She uncupped her hand and the projection faded away. “We’ll find out once we get out of cryo.”
Rivera grimaced. “Cryo . . .”
“Our trip is going to take six months, and it’s just the two of us aboard.”
A dejected groan left Rivera’s lips. All she wanted to do was get back to the Kepler. Now she was en route to the Javnis homeworld. Demanding for Penelope to turn them back around came to mind until she remembered they were already on course for hours. It’d be that much time before they made it back. Wherever the Kepler was, it was sure to be long gone out of the system.
“I hope this is worth it, Penelope.”
“The Soldiers of Marduk, that AI in your head.” Penelope made a short chuckle to herself. “I bet there’s something of great value to that group there, and they don’t know it, but we do. We need to control it before they do. I sent this data to Maraschino. Give it a few weeks to a month before someone buys it, follows up on it, and digs it up.”
“Remember the last time you guys sold data?”
“I know,” Penelope said as her face became grim. How much, Rivera couldn’t tell with her shades still on. “That’s why I’m doing this. Those people killed back there was my fault. I gave Maraschino data I stole from all ships that were at Taxah, including the Kepler. It got sold to the Soldiers of Marduk. Now they’re a threat, the Rezeki’s Rage is missing, and the Terran Legion is getting jolly over something. I need to fix this. And I’ll start by making sure you-know-who doesn’t get this intel. Explorers, researchers and the like only, I’ll make sure Maraschino only sells it to them.”
“Eicelea,” Rivera said without a second thought. “Get Maraschino to get in contact with Eicelea, we can trust her and that bodyguard.”
“Noted.”
“Any word about Foster and the Kepler?”
“That message to them will have to wait,” Penelope said with a cold wince. “Right now, we really can’t risk sending it as we’ll give away our location and stolen ship. Reaching out to Maraschino already put us at risk.”
“Come with me,” Rivera said as she pushed away, and drifted toward the rear. “We’re in a stolen Radiance ferry; help me disable the transponder so that nobody picks up our signal.”
“Smart, except for one flaw.”
“What’s that?”
“If there’s a problem, and we don’t awake from cryo. Who will find the ship?”
29 Foster
XSV Johannes Kepler
Dark Energy Conduit
November 2, 2118, 13:51 SST (Sol Standard Time)
The Johannes Kepler was in a place between the normal known universe and aether space. The crew at the time didn’t know it, but Foster did. After the drone that hijacked the Kepler’s propulsion had been put down, Foster’s tattoos began to glow, and she used them to have another out of body experience.
She felt the same way she did whenever she entered the maelstrom, the plane of existence the Draconians used as a means of moving their ships through space. It was faster than FTL and stealthy as you couldn’t detect a fleet of ships that doesn’t exist in the universe. Until a vortex opened and spat them out.
Foster felt the Kepler hurtle through a path above the red and magenta clouds of the maelstrom, it was reminiscent of the strange vision she had hours earlier. Unlike traversing through the maelstrom, there was no way to change direction. It was as if powerful winds swept the Kepler away, forcing it to one specific location in the realm where the laws of physics were different, the realm of aether space. Before she could break from the trance to inform the crew, the Kepler was thrown into a black void. Foster was forced from her trance, and her mind gathered back into her body. Something didn’t feel right about the experience, like she broke a glass cup. It was as if her tattoos and out of body experience did something it wasn’t supposed to do. She felt the rift in space the Kepler exited from evaporate.
When she arrived on the bridge, there was silence with the exception of computer fans blowing and the hum of air recyclers. The sense of fear and high tension was noticeable among the bridge crew. Chang checked the helm’s computers now that EVE had flushed the trojan out from it and other systems. Pierce analyzed data that populated his station. Odelea’s eyes widened as she fought to defeat the panic that controlled her body and trembling hands.
“Okay...” Chang said. “Can somebody tell me, what the hell just happened?”
“What’s our position?” Foster asked as she glanced at the view screen with a grimace.
