Ancient Relics (Shadow of the Ancients Book 1) (3 page)

Staring out into space from his view port in the
hospital ship quarters, Logan sees the space dock moving closer as the ship
begins to dock.

The hospital ship is one of three hospital ships
assigned to the Special Forces group operating in the Expanse.

Since the military force is evacuating Logan’s team
and carrying captured enemy scouts, the ship has returned to Alliance
controlled space for resupply and to drop-off the evacuated civilian personnel
from Crete IV.

Confined to his hospital room until he and his team
leave the ship onto the station, he sits in contemplation about all that has
transpired in recent days.

The cold, white, sterile confines of his room give
no support to an active and racing mind.

The seeming lifelessness of space offers more
notions for thought than the dull quarters he occupies.

An almost deadpan voice rings out through the ship’s
intercom announcing, “Now docking with Transfer Station Olf II. All parties
requiring transition validation begin making your way to the ship's customs
port.”

“Customs,” Logan scoffs at the thought of boarding a
station in Alliance controlled space without anything to declare.

Logan has never returned from a mission without at
least a few trinkets discovered on excavations.

In Alliance governed star systems of the galaxy,
relics are highly controlled and law requires the declaration of such objects
when entering secured space.

“This has to be a first for me,” he continues
thinking to himself aloud.

Just then, Paige walks in and asks, “So, you ready
to get off this dull rock… er… ship?”

Logan snickers quietly as he continues to stare out
the porthole, taking notice that her obviously fake mistake for a ship as a
planet comes from the habit of calling the departing world a ‘rock’ in an
attempt to liven his soured spirits.

“Sure,” he says solemnly as he backs away up from
his perch alongside the view port, “I suppose anywhere is better than this
boring, unimaginative, bare-white hell.”

Hospital ