Chapter 10 - The Moon
Location: Gateway Station â€" Orbital Silmeria
The trade sector of the station was bustling with traders of all different creeds and races, stalls were set up right the way along the open promenade. Eclypse looked over the top of all the stalls from the top level of promenade with large glass bridges that looked over the shopping forecourt below. He stopped staring for the moment, his eyes twitching slightly for no reason before turning to see a large, long necked race standing behind him which made him jump.
This race was unlike anything he had ever seen before, it had a long silver skinned, pale neck which led up towards an extremely thin head with large, obsidian black eyes. It wore a pale blue tunic which seemed to indicate that it was a command officer that was standing in front of him.
"Eclypse?" said the alien in an extremely unusual broad accent which seemed to be both strange and unheard of. Eclypse was stunned slightly at hearing that from an alien that he had never met before. His worm-like lightly furred tail twitched at the sound of the alien's voice. He turned round to look at him, when the alien's large obsidian eyes widened.
"Eclypse!" he shouted out in happiness, it seemed to be more of a rasp, low and husky rather than an actual laugh. Eclypse was completely confused, a few hours ago, he was unaware of this planet's existence and now, he had some alien looking at him as if he knew him.
"I... I'm sorry?" mumbled Eclypse trying to avoid direct eye contact with the alien however he knew that the alien was looking directly at him. The alien conveyed a sense of disappointment, looking down at the floor and then up at him again. "Eclypse..." he started, with a very blank voice after clearing his throat. "I... I am Garoda, envoy to the Sovereignty of Alexandria... we met many years ago... when Silmeria, your homeworld was under occupation..."
As he was talking, Eclypse's facial expression changed to look like he had swallowed a lemon. What was this alien talking about? Silmeria had not been under occupation for almost 100 years. He was completely baffled by all this, it was like nothing was making sense to him.
"So... eh... Yes... Asgard told me that I was a clone" mumbled Eclypse, finding this whole day a completely off-putting experience in his faith of galactic karma. The alien smirked, well... some version of a smirk before continuing to talk.
"There" he said pointing out of the window of the station, revealing a large ring in orbit , that appeared to be in the direct centre of the station, almost as if this entire station was constructed around that ring. As Eclypse stared at the ring, suddenly memories started to flood back to him, an overwhelming experience which made him clutch harder on the railing to avoid falling off. Garoda stared at him a little more before opening his mouth.
"You are starting to remember" he said smiling at Ecylpse briefly before returning to his usual frown. "The gods work in mysterious ways".
Ecylpse just stared back at the ring in middle of the almost "courtyard" structure of the station.
"There are no gods" he mumbled.
Location: Raven's Nest Orbital Shipyard
Diamond was completely overwhelmed, however by this point he had become used to it.
Astra had taken him to an amazing facility that was just believable, in all senses of the words. Diamond had no idea that this place even existed, his wings, that were retracted into his back, fluttered with the excitement as the small, jet like shuttle docked with this massive, spider-like space station which orbited high above Terra.
"I never... How...? This... Technology?" he had said to Astra en route to the station, seeing this large complex high in orbit above Terra.
"Actually we did not construct this" smiled Astra, who smirked at Diamond's amazement, she had swapped her clothes for a more distinguished black uniform back at the launch pad. "This was already here when we picked up an unknown magnetic signature from our first manned space flight."
"You mean the "Judgement" incident" said Diamond who was busy playing events back in his mind. A few days ago, he was a simple cryptologist that smoked too much, came from a broken home and was living in a slum, but now...
Now he was travelling through space in a small capsule, reaching a top-secret Chentrilla military facility which was in orbit around Terra.
"Yes, unfortunately we could not reveal the location to Raven's Nest to any of the other governments or organisations on Terra. So we made the "Judgement" space shuttle crash to cover up the fact that we had actually found this..." Diamond scowled at her again, again with the government's lies about incidents that had already happened but the wonder of seeing Terra from orbit was a true sight to behold. Astra continued speaking regardless of Diamond being glued to the window, looking out over his homeworld and occasionally glancing at the still silent Lance who had not said a word since.
"Raven's Nest is more then an ancient facility, it is not alien in design and the strangest thing was that most of the onboard computers were instantly compatible with our operating systems. It's amazing... the technology is incredible... almost 2000 years more advanced then we are... but fundamentally Terran, the computers speak the same language."