There was a nebula full of bright stars. It didn’t seem unfamiliar at all, like she was there earlier in the day.
“Unknown, Captain,” Pierce said. “The data’s coming through now.”
Chang pointed at the view screen. “Is that a nebula?”
Pierce followed his finger, looking at it. “It would appear to be, though,” Pierce faced his station, pulling up the various screen about the Kepler’s current location. “This is strange.”
Foster stood behind him with her arms crossed viewing his screens. “How so, Pierce?”
“Nebulas are just clouds of gas, the birthplace of brand-new stars,” Pierce said. “They may look nice when viewing them from afar, but in reality, flying through a nebula should look no different than flying through space.”
“How?” Chang asked, looking back at Pierce. “I’ve seen some colorful nebula pictures.”
“Those pictures are misleading,” Pierce said. “Nebulas are thousands of light-years in size. Put a ship inside, and you’d still be able to see stars and space, maybe the occasional lovely sight here and there, but it wouldn’t be as grand.”
Chang waved his hand before the view screen. “Then why are we seeing nothing but gaseous clouds?”
“Because this is the Hallowed Nebula,” Odelea cut in, with a hint of fear in her voice.
“The what?” Foster asked.
“My Gods,” Odelea’s said, while her trembling fingers typed away at her computer. She created a holographic star map, flicking a copy each to Pierce and Foster. “Captain, I think we’ve arrived in the heart of the Divine Expanse, the Hallowed Nebula.”
“If that is true,” Tolukei said. “Then we may be angering the Gods just by remaining here.”
Odelea nodded to him. “Agreed, we need to leave at once.”
Chang accessed the star map Odelea created. He stroked his chin, making no attempts at changing the Kepler’s drifting course. “Uh, well, shit,” was all he said.
Foster wasn’t up to date on everything Radiance and consulted EVE. Something told her the rest of the human crew was in the same position.
“Radiance believes that their Gods live within the center of this nebula, Captain,” EVE’s voice said over the speakers. “It is considered sacrilegious to enter out of fear of disturbing their three Gods.”
“There were a great many battles fought with the Empire nearby,” Tolukei said. “The Hashmedai believed our Gods to be aliens and tried to enter this region seeking evidence of it.”
Other than the colorful spectacles of the nebula ahead on the view screen, Foster saw no reason to panic. There were no sleeping Gods out there as far as she was concerned. But, drifting about in a region of space that was restricted to even those high up in Radiance wasn’t a good way to say, ‘thanks for giving us the Kepler back.’
They needed to leave as it wasn’t going to get Chevallier the treatment she needed. The SOM actions were really starting to get in the way of what was supposed to be a simple drop off. The SOM also had detailed intel about this nebula, the more Foster thought about it.
She considered the thought that their arrival wasn’t accidental. The drone did force the Kepler to fly into the ethereal fissure.
“Mister Chang, get us outta here, don’t want Radiance to get the wrong idea,” Foster said.
“Well there might be a problem with that, Cap,” Chang said. “We’re a few hundred light-years away from our last position.”
The
fissure brought them here. There was no question about that. It worked almost like the maelstrom and therefore could send ships to a location quicker than FTL.
“Any sign of that fissure thingy we fell into?” Foster asked him. “Maybe that’ll get us back?”
Chang shrugged after checking his instruments and various holo screens from his computer. “I’m not sure what to look for.”
Foster faced the Kepler’s communication officer and Souyila researcher. “Odelea, can you help ‘em out? The fissures are Souyila stuff after all, right?”
“That’s what I don’t understand, Captain,” Odelea said. “No ship has ever ventured into the fissures. As I said before, the probes we sent in were all lost when they got too deep, and it was assumed nothing could survive.”
“We did,” Chang said.
Foster looked at the tattoos that decorated her hands. They were still shimmering. “My newfound powers might have something to do with that.”
