Sarpanit fed Rivera just enough for her to tell Eicelea what she knew about the structure in the mountains, being shrines Marduk, during his time on Earth, took over to store the Tiamat relics. Eicelea was none the wiser, believing Rivera was just reading the data pulled from Tiamat’s tomb, acquired from Foster and Nereid when they found its central computer.
Rivera was only half telling the truth, Sarpanit had that data, and she controlled when and how it would be used. Fragments of that knowledge were being used as currency, and it bought Rivera and Sarpanit a trip to Eicelea’s camp in the southern region of Baghdad.
She followed Eicelea and Vynei into a tent outside of the park where the Dragon Maiden had drilled a deep pit with psionic energy. The trip from the mountains to Baghdad wasn’t long, a brisk five-minute transport ride, followed by a six-minute walk from the landing pad.
Tables, chairs, and portable computers of Radiance design were arranged in no particular order inside the large tent. Eicelea led Rivera to the back of the tent where a large glass tube lay. Inside was the breastplate, outside were automated scanning drones studying its composition, relaying the data to various computers for Eicelea to work on.
Rivera stood ahead of the glass tube, admiring the ancient artifact in it. The breastplate floated to the middle of the tube via antigravity emitters built on the side.
She saw Eicelea’s reflection on the glass grimace. “So, if what you are saying is true . . .” Eicelea slowly spoke. “This once belonged to Tiamat?”
Rivera nodded. “To my understanding, yes.”
“You may be right in that regard,” Eicelea said. “This relic was not forged by the hands of ancient humans, not with the cybernetics within it.”
Eicelea waved Rivera to the holo screens of one of the computers receiving data from the drone scans. It showed a digitized image of the breastplate, there were wires and data ports within the aged armor. It was a piece of powered armor more so than normal body armor.
“The Draconians must have been attempting to recover it,” Eicelea said.
“I think they were.” All eyes were on Vynei when he stepped closer to speak. “I had some old friends from the Radiance navy that now work with Souyila,” he said. “Some of them were aboard the Abyssal Comet when it was in orbit of Earth. They stayed in orbit on purpose to spy on the humans combating the Draconian forces. The Abyssal Comet learned of what was happening in the mountains. The Dragon Knights were there, and one of them was using a lot of psionic energy until they got interrupted.”
Rivera’s lips twisted. “Interrupted by what?”
“Tolukei and scholar Odelea,” Vynei said. “They made an unauthorized teleport into the area around the same time the Dragon Knights did. Maybe the Dragon Knights knew there was a bunker in the mountains and were trying to tunnel into it.”
“Tunnel into it with a psionic drilling beam . . .” Rivera’s face shifted to the exit, looking out into the park ahead and the holographic barriers around it informing people not to enter. “Like the one they used in the park here.”
“Exactly!” Eicelea jubilantly yelled. “The UNE from there used the ion cannons before they completed their drilling and unearthed the bunker accidentally.”
Only, something didn’t quite add up. Rivera looked up at the tall brawny Rabuabin. “Vynei, earlier you sounded like you didn’t know what was going on in the mountains?”
“Sorry about that,” he said. “All that happened last summer, I didn’t make the connection until now. My boss is the smart one, I just shoot things.”
“I really wish you had told me this earlier,” Eicelea said to him. “We could have made much more progress.”
“Was busy thanking the Gods for letting us survive the Kapteyn’s Star system attack,” Vynei said drily.
“That pit in the park has been there since the invasion,” Rivera said. “Has anybody explored it yet?”
“No one living,” Eicelea said. “It’s a deep pit, over six kilometers deep. Drones had been sent down, only for contact to be lost once they neared the bottom.”
“Can’t send signals through six kilometers of solid rock,” Rivera said. “Only up through the hole it went down. If it’s as narrow as it looks, then once the drone moves away from the hole as it ventures in, the signal will be lost instantly.”
“That’s the conclusion many of us came to . . .” Eicelea said. “Either that, or there’s something else at work. The Dragon Maiden did create and enter that hole, never to be seen exiting from it.”