Diamond poked his head up from the window of the shuttle as Astra sat in the pilot seat at the front of the small, cylinder cabin that felt almost like an aircraft. "Why... are you telling me this?" he whined.
Astra looked back at him as she fiddled with a few buttons on the control panel, her eyes seemed to be scanning him, still trying to discover if she could trust this horse or not.
"Because... we have discovered something that you were originally working on". Astra pointed to a drawer in one of the consoles. "In there... take a look Mr Dust"
Diamond was reluctant to do anything that she asked him to, he hated being whisked away like this and not being told anything. He shot a look at Lance, watching his pale wolfian face, there was not even a flicker of brightness on his face, Diamond stared at him in despair before sighing and taking out a large wedge of papers with the word "Classified Intel" stamp in magenta ink on the front. He felt a large sense of reluctance in wanting to know the contents of the files which he held tightly in his fur-covered hands however... there was also a sense of curiosity about why he was here. He looking inside, and his eyes widened as he almost dropped the papers on the floor.
"What!?" he exclaimed much louder in surprise then he had originally anticipated.
"Wh..wh..what... is this?"
Astra kept her head watching the cockpit displays as she began to move the small shuttle in range of the huge station. Diamond felt even more confused then he ever had, something was not making sense and these photographs which were now clutched in his hands revealed even more confusion. Lance looked down and then let out a whimper as he saw half the photograph in Diamond's pale hands, his large paw immediately went up to his muzzle as it was enough to snap him out of his silence.
"But...But... that's the ship! That's the Valkyrie!" he exclaimed as the photograph revealed a ship that was docked inside the station, a massive vessel which only looked half finished, still with some version of alien scaffolding latched onto it. "This is not possible..."
Astra interrupted, turning round as the ship rocked steadily, caught into a beam that shot out from the huge complex. "You see why we wanted you two here?" she said, her face brightening a slight, still used to the shock since the destruction of Chentrilla City. "The ship that Phoenix Grace discovered in the Everonth mountainside is the same ship design as the one that was being constructed at this facility. It appears that the aliens that inhabited this structure before it was abandoned were attempting to finish another vessel of this class..."
"They are not aliens" interrupted Lance, gazing out of the window back at Terra, almost as if he was not really interested in what she was saying. Astra turned to Lance, almost insulted that Lance had stopped her in mid-flow, she was about to say something rude but she remembered to be professional and stopped.
"Then what would you call them Mr Amaro?" Astra pushed her red lips together upon saying this and began to wait for a response from the Wolfian. Lance pricked his ears up, realising that he had just spoke what he had been thinking without realising it, he looked at Astra with a little confusion but remained silent. Astra climbed to her feet from the chair, she had to crouch since the cockpit was too small for her tall Foxian body, she immediately walked up to the scared Lance and slammed his face against the window.
"Tell me what you know!" she said, with a tone of sadism in her voice, Diamond scuttled forward in an attempt to stop her but he was stopped dead in his tracks and found himself glaring down the barrel of a shiny black handgun. Astra continued to bash Lance, heavily against the reinforced glass which each time made Lance yelp in pain. "My home... my family were destroyed...!" she shouted, losing her cool professionalism and instead adopting an unusual type of rage. "I HAD THREE CHILDREN! ALL OF THEM DIED!" she shouting even louder as she continued to smack Lance against the cold window, causing blood to flow from his nose along with tears from his eyes.
Diamond felt helpless in this situation, but he always did, he could try to wrestle the gun from her, free Lance and shoot her but since there were going to be military guards on this monstrosity they were heading towards he doubted that he would get very far before being shot. However he could not just stand by and allow Astra to beat Lance.
"Listen!" Diamond spoke very quickly, making himself sweat slightly, his fur becoming a little bit more on edge than usual. Lance was bleeding heavily and was unconscious when Astra finally let him go in her rage, pushing herself off him, her uniform ruffled. Diamond continued to reason with her as she still persisted in pointing the gun at him. "Leviathan... has all made us... loose something but you cannot let that rage control you!" Astra snarled at the words, she knew that if she fired a gun in here, it would depressurise the cabin and kill everyone on the shuttle.
Astra continued to stare madly at Diamond, he eyes flickered with a certain bloodlust the engulfed her feelings however she lowered her hand gun and stared at Diamond. "Then tell me how we can stop here from killing anymore people! Admit it, you know something! I want to know what that is!"
