《Lost in a Magical World》
Chapter 1.1:Experiment gone awry
Solar system, 2179
Dr. Alicia Marcus was checking out the station with both her friends, Paul and Angela, the station was sponsored by multiple countries and private companies. Her friend Angela was piloting the shuttle that was taking them to the station, she somehow was good at piloting space shuttles as well as being a good data analyst.
The station represented the biggest enterprise ever built by earth bar none, and she was the leader, it was a big responsibility, not even the attempted colonization of mars rivals it some people are speculating that the knowledge gained from this enterprise might one day allow the human race to move beyond the solar system.
The station is basically three particle accelerators and colliders, the biggest ever created, the idea is to measure what happens to the space around the collider when its activated with the purpose to prove a 90 years old theory that could be a big step in unifying special relativity and quantum mechanics.There have been some interesting results, but nothing conclusive yet. it would be hard to read these results if not the fact that the station was parked in a location with low enough gravity in space, the LaGrange points were the obvious choices.
The station looked like three giant donuts staying one behind the other and attached by some sticks on the outside that connect them, the center was barren since that is the place where the disturbances were supposed to happen, over the last two years they have gotten enough data to keep scientists busy for decades to come.
The shuttle is staying in the center of the rings, because some unexpected disturbances were reported in the center of the rings when it was activated. which didn''t make sense, these disturbances couldn''t be accounted for by their calculations. They were taking a few instruments to see what they could read and then come up with a better way to measure them later.A few of the idiotic young scientists (supposed to be an oxymoron but somehow some of them proved it to be true) went there once while the rings were active and reported feeling the disturbances. So it became a game, of course it didn''t happen for every configuration, but even the lack of disturbance is new data to be analyzed, there are literally thousands of servers here and on earth dedicated to analyzing the data to spot patterns.
Unnamed star system same time
Alex was in his shuttle configuring another one of his probes, he hadsent dozens already, but his project was worth it, if it worked he would go down in history as the first person to be able to create and direct a traversable wormhole.There have been some previous attempts by other group of people but even though they managed to create wormholes, sending anything through it and it coming out the other sidehasprovenhard to accomplish. Some people attempted to create ship that warp space around it in a way that would allow it to pass through, but the spectacular failures of all these attempts made people wary of it, its expensive to build the ships, because of how much warping they want to do they can''t use something as small and low powered as a probe.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
His way is completely different, based on an idea he had when he was 15, now 13 years later he had built his portal, in secret but yes it worked, and it was cheaper that the other attempts, still expensive as hell, but cheaper by comparison.
He thought the problem would be creating the wormhole, but no, the problem is guiding it, for some reason he can''t control where the other side is anchored.What he achieved is already enough to make history and maybe later someone else will find out a way to solve this problem.But still, he wanted to be known as the guy who did it all, and even more, all by himself. he used a considerable amount of his fortune to build this by himself, if it wasn''t the fact that he had an army of builder bots, a few fabricators, and a quantum server cluster he would never be able to accomplish it this quickly that and the fact that somehow his design is somehow cheaper than the other ones.
When he graduated at the age of 17 with multiple degrees people called him one of the smartest people alive, his accomplishments were one is a billion, something that only happens once every few generations, but somehow, his generation got5 other people who have similar accomplishments.So, instead of being called the smartest person alive he is called the third smartest alive, Alex wants to believe that his actions afterhe heard the rankings had nothing to do with it, but he would be lying to himself.He was born in a society that worships creativity and intelligence more than actors or musicians like the earthlings do. After all his was a society built by scientists, even after thousands of years the name of the people who created the first warpengines were still remembered.
The probe was a3 meter cube, it contained a lot of sensors, since he changed the probe configuration in every launch. He could do it remotely using an android in avatar mode, but there was something to being here himself. The probe was floating in the center of the hangar bay of his shuttle by repulsor forces being emitted from both bellow and above it, since he was in space the forces didn''t need to be that strong, his main ship a few light seconds away hidden behind a big asteroid, this site was completely secret, not because he was breaking any laws, since he worked alone and in an empty solar system away from any person a lot of the laws didn''t apply to him, but he still was not ready to share his project with the rest of humanity, or have the governments trying to take over before he was ready.
He launched the probe to be near the portal structure that was responsible of creating the wormhole, this would be his 33th test but he still was not any closer to finding a solution. With any luck something would click this time, if not, then back to the number crunching which in his opinion was the most fun part of the project.
Now all he needed was to activate, this time he would increase the power to see what happened, a wormhole consumed a lot of power in the first moments but after a while the power consumed was stable, there was always gravimetric disturbances when it started but nothing his shuttle couldn''t handle, at least that is what usually happened, this time something went very wrong.
Chapter 1.2: Rescue attempt
Solar system
Dr. Marcus was appreciating the rings from a very unique perspective, although she shouldn''t be doing this but Angela convinced her, this is a configuration that they used before, and nothing wrong ever happened before, but this time as soon and the ring activated something went wrong.
The first thing they noticed was the trembling of the shuttle, the disturbances were never big enough to cause this, the people felt them yes, but it wasn''t even enough to disorient people, more like being on a plane that was banking a little to the left or right, but the shuttle never was affected enough to shake
"Move us out of here Angela" Paul said, it was easy to notice the fear in his voice
"I am trying, but somehow we are being pulled forward" She says
<"SSC Station to Dr. Marcus, there is something happening, the whole station is shaking">
"We are feeling it here as well, we are being pulled further toward the rings and its intensifying, we can''t break away, What the hell is that!?" Right in the center of the middle ring things were going strange, throughout all these experiments although the instruments sensed it and the people felt the disturbances there was never a visual change, now it looked like the light was distorting, like passing through a transparent balloon filled with water that was being squeezed by the second, and the ship was being pulled towards it, but now the shaking stopped and the ship was simply being pulled toward the now sphere like balloon, there was light coming from there but it was completely distorted.
"Something is happening, out there and we are being pulled towards it, GET US OUT OF HERE" said Angela
""
"WHAT DO YOU THING WE ARE TRYING TO DO HERE, DO YOU THINK WE...." the shuttle was pulled into the distortion with its passengers screaming.
Unnamed star system a few minutes later
Alex had a problem, when he triggered the wormhole, the initial power consumption spiked, it was a lot more than what he planned, and the system was working overtime trying to keep the wormhole stable, he still hadn''t launched the probe, but kept it near the portal, the probe had a quantum link with his main ship, so all the data could be recorded in real time in the ship. Nearly an hour later he thought that everything has been stable enough for long enough, just before he was going to launch the probe an object came out of the wormhole, it took him a couple seconds to react, since he was wearing his reader headpiece the shuttle responded to his thoughts so, when he decided to take action everything happened very quickly.
First he identified the object and realized that it was a shuttle from earth, which made him falter. Although what he did would not be considered criminal until now, that is only because he never put anyone in danger not even himself. The rest would be covered under independent research laws, but if he somehow pulled people from earth there could be a lot of problems in the future.
All this passed through his head quickly but it didn''t stop him from attempting a rescue, at least it didn''t stop him for long.
He issued the commands necessary to send the shuttle in an intercept course, the shuttle was going toward a small asteroid and if it crashed anyone inside would be very dead. He accelerated toward it, in the heat of the moment the only thing he could think of was a preprogramed maneuver.
He positioned his shuttle in front of the earth''s shuttle, since his shuttle was very fast it was easy. When he was positioned in front of it he matched the speed and activated the repulsors while slowing down. Repulsors create a force that pushes normal matter away from it. This allows for Alex to push the earth''s shuttle the other way slowly, basically bleeding out its speed.
But he miscalculated, and the asteroid was still closing in too fast, at this rate his shuttle would hit the asteroid before he managed to stop the earth''s shuttle, he activated his ship forward repulsors and when he got close to the asteroid both their speed was slow enough that the crash was not fatal, his ship could easily survive a crash like that with barely a scratchIf you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
He was dazed for a few seconds, the inertial dampeners work best when the acceleration was anticipated, the effects of a collision are reduced but it still rattles you, luckily not enough to cause any type of injury,
But the result of the repulsors, the crash, and the few seconds he stayed dazed was to push the earth''s ship the other way, back towards the wormhole and it was spinning.
His shuttle was fast, especially when compared to any vehicle or ship created on earth, and with the inertial dampeners it was easy to accelerate to five g''s without feeling a thing. This allowed him to catchup to the runaway shuttle even faster, and, repeating the previous maneuver he managed to slow it down before it reached the wormhole.
The problem is that it was now spinning, around an axis, after a few seconds of consideration he decided on a course of action. Since the shuttle was elongated and the rotation was forward he was going to need to do some careful application of repulsors, luckily, his main ship had a quantum server cluster, doing calculations like this was easy and it had the standard programs all spaceships had.
He had his shuttle scan the rotating earth''s shuttle to get its shape and rotation and the ship was able to calculate the needed amount of force and direction of force needed to slow down its rotation, he positioned his shuttle in a tangent to the rotation of the other shuttle, and used repulsors to apply the force required to slow it down whenever the nose of earth''s shuttle became perpendicular to his ship, the slowing down was gradual and not abrupt abut after 5 rotations he was able to slow it down enough to not be uncomfortable to whoever was inside.
Solar system, same time,
After the shuttle disappeared into the phenomenon the station suddenly had gravity pulling toward the anomaly, the only reason it didn''t hurt people is because it was not immediate it took a few seconds and the people were able to brace themselves, it took them a few moments to get accustomed and now everyone was walking while holding the hand holds located in the walls, just in case something else changed and the gravity either increased or disappeared suddenly.
The problem is that although the shuttle was built in order to utilize little fuel in its thrust and the small nuclear reactor would last a long time, the shuttle was not made to be able to handle gravity, its low thrust didn''t allow it to leave gravitational pull of the phenomenon, it was not designed to be anywhere near a gravity pull of that magnitude, the only reason the station was not affected that much is that the phenomenon appeared right in the exact center of the rings so the force was distributed equally.
Communication with earth was slow, it took a few minutes for the signal and response round trip, so no response yet especially since they would need a very long time to make sense of what was happening and formulate a response, so for now it was on their hands.
The scientists at the station were at a loss on what to do, some wanted to shut everything down to prevent whatever happened to do more damage to the station, the other group wanted to keep it on to see if they can find a way to retrieve Dr. Marcus and the rest of the team, some just wanted to get more info on whatever happened because it sure looked like what they imagined a wormhole would look like, the problem is there was no response on the attempts at communication, either they were incapacitated in some way, or the signal didn''t reach them.
Although the phenomenon was stable now it was still drawing an enormous amount of power to maintain and they would need to cut it loose at some time. Everyone was stressed and a scared and people knew that if whatever happened disappeared they would drop on their heads because of the stations artificial gravity being in the opposite direction, but what they were afraid is what if it got worse as in it increased enough to suck in the station itself, this was unchartered territory, this is why the station was built so far away from earth in the first place.
But the decision was made for them after a while the phenomenon things started to destabilize and just as suddenly as it appeared it was gone again, the accelerator was not designed to maintain the beam at full intensity forever.
Unnamed solar system, same time
Now that he managed to slow down the shuttle''s rotation it is just a matter of opening his hangar doors and backing toward the shuttle, the earth''s shuttle was 35 meters in length and had a 10 meter diameter, his hangar was big enough to hold it with some room to spare, the repulsors inside the hangar would ensure that it didn''t do much damage on the way in keeping it centered, the computer could handle that since he already had a program designed for these situations, they were handy in getting cargo in quickly without making a mess.
Before he was able to execute it something changed in the wormhole, he got an alert from the system that it was trying to compensate for a change in the structure of the wormhole itself, since he and the earth''s shuttle were too close to the wormhole he decided that he needed to speed up the process, but suddenly the earth''s shuttle was pulled toward the wormhole, he decided to accelerate toward it to see if he could stop it from entering, because if it entered before the system managed to stabilized it was going to be crushed inside, he got ahead of it but realized at the last moment that he wasn''t going to be able to stop before entering not with this force also pulling him if he applied the reverse thrust with enough force to not go in he was going to crush the earth''s shuttle with the impact since it was now behind him.
Chapter 1.3:The other side
Unnamed star system
At the last moment the only thing Alex thought he could do was follow his original plan, so he opened his bay door and slowed down by applying reverse thrust enough for earth''s shuttle to enter it, even if it was faster than he originally planned it went inside just before he entered the event horizon and he closed the hangar doors quickly and set out the command to repressurize it slowly, and prayed that his shuttle was strong enough to handle the unstable wormhole, and that his system was working overtime to stabilize it.
The view inside the wormhole was just as he thought light was distorted as if by some bad lenses, even with his inertial dampeners he was feeling the turbulence which means that something is very wrong with the wormhole, it somehow got more unstable suddenly, when the earth''s ship came through it was stable or it wouldn''t come out so intact, now with the gravitational disturbances this strong it somehow got worse, his wormholes were only supposed to be unstable in the first moments right after creation then it should stabilize
When he reached the other side he was going to have some explaining to do, the galactic nations council will ask him what he was doing on the solar system since they banned any excursions to there since the earthlings started to colonize mars eighty years ago, luckily there is still a relay there and he could use it to contact the rangers to come and get him, he was going to be detained for a while but after he explained his situation they were going to probably change his arrest in a way that allows him to finish his work, the idea of a traversable wormhole is too tantalizing to squander, he was just going to have to suffer with the idea of other people trying to take over his work but with the amount of work he has already done, they can''t get full credit, after a while of his insides feeling queasy and wanted to pass out, it took a tremendous amount of will power to stay awake, even if the inertial dampener was working full time and slowing the effects gravity disturbance to a crawl it still affected every cell in his body, including his brain and being constantly moved about inside there was not good for it, even if the intensity of the movement wasn''t big, the frequency was, he just hoped that the people inside the shuttle were all right
The first thing he noticed was that the trip inside the wormhole took over a minute, which shouldn''t be possible, even if the travel time takes a few minutes, the person passing through the wormhole shouldn''t feel more than a few seconds of relative time, so him feeling like it has been a few minutes means that either the warping of spacetime was different this time or it went much further, further than even earth, the second thing he noticed was the closest star, or more accurately stars, he was near a binary system which definitely wasn''t the earth''s solar system
Something is very wrong, a scan if the standard frequencies show that there is no technological activity in the system, the best thing to do now was turn around and go back through the wormhole because he was sure he was in the middle of nowhere, he turned around but before he even started toward the wormhole it closed, he sent a standard SOS burst of signal on multiple frequencies both sub and superluminal, with no responseIf you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Now he was truly fucked, the only thing he could wait for was a slow wait to death, even worse, he had company in this, whoever was in the shuttle.
He went to the shuttle, and went to the hangar bay, the repressurization cycle had already completed he went there and luckily the shuttle was still intact, he got up on a ledge and saw through the front window that its three passengers were still strapped to their chairs and inside their astronaut suits, motionless, he was not sure whether he preferred them to be dead or alive at this time, dead would imply he would die alone and in peace, alive would mean he had some company to his slow death, looking at them would not give him answers, so he went down and to the side of the shuttle, the shuttle''s door was closed, he was lucky that it was the right way up, even though if it wasn''t all he had to do was reverse the artificial gravity
He grabbed the medical kit and tablet before going there
He pulled a supporting cable and a glidingcart And activated it, once it lifted from the ground he, and guided it until it was by the door then jumped on top of it, the plate again used repulsion force, it could easily hold a ton on weight for a few hours with its two batteries fully charged
Luckily the shuttle had an external handle to open the door, and he easily managed to open it, he hopped in and went to check on them, he found them there still strapped to the chairs, he took out their helmets, it was two girls and a guy, the guy and one of the girls looked a little older, but the other girl looked to be about his age, he checked their pulse and found that they were still alive, he still didn''t know how to feel about that, all that was waiting for them is to slowly wait to die in empty space.
He unstrapped them one by one and placed them on the ground turning them so they were lying by their side, it was strange doing it with their suits on, the head was staying at an awkward angle so he went put his tablet temporarily on the ground so the person could use as a pillow and went to find other items he could use, he didn''t find any in the small shuttle so he jumped down to the ground to find anything he could use, he found some packages, he thought were the right size, getting back to the shuttle was easier, he simply jumped up to the door, even though it was some 3 meters above the ground, it was easy for him
After he was back inside he went to work placing them on the ground with the packages as pillow, he opted to leave them here so that when they woke up it would be in a familiar environment, he went back down and decided to leave thecartby their door without load it could survive for a long time and it would give them a place to use to step out of the shuttle
Now he went back to the cockpit and decided to scan the star system he is at, setting the camera to infrared is the best way for a quick scan then he can focus on the bright spots one by one, with his main ship he would have more options, but with his main ship he could simply leave the system and go toward civilized space. Doing things this way he found three planets, focusing with infrared, it''s the quickest way , he easily found 3 planets on the side of the stars, one of them was a gas giant, and it was far away there were there were another two planets, the closest one light hour away
Making a profile of the planets revealed something interesting about the closest one, it had oxygen and water, zooming in showed what looked like a big ocean of water, even though that didn''t change his odds of survival much it was still a curious thing, especially the oxygen, water is not strange, but oxygen is.So he set course to it, it would take a few days to get there.
Chapter 2.1:Waking up
Dr. Marcus was the first to wake up, it took her a few seconds to remember what happened but when she did, she bolted upright. The last thing she remembered was entering that thing in space, once they entered it the ship started to shake, the light was extremely distorted. After a while she passed out, she was just happy she hadn''t eaten anything before, being inside there was like being in a roller coaster.
Now she looked around her, and she saw both Angela and Paul, lying down on their sides, she recognized it as the recovery position based on the basic emergency training she had. The only reasonable explanation is that they were rescued, but for some reason they weren''t taken to an infirmary, she looked around and that is when she noticed that it was not outer space outside the shuttle.
She got up and carefully walked to a window, the outside looked like the whole shuttle was inside a hangar, and now was the first time she noticed that she had gravity, were they somehow back on earth, as far as she knew mars didn''t have any facility like this, the future dome city was still under construction, and the gravity was wrong, mars gravity was much lower than earth, she jumped up to make sure, and sure enough the gravity felt like earth, something didn''t feel right, she looked around again, and that is when she noticed the door, it was ajar, she turned around and went back to her two friends, she needed to wake them up
"Paul ... Paul, wakeup" She started with Paul, maybe he could help make sense of what was happening,
"What happened?" It looks like Angela was the one waking up instead, she looked around then spotted Dr. Marcus
"Alicia, what happened? Where are we" she asked, looking around
"Ok, we are in the shuttle, I had a really bad dream, like we were swallowed by something out of a sci-fi movie in space" she continued
"It wasn''t a dream, honey" Alicia Marcus said, she also remembered what she saw, it looked eerily like a what they scientists believe a wormhole should look like, and it pulled their shuttle even at the distance they were
"What do you mean it wasn''t a dream, it had to be a dream, things like that don''t happen in real life" Angela was looking a little scared, sitting up and looking around "Why is there gravity?"
"I don''t know, we need to wakeup Paul, there is something strange going on outside" she answered, while pointing to the window
"Outside? Outside where, why did you drag us to the back of the ship?" Angela asked, still confused about thing
"Calm down. I wasn''t the one who dragged us here, I woke up here just like you" Alicia answered her
Angela was looking around and focused on the metallic object she had her head on, "what is this, it looks like a suitcase" she picked it up, it was surprisingly light, it was the first time Alicia had focused on the object. She looked where she had been lying and noticed the case as well, it looked like a suit case, there was something etched on it that looked like a writing of some kind, but she couldn''t recognize the alphabet, some characters looked like Greek, but most are strange.
Paul chose that moment to wake up and unlike the other he simply bolted upright like someone threw cold water on him
"Alicia? What happened?" He askedgroggily
"I don''t know, why don''t you guys come and check this out" She told the other two and lead them to the window
"What?" Asked Paul, now very alert
Alicia lead them to the window "Better you guys just see for yourselves".
When they got to the window, the other two looked just as confused as she felt
"Where are we?" asked Angela while getting closer to the window trying to see more of what was outside.
"I don''t know, but we have gravity, and the door is open, it''s like we are on earth" answered Alicia, sounding hopeful just to hide the nervousness underneath, because this didn''t seem like earth, too many things didn''t add up.
"How did we get to earth, the shuttle had to be guided there somehow, and although this shuttle''s heat shield can theoretically handle entry to earth it has never been tried" Paul said, he was right, it would be easier for them to be somehow docked with another ship unconscious than it would be for the shuttle to reenter earth, and even that would be dangerous as hell, and they didn''t know anyone who could achieve that.
"Where else could we be, we have gravity, it looks like normal earth gravity, and it looks like we are inside some type of hangar, and it was designed especially for the shuttle given its size" Interjected Angela, clearly trying to be hopeful about the situation
"I''ll go there and investigate" said Paul, while
"Why you?" asked Alicia, she didn''t know what was happening so, better be careful
"Well, someone needs to, we can''t stay here forever, and if they wanted us dead, we would be" he answered, clearly intent on going
"Well then we all go" she fired back, no way she is going to let her friend handle it alone
"Do we have to leave, right now, can''t we just stay here and wait for whoever it is that got us here to come back?" Asked Angela, it was obvious she was a little apprehensive about the situation, it''s a little spooky to wake up on earth after being in space for so long without any memory on how they got here
"We have to find out what is going on" replied Marcus
"We can find out later" said Angela
"They left the door open, they are probably waiting for us to leave on our own time" fired Marcus
"Which I don''t feel like it''s now" Angela shot back
"We can wait here for another hour and if no one comes we can explore around" says Alicia cutting the argument that was developing. Their focus on their argument was a little unnerving, now was not the time for pointless argumentsUnlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The other two agreed, the went back to their chairs back it seemed no one wanted to sit down
"So, what do you think is going on?" Angela asked Alicia
"I really don''t know" Alicia answered
"Any guess?" asked Angela, Alicia was good at figuring things out.
"Nothing, there are too many inconsistencies for anything sane possibility can think about"
"Like what?" Asked Paul
"Like you said, it would be almost impossible to get us back to earth. Whoever saved us left us here after making sure we were all right, even if the shuttle fits in this hangar it is still too small for it to be made for spacecrafts, the writing on the suitcases are on a language I don''t know, I can''t even recognize the letters, it looks like runes"
"What do you mean writing?" Asked Paul
"The suitcases that we used as pillows have strange writings on them" Angela said. Paul went to pick one, but Alicia stopped him
"Here" she had one with her, she wanted to investigate them even more
He took it and started to check it out, after a while he tried to open it
"Where do you open it?" he asked while turning the suitcase around, as if looking for something
"What do you mean?" Alicia asked him, confused by what he was saying
"There isn''t any type of button or handle a person can use to open it, the only reason we think it is a suitcase is the shape, and the handle" He kept turning it around to see if he can find a way to open it
"Ok, that''s strange" said Angela looking at it herself, Alicia went there, and they spent the next 3 minutes trying to figure out how to open the suitcase.
All of the sudden Alicia got up and told them "This isn''t working."
"What isn''t working?" asked Angela confused by what she meant.
"Waiting, I am too anxious, I want answers" she answered, trying to wait for whoever put them here is making her anxious.
"You were the one who suggested we wait"countered Paul
"Well, I was trying to get both of you to stop arguing, but the longer we stay here the more questions arise and I get more anxious" Alicia replied
"But you said we should wait for the person to show themselves" said Angela, sounding a little nervous, and Alicia remembered that the main reason they aren''t leaving is because Angela is reluctant to go out, but they will need to face whatever is out there sooner or later.
"Well, I will go look around and you tell you guys what I find out" she said.
"No, we''ll go together" said Paul, there is no way he will let he go there alone
Angela waited a few moments before adding "I will not stay here alone, this is sounding like the plot of a bad horror movie"
"Or a great sci-fi adventure" Added Paul, and they all remembered the whatever it was that the shuttle went into
With their minds made up, they went to the door and looked out. There were no stairs by the door, but there was some sort of metallic cabinet or table propped by the door that could be used to jump down
Paul was the first and jumped down on top of it, it moved a little and lowered itself but then they heard a small hissing noise and it came back toward the door, Alicia jumped next
"You should have waited for me to jump down to the ground" hissed Paul
"Well, it held, so, you can go now" replied Alicia, he was right, she was just a little impatient
Paul jumped to the ground, then turned and froze
"What?" askedAlicia
"Get down quickly" he said with some urgency in his voice
"Why?" she asked again
"Just do it" he said a little louder
She did, then turned around and froze as well
"What is happening?" Asked Angela
"This, ...., this thing" Alicia said, pointing to the thing they used as a step in their way down
"What''s wrong with it?"
"It''s not on the ground"
"What do you mean it''s not on the ground?"
"It''s floating in the air" what they thought was a metallic table or cabinet was actually a metallic box that was hovering one meter over the ground without support.
"Floating?"
Paul pushed it and after an initial resistance it moved gliding in the air
"What the..." Angela paused in mid-sentence "how is that possible?"
"It doesn''t seem to have any know type of propulsion, so maybe its magnetic"
"That would mean that the ground is magnetic as well, but if it was then the table would have flipped, because the only thing that could keep it over is if its polarity was inverse of the ground, but the magnet would try to flip itself to a direction that would allow it to stick to the ground" said Alicia
"Not necessarily, if it is some diamagnetic material..." he tried to explain a way it would be possible
"ARE YOU GUYS SERIOUS?" Angela yelled "I am stuck up here, now is not the time to have a scientific debate"
"Ok, sorry" Paul brought it back toward the shuttle and held it there
"You want me to jump in that thing?" asked Angela
"It held both mine and Alicia''s weight, it can definitely handle yours" he answered
"But you don''t know how it works" yelled Angela
"Do you have any other ideas?" Alicia asked
"Isn''t there something with actual legs out there?" asked Angela, better not step on a flying thing without knowing what it is.
"No, this place is completely barren, sterile even, well except for us" said Paul
"Did you have to say that?" asked Angela, a little miffed about what he said
"Say what?" he asked
"Sterile, now I''m thinking about laboratory experiments with us as the guinea pigs" she answered
"Look, you''ll have to get down there somehow, here we''ll hold it so you can be at ease" said Alicia
"You don''t know what it''ll do if you hold it, it might assume it''s okay to relax and we''ll have to support its weight" interjected Paul
"It doesn''t think, it''s a machine of some kind" said Alicia
"It might be a machine but It was created and it has some specific type of behavior, all machines have, and you don''t know what it is" said Paul
"Just push it to where it was before, I''ll jump down" Angela said, better to stop their discussion on technology right now
Paul did as she said, and foot a deep breath she took a step forward, the floating thing held,
Angela sat down and scooted to the side and put out her feet before jumping down.
"Are you Ok?"asked Paul
"Well, the flying brick didn''t kill me, let''s see what else is there"
Paul grumbled under his breath that it could just attract bad luck. Before they did anything the flying brick as Angela called it lowered itself down on the ground.
Paul tried to pick it up and it was heavy.
"Do you thing that someone is watching us?"asked Angela
"Probably, or else why would this thing only lower itself after all of us left the shuttle" answered Paul
"Why don''t they try to go and meet them" said Alicia
They looked around and saw what looked to be one big hangar door behind the shuttle and two doors on the wall on the front of the shuttle, the problem is that one door was on the ground but the other was just hanging there above the first one, there was no stairs to lead up to there, they couldn''t understand why anyone would create a door up high like that.
"Look, up there. How would you get to that door?"