“She attacked us at Sirius,” Rivera said. “And I’m pretty sure that was after she disappeared into that pit.”
“Maybe there’s two of them?” Vynei suggested.
“There are two of them!” Eicelea spat at him.
“I mean two Dragon Maidens, boss.”
“Tell me, human,” Eicelea said, her gaze shifting back up to Rivera. “Would it be possible for you to sway anyone out here to allow us to enter first? Nobody has been allowed to enter because of the loss of the exploration drones.”
“The best I could do is drop Foster’s name,” Rivera revealed. “She has the authority to carry out her mission anyway she sees fit and I’m part of her crew. I might be able to convince the people necessary to make that happen. Already managed to get this far with the data I recovered from the Carl Sagan.”
“Do it, please,” Eicelea said, rubbing her tiny grey hands together. “You will be in my debt, human.”
Eicelea and Vynei left Rivera alone in the tent to grab food and water. A much-needed thing, given the long day she had so far, and what was to come. As she sat in a chair reading the data about the breastplate, and waiting for the two to return, she heard the heckling laughter of the AI Goddess in her HNI.
“Excellent,” Sarpanit said. “I didn’t even need to order you to do that. You will make a fine loyal worshipper.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Rivera said drily.
“Nevertheless, this Vorcambreum woman is rather eager to enter and collect the artifact within and make her offering to the Draconians. We are now in the position to stop her.”
Rivera would rather die than willfully bring harm to another. She’d go along with the plan as far as checking out the ruins to learn what the Dragon Maiden was up to. Killing Eicelea? Sarpanit would have to figure out how to do that on her own after she shut down Rivera’s nervous system if it came to that.
The rotating holographic projection of the interior of Tiamat’s breastplate shined across Rivera’s face. She grimaced back at it. “What’s the big deal about this?”
“Look at it closer,” Sarpanit said. “That relic is quite possibly the most advanced piece of technology currently on this planet. You saw what the Draconians did with what they had; just imagine what they could do when they get this and others.”
“Is it a weapon or something?”
“On its own? No,” Sarpanit revealed. “When back in the possession of Tiamat? Yes.”
“Good thing Tiamat is dead.”
“She can be brought back. And if the Draconians are searching for this breastplate and the remaining artifacts, then they figured out how to do it.”
21 Foster
Eastern Poeia Jungles
Aervounis, Luminous System
November 1, 2118, 17:15 SST (Sol Standard Time)
“LeBoeuf, now would be a good time!”
Foster’s wrist terminal had taken damage during her fall from the hut. Its flickering holo screen had just activated after being silent and dim for so long. She watched helplessly as the six armless raptors of the jungles continued to maul the space knight Linl that helped her get this far.
Her tachyon rifle had long lowered. The space knight and armless raptors were too close to one another. Tachyon rifles had two settings, kill and vaporize. She wasn’t going to risk it, not while the raptors were so close to her body.
Static played on Foster’s fractured wrist terminal. She was glad to hear it. “ . . . Captain . .
. stand . . .”
Foster took aim, shooting toward, but not at, the raptors, hoping the tachyon beams and their blasts from hitting the ground would draw their attention away. The six beasts remained chomping away at the Linl’s armor, peeling sections of it away with the impressive strength of their jaws. Foster lined up her rifle’s sight, this time targeting one of the raptors. She couldn’t bear the horror any longer. She had to do something. The woman risked her life for her and was now paying the price. Just like Chevallier.
Blue light flashed. It was bright enough to brighten the night covered jungle trees and bushes around her. When the light faded, LeBoeuf’s body appeared from a psionic teleportation and ran forward. Foster’s damaged wrist terminal must have broadcasted her location to the group.
“Captain!” LeBoeuf said, holding onto Foster’s shoulder.
Foster shrugged her off. “We’s gotta help her!” She gestured to the pack of armless raptors. “Believe it or not, there’s a space knight under that heap of a mess there!”
