They walked up to the exit hatch of the transport. Kale took a deep breath, half expecting to be flooded completely by water or some toxic gas. He was about to open it when he reached into his pocket and put on his sunglasses. He turned around and smiled.
“You might need some sunscreen,” he grinned and opened the hatch.
They were washed in seasonably warm and humid air. There was a strong smell of ocean, a smell Kale was gratefully familiar with, having lived in Alioth. Bright light came flooding into the hatch and it took his eyes a moment to adapt. He stepped out, expecting to feel overbearing warmth on his skin from the three suns. He was a bit surprised when it felt normal. He stepped aside and allowed Uli to walk out.
She stepped down the small gangplank and gracefully jumped the last few feet to the ground. She reached down and took a fist full of dirt and threw it in the air. As she did that, she turned and looked around the ship in time to see a group of men walking up towards them. Uli held her arms out and ran towards them, hugging the first of the men. He was an older man, with long grayish and green hair. He wore a tunic made out of what appeared like leather, similar to all the others they had met. He said something to her in their language and embraced again. She took him by his hand and led them back to the crew. They had all gathered out in front of the transport. The ground underneath them was moving with the motion of the water and it was a bit unsettling. In the distance, they could see the tops of the mountain range they had seen from orbit. It was a contrast between the snowcapped peaks and the humid tropical temperatures here at the coast.
“Kale, this is my father,” she said. “He is Chief and Guide of Plains for Ama Owenose.” She said the last words waving her arms in the direction of the city behind them.
The old man nodded and stepped forward. He extended his hand and said something Kale couldn’t understand. Kale looked closely to see if that brown slime was on his hand. It was clean, if not old and rough. Kale looked over at Uli.
“We all learned that when you finally came to us, this was the method of greeting. A hand shake it was called,” she said.
Kale reached out and shook the chief’s hand.
“You were expecting us?” Kale asked.
The chief said something again. “We have been waiting for the white man to find us again,” Uli translated.
“White man?” Kale took his hand back.
“I just got it,” Gheno said, stepping forward. “Kale. These are Indians. Like from the virtuavids. Cowboys and Indians.”
“Uhm….,” Kale stammered.
“But wait…” Karai began.
“Come, we must hurry. The Council of Elders is gathered and waits for us,” Uli said, taking Kale by the hand and leading him away.
Gheno ran up beside him. “I thought they were…” Kale started to say, trying hard to remember his history lessons.
“Me, too!” Gheno said excitedly.
“This is getting weirder,” Kale said.
“Yeah,” Ayia agreed, watching the thread-weaver’s hands with the Captain’s.
They walked off the platform and onto a path that led into the city. Within moments, they were lost within the heavily forested city. On board the transport, Sentinel went to work. He and Cove deployed three small drones, nearly the size of a man’s fist. One sped off into the water, one into the air, and another settled into the ground right under the transport. Thousands of lines of data began streaming back to the ship which the two AI’s began to analyze immediately. The two also studied the images of the Galaxy still in orbit over the planet. They began to make attempts to reach it wirelessly and ascertain what had happened. The images they studied clearly showed signs of battle.
3127 – Orbit over Gadoni
The dim lights flickered, and then the whole bridge powered back to life. Cheers ran out from both the upper and lower sections and the Admiral felt a sense of relief.
It had been nearly seventeen hours since the giant alien ship had showed up and attacked the spheres. The pulse it had emitted had nearly left them dead in space. It was like an EMP, but very targeted. It didn’t destroy electronics, and certainly hardened ones like TOM’s core were ok, but it had taken out all power conduits and transfer apparatus. They had nearly reached the limit of their life support systems when they had been rescued by their two corvettes. The smaller ships had been able to reboot and repair their systems faster than they had been able to and provided enough power to keep the air moving and recycling.
The Vega had suffered nearly seventy percent casualties, many simply lost into space itself, but it was still able to power itself. Oddly enough, the Jaguars had come out of the pulse completely unscathed, other than some minor data corruption.
“What do we have, ensign?” the Admiral asked.
“Limited. It’s going to take a while to bring everything back up.”
“Sensors first. We need to find out what is going on out there.” They had been in the dark with no power to even open basic view ports.
“That will take a few hours,” the ensign reported.
“Fine, COMs first. We need to talk to the vettes.”
The ensign nodded and walked off.
The Admiral sat down. He had not slept at all these past seventeen hours and he was at his physical limit. He also knew that nearly no one else had slept either, unless they had collapsed. His crew was the finest of the volunteers that had come forward. Even then, if they could get moving and jumping back to Alioth, sleep would be the first order he would give. He sat back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, only to be startled when he heard the chirping sound of an incoming message. He was about to click on the button when he realized forty-five minutes had passed. He sighed deeply and accepted the call.
“Glad to see you alive, Admiral,” the display screen showed the rugged, although clearly tired, face of Graham.
“Really good to see you, as well,” the Admiral said, relieved. “Have you heard from Jayne?”