"Well, probably the flying brick can get higher" said Angela, they had no way to refute that, they didn''t know how things worked.
"Where do we go first, the hangar doors or those what I assume are office doors?" asked Paul
"Hangar doors first, we might see outside" answered Alicia
They went to the hangar doors on the back of the shuttle, but there was no way to open the door, no panel, no handle or anything like that. There was a small crease in the middle that suggested thatthe doors slide to the side when open.
"Let''s try the other ones" said Alicia, turning around to go to the supposed office door
They walked to the wall on the front, even froma distance they could see that there was no handle as well, but when they got close it opened by itself.
The froze waiting for something else to happen, but after a few seconds they continued, it probably was an automatic door. On the other side of the door was a wide corridor with two doors on each side, and at the end of that corridor there were stairs that lead up to what they could see as an open area.
The doors in the corridor had handles, which was a relief, they went there and tried the doors, the one that opened looked like it had stalls, with fogged glass and two extra doors, looking up they saw the universal symbol for toilets
"It looks like these are the toilets and I think showers too" Paul said, stating the obvious
They then made their way up the stairs, they could hear a soft music playing on the background in a very low volume, Paul went first, when he got on top of the stairs he froze.
Chapter 2.2:First contact
"What?" The girls asked, anxious.
He came back and said "There is an African American man sleeping in a fancy desk chair up there or a small one seater couch."
"You could just say there is a black man sleeping " Angela decided to jibe at him
"Yes, but some people still don''t like it. So, just in case¡" Paul defended himself
"The problem with that statement" They heard a deep voice with heavy accent say, they froze on the spot, their hearts threatening to come out of their chests
The voice continued "is that it is based on faulty assumptions¡" they looked up the stairs and saw a small giant emerge, he was tall like 2.10 meters (7 feet), bald and wearing what looked like a black swimmers cap, the cap didn''t cover his ears like normal swimmers cap. "Although I am of African descent," The man continued while coming down the stairs, and with it their fears continued to grow, he wasn''t just tall, he looked like he could bench press a small car, they started to back away slowly. The man stopped "I can assure you, I am not American".
Paul gulped then apologized "sorry man, I didn''t mean anything by it. It''s just force of habit", even though Paul was tall, this man towered over him.
"I understand, I am not upset, just clarifying" he paused for a second then said "I come in peace"
He stood there looking at them a couple seconds like he was expecting them to respond, but they didn''t know to what to respond to, then looking a little disappointed he said under his breath "wasted opportunity."
"You guys better come on up" he told them
"Why? And where are we?" AskedAlicia
"From your reaction I can assume you lost my daring rescue of your space craft" he told them
"You were the one who rescued us? How?" Asked Paul surprised by this, he remember entering that phenomenon, so he was getting curious how they managed to get them out of it.
"Before that, thank you for saving our lives." Angela said, it''s good policy to thank whoever saved you.
But instead of looking happy he simply looked sad, "You guys better come up here and see for yourselves"
Angela started following him but the others held her in place, "who are you?" Asked Paul still wary of the stranger
"My name is Alexandre, Alex for short" He answered
"Well, alexander, that doesn''t answer my question" Paul shot back, he didn''t like the non-answer. It''s like he was avoiding it.
Angela interjected "He didn''t say his name is Alexander, he said Alexandre, the Portuguese variation of the name"
The man looked amused "yes, that''s right, and about who I am, as I said, it''s easier if I show you"
Angela came back and whispered "If he wanted to hurt us he could do that while we were napping", she thought that it would help them move along, she wanted answers and the giant looked like wanted to give it to them.
Paul looked on Alicia for any clue on what to do, but from the look on her face she agreed with Angela, so he relented, but stepped forward to go first. If anything went wrong at least he could put himself in front of them.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
"Ok, lead the way" he said to the big man.
The man went back up the stairs and they followed, when he turned his back they could see that what the cap he had on his head was somehow attached to his suit.
When they arrived up the stairs they were in a wide hall, there were 8 chairs that looked attached to the floor in there arranged in front of a glass screen, the screen was dark silver like the walls. The chairs almost looked like bigger and more comfortable versions of the ones they had on the shuttle, and a little like the ones on first class on airplanes.
"Ok, first I will open a window" said Alex, and with that it was like a panel started to lift from behind the screen and they saw stars. He didn''t seem to have touched anything, it simply opened like it was waiting for a cue
"What is this?" Asked Alicia
"Space" said Alex simply, like it explains everything
"I know it''s space but why are you showing us a recording of space"
"That is not a recording , that is a transparent screen I just lifted the panel for you to see out, we are in space, in my space shuttle Horus"
Everyone stayed there looking at him for a while
"How can that be we have gravity, and it doesn''t feel like we are accelerating" asked Paul
"We are not acceleration, what''s keep you grounded is the artificial gravity system" answered Alex
"What do you mean, artificial gravity, how does that work if not based on acceleration or centrifugal force, I''ve never heard of such system" asked Alicia
"You wouldn''t have." Alex answered simply, then he asked "What do you remember about the event that you went through?"
"I don''t know how to explain it, the closest thing I can come up with is that it looked like what we think a wormhole would look like" said Alicia trying to recall everything about the strange phenomenon
"Well, you are right, you went through a wormhole, and came out thousands of light years away from earth" Alex said, he was trying to take it slowly, they were about to get one shock after another.
"What do you mean we are light years away from earth" asked Paul,Everyone was stunned looking at him expecting an answer
"You better sit down and watch this." Alex said, and the screen changed "This is a recording of what happened. This was recorded from my end of the wormhole by my ship" he continued
The back panel closed and then the same glass window they were looking at lit up and started showing a video of a space craft that looked a little like the Jupiter 2 from the latest Lost in space series reboot. The spacecraft was above a massivetorusshaped structure in space, and there were some asteroids scattered around it.
The spacecraft looked tiny compared to the structure, if the spacecraft was the same one they were staying in the structure was massive.
After a few seconds they could see something happen in the middle of the structure. It looked like the phenomenon that they saw before. It immediately conjured bad memories of how scared they were when they realized they wouldn''t be able to get away from it.
Then Alex had to fast forward since it stayed like that for a while.
Then they watched the whole recording of their rescue in silence. It was hard to believe that all of that happened while they were unconscious. It was very possible that they could have never woken up. But even though they could see their ship there, it was still hard to believe it to be true.
There were too many ridiculous things to believe. The strange ship that they had never seen, and even if the ship is a secret, there was no way they would have not know of a structure that big in the solar system. There was also the way the ship slowed down their shuttle without contact, it simply wasn''t possible, not even magnetic fields would have worked like that.
So, when the video finished, they were understandably upset by the special effects.
It was Dr. Alicia Marcus who broke the silence "Are you trying to tell us that all of that happened?"
"Yes, it did" he answered simply
"First of all, that looks too much like a bad science fiction," said Angela "you could have just made this whole thing up with special effect to try and convince us."
"I did not" Alex answered, then after considering something in his head he added "The best way to prove it to you would be to show you that we are indeed in space"
"Well, that seeing that screen won''t do it, since you have shown that it shows videos, we won''t believe it goes transparent to shows us space." interjected Paul "But, good try though" he added trying to act calm "So better come up with a better way to prove it or just admit to whatever prank you are trying to pull, we just won''t fall for it"
"I was thinking of us doing a space walk outside, I think seeing it through your very eyes will convince you" answered Alex, getting up and walking back toward the stair they just came from
The three of them looked at each other then got up to follow him down the stairs.
Chapter 2.3:Space walk
"Where are you going?" asked Alicia when she saw him going toward their shuttle
"We need to get your helmets from you your shuttle and then close the shuttle so that we can depressurize the hangar" he answered her calmly, the way he was acting calm was a little unnerving.
When he reached their shuttle, he got up on top of the flying brick as Angela called it, it immediately started to lift until he reached the door for their shuttle.
Paul got close and tried to put his hand bellow the flying brick, his hand was repelled by some unseen force "What is this?" he asked
Alex came out holding the helmets, looked down at what he was asking and answered while putting down the helmets on the cart and turning to close the shuttle''s door "A cart, used to carry heavy objects"
"Ok, but, how does it work?" he asked again, getting down on his knees so that he could look under it "how does it float, and what is this strange force that is keeping it up" he noticed that there was a small breeze like the air was being pushed down, but it couldn''t explain the way it was floating
"The best way to explain it is that it is emitting a field that is repelling the ground, when you tried to put your hand under it was also being repelled" Alex answered, like a teacher giving a lecture
"There is no type of force that can do that"accusedAlicia, even though she was seeing it with her eyes, she was still trying to come up with possible reasons why it was happening, it had to be a trick of some kind
"Well, after I prove to you that you are in space, you are more likely to believe me"Alex answered simply, not the least bit offended by the Alice''s implied accusation. after he closed the door of the shuttle, the flying cart simply lowered itself, after it was on the ground he simply asked "By the way, what are your names? it would be less rude for me to call you by your names"
"We are not giving you our names just like that" said Paul defensively before any of the girls could think of giving this stranger their names
"Ok, as you wish, we better go back" he said, still acting calm, he then proceeded to walk back toward the corridor that lead to the bridge.
They picked up their helmets and followed him, they didn''t have a choice at the moment so the best option would be to play along for now.
when they reached the corridor the door that separated the corridor from the hangar closed itself, and Alex entered the toilets, and they stood outside unsure whether or not they should follow him there, so they decided to wait.
After a few minute he comes out wearing a futuristic looking spacesuit, it looks like a form of skin tight astronaut suit, even though some parts look like interconnected hard shells designed to fit the shape of the suit. the helmet is what makes it look more like a spacesuit
He looks at them and simply says "You can put on your helmets.", It sounded like the voice was being projected outside the suit by some hidden speakers. They do as he says, helping each other when necessary.
When they finished, he lead them to toward the hangar but the door to the hangar remained closed, then from behind them a section of the wall closed separating them from the rest of the corridor, they were inside a small closed off section of the corridor.
"Can you guys use your communication devices?" Alex asked "I need to calibrate for it"
"The suits already have radios that send signal to each other" answered Paul. Alex made hand movements indicating that he wanted them to keep talking
"How is it that he is going to calibrate? he can''t simply tune in, this is a digital signal being sent, it has to be decoded " asked Angela
"Ok, that''s good" said Alex, his voice coming from inside their suits "And after finding the frequency and mode of modulation the shuttle''s computer decoded the signal and configured my suit to be able to do it on its own, I''ll start depressurizing this area slowly we can acclimate with low pressure"
"So, you are still insisting on going through with this?" asked Angela "Ok, we''ll play along and believe that somehow someone has developed wormhole technology and didn''t share with the rest of the world, and uses an advanced spaceship to give tours to other worlds outside our solar system to rich tourists." she joked "Now, I just have a very important question"
"And what is that?" Alex asked
"Why did you have your spacesuit in the toilet? wouldn''t it be better to have it upstairs with you"Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.
"I have several, in each room in the shuttle, and there is a mechanism in each of the room that helps with putting the suit on or taking it off, the toilet was just the closer one"
They could see their suits bulging a little because of the lower pressure"
"Why would you do that?" asked Alicia,
Instead of answering the question Alex chose to open the door that lead to the hangar, the hangar doors were open and they could see space
"How is this possible?" askedAngela aloud "Is that space?"
"Yes, it is" answered Alex "Let''s go" he said while walking toward the hangar doors
"If that is space how do we have gravity?" asked Alicia
"Artificial gravity system, using repulsor forces. we are being pushed toward the ground" he answeredwhile goingtoward the walls in the hangar.
When he reached a section of the wall, he pressed his hands on it, and a drawer opened from the walls, he took out a few ropes and took itnear the hangar door. Everyone else was simply looking out of the doors, while he was attaching the ropes to some holes in the floor Angela was walking forward toward the door
After he attached the ropes to the floor he connected one of the to the back of his suit, when he turned around he saw her near the door "STOP" he yelled at her while running toward her, he reached her before she stepped off the hangar
"If you keep going you will be outside the artificial gravity of the ship without a tether, it would require a lot of maneuvering to catch you without killing you, especially at the speeds we are moving" he told her, which made her eyes widen in fear when she processed what he said
"We are moving?" asked Paul
"Yes, right now we are moving at a constant speed off 100 km per second and the ship reports that there is nothing in our path that would force us to change it in any way for the next few hours and we are very far from big gravity sources, which is why it''s ok to do this." he answered
Alex continued while looking at each of them "Before you go outside I will attach you to a harness which is attached to these ropes, this will keep you tethered to the ship" he continued "and I am sorry, I should have attached the harness before opening the hangar doors, I am just used to doing things this way since it is faster"
Everyone just nodded and backed away from the doors, and followed him to the wall near the drawer where he took out the ropes, he opened another drawer and took out what looked like body harnesses, he gave each one of them one, then took another one and showed them how to put them on, it was very simple, like wearing a one piece bathing suit made of straps.
Once they all had it on he brought them back to the front of the hangar, everyone was quiet not quite knowing what to say to explain what they were seeing, he took them to where the ropes were attached to the floor then attached each one to the back of their harness, at the end of each rope there was a metal clasp that could be opened and closed to the small hoop at the back of their harness
"This is a shock absorbentrope and harness, it will keep us tethered to the ship" Alex explained "I''ll lower the artificial gravity to a very low setting, it will make the transition easier" he said, and then they felt themselves get lighter
"Wow" exclaimed Angela "this is surreal" then Alex jumped outside the ship, they all followed suit and found themselves outside the ship, they could see the main star to the side of the ship, the only way to see it would be after coming outside
"Ok, I am sold, we are in a super-secret spaceship in another star system" said Angela
"How can you be sure that we are in another star system?" asked Paul
"Because our solar system doesn''t have two starts" answered Angela while pointing above them, they followed where she was pointing and they could see a smaller star reddish star in that direction but it was stilltoo close, they didn''t have that in the solar system
"Ok, I am convinced that unless I am hallucinating all of this, we are in a star system lightyears away from Sol" Paul accepted the situation he was in
"Ok, we''ll just stay here for a few minutes then we go back to the ship" Alex said
"Can''t we stay longer?" asked Angela
"You live in a space station" said Alicia
"I don''t get the many opportunity do space walks on other star system, too much work" she answered
"You can come back later"assured Alex
"Promise?" she asked, excited by the fact to do space walks whenever she wants, being a data analyst
"Yes" answered Alex
"yes, we need to discuss how you have a spaceship, more advanced than anything we''ve ever seen and access to wormhole technology" said Dr. Alicia Marcus
"I think that is obvious" said Angela
"Obvious how?" asked Paul
"He is an alien" she answered, everyone looked at her
"He is human, speaks English and said he is of African descent" said Alice
"We say aliens could look like anything, why not mini giants, as for speaking English they probably visited earth sometime in the past" countered Angela
"And being of African descent?" asked Paul, wanting to hear how far she is willing to carry this
"Africa could mean a planet that is coincidentally called Africa, so he is of African descent" she replied
"Want to weight in o this?" Paul asked Alex
"I thought you guys didn''t want my opinion, since you could have just asked me instead of speculating" answered Alex amused by what Angel was saying. It was especially funny because of how close to the truth it came
"It''s more fun to speculate then see how far off we were, and if I am going to try and guess, I want to entertain the fun possibilities first, before these guys crush it using logic." She said, it was fun to relax a little after all that stress, especially since she had a feeling that there was some type of bad news ahead, Alex was being too calm, like he was trying his hardest to keep them calm.
"So, what is the truth?" asked Alicia
To this he simply stated "We better go back inside" the mood drastically changed, everyone picked up that there were bad news coming
He tugged at the rope and pushed himself toward the ship, they followed suit. When everyone was inside the hangar doors closed themselves and gravity was returned in two stages, with the first they managed to touch down without falling hard the next returned gravity to normal, they were still in awe about everything that they''d experienced since they woke up.
Chapter 2.4: Explanations
After they came back from their spacewalk he promptly removed their harnesses and lead them to the bridge of the ship where he had them sit, he stood in front of them and said.
"Ok, now that you know that we are not in the solar system, I believe you are more inclined to accept that you came here through a wormhole" he said then paused "Well, two wormholes actually, one that took you to where I was and one that brought us all here"
After what they had witnessed Angela couldn''t find a way to argue with him, and it seemed that neither did Alicia because she said "Yes, somehow we passed through a wormhole. Which, I must say is still blowing my mind, we develop the station to test theory that could one day unify quantum theory and special relativity"and then asked"The Idea of wormholes are theoretical, and now you are telling me that you somehow cracked it?"
He looked a little proud of himself when he answered "Yes, I did..."
Before he could continue Alicia interrupted him and fired off questions in quick succession without pause "How did you achieve that? is it that structure? it was massive, how could you build something that big in space without anyone knowing about it? Did you somehow used a smaller wormhole to send you to another part of the galaxy and then build the big structure there? Who funded it? When was it build?"
Angela seeing where this was going, decided to step in. Her friend was usually very composed but sometimes if the topic was something that she waspassionate (or obsessive)about she could become pushy, in an adorable kind of way but pushy none the less, It was good when convincing the world''s governments and private companies to invest even more money in the station but it might not be a good idea at the moment.
So Angela tried to calm her friend down "Alicia, we could give him time to respond to a few before asking the next."
Alex composed himself, like he was trying to find the best words for the next part.
"I am not from earth, I was born on another planet, just like my whole family, the last timeone of my direct ancestor was on earth was centuries ago" he said
Everyone stopped at this. They were frozen looking at him for some time, trying to wrap their heads around what he just said, Paul was the one who spoke first
"I am sorry, but, are you trying to tell us you are an alien?" he asked speaking slowly trying to make sure he was understood.
"Yes, you could say that. I am human, and my ancestors are originally from earth, but they left earth a long time ago, like a few thousand years ago" Alex answered
"I am sorry, but how is that possible? thousands of years ago, people were riding horses not going into space" Angela asked, if she was going to believe any of this she would need a lot more to go on than the fact that they are in another star system
"Not everyone, one thing my people know is that you on earth have heard of us, even if everything you heard about us is wrong. My people are Lantean, we are from Lantis" he answered
"Atlantis is a fictionalislandinvented by Plato, you are not saying he was right are you?" she asked again, this was crazy, either he was pranking them or they would need to revisit a lot of things they thought they knewThis tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"No, from what we gathered, everything he said about us is wrong, except for the similar name, it''s like he heard the name somewhere and used it in his story" Alex answered "But the lantean people did exist, and were more scientifically advanced than the rest of the world, we just kept to ourselves a lot, the rest of the world invented stories about us, like the ancient gods of many of your cultures"
"Like Zeus, Odin and all others, are you trying to say to us that they were real too?, is this some kind of a joke, a really bad prank you are pulling on us?" asked Angela raising her voice, looking angry at his suggestion
"Yes, like Zeus. Again most of the characters on your mythology are made up, but some names are close. Seus is the family name of Lantean royalty, and for some time used as a title, Hyphastus is a school, not a person, Cronos, Atlas and most of the titans are made up, Horus means falcon in Lanti, your people are the ones who created gods and other ideas around it" Alex explained.
"So, your people lived on an island that sank, and somehow found a way out of earth?" she continued her enquiry, the others were allowing her to ask the questions it seemed.
"No, as I said, most of what is thought about Atlantis is wrong, maybe he mentioned some other island that sank, but it wasn''t us, not even the timeline is right, and we were never in war with Athens, it is ridiculous" he answered,
"Why would be in war with Athens be ridiculous?" she asked, not understanding, from what little she remembered from history there were a lot of wars being fought between nations in the past
"My people were more advanced than any other nation in the world, it made us close ourselves off too much, but we had the knowledge to wipeout Athens if needed. Some nations thought they were at war with us but we could just ignore them, we crossed the globe, we didn''t need to fight any of them, after all, they couldn''t even reach us even when we were on earth" he answered
So from what she could understand they didn''t fight because it would be like space faring race goingagainst people who threw rocks.They could simply go far enough not to get hit or obliterate the natives with superweapons. But she needed to know more before she could believe whatever hewas saying "If what you are saying is true, why did your people leave earth?"
"Well, my people are very keen on doing minimal damage to the environment in the pursuit of science. After some rather catastrophic mistakes in the pursuit of science, we realized that we had to leave the planet, since we were already in the last stages of terraforming a planet in order to build a colony there, our council thought it would be better if we all just moved"
"Wouldn''t that just move the problem elsewhere?" Paul asked
"Yes, but earth would still be our fallback, and going far would allow us to deal with our problems without compromising earth. But as soon as we got there we built our industry to the point where we were able to start the terraforming process on another2 worlds and we get most of our resources from space rather than the planets we are inhabiting"
Angela realized that he was skirting around whatever the problem that led them to leave earth was.
"How many worlds are terraformed, right now?" Angela asked
To which he answered "we have successfully terraformed 7 worlds but are inhabiting only 5"
"Only 7, I thought that you guys would have spread out throughout the galaxy"
"Well, finding planets in the habitable zone of sol like stars with the right parameters is not easy, we are already lucky that we found 7 so close together"
"Why didn''t you terraform mars? human kind could live there if terraformed" she asked, after all Mars was closer that wherever they went.
"Too small, too cold not enough water, no magnetic shielding, not enough atmosphere, among other things, and we had a much better alternative by the time we developed our terraforming technology to acceptable levels. We want the environment in the worlds we terraform to last without any need for a continuous upkeep, the closer to earth parameters the better. I have personal recordings if you guys want to see, I''ll show you later" he said. Ok, he was somewhat right, the small mars colony of scientists still lived inside a dome, and people were still afraid of long term effects on babies born on mars or how people on mars would evolve differently from earth.
"Why not show us now?" Angela asked
"Well, we still need to discuss our current situation" he said. Everyone became quiet, the way he said it allowed them to know something was wrong. "To put it bluntly, we are lost." he said "And by that I mean, we are very far from civilization and I have no Idea how to get back"
Chapter 2.5: The current situation
Alex was expecting yelling, or asking for clarification, even attempting violence, but what he got instead was silence. Complete silence, and the shuttle not making much noise was making it worse, he stood there looking at them awkwardly.
He was unsure of what to do now, all his idea on the most efficient way of deliver the news, ended with actually delivering the news, after that there were too many variables to consider. For one he didn''t know them, not their culture, how they are, or even their names, now that was an oversight, he should have asked their names again before delivering the news.
The silence stretched until the point of ridiculous, well, maybe he was just impatient for their reactions, but it was still awkward, then the younger girl who knew Portuguese is the one who talked first
"Sorry, but do you mean, lost as lost forever?" He thought he was very clear before, but his best option was still to be as calm as ever and answer all of their questions
"Yes, that''s exactly what I mean?"
"Is this some type of joke?" The only guy in the group asked, "You brought us here and then say we are lost and will never get back"
"No, I didn''t bring you here, we were pulled by the wormhole"
"That you created" said the young girl again, the older lady was keeping herself quiet, he didn''t know if this was a good thing or not, but, it didn''t matter, he should just keep going.
"I didn''t mean to pull you in it, it wasn''t even supposed to open anywhere near earth, I actually don''t know how that happened"
"Start from the beginning, explain everything" the older lady finally spoke, it was a sensible request, so he decided to explain as much as possible about the process
"I Developed some sort of portal, it increases the chances of wormholes being created, then expands and stabilizes it" he explained what he consider to be the basics "I placed the device in a star system that is about two thousand lightyears from earth. It has be3n working for two years, and the furthest I''ve ever managed to create a wormhole is 15 light years, so, the idea of it somehow connecting to earth is something I''ve never even considered"
He needed to make it clear that it wasn''t his intention, he hadn''t even considered it a remote possibility.
"So, are you saying that his was all somehow an accident?" Asked the younger girl "That we shouldn''t blame you, who was creating wormholes, about the fact that one of the wormholes you created brought us to the other end of the galaxy? Is that what you are saying?"
He thought it best not to answer that question, the girl looked like she was undecided on whether to cry or get up from her seat and hit him.
"What was all that with taking us for a spacewalk, make us happy before so that we would soften up when you delivered us the news that we are basically doomed"
"I just thought it would be the more efficient way for me to deliver the news in a way you would believe, you thought that I somehow doctored the recording"
"How was that recording made?" 4he older lady asked
"This is a shuttle" he said waving his hands to indicate the place where they were "My main ship was parked further away, it is the one that was recording, this shuttle was in communication with it throughout the whole rescue attempt, one of the things it was being passed was what it was filming at the time"
"For you to be in that star system you had to have FTL(faster than light) travel capability, can''t we use it to go back?"
"This shuttle doesn''t have that, for interstellar travel I dock it inside the main ship. The main ship has, the problem is, we can''t communicate with it nor with anyone, I''ve been trying ever since we got here, we are simply too far from anything for communication, even hyperspace communication" Alex explained.
"I want to understand everything, what happened, how everything works, I can''t just take your word for it. I won''t accept that I me and my friends are doomed just because you say so" Alex wholeheartedly agreed with the sentiment, even if he believed that he has been trying to find a scenario where they go back for the last several hours, even before they woke up, and the prospects were not good, and it all depended on luck and if it ever happened it probably wouldn''t be for a few years.
The problem is that it would probably take her years to understand, but he would still show her, at least show her how to access the knowledge she needed from the encyclopedia
"Ok, first we need to ascertain your level of understanding" he said "I don''t know much about earth science has progressed"
With that they spent half an hour with him trying to understand they level of knowledge, he was surprised about what they knew, relationship between matter and energy, matter and spacetime warping some of the fundamental particles.
In this time he was also able to learn their names.
The two older light skinned couple were Alicia and Paul, she a scientist and he an engineer, the younger dark skinned girl that knows Portuguese is Angela, she didn''t say what she did. She actually spent most of this time very quiet.
But their impromptu scientific exchange was interrupted by an almost ??growling?? sound and It didn''t take them long to find the offending party, Angela''s stomach.
He realized that they must be hungry "Why don''t we go to the kitchen, we''ll get something to eat there". He was having a good feeling about this. Well, maybe good was not the right word, but at least they showed that what he imagined to be the worst case scenario wouldn''t come to occur.
He had to admit that he let himself be influenced by the fictions his people has about earth, some of them depict earthlings as nothing more than violent barbarians. He knows it is fiction made by people that have never been or earth, but, by the accounts of the people who went to the expeditions to earth, the level of violence there was astounding, so, it''s not surprising his people''s fiction depicted earthlings as even more violent than Lycans. But it seem, either they have grown in the decades since the last expedition went o earth or these are simply from the non-violent group of earthlings.
Of course he was not worried about they being able to gang up on him, after all, even if he was not the best close combat fighter the fact that they were baselines means they are not a threat to him.
On the kitchen he went to the food processor and decided to choose an option that was quick. He would also use some of the last non processor food he has here, rice and beans, it would probably be familiar to them.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
"How much food is there?" Alicia asked "How long will it last?"
He could understand her concern but at least on that part they were Ok, well the earthlings at least, but they didn''t need to know of his predicament, it wouldn''t affect them anyway.
"This is an explorer type shuttle" he said with a little pride in his voice, they don''t know what he means but everyone should be grateful he was in this shuttle and not the other one or else they would all be dead "It has enough food to feed 50 people for 4 years, with rationing it would last 100 years" he concluded
"How is that possible?" Angela talked for the first time in a while "This ship is big, but I would think it would take more than that to hold that much food, and in one hundred years the food would be spoiled"
"Well, the ship doesn''t actually store food, it stores compounds that the processor uses to create food, the compounds don''t spoil, and the food created have energy content and balance out what the body needs"
"How about energy? How long will power last, and what is the effective lifespan of this ship?" Alicia asked
"The ship can theoretically last for centuries, but with the energy our problem isn''t how much it has, its different, it''s the possible wear and tear, I actually think 8ur best bet would be to not do a lot of tours and spend most of our time in one place, that way we can turn off almost everything and just keep what''s necessary for life support"
"What do you mean?"
