As I have told you before there’s none in this model! And if this gas exists, it has no smell, and must be concealed somewhere! And I’m sure it would be of interest to the military ... And for them to investigate why it was used ...”
“There could be some gas in the atmosphere outside, and we may be taking in the outer atmosphere ...?”
Major Ripley glanced through all the shuttles instruments, and replied, “If I can remember rightly, the vehicle automatically takes in the atmosphere, which it has been doing, as it is perfectly breathable, and that it would have stopped anything getting in that was unwanted ... And there does not seem to be anything in here, or has entered here ...”
“This is another universe! It has a different framework, and could have different laws of nature ... Unknown to us ...”
“Meaning what? In other words anything could happen out here now! Perhaps the gas just materialized here – knocked us unconscious – and vanished afterwards ...”
“We better keep things open that’s all ...”
Suddenly, Major Riley jumped, with his eyes jerked wide open, when a human figure shifted out of thick mist outside, at their side, and he removed his weapon.
“What is the distance to the nearest shuttle?” Major Ripley whispered, to confirm what he knew.
“Well, there are hundred vehicles out, and the nearest has to be miles away ...”
“We better contact the others! Check what is happening!”
Kruger watched the strange figure move in close, and bang his large heavy glove hard against the vehicle window near him, and thought he recognized him for a moment.
The problem of having such a vast spacecraft and crew, which he had not gotten used to, was there were too many strangers aboard, and that they were always coming into contact with people that they never recognized, and he now knew hardly any of the other people in the vehicles, and going by what he had seen of Major Ripley and Don that they were the same.
There was nothing strange about the man, who was wearing a spacesuit without a helmet, and only did two things differently, which was his silent and strange look and him being there in the first place, as nobody had wanted to leave the protection of the vehicles, because of the place they were in and the hidden dangers.
Kruger wondered if he would make it home alive, which was incredible, after all the years of helping and preparing for the great voyage to the final frontiers of the universe. They must have done just about everything to check that nothing went wrong, and had proven to them that if anything new was actually found that there would not be any danger. They believed that dangers in space had been virtually annihilated, and were now just small accidents. The dangers of the past were thought to have been left behind. Even in wars, humans were very rarely ever killed, and were mainly fought with machines, and mainly robots, and the people involved hardly ever actually encountered dangers.
He could not place the stranger and put it down to memory loss from the encounter with the alien, and the strange environment of the new universe.
“I cannot reach them!” Major Ripley shouted.
“There could be some damage to the communications ...”
“You mean something is blocking transmissions ...”
Major Ripley stuck his face against the side window and studied his face and figure outside, and the man ignored him, waiting for him to open the door.
Kruger did think he looked familiar and acted like one of the crew, but so had the alien when it had done a perfect impersonation of him, as Dan.
“You will have to let him in or something!” Don announced. “At least talk to him through an opened window!”
“He could get in here anyway,” Kruger stated, after thirty seconds of silence. “The vehicles have no real defense against direct attacks – or from that alien.”
“That’s a good one! But we did drive back with that alien aboard the last time, and we could be blamed for helping it get aboard!”
H
e pressed a switch, and a window partly opened up, and he called out, “Someone must be in trouble for you to have come all the way out here! Across this place!”
“Correct!” the stranger replied. “Our vehicle crashed, and something killed all the crew ... I just escaped, with my life ...”
Major Ripley gasped, and asked, “What’s your name, and vehicle number?”
“I am Larsen of vehicle sixty!”
Kruger remembered the name, and had a vague recollection of him, and showed his recognition of him.
“I vaguely remember you too! Did you wake up unconscious? And was your communicator working?”
“Yes, we all woke up unconscious, and the communicator was not working ... I used a device to detect your vehicle, which I knew was here, from our equipment earlier on ...”
He showed them a hand device that was in his suit.
Major Ripley moved away from the door where the stranger was, and allowed Kruger to unlock the door, and they watched the air slightly react to the outer atmosphere of the desolate world.
They watched the man enter and speedily close the door behind him, as though he had been waiting to get in for a long time, and to get away from something, and they remained silent as warm air warmed the vehicle again.
“Now what will we do?” Kruger muttered, looking about outside. “You said that there is something deadly over there that killed your entire crew?”
“Our vehicle was surrounded by that hideous mist that floats about this place, and something smashed it to pieces, killing them, and escaped, as I was near the back ...”
Kruger studied the man, and saw his fear of the place, and that he had been running to escape from it at one point.
“So we better get out of here ...” Larsen warned, after they sat doing nothing for a minute. “If that thing gets over here ...”
Major Ripley immediately jumped over to an area with controls and activated controls, and the vehicle lifted into the air, and floated forwards.
“But where are we going to?” Don asked. “There is more of a chance of it being in front than behind us, if we travel on. As it could spot us at a lot of locations moving on, but if remained here, it will only be able to find us at this spot ...“
“Correct!” Larsen replied first. “But this vehicle can swiftly fly upwards, at any speed, and can even travel in space, and that thing cannot leave the ground as far as I saw!”
Major Ripley continued on the course they had been on before the crash, ready to lift into the air when needed, and they all seemed more relaxed by it.
When they finally heard a noise from the communication device, Major Ripley jumped to attention and stopped the vehicle, and moved in beside it, and had Don take control of the vehicle, because he was the most alert and ready to handle anything coming at them
“Vehicle four here!” Major Ripley announced. “Any information on why the communications were down?”
