***
Investigations
It was nearly three hours later that the new command staff of the Eurystheus felt the ship was in good enough repair to consider their options. Chavel had discovered the first piece of useful information. Although the crew had been knocked unconscious, the sensors' cameras had recorded what had happened to the Minbari warship.
As the Minbari cruiser closed on the Eurystheus, a black cloud nearly a quarter the size of the Eurystheus had formed in space. A hail of sharp projectiles spat out of the cloud at the Minbari cruiser, which immediately turned away and began forming a jump point. A single green projectile shot from the cloud toward the jump point. It reached it and exploded, destroying the jump point, just after the Minbari ship made it through.
They first studied the Minbari ship. The damage did not look severe. It seemed that the Minbari had almost fled in panic. The ship sent a transmission, which they judged to be a distress call, as it fled. "That means they'll be back," said Dahl. "We won't survive another fight, no matter how bad they're hurt."
"How long do you think we have?" Alice asked.
"It usually takes them about twelve hours to recover from any damage," Chavel said. "That means we have about nine left."
"Let's look at that cloud then," Alice suggested. "If we have any chance, it probably lies there."
Chavel walked them through the sensor data. "The cloud accreted in space, apparently forming from the dust particles in the surrounding space. Most of them seemed to come up from the planet. It dispersed as the Minbari ship escaped, dissipating away into its constituent particles. Given the cloud's location, most of the particles will fall back into the planet's gravity well. You will notice it was losing coherence even before the Minbari ship fled. It would likely have failed and vanished had they chosen to stay and fight. Whatever it is, it doesn't match any known race's technology.
"Another interesting thing is that when repairing the long-ranged communications, we noticed some of the stuff stuck to the hull. We brought some of it aboard. It's little more than dust now. Broken nanites of some kind - immobile now and useless. In the end, I think the planet is our best bet to find out what it is and where it came from."
Alice turned to Turhan. "You lead us here. What do you know about this planet and this system?"
"It is good to hear, O Captain," the Centauri replied, "that the situation calls for my area of expertise, is it not?"
Alice wasn't in the habit of being baited. She sat, staring at Turhan until the Centauri continued. "As you remember, this system is called Isail. It's one of the few stable areas in this part of hyperspace. The fourth planet, which we have been fortunate to reach, is the only inhabitable planet in the system. We briefly considered enslaving them about a century ago, but they have no real strength and tend to be rather sickly - an unpleasant combination of traits for slaves. Their technology seems to be that of your Earth about four centuries ago, but may have been higher earlier than that." He snorted and frowned. "They are a people in decline. We found no use for them. Others did though. There was a raider base near the capital city at one time. It is said they saw strange things were sometimes seen in the system. I seem to remember something else about the planet, but I can't recall it right now. "
It looks like we're going to have to go down to the planet," Alice said. "Whatever made that cloud, let's hope we can get it to make another one before the Minbari return."
***
Isail
Chavel bent back over the scanners. "It's about the size of Earth, kind of brownish-green instead of blue from space. Gravity is 0.9g. There are two major continents and several islands. The southern continent appears uninhabited, but there are lights along the coast of the northern one, concentrated in one area, probably a city. The southern continent is heavily damaged with numerous giant pits on the surface."
"Scan raider frequencies," Turhan suggested.
Chavel changed his focus. "There's a faint signal from a navigational beacon that's still active. It's coming from a plateau about twenty miles from the city."
"We'll start there," Alice said. "Let's get to the shuttle. Lt. Chavel, one of us needs to stay up here. I'd like it to be you." The sensor operator nodded. Lt. Swale appeared to want to say something but she swallowed it.
They went armed. All of them carried standard PPGs and Dahl had a rifle as well. The trip down to the surface was uneventful and Alice brought them to a smooth landing on a platform at the raider base. Looking down the mountainside, she estimated it would take several days for anyone from the city to reach them.
There wasn't much to discover. Of the six prefabricated buildings, none were secure, having been broken into and looted at some point in the past. A couple of computers were still intact in one of the sheds. One was without power and the other was sending out the signal they had heard. Turhan dismissed both as cheap Narn knockoffs of a Centauri design. He was able to access the machine and find a couple of files. They were in Narn, but the shuttle's computer was capable of translating them into English. One was the base logs.
Surprisingly, the base was only a year old. It had been established by Narn raiders with the vague intent of smuggling arms to the Earth Alliance for use during the war - in between raiding attacks on Centauri shipping. They hadn't met with much success. The final entry stated that the natives were massing at the base of the plateau. When the base revealed nothing else, they decided to try the city.
They landed the shuttle in a clear space near the center of the city. It was, as Turhan described it, "an ugly and dull place." The major buildings were green-grey stone towers. Many were falling into ruin. A damp wind rolled across their faces, carrying with it an odour of decay. Natives with three eyes looked out at them from doorways or from the streets. Their limbs were long and delicate and there was an air of languidness about them.
None made an effort to greet them or to flee as the crewmen from the Eurystheus walked down the ramp from the shuttle. The natives didn't seem to care about them at all. Alice chose the largest of the buildings and began walking toward it. The others followed, with Dahl bringing up the rear, the PPG rifle in his hands. "Hello," Alice greeted the creature in the doorway. "We have come from up there," she said, pointing skyward. "Can you understand me?"