"This ship is powered by antimatter cells, if we don''t do a lot of tours they will outlast us, but more importantly, there is supposed to be a periodic maintenance every ten years because of wear and tear of the parts responsible to directly convert antimatter into energy, if we stay in one place we can use capacitor banks to last for a long time, that way we''ll only need to use antimatter every once and a while reducing the wear and tear"
After that the food was done, when he served, Angela saw the food and asked "The food machine creates rice and beans?"
"No, Just the yellow stuff on top" he explaining pointing to the round yellow dumpling looking processed food "The rice and bean I had before, I rarely use the food processor if I don''t have to, the food usually is very bland tasting"
While eating, Alex decided to simplify his life because he couldn''t think of spending all of his time as a teacher "I can give you a tablet so that you can learn all you need to understand in the encyclopedia"
"You can''t possible have all that information in the necessary detail in the encyclopedia" said Angela
"Actually, I do, The standard encyclopedia is the biggest knowledge sharing tool for my people, and also among the top five most accessed databases ever, it contains my people''s accumulated scientific knowledge, every ship has a copy of it, minus some extremely sensitive information"
"If your people are that advanced then the amount of information stored would be in millions of exabytes, how could you store all that in a ship"
"Crystal memory, basically it''s a one cube one with one meter size that is created with the information already stored, it takes a few thousands molecules to store ah, " he stopped trying to remember the term "what do you call the smallest unit of information?" He asked
"Bit, for binary information, its either zero or one"
"Ok, one bit of information, one layer can store a large number of this, and there are a very large number of layers. The reason it takes much space is that the mechanism to read the information is also embedded in it"
"So, the information is static? never changing, what happens to new information
"Yes, the cubes are static, new information is just stored in normal memory, most recorded information in the library doesn''t change anyway, an article or book published a thousand years ago won''t change, at most it will just be reclassified and that takes time, so, my info is almost up to date, when I want info the ship will first search locally before trying to access the network, it saves time, so, yes, I have most of my people''s scientific knowledge base here on the ship."
"Wow, There was a scientist, Richard Feynman on earth who actually said something like that, we are miniaturizing computer ships, but haven''t thought about creating permanent storage of that magnitude am, and just one cubic meter is enough?"
"Well, two, the shuttle''s artificial intelligence also needs that much space for its basic knowledge"
After that Alex showed them how to use the tablet to search the database, he was just lucky that English was one of the other two languages he knew besides Lanti, he actually had never thought he would ever need it. Luckily he had both English and Portuguese language profiles in the ship''s database since it wasn''t part of the static library. Maybe if he ever gets back he can recommend for it to be added, because if they ever get back, its more than likely that they would be in contact with earth.
"This is for kids" Alicia said after she chose another topic
He went to see what she is talking about and realized the problem, he would need to tell the ship to increase the expected age range "Sorry, since the ship can''t identify who you are or what you know it automatically selects the kids version of the content, I''ll set it up to increase the expected level"
"So, it shows me a version with kids animation trying to explain the about atoms, and how come the audio is in English"
"Yes, well, for the same content there are multiple versions that depend on your age range, previous knowledge or background, and the text and audio is automatically converted to English by the system, my people created a language profile of various earth languages, luckily I have both English and Portuguese profiles in the shuttle''s system, it allows the system to do automatic translations"
After that, they decided to go back to their shuttle, he didn''t understand their motivation for it, but, at least they were not acting in any way he needed to be careful about, he actually saw this reveal going much worse
Paul was happy Angela insisted they go back to the shuttle, they needed time to process what happened. It was a whole lot to process and he was sure that there was more curve balls to come later.
They went back by way of the flying cart as Alex had called it. Angela was the one reacting more to this, the kid barely spoke after they learned about their situation, he and Alice will need to keep a close eye on her and support her whenever she needed it.
One thing he was able to realize is that Alex, despite his size is also younger than them, at least him and Alicia, it might just be an impression and aliens aged much slower, but that was the impression he got, and that was considering his behavior, maybe twenty something. The only thing he knew is that he needed to protect both his friends with however much he could do in a situation like this.
"So, what do you guys think?" Alicia asked when they got inside, it looks like she was doing what she did whenever she had a problem seeing a path forward, brainstorm, which made her an excellent leader for the space collider project, probably even better than her mentor.
"What am I supposed to think?" Angela said pressing both her hands on her forehead, it''s a habit she had whenever she was overwhelmed and panicking "some mini giant Alien just abducted us and said we are stuck in the other side of the galaxy, which means I will never see my mum again." She said then she plopped herself down on a seat and rested her forehead on her hands
"Well, yeah, stupid question, but, all is not necessarily lost" Alicia said, but Angela interrupted her
"How can you say that? Don''t you see the situation we are in, stuck in space ship with a stranger we don''t know and without the possibility to go back"
"We are still alive, after seeing the recording I realized how close to death we came, and we wouldn''t even see it. We can try to learn as much as we can about this situation we are in, maybe we''ll see a way he hasn''t"
Angela now spoke very quietly like she was afraid of what she was saying "do you think, we can actually find a way back? He is the one who invented the wormhole device and he said there is no way"
"I don''t know if we can, but we have to try and he doesn''t know everything, for o e he doesn''t understand how his wormhole brought us from earth"
"I agree with that, and we must stay together and keep calm as much as we can" Paul chimed in
"You are the eternal mediator Paul, you always saying that to people" Angela said with a chuckle, it was good at least the panic receded for now.
They spent the next hour trying to come up with various ideas and possibilities, but, it was apparent that they knew too little.
Alicia decided to use the tablet to learn as much as possible, Angela was just seating there staring into nothing, and after a couple hours of that she fell asleep.
After Alicia realized Angela was sleeping, she came and sat next to him, putting her head on his chest, it''s strange that they were going to have their first date when all if this happened, he had actually set up a location in the station for their date, but now it wasn''t going to happen, but she was his best friend, and Angela was hers, so, right now they were all he had.
He had mini panic attacks whenever he tried to think about their possible futures, if they couldn''t find a way back, stuck here in this shuttle wasting away until they died. But he needed to be strong and not add to the problem, so he kept it to himself.
Alicia is learning the science behind all of this to see if she can figure out a way to get them back. He made his peace long ago with the fact that she outclassed him and most people on earth in terms of knowledge about physics, so he needs to find a way to make himself useful and keep them safe.
Chapter 3.1: Argument
The next day Alex woke up on one if the seats on the bridge, he decided to go see whether or not they were awake to get something to eat. when he went down the stairs the first thing he heard was someone crying, he went a little further and he realized that it was Angela. He didn''t know what to do, should he approach her to ask what''s happening, should he just go get her friends? He didn''t think he should just leave her there crying, but, if the reason she is crying has to do with their current situation, he didn''t think she would feel better about seeing him.
But even before he had the time to make a decision he heard her say "You didn''t say you were sorry." He stopped, not sure whether or not she was talking to him or talking to herself , when she turned around and looked at him, there was no doubt, he was the target.
"What?" was all he could think to ask.
"You" she said "Abducted us, stranded us here, and said you didn''t mean it. But, I didn''t hear you say that you were sorry at any moment." she said "It''s like you are some type of sadist, enjoying seeing us little earth people see our lives destroyed"
There is probably a right way to handle this, but, he was a hard time thinking of one at the moment, she might be hurt, but she was accusing him of being some type of monster, and he just responded before he had the time to think.
"DO, YOU ACTUALLY THINGK I AM ENJOYING THIS?" he yelled, the continued "I had a great life, and it was on the verge of getting even better", so much for keeping it cool, he paused, trying to see if he could calm himself down.
It didn''t work "now, I am stuck here just like all of you" he decided to breath in really deep.
She didn''t back down "You don''t act like it. In a few hours, I had to wake up that my life is basically over, all I have in my future is staying in this metal can floating in space with three other inmates" she said "AND ONE OF THEM" she yelled pointing at him "COULD BE A SERIAL KILLER FOR ALL I KNOW"
He could see the other two coming to them, they were leaving the shuttle in a hurry. They probably heard the noise
"Well, When I found out I was stuck here, do you know what I did?" he asked, she came closer to him like challenging him. It would be comical in another situation because she was short and comparing to her he was very big, but he didn''t see the funny side of their situation. "After I realized I was stuck here, I raged, and raged, but you know what I found out after hours of this?"A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
She kept looking at him, the other two were closer now "I found out, that I was still stuck here. So, I decided that it would probably be better to make sure that the earthlings didn''t wake up to see the only person who knew about their situation curled up in a ball in the corner crying"
When the other two arrived, he backed up, not wanting for them to misunderstand the situation and make things even worse "And you know what is even funnier?" he asked not able to stop himself "I am going to die of hunger" he said, they all looked at him alarmed
"You said, there was food for everyone" Paul asked, surprised by this reveal "Was it a lie?"
"No, base humans live up to one hundred years. With rationing the food will last us one hundred years" he said
"So, what is the problem?"
"Barring any accident, my people live to almost four hundred years. I am not suicidal but I hope to die in an accident before dying of hunger and alone." he said
"Why didn''t you tell us?" Paul asked
"What difference would it make, except for just making everything even more somber than it is now, I don''t want to spend one hundred years mourning my eventual demise" he answered, the last thing he needed is for them to spend the rest of their lives looking at him with pity
"How do you expect us to trust you if you don''t tell us everything?" Alicia asked
"I told you about everything that is relevant for our situation, I didn''t see how telling you this would change things" he answered honestly.
"New rule, no one hides anything. I don''t see how we could live with each other for so long if we keep things from each other" Paul said
Alex decided that the best thing to do was to give them space and let thing calm down, he didn''t want to spend the rest of his life locked in with people who couldn''t stand him.
"Look, I was going to call you for breakfast, you can take a shower before you come in if you want, I''ll give you the tour of the ship later" he said, hoping that in time things blow over.
He promptly turned around and went to the kitchen, he still needed to clear his head, he wasn''t used to losing control like that, maybe it''s the fact that he knows that his life is over and he wouldn''t be able to enjoy the fruits of his labor after spending years focused on one specific goal it hurt, or the idea of slowly dying of hunger.Thinking about it is just too depressing, so, he went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
But, when he got there he couldn''t do anything, he has been doing a fine job of keeping in control until now, but now this girl reminded him of how much he screwed up.
This wasn''t one of the situations where he could just outsmart the problem, and he always thought that whatever came, he would be able to do that. After all it is one of his signature moves, but, here it''s like someone thought of a perfect situation against him, he couldn''t talk or trick his way out.
Worse, he dragged innocent people with him. She was right he fucked up a lot.
He was sitting in the kitchen trying his best not to cry. It wouldn''t help in this situation, it might just make things worse if they saw him who is supposed to know more about what is happening acting so desperate.
Chapter 3.2: Getting to know the fellow inmates
When he woke up, Paul realized that that he fell asleep seating on the floor and Alicia fell asleep using his lap as pillow. He had dreamed of this many times, but, this was not the way he wanted his dreams to become reality, in the middle of a nightmarish situation made real. Because that was what he thought about the situation.
He knew Alicia was using the scientific research as a way to stave off panicking, he knew her well enough to see that, so, he decided that he needed to plan ahead.
Like always, Alicia was focused on the science side of things, so he had to focus on the engineering side. And that meant the ship. But whatever he thought he kept hitting the same roadblock, he didn''t know enough about the technology to even begin to think of possible problems they might face or options they would have.
Since he couldn''t plan that far ahead he decided to focus on more immediate goals, and the ship wasn''t the only unknown variable, its pilot was also a very big unknown.
He couldn''t deny that their lives was in Alex''s hand, after all he could just open the hangar door and get rid of them, it''s a gloomy thought but true none the less. He knew that if Alex hadn''t rescued them he would have been fine, so that''s one point in his favor, but, he was still an unknown who had power over their lives.
He needed to get to know the person who could be a risk to his main goal of keeping his friends safe, and do it in a way to not alienate him.
So starting today he was going to start interacting with Alex a lot to get a feel for his character and learn how this ship worked.
It took him a little to realize that Angela was not on the shuttle, since the seat was facing away from him, when he started to wonder where she was he heard noises, he looked toward the door and realized that it was ajar. The noise woke up Alicia and after they realized that the yelling was between Angela and Alex they hurried over without much preamble.
When they got there they heard Alex speech about his lifespan of 400 years and the fact that he won''t have food for 300 of those years. This was surprising which exacerbated even more fact that they didn''t know much about Alex
Luckily Alex calmed himself down and went to the kitchen, they looked at Angela and Alicia asked
"What happened, are you alright?"
"No, I came down to use the toilets, but after everything just hit me, and I was crying, when I heard Alex approaching I just snapped"
"Oh, sweetie" Alicia said while going to Angela for a hug, Paul stayed put letting Alicia help calm her down. He hoped that this didn''t make it harder to follow on his plan.
After a couple minutes the girls decided to take a shower, when they entered the bathroom they realized that they didn''t know how things operated, because it looked like it wasn''t a normal shower, so, they went to Alex for him to teach them.
When they reached the kitchen they found Alex looking down resting his forehead on his hands that were resting on top of the table. When he heard them come in he looked up, his eyes were red, but when he saw them he got up and straightened himself.
Paul immediately realized that he didn''t want to talk about how they found him so, he jumped in and asked how the showers worked, the forced smile on Alex face indicated that he appreciated it.
This incident at least allowed Paul to see that Alex was troubled with all of this as well, he just didn''t want to hide it for some reason.
Alex showed them how the shower worked, it looks like it used your body temperature and the environment to choose the appropriate water temperature. And it wasn''t really a shower, it was more like a multidirectional mist spraying and the mist already contained some type of soap embedded, after you lathered and scrubbed yourself did it spray you with water and activate the shower to hose you down. It looked like the whole function was designed to save as much water as possible, even though there was a water recycler as Alex called it, it was still good to know.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
From what he said, it looks like his people excel at recycling just about anything, they don''t have big junkyards with ancient machines because the only old non usable machines that exist now are preserved in a museum, other than that, they recycle a lot.
They didn''t have anything else to wear, luckily Alex has extra suits of various sizes for them to wear these were two-pieceformfittingand thick, he said it regulated temperature and dealt with sweat. He called them inner suits since its usually used inside outer suits like space suits
From the way he said it, it seems that they have other types of outer suits. But he said the suit can be used normally and he had a machine in the that could clean them.
The girls showered first and he went later, even though the shower stalls were designed to isolate them to isolate from each other and give privacy, he preferred to remain outside and wait for them to finish.
After the shower they went back to the kitchen and it looked like Alex had prepared doughnuts for breakfast.
Alex opened conversations asking them about what they were doing in the shuttle, it was a reasonable question, even though Angela looked like she didn''t like it, Alicia cut her off before she said anything.
Alicia explained about the space collider, it is the biggest construction project ever attempted by humanity, well, humanity on earth. It is ten times bigger than the old Large hadron collider. The only reason it was even attempted was the improvements that were made on the new versions of Fusion reactors. It''s the biggest source of electrical power on earth or mars. The new versions were smaller but had an output that was acceptable to build it. The main reason it was built was because they wanted to prove a theory that would allow to unify the quantum realm and special relativity. The experiments needed to be done in a place with extremely low gravity.
Alex was acting very impressed by the level of technology earth has, it''s like his people didn''t think earth could become this advanced when asked about it he simply answered "Well, actually my people have always been surprised on how slow earth technology was progressing for so long, its actually refreshing to know it has evolved to this level, even though over hundred years ago some of my people had theorized that you would develop much faster now". That was interesting, so, his people thought earth was slow, and they somehow know enough to theorized their possible scientific progress.
Another aspects that made it possible was the amount of space transport companies, it started with a few companies, but in the last one hundred and fifty years more companies joined the market, driving prices down and allowing the development of technology and fuel that would help keep costs down, and with the help of more advanced AI technologies and 3D printers it reduced the cost even more.
Then they reached the part about the disturbance they felt and how the wormhole opened and pulled them in.
They were silent after that part for a while. It looks like Alex was trying to analyze something in his head. But after a while Paul asked about his story.
He explained that his people have been trying to make a traversable wormhole for almost two thousand years. The few time they''ve been able to create the wormholes it either collapsed upon entry of any object or it crushed whatever probe they sent.
He was fascinated with it since he was a small kid, but came up with the idea of how to solve it when he was trying to design his own warp engine, it took him 10 years to accomplish it. He opened a research company with himself as only employee, and did the research. The funding he made by selling two engine designs that would make ships move faster, one for the general public that improve efficiency by 2 percent, and one to the army which increased it by five percent. The amount of money he made was enough to build it, since his design was actually cheaper than previous attempts due to new technology that was developed. He also hasa side business is transporting cargo or tourists to distant planets.
"How could you have built everything on your own in ten years?" asked Paul
"That''s is the easier part, builder bots, I don''t actually need to be there for the building process. I make the design, buy and transport the materials, pick the site then let the AI and builder bots do the rest" he answered. Earth had robots in construction and assembly instructor, but not general purpose ones that could build anything you want, even if it is in space, this level of technology is impressive, even more so if it''s so available that a person can simply buy them and program them to do what you want
"Ok, that extremely advanced" Paul said
"How come you speak English?" Angela asked, it was the first time she spoke since their argument.
"Every one of my people is required to learn a second language while in school, not matter which, I chose English and Portuguese" Alex answered
"What if people don''t chose the same language, how can you put them all in a class?" Alicia asked
"We don''t. We have interactive programs that teach us the language, interact with other people who chose the same language over the network. I have the program on the ship, and am using it to brush off my English before going to sleep" he answered
"That''s helpful" Alicia said
Paul was also happy with the results for now. He was still curious about a lot of information like how to his people left earth, and about knowing more about Alex himself, but he still had the time, after all they were going to be spending a lot of time together.
His priority now needed to be about their continual survival, so, starting today he''s going to ask Alex everything he could think of about the ship.
Chapter 4.1: Planet
Angela, was watching the video of their rescue. It has been three days since their argument, they all promised to talk more to each other, but, she was still having trouble interacting with Alex. She knew that he was trapped here with them, but, she still couldn''t forget what this situation did for them. He basically robbed them of their future. All her plans, her career, she couldn''t even have a family here.
All they could do was slowly waste away in this flying metal coffin.
Alicia was burying herself in trying to understand the science behind everything. Paul was the one making a lot of effort to interact with Alex, she couldn''t understand him, it''s like he forgave Alex too quickly.
Paul asked Alex how to operate and possibly repair the shuttle if needed, the only reason she even decided to learn as well was because there was an interactive program to teach you.
What amazed her was when she discovered that he had basically most of his people library of knowledge in the ship. When she asked how it was possible to have that much info, he explained her the basic process. It basically involves manipulating group of molecules to have a read only memory. It was basically what Richard Feynman suggested. Earth was doing it, but not at this scale.
His people had a centralized library of knowledge and they created copies of it this way to reduce the need of a lot of people to access it all the time. The ship searched the local library before trying to access the central and more up to date one.
She also spent some of her time trying to understand the ship''s AI, the library had the knowledge, but some parts were simply a basic explanations, she suspected it was a security feature, the only simplified information was the learning algorithm, and from what she could understand you could actually create Skynet with it, and that is probably the reason why the safety system was not simplified but explained in detail.
She also found some 3d games and simulations but she got bored.
It was frustrating, these things would be the things that should be enough to get her addicted because the quality was beyond anything she has ever seen even the ability to interact with the environment was off the charts, but, her mind always came back to the fact that she didn''t have a future.
She was now revising the video of their rescue, there was something about the video that was bugging her, but, she couldn''t see what.
She restarted again and then it clicked. The box Alex was working with before the wormhole opened, he placed the box near the wormhole after it opened the first time. After the rescue when the wormhole shifted it was pulled into even before they went inside, so, it either got destroyed inside the wormhole or it arrived on this side before them.
She got up quickly, and ran toward the shuttle''s exit. She was so excited that she practically jumped to the flying cart they had on the side of the shuttle to use as a step.
It was a very bad idea, because she overbalanced with the tablet in her hand and for so e stupid reason instead of letting go of it she grabbed the tablet even more, and tried to turn around to grab anything. When she was beyond the point of no return all she could think of while she was falling is ''oh, fuck''
Her left foot was still on top of the flying cart which made her spin and going toward the ground head first.
Just before her head hit the ground, she felt herself floating, and after a while she realized that she should have already hit the ground. She looked around and realized that somehow she was suspended in midair, did Alex see her plight and turned off the ship''s gravity? She pushed against the cart to get herself somewhat vertical, and when she was better positioned gravity started to increase gradually giving her time to get a good hold on the ground before it returned to normal.
She then heard Alex''s voice come from the ship''s intercom, "Guys, would you please come to the bridge? We arrived at the planet, and there is something you have to see."
She turned and went to there, she decided to at least thank him for saving her. When she arrived at the bridge, Paul and Alicia were already there
"What happened?" Paul asked
"We are in orbit on the planet, and something is strange" Alex responded
"What?" Alicia asked
"Look for yourselves" he said, and they saw an aerial view of the planet,
"It has forests!" Angela stated the obvious, whatever was in her head completely forgotten in Liew of what she was seeing in front of her. This planet has forest, which means that her future changed, she didn''t know how, but, it no longer was spending the rest of her life wasting away inside this flying tin can.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
"How can that be?" Alicia asked. It was obvious this was not earth, Angela has seen aerial view of earth forests, they were green. This forest was only part green, some trees were purple, others blood red, it was a very alien assortment of colors for trees, but, it didn''t matter, it was trees.
"Can we go there?" Angela asked,
"I don''t see why not" The angle they were looking the trees from suggested that they were not on top of the forest, or else they would only have been able to see the top if the trees, not their trunks as well. From this angle all they could see was forest, and mountains.
"Wait, you said that your people has never reached this far" Paul said
"Yeah, we haven''t really gone more than 4000 light years from earth, too much power required" he answered
"So, what is this doing here? We are much further than that" Paul asked
"I have no idea" Alex answered "We can try to see if there is anyone from up here" and with that he guided the ship to go on top of the forest.
Most of the planet''s surface was covered in a big ocean, but there was a massive forest covered continent on it.
The continent that came from what Alex defined as the north pole to halfway between the equator and the south pole.
The continent was completely covered with forest with a few mountains. There was a break in the middle that separated the north and south, the two parts were only connected through a small passageway like a natural bridge. Of course it was a matter of perspective and the size of this passageway was probably a few kilometers wide.
"What is that?" Angela pointed to a section of the screen, it looked like a patch of the forest with trees that had blood red leaves, and some purple ones "Those are not normal trees. Are you sure that it''s not an alien world?"
"Those are normal trees" Alex answered "They are engineered to survive harsher environments, some are engineered to not require sunlight and can work with infrared"
Alicia got up and went to the screen squinting at something "Can you zoom in this area here?" She asked
He did and what they saw astounded them "Is that a city?" Paul asked
"It looks like it, can you zoom further?" she said
"No, we are at max", Alex said "it looks inhabited"
"Yeah, but at this distance we can''t say with what" says Alicia
"What''s strange is that I have been scanning looking for radio signals and I still can''t find any" Alex said
"Why would that be strange?"
"The only worlds where you can''t find a trace of radio signals are uninhabited worlds"
"What if they don''t use any" Angela asked,
"Why wouldn''t they use radio signals?" he asked, then continued "This world was clearly terraformed" Isn''t that a big assumption on his part, from this far up they couldn''t see if they were humans or not, after all she has learned ever since they crossed the wormhole she decided to keep an open mind in cases of Aliens
"We can just go down there and check of ourselves" she said, whatever they were it was better than staying here in this coffin with civilization so close
"We better be careful" Alex said, why was he so scared aren''t they his people?
"Why? Do you think they are dangerous?" Alicia asked
"Not necessarily, but we don''t know anything about them, like how did they get here, why it seems like they don''t use technology, how they managed to terraform a planet, because it requires a lot of resources"
"So, they might not be friendly" Alicia said "Are there any groups from your people that would do this?"
"If it wasn''t for the terraforming and lack of technology I would say wanderers, but they rely heavily on technology to survive and don''t have the resources to terraform a world, much less get this far"
"What are they, these wanderers?"
"People who decided to live outside society, they don''t have a planet, or a centralized government, they live mostly in carved asteroids or dome cities"
"Dome cities?"
"It''s something we use when exploring worlds that haven''t been terraformed, they come in various sizes, from house sized to small city sized, you deploy it in a world and fill it with oxygen, it has air and water filters, airlock to get in and out"
"So, it''s like an airtight tent you deploy in a planet so you can live there, why not terraform the planet?" Angela asked. Mars colony was situated in a dome city, but that was constructed there and most of the infrastructure was underground, but from what he said their dome cities were portable.
"They usually only go to planets that we wouldn''t consider terraforming, and if they are in a planet, we can''t simply tell them to leave because we want to terraform"
"Ok, if these are wanderers what can we expect?" Paul asked
"Well, wanderers are not only one group, but they are multiple groups, some more friendly than others, but they distrust strangers, it takes a lot for a stranger to be welcomed by them"
"Have you ever interacted with them?" Alicia asked
"Yes, my last girlfriend was one" It was the first time they learned anything about his personal life aside from his experiments,
"If they don''t trust strangers how could you get one to be your girlfriend?" Angela asked, it was curious
"I have no idea, she saved me and some friends who went to one of their planets without knowing, we were trying to scout it for tourism, we didn''t know that a new colony of wanderers was scouting it too, after a lot of misunderstanding we found ourselves in a fight with some guys there, obviously we lost, she decided to break the fight and escort us back to our shuttle" when he was telling the story it looked like he remembered it fondly even the part about being beaten up. When he said he had no idea how she became his girlfriend sounded like he was surprised for her to accept him
"Why did you say it was obvious you would lose?" Paul asked
"We were three they were a lot more" he answered simply
"Ok, so, they don''t like strangers?" Angela said
"No, it takes a while for them to warm up to any stranger" he answered "so, we better proceed carefully"
"We could get closer and observe from the sky" Angela sugested
"This shuttle is big, if we are close enough to be able see their day to day activities we are close to be seen from the sky"
"How about we settle down somewhere and walk there?" Alicia proposed
"The only place we can settle down is the ocean and the walk to there would be very big, it''s possible but"
"Is that the only city?" Alicia asked
"We could look for more, maybe we''ll find a better spot to park as well" said Paul
And with that they spent their time scanning the forest, they decided to start from the south and go up.
Chapter 4.2: UFO sighting
Makim was going back home to rest, she left her men in the wildlands for unwinding before going back to work. Having finished her mission successfully she is going back alone. As always she was going to skip Grovlar city. She couldn''t stand the head of the city.
Even though the path is one she has travelled through many times before and know to be safe she still uses her spyglasses from time to time to look ahead. This is one of the best spyglasses that exists, a present from her sister, it is ancestor technology, and even the best craftsmen can''t replicate it. It even comes with some type of cover that allows you to look at the sun without burning your eyes, not that she does it often.
She sometimes liked to look at the sky or at the sea. There was nothing to see except for a small island some distance away to the south, but she still hoped that her people explored the sea.