“Ripley! This is Major Douglas in vehicle two. It seems to have happened again! All the communications were down! They only returned to normal a few minutes ago! We seem to have a different problem this time! All the vehicles crashed, but the vast majority are running again! They’re working on the problem back at the GX1. This time, all the vehicles have been ordered to continue with what they were doing!”
“What’s the distance to vehicle sixty from us?”
“It’s just over three miles from you! Why?”
“Do me a favor! Was Larsen there?”
“Yes! But we have not had any reply to our communications to it!”
“That’s because something has attacked and killed all the crew, except Larsen! Who is in here ...”
“My God! So there is something out here! I will check for anything from the vehicle! We’ll have to warn everyone about it! I don’t think they will cancel this mission, especially if that alien is here, and impersonating someone, and is trying get aboard again. In fact, I think I would rather stay out here than be stuck aboard with that thing!”
Chapter 4
The New Alien/Entity
From nowhere, with an inconceivable speed, a concentrated sphere of energy had appeared, vaguely even being detected by its senses due its formation. Except its acceleration left it staggered!
The new alien had remained dormant and as the rest of the GX1 spacecraft as altered energy shifting through what was beyond space and time, taking a few scans and recordings of its surroundings by its automatic senses, but when it had entered the new universe its senses had detected what was there, and it had partially come to life to investigate what was there, while keeping itself as an energy coating around the spacecraft’s energy shield.
It had sensed that the humans inside the spacecraft had also been staggered by the outer universe, and analyzed its surrounds with amazement, and even thanked the humans for giving it a chance to study such phenomena.
Everything about it had been beyond its knowledge and incredible, and it considered if it was another like itself that had created it all, with inconceivable dimensions and powers, far beyond it, and its knowledge and powers, like it compared itself to its original self billions of years ago.
The void was nothing compared with it! It had all the relevant information that the entity had, and it had been built to handle what it possibly could, and was a compressed version of it, which it had created with the help of the knowledge that it had taken from the spacecraft, and its compressed size.
The black hole was incredible, and its voyage through it, and it had allowed it to travel a great distance, and it wondered if it could get information on how the spacecraft had entered it.
It had observed that the spacecraft had clearly come from such a place, and that its technology was surely greater in many ways to what existed in the new universe. Yet its size was so small that it had still confused it! Could it itself recreate such a thing in a larger size? Should it capture it if possible, or get enough information to recreate it?
Its mission was clearly defined, and it was only able to alter it to achieve its goal. But if it could not return it would have to remove its programming, and mission, and continue as a replacement of the entity.
Thus it soon set itself the task of exploring everything that it could, to gain all the knowledge that it could.
A surge of energy forces that it had never conceived existed had hit its probing forces from the stars, shocking it and fascinating it at the same time. It had been unbelievable and glorious, and it admired it greatly, but had sensed some danger from it, as with its encounter with destruction on its creation.
Through its thoughts a blur of radiation had swirled out of the blackness. Strange energies without any meanings had sent sensations through its structure.
Amidst its awesome powers it had detected the core of the GX1 spacecraft, and it supplying its propulsion forces and energy protection shield, and considered if there was a way to stop its powers reaching the propulsion forces and energy protection shield. At the speed that it was traveling at it should it how powerful it was, and that it could not affect it.
It had sensed that the humans could not use the spacecraft’s higher speeds, at hundreds of times the speed of light, because of the short distances between the stars there, with the immense amount of worlds, moons, asteroids – and that they had a problem.
The entity had always thought of things in size, and small had always been powerless and about useless, and it had realized that far greater powers could exist in it and it being concentrated.
It had visualized the appearance of the stars at a close range, and considered how it could use such forces, and it imagined using such forces, and using the technology of the spacecraft with them, and it hurtling through the universe to anywhere.
The entire energy surrounding it and exploding from stars blanketing out any darkness had overwhelmed it, and even worried it, and what could exist in its depths, and it had detected incredible things there, and considered if it could leave there if it had
to, and if it could get back to the void to the entity, which surely could do something with the knowledge it would give it, and if it could get back there.
Its body had absorbed the power with enchantment, as it could not recall having taken in such forces since its creation.
After many probes, and unsuccessful probing of the spacecraft, including through multidimensional sensors, it had accumulated everything that it could and had started to examine what it had accumulated.
The unique energy shield of the spacecraft had stayed a great interest to it, and it had consistently considered if it could recreate it, as a defense.
All its knowledge of the spacecraft had been little, and from what it had gained would take it a long time to find what it wanted, if it actually had enough to find what it wanted – unless it got aboard, and it had realized again why its main mission was to get aboard, and study it, with the possible chance of capture.
If it let it go it would be a mistake, as it had realized that it could be the only time it would come across such a phenomenon.
The vastness and powers of what it had become so vivid, and it had realized that it would have transform into something new, and it had thought of its original thoughts of the object’s discovery, and of the finding of the things in it, and at the same time it had detected with amazement it was decelerating, and it had detected its surveillance of a world ahead, and it had been sure that it intended to make contact with it.
When it had gone into orbit around it, it had probed the world with fascination, and even lost interest in what was happening to study what it found. It had never seen anything like it before, and it had been fascinated at what could exist there, without it knowing that it could exist, even with it being outside its normal reaches. It marveled at what it had been missing while drifting and constructing itself in the void.
What strange things existed there? It was always interested in new discoveries, science, and inventions, and had it marveled at the years ahead of it! What other wonders would it find? Where would it end up?
The Deadliest Haunted Castle Page 10