The creature's expression made her think it was smiling at her. It raised one hand and disappeared into the building. A few seconds later it returned with another, even more sickly, creature like itself. "I can speak some of the offworlder tongue," it said in pidgin Centauri.
Other than Turhan, Alice was the only one of them to speak Centauri, and she let him take the lead. The conversation that followed struck her as odd beyond just the realm of a second language.
"I am Lord Kirin Turhan of the Great Centauri Republic. I greet you in the name of the Emperor."
"You come from a space ship?" the native asked.
Nonplussed, Turhan replied, "Yes, of course. Did you think we were native to this accursed planet?"
Alice thought the creature looked alarmed and it took a step back. "Only gods or devils come from the outer darkness," it nearly hissed. "Which are you?"
Turhan took a step back himself and placed his fingers on his chest. "We are gods," he said with a flourish-filled bow. Turning to Alice, he said in English, "I have remembered, O Captain, the last thing about this world. It is called 'The World of Heretics.' Clearly we are not devils though, yes?"
"Emperor?" Turhan grinned back at her. Alice nodded as the native began to babble excitedly in its own tongue. The others of its kind within hearing appeared to pay interest in the strangers for the first time and began to come forward. Dahl gripped his rifle tightly. "It's alright," Alice said. "They think we're gods."
"I am Fuant, priest-slave of Culthimir," the creature said. "You must come to the temple. It is good you are gods, for the devils have been near. We heard the world scream. And while I have never seen the true demons, I have seen the lesser ones that came down in the mountains and built a fortress. They attacked us and were dealt with."
Alice's link chirped as they followed Fuant through the city. "Foster. Go."
"This is Lt. Chavel. We just received a message from the fleet. A repair ship will arrive in five day to get our jump engines back online. I hope you're having good luck down there."
"Depends on what you mean by luck," Alice replied. "We've just been promoted to godhood. I'll let you know if we find anything."
"Ok. Eurystheus out."
***
The Temple
The temple was a massive monolith of stone, easily the largest building on the planet. Its walls were covered in bas-relief sculptures that apparently described the Isaili theology. Faunt, fortunately, explained the carvings as they passed them by. "It is forbidden to draw the faces of the gods, so they are the splats you see high up on the walls. These eggs represent the demons and we do not draw their true form either.
"This shows worship in the old days, when we were faithful servants of the gods and the Isaili prospered. Then the demons came and cursed us so that the gods have turned away from us. Since then we have sacrificed many people in the hopes of satisfying the gods of our continued loyalty. "
Dahl pointed down a side passage. "What's that?"
Fuant went a few steps down the passage to see what Dahl had noticed. "It is one of the lesser demons," he said of the dead body of a Narn that had been chained to a wall. "Unfortunately it died before we could offer it to the gods."
Alice put her hand on her PPG. The others made similar moves and Dahl dropped back to the rear of the group. They moved on, somewhat more soberly.
At the center of the temple was a deep pit. Its edges were far too smooth to have been made by the natives. A decaying gondola hung over the center of the pit. At one time it might have been lowered into the pit, but now the only way down was through a simple rope hanging from a stake driven into the ground beside the opening.
"Only beings from the outer darkness may enter the pit," Fuant whispered. "I will wait here. If you are truly gods, you will return. If you are devils, you will die."
Lt. Swale shown a lantern down into the pit, but its light was swallowed by the darkness within. "Drop it," Alice suggested.
Before Swale could act, an alien scream issued from the pit. Alice shuddered at the sudden sensation of cold that swept over her. Fuant was crouching against the nearest wall. "The demons have returned," he whimpered.
Alice's link chirped again. It was Chaval. "The Minbari are back. They'll be within weapon's range in three minutes. If there's anything you can do, do it now."
Alice paused a moment. The others were all silent. "On it," she said.
"Oh my god, that scream," Swale muttered.
Grayson snapped his head up. "It wasn't a scream. It was music and it blocked out all the noise." He bent down and grabbed the rope and lowered himself into the pit.
Dahl moved to stop him, but Alice grabbed Dahl's arm. "Let him go," she ordered. A minute later, they heard him cry out. Alice thought it sounded like he was in ecstasy.
***
Echoes of an Ancient War
They made their way out of the temple, past the cowering Fuant. Once they were outside, Alice contacted the ship. "The Minbari are gone," Chaval told them. "Another cloud, this time denser and larger, surrounded their ship. They managed to make it back out, but they looked a lot more beat up than last time. Whatever you found down there, it looks like it's something that can beat them."
"We'll give you a report that you can send back to EarthForce when we return," Alice replied. "Grayson's gone."
Four days later, the repair ship arrived. A day after that, another ship arrived. This one full of intelligence officers and weapons boffins. They commandeered Lt. Dahl. Alice and the remaining members of the team that had gone down to the planet were ordered to forget they had ever been there.
***
This ends the prologue.
Topic: Eurystheus (Read 6509 times)