Hallowed Nebula

by Eddie R. Hicks

  “There’s a very large penal colony there. And the Rabuabin homeworld, Talsyk.”

  The command ship came into view next, blocking out the black void of space. Command ships were massive vessels, shaped like giant metallic spheres, capable of storing one fleet within its hollowed out interior, a mothership for lack of a better term. Tractor beams along the interior of the command ship held all ships that flew inside of it in place to dock.

  It was the common method of how all Hashmedai fleets traveled, as it allowed a space bridge to easily teleport them across the stars, rather than target each ship individually, which would be too stressful for the crew of the space bridge. They simply needed to send the command ship and everything inside it would come along. Throw in MRF to reduce its mass, and a command ship could materialize anywhere in the galaxy after a few weeks, a month at the longest.

  The transport was deep in the command ship by the time its shields dropped to allow the tractor beam to hold it in place. Twenty minutes later, the fleet began to enter the command ship, single file, with the guidance of multiple tractor beams.

  “This is how the Taxah Hashmedai got here,” Chevallier said. “A space bridge jump that put them outside of the Inadrai system where Radiance wouldn’t detect it.”

  Karklosea paused to wonder why the ships were entering the command ship. If this were Imperial space, it’d be understandable as the command ship would be moving to the nearest space bridge and request a jump. This was Radiance space, there were no space bridges, and there were no wormholes that networked Earth controlled space, and command ships, like all Imperial made vessels, did not have FTL technology. It would take the command ship, and the fleet sleeping inside it, decades to reach the Avalon system.

  Before the gigantic doors of the command ship shut, as the last ship entered and docked, Karklosea and Chevallier saw the flash of the vortex open, tearing a swirling hole in the fabric of space, spewing out red and magenta clouds from the maelstrom.

  No alarms sounded, and no panic-stricken voices from the cockpit’s crew were heard. She had a feeling the same could be said for the ships inside the command ship as with its crew.

  A single ship exited the maelstrom. It wasn’t Draconian. It was of human design, an old one at that, with a rotating habitat ring to generate artificial gravity.

  The Terran Legion with the alliance with the Taxah Hashmedai and Soldiers of Marduk mastered the ability to traverse the maelstrom.

  53 Foster

  Draconian Ruins

  Unknown Planet, Unknown System

  July 22, 2119, 22:12 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Foster felt the surface rumble, seconds after Miles threw a plasma grenade. She came up from her cover with her tachyon rifle shifting from left to right, then right to left. The only people left standing were the Radiance rangers.

  After the Kepler made landfall, she and Miles had come storming out via the entry ramp to assist. Maxwell and LeBoeuf came behind ten minutes later, against the wishes of Kostelecky. However, the EDF psionic duo was able to power their psionic rifles, meaning they managed to regain some mental focus back.

  They stormed inside the ruins Penelope had told them about, assisting Radiance to retake it from the last of the SOM personnel that got a ride into the system from the Kepler, the ones that didn’t remain aboard the Kuiper. She found the Lyonria wormhole that was being studied by the research team. Looking at the oval-shaped device sent flashbacks of the Sirius expedition. It was no surprise to Foster that the ruins they stood in were responsible for the development of Marduk’s powers and the Javnis Muodiry. And the crew of the Gerard Kuiper knew all about it having visited the ruins after they somehow arrived at the planet.

  It made her wonder if the Draconians and the Lyonria were once allies tens of thousands of years ago, playing God and Goddess to the primitive human race and other species of the galaxy.

  Maybe the Hashmedai were right, the Radiance Gods were just powerful alien psionics.

  “Foster!” a woman’s voice yelled at her. It caused her to spin on her heel, and then lower her tachyon rifle. “Of course, you’d be here!”

  Eicelea and Vynei arose from a statue of a dragon they hid behind. The tip of Vynei’s rifle glowed red, he earned his pay as a bodyguard for a month. The two approached Foster stepping over the bodies of two SOM members.

  “Y’all should be safe to head back into the wormhole,” Foster said.

  “I refuse,” Eicelea said, pointing at the oval gateway and the garrison of rangers standing watch next to it. “That is what the SOM were trying to take. I’m not convinced it’s safe.”