LeBoeuf’s bracelets twirled around her wrist glowing red as her implants and armor lit up with blue radiating light. LeBoeuf pushed her hands forward, sending a wide telekinetic push that made all six raptors fly backward, and at least three of them slammed into the huge trunk of a tree. Her hands then commanded the space knight’s body and sword to pull back toward them. Foster didn’t get the chance to look at how bad her body had been mauled. The six raptors got to their feet, roared, and then charged at them.
LeBoeuf’s psionic rifle fired, using cryonic rounds when her psionic powers flowed into the rifle’s barrel. The raptors that were hit crystallized into ice, a telekinetic push sent the newly formed ice sculptures back into the raptors behind, toppling them over when the frozen raptors shattered across their faces.
There was one raptor moving after that, and like the one before, it ran off likely to grab more hunting friends. LeBoeuf’s rifle made it snap freeze in place, and a quick flick of her hands made the frozen beast lift twenty feet in the air, only for gravity to take hold of it. It sounded like someone smashed a dinner plate on the floor when it landed and shattered.
There were no further threats from what the two were able to see. LeBoeuf was free to focus and teleport back to the transport.
Transport
En route to Veromacon, Aervounis, Luminous System
November 1, 2118, 17:37 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Daylight was returning to the skies, making the Kepler’s transport shine as it emerged from the clouds. The massive city of Veromacon built on five disks floated in the skies, expanding in size on the transport’s windshield when they neared. Foster’s reflection upstaged it when she entered the cockpit, sitting next to Chang.
“Hey, Cap’n, can I make a suggestion?” he asked her.
“Shoot.”
“Can we like, never do that again?”
She snickered. “Ground missions too much for you?”
“Hey, now, you two would have been screwed if I wasn’t there.” He wasn’t wrong about that. LeBoeuf played more of a defensive role during the opening attacks. Chang’s shooting was much appreciated. “But, you’re the captain and you got those weird tattoos. We can’t afford to lose you.”
“Ain’t got much of a choice. We’s a skeleton crew. One that’s a helluva lot smaller than the Carl Sagan.”
“Maxwell? Miles?”
“Ain’t playing nice, I made ‘em sit in the corner,” she said. “Though, it would have been a lot less stressful if they had tagged along.”
Foster reached into her pocket, searched around until she found and pulled out a data crystal, stained red from the Linl space knight’s blood. Chang took his eyes off his flying, eying the same data crystal Foster held out and peered at it.
“What do you got there, Cap?”
“That space knight dropped this when LeBoeuf went to patch up her wounds in the back,” Foster said. “Probably ain’t any of our business to poke around and see what’s on it. But I’d like to know why she was there at a hideout that Jainuzei was only supposed to know about.”
“Where is he, by the way?”
Foster looked back, grinned, then returned to face Chang. “Jainuzei’s still in the rear cabin. I’m guessin’ he too wasn’t expecting her.”
Foster shut and locked the cockpit’s entrance, then inserted the data crystal into the forward dashboard. A small projection flashed, listing its files all written in the Radiance language. Nothing on it made any sense to the two humans other than a holographic projection that appeared when Foster accessed one file.
“Looks like a nebula,” Chang commented.
Foster nodded and made a puzzled glare at the floating projection of a nebula in space. When she zoomed in on the holographic nebula, blurry images of what looked like an object was adrift within its center.
“Odelea’s gonna earn her pay today,” Foster said.
A fist banged on the door, it was too hard of a knock for LeBoeuf to be making. Foster quickly had the data crystal’s contents transmitted back to the Kepler, then removed it and opened the door, putting on a nothing-to-see-here face.
Jainuzei appeared when the door slid open. “Why was this door locked?” he asked.
“Uh,” Foster said, looking up at the imposing Aryile man. “Was uh, sharing a secret with Chang here.”
Jainuzei’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of secrets?”
“My grandfather’s secret barbecue sauce recipe!”
“Oh, yeah, uh totally!” Chang jumped in. “Her grandfather is from Texas, and I’ll tell you what, those Texas folks don’t like to share those sauce recipes.”