Diamond felt confined, he was unable to escape into the blackness of space. He felt the pressure build up upon him, like a balloon slowly inflating within him. "Alright!" shouted
Diamond, watching Lance struggle to move from his crippled state. "Alright! Alright! Just calm down!"
Astra continued to stare and watched the cockpit as the large hanger doors of the spider-like shipyard opened, dragging the shuttle inside this huge construction. "So...?" she said, prompting Diamond into speaking. "Well!" explained Diamond, shuffling over to Lance, who was semi-conscious and lying on the floor, blood pouring out of his nose. "We found a version of the Valkyrie crashed at the Everonth Mountainside. I was the lead cryptologist employed to make understand of the language that was found aboard that vessel. However the symbols seemed to be very reminiscent of the Terran language form. All languages have a common....
"I DON'T CARE ABOUT THAT!" blurted Astra immediately getting frustrated again, her voice calming back down to its usual professionalism. This foxian had lost her family, her children and everyone she cared about to these mysterious events and she was determined to get an answer for this. "Tell me what Lance said! What he saw?"
Diamond had to make a decision here, he could inform her what he had discovered from the hologram of the ships commander or he could keep it a hidden secret and not inform her about it. The result of telling her could lead in her branding him crazy or to withhold that information might cause her to go insane and start shooting at him. He chose to tell her.
"Alright.... when me and Lance investigated inside the Valkyrie, we were communicated by the computer. She was a... a..." he struggled to find the word to describe Kestra. "Hologram!" he finally said and then began to elaborate. "A computer projection of Kestra... the woman who attacked Chentrilla City with Leviathan. S-she told us that Terran once had a vast space empire but the As...as...asGARDIAN spirits grew fearful of our technology and destroyed it... wiping the memory. Apparently there was a big... climatic battle in orbit of Terra and... well... we lost." Diamond sat down after he had explained all that knew, almost completely out of breath, Astra smiled slightly at the fact that she had used the pure force of will to extract information from Diamond. Diamond felt his wings twitch, he was so uncomfortable being in the presence of a clearly psychotic woman.
The next few hours were very uncomfortable for both Diamond and Lance, Lance had been taken to the medical wing onboard this giant, spider-like complex that loomed over Terra while Diamond was repeated interrogated by a number of different government and military official. One admiral had gone so far as to have Diamond pushed over a table and strip searched until he provided completely all the information that he knew, Diamond never feeling so humiliated complied completely with the Admiral, letting the Wolfian admiral watch in an almost perverted form of pleasure as Diamond had his clothes torn off and pushed over the table.
Raven's Nest Dry-dock itself was a very impressive facility, it was only half explored with power restored to only a few decks but it seemed to generate its own artificial gravity.
When Diamond was locked in the medical wing for over two hours with a very annoying Rattian nurse who went completely out of her way to make Diamond comfortable, she informed him that the military had only recently been able to establish a permanent presence on this base and that the members of the space-shuttle Judgement were actually a team whose mission it was to make contact with this mysterious station and board it if possible. All of the officers who were onboard this shipyard had come here knowing that they had been marked as dead in archives and would never go back to Terra again but the exploration of a new frontier was too inspirational to stop people from working here. The main corridor, nicknamed the "Halo" by the workforce was only the first deck and extended round the entire complex in a big circle with individual operation rooms on the outside. On the inside of the "Halo" was a huge, continuous window that looked out into a massive pit-like structure with large doors that could be seen at one end for ships to enter and leave. This pit extended down as far as the eye could see giving a person the massive scale of this huge facility, however the space inside the halo was not empty, it was filled with several small Terran space-shuttles zooming about inside however none of it compared to the massive starship that was laying inside, it was only half finished but was very long and very sleek. There was bridges connecting the station to it, large metal protrusions that resembled something like scaffolding protruded around the huge vessel.
This station was truly something else... something immortal, a monument to the old Terra.
Diamond however was still waiting the sterile, white medical wing with a nurse that would just not leave him alone. He tried to repeated times to ask her what was going on, to which she replied. "They will call you, when they need you."