  “How do you know that?” Maxwell asked.

  Eicelea pointed at the lone surviving adversary, the golden-faced Javnis Armuzei being held by two rangers. “He sacrificed all his men to get this far!”

  Foster and her gang approached Armuzei, he was beaten and bloody and jerked his arms about in defiance, looking at the chambers that lay beyond the wormhole, and the psionic creation equipment that was used to create Marduk and the first Muodiry.

  “Human and Radiance won’t stop me,” Armuzei said. “I’ll become Marduk’s new host—”

  “Shut the fuck up!” Rage augmented LeBoeuf’s voice. Her hand rose up, and Armuzei’s body floated up above everyone. The two rangers spooked by LeBoeuf powers backed away. They knew not to get in the way of a pissed off cybernetic warlock. “This is the asshole that gave me the worst headache ever, right?”

  “Yep,” Maxwell said, cracking his fists. “Me too, can I kill him, Captain?”

  “I’d rather he spill the beans on what’s goin’ on first,” Foster said.

  “I tell you nothing more, human!” Armuzei roared.

  His screams filled the interior of the ruins. Foster wasn’t sure what LeBoeuf was doing with her telekinetic powers, but Armuzei was suffering.

  “Answer Foster’s questions!” LeBoeuf demanded.

  With her arms crossed, Foster looked up to the floating Armuzei and asked. “How did y’all know the importance of these ruins?”

  “Elders of our group know all . . .” Armuzei coughed, it looked like his neck was getting crushed in a vise-grip. “They found Marduk Poniga tribes. Engrams taught us his knowledge; we shared it with exiles and Order remains that joined us.”

  “Who are the elders?”

  He coughed more. LeBoeuf was squeezing the intel out of him with her mind. Foster loved it. “Jainuzei and Levesque . . . Jainuzei no like our plan to bring Marduk back. He let Terrans give us credits and try to change our leadership to please them. Too bad for him. If he no make rash change, he could have got Undine and Poniga psionic powers transferred from engram. Just ask Byikanea, she the first.”

  “Wait, I’m confused,” Maxwell said. “I thought Jainuzei and golden boy here were friends?”

  “Me no see eye to eye with Jainuzei,” Armuzei said. “But, we had same goals; get to human ship in orbit, then to Kur with the Nephilim. Made nonabrasive agreement.”

  In other words, it was a gentleman’s agreement. Jainuzei and Armuzei were stuck on the Kepler and wanted off to pursue their own plans. Jainuzei, being a man of honor, probably suggested they not fight until they reached the Kuiper. It’d explain the brief chat the two had in sickbay in their language, they probably made the agreement at that moment Foster figured. And the stowaways? That was probably Jainuzei’s planning too. Him making a deal with the Terrans probably won him a few supporters in the SOM to back him.

  Jainuzei wasn’t just a weapons master. He was a very strategic and manipulative person, one that set Foster up from the start and adapted quickly to changes in his plans.

  “And Lisette?” Foster asked. “The Nephilim, what does she have to do with all this?”

  Armuzei gagged, and when he mustered enough strength to talk, he simply told the group to. “Fuck off. Me done talking, human.”

  LeBoeuf flicked her wrist, and Foster heard Armuzei’s neck snap. “Wrong answer,” she said, and allow
ed gravity to drop his body to the ground.

  When everyone turned their backs to Armuzei’s body, Maxwell pointed his psionic rifle at it and vaporized him. He walked away from the pile of ash and glowing embers with a smug grin.

  There was officially no one from the cult pushing to get into the wormhole. Foster gestured to Eicelea and the wormhole. “Well, you two are free to head back now—”

  Foster’s tattoos pulsed rapidly, its blue glow casting its light along the darkened walls and floors of the ruin’s chamber. Something nearby was triggering them to react, something that was high above them. She charged out of the ruins without muttering a word. There was no time to explain.

  Looking up into the night skies, and the alluring nebula the planet and its orbiting star drifted through, she sensed it. It felt like a vortex open, a gateway to the maelstrom had formed. That could only mean one thing.

  “Draconians!” she shouted into her wrist terminal. “Everyone off the surface, now!”