“Yeah! So that’s why the door was locked and shut.”
He wasn’t buying it judging by the scowling on his face. Whatever, this ain’t his damn transport. “What can we do for you, Jainuzei?”
“Karklosea was supposed to have a data crystal on her,” he said. “I wanted to know if you saw it?”
“Karklosea?”
“The Linl woman that defended you on the surface.”
“Oh, the space knight. Yeah, don’t know anything about that. She might have dropped it back in the jungles.”
“Templar,” Jainuzei corrected her. “They are tasked with suppressing criminal activity and taking on defense roles throughout the Union.”
“So, she’s a policewoman?” Chang asked.
Jainuzei nodded to him. “That would be the human way of saying it.” Jainuzei pushed past Foster sitting up front next to Chang, his eyes zoomed in on the data crystal slot Foster had used earlier. Her forehead moistened with sweat. “It would be most unfortunate if the crystal was lost, by the way,” Jainuzei continued. “We did not capture anyone; the council will not get the answers they seek.”
“Well,” Foster said. “You could just tell ‘em everything you know, starting with how you knew of their hideout.”
“Tell me, Foster,” he said to her. “Why do . . . Texas humans keep their sauce recipes secret?”
“’Cause that shit is damn good. Don’t want the whole world to know it and make it for themselves.”
“Well then, you should understand my position. I can’t have the council, let alone the galaxy, know of my secret. They may . . . use it for themselves. I cannot allow that to happen.”
The transport arrived back at Veromacon. The landing platform the Kepler remained at to be exact. Chang carefully piloted the transport back inside the Kepler via its opened entry ramp into the cargo bay. By the time the transport came to a rest inside, LeBoeuf had performed a jump port with the body of the space knight, Karklosea, bringing her into sickbay. Kostelecky had been given the heads-up earlier that they were coming in hot with a critically wounded Linl.
Outside the Kepler stood Ienthei and Queenea and their personal ranger bodyguards, waiting for the return of Foster and Jainuzei. She put a pair of shades on and stepped outside into the searing heat of the bright sun to meet them with Jainuzei at her side.
> “Excellent work, Captain,” Ienthei said. “You . . . volunteering to help us out will be mentioned to the rest of the council, you have my word.”
“I see nobody in bindings,” Queenea added.
“Everyone is dead,” Foster said. “There were complications plus a fire that ran through the AO.”
“That is unfortunate,” Ienthei said. He sounded almost like his father, minutes earlier. “Were you able to obtain any intel, Captain?”
“Saw some computers in their main hut, but all that got trashed before we could get to it,” Foster said. “We did, however, pick up a—”
“Lot of combat experience,” Jainuzei finished for her, though, those weren’t the words Foster was looking for.
What she wanted to say was, pick up a wounded Linl named Karklosea. Jainuzei’s smug grin needed no further explanation as to why he said that. She played along, hoping it was the right call, one that would see the Kepler off the ground and soon. If there were any survivors from the group they attacked, they’d probably be planning to hit the Kepler next. Being in space was going to make that next to impossible to her understanding and from what she saw. People who fought wearing robes couldn’t afford spaceships.
“So, what about our father?” Queenea said, gesturing to Jainuzei.
“Seems legit, didn’t backstab us,” Foster said. “That’s about it though.”
“Excellent,” Ienthei said.
“Indeed,” Jainuzei said. “Captain Foster is most impressive for a woman that isn’t in the military.” With a warm smile, Jainuzei faced his twin children. “Ienthei, Queenea, you two have done much whilst I have been gone. I’m proud of you both.”
“So we’s good?” Foster asked.
“Yes, Captain,” Ienthei said. “We just need to finalize Saressea’s replacement, and you will be free to continue after we’ve voted on it in the morning. And we will vote yes.”
The morning, it was too many hours for her to stand around and wait. The crew would be sleeping with the shields up and on alert status until they left orbit.
Hallowed Nebula Page 16