Some people have the idea that there is more to find out there. Most people disagreed or said it was irrelevant since they had their own problems to solve here, no need to go find even more troubles out there, but she still hoped that they did.
She was looking out at sea when she saw it, something massive descending from beyond the sky. It moved down really fast, down toward the sea, she lost track of it really quickly, especially when it descended bellow the trees.
At this distance she wouldn''t have been able to see if she wasn''t using the spy glasses, hell, she probably could only see it because of her special spyglass.
She turned the horse around and went toward the sea as fast as she could, it took her a few minutes to get to the shore. When she got near the cliff She took her spy glasses and started to look for it, when she found it and saw that it was actually on the sea coming toward the shore. she decided to hide behind the trees, She didn''t know if this was some type of Lycan trickery, even though she has never seen anything that can fly except for birds, better safe than sorry.
She hid her horse in a location that would be hard to see and went back near the shore. She felt a little silly for crawling the last few feets until she found a better position, but, as always, better not be reckless unless the situation demanded for it. Her sister would probably be laughing out loud if she could know what she was thinking right now
The object settled on top of the water and then it came toward land, it had reversed direction and was facing the other way and moving backwards. The object was massive, even more than she had thought when she saw it previously, and it didn''t escape her notice that it was positioned in a way that would make it impossible for anyone to see it unless that person was standing at the cliff at that exact moment.
Paying more attention to the details. The object was big, even with part of it submerged under water it came up until almost the same height as the top of the cliff.
It was oddly shaped, with what looked like a smooth exteriorbut with some sharp features in some places. At the side she saw the word Horus and then some letters and numbers that she didn''t understand the purpose of, but if Horus was its name then at least it was a fitting name. Better what better fitting name to such an imposing flying object than to an equally imposing flying bird.
The problem was that after it stopped it simply stood there floating on water for a long time, doing nothing.
It was located a little further north. She still needed to use her spyglass in order to see it clearly.
A few minutes later she saw what looked like a door located on top of the object open. It opened upwards and she saw four figures emerge from it. Looking closer she realized that they were people, two men and two women.
The biggest one was a dark skinned man, he came out carrying what looked like ropes.
The second man was a light skinned one, his skin was so white it looked pale. He was carrying what looked like a hammer.
Then first woman was also a pale light skinned woman, and at last came a short dark skinned woman.
Now from this she came to the conclusion that the big object must be a vessel of some kind. A flying vessel, and given she first saw it emerge from, she assumes it is a vessel that somehow carries people across the stars. Just like the legends say.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
And this raised a feeling she couldn''t identify from her heart. She had never been a believer of the prophecy but this is exactly what it says, the ancestors who had conquered the stars would arrive to save their children from the Lycans.
It''s an irony that it''s her a non-believer and not her sister that saw them arrive first.
It''s not that she didn''t believe in the ancestors, there were too many evidence of their existence, but what she didn''t'' believe is the prophecy that they would return.
She didn''t know what to do, if it was one of those zealots they would probably run there, bow down and swear eternal servitude. She might be exaggerating, but not by much. So, since she thought that that would be extreme, she decided to be cautious and continue to observe, see what they do and go from there.
The group there for a few seconds speaking about something, then the big one unwinded the ropes and received the hammer from the other man.
He then took off running. Makim could easily see that he wasn''t straining himself, she knew how people looked when they were straining themselves in a run or a fight, and this man wasn''t.
But what surprised her was that even without straining himself he was moving really fast, like each step carried him far, almost like a jump.
She was even more surprised when, before reaching the edge of the vessel he jumped. The jump clearly took him to the top of the cliff.
This was not happening. The only people Makim knew that could jump that far were Lycans or their spawns.For a moment she had hoped that they were the ancestors from the prophecy. But that man was clearly a Lycan spawn. Even worse, somehow they found out about the flaw in their security before they could have taken care of.
But it didn''t matter, her duty was clear. If they were all Lycan spawns she wouldn''t be able to fight them on her own, and she left her men in the wildlands and they were not supposed to be reporting in for a few more weeks. So the only thing she could do was observe and keep track of them.
Looking at them she noticed something strange. The other three were as surprised as her over what he did. If they were all Lycan spawns this shouldn''t be the case. If not then what were they doing together, did they not know each other?
Makim couldn''t see what the big guy did when he went behind the tree lines, but when he came back it was easy to guess that he somehow attached the ropes somewhere. He jumped back to the vessel this time without that big of a running start which simply proved that he could probably jump even further just like Lycans.
But the other three were still acting surprised by it. Then they all went back inside the vessel.
She was still surprised by all of these developments, especially since she didn''t know how the Lycans managed to get their hands on a flying vessel artifact, and if they did, why did they not simply attack? Why go to all the trouble to send a small team to come all this way?
After a time so long that if it wasn''t for her anxiety she would have been bored they emerged, the four of them.
The talked something she couldn''t hear from this far away. Both women hugged each other and then the Big guy used the ropes to go up to the cliff, why didn''t he simply jump like before?
He was followed by the short dark skinned girl and from before, and from the way she was moving it was easy to see that she was human and not a Lycan spawn, so he crossed it before to test it for her.
They went into the forest and the other two went back inside the vessel.
Makim decided that she could probably risk a closer look without being found out, all she had to do is get in a position where she could see what they were doing inside the forest through her spyglass, but that means she would need to leave the horse, it''s too big to not be noticed
She moved a little closer with the horse and then dropped him some place where there was no chance of him being seen and then walked the rest of the way, she was using bushes and dark places for cover, she hoped that her knowledge of this part of the forest was enough to keep her from being discovered.
She realized that they were going toward the city. It was her duty to protect the duchy or in this case possibly the kingdom. Lycans spawns were notoriously hard to fight, but with just one the city guards could handle him even if with great difficulty. Which is why she had to follow them and see what they were up to. she didn''t think Lycans would not be stupid enough to only send two spawns against a city, and since these looked humans they had to have another plan rather than to fight.
It dawned on her that to fulfill her duty she would need to enter the city, and even worse lower herself to talk to count Amer. But, she has no real authority in this city since most people don''t know who she is. She just hopes that her decision of remaining anonymous doesn''t become the reason for their downfall.
The duchy''s capital is weeks away, she can''t risk going there since she might lose track of these people, so, she will continue to keep an eye on them.
Keeping her distance and hiding behind trees and bushes she kept trailing them, and observing them she noticed that they don''t look or act like hostiles. From this distance it''s hard to tell, but if they are not hostile and they really are ancestors she could cause a lot of trouble by being hasty.
During their trek toward the village she could see that they were conversing but was too far away to hear them, she still had to use her spy glass, the only reason she is being able to keep track of them is that she knows this forest and they are moving in a straight line toward the city. Sometime it was like they were having an argument but not raising their voices.
If these guys are spies or soldiers then they should be considered very incompetent at their jobs, they are not hiding their tracks or trying to be stealthy, but she still finds it suspicious that they chose the location without wolves.
Chapter 4.3: Mapping
The search for more cities was mostly being handled by the shuttle''s AI, and it made Angela feel like she was in a star trek episode, in an advanced spaceship investigating an alien civilization.
The whole continent was big it came from near the north pole to halfway between the equator and the south pole. The continenthad a really big divide in the middle a little above their equator that divided it in two. The divide looked like to be 1 kmwide, but there was a connection like a natural bridge that is maybe 3 km wide. They decided to call the two parts the northern and southern continents.
The search was going to take very long, mostly because the AI is using the camera and checking for anomalies before zooming in. And it has to focus on one section of the continent at a time.
They decided to start from the south most location of the southern continent, just because it was the closestlocation to where they were currently.
And after half an hour they needed a distraction from staring continuously at the screen for every section of the continent the shuttle currently scanning.
"What do you think we''ll find?" Angela asked the whole group "I hope to find friendly aliens who are inviting and teach us the meaning of life. Just saying"
Paul and Alicia laughed and Alex looked like he didn''t get the joke.
"Well, I just hope they have good food" Alex said
"What?" The three of them asked incredulous at the same time, is he really only concerned with food? "Why are you only concerned with food?" Alicia asked
"I am not just concerned with food. It''s just that I can''t speculate on what we''ll find, but the thing I hope to find is security and food, everything else is secondary, unless they have a way for us to go back home then that would come first" he explained
"Ok, I understand the security and the way back, but why the focus on food?" Alicia asked, Angela''s was a little surprised how they are interacting so well with him. She knows that Alicia is asking him questions when she can''t understand something about the physics but, and Paul is learning about the shuttle, but she didn''t know they were this relaxed around each other, almost friendly. Is she really the only one who still had problems with him.
"Ok, All this time we''ve only been eating instant food on breakfast and the drinks. Most of the things we''ve eaten are what I had left of the real food I had brought with me, which is going to run out by the way"
"Ok, but the processed food as you call it is not bad" Alicia said, and Angela has to agree with her
"You haven''t eaten it for a long time. I have and after a while the bland taste gets nauseating, especially if we have to eat it for more than a few months."
"I think there is a story there" Paul said.
"Yeah, but trust me it gets bad after a while" he said simply
"Come on, we agreed on being truthful with each other" Alicia said "What''s the story"
"I didn''t think the agreement included embarrassing stories from our past, it was supposed to be just about our current situation" he stated trying to weasel his way out. Now even Angela was curious about it
"Now we want to hear it" Paul said
Alex sighed and after a long pause said "Ok"
"It started after I got my ship, and got the first part of the money for my engine designs. Life was going great, I could roam the stars and explore all I wanted" he said looking at the sky, or roof of the shuttle.
"It got even better when I suddenly had a new girlfriend, I don''t ever know how that happened"
"How can you not know how you got a girlfriend, didn''t you ask her out?" Alicia askedLove this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
"I did, but I still don''t know why she said yes" he answered
"Why did you ask if you thought she would say no?" Paul asked
"Basically I couldn''t find a satisfactory answer to the question of ''why not try'' I was in another planet and I was in the middle of a very lucky streak, so, i just went for it. But that''s not important" he said, it''s weird to see that he actually had life and was not simply a deranged mad scientist
He continued "What''s important was that she was very adventurous, I thought I was adventurous, but how do you say it?" He asked trying to remember something, he then looked at the tablet in his hand "yes, she put me to shame" that was interesting, using the tablet in real time to translate, and with his mind reader device it happens fast.
"She proposed we go on a tour to explore planets by ourselves, and I immediately agreed"
"Weren''t you afraid to go to remote planets with someone who was basically a stranger? For all you knew she could be trying to steal your ship" Paul asked
"Well about the stealing the ship part, it''s ridiculous, all ships obey their owners, it would be suicide to threaten the owner while inside the ship.Thefts in my world are for minor things, like if you have something small, non-automated and hard to trace" he said "As for going away in a long voyage with a stranger, well, she was hot, I was 21 and had broken up with my previous girlfriend 2 years prior, I didn''t even consider not going." So, he was basically coming off of being a teenager and already had a ship that he could use to roam the stars, what sort of society is that? It''s like giving a plane to a teenager, and she realized that some people on earth actually had private airplanes at that age.
"How does that lead into the food?" Paul asked
"We forgot to plan ahead, and figured that since we had all power cells charged and the ship had the food processor, it would be ok, well, it was not, at first it was great but after a while it''s not, which is why my stock is always filled, I actually buy a lot of food and fill my ship with it to eat on the way. It''s also why I bought my first android, a permanent cook on the ship" Angela gasped at that, is he saying that he has an android and he uses it as a cook?And from what she saw from his library their androids are really sophisticated, if you didn''t know they are machines you would think they are normal people, and he uses it to simply cook food.
"That wasn''t that embarrassing, how did then trip end?" Alicia asked
"Well, after we got nauseous of the food we decided that instead of cutting the trip short we would go to a forest world. It''s a world my people terraformed but are not recommended for long term living of human civilizations. They have like slightly elevated levels of solar radiation on the surface and slightly higher gravity than recommended but are ok for short term stay especially if you stay under the cover of trees, which cover almost all of the world." he explained "The world had trees, insects and small animals especially engineered to live in thatenvironment, so, we could use them for food" The idea of living from the land sounded romantic, but the idea of eating bugs and small animals didn''t.
"Ok, then What?" Paul asked
"We decided to live without technology for a long time, I used the ship''s 3D printer to print us a bathtub and a few other necessities, then moved away from it all" he continued"The problem was I had forgotten to talk to my mom after meeting the girl, and it was my first long trip solo, so she was worried. When she was unable to talk to me directly she went to the security office and convinced them to mount a rescue operation"
Everyone could see where this was going, but stayed quiet to not miss the ending
"Even worse, since she had previous training she was allowed to accompany my rescue mission" This was getting even better "well, when they arrived at the planet I was with my new girlfriend who I hadn''t introduced to my mom" he paused for effect, "And we were taking a bath together" Everyone laughed at that "It was embarrassing to have my parents meet my girlfriend for the first time in that situation" The idea of it was embarrassing on many levels.It''s still strange to see him as a normal human being.
A few hours later when the search finished the southern continent they all analyzed the results together.
The bottom half of the southern continent was completely covered with dense forest with some small patches of what they assumed were villages.
Since they had decided to park in a place where the shuttle could be concealed there were only two possibilities in the continent, the sea or the big empty patch of land on the east of the continent.
The empty section of land was out because there was nothing close enough to it to walk on foot in less than a few months, that only left the sea. They had asked about it and he said the shuttle can float on water, or if need be, forced to submerge
It looks out that above the dense part of the forest is mostly filled by cities. The cities were of different sizes but they all seemed to be surrounded by really think walls.
Analyzing the results they came out with five possibilities, these were because they were close enough to shore that they could walk there in a few hours at most. Alex proposed analyzing the northern continent but people said they preferred to check out these possibilities rather than wait more hours to analyze the northern continent.
The few facts they were able to find out was that this planet was a little bigger and gravity would be 20% bigger than earth. It had a 23 hours day and rotated in the same direction as earth.
They decided to start from the southernmost city and work their way up.
One thing they all agreed was to not reveal the shuttle to the natives as much as possible, mostly because they didn''t know how they would receive it, and it was better to reveal when they knew and trusted the people here and were sure it wouldn''t blow back on their faces
Chapter 4.4: Genetics
Paul''s mind was going a mile a minute. This was not something he thought possible. And from looking at the girls they were having the same thoughts as he. Alex had said he could do it, but they hadn''t believed him, but somehow he did. This changes things going forward, bringing into mind new types of dangers they could face in this world. Especially if the natives are his people and are not that friendly.
It started after they descended from the sky towards the first city. The shuttle touched down on the sea and it floated just like Alex said itwould.The problem is that there was no shore,only a cliff. Alex reversed the shuttle so that the hangar door was facing the cliffside.
He scanned the ocean floor while backing the shuttle toward land.The closest he was able to bring it was 20 meters from the cliffside.
"Now, I assume you have some gear that will allow us to get up the cliff?" Paul had asked when the shuttle stopped. It was the only way he could think of at the moment for them to go up there.
"No, we''ll have to go to the top of the shuttle and use a makeshift bridge. I have some pins and ropes we could use" he said while getting up from his seat and going down towards the hangar.
Now Paul was confused, how would they get the ropes across? "Where do you pretend to secure the ropes? And how?"
"There is a big tree up there, I just have to attach the ropes to the tree using the pins, " This didn''t answer the question, because Paul''s problem wasn''t about using the ropes but how they would cross the 20 meters gap to attach it to the tree.
"How do you propose we get to the other side in the first place, we''ll need to be there to attach it to the tree. Do you have some type of really powerful air gun or something? Because there is a twenty meter gap to the other side"
Alex looked at him like he was incredulous at what he said, did he not see the gap? It''s displaying on the screen
"Did you forget when I told you that my people improved ourselves?" He asked. Paul did remember it, it was during one of their many conversation when Paul asked how he can live up to 400 years. He said his ancestors used genetic engineering to improve themselves, but Paul got the impression it was mostly improving health and increasing lifespan, not something that would help them solve the current problem
"I don''t see how that helps" Angela said echoing his thoughts.
"I said that you could get more info from the library, didn''t any of you try to look it up?" Alex asked. At the Paul didn''tseehow his ancestors using genetic engineering to improve themselves would be relevantintheir current situation, and he thought Alex thought the same since he didn''t delve into it and had just told them to read in the library if they were curious. At the time they got the impression thattalkingabout it was depressing for Alex since it reminded him the fact that he would spend his last days hungry and alone on space.
Now it seems to have become relevant again "It looks like none of us did, you better enlighten us" Alice said.
His answer was "Well, to put it simply I will jump across the gap and attach the ropes to the tree so that you can pass." He could probably see from their faces that they couldn''t fathomthat idea. Not even Olympic champions could jump that far.
"Ok, we better start with visual aids" he said when he got to the hangar and went to some drawers and took out ropes and what looked like harpoons, or two really big nails, which made more sense when he took out what looked like a hammer.
They followed him to the top of the shuttle via the airlock on the back of the bridge, and were expecting him to give up the ruse, but they were sorely mistaken.
Alex took off in what looked like a lazy run, but each step was carrying him far, and before he reached the edge of the shuttle he simply jumped. The jump carried him well over the cliff''s edge and his landing was effortless. He proceeded to go to a tree and hammer the two big harpoons to the opposite side of a really large tree, and Paul assumed he used it to attach the ropes.
He then jumped back carrying the ropes and found three of them still staring unable to speak
"Told you" he said like what he just did was something minor. He needed to explain what just happened because it was simply too fantastic. Did the improvements his ancestors did give him super strength, and if so, Did the people in this world also have super strength? And based on how fast he moved Paul also assumed superspeed.
"You need to give us a lot more details than that" Angela said "That is not supposed to be possible."
"We better go inside" he said and started the climb back down into the shuttle. They followed him back inside, andwhen they reached the bridge he had them sit down.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
"You were right that I was vague about this subject, but, truthfully I didn''t think it would be relevant" he said. Paul had to give him that because none of them thought it would be relevant, or else they would have looked through it in the library.
"How was is that you being a superhuman not relevant?" Angela asked annoyed, she clearly disagreed with that assessment.
"Well, before today I didn''t think we would be trying to sneak in a unknown civilization, and being in the shuttle didn''t warrant doing anything that you would call superhuman" he answered simply.
"Ok, you better give us all of the details" Alicia said "Because, I assume that this is true for all of your people, including the natives of this planet"
"That''s probably true. Ok, from the beginning" he said "Do you ever wonder were all the ancient myths of monsters came from?" he asked. He had already explained this on the first day
"You said other cultures worshiped you as gods, probably because of your level of technology" Paul answeredbased onwhat he remembered from their first day here.
"Well, yes, but I am talking about the myths of monsters, like the werewolf" he said. Paul always thought it was simply people''s overactive imagination trying to explain something they saw
"Are you saying our ancient cultures thought you were monsters in disguise because of your technology?" Alicia asked
"No, I am saying that sometimes there were truth behind those beliefs" he said "Sometimes because of misunderstanding, like a man wearing a power armor and who thought it would be cool to put horns, giving rise to horned beast myths or a man using a type of glider giving rise to half bird creatures, but some, like werewolves and others were not that much an misunderstanding" he said
"Are you saying that there were real werewolves, like men who transform wolves in the full moon and transmit their lycanthropy?" Angela asked and from her tone the idea itself was a little frightening, and Paul didn''t judge her. If they were actually true, it would terrifying especially if they were in this planet.
"Yes and no, Lycans are real, they don''t transform in the full moon and you don''t turn into one if bitten by one. They are born like this, and don''t bite, at least no more than normal people do" Alex said with a chuckle, then he pointed at the screen. It''s good that he was finding this funny, because that at least meant things were not so dangerous.
The screen changed and it showed two naked people and a human silhouette for comparison
The figures on screen were being rotated to be shown from all angles, these Lycans looked just almost like normal people but were taller. The biggest differences were the prehensile tails they had in their lower backs and their faces.
Their eyes were bigger than normal people and were a little further apart from each other, that was probably due their nasal bridge, as in they didn''t have any, or better yet, it was at the same level as their forehead, no dip like normal people and it was wider than normal, which caused the eyes to move apart. They also had thick eyebrows and what looked like big canine teeth. They ears looked almost like normal human ears but they were a little pointy at the top.
They didn''t actually anything like wolves as their name suggested and Angela pointed it out "The don''t look anything like wolves, they look more like some humanoid aliens from movies" of course, leave it to Angela to have a movie comparison handy.
"I don''t know where the wolves part from myth came from, but these are the original Lycans, they have existed for thousands of years. The association with wolves or full moon probably came from people''s fertile imagination" Alex answered, and before Paul would have agreed that all myths come from people''s imagination, but, now he was not so sure. He has seen too many things in the last few days that he would simply attribute to people''s imagination.
"Do they still exists till now?" Alicia asked,
"Yes, they do" he answered.That was a very scary notion
"Where did they come from, and what do they have to do with you being superhuman, is one of your parents a Lycan" Angela asked, of course this was the topic that made her interact with Alex more.
"Well, to put it simply, we created them. Or some rogue scientists created them" he said and then proceeded to explain what happened.
It looks like even before they left earth his people''s knowledge about genetic engineering was in a very advanced stage, a little beyond what earth has now. They didn''t just use it in plants and animals or for gene therapy like earth is using now, but to improve themselves.
But it looks like although the improvements they did at the time allowed them to reduce diseases and increase their lifespan so that most people could live up to one hundred and fifty years some people thought it was not enough.
There was a group of rogue scientists who believed that although their technology was progressing fast they were still far behind in what they thought to be the most important aspect. To improve humanity itself or even reach immortality and not just increase lifespan a little.
These scientists started secret programs where they performed experiments to further they understanding of genetic engineering.
The experiments were done in remote villages, and it was easy because people didn''t understand what was happening when their baby was born different, and didn''t know what to do or how to contact the Lantean. It looks like their isolationist policy allowed these rogue scientists to work unchallenged for over one hundred years. During these one hundred years they created a lot of abominations but their greatest creations were the Lycans.
When they were found out it created a lot of problems in their society, mostly because these scientists were backed by very influential people that included some council members that from what he explained were like member of parliaments and the highest government officials aside from the queen.
Since the political infighting could cause a civil war the queen invoked some sort of ancient law that allowed her to force every one of her people to move to the newly terraformed world.
When the general population got wind of the details they backed their queen''s judgement. Since they were afraid that these creations were going to pollute the earth''s gene pool they decided to take them to the new world.
But a side effect of all of it is that their knowledge of genetic engineering improved fast and reachedalevel where they were confident in their ability to safely edit genes to improve or even to create new races in an unprecedented level.
"So, with your new knowledge you decided to turn yourselves into superhumans?" Alicia asked
"No, we actually created multiple serums that each would have a different result, we hadn''t decided on what path to take"
"So, what made you choose this path?"
"The Lycan war" he answered simply
Chapter 4.5: Lycan war
The way he said it, Alicia was sure Alex was going for dramatic effect
"What is the Lycan war?" Paul asked for him to explain further
"Well, after we got to the new world, things didn''t exactly become paradise, the people were distrustful of the government and demanding reforms.On top of that we had to deal with the Lycans"
"What do you mean by deal with them?" Angela asked, clearly not liking what the term meant
"Mostly, my ancestor didn''t know what to do with them. At first they simply gave them food and shelter, but it mostly only worked for the generation that came from earth, the next generations that were born among my people demanded more, we tried integrating them into our system but our system wasn''t ready for Lycans"
"Why not?" Paul asked
"Well, two main things. Lycans are naturally more aggressive and impulsive than us. They are not mean, just aggressive in almost all they do and very impulsive. Another issue is that they are very strong, a normal adult Lycan can lift almost two thousand kilograms, a punch from one would be able to kill a normal person" That idea was scary, a society of people that strong is scary
"Lycans strength starts going up during puberty at the same time that they are the most aggressive, it caused a lot of problems with integration. How do you put a Lycan child and a normal child in the same class during the time when there is more likely to be problems between them just because they are teenagers?"
"How did you people handle it?"
"Really bad. For instance, a Lycan would be punished more severely even if he was only retaliating to a provocation, which in turn makes them resent us more." he answered, then continued
"Another issue was that because of their nature they have a harder time paying attention in class and were slower developing in school, so most could only get menial jobs, it created a lot of resentment, we started a program to make food, healthcare and basic housing free for all, but it didn''t work well. Lycans are extremely proud, my people liked it more than them, those programs are still implemented even now. And lastly they didn''t have any representation in the council"
"Why not? Didn''t they have rights?"
"During all this time we were tried to reform the government many times and people probably didn''t want the idea of impulsive Lycans in there, and when we actually came up with a final system we were happy with, it had a really bad side effect"
"What was the system?"
"We developed the first version of the neural readers and used it to create a test for people who ran for office, it tested their characters and personalities, since the general populace wanted it, they couldn''t say no." he said "The problem is that the initial requirements were so restrictive that it almost ensured that Lycans couldn''t get to council, because of their natural behaviour. A little while after that they rebelled, it was four hundred years after leaving earth"
"How did they do it?" Paul asked
"Well, they created their own weapons and started a coordinated attack. Their plan was to take a lot of hostages and force us to change our policies to allow them to have a seat in the council and other demands"
"I don''t agree on how they did it" Paul said after considering what Alex said "But with everything you said, they thought it was their only way, if your people acquiesced it could be worked out"
"Well, that was their idea, but their execution was bad. There was an accident on their first attempt to take hostage and over ten thousand people died. After that things just went from bad to worse"
"You sound like an historian"Alicia said
"Well, Its common knowledge, and classes dedicated to instill values and promote tolerance or social interaction were mandatory for everyone to attend in school" Alex answered. It looks like his people made sure their kids learned from their mistakes.
"Ok, then what happened" Angela asked
"Well, my people had never been in a war, and the most our security forces were used to deal with were domestic disturbances, drunken people or petty criminals. They could suppress groups of people without lethal harm, not fight a war against a few coordinated thousands of armed Lycans, not when there was no line, the Lycans lived among us, and not all of them had joined the rebellion."This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
"There were Lycans who didn''t join?" Angela asked
"Yes, most didn''t know, but after everything started some joined them, and some joined us"
"What happened?" Paul asked
"Well the war took over three years, and in the end we were victorious, but we decided that the Lycans had to go, so we put them all in one of the new planets we terraformed"
"All of them? Even the ones who didn''t participate?" Angela asked
"No, the ones who helped us or didn''t participate we tried to keep with us, but it was strained, later they decided that even though they didn''t agree with their brethren on how they went about things they still agreed with them on everything else, they decided to go to the other world we terraformed and create their own society. Which is why we now have two Lycan worlds"
"Ok, but that doesn''t explain why you became superhuman"
"Well, the problem with that war was that we weren''t ready. And worse, Lycans were stronger than and faster than us. Some people thought the war would last for generations, so they decided to improve the chances of their descendants to survive the war, and of all of the options the one which looked like it would help more was the superhuman one"
"Initially the reason it was the last option we were going to choose was because it was such a big departure from base human that we were not comfortable. But those same characteristics was the reason decided to take it. After enough people took it, when the war ended we decided that it would simply be better if all took the same path instead of creating yet another separation"
"So, all of your people simply chose this option without tests? How could they be sure it would work?" Alicia asked
"My people developed something that we call the stability equation, even though it''s not exactly an equation. It''s an algorithm that you can use to determine if a genetic sequence is stable, either individually or if its species is going to be stable, without life threatening mutations and survive in the environment for a long time"
"Ok," Alicia said so that he could go on
"It can also analyze any the genes and tell you the characteristics of the individual, animal or plant, it belongs to. it can tell you the type of animal, its physical characteristics, its dietary and environmental requirements, its reproductive cycle, it can render what the animal would look like from its genes" He said then continued after a short pause
"It requires extremely powerful processing, not even my shuttle''s main processor is powerful enough to do that for human genes, but it allows you to simulate the result of a gene sequence and it will tell you anything about the animal, you can basically do genetic engineering in a computer without touching an animal, then you can design the process on how to modify an existing life form to give birth to what you want"
"So, people were sure because the algorithm told them it would be ok?"