“This is an interesting find, though,” Odelea said. “I had an idea at the start of the Draconian attacks, that the vortexes led to the maelstrom and our ethereal fissures were the same, or very similar. It would appear I was right.”
The experience of getting pushed forcibly through the conduit from the fissures did feel nearly identical. Foster’s best guess was that it was a layer of aether space that was closer to the normal universe. It’d explain why it didn’t take long to traverse it, or why the Kepler didn’t need the protective goo.
The catch was, from what it felt like, it was a one-way trip, and from what it looked too. There were no signs of a connecting fissure after a quick search of the sector. Every sense in her body and tattoos told her she destroyed the fissure when she tried to interact with it. She made a mental note not to try that again if they found a new one.
“Let’s search for another fissure,” Foster said when the search turned up no results. “Odelea, can you update our database so we know what to scan for?”
“Of course, Captain. I’ll have to grab my data crystal from the labs first.”
Odelea had brought a trove of files from Souyila when she first joined the crew, keeping them in the lab in case they came across something strange. And what transpired over the last thirty minutes qualified as that.
“Do it,” Foster said to her. “In the meantime, Chang, set a course back to the Luminous system.”
“All right,” Chang said drily as he took the helm controls and spun the Kepler in a new direction. “Entering FTL now, we’ll be there in a few years. I hope the galaxy will as well.”
“Should we get ready for cryo then?” Pierce asked Foster.
“Not yet, especially if we find a fissure out here,” Foster said. “That, and the cryo chamber is a bit of a mess right now ‘cause of them drones.”
Twenty minutes had slipped away. Odelea never returned to the bridge, nor communicated what the holdup was. Knowing her and her scatterbrain thoughts, Odelea got sidetracked. This was after all a new breakthrough. Odelea was probably running tests rather than running back to the bridge.
Foster left to fetch her and stopped when she noticed Jainuzei had been standing at the bridge’s exit. He was gazing at the view screen and the gaseous colors of the nebula fly past at FTL speeds.
“Something on your mind, big guy?” Foster said to him.
Jainuzei shook his head, keeping his eyes forward. “No, there is not.”
She couldn’t tell if the news they crossed into the Hallowed Nebula had him worried about their Gods, or if there was something else about it that he knew and wasn’t sharing. Jainuzei did seem interested in the data crystal they brought aboard. The data crystal that spoke of the nebula. If Jainuzei was keeping secrets, now would be the time to speak. They were on the same team, whether he liked it or not at that point, stuck on a ship lost in a nebula.
“You have the bridge, Jainuzei.”
She cringed internally at the thought as she left, walking to the lab. With Williams still out for the count, Jainuzei was the ranking officer on the bridge. This was his chance to prove himself. He’d already lost a few points with the crew, and it hadn’t been a full day since he’d been aboard.
Foster wasn’t surprised to see Odelea sitting and her computer desk littered with notes in the labs. The screen she had active showed a close-up rotating projection of a decorated staff with some kind of jewelry on top of it.
Odelea seemed to be so lost in thought about the two other holo screens full of words in the Radiance language, that she didn’t notice Foster standing beside her.
“. . . must be a prototype vortex the Draconians used in ancient times,” Odelea spoke to herself, thinking out loud. “The fissures and vortexes are the same things. My Gods—”
“You got lost or somethin’?” Foster spoke up finally, making Odelea leap in her chair.
“Oh, Captain, I’m sorry.”
“Figured this situation had your brain movin’ all over the place.”
“Remember the talk I had with Queenea and her brother? It was about my theory that the vortexes and fissures were alike,” Odelea said. “It was still on my mind when I came down here, and I became curious as to how this is connected. The fissures are small rifts in space that lead to aether space.”
“Right, and you guys extract dark energy from it, refine it, and use it as a power source.”
“I think the fissures were an early test the Draconians, or someone else that was around in the galaxy at the time, used as a means of space travel. Before they had the power to travel using the maelstrom we know today, they must have relied on its prototype vortex, the fissures. They must have formed one-way conduits, perhaps two-way ones, through aether space to fixed locations elsewhere.”