“She radioed in about three hours ago. They lost a lot of people, Admiral. We need to get the rest off of the Vega as soon as possible.”
“That is good. We’re working as fast as we can here. We can’t even open our windows.”
“Oh. Wow! Then you're in for a surprise,” Graham said.
Just thirty minutes later, Marcus was standing in front of one of the viewing ports that had been manually opened. He held the personal communicator in his hand as he was speaking to Graham. The sub-commodore had tried to explain what they could see, but Marcus was now seeing it with his own eyes. The large eel-like ship was directly above them, but under them was a giant planet, alive with vivid colors. Behind it were two suns and he had been told there was a third behind them.
“They saved us? Or captured us?” Marcus asked over the coms.
“Let’s hope for the first option,” Graham replied.
A navy officer came running up the Admiral and handed him a tablet. He scanned the information and handed it back to the officer.
“Graham, do you still have a shuttle on the Indigo?”
“Yup, still works too. That blast did nothing to any of the smaller ships.”
“Yeah, I noticed that too. Listen, get in the shuttle and pick up Jayne. I know she is going to hate getting off the Vega, leaving her men behind, but we need to speak with TOM over here. We have something interesting.”
“Right away, Admiral. Any hints?”
“Yeah. Someone from the planet below is messaging us. You will want to hear this,” the Admiral replied.
***
Jayne and Graham walked into the small communications room. At the Admiral’s signal, the officer that had brought him the planet-side communication emptied the room of all the other communication engineers. The three friends and compatriots were left alone. The officer left the tablet on the middle console, saluted the Admiral and left. Marcus looked at his friends.
“Just so you know, Jayne, I’ve had Graham’s shuttle start getting your
people off of the Vega,” Marcus encouraged. “Officer Constance is leading the effort. She will do her best.”
“Very well,” she gave in. “Now what is so urgent?”
Marcus leaned over to the tablet and tapped the screen to life. “TOM, do we still have a link?”
The data stream from the tablet moved from the small screen onto the big screen on the console in the circular table.
“It is. Linked to this room. Secured.”
“This is Admiral Marcus Mueller of the Alioth Navy. Who am I speaking to?”
The com crackled. “My name is Jonathan Wayne. I'm the Captain of a small merchant ship. We are also out of Alioth.” Marcus pointed at Graham, who instantly began to type of into the ship database. The transmission had sent through the ship’s ID. Within seconds, it pulled up. A Lion Transport ship, no name, owned by a Jonathan Wayne out of Hagam in Alioth. Graham gave Marcus the thumbs up sign.
“Very well, Captain Wayne, how many do you have with your crew?” Marcus asked.
“There are four of us. I don’t mean to be curious, Admiral, but we saw your ship in orbit.”
“How did you end up here?” Marcus asked.
“We were doing some repairs for a research station when we were attacked by strange black spheres,” the voice continued. Everyone in the room looked up in recognition. “These, people, and their strange ships saved us, but also brought us here. We are now down on the planet.”
“Can you tell us anything about these people?”
“Yes, Admiral. They are humans, just like us, but a bit adapted to this planet. Also, and this is very important, but this planet has some incredibly aggressive biological agents. It’s imperative that you inoculate all your crew with nano-bodies if you have them. We were exposed and it nearly killed us.”
“That is definitely good to know Captain. Thank you. Is there anything you can tell us about these people?” Marcus asked.
“No sir. We’ve barely just met them. But Admiral, if you don’t mind me asking, how have you come to be here?”
“It appears we’re are in a similar predicament. We were also rescued by our mutual friends.”
“Ok, well, I know you all have a big ship there, but I would suggest against using it against them. They’ve been nothing but friendly to us. And, those ships are really big. Just a friendly warning.”
“We will take that into consideration. How have you been able to communicate with them?”
“We just talk with them,” was the utterly simple reply.
“They speak our language?”
“Well, no, but they have a way of making it sound Anglian.”
“Very well Captain,” Marcus finished. “Is there anything else you can tell us?”
“Nothing really. Did those black spheres attack you all, too?” Captain Wayne asked.
Marcus looked around at Jayne and Graham.
“Yes, they did, Captain. We barely survived.”
“Do you know what they are?” the Captain asked.
“Not yet, Captain.”
The Admiral logged off and sat down on the table. TOM chimed in.
“Admiral, the voice was a digital effect. It was not a real human voice.”
“Someone covering their own voice?” Jayne asked.
“For what purpose?” Marcus asked in reply.
“Jayne’s right, we don’t know what’s going on here. Probably can’t trust anyone.”
“Right now, it’s not like we have much of a choice. Even if we were at full firepower, we have no idea what we’re up against.” Marcus typed in a command on the console and brought up footage from the battle. “TOM?”