"Basically, yes" he said It was weird to be so sure of the result of an equation to bet your future children on it. Because that''s basically what they did "It has never failed, it is still the most reliable method for genetic research ever created"
"So, what enhancements did your people choose?" Angela asked "If it was supposed to be able to fight the Lycans what did they choose for their kids?"
"Enhanced strength speed, reaction time, improved eyesight, multi-spectrum sight, faster healing, longer lifespan and increased stamina"
"Why would your people be against getting these improvements? They sound very good" Alicia asked
"Because to do that we had to almost go to the limit of what it meant to be human genetically, so much so that people were afraid that we would technically not be classified as humans anymore, and we had other alternatives which gave us the longer lifespan and better healing without being so much different from base humans"
Suddenly Angela crossed one of her hands in front of her breasts and another covered he front and went behind a seat before asking "What do you mean with multispectral sight?" It took Alicia a few seconds to understand her question then she hid herself behind Paul
Alex looked amused while answering the question "My sight covers a wide range of the EM spectrum, from infrared to ultraviolet. It doesn''t go to x-rays, if that''s what you are worried about. So, I can''t see through clothes"
"Infrared can pass through objects" Angela countered, but Alicia could see that she relaxed a little after he gave his answer
"Not with the intensity I can see, I can see a hot object on a colder background but that''s it" he said while raising both hands on the air like someone asking for surrender.
"What are the chances of us finding Lycans in this planet?" Alicia asked
"I have no idea, if they are somehow wanderers then we will at least find hybrids. Most wanderers are hybrids, descendants from both humans and Lycans."
"Didn''t you say that your last girlfriend was a wanderer?" Angela asked, clearly trying to mettle where she shouldn''t
"Yes" he answered simply
"Was she a hybrid?" She continued her enquiry
"Yes, she was, there is nothing wrong with it" he justified himself quickly
"We are not saying is wrong" Alicia said glaring at Angela hoping she gets the message "it''s actually good that you don''t have animosities with them"
"The war was over two thousand years ago, the people of both nations have moved on a long time ago" he said
It really was good because she didn''t want to find out that they had to be wary of some superhuman race with such fear inducing name.
"Full disclosure" Alex said "My second girlfriend, the one I told you about with the unfortunate bath incident, she was a Lycan" Ok, this means that things were really ok between them and Lycan, if it was normal for humans and Lycans to date.
"Ok, we better mount an expedition to the city" Paul said bringing the discussion to a close
Chapter 4.6.1: A stroll through the woods
As Alex was strolling through the woods he was confused about a lot of things. Like how can a world this far be terraformed, the Terrans are trying to imply a rogue wanderer group, they just can''t understand that, no matter what they say. It doesn''t make sense. They simply don''t have the resources to reach this far.
There are two reasons his people haven''t gotten further from earth, maximum speed and power. It would take centuries to cross the whole galaxy, which would be doable except for one detail. The amount of power cells needed to achieve that would be beyond the ship''s storage capacity, and Alex is talking about the big ships, like the one that carried his whole people from earth.
The earthlings simply state the fact that it''s here means he is wrong about that, but, he made his money by inventing a more efficient engine so he knew what he was talking about.
Another thing that confused his was Angela. He understood why she didn''t like him, his experiment ripped her from her life, even if it is also because of their own experiment but his did most if the job, so, it''s mostly his fault.
What confused him about her now was that she chose to accompany him.
After telling them the story of the Lycan war, they had to plan for the expedition.
Alex thought he was the best choice to go, but when he stated that, they said that he is the one who knows the shuttle and if anything happens to the expedition, they will need to him to survive. They had a point but Alex didn''t like that, everything that happened was mostly his responsibility, so, it should be him taking risks, if they ever found a way to settle in this world then he would be very glad to not feel responsible for them, but, until then...
He also remembered that it wasn''t technically true, Paul had been training and he knew the basics, the shuttle would teach him the rest that he needed.
For a lot of things his people didn''t have an assembly line, it was built on demand and with the required specification, and that included shuttles and ships. So, although there were generic categories like explorer model like this shuttle, they were still different from one another even if built by the same company. There wasn''t a standardized training manual that would allow you to know everything about a ship or shuttle. And it created problems when repairing, since the repair shop needed to know the correct specification. The solution was that the ship or shuttle carried its own specification, this allowed for any repair shop to simply read the specification from the shuttle''s memory and use it to know what is wrong. This also mean that the shuttle''s AI can teach the crew how to operate it.
Paul has been learning so, in time he could be as proficient as Alex, and Paul already knew the basics that would be important, like how to run away if things went wrong.
Angela settled things by saying that both her and Alex would go and not wanting to hear anything else.
Alex was confused, he was pretty sure she hated him, he didn''t blame her, so he didn''t understand why she was insistent of spending a few hours alone with him.
After he got them equipped which since he didn''t have most of the necessary gear in the shuttle with him, it consisted only in each of them taking a pair of binoculars, boots and wrist comms.
"What about sound?" Alicia had asked before they left "At that distance will the comms pick up sound?". She meant at the distance they would need to be to not be noticed, and that was behind the tree line.
It probably was obvious from his face that he hadn''t thought of that, and Angela simply asked "Do you have some kind of parabolic microphone?"
Now that was a good idea. He didn''t have any, but it would be easy to build one.
The comms already have the capability to pick up sound, all he had to do was focus the sound coming from the city to it.
He took them to his workshop and after a quick design, he had it built by the molder, or as the earthlings called it 3D printer, which was an apt name.
The main idea was to build a parabolic shape that would focus the soundwaves to a central location, and then add a comms device in the focal point to pick up the sound. He designed it in a way to hold a comms device and he even added latches so that they could add straps.
He had to balance the size to not be too big to hinder their movements and hoped that it would be enough, mostly because they didn''t have any idea what they would find, it''s possible that there would be other environmental factors that could reduce the quality of the picked up sound.
After they got up the shuttle, he decided to cross the rope first to test it, and waited for Angela on the other side, she hugged Alicia before crossing.
On the other side they started to walk toward the city. Since they had its location, the comms device inertial navigation system would guide them.
The first few minutes they were in silence. She didn''t say anything and he decided to give her space, he decided to use the silence to review his decisions until now.
The problem is that he was mostly reacting to circumstances. His people trained and tested interstellar pilots a lot more rigorously than people who didn''t need to leave the planetary system.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Once they realized that not only official security office or space exploration agency officers would roam the stars, they decided to put in place measures to make sure that the pilots would be acceptable ambassadors in case of first contact.
The tests were to make sure that the pilot wasn''t mentally unstable or a complete asshole and could keep calm under pressure. Even if you had the money to buy your own ship you couldn''t pilot without passing the tests. And by using neural readers it was possible to see if the person was simply trying to be disingenuous during the tests.
The training was focused more on procedures and survival, but even with all the scenarios they thought of, they didn''t anticipate something like this to happen. Being pulled to the other side of the galaxy with earthlings and somehow finding a planet with life and civilization that somehow don''t use any form of long range communication. It''s like a fiction novel. But most fiction novels of his people when it came to being stranded on a planet with unknown culture it was depicting earth, because for his people earth''s current culture is one of the biggest unknown.
He hadn''t gone into depth about his people''s genetic engineering because at the time, it didn''t seem relevant, and what his people have created it would take a long time to tell them a lot of what they did. So if they want to know more they just have to go to the library, even though most things isn''t there. The library is an big encyclopedia but it only focus on spreading knowledge, it doesn''t have films unless it is a public film defined as either cultural significant or a good teaching material. It also doesn''t have a lot of things his people create just for fun, there are other libraries for that but they don''t have access to it.
Now that he thinks of it, he remembered something else his people did that might be relevant to their current situation, and that was trying to recreate prehistoric animals. They couldn''t clone them, but using their genetic engineering program they could create new species that resembled the old dinosaurs, and they could ensure its genetic code is stable. The project didn''t create that many specimens, but they still exist in a small continent.
Looking around more, he thought what would need to do if any beasts showed up. And then looked at Angela. Trying to analyze how fast he could move while carrying her.
His mind went on a small tangent when he noticed how well-proportioned she was. But this was not the time for unnecessary thoughts, he estimated that she might weight 60 kilos, so it would be extremely easy to lift her and run in case of anything. The biggest problem is that the forest doesn''t simply provide with a straight clear path for them to go through. But most likely he is being paranoid, and except for certain creature he could probably see any nearby beasts coming before they arrived.
He was lost in his mind when Angela suddenly asked "Why are you alone?"
He didn''t understand what she meant. After all right now he is walking with her, and he didn''t think she would ask why he wasn''t on a relationship, so all he could do was ask "What?"
"Creating a wormhole is what I assume a big project, I can''t understand someone who does it without help" she said. He now able to understand her meaning and saw the problem, it was a problem of perspective, but she continued "From your stories, your government actually cares about its citizens, and I also don''t understand why you are so sure that they won''t come to the rescue"
Ok, he needed to explain this in a way that she could understand
"Tell me of a technology someone can build at home on earth" he said, hoping
"Well, you could build a lot of things, even a computer" he understood that computers is the equivalent of what his called processors and it was a good example"
"When the computers were first invented, was it a single person who did it?"
"Well, no, back then it required a very big team to do it"
"But now it''s easy because you have other technologies that help in its construction"
"So, you are saying your technology is so advanced that anyone can simply create wormholes"
"Not anyone, it still requires money, knowledge and resources, but with our processors and robots, it becomes easy for a lone person to build a lot of things if he is willing."
"Don''t you need permission?"
"Yeah, I started a company with the focus on a lot of types of research, and the types of research I asked permission for would also apply for wormhole research. I followed all the safety protocols to the letter even added more, but I didn''t need any extra help" Alex said and decide to give her a history lesson
"The first wormhole attempt was over 2000 earth years ago, and it was a government project that required almost the whole nation working in tandem to complete. After an incident that killed thousands of people not one tried it for a long time. The next attempt was more than a thousand years later by a big private company, as you can imagine it didn''t work. Then four hundred years ago a smaller company tried again, but with negative results."
"As you can see the amount of people needed started getting smaller, because technology was progressing, I was just the next logical step, and luckily or unluckily depending how you look at it, it worked"
"Why luckily?" Angela asked
"Because it''s still a great achievement even if I won''t reap the benefits, and if it hadn''t worked this mishap would have killed all of us, and not thrown us across the galaxy" Alex explained.
Angela looked horrified "You still think it was a good idea?"
"Look, I am sorry for what happened, and If I could have predicted, I would have done things differently, but, you as a scientist must know how big a jump this is. I am not saying that what happened to us is good, but just that it doesn''t change the fact that the wormhole is a big step forward" That didn''t seem to go over well.
Alex didn''t know what to say because he didn''t want to lie to them, because if he was honest with himself, if the wormhole hadn''t affected the earthlings and the only person stranded here was himself he wouldn''t feel guilty for what he did, just depressed about his future.
"What about rescue?" Angela said "You said we won''t be rescued. Why are you so sure"
"Basically, it''s because it is mathematically improbable. My ship will eventually inform my family of my predicament, then when they register me as lost It will release all my research to the public. " The look in her eyes showed him that she was beginning to become hopeful, he liked the way she looked but unfortunately he will crush her hopes.
"I am the one with the most knowledge of wormhole and the problem that I wasn''t able to fix is guiding it. Which is what I was trying to find out when all of this happened. How to determine the exit point of the wormhole and if possible guide it to a specific location"
"But others might succeed in finding a solution" she replied still trying to hold on to hope. He actually believed that in time others will succeed in finding a solution to this, even if it''s in the distant future. His people had the habit of always improving. It''s one of the pillars of his society: Progress.
"But they don''t know where we are" Alex stated simply and saw her eyes change from hopeful to almost crying then to angry again. That was the Angela he got to know over the past few days. It''s strange because she was the more accepting of the group when he first met them. It just all changed when he revealed that their situation is forever. He actually wanted to see that bubbly attitude again.
Chapter 4.6.2: The city walls
It took them about two hours to get to their destination, and Angela decided that next time she will allow Paul to accompany, Alex''s infrared vision helped them navigate safely, Angela had tried to use the binoculars to see if she wild animals before they were near, but using it while walking around in a forest proved to be a bad idea, she had almost tripped.
They stood behind the tree line to make sure they were as concealed as possible, there was a 500 meters clearing around the city''s outer wall.
When they took out the binoculars Alex asked "Are you guys seeing this?"
"Yeah" Paul answered, his voice coming from the watch.
Angela would really have liked for them to have Bluetooth earphones, but it wasn''t the case. when they asked Alex if he had some earphone he simply answered he is usually alone in the shuttle, so, he hadn''t thought to bring any.
The city walls were massive, what were they protecting themselves from? Was it war, or was there some type of wild beast so scary that they built those walls? If so were those wild beasts in the same forests as them?
"Can you jump that far up?" Angela asked, trying to see if it was an option
"In my best day, I can jump fifteen meters straight up maybe sixteen, that wall is 3 times that height." That thought itself was scary
"How much weight can you lift?"
"My people can lift many times our body weight, it''s not as high as Lycans but its close. On average Lycans are 20% stronger than us. As I said, my people were stretching the definition of human" he was right about that
From their location it was possible to see that the city is massive. The tall walls surrounding it and their position made it impossible to see inside. The main gate was located in their side but it pointing a little to the north. It is probably because there is a wide road that comes from the north.
They could see a few guards, some outside but most were inside and only occasionally popping outside to talk to walk around or talk to the ones outside. The guards were carrying swords, there was even one that was carrying a bow and what looked like a quiver of arrows attached on his hip, if those are real and not just some weird reenactment then this world seemed dangerous.
Alex pointed the parabolic microphone towards it and they strained to hear something. After a few minutes of this he concluded that they were too far away and they were not speaking much and when they spoke it was not loud enough to be picked up by the microphone at this distance.
After about half an hour of observation what looked like a carriage came from the road, an actual carriage like in the old west movies, but what was more surprising was the horse. Angela has never seen a horse in person, but she is sure that normal adult horses should be about the height of a person. The carriage was being pulled by a singular horse, but the horse was big, really big, it was eve taller than Alex, a lot taller, she would guess about two and a half meters tall.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
"That is not a normal horse" she said in awe at its size,
"It''s a war horse" Alex said to her
"What is a war horse?" she asked, because that answer didn''t explain anything
"It''s one of my people''s earliest genetic creations while we were still on earth" he explained
She could see that he was very focused on the horse for some reason "Why is it called a war horse?"
"I have no idea, since as far as I remember it was never used for war, probably someone just thought it would be a cool name for it" he answered
"But the way they look, I would assume them to be very good for war" she answered, trying to find a way explain the naming convention
"We have spaceships, if we need to go to war, we have better means of transport" he said "But, if these people are really as technologically primitive as they seem, its name could be appropriate here." She agreed but if things are so dangerous here that they need the to use swords and war horses they need to be very careful in how they interact with these peoples.
"Do you have weapons on the shuttle?" Angela asked, now very concerned with their safety
"No weapons of any kind, unless you count forks and the few knives we have" he answered simply
"Why not? Shouldn''t it be standard or something" she asked. She has to admit that she is basing her assumptions earth''s fictions, but shouldn''t all interstellar ships have weapons?
"I don''t know what you think of us, but my people live in a peaceful society, it has been this way for over two thousand years. There was a time that a group of wanderers tried to become space pirates, but it didn''t end well for them." He explained "weapons powerful enough to be mounted on ships would do more harm than good in the hands of civilians"
"Well, need to be very careful when interacting with these people, I don''t want to be skewered" Angela voiced her thoughts out loud
"Well, the best option is to observe them for a while" Paul said over the comms
When the horse got near the gate, the guards started talking loud toward the carriage, they could hear them now, and they were speaking in a language they had never heard before.
"What language is that?" Alicia asked
"It''s Lanti." Answered Alex "At least this confirms that they are somehow my people, even if they don''t look like it"
To Angela this was somewhat exciting, aside from Alex this was her first time seeing an Alien civilization
"What do you mean they don''t look like it?" Paul asked
"Well, they are all small, like earth humans, unless they only choose smaller people for guards those don''t look like my people" He answered
"Are you saying that everyone of your people is a small giant like you?" Angela asked
"I am of average height, maybe a little bit shorter than the average, but not by much" He answered. Angela tried to imagine how it would be like for her to visit his world and her imagination conjured up funny images her of walking in a land of giants with everything supersized.
"How would that be possible? They speak your language"
"I have no idea how any of this is possible" Alex answered honestly
They spent a few more hours watching, and were able to learn somethings, like the fact that at midday it was busier than other times, but mostly, they learned that they would need to get into the city to learn more. And it seems they will need to also learn to speak his language
"You''ll have to teach us your language" Angela said
"You can simply use the same program I use to brush off my English. It''s a standard program that can teach you any language as long as it has the language profile loaded. Well it has both Lanti and English''s language profile, so, it can teach you Lanti"
She was definitely start using that program as soon as she got back to the ship
Interlude: Earth
Space collider station, solar system, hours one hour after the shuttle was pulled into the wormhole
All the main people in the station gathered up in one place with the purpose of trying to make sense of what happened.
They all saw what happened, and it didn''t take them long to realize that whatever the phenomenon was it looked and behaved to what they thought a wormhole would be like.
The phenomenon was still going on which didn''t help matters because they didn''t know what could happen and they were all still in the station.
The phenomenon caused them to suddenly have gravity in an unprecedent level, much more than what could be generated by the rotation of the station. The big problem is that its direction was reverse of what they were used to.
Centrifugal caused by the station''s rotation means that they are pushed outwards, this phenomenon happened on the center of the toroidal shape and is generating gravity, which is pulling them toward it.
The only reason people didn''t break their necks is that this far off it took about thirty seconds until it reached the level it is now, it gave people time to adjust as quickly as possible, and luckily most of the stuff is attached to something, or always kept stored in the proper place.
This meeting was not going forward well, mostly because even after fifteen minutes of argument they still didn''t know if they should evacuate, the phenomenon stabilized and someone was preparing a probe as fast as they could but this is not something that was ever anticipated, the probe was mostly to see if we could successfully mount a rescue operation, but, the biggest fear people had was what if it''s gravity pull increased, it could make it hard if they wanted to leave, it could pull their escape shuttles toward the wormhole
"I still believe that this was cause by something else, even with our fusion reactors we don''t have enough power to do something like this even by accident" someone said, there was always a conspiracy theorists in these situation but his opinion were not addressing the most pressing concerns people had
Zeke was mostly in a corner trying to run through the logistics of accomplishing any of the several ideas they had. His immediate superior, Paul was one if the people who were pulled in it. Zeke was the one who had people building a probe, no matter what decision people come up with he will launch the probe, luckily nobody thought it was a bad idea, and he believed that a lot of people were waiting to see the results before they any decision.
Another problem is that all earth did was ask for clarifications and updates but did not make a decision. He thinks that the problem is that politicians entered the decision making process and heard the possibility of what a wormhole could mean. When no politicians were involved people were not this slow making decisions. Of course one person in the decision making process Dr. Marcus was in the shuttle that was pulled and this was not something anyone had predicted, but even so, Zeke thought they were too slow in making a decisionIf you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
Earth two hours later
"We need to make absolutely sure we want to pull the plug, this is an opportunity we don''t know how to replicate" Mark the main representative of the association that funded the station said, trying to get them all to see the potential for what happened.
"It happened when the experiment started" Alan who was second in command to Alicia answered
"But it has been done many times before and never with this and never with this result, we don''t know if we can replicate it. It is stable now, why not use the time to study it instead of abandoning the station?" Mark said, not sure why scientists were not seeing what this could mean
"Because we don''t know how long it will be stable for, it could simply increase and envelop the station" Another scientist who Mark couldn''t remember the name said
"What are the chances of that?"
"The problem is we don''t know" Alan answered
"What about if we send the probe they are working on and set up some more monitoring devices, you guys probably have a lot, and then we start evacuating" Mark needed them to compromise on this
"It''s easy to say that when you are not in the station" Quipped someone in the room, Mark couldn''t catch who it was
"A lot of governments and private entities spent a lot of money in the station in the hopes of seeing something in the future, you want to tell them that when there was something we turned tail and ran before getting more information, and from what I understand a lot of people up there are of the opinion that they should stick it out a little longer" He shot back, reminding them that a lot of men and women on the station shared the same opinion as him
Someone new entered the room unannounced and promptly told everyone "The probe is ready to launch" now things were getting somewhere.
Space collider station, solar system, half an hour later
Zeke''s suspicion was confirmed. Earth was more interested in the wormhole than the life of people here. After spending hours not being able to make a decision as soon as word was passed that the probe was finished the orders came quickly to launch it.
The probe was simply a bundle of multispectral cameras, some magnetic sensors, connected to the most powerful transmitter they could find and wrapped in a hopefully sturdy enough to handle it.
Their theories said that it shouldn''t work, but their theories also suggested that they should all have been crushed and sucked into the wormhole, so there it that.
Launching was simpler, no need for a rocket since gravity was working in their favor, the probe went toward the wormhole when they released it in space.
They all held their breath just before it entered, the signal until now was coming loud and clear, but when it entered, it only transmitted a second from inside the wormhole before they couldn''t get anymore.
It took them five minutes to realize that they needed to compensate for distortion and luckily they had the right equipment and software for that.
But a few seconds after they managed to fix it enough to get more signal something changed.
The best as they could figure, the wormhole collapsed, throwing out the probe, but this time it was mangled and distorted like superman decided to squeeze it.
The only reason Zeke didn''t fall down like the rest of them after losing their new gravity is that he took to always be grabbing a handhold in case this happened.
How are they going to get their people now? That is if they are still alive given how the probe came out.
Chapter 5.1.1: Meeting the natives
From their observations they saw that people seemed to approach the city from either the road that came from the north, or the one that went towards the east. There were a few people who came out directly from the forest, emerging from the tree line to the south. He was going to use that last option since it would be the easiest to justify why he didn''t have a horse. The only people who approached without horse were coming from that direction.
They decided that Alex would go to the city without anything except the comms device, and he will hide it under his sleeves while passing through the gate.
Going alone, it was much faster to reach the edge of the forest. When he got there he decided to run while inside the forest to reach a location south of the city. it took him another fifteen minutes to reach an acceptable location since all he wanted was to be hidden from the guards when emerging from the forest.
Today was a relatively busy day and there were a few people in line to get in. They had observed that the busiest times were after sunrise when a lot of people were leaving and before sunset when they were returning, but at noon it was also relatively busy, which is why he chose to arrive at noon.
He got in line, and made sure his wrist-comm was hidden under the sleeves of the suit. A few minutes later, a woman come up from the road northward on a horse and she moved in-line behind him.
He was a little nervous, but tried his best not to show it. When it was his turn, he was afraid they would ask him to move-aside.
When crossing the threshold he could see that the outer walls were very thick, like 3 meters thick and made of a stone like material. He was still curious to know what they were protecting themselves against, the only thing he could think of would be reengineered prehistoric reptiles, but he still hasn''t seen any indication of it. After all they would be hard to miss from the air even with trees this tall.
At the gate the guards stopped him saying they had never seen him before and asked him what he was doing here.
This made him a little nervous but simply answered that he was visiting for the first time.
Luckily they accepted this answer but asked where he came from, and that was a problem because he didn''t know the name of any city in this world. So he simply pointed to the forest southward, he didn''t say south because he didn''t know if they use the coordinate system, so he just awkwardly pointed southwards while saying "from the forest", he knew that there were some small villages there, but he also knew that they were a little far, he just hoped they''d accept that someone would walk all the way from one of those villages on foot
?You''re from the wildlands?? One of the guards, probably the youngest of the group asked excited, then he continued "It must''ve been a long walk, it''s the first time I meet anyone from the wildland.Welcome to the city? Alex sighed in relief at that.
?We still need to inspect him? One of the other ones said, Alex''s heart skipped a beat at that. Would they find his wrist-comm device? he hadn''t seen them inspect anyone else when they were observing the city, so he didn''t know what it entailed.
?He is not carrying anything? the younger one said, but a look from the older one silenced him.
?Ok, come this way? he was taken to the side, the guard looked him up and down then asked ?is this a whole suit or separate??
Alex couldn''t understand the question and it must have shown
?You would need to lift your shirt, but if it''s a whole suit, you would need to take it out?
The way his suit was constructed, it looked like a one-piece, but luckily it comprised of two-parts: pants and a top. Alex lifted the upper piece until just above the top of his abdomen. The guard motioned him to turn around and he obeyed.He didn''t know the purpose of this, but simply complied. Luckily they didn''task him to lift it higher since it would have been problematic for when the girls came to enter the city. But why were they not trying to inspect his pockets? why would he hide something under his top and not his pockets?
After that they let him in, at least he confirmed that they use the coordinate system, and they gave him a good excuse continue using.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
Now that he was inside, he partially uncovered his wrist-comm for the others to watch through it, he set up the shuttle to automatically translate whatever conversation he was having. At this distance it was easy to send video and audio signal to the shuttle, if they ever needed to get further it wouldn''t be so.
When they were coming down from space the first time they had seen that almost all cities had the same basic shapes even if they had different sizes. The walls either created an hexagonal or octagonal shape around the city, they had calculated that it was about6km across, but he had to admit that from the inside it looked relatively big.
Contrary to what he believed the houses looked like made from wood and not stone. There was a main stone road that led from the main gate and went straight toward the center.
Most people were dressed in some type of gray or brownish grey clothes, and everyone is looking at him from time to time, maybe it was because his clothes were so different, although they were also gray, it was a lighter shade, and it was probably also because his suit was so form fitting and theirs was very loose. But he ignored it and kept moving.
It was easy to see that some people had more money than others, by the way they dressed, the people who wore colored clothes looked more well off than everyone else, and their clothing usually had embroidery and other aesthetic augmentations to it.
Walking around he could see that but he could see that most of the secondary streets were not paved with stone and were simply dirt roads. They were also not as broad as the main road, like someone was trying conserver space. But entering the gate and the walking the main street you wouldn''t have noticed this, it''s like someone made sure to hide these conditions away from casual visitors.
Strangely there were less people looking at him at these side streets, it probably had to do with the fact that everyone looked busy, they were either doing something or were moving like they had somewhere urgent to go.
The clothes in these parts were also more ragged and some thorn in some places, but people simply kept doing what they were doing without minding their appearance. The air also had ever present faint smell of manure in this side of the city.
It''s strange seeing people doing so much manual work, like sweeping the streets or tending to horses or carrying dirt or vegetable in what looked like wheelbarrows, his people don''t do these types of manual labor, they have machines for that.
What saddened him the most was seeing actual children doing these types of work, he grew in what could somewhat be considered a farm but he still didn''t do these types of labor unless he thought it was fun or his father was trying to teach him something.
He went back to the main street, since it looked like it has more businesses, and he thought that a store would be a good place to get more info about the world, he just had to make sure he didn''t give away the fact that he didn''t know basic things.