  Chang’s voice replied. “Uh, Captain—”

  “Not now, Chang, prep the Kepler for launch, figure out a course that’ll get us clear for an FTL jump fast.”

  She got word that the remaining rangers fled the planet via the wormhole, taking the Radiance research team with them. Foster was the first to run up the Kepler’s entry ramp, Miles, LeBoeuf, and Maxwell followed behind. She was seconds away from closing it when Eicelea and Vynei came running up panting and pleading to be taken aboard.

  She wanted to say no but figured Radiance would have had the wormhole powered down by now. The Kepler was their only means for escape. She made plans to grill Eicelea for not going with her people when they left.

  The Kepler launched into space with little problems to Foster’s surprise. She sensed the vortex opening very close to the planet. Draconian forces should have been attacking by the time she made it to the bridge. They weren’t.

  When she took a seat on her chair, she glanced at the view screen, only seeing the nebula in the distance as they broke away from the world’s gravity.

  “Where’s the dragons?” she asked.

  “I was trying to tell you, Cap,” Chang said. “Nobody was leaving the maelstrom.”

  “Then who?—”

  The Kepler approached the source that triggered Foster’s tattoos to brighten blue, the vanishing sight of the maelstrom, and the lack of any other ship in orbit other than the Kepler. The vortex to the maelstrom opened for the Gerard Kuiper. It plunged into the ethereal clouds and thunderbolts and then vanished when the vortex shut.

  Foster made a half smile sitting back on her chair. “Well, sonovabitch!”

  Williams stepped forward watching the viewer. “Someone on that ship used our damn vortex key and gave us the slip.”

  The Gerard Kuiper was gone, taking with it Nereid, Lisette, Rivera . . . and their working vortex key. She gave her tattooed hands that now dimmed from the glowing light a long stare, wondering who else on the Gerard Kuiper had the markings she did.

  Downtime arrived for the personnel aboard the Kepler. It was inevitable now that they were stuck in an unknown system, orbiting an unknown planet deep within the Hallowed Nebula, beyond its barriers. As expected, the wormhole on the surface was powered down from the other end.

  To Foster’s delight, her cat Starlet was still alive. According to Penelope, Jainuzei took the time to feed it. As much of an asshole Jainuzei was, he followed a strict code of ethics; evidently one of those codes was to not bring harm to animals, cats included. Foster didn’t know if she should hug him or kick him in the balls the next time they met. Probably both.

  Kostelecky had her hands full treating everyone’s injuries. Foster felt bad for the lone pregnant doctor to be tasked with so much work. Chef Bailey couldn’t take it anymore and offered to help Kostelecky any way he could. She was glad to see it.

  Back on the bridge with her head patched up, Foster had EVE compile as much data as possible about the region of the nebula they arrived in thanks to Jainuzei. Eicelea and Vynei explained their story as Penelope continued hers, bringing the crew up to speed.

  Afterward, Penelope mentioned the primary reason she came searching for the Kepler in the first place. Intel about the SOM’s interest in the Nephilim, and the disappearance of the Rezeki’s Rage. And Rivera went out and got HNI, kept it secret, and now the rogue EVE AI from the Carl Sagan took over her HNI, and started calling itself Sarpanit, Marduk’s wife.

  Foster left the bridge and went for the Kepler’s lounge. There was a bottle of Jack Daniels she needed more than anything after hearing that. The Kepler wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Ending her shift early shouldn’t have been an issue.

  Foster awoke the next day ready to try again, now that the stress in her body had faded a great deal. She returned to the bridge to find Penelope, Williams, and Pierce sitting at one of the rear computer stations, sifting through data and a number of holo screens. She stood with them. It was time to sort out the mess they had fallen into.

  “Seems to me,” Williams said. “Like everything lately points back to Marduk, the nebula, and Lisette.”

  “Agreed,” Foster said. “EVE, compile everything we learned so far.”

  “Understood,” EVE said. “Please standby.”

  “Rebecca,” Pierce said. “You might want to take a look at this.”

  Foster stood behind Pierce at his station, staring over his shoulder at the screen. “What’s up?”