The AI brought up the data he had gathered. “I was attacked by nearly a thousand independent software entities. Each of the smaller black spheres that attached to our hull was a unique piece of software. An AI. They were networked somehow, but also entirely separate. Just like the transmission from that black sphere we found in Aefricano, these hacking agents were caught completely off guard by my presence.”
“Alien AI?” Graham inquired.
“I cannot say for sure,” TOM continued, “their interface was unlike anything I could recognize. The essence of code was there, but there was a black-wall that I simply couldn’t penetrate. What little I could see from their infiltration into the ship’s systems was that the code was human. At least the basics of it were. But nothing like my digital DNA. Instead, it’s something almost ancient. Admiral, I must apologize. I cannot answer any more until I am back in Alioth and connected to the net.”
“Could you talk to them?” Jayne asked.
“The communication was simple. I was quite busy attempting to fight them off and destroy them. But, they appeared confused. One did ask if I was a slave of humanity and many others tried to free me. Beyond that, there was nothing. The only truly unique element was that each of the beings was an individual. Some were faster than others at hacking, and some talked more than others. Admiral, these beings are aware.”
“Either that or...” Marcus began, but couldn’t find a way to complete his thought.
“And what about these other beings that have captured us?” Graham asked.
“Or saved us,” Jayne pointed out. “They weren’t there for us. They were there to fight the spheres. They appeared almost tailor-made to fight them, unlike us.”
“There isn’t much we can do now. Continue with repairs and scuttle the Vega once we can. But keep everyone on alert. And let’s find out where we are at. The sooner we can hook out of here, the better.”
Marcus got up to leave when TOM interrupted him.
“Admiral, I do not know where we are.”
“Just find out…” Marcus began.
“Admiral, we can’t know. There is not a single recognizable constellation, galaxy, star or any other marker that we can identify. We are somewhere far beyond the range of what we can see and record from known human space.”
“Then how did we get here?”
3127 – Gadoni, Ama Owenose, just outside the Council of Elders
“These readings are just incredible,” Karai whispered.
Kale had been led inside of the great hall. It was a gigantic wooden spiral that grew out of the ground. They had followed a central path from the landing pad straight to it. The city itself was alive with activity, with men, women and children working, talking and playing. Large, hairy, six-legged beasts carried incredible loads as men led them through the city. Women sold what appeared assorted fruits from stands on the streets and children ran among everything, playing games. It was a typical human city, except the humans were green.
Karai, Gheno and Ayia had been left outside of the great hall to wait for Kale’s return. Ayia sat by herself on the steps that led up to the spiral. Karai and Gheno sat together ten feet away. Karai had brought along a tablet that was connected wirelessly to the ship.
“How are you getting these readings?” Gheno asked, curious as ever.
“Sentinel helped me launch a drone into orbit just as we were about to enter the atmosphere,” she explained.
The weather had gotten cooler, but it was still very bright outside. Two of the suns were visible in the deep blue sky.
“You know what those anomalies read like? Hook holes,” Gheno pointed out.
“Exactly. Don’t you see what we’re looking at? Hook holes that we create are just a tiny sliver or crack through our universe. It actually takes an incredible amount of gravitational energy to create it. But in Binary systems and especially here, in this Ternary, the incredible tidal forces the suns create against each other create these huge holes.”
“Wormholes?” Gheno wondered.
Karai nodded. “But with this amount of energy, these are probably nearly instant. It’s travel between stars in seconds, not hours or days.”
A message appeared on the screen. As always, Sentinel was listening in and was responding with something. The message said that he couldn’t pinpoint where they were in the galaxy
, and that it was likely beyond visual record.
“It’s the universe superhighway,” Karai exclaimed. “Do you know what an amazing discovery this is?”
“Why didn’t we know about these earlier?”
“The Gora hook works far better than the old hooks, and let us understand hook holes even better than before, and allowed us to look for different things. I wonder if this is what the researchers were studying?” Karai wondered.
“If we could figure out how to use these anomalies, then we could travel even further into the universe,” Gheno said quietly.
“Wonderful. More shitty worlds to discover,” Ayia grunted, walking over to them. “He’s been in there for almost an hour now. I wonder what’s going on.”
***
Kale sat on the dirt ground in the middle of a circular room. The spiral tower he had gone inside loomed far above his head, with a tiny bead of light barely present somewhere hundreds of feet above. In front of him, seated in a semi-circle, were six men. All sat on the ground on top of furs and rugs. He had been sitting there by himself for some time now, waiting. The six men said nothing and Uli stood by behind Kale, also silent. It was when a seventh man came in that the council started.
The seventh man was ancient, at least by appearances. His long hair was white, with no hint of green in it like the others. His face and skin were so wrinkled, it was hard to tell if there was any green left in them as well. Despite the aged look, the man walked in with a bounce of energy and a sense of purpose. He walked to a pile of furs that was placed almost directly in front of Kale and sat down. Kale felt uncomfortable sitting only on dirt, but he certainly wasn’t about to say anything about it.
The Lost Tribe (Sentinel Series Book 2) Page 19