While walking he saw some signs on top of doors, like some inns, clothing store, and hunting supplies store.
He went to the clothing stores first, the clothing store had a few different types of clothes, from the same dull gray to the more colorful, but it didn''t have the prices written down.
?Can I help you?? came the voice of an old man who approached him
?I came from out of town and was just wandering about the prices? Alex asked
?Oh, which city did you come from?? The man asked, and Alex didn''t know the name of any city. So, since they had seen some small villages in the south of the continent and they saw some people going in that direction he just went with it
?I come from the wildlands? he said, copying the detail the guard gave him.
?Oh, a man from the wildlands, that''s good, we don''t see many of you people here? the old man said.
From there things were easier, the man assumed that he didn''t know a lot about the cities, but when Alex tried to talk about the world as a whole the men simply assumed he already knew a lot of things and skipped. The problem is that those were the things Alex was interested about. But he did get somethings like the monetary system and the fact that there was some type of nobility even if the man didn''t go to a lot of details.
The monetary system he got by asking and comparing prices, it was annoying that the man didn''t write price tags, when he asked this the man was surprised and asked if he knew how to read, when he said yes, the man asked where he learned it, and Alex simply answered that his father taught him. At first Alex thought that only people from the wildlands couldn''t read but he soon found out that most people everywhere couldn''t read, it was mostly nobles or merchants who could.
This made Alex angry, what type of world was this where people actually reserved the right to read and right for elites, this went against what he and his people believed. For them one of the worst types of wasted opportunity was having an uneducated mind, everyone had the potential to improve society if given a chance, not giving them that chance was simply lack of vision.
He decided to leave the store because his reaction was showing on his face, he walked around some more to calm himself.
After he calmed down he kept moving through the city, using the same gimmick of coming from the wildlands he was able to get more info. It looks like the people from the wildlands were famous for being great hunters, and were the main providers for meat, leathers and skin coats for most southern cities, but it looked like they were recluses and him being here was a novelty, he tried to analyze if there was anything he could do to make money, and for now at least there was no easy way.
The only way he thought of was using the moulder or 3D printer to create a bow, but it was a bad idea because the printing material was limited, and better leave it for emergency needs.
Chapter 5.1.2: Friends
The first day Alex went to the city, Alicia and both her friends had remained in the bridge of the shuttle with their eyes glued to the screen,they didn''t want to miss anything.
They were amazed by everything they saw, it was like seeing an old town right from a movie. And the idea that it was real and not fake made it even more impressive, they couldn''t wait until they could get to visit.
After Alex left the city they dove right in their Lanti lessons, trying to learn as much as they could, and right now they knew all the personal pronouns basic verbs and simple sentences. It was like seeing the possibility energized them to absorb as much information as they could, just so they could speed up the day they could set foot in the city with their own feet.
When Alex came back and explained to them all he learned it made them even more eager to go there, he had a sore spot about the fact that most people can''t read or write, but they tried to cheer him up that if he wanted he could find a way to teach as many people as he could when they settled, it didn''t work, he was still angry just because the people in charge didn''t think it necessary to educate everyone. Finding out information is going well, because people are willing to talk, even if they don''t give a full explanation about the full political structure. One of the things they know it that the city has a count that rules over it and surrounding lands, there is a duchess that rules over many cities and there is a king that rules over the continent.
They had decided not to tell any of the natives about their origins, mostly because if they didn''t react well it was not possible to take it back, and things could go very bad, as Angela said their lives could go from fantasy to horror movie.
Because of all that Alicia hadn''t found the time to talk to Angela until the next day.
When Alex went to the city on the second day Alicia decided to approach Angela.
"So" Alice said when found Angela "We haven''t had the time to talk much lately"
"Well, things have been getting stranger by the day" Angela answered, it was a big understatement
"How have you been, with all of this?" Alicia asked
"Look, I know that sometimes I behaved like a bitch, mostly to Alex" she said
"It''s understandable, we are here and its mostly because of something he did" Alice assured her "No one is ready for this. I don''t think that Alex is ready for this"
"Really? Because he''s acting like it''s a walk in the park"
"Did you see how he was acting when he got to the city, before he found out about people not knowing how to read?" Alicia asked
"Yeah, he was lively, it was a little hard to believe it was the same stiff person" she said
"I think he feels guilty when he sees us" Alicia said. It was an observation Paul had made by the way Alex behaved around them.
"You and Paul really have taken well to him" Angela said
"We are not defending him, Paul is mostly doing things to make sure we survive as long as possible, and as long as we depend on this shuttle Alex is a big part of that"
"Ok, how about you?"
"Well, I am still angry, but, we were making an experiment to see if we could prove a theory to merge quantum physics and special relativity, well, the theory also involved black holes and wormholes"
"So, you are saying it''s our fault?"
"No, it''s just that his people have made wormholes before and all of them never went beyond 15 lightyears, all his previous experiments have never gone beyond 15 lightyears, the only time it happened, was when we activated both our experiments at the same time. Two experiments that have something to do with wormholes, even if our was only wormhole adjacent"
"So, you are telling me to cut him some slack" Angela surmised
"More or less, but, you don''t need to start doing it now, if you feel like venting, vent, just try not to go overboard" Alicia said, knowing full well Angela needed to vent to get over things quicker.
"Do you think I went overboard?" Angela asked in a low whisper
"No, but next time, try to vent when either me or Paul is nearby, no more midday strolls through the forest" Alice teased
"Oh, you got jokes" Angela replied "So, how are things going with Paul?". This conversation was taking a turn to a place she didn''t intent to
"Paul is fine, what do you mean?" Alice asked trying to deflect
"Do you really think that you guys are being discreet. It think even Alex is aware of it, and he acts like he doesn''t pay attention to what we do"
"I think it''s more like he is giving us the freedom to do what we want and trying not to be imposing."
"Yeah, I heard is first contact speech. But you know that you guys could use the bedroom right?" Angela said pointing to behind them to the bedroom behind the bridgeIf you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
"That''s Alex bedroom, and we are have a place to sleep" She defended
"One, I am not talking about sleeping" She said, Alicia didn''t really want to talk about his now, better divert the conversation to something else, but before she had a chance Angela continued "Two Alex doesn''t use it, I came to the bridge here very early one time and he was asleep in the seat" That was surprising, why sleep in the seat with a perfectly good bed nearby
"That''s weird" Alicia commented
"Maybe so, but, that means that he doesn''t use it that much. You two could simply get in there, and its soundproof" Angela said
"How would you know that?" Alicia asked, trying to know why her friend would focus on the bedroom.
"It''s in the shuttle''s schematic, I was studying the shuttle and saw it in the specification" That didn''t explain why she focused on that part of the schematic.
"Well, I wouldn''t feel comfortable using it knowing you guys are out here" No point in denying that she and Paul were getting closer.
"All I have to do is go in another day long field trip with Alex, I was amazed you guys didn''t use the opportunity" Mostly because at the time neither thought about it since their main focus was watching the city.
"And besides, someone has to use it" Alicia realized that Angela excluded herself from consideration.
"What about you? Wont you want to use it one day?"
"Who would I want to use it with. If I ever find someone worthy in this planet, I won''t be bringing them here" She answered.
And Paul chose that time to get back to the bridge.
"It''s been a long time since we have been like this" Paul said, sitting on the seat next to her
"Seating in a bridge of a shuttle on another world, about to act as peeping toms in a whole city?" Angela asked, Alicia couldn''t help but laugh at that. It was so Angela. Well, the old Angela, she has been down lately, it was understandable, but still sad.
The peeping tom comments is because they would follow Alex''s trek through the city, it would allow them to see the city and its inhabitants.
"No, just the three of us watching ... Let''s call it a movie, or a live stream" Paul said trying to be diplomatic in his analogy.
"Yeah, it''s been a strange week" Alicia said remembering all that happened since they were pulled through the wormhole and found themselves on the other side of the galaxy in an alien shuttle.
"At least it had a positive side effect" Angela said
"It did?" Alicia asked, she couldn''t see what Angela had talked about
"Yeah, it made you two stop dancing around your feelings, it was driving me nuts" Angela said. It''s not fair they were going to be on their first date on the station
"Hey, that''s not true" Alicia complained
"Come on, you guys spent years on it" Ok, it was a couple years, but they had other things to worry about.
Just then the main view screen showed the street. It means that Alex had arrived at the city. It''s fascinating how fast he could move, Alicia knows a lot of people on earth who would be fascinated about what his people accomplished with genetics.
"Here we go" Angela said fixing herself better in the seats. "Wow, you know, I still find their clothes beautiful, well, the colored ones. Did you notice that except for the simpler ones the others are all different."
She was right, they followed a basic style but each was a little different "It''s possible that the clothes are made on demand"
"Yeah, but that would make it even more expensive" Angela said
"Well, based on their level of technology, I don''t think they passed through the industrial revolution." Paul said "So, probably it''s all made by hand"
"So, what''s on the agenda for today?" Angela asked
"He said he will spend more time in main street visiting shops" Paul said.
The day before was elucidating, they found out that for some reason people are told to lift their shirts when entering the city, which doesn''t make sense, but it''s not too terrible, after all they hadn''t told him to remove his clothes.
He also only covered part of the main street and what they assumed was the agricultural district. The city was big and it would take a long time to see it all.
"Do you think they did that weird inspection again?" Angela asked
"Well, maybe it was only because it was the first time seeing him." Alicia answered, she hoped it was true. The reason they hadn''t seen it is that he only uncovered the wrist watch after passing the gates.
"You know, people are not really interacting with him unless he deliberately askes them something first" Angela said
"Ok, what does that mean?" Paul asked
"We could probably go there and it wouldn''t be a problem" Angela said
"We agreed to only go there when we learned the language" Paul reminded her
"Yeah, that was because we thought they would interact with us. But look, we don''t need to talk to anyone if we don''t want to" Angela said
"Angela we agreed" Alicia said
"Yeah, but that will be in what? Two months? Come on" Angela whined, "We could simply go there for one day, and walk around then come back"
"What if people ask us something?"
"The only ones who can ask us anything are the guards, and Alex said, they don''t know much about people from the wildlands, so, it''s possible that they speak differently" She said stretching things as little
"You don''t know that" Paul said
"Neither do they" She said "Look, just think about it"
"We have to at least observer more"
At this time Alex entered a store that sold swords, there were a lot of men browsing. While he was browsing a woman entered the shop and was browsing the weapons as well. She was dressed differently from most women they had seen till now. She was dressing pants for once and not a dress, and was carrying a sword, the sword was strapped to her back, and she had what looked like a leather vest on top of her clothes.
"That''s new" Alicia said
"Yeah, she looks like she can kick ass" Angela answered
"And good looking" Paul said, both girls turned to look at him "come on, it an obvious observation" he defended himself, she had to give him that.
"I was talking more about the clothes. She is the fist woman I saw wearing pants. The others we saw were wearing dresses, even the ones wearing gray clothes" Alicia commented on the girls choice of clothes.
When she was close to him she opened conversations, the shuttle was putti g subtitles to what was being said, it was out of phase since it only started translating a few seconds after the person started speaking but it was possible to follow along
?Beautiful pieces don''t you think?? She said when she was close to Alex showing him a sword she had picked up from
"Is she talking to Alex?" Angela asked
"It seems so" Paul said
?Yes, I think its aesthetically pleasing? Alex answered the woman
?You are new to the city?? the woman asked, this made Alicia a little nervous
?Yes, I am just visiting and decided to enter a store at random? Alex answered
?Do you need a guide??
?I don''t have a way to pay, sorry?
?No need to pay, I''ll show you around the city? she said
"She is forward" Angela said "Why did she approach him?"
"I thought you girls like the muscles" Paul said
"Well, I guess some girls like that, but there are other people in the shop, why approach the only Alien?" Angela asked
"You think she knows something?" Alicia asked
"It''s just strange, that''s all, and she doesn''t look like someone flirting, she is very businesslike" Angela said, looking at the lady Alicia agreed, but maybe it was simply the girls way of doing things.
?Maybe another day? Alex answered her, rejecting her offer of a free guide, maybe it would have been a good idea.
?If you change your mind I am at mete''s inn, just down the street? she answered, and with that she turned around and left.
Chapter 5.2: Spying
Ever since these strangers had arrived that Makim has been doing whatever she could to keep an eye on them. Usually this involved going with her horse south and entering the forest as if she was going to the wildlands, but before getting far she turned around and went back to the place where the strangers came to spy on the city.
After the first day, she decided to enter the city. But since she didn''t want to interact with count Amer unless she had to so she rented a room at an inn. She then found a courier and after showing him her seal of authority to make sure he took this job seriously, she told him to go to Kretos city and take a message to the duchess. She requested for 15 experienced knights to be sent to her location explaining she found a situation that needs further investigating and wanted to have backup in case things turned out bad.
The main problem is that she isn''t sure whether or not they are Lycans spies. If she gets proof that they are, she will go to Amer and request his help in dealing with them. It''s his duty to help in the case, even if he doesn''t act like it. But if they are really ancestors, then going to Amer is the biggest mistake she could ever make.
People fight over ancestors artefacts, zealots pay a lot of money to get the artefacts, they believe it''s their sacred duty to gather up and protect these artefacts for the ancestors return. But having access to an actual ancestor could make count Amer the most powerful man on the world or he could literally turn the ancestors against the people.
The days that followed their arrival were spent repeating the same routine, go into the city if needed to get supplies and sleep, go back to the forest and observe.
Four days after they arrived there was finally a change in routine, the big man came alone around midday and after observing the city gate he ran southwards.
When she noticed that he was going to pass her current location, she hid, luckily, she hadn''t been too close and still had the time to hide without being seen. After he passed she tried to track from a distance, but he was moving too fast, if she moved fast enough to follow him with the horse he would easily realize that he was being followed, so her progress was slow. But when she saw him emerge from the tree line further south, she realized that he was going to the city and in the open he was walking at normal speed, probably not trying to give away his identity.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Makim was afraid that somehow they had a plan to deal with guards and since the city mage was dead they were a little more vulnerable.
So, Makim made the decision to go the other way, she went north as fast as she could, making sure to pass as far away from the planted artefact as possible. When she was sure that she wouldn''t be noticed she left the forest and into the road that came from the north, then made her way to the city.
Luckily she managed to arrive just after him and stayed in line behind him. When he arrived at the gates, the guard did their job and inspected him, checking if he is not a Lycan spawn, Makim also used this opportunity to get the answer.
After that she was sure he was not a Lycan spawn, she was sure he was an ancestor, the problem was how to approach him. There had to be a reason why they didn''t announce themselves to the world.
That day he walked aimlessly throughout main city and side streets, ending up in the agricultural district.
The next day she decided to try to find a way to approach him. That was the moment when she wished Chad was with her, he had such an easy way to simply strike a conversation with strangers like they were old friends, that is would probably have been be easy for him.
She entered high end sword store and decided to strike a conversation with him. It didn''t go well, especially after she offered to be his guide. His rejection was so clear that she was so embarrassed that she simply decided to get out of there.
She had to find a way to approach him. The guards think he is a man from the wildlands, she would have thought that word reached count Amer and he would have tried to make contact, but thankfully he hasn''t. But it was no reason to be idle. She needed to find another way to approach him, the problem is that simply getting to him and telling him she knows about him could go very wrong.
Chapter 5.3: Report
Trinin rode for 2 straight hours to get back to the hideout in the woods. He needed to tell the boss who he saw, and hopefully be rewarded for it.
The boss was new, he became the boss after killing the old one. One thing the new boss did that the old one didn''t was actually give money, and not just say that he is holding on to it for later. Trinin liked that, which is why he is happy he has good information to give to the boss, after all he spent all his money already.
Trinin had lived in Kretos before joining the gang, and he was there when the boss and lady Makim fought. Some people said that it was possible for a normal person to fight a mage, but he never believed them. Mages didn''t spend their time using magic in public but the few times he saw it, he couldn''t believe anyone could fight them, some could lift things without touching and some burned things , there were rumors that some could even fly. But, that evening, he saw it, lady Makim and the boss fighting, a famous mercenary without magic and a mage fighting, and the mercenary won, the mage, his boss had actually ran away.
Now Trinin hesitated, he had never told the boss he recognized who he is, and the boss might be angry, the fact that he burnt through all his money and that he would surely appreciate but he surely appreciate to know about his old enemy made the decision for him.
The hideout was athree story wooden house created in a place far off the main road. It was the old boss''s place, he had built it himself. and it served them well even after his death by the hands of the new boss.
When he got there he went straight to the boss''s office.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
?Trinin I thought you would be back in a few days? The boss said as soon as he saw Trinin. He found the boss sitting in his big chair
?I saw lady Makim in the city boss? Trinin said quickly explaining himself. One thing about the boss is that he always dresses well. When he took over he forced all them men to get nicer clothes, they thought it was a waste of money, but soon they noticed that somehow dressing well made them sell more of the product to the nobles.
?What do you mean?? The boss asked.
?Lady Makim from Kretos, I saw in grov city two days straight?
?How do you know of lady Makim?? The boss asked in a very calm voice, but from the look in his eyes, Trinin knew he had to thread carefully. he decided to say he just heard of their fight from people in Kretos when he used to lived there. Better that than to say he witnessed his boss''s complete humiliation at the hand of a girl.
?First you are going to tell me everything you know about Kretos? the boss said ?Then you are going to tell me exactly what happened in Grovlar city and why you waited until the second day to come and tell me?
Trinin could see the boss was angry, and since he was not stupid he explained everything, how he came from Kretos and heard the boss and lady Makim had the fight, he also explained that he saw lady Makim alone walking around Grovlar city, she was staying at the same inn as him, he lied and told the boss that he didn''t come the first day because he didn''t recognize her the first day, he didn''t say that it was because he didn''t want to cut short his break since at the time he still had money.
After he finished his narration the boss called for other men to come. When the boss told them to go to Grov city with Trinin and capture a girl some men complained
?A girl? Isn''t ten men a lot? One of the man asked. Trinin thought that is was stupid to question, and he was proven right, when the boss stretched his hands and without even touching him, sent him flying. Everyone got the message
?I can''t get in the city? the boss said calmly ?But ... I. Want. That. Girl.?
Trinin actually agreed with the boss, after all lady Makim is the only person he ever saw that fought against a mage and won. They would need the men.
?How do we get her out of the city?? one of the bravest men asked
?How do you get the product into the city?? the boss asked. Trinin didn''t think it would be so easy to pay up the guards to allow them to take out a girl.
Chapter 5.4: Crews day out
Angela was tired of only seeing the city remotely. Alex has being going to the city for four days now, and she was tired of not experiencing it herself. On the first two days it was exciting to see those people even if only remotely. But after the initial excitement died down, it felt like they were prisoners looking at the world outside through a window. She started campaigning for them to take a trip there, Paul was reluctant because they still couldn''t speak the language beyond basic phrases, but that would be true for several weeks even with the teaching program which was extremely good. In order to side step the issue Angela pointed out that Alex only talked to people when he wanted it, so they wouldn''t need to either, especially with Alex acting as a guide.
She had been so bored that she had the computer create a map of the city from what they were seeing through the watch. She used that to create a virtual 3D representation of the city she could navigate in while learning the language. It took her two days to convince Alice and after that Paul was easy, now they just had to approach Alex.
She decided to do it during breakfast, Alex still complained the bland tasting food, but she quite liked it, she didn''t know what he was used to eating but the food created by the machine have been passable, and it didn''t hurt that he chose different breakfast every day so that they wouldn''t get fed up with one type of food. It didn''t matter if he said that the imitation food didn''t get anywhere near the originals in his world, to her it was better than station food.
"We''re going with you today" Angela decided to simply be blunt, she didn''t want to ask permission and didn''t want to give him the opportunity to say no.
"What?" he asked confused, then it looks like it downed on him "to the city? I thought we agreed that you would go only after learning to speak the language"
He was right that they had agreed to it, but it was getting in stuffy the shuttle, she didn''t know if being cooked up in the shuttle was better or worse before knowing that there were people out there she could interact with. She almost felt like a thirsty man in a desert falling short just before arriving at an oasis, it was depressing.
"Yeah, well, we decided that since there don''t seem to be a need to talk to people while there we could just walk around the city" Angela explained "We already know some key words and phrases, and f the need arises you help out". She had decided not to frame is as a request so that he didn''t think he could weasel his way out"
"Well, all I was going to do was check out two more locations today, the city is too big to see in just a few trips. We also need to figure out what we''ll do to intregrate in there, we''ll basically need money for anything we migh want" he said with a sour face. Angela could see where this was going
"Isn''t that the same everywhere?" Alicia asked
"Well, my people also use money for most types of transactions, but there are some things which are free and that includes education. These people don''t even believe in having everyone knowing how to read and write" he explained. Its obvious that for some reason that fact really sours his mood. Although she accepts that its sad, but for him it looks like its more than that.
"Ok" Angela said, trying to divert the conversation from the doom and gloom and back to what mattered right now "Are we in agreement?"
"You all agreed to this?" Alex asked looking at them one by one.
She didn''t want him to try and convince Paul back because it was already a hassle to get him to agree so she answered for everyone "Yes, we have already discussed this and are in agreement"
"Ok" he said simply
"Ok?" Angela askes "Just Ok?"
"I don''t see the harm in it, everything has been going fine till now" he said
That was easier than she thought. They were settled, they would all go later and do a little sightseeing in an real alien city that resembled some fantasy settings.
Later they all had an early lunch before going, Alex explained that he was seeing the various businesses in the city to checkout.
The trip to the city took them longer than when Alex was alone, and when they had the gate in sight, they noticed that the line to get in wasn''t that big, and it made them a little happier, especially after walking for so long.
At the gate, the guards stopped them and after a back an forth with Alex, they had to lift their tops as well. They still couldn''t understand the reason for it, but complied all the same. The way some of the guards were looking at her and Alicia sent a chill through her spine, but luckily they kept to themselves. It was obvious that they were a little wary of Alex and Paul even with the fact tht the guards had swords and Alex and Paul didn''t.
Although Alex iscartoonishly big, Paul was not slouch either, he was just over 1.9 meter in heigh and kept himself fit. Its just that stadning next to Alex he looked small.Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Some of the guards kept looking at both Paul and Alicia, it was probably becasue of their skin tone.
When they entered the city proper, they slowed down to take everything in.
Lookint at the people with her own eyes, she confirmed something she saw through the screen. It was hard to define the ethnicity of the people here, most looked like mixtures of different races, the skin tone ranged from darker, a lighter. Aside from them no one was completely black or white. Its strange, but it explained why the guards simply looked at Paul and Alicia but hadn''t stopped them, they simply look like paler versions of some of their people.
They decided to go to the places Alex had planned to go to, they would need to be careful to not show their complete lack of knowledge about the world. The first place Alex wanted to go was a bakery, they went there and the smell coming from there was amazing, it seems they didn''t sell only bread, but also cakes and even more amazingly chocolate. Angela already decided that their first stop when they get some money would be back here.
Their next stop was a small arena, the stands were pratically empty but there were some people fighting.
"What are we doing here?" Angela asked
"To watch the match" Alex answered "it looks like you only need to pay an entrance fee at night, during the days its free"
"Why would it be free?"
"The man at the door said professional fighters only show up at night, only amateurs or training fights happen during the day, in fact anyone can enter the ring and fight, if you win you get a chance to compete later." Alex explained
"You aren''t pretending to fight are you?" Angela asked "because that would be cheating"
"No, I am not pretending to fight, it would draw too much attention" he said, and she liked hearing that, it showed some type of moral integrity, but then he continued "But just to be clear. I consider it an unfair advantage that other contestants don''t have a way to reproducing my strength, and the only reason it''s not on the rules is because they don''t consider it possible"
"What does that mean?" Alicia asked, clearly not understanding what he just said
"If it wasn''t for that, I consider any advantage you can exploit that doesn''t break either implicit or explicit rules fair game" he answered. Ok, she takes back what she had thought before.
"Like what?" Paul asked
"The idea of a fair fight is idiotic. The only way you can be sure a fight was fair is if it ended in a tie" he answered
"Explain" Paul prompted
"Look at those two in the arena" he said pointing to the two man fighting "one of them is a small skinny guy while the other is probably twice his weight, that in Itself is unfair"
"Yeah, the big guy is stronger so he has an unfair advantage" Alicia said
"Not necessarily, he hasn''t been able to land a blow to the other one, and has only been taking it. So, the skinny guy is maybe more experienced and is dominating the fight, so, he is probably the one who had the unfair advantage"
"What advantage?" Alicia asked
"Experience, it''s ridiculous to put someone with little experience against someone with a lot more." He said "there are a lot of variables that can affect the outcome of a battle, like, one guy had a stomach ache, or just received bad news and is distracted,, so, the idea of a truly fair fight in all levels is ridiculous, not even fighting a copy of yourself is completely fair, because just your different positioning could give one of them an advantage because of lighting, or the crowd"
"But those are too many variables to consider" Paul said
"Exactly my point, so, I only consider unfair advantage if it breaks the rules" he Explained
"You said that there is no rule against superhumans" Alicia said
"Contests usually have implicit rules, for instance, in a game, people usually don''t explicitly say that its only for humans but its implicit, so someone putting an animal would be breaking the rules even if they are not written down"
Angela thought back to their conversation about his experiment, he had said then that he made sure to follow the letter of the law, and this conversation shed some light on what he considers acceptable.
"So, what you are saying is we should just try to exploit as much as we can" Angela summarized, she didn''t share his opinion, not in the least, but she wanted to clarify if she understood him correctly.
"No, that''s not what I am saying" he denied what she said, even if she was just summarizing what she understood "I am saying that I personally don''t believe that everything is black and white. " she wanted to reply when he cut her off "But, before you say anything, I don''t believe that everything is gray either. Different people view things in different ways. You should only just go as far as your conscience allows you"
At least he hadn''t expected them to share the same opinion as him, but she found it sad that he had this view of the world.
"That has the risk of being used a justification for increasingly bad decisions. I believe people aren''t born evil, but if they continually try to rationalize their bad decision, over time they might become evil"
"I agree with you on that" he said, which surprised her "But, I''ve never been in a situation where there was only bad decisions. So, I don''t know if it always holds true"
After the match ended with the skinny guy winning the fight, they decided to walk around the city, they went through a lot of side streets and alleys just trying to imagine what the rest of the world would be like and trying to come up with ideas for what to do, and trying to appreciate the city. Being here, for her at least felt like a lifeline.
They had stopped somewhere to talk while throwing ideas on their next steps based on what they''d seen.
They sawsomeone approaching them, and when Angela got a good look, she realized that it was the woman who had tried to talk to Alex in the weapons shop.
Angela was suddenly very alert and realized that the sun was about to set. They were in the middle of long and narrow Alley. It was probably only wide enough for at most three people to pass side by side.
The woman raised her hand up in the air, implying that she wasn''t here to attack them. She said something and Alex translated "She says that this is a bad part of town to be at night, we should go back to the main street". Angela was still suspicious of her, its like she was staking them, and she still had her swordwith her.
Angela was standing next to Alex when she saw him tense. Following his gaze she sees five men blocking theexit to the alley from the side which they came from. They all had their weapons drawn, four had swords and one had a really big ass sledgehammer.
Angela already thinks this is the work of the woman, but when she eyes the woman she sees her tense but looking past them. Again she follows her gaze and sees another five men blocking the other exit with their swords drawn.
This was already turning into a horror scene.
Chapter 5.5.1:Fighting
Alex was enjoyinghisday with the crew(He didn''t even know when he started considering them that). At first he a little apprehensive on their idea to join him in the city, but fortunately it''s all been good.