  Pierce pushed a button and the screen changed to a rotating projection of the Gerard Kuiper. “I was searching through the Kepler’s database about the Gerard Kuiper since it’s one of our own ships.” A portrait of the Gerard Kuiper’s captain appeared. Alisha Levesque. Levesque was the name of one of the founders of the SOM. “As we know, the Gerard Kuiper went to Sirius to help search for us on the Carl Sagan after word got out we vanished.”

  “And then it vanished afterward,” Williams said.

  “Well reported destroyed in an accident,” Penelope added. “The captain of the Gerard Kuiper was Alisha Levesque—”

  “Levesque . . .” Odelea cut in, loud enough for the three to look at her from her communication station.

  “You know her, Odelea?” Foster asked.

  “Yes,” Odelea said, then joined the group staring at Alisha’s portrait. “Karklosea might as well. Alisha was one of the human refugees that fled Earth during the Imperial invasion and spent time on a ship Karklosea and I both worked on. As I recall, Alisha ended up working as a researcher for Radiance.”

  “She’s right about that,” Pierce said. “Says here after the Celestial Order wars, Alisha returned to Earth, joined IESA, and moved up the ranks quickly.”

  “That would make sense,” Odelea said. “She worked closely with Radiance and was one of the first humans to leave Sol. She probably had a lot of knowledge and experience about space travel learned from us that got her so many promotions.”

  “What else you got about her?” Foster asked. “A ship that transmitted data that somethin’ bad happened when everything was perfectly fine seems fishy to me.”

  “Not to mention bolted with our vortex key, Nereid, and Lisette,” Williams added.

  “Alisha was married to her third husband at the time of the Imperial invasion, living in Montreal,” Pierce said, reading the new holo screen that appeared. “She got lucky and was on vacation at the time of the attacks but got separated from her daughter and husband.”

  Something in Pierce’s words caught Penelope’s attention. She leaned closer to him narrowing her red eyes. “How old was her daughter?” she asked him.

  “Doesn’t say, just that she was a young girl.”

  “Born in Montreal? Between 2003 and 2018?”

  “That would be my guess.”

  “A Nephilim . . .” Penelope said, moving away from the screen. “Alisha’s daughter was a Nephilim.”

  There was an odd silence, broken when Williams asked the million-credit question. “What the fuck is a Nep
hilim?”

  “I don’t know,” Penelope said. “But the SOM does, and so do the Draconians.”

  “Captain,” EVE’s voice said over the bridge’s speakers. “I have finished analyzing the data from our scans of this region of the nebula.”

  “Let’s see it, EVE.”

  Foster and Williams approached a nearby station behind them as a three-dimensional hologram loaded. The projection showed a map of the system they were in and the location of close by systems within the nebula.

  “As you suspected,” EVE said. “This planet and its parent star are deep within the Hallowed Nebula of Radiance, beyond the barriers we encountered earlier.”

  “Kinda figured that part out, EVE,” Foster said.

  “I have extrapolated data, based on the position of the stars, that we are approximately twenty-five light years away from the edge of the barrier. The barrier is estimated to be at least fifty light-years in diameter. That would put us near the center of it.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” Odelea said before EVE could reply, as her Aryile eyes glanced at the projection. “Meaning we are near the center of the nebula. The home of the Gods.”

  “And we are near the location of Kur as indicated by the data acquired from the Soldiers of Marduk,” EVE added.

  Foster watched as Odelea made the hologram zoom out. The system they were in was close to the center of the nebula. The estimated position of Kur was added to the projection, a five-light-year distance. The unknown planet they orbited could very well have been the closest habitable world to the center of the nebula and Kur. The Gerard Kuiper’s arrival there was no accident.

  “Williams, gather the crew and our guests for a meeting,” Foster said. “We’s got a lot to talk about . . .”

  54 Saressea

  Radiance Prison Ferry

  Leaving Talsyk Orbit, Avalon System

  July 23, 2119, 12:08 SST (Sol Standard Time)

  Leaving Talsyk on the same prisoner transport Saressea came to the surface in wasn’t exactly how she imagined waving goodbye to the planet of her birth. Rejoining the inmates aboard the prison ferry she had left days earlier wasn’t any better.