"Great!" thought Diamond. "Now I am never going to get home, my apartment has been destroyed and now I'm stuck in space. This is something out of a bad science-fiction fan fiction"
Diamond waited for Lance to wake up, according to the doctors, he had a concussion and several bruises but other than that, he would be fine. He stared around the room, the medical wing had a serious of beds which were lined against the east wing like a hospital, with a door to the "Halo" corridor and a window on the other side that revealed the top of the magnificent planet of Terra. The lights were fluorescent and this gave Diamond a bit of a headache but he was still wondering why on Terra he had been brought here to a classified military facility of the highest orders. There was only one other door in this deceptively large white room which was linked to the Doctor's officer, presently the annoying Rattian nurse was sat down typing something on the laptop and scratching her whiskers. Diamond smiled as he watched Lance stir in his sleep, he looked so peaceful, making gently "murrs" in his sleep.
Now was his chance, a call came for the nurse. "Nurse Orgaina, there has been a plasma leak in the Engineering-Restoration section, medical assistance is required." The nurse picked up her box of medicines which lay on the table in the office and gave a quick look at Diamond with saying anything... she got to the door, her clumsy face turning round as if she forgot to say something. "Oh... and there are armed guards outside... I would just stay put."
Diamond felt threatened by this, her tone was unrealistically nice considering the circumstances, he had no plans to escape. He was too curious about this entirely new space station however this did give him a chance to snoop around inside her office. Maybe it would give him a better chance of understanding what was going on.
He climbed to his feet from the chair near Lance's bed and opened the door to Nurse Orgainia's office. Inside were papers squashed into smaller folders that were not even organised, however the room was unusually bear, like it had not been used much.
Diamond headed straight for the computer at her desk and slumped down in her chair, from the position he was in, he could see the door encase she decided to walk through the automatic door. Apprehension filled him as he edged his hands closer to the keyboard, tapping a key and half-expecting to find a password prompt that would test his skills in cryptography.
It was not password protected, nothing at all apart from the desktop and file directories appeared on the screen. "This girl is either incredibly trusting or just fucking stupid" smiled Diamond to himself. He easily accessed the file directories with the list of current orders, his face changed to a look of horror when he found his file with a picture of him that appeared on the screen. It appeared that nurse who had been trying so hard to make him comfortable was order to wait till he was sleeping and then give him a lethal injection of Hexacide, a powerful and slow acting poison that mimicked death through natural causes. Diamond became extremely worried; "The military want to kill me!?" he thought, checking Lance's file to realise that she had logged that he had already been given the injection.
"Lance!" he shouted watching the monitors beside his bed, he instantly recognised that his heartbeat had slowed to extremely weak. "NO! You can't die on me!" said Diamond, feeling so powerless again, like he did when he watched that Wolfian die on the table. "I will not lose you Lance" said Diamond into his ear. He only had one shot at saving him, he remembered reading in the paper about a woman who had poisoned herself with Hexacide as a suicide and the paramedics had brought her back to life by allowing her to die and then using pulse-pads to shock her heart into beating again within three minutes.
The monitor started beeping quickly as Diamond watched Lance start to have trouble breathing. "Oh please!" prayed Diamond as he watched knowing that he could not do anything until after he had flat lined. He quickly, shot through all the medical equipment lying around until he found two large pads which had a small battery connected to them.
He wheeled the trolley over to Lance, his tail swishing mad from the stress and connected the battery into a power-pack on the trolley.
He was determined not to lose anymore people during this disaster but part of his mind was racked with the confusion of why the military would do this in the first place. Could it have been...!
They were the ones that killed Remmy! It must have been them! Suddenly all the pieces began to fit together as he watch Lance take his final breaths. He remembered how he found it strange that government was already aware of this station but not of Terra's past as a galactic power... unless... had they intentionally released Kestra to keep the "Asgardians" occupied while....
They rebuilt the ships! The Valkyrie was not already hear! They were building another one, to begin regain what they had lost. Phoenix Grace, the Terran Government, the Military, they were all in this together. They were trying to eliminate all involved with the discovery of the old Terra and they were using Kestra's powers as bait maybe... to attract the Gods here and punish them for what they had done.
Diamond remembered something his father had said when he was much younger to him before the massacre at Equina.
"Son... our people are different from the rest of this world. We have the understanding and knowledge of the Gods. We are the guardians to save Terra from catastrophe."
Diamond remembered seeing that etched onto the walls of the village church... maybe there was more to why the government had destroyed his people but as he waited for Lance to die. He would revive him first and then... he intended to find out.