For the first time since the accident he felt that they could actually become friends in the future and not just reluctant roommates.
His normal interaction with the three of the had been more constrained.
With Paul he spends most of this time explaining more of how the ship works, answering questions, and feeling like he was constantly being evaluated.
Alicia uses him mostly as a living encyclopedia when she stumbles upon a hard concept to understand in her quest to learn all she can about the physics behind wormholes.
Angela had simply avoided talking to him, but fortunately she had become more lively after the first time they came to watch the city from the woods.
For the first time they all were all actually conversing, and it was fun. They were talking about a lot of things, speculating about the culture based on what they had seen so far.Making silly plans that probably would never even be started since they knew basically nothing about the culture or economy here, but it was fun none the less.
It''s strange, before the wormhole accident he had spent most of the time in his ship alone and had never felt lonely. It probably had something to do with the fact that he could call whoever he needed anytime he wanted.But these past few days, without anyone who he could open up with, had been somewhat depressing.
They visited the bakery and an arena where they saw a couple guys fight and had a small discussion on ethics, but after that their conversation became lively again.
After leaving the Arena they kept walking around the city aimlessly. The people kept staring but, they ignored it for the most part.
They were walking in an alley and stopped to talk, when a girl approached them. After takin a better look Alex realized it was the same girl that had approached him in the weapons shop.
He hadseen this girl many times already. When watching the city once he is pretty sure he saw her leave the city. She was also the one who was behind him the first day he entered the city.
He hadn''t thought anything of it, even when she offered to be his guide in the city. Angela has thought she was trying to flirt with him, but she was very business-like when she proposed, which made him think she was being truthful. The reason he had rejected her proposal was because, it would eventually lead to her asking questions about him or where he is from, and he didn''t even know enough to lie convincingly, especially if she knew even a little about what they call the wildlands, it was safer to go slow instead of blowing their cover.
But seeing her again make him suspicious, was she following them? if so, why? was it to try and propose being their guide again?
She was short, well, maybe he had to start changing his way of evaluating height. Because she looked to be a little taller than Angela.
?I mean you no harm? the girl said ?It''s just that you are in a bad part of town and its getting late, better to go back to the main street, safer that way?
Alex now looked around and realized that the alley they were standing in was narrow and long. The streets were quiet, no one was walking. He had been so caught up in being included in the group that he hadn''t paidany attention to his surroundings.
He relayed her words to the rest of the crew but didn''t take his eyes off her,he noticed the sword strapped to her back. What type of world is this that its normal for people to walk around with weapons on the street?
His heart almost came out of his chest,after he saw some men come behind her. He tried to calm down saying to himself that it''s just his overactive imagination and they were probably simply trying to pass through.The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
But no such luck. They quickly moved to block the exit of the alley and took out their weapons, there were five men, 4 with swords and one with what looked like a hammer.
He looked at the girl, trying to ascertain if she had anything to do with the men, but he was surprised by what he saw on her face. She was very focused, but no on them, since the girls and Paul were to his left, and she was looking to his right, past them.
He turned around and saw that there were other five men blocking the other end of the alley, he looked back at the girl and she had taken out her swords and was turning around to face the men.
She put herself between the crew and these new men, but there were two groups of these men, so, Alex decided to simply trust her actions and move to the other end, to act like a shield.
Looking behind him, Alex saw that Paul had moved to be besides the girl, keeping Alicia and Angela in the middle, somewhat protected on both sides.
Trying to come up with ideas on what to do, Alex decided to simply follow the ship captain''s manual. It''s good for most situations, and he hoped that it worked now.
First step in a conflict, try to deescalate the situation
?Hi there fellows? Alex said trying to sound non-threatening ?We were just passing through, just want to go on our way?he said still hoping to get out of this without an incident.
?This is good? said one of the men ?We lucky boys, we got three beauties? things just went from bad to worse if they came here for the girls said ?you can go, leave the girls?. The day had started good with hope about their lives on this world, but now, it seem that the worldis even more dangerous that they had thought.
Alex looked up and notice that the roofs of the houses were a little high, somehow that had come in an alley surrounded with wall of two story houses.He could jump that high, but he couldn''t do it with two girls in his arms, and that would spell trouble for Paul and the other girl. The men were getting closer so he wouldn''t be able to do it twice.
Ok, so fighting it is. The problem is that all of them had swords, and he didn''t have anything, he pushed the girls to the wall to make space. And since the unknown girl looked like she was going to fight on their side, he decide to focus on this side.
Alex approached the men, distancing himself from the girls while alerting Paul about their intentions. One of the men stepped forward, he had a long sword, Alex''s heart was beating faster, he had never before fought anyone holding any type of weapon, and these men look like willing to kill.
Dealing with the first was quick, luckily his increased reaction speed allowed him to dodge the first strike, but he was positioned in a way that didn''t allow him to strike back. The man clearly knew what he was doing because he had used the flow of the strike to position himself in a defensive position.
It didn''t matter that the man behind the sword is a baseline because even a child can harm you with sharp knife if there was enough force behind the strike.
This pattern repeated two more times and Alex was slowly being pushed back against the girls. He needed to stop that, so when the man lunged at him with the blade ready to pierce his heart, Alex decided to break pattern and step forward, twisting his body sideways. It worked he was now inside the man''sdefense ready to punch his face in. Just before his fist connected he stopped, remembering exploding watermelon lesson he was taught would happen if he punched a baseline full force.
The other four men were running to the aid of their brethren as soon as he had dodged the strike. So, out of time Alex decided to use the man beofe him to disrupt the other. Alex lifted him and threw him agaist the men comming. He went flying arms flailing, but it didn''t work, three of the men managed to dodged and only one was hit. The hit had enough force to send them both twisting to the ground but it still left three whowere more cautious in their approach.
Alex looked behind him for a split second to see that the girl was somehow facing off against three, and Paul was standing besides her.
Looking back at the three Alex realized how much harder it would be, the previous fight probably lasted no more than a minute, but it was enough for him to realize how much harder it is to fight someone with a sword. Alex wished he had learned how to fight with swords or any type of melee weapon, but no, he had believed that he would have never needed the skill.
The three men started their attack with both men on either side striking toward the middle, his only option was to jump back. That started a series of strikes that he could only dodge by stepping back, the three were very coordinated never allowing him anytime to stop or access the situation. They were covering each other really well, not leaving him any avenue to strike back.
When he realized he was getting near the girls position he decided to go for broke and jumped to one of them, but felt an intense pain in his left arm. A sword strike cut open a deep gash in his arm, the pain was so intense he couldn''t feel anything else. But it worked and he was within striking distance to the man in front of him. Gritting his teeth to push past the pain he pushed the man and like the previous one the man went flying away.
This put him besides the second man, he was still feeling the pain in his arm, which really pissed him off. Not wasting any time he slapped the man''s chest sending him flying. His actions were really fast not allowing the men to react which allowed him to stand before the third man, the one who had wounded him face to face. Before the man could react Alex kicked him in the chest and he was sent flying toward the wall, hitting it head first with a loud thump and then the man crumpled to the ground motionless.
Alex froze. Did he just kill a man? He stood there looking at the man waiting for him to getup not wanting to believe that he might have just killed a man when his world went black.
Chapter 5.5.2: A bad First Impression
Makim was excited when she saw the four of them get into the city, maybe it would be easier to talk with them this way. She still hoped that Chad was with her. Her first attempt at direct communication went bad. She had offered to be the big Ancestor''s guide in the city but he had promptly recused. Chad was good at making friends with complete strangers, but he was still in the wildlands.
She followed them around the city, trying to come up with ways to approach them. Then she noticed the dark skinned girl fiddling with an artefact in her wrists. If anyone sees it things might get out of control quickly, she assumes that as ancestors they had a lot of artefacts but in this world, people got killed for them, selling an artefact could make you rich enough to live the rest of your life in comfort. She needed to approach them quickly before things got out of control.
After leaving the arena they started to wander around the city aimlessly. The problem is that it would be dark soon and they were going to a bad part of the city, she needed to stop them, she couldn''t have the ancestors'' first impression of this world be being assaulted.
When they got further in she decided to intervene. Hoping that she wasn''t making a mistake she raised her hands in a nonthreatening manner while approaching and calling out to them. When they looked at her she explained that this was a bad part of the city, she hoped they heeded her warning and left before night fall when the hunters came back to the city.
While they were discussing things among themselves she tensed after seeing five men dressed as hunters arrive at the other end of the alley well with their swords drawn.
She looked back at the four of them trying to urge them to come with her but looking at their faces they were frozen, looking behind her, turning around she saw other five men, four had swords and one was holding a Warhammer.
This was clearly an ambush, but she didn''t know why they would ambush the four of them, did they see the artefact and decided to take for themselves, even split between ten people would give each of them a lot of money.
When the men announced their intentions, she realized that they were even more disgusting than what she had thought. Either they weren''t here for the artefact or they simply decided to add the women to their loot. There is no way she could allow this to happen.
She was surprised by the Ancestor''s reaction, he actually thought they could talk their way out of this. What type of world did they come from where you can talk your way out of a situation like this? if this was their attitude, things would be a lot harder for her.
Luckily they realized the futility of their actions and took defense positions. She took out her sword and faced the men who had come from behind her, the big Ancestor went to the other side, she only hopes that they can help in the fight somehow, because they were outnumbered and the other men all had weapons while she was the only one of her group that had a sword.
She did her best to hide her nervousness, gripping her sword with both hands. When the men approached she decided to go on the offensive and strike first, there was one who was closer than the rest and she lunged her sword to strike him, he parried but expecting that she was able to guide her sword downward toward his leg and push forward again. It didn''t pierce his leg but it left a cut that would hinder his movements for a short while.
She pulled back as took a defensive position against the other three. The man with the Warhammer was staying behind for some reason.
She then went on the defensive, mainly deflecting and redirecting their strikes. These men knew how to handle a sword but luckily for her were not expert fighters, this allowed her to use simple tricks keep them out of balance.
When she saw an opportunity with one of them she went for a thrust attack, but she over extended and one of the men came at her from the side, she saw his approach and realized that she wouldn''t be able to defend and resigned herself to her fate.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.
But just before he started his attack he was sent to the ground by a punch to the face. Getting herself to a defense position she looked at the man who had saved her, the light skinned ancestor who stayed besides her.
Sparing a quick glance behind, she saw that the other ancestor had somehow put two man to the ground and was in the process of doing it to a third, heard a yell and looking back at the men she saw the man with the Warhammer running toward them full speed.
She tried to maneuver herself to block him but the other two swordsmen blocked her, the man with the Warhammer barreled straight through the ancestor beside her using his hammer to punch the ancestor in the chest and send him sprawling to the ground hitting his head, The girls screamed something, and before she could react the man turned around doing a full circle, the hammer in his hand gaining speed and when he released, it went straight with such a speed and hit the other ancestor full on the head.
The ancestor fell, but before she could do anything the two men she had been fighting used the momentary distraction to disarm and push her against the wall with a sword pushed against her throat.
The man with the war hammer kneeled beside a man who was crumpled on the ground besides the wall, two men who were down got up and went toward the girls, other men who were standing went to the girls and like her put their swords against their throat.
The man with the war hammer picked it up and went toward the dark skinned ancestor, the look in his eyes showed what he intended to do, he wanted to kill him.
Luckily one of the men stepped in front of him.
?If you kill him, we''ll have to dispose of the body, and we''ll be even later getting out of the city? The man said ?we have the women, they can''t follow us. He''ll have to spend his days knowing we have his women?
The man relented and they picked their man from the ground ?How is he?? One of the man asked the Warhammer man asking about their man that was taken down by the ancestor.
?He''ll live? went to pick up the man on the ground.
The man with the Warhammer pointed to the girls and said ?If any of you makes trouble I''ll kill one of your friends in front of you?
?What about him?? One of the men asked pointing to the light skinned ancestor on the ground ?leave him?
?Look, I can get you a lot of money if you let us go? Makim said trying to negotiate ?I know the lord of this city?
?We know who you are lady Makim? One of the man said. She was speechless, they knew who she was, so it''s possible that the ambush was for her
?Let them be and you can take only me? she tried again
?We''ll take all of you? The man with the war hammer interjected, and they were unceremoniously pushed toward the main street. Some men dragged the ancestor who was besides her to a
there was a big two horse carriage waiting with man sitting on the drivers seat.
They were pushed into the carriage and some of the men got in with them, including the one with the Warhammer and the two unconscious men
Inside the carriage the window were boarded so that they couldn''t see outside, and the girls were kept separate with a man holding each of them at sword point when they started moving.
Makim was trying to think a way out but the way they were being held left no avenue of escape. Trying to think of a reason they would be following her also wielded no results. Count Amer didn''t like her, but he always used lies or honeyed words to get his way not this, but she couldn''t think of any other person who would try to do this to her, at least not in this city, or even this duchy.
They moved for about five minutes like this then the carriage stopped, and they heard a commotion outside, it took Makim a few seconds to realize that they were on the city gates, and the driver was talking with the guards. It looked like the ancestor woman realized this as well, because she suddenly screamed and started kicking the floor, all the men reacted by placing their dirty hands over their mouths to cover them and pushing them against the walls of the carriage with swords aiming at their eyes. The way they did it showed that this wasn''t the first time they did anything like this.
?What are you carrying there?? She heard one of the guards ask, hopefully the noise the ancestor woman had made was enough to get them out
?Livestock? the driver answered, there is no way the guards would believe that.
?Inside a carriage?? She heard a second guard asking, he sounded younger than the first, its good, they would need to investigate
?Let them pass? The first guard said
?But, sir..? The second guard complained
?I gave an order? The first guard answered. It''s obvious that they had somehow bought the head of the guards at the gate.
They were moving forward and once outside the city the carriage picked up speed.
Chapter 5.5.3: City guards
When Alex came to, the only thing he could feel was his head, it was pounding. It took him a few seconds to fully regain awareness. Tried to look around but the pain in his head intensified like someone was hammering inside his skull.
Taking a deep breath he tried to get up, but as soon as he moved his arms he felt an intense sharp pain shooting up his left arm, he faltered and went back down getting another dose of the pain in his head.
Ok, another pain to be aware of. He was never a martial artist, but the few fights he has been through in his life have all taught him one lesson: Fight through the pain.
Taking another deep breath to calm down, he gritted his teeth and proceeded to sit-up in one full motion.
The pain had come even stronger but at least he was already sitting. looking at his left arm he saw the cut and remembered what had happened in the last moments before blacking out, it seems he had lost a lot of blood which was now painting the ground red. His Lantean healing have probably stopped him from dying of blood loss, but the process still hadn''t finished.
Looking around he saw Paul slumped against a wall unmoving. Instead of getting up he decided to crawl assuming it would be easier. Well, it probably was even if he could only use one hand in the process.
Paul''s chest indicated that he was still breathing, so, Alex sat beside him and tried to shake him awake. When he didn''t wake he decided to give him a light slap since he didn''t have any cold water to try the other method.
Paul abruptly sat up clutching his chest "What happened?"
"We got our asses kicked" Alex answered, then looking around "And they took the girls"
Paul''s face went through a series of expressions on a very short amount of time finally settling in an odd mix between terrified and determined.
"We need to find a way to get them" he said, breathing hard trying hard to remain calm.
Alex remembered about the wrist-comms and ignoring the pain on his arm and his guilt over what happened, checked it trying to get the girls distance from him. What he saw there made the situation even worse.
"There is no connection to their wrist-comms" Alex explained to Paul trying to remain calm.
"What does that mean?" Paul asked, a hint of desperation in his voice
Alex swallowed his guilt and answered "Either its off or out of range, either way the shuttle has a record of where it''s been"
With that both of them got up, they needed to support each other because it was obvious that they were both hiding whatever pain they were feeling.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!
"We should also try the guards" Paul said "They might help"
Alex hoped it was true because he didn''t see any alternatives.
They made their way back to the city''s gate. It took them about fifteen minutes to get there and during that time they probably looked like a live post card for evolution, going from crouched down to more or less fully erect by the time they arrived.
By the time they got near the gate the sun had fully set. At the gate there were a lot of men coming in, based on what they were carrying Alex assumed they were hunters but they didn''t have time to check them out. Before they could pass through they were stopped by the guards, probably because of the way they looked.
When they reached the gate the guards stopped them, probably because of the way they looked.
?What happened? One of the guards asked. Alex remembered the guard, it was the same one who greeted him the first time he entered the city.
Hoping that they might give extra information or help they needed Alex decided to explain what happened
?We were just attacked by a group of men? he answered and they looked concerned
?Where was this? Can you describe them? The guard asked, the other guards came closer to hear it as well.
?We can take you there? Alex answered ?There were ten of them, one had a really big hammer with him? Alex said, and proceeded to describe the other ones, the ones he remembered, the guard in front of him gasped, he clearly recognized the men but before he said anything the older man grabbed his arm and pulled him
?We''ll send out a search party? The man said, the first guard was looking at the older one with a look of surprise but the older man didn''t react he simply cast his eyes low
?Do you know them?? Alex asked
?No, we don''t, too many people come to the city it''s hard to remember them all. but don''t worry, we''ll send out a search party. If you come back tomorrow we might have new information?
He was clearly lying, even Alex saw that, deciding not to waste time they turned to leave the city.
?Where are you going?? The older guard asked, with a strange tone in his voice
?Home, we''ll come back tomorrow? Alex answered, with that they left the city.
Both moved south with the guards were watching their progress, but luckily they could go back to the ship by going southward first.
What happened in the city put a lot of things into perspective for him, the only thing his people shared with this world was the language and the engineered environment.
He had to change his world view, people here kidnapped women for reasons he doesn''t want to even think about, and even worse, the authorities somehow cover for them.
The idea of a corrupt officer would be laughable in his world, but here he has just experienced it on the very first notable encounter with the law.
After he and Paul were a little away they started running, but after fifteen minutes Paul was very tired.
"Look, we''ll go faster if I carry you" Alex proposed
"What?" Paul asked, his voice rising an octave in surprise
"I can run a lot faster and for longer than you, even with you on my back" Alex said, ignoring the fact that his arm was still killing him and that the headache still hadn''t fully subsided. But it was good enough to function
Paul thought for a few seconds and nodded, and they awkwardly ran to the shuttle with Paul on piggy back.
Alex''s night vision helped him navigate the forest, but he was moving a lot slower than usual and it was probably because of the blood loss rather than Paul.
When they finally got to the shuttle Alex detached the ropes, since it was harder to detach from the tree he simply detached it from the shuttle''s end, and left it hanging.
As soon as they got into the shuttle Alex told the shuttle out loud to silently ping the wrist-coms and held his breath. When the shuttle displayed their locations both of them let out their breath in relief.
Chapter 5.6.1: Rescue Attempt
The signals were about 60 kms away from the city. He told the shuttle outloud to head there keeping a high altitude. Being dark outside it would keep them hidden.
While the shuttle was initiating maneuvers he went to the medical center. In there he took out two dermal injectors and injected himself one after another relaxing as soon as they started to take effect.
"What is that for?" Paul asked him
"To numb the pain, fight the effects of blood loss, and keep me going longer"Alex answered
"Didn''t you say that medical pod can take care of you?" Paul asked again.
"Yeah, but if I go there it won''t let me go until it''s sure i am relatively stable, and since I got hit in the head it might take a while" Alex explained. If the pod decided that it would be better to knock him out to do whatever procedure it thought necessary, they would be forced to wait until it finished.
They left the medical center and went back to the bridge, to see what excacly they had to deal with.
The shuttle was hovering some 5km in the air. Using infrared they saw the signal coming from a carriage that was just arriving on a building in the middle of nowhere. The ship''s AI counted 58 men in or around the building.
There was a big open field around the buildingand what looked like some type of garden on the back of it. There was some distance to the forest which means that getting close to the building without being seen would be very hard.
The problem was how to approach them, there was no convenient landing site nearby and they didn''t want to waste even more time.And it looked like the forest had some really big animals for their heat signatures to be visible from this far up, and they didn''t look like horses, luckily they weren''t anywhere near the building.
They rushed through a couple of ideas while seeing the girls beingtaken from the carriage to the building, and settle on one that would probably give them a more chances of success as quickly as possible. Alex rushed to the medical center and Paul to his original shuttle coming back with clothes.
Alex quickly took out two canisters from a cabinet one with filled with alcohol and one with a very fast acting anesthetic the medical pod uses. He went to put on a space suit while Paul filled a dermal injector and a small canister with the anesthetic.
The main idea behind the plan was simple, knock out as many people as possible.The anesthetic would knockout someone if injected, or as an alternative have them breath in the smoke after it is thrown to an open flame.
So, starting a small fire inside the building in a place where it wouldn''t spread would knock out many people because the smoke spread even if the fire didn''t.
Alex went to the workshop and took out a battery and wires the battery had somewhat high voltage even if it was small.
The second problem they had was how do you get there, there wasn''t any place to land and since inside a planet''s atmosphere and gravitational pull the shuttle needed to use hot air propulsion which was noisy and hot. The shuttle''s AI wouldn''t allow it to go anywhere where it could directly hurt people, damage property or start a forest fire, so the closest landing site was the sea which was a lotfurther than it had been from the city.
The only solution to that problem was for Alex to jump out, he could easily survive a drop from 100 meters, probably a little higher since this planet''s gravity was closer to earth and lower than his home planet''s.
So, dropping Alex half a kilometer away was enough for the noise of the enginesto be faint enough that it could probably be ignored as a distant animal''s roar, and he could then run to the building in less than a minute.
When they got finished with the preparations the girls were inside the building just inside the door, they noted that for some reason there was some sort of conversation going on between the criminals and the new girl but they were in a hurry and and set their plan in motion quickly, hoping for the situation not to turn even worse before they implemented their plans.
When they got into position Alex wrapped the cannisters inside the bundle of clothes and picked up the parabolic microphone''s base to use as a makeshift shield if need be. They turned off all lights, opened the hangar door and after a small running start he jumped.
Midair, he just hopped that his air was true and he landed on the small path that leads to the building. Luckily, he landed on the path, and after a small roll he took off running toward the building.
Paul guided the shuttle back high up to keep an eye on things. He would use infrared to follow what''s hapenning since the shuttle''s infrared camera was better than Alex''s vision he would guide Alex from above. But they couldn''t use x-rays since some parts of their suits react to certain types of radiation, and with x-rays parts of the girl''s sleeve and back would glow.
When Alex got near the building he realized how big it was. It was a four stories dark gray stone building. Whoever built it didn''t go for pretty but functional, it was a complete rectangle box with doors and barred windows. There were lanterns lit around the building making it hard to approach without being seen, but luckily there weren''t a lot of people in front, just two guys tending to horses.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
He circled the building while inside the tree line trying to find a good place to approach from. On the back of the building there was a big garden with some flowers which reached up to his knees. Using it for cover he crawled as close as he could to the building. There was still a big gap between the gardens and the building, and there was an open door back there and some men that were heading inside the building.
Looking around for another way in he realized why these men were here "they are drug dealers" Alex said in a low voice even if knowing that with the helmet on only Paul would hear
"What?" Paul asked
"These flowers, they are a type of opiate, in high doses it causes hallucinations" he said
"Ok, got it. Look the men near where you are going in" Paul said "But the girls are still on the other side by the front entrance"
Alex opened theanesthetic and spread some on the clothes, then headed toward an open window taking a couple flowers with him. Inside he saw an empty room, the door on the other side that lead to the building was open which was perfect.
Opening the container he poured alcohol on most of the clothes leaving some with him in case he could do it in another location and threw it inside through the gaps in the bars. Tearing a small fabric and wrapping it on one end of the flower stem he poured some alcohol on it and using the wires he connected the poles of the battery creating a spark right by the cloth causing it to catch on fire. He threw it inside and it landed on the bundle of clothes he had inside lighting it on fire immediately.
Then he backed away, looking up for a good place to hold. He couldn''t jump to the terrace since it was very high but he could use a midway point. Wrapping everything back up he jumped toward a window on the second floor. When he reached it he grabbed the bars to help him get a footing on the window.
"They won''t simply ignore the fire" Paulremarked
"Then they''ll probably try to put it out, knocking them out immediately. If we put it inside the building it might knock out a lot of them before they realized what''s happening and unless they have hermetic suits, or isolated ventilation systems for each room and given their level of technology I don''t see that being true" Alex answered
The second jump was harder than the first because if he jumped with too much force he would most likely push himself back too much and land back down on the ground. So, he decided to simply jump one floor up and from there jump to the roof, both times had to use grab his target to make sure he doesn''t go too far back.
On the roof he waited for Paul''s confirmation, the space suit would be enough for him not to suffer the effects of their improvised knockout gas. The roof of the building was the best place to wait because it gave him the ability to jump down anywhere around the building surprising whoever need be.
Paul''s confirmation came after a few seconds, "It looks like it''s working, one man went to the room and immediately fell down" Paul relayed "I can follow the smoke using infrared, its spreading outside the room".
After a few more seconds Paul updated him "five more men fell down on the corridor" the plan was going great, even better than predicted because most of the men were inside the building.This was really good, keeping this up they wouldn''t need to do anything but pickup the girls.
There were yell from the inside then Paul said with aprehension in his voice. "the men realized something was wrong when another one fell down, looks like everyone is panicking."
"The panic is helping us, more men fell down rushing toward the smoke" Paul said the tone of his voice clearly indicating that like Alex he was hoping their plan would work almost perfectly.
"Something is happening" Paul said, his tone shifting from upbeat to concerned, this quickly made Alex concerned as well.
"What?" Alex asked
"The smoke.." Paul said making Alex worried with anticipation, he was on the terrace and because if that he couldn''t follow what was happening through so many floors with his infrared vision
"...The smoke is somehow being blown away" Paul finished his sentence
"How?" Alex asked
"I don''t know, it simply left the building, I don''t know how, the men there don''t seem to be doing anything, the temperature that was rising steadily somehow dropped" Paul said "And the fire is gone too"
Alex heard screams from the girls when Paul piped in "they are moving to outside the building looking for you. From their movements I think they believe the fire was setup by someone"
Alex decided to prepare the rest of the clothes, even if they know someone is here its still possible to knockout some more men. And rush in and take the girls.
"The girls were taken outside" Paul said with a tremble in his voice.
Alex went to the front of the building and saw why, both Angela and the other girl were being held with swords aiming at their throats and there was a man holding Alicia by the neck.He had his hands stretched in front of him for some reason. Most of the men went to the back of the building, leaving only the man holding Alicia, the two men holding Angela and the other girl side by side, and another man covering for them.
Feeling hope again Alex set the clothes on fire and threw it down jumping aright after it. The fire and smoke would knock out the man with Alicia, and if he landed near the men with the swords things would be easy.Simply take them out and deal with the other man after that. Then they could take the horses and leave before any of the other men even realized they were gone.
Midair during the jump things changed, he felt a force like someone had put a repulsor in the walls and it pushed him away, so instead of falling down near the men he was thrown away and landed in front of them but further afield.
The sudden change in direction made him loose his balance and he landed awkwardly, but after regaining his footing he turned around and started running toward the girls, not knowing what just happened but trying to make sure to get to the girls as quickly as possible before the men could gather their thoughts.
But before getting there he was suddenly floating in the air. Again it was like someone had used a repulsor plate. But this time, since he was being pushed away from the ground the only location for it would be the ground. Looking down he couldn''t see a plate, and it couldn''t possibly be under the ground since it would also be pushing the ground up, but the ground was undisturbed.