“So basically, a wormhole?”
“No, a wormhole connects two points of space together. The fissure, like the vortexes, sends someone to aether space, then back into the universe. The end result is similar, yes, but it’s not the same mechanics. In any case, Captain, that is how we got here. Someone, many years ago, needed a way to link the Luminous system to the Hallowed Nebula.”
Odelea’s opened mouth suggested she had more to say. And if she was thinking what Foster was, and any Hashmedai that would have heard, then the next words probably would have been along the lines of, this is how the three Gods came to Aervounis and uplifted the Aryile race. But, that would mean accepting the fact the Gods were aliens, and their homeworld was somewhere in the nebula.
Foster kept her mouth shut about that. I ain’t saying it was aliens, but . . .
Odelea brought up a minimized holo screen, dragging two files off it, handing them to Foster. She accepted the holographic computer files and slid them into her wrist terminal’s desktop.
“Those files contain the energy signatures we need to scan for,” Odelea said. “It should help Chang find a fissure. Whether it will take us back is another story.”
“We’ll take the chance,” Foster said, and then transmitted the files to the bridge. She looked at the primary holo screen Odelea had opened, the one with the rotating staff. “What’s with the pimp cane? New product line from Souyila?”
“Oh this,” Odelea said, her sun-kissed face brightened. “It’s...”
“Don’t say ‘nothing,’” Foster said. “Ain’t this data crystal the one you came aboard with?”
“With a few added files, yes,” Odelea said, facing the projection. “Iey’liwea asked me to look into it. It was the staff of a Radiance patriarch, leaders of our religion.”
“Why would a mega corp like that care?”
“You aware of the Celestial Order, correct?”
Foster spent random hours of her free time reading about the Celestial Order, it was, after all, related to the disappearance of the Abyssal Sword. The Radiance cult that had an extremist interpretation of their Gods and sparked a number of deadly conflicts throughout the galaxy, igniting the Celestial Order war.
What made the Order powerful was their a
bility to brainwash people into the cause. Something about Lyonria artifacts they collected and learned how to use, gems with orbs in the center, and other weird stuff most people in the UNE found hard to believe and cast aside as myth.
“Yeah,” Foster said, nodding. She remembered most of the details of the cult.
“This staff was given to Patriarchs that were indoctrinated by the Order,” Odelea said. “There was an alien device inside it, an orb with psionic energy. It’s been suspected that’s how they controlled the minds of those in the Order.”
Foster moved closer to the projection and saw the orb on the staff.
Her eyebrows felt like they wanted to crawl into the top of her head.
“That’s an engram,” she said. “At least, it looks like one.”
Engrams were memories of an individual converted into psionic orbs, which could be used to teach others the knowledge of the person it came from. The Undine and Poniga psionics were quite adept at creating them, Nereid too, according to Pierce.
The power of the Order, the engrams from Sirius and the SOM, whose origins, according to Karklosea, came from Sirius. They were all connected. The SOM founders must have been remnants of the Celestial Order that converted to a new faith. They must have been using the engrams from the Marduk-loyal Poniga and Undine to brainwash people into joining their cause.
“Perhaps that’s why Iey’liwea wanted me to have these files,” Odelea said. “She probably figured we’d find the missing clues to it—”
“Bridge to Foster,” Chang’s voice played on the intercom.
Foster pushed a button on the wall mounted intercom and spoke. “Go ahead.”
“You might wanna join us.”
Once on the bridge, Foster noted the gaseous allure of the nebula on the view screen had stopped moving. The Kepler came to a full stop. Jainuzei who sat on the captain’s chair grinned.
“Report,” Foster said, moving forward.
“Using the data Odelea provided, I instructed your pilot to take a different course,” Jainuzei said.
“Yeah,” Chang said drily. “Bootleg Rambo almost got us killed.”
Hallowed Nebula Page 23