Looking around trying to make some sense of what was happening he looked at the men and noticed that the man who was holding Alicia by the neck was somehow looked strained while still holding his hands in front of him, was he somehow controlling this? Did they somehow have technology but preferred to use these primitive tools for everyday use and only use advanced technology if in trouble? It didn''t make sense, even if it would explain how the fire and smoke were taken care of so quickly, but it still wouldn''t explain why they had let get that far.
Not knowing what to do, Alex threw the shield toward the man. He suddenly felt vertigo again when he dropped to the ground, the shield somehow was pushed back midair, almost as if it had encountered a repulsor field coming from the location the men and the girls were. But, there was no way a repulsor was located there because they would have all been pushed just like the shield.
Not knowing what to think Alex decides to run perpendicular to see if he could get to the side of the building but he was again floating in midair the man again pointing his arms toward Alex.
Empty handed Alex floated there trying to understand what was happening, knowing that things just became way worse than before.
Chapter 5.6.2: Kerios
When Kerios woke up he was giddy. He hadn''t felt like that in a long time. The day before one of his men had come to him and told him of seeing that brat, Makim on the city, all he had to do was wait for his men to bring her and he would have his revenge. He decided to ignore for a while the fact that the man had known of him before and hadn''t said anything about it, he would decide what do about him later.
His focus today would be nothing but what to do about her. She had ruined his life over nothing, in a few weeks she had destroyed what had taken him over twenty years to accomplish, all of it over a peasant girl. He was a noble and a mage, the most he should have been forced to do is make some restitution, instead she humiliated and tried to kill him. She was responsible for how his life turned out, forced to pretend to be dead, living with filthy, uneducated criminals. If he couldn''t go back to society, he at least would get the satisfaction of seeing her humiliated before killing her.
When it got dark he started to become antsy, not able to wait for so long. He was pacing back and forth in the lobby of the building. He still didn''t know who built it, since he didn''t believe in the story that it was the old boss of this gang that built it, It was too well made.
All these thoughts left him when he saw the carriage approach. he stood up straight and waited inside the lobby for his men to bring her in, he knew that it was theatrics, but he wanted to see her face when she realized it was him and realize what''s in store for her. He had instructed his men not to touch her or say who it is, just so he could see that reaction.
When she was brought in, almost being dragged by the men, it didn''t disappoint, he saw her gaze look around the room before settling on him, widening her eyes in surprise, then she redoubled her struggle. Just that desperate fight made his day, it was good for her to feel what he felt, but unlike him she wouldn''t survive. But only after a long time of torture.
Next he was surprised when two other women were brought in after her.
Before he was even able to ask them about it, Makim who had given up on trying to struggle interrupted.
?How are you alive?? She asked.
He smiled at her and did not answer just to remind her who is in charge here, and it was not a good idea to reveal it in front of his men.
?It must be painful to see me, isn''t it?? He asked, reveling in her obvious discomfort ?after you tried to get me killed?
?The men reported your death, they were honorable men, you couldn''t have corrupted them? she said with certainty
?Are you sure?? He asked, stepping closer to her. His man was still holding her hands behind her back, he still remembered the scar she gave him when he got too close. It was his main motivation to training his powers as much as he could. He won''t make the same mistake again.
He watched her face, seeing the agony of not knowing whether or not she had put her faith in the wrong hands. Things were turning even better than he had predicted.
He stepped around her toward the two women, suddenly Makim jumped at him, trying to get to him, the man holding, had gotten careless, but before she was able to get close he jumped creating a field of force in front of him that pushed her and the men around her away. His level of power and control might not be on par with the mages in the capital, but luckily, he was skilled enough to take over this criminal enterprise. He still regrets leaving the sanctuary too early after his awakening, but he had time to catch up on his own.
The men who were still standing went to capture the girl, once they did it he allowed himself to turn and inspect the new women. They were both wide eyed, clearly surprised at what they''d seen, he held himself a little straighter, it''s likely they''d never seen a mage before.
The first thing he noticed when he got closer was their fragrance, he hadn''t let himself get close to Makim but he sure did miss women''s fragrance, well clean noble women''s fragrance.
He took a closer look at them, one of the women was extremely light skinned almost pale with big breasts, the other was the opposite, darker skin and smaller breasts but better hips. The only places he knew where he would find people with their skin tones were either the wildlands or some Lycan cities. Since they were near the wildlands it was obvious these women were savages.
?Why are they here?? He asked his men
?They were together, so we brought them as well? One of the men answered. Friends of the brat, probably why she lunged at him when he approached them. One more avenue of torture, seeing her friends suffer might make her suffer even more.
He grabbed the light skinned one''s face, she tried to recoil but was stopped by the man behind her, he looked at her closely. She was good looking but probably only a little younger than him. Pity she was with the brat, or else he could have gotten a lot of money selling her.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
But better not to try even so, some of his business partners might take offense of him selling one of their own. Better to simply kill them when he is done with them and burn away the bodies.
He proceeded to inspect the dark skinned woman. She looked younger, probably the same age as the brat. She tried to slap him, he caught her wrists.
When he grabbed it, he felt something underneath the sleeves. She said something he couldn''t understand, but he was focused on her wrist, he pushed the sleeve down revealing an artefact.
He heard his men gasp, then hold their breath. They hadn''t realized what she had hidden, if they had he was pretty sure they wouldn''t have brought the girls. He had culled any man who acted too ambitious for their own good, but an artefact could be worth a small fortune, especially if not split between so many men.
The artefact looked pristine. Who walks around with so much wealth on their wrists? It was asking for that hand to be cut off.
?Take this off? he told the girl. She looked at him with a frightened expression, but was not taking it off. He grabbed and pulled it, but he didn''t want to damage it ?take it off? he said more forcefully.
This time she obeyed, and took it off, he grabbed it, inspecting it closer. ?Where did you get this?? he asked, she was still looking frightened and not answering his questions.
He inspected it, it looked almost new, there was a commotion somewhere in behind him but he was too focused on the artefact and what it meant. It was a possible way out of this. This did not only give him wealth, but it might get him a life where he doesn''t have to hide with filthy ignorant men.
He was born as the second son of a minor noble, in an almost forgotten city. His brother would inherit the title and the family business and he would have had to live forever in his shadow.
Deciding it was not for him, he bribed, begged, and almost groveled to be allowed in the sanctuary in the capital. Life in the capital was even worse, the nobles treated him worse than commoners. But he endured, for almost twenty years he endured. He endured when his brother took over the family business and decided to only give him a small stipend unbefitting of a man of his status. He endured when Merlan scorned him believing she was above him, he endured it all.
When he finally awakened his powers in force magic, he thought it would all be all right, but it wasn''t. He still had to walk around like a beggar to get a job. His brother had hired another mage and wanted to pay him almost nothing. Other noble families went for other mages, but he kept looking. When he finally got his job, his perfect job, his perfect life, that girl destroyed it all.
Now, not only would he get his revenge, but he was holding in his hands a possible way to recover some of the prestige he lost. And if this girl was walking around with this much wealth on her wrists she knew where to get more.
He was brought out of his reverie when he heard shouts from his men, looking behind him he saw smoke then the men who were near the smoke fell.
He looked around and realized that they were probably under attack ?get back? he yelled at his men. He remembered where he heard about these types of attack. Some of the savage tribes of the wildlands used attacks like these. He remembered how to deal with a situation like these.
He might not have enough control to shape a field of force as he wished, but all he had to do was create a field of force big enough to cover the door and direct it away from him.
When the wind entered the field it was pushed in the direction of the force blowing the smoke away. It had enough intensity to get rid of the smoke.
?We are being attacked, search for the intruder? he said. His men left to search for whoever it was that attacked them.
Whoever came here had to have come for the girls. He grabbed the light skinned one by the neck and dragged her outside, she and her fiend screamed but he paid them no mind.
?bring these two? he said to the men holding the two other girls.
When outside he brought out a field of force ahead of them in case someone tried to attack. Most of his me went to search the other side of the building since this side was clear, and whoever attacked them had somehow reached inside.
He was thankful of his foresight as soon as he felt the drain. He looked around trying to see where it was coming from, when he saw something on fire being pushed away by his field of force, looking up he saw what looked like a man also being pushed away by the field. He increased the strength of the field and saw the man being thrown farther away.
When the man landed he was surprised at what he saw, whoever it was big and was wearing an ancestor suit. He recognized it from the painting on the palace.
Kerios looked up and realized that the man had probably jumped from the roof of the building, and if so, he had been planning on landing on top of him, it would have killed him instantly.
The suit the man was wearing would be worth even more than the artefact the girl had on her, who were these people that walked around displaying this amount of wealth like it was nothing. The savage tribes were very protective of their artefacts, they wouldn''t simply let one if their own to walk around with artefacts, which means, they found some yet undiscovered cache and instead of selling it, they were wearing it like idiots.
The man took something that was attached to the suit like a shield and threw it at Kerios. It was thrown with such a force that it probably would have hurt a lot. Kerios had to drop the man in order to deflect it. The only reason he was able to do that was because of all the training he had been doing on his own. He had to step up his training.
The man tried to run sideways toward the tree line, clearly someone with experience fighting mages, the man was someone not to be underestimated, better kill him quickly.
Kerios didn''t want to ruin the suit, it would have made him rich, but a broken artifact was still worth a small fortune. He might not have the power or control to simply crush a man''s head, but he had come up with a way to deal with warriors that was effective.
Lifted the man up to a height beyond the building, since he had tried to jump down from the building, it was time to see what he thought of falling down of even a greater height with a force pushing him down.
When he was high enough, Kerios cancelled the field that was lifting him and created another field to push him down. He was already feeling some exhaustion for holding someone for so long, but he knew it would work because that was how he became the leader of this gang, by challenging the previous boss on a fight for leadership and then crushing him.
But something was different, when the man hit the ground instead of him being crushed, he used the ground to jump forward and when he touched the ground again he started running toward them. The move was so fast that Kerios almost didn''t react on time, his heart almost skipped a beat of how much it scared him.
He managed to lift the man up again, but this time he was closer, but now Kerios didn''t know what to do, all he knew was that the man had to die, if he sent his man forward he would be caught in the field of force as well, but it might be better than nothing, keeping the man afloat was draining him.
Before he managed to give the order something happened that put everything he thought he knew into perspective.
Chapter 5.6.3: Escape
Whatever was happening the man needed to concentrate and when he lost focus Alex dropped to the ground.
Everything had been happening too fast, but if they wasted more time the men who were on the other side of the building would come back and things would get worse.
After Alex threw his improvised shield at the man he dropped Alex to focus on the shield but he was able to focus back on him before he was able to get away.
"Are you seeing this?" Alex asked, as the man pushed him even higher than before
"I am, but I don''t understand" Paul said as Alex continue to ascend seeing the top of the building "The shuttle can''t detect anything except for you somehow floating in the air"
"It looks like he needs to be focused on me to work" Alex started to say but before he finished he felt himself dropping, but this time he was being pushed down with an even more force than gravity could manage, it seems the man had decided to crush him.
When he hit the ground, he tried to throw himself to the man but he had bad footing and all he could manage was to throw himself a few meters forward, but when he reached the ground after his mini jump he tried to take off running toward the man and maybe ram him, but again he was caught before accomplishing it. The man was able to react fast to everything he tried.
Alex loosened his helmet while telling Paul "come down here making a lot of noise, and turning on the external lights, it might be enough to distract him for a couple seconds"
Alex didn''t take the helmet off waiting for Paul''s arrival.
When the shuttle arrived, it was like a noisy flying comet, Paul had decided to be even more distracting by blasting music and switching the external lights on and off with a rhythm. Alex fell down on the ground, but, expecting it this time he landed on his feet.
Not waiting anytime he started running toward the men taking his helmet off in the process. The man didn''t have armor on, he had let go of Alicia when he tried crushing him. Hoping he was the only one with these weird powers, Alex, ignoring the feelings of guilt of what he was about to do threw the helmet like a cannon.
The helmet streaked out toward the man, but unfortunately one of the other men was somehow not completely distracted by the incoming shuttle and moved to intercept it. Alex''s breath stopped seeing everything happening in slow motion and unable to stop it. It was their only shot at running away, but he realized that things could go very wrong. The man who intercepted was wearing armor, luckily when the helmet hit him it pushed him toward the other man throwing both of them through the open door.
It was not Alex''s plan, but it might buy them some time. by the time they were on the ground Alex was already close, the strange woman who had approached them had also not been distracted with the comet and used the opportunity to disarm her captor and use his sword to pierce his neck. By the time he got there she had also dispatched Angela''s guard.
He was stunned by how brutal and efficient she was, he had never seen anyone die in front of him, much less killed in a very brutal, clean and methodical way. She moved in a way that didn''t allow for their blood to touch her clothes, and she hadn''t hesitated or allowed the man to make any noise, and it took less than two seconds.
With the noise the shuttle was making drowning out everything else the three of them were frozen for a split second, then he noticed the man with the impossible powers trying to push the other man off of himself. When they locked eyes, Alex moved to get out of the way and grab Alicia who had fallen to the ground as quickly as possible before he could use his powers, the anonymous woman jumped in front of him and grabbed the door handle. He felt the force pushing them away before he could even get to Alicia, but since the woman was holding the door handle the heavy metallic door was pulled close as well following the woman.
The force they were feeling suddenly cut off, the rest of the men were on the other side of the building, probably distracted by the shuttle.
It had probably been less than five seconds since he started running, everything was happening too fast and he was mostly reacting to things as they came.
The woman grabbed his hands and pointed toward the war-horses, her message was clear. He grabbed Alicia and went to pick up Angela lifting them both and running as fast as he could toward the horses, but he knew that they were not going to make it before the man got up.
He dropped them halfway there, turned back and ran back as fast as he could, picking up his improvised shield on his way back. He grabbed the other woman and pointed toward the horses while he took her place facing the door. He believed he had a better chance than her facing whatever those powers were, if had tried to crush the girl like he tried to do to him she would be dead.
The girl hesitated for a second but went toward the girls. He remembered seeing her riding a war-horse the first time he entered the city, so, he assumed she knew how to get on top of one and to ride.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
He saw the door opening and wanting to keep it closed he jumped to grab it, but before he could close it back he felt the now familiar feeling of gravity changing its direction and quickly grabbed the doorframe, he looked inside the room and realized that the man who had been behind the door had been thrown toward the wall opposite it, but it was not the one with the freaky powers, he was nowhere to be seen but was somehow still using his powers on him.
The force was pulling Alex toward the room, he was horizontal with his feet on the air inside the room grabbing the doorframe to keep himself from falling into the room. Whatever force was pulling him was stronger than gravity.
The room was somewhat spacious with a few couches on the other side, it had two doors on either side, one was closed, but looking closely to the other he saw the man hiding behind it and only peeking at him. Perhaps he really needed line of sight to use his powers, but there is no way Alex would be able to hit the man given how he was hiding, so Alex swung his feet until he managed to get hold of the door handle, and using both hands pulled himself outside with all his strength, closing the door as he was threw himself outside.
Unfortunately the force hadn''t cut off like the first time, he was still standing up horizontally on the walls, even though the man couldn''t see him.
Looking at the horses he saw that the three girls had gotten themselves on the horse and were taking off, luckily a war-horse was big enough for the three of them. He kept pulling the door handle until they were out of sight.
The force pulling him toward the wall suddenly cut off and he took off running toward the same direction as the girls.
Just before he reached the tree line he felt himself getting light again and jumped toward a tree before he lost contact with the ground. It helped getting him something to grab on to, he saw the man looking out the window with his arms stretched. Alex simply accepted the sideways gravity and used it to position himself better and hiding himself from view, then he horizontally jumped up to the next tree with all his strength, it was enough to leave the area of effect of the force. Looking back he still saw the effects of the force on the previous tree, so maybe he can''t adjust the area of effect without line of sight.
The girl had known that line of sight had something to do with it, which is why she had jumped toward the door handle instead of away from the man. But if he had pulled her toward him she could have been in trouble.
Alex kept running following the path but keeping himself inside the tree line for a while longer, he didn''t know if the man''s eyesight was better than normal so, he kept himself hidden while trying to follow the path toward the horse. He tried to call Paul to tell him to be wary of that man since they didn''t know what other types of powers he had, but Paul simply said he would buy them as much time as he could, He could still hear the music of the shuttle even if it was not as loud and from here not as intertwined with the roar from the engine.
After a few minutes the noise increased and the sound changed to something menacing, "What happened?" Alex asked calling Paul
"The man came out of the house and tried to rally his men, I put the shuttle over the path trying to keep them away. Its working for now, the men are backing away. They are even more afraid than their horses" Not surprising, war-horses are harder to spook than normal horses. And if whatever spooked them was in range they would pounce before running away. It also gave him an idea.
"Go to the library and search for hypnotic sounds for war-horses. There is one that annoys them, if you play it they might even drop their riders. Just make sure the girls are far away not to hear it." Alex said. Some animals had some sounds that affected them, some sounds make them calmer, but some had sounds that made them more aggressive. Since the library was the accumulated academic knowledge for his people, it would sure have it and the shuttle could play it.
"Tell me if something changes" he finally said.
"Yeah, I talked with Alicia, they are ok, and ahead of you. How far can you run like that?" Paul asked.
Alex didn''t know, the booster shit had helped but he had still lost a lot of blood
"I can probably handle one more hour before needing to slow down" he said hoping it was true.
While running his mind kept wandering toward what just happened, no matter what crazy theory he comes up with to explain what happened it didn''t hold water when confronted with everything he saw the man do. That was not technology, it was someone creating some type of field out nothing just by pointing his arms at someone. Is he the only one? It wouldn''t make sense. If you were the only one with that kind of power in a world like this you wouldn''t be hiding in the middle of nowhere manufacturing drugs.
If there are others how powerful do they have to be for this one to be a bottom feeder? Are all of them hostile or is any of them friendly enough to explain how it works?
The girl seemed to have an idea of how it works, at least enough to know a weakness. He needed to interrogate her when he caught up to them. Everything just became way more dangerous than before.
He realized that the noise from the shuttle had stopped.
"What happened?" He asked Paul.
"I decided to disappear and wait to see if they make a move, it might frighten them more if I only show myself when they if they try to rally" Paul answered
A couple minutes later he heard the shuttle again, it played for maybe fifteen seconds then stopped.
"They tried to rally again, but given their horses reaction they are even more wary now" Paul explained.
After maybe half an hour Alex was slowing down feeling more exhausted than he should have been, and he was feeling the beginnings of a headache, if maybe just the previous headache coming back.
"How far away am I?" Alex asked
"In the beginning you were gaining but now you are slowing down, the men haven''t tried again, do you want them to wait for you?" He asked
"No, but see if you can find me a shortcut" Alex said. Even if he caught up with them there was no more space on the horse.
"The only shortcut is through the forest" he said. It was better than nothing
"Ok, tell me where"
The shortcut involved entering the forest and moving diagonally from the road, after couple hours he crossed another road and entered the forest again on the other side. He was able to see at night but Paul was watching everything from the skies making sure he stayed away from any big animals. As time passed he was moving slower and slower the headache increasing as well.
He took a few five minute breaks and kept going but in the end it was not enough.
Chapter 6.1: Reunion 1
Makim had been surprised when the ancestor came back to get her and told her to go to the horse. She had stayed behind hoping to delay Kerios but he came back and with a simple gesture told her to go instead.
She had felt guilty but understood his reasoning, he was able to survive Kerious attack, she wouldn''t. Kerios had learned how to separate the field from himself and that makes him a lot more dangerous than when they had first fought.
Makim had ran as fast as she could to get to the horses, she had found the ancestor women not quite sure what to do. So, she quickly took the horse''s reins and had it lower itself. Which enabled them to climb on quick.
When they got on the horses Makim tried to ride as fast as she could for as long as she had the lights from the building, but the ancestor women who clearly had never been on a horse were having a hard time keeping balance. If any of them had fallen it would have spelt a lot of problems for them.
She had looked behind her once to see the ancestor hanging on to the door frame to keep himself from being pulled inside.
She tried riding faster but the two women had clearly never been on a horse and were having a hard time keeping balance.
The vessel was still keeping the men distracted, and aside from Kerios and maybe one of his men no one else had noticed their escape. The volume of music the vessel was playing was deafening, but the farther they rode away from it the better it got. The problem was that it was the reverse for light, the further they got harder it was to see.
Makim was mostly relying on the horse to guide the way, given how dark was, she wasn''t able to see much. The ancestor had tried to use the artefact she had on her hand to light the way, but Makim had put a stop to that by covering it, she had gotten the idea. They were riding a narrow path surrounded by forest that she didn''t know, it''s possible that there were beasts that came out at night, the last thing they needed was for any of them to show up. The major reason they could keep going was that horses saw well at night.
Makim was still conflicted, she knew that the big man stayed behind and wanted her to take the girls out and she was wat least glad he trusted her enough for that, but she would have preferred all ancestors made it, which is why she had stayed behind to delay Kerios in the first place. But he had come back and traded places with her, he would pay for her mistake.
What she couldn''t get out of her head is how they reacted when they saw Kerios use magic, it was like it was the first time seeing magic. She couldn''t understand how that could be, her people believe that magic comes from the ancestors, that the ancestors made the powers dormant in their children and gave them a way to awaken it, almost like a blessing for the devout.
If that was true, how could the same ancestors not know about magic?, how could they not have magic themselves? she saw the flying vessel, what could that be if not by magic?
After a few minutes of riding she heard a man''s voice, it took her a few seconds to realize that it was coming from the artefact at the girls wrist.
The woman answered, and she realized that this might be the other man, if she had to guess this artefact allowed them to speak at a distance. Either that or the artifact itself is talking to the woman. She didn''t know which of the two options was stranger. Everything she saw about them confirms the stories about them having great powers, except the fact that they are somehow powerful enough to make their big vessel fly but not enough to fight Kerios, which doesn''t make sense. Her sister is strong enough to make a carriage fly a short distance and is more than powerful enough to fight Kerios.
Does that mean that the vessel flies by itself? How would that work?
Whatever the voice said to the women made them visibly relax.
Maybe an hour after running away, the path came to an end, there was forest ahead and no clear indication where to go, she stopped not knowing what to do, her whole plan was to follow the path.
?Why stop?? The ancestor behind her asked Makim was surprised she could have sworn they couldn''t speak common, but even though it was badly spoken they clearly spoke it.
?The path ends here, I have no idea where to go? she answered. When she looked behind her she realized that the ancestor wasn''t understanding her
?Slow... not understand? she said. Ok, she clearly could only understand some of it. And from what she said, probably needs her to speak slower.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
Makim pointed to the path and then where it ended.
The voice on the artefact spoke up again, and the ancestor had a small conversation with it. It seemed like it was explaining their situation
?Front? the ancestor woman said after finishing the conversation. She pointed ahead of them, it looked like she wanted them to go straight. It was a bad idea, there could be beasts in there. Normally roads are placed in locations with low beast activity, even in the surrounding forest, but it didn''t mean that beasts didn''t move closer to the roads. And if they went ahead they would be leaving the road, or path in this case.
?No, beasts? Makim said and trying to imitate a beast with hand gestures and growling. The women understood based on their expressions, they looked even more frightened from what they were, she was sorry for that, but it was better than them not being frightened enough, which had been the behavior she had observed from them during these few days she had been tracking them.
She spoke again into the artefact and she had a response that clearly relaxed her
?Front, no big animal? she said. Makim could assume that the voice is probably the other man who was likely in the vessel, but how could he know if there were beasts out there?
She decided to trust them and did as they said. When she entered the tree line she noticed how much darker everything was, the night had already been dark, but even so, entering the forest made everything was even darker.
She gripped the reins tighter trying to hide her nervousness.
It''s a rule in the world that you don''t enter the forest in the dark, it was not even a good idea to enter during the day unless you knew the woods, its why the hunters left the forest before the sun set.
Five minutes after they entered, they came across a wider path, it went north to south. The problem was, she didn''t know which direction to go to reach the city, or better yet, the ancestors vessel. It was located at the sea, which meant to the west. But to the west there was even more forest. She decided to go north since going south would eventually lead to the wildlands and the possibility of even more dangerous beasts.
After a few steps the artefact spoke again, the ancestor tugged at her back to get her attention.
?There? she said when Makim turned to look at her, she was pointing south. Again without knowing the way herself she turned around and went south, it was obvious they had a way to see the path ahead.
They followed the path and after maybe an hour they came across an crossing where they turned west with confirmation from the voice in the artefact.
After a few hours following the path with her heart threatening to burst out of her chest they were able to see Grovlar city. The path ended before reaching the clearing outside the city. From there it was easy to see that if they crossed the small section of trees they would exit in the clearing outside the city. The location would make it easy to not be seen by the sentries on the wall.
Before going forward they heard the voice from the artefact again, Makim turned to look at the ancestor women behind her, they were talking into the artefact and whatever was being said was getting them worried.
She looked at Makim and pointed behind them frantically, toward the direction they''d just come from and said ?Friend, hurt?
Makim could understand that something happened to the man who stayed behind to cover their escape, but going back for him and getting captured would undermine everything he did for them.
She tried to explain it to them ?the bad men are still there? she hoped that talking as if to a small child would help them understand, but it wasn''t so, it was clear that they couldn''t follow what she had said.
Trying again slower and with fewer words, Makim simply said ?Bad man? while pointing to where they had come from.
They understood it, but still repeated ?friend hurt? then paused seeming like she was looking for words ?No bad man... Alone?then she pointed behind them again and added ?near?
Makim turned the horse around and went back.
They back tracked for a couple hours before the ancestor women indicated that they needed to get into the forest, by the time they found the ancestor man there were already some rays of sunshine in the early morning,
She immediately got the horse to crouch down, so they could dismount.
The two women ran to the man and checked for a heartbeat, they visibly relaxed when they felt it.
The next task was to put him on top of the horse, Luckily it wasn''t the first time she had to do that, but even for his size he was heavier than she would have thought. He was put draping over the horse with his legs on one side and his head and arms on the other side, she knew from experience that it was easier to carry someone unconscious this way.
After that both ancestor women climbed on the horse staying behind the man, they would stabilize him if needed, Makin guided the horse by pulling the reins from the ground.
She didn''t want to take them back to the city, she was sure the guards knew something of what happened to them. it was likely they knew about Kerios as well, he used to work as a mage for the Lord of the city when everything happened and he somehow faked his death. The only option she could see was to take them to their vessel.
So when they arrived back at the clearing she guided them toward their vessel location by using the trees to hide from the city as they moved around it.
took them around the city hiding them from view by using the trees, when they were to the south of the city, she looked at it to see if the guards had seen them, they hadn''t, but she recognized some of the people who were heading toward the city.
Looking at the ancestor women she quickly told them to wait then took off running trying to catch up to them. She couldn''t take the horse or the ancestor man might fall and be injured or worse.
Even though they were trotting at a slow pace, she wouldn''t catch up to them on foot before they reached the city, when she got a little closer she decided to yell at the top of her lungs.
They looked back and saw her running toward them. They turned around and when they got closer Chad jumped down from the horse and came running to her. The other men took out their weapons, clearly not knowing what was going on but wanting to be ready all the same.
When she got to Chad she simply hugged him. She stayed for a few seconds like that, with her head on his chest, the other men surrounding them taking defensive positions. He always had a calming effect on her, even by just standing there holding her.
She decided to berate him for walking around with his shirt open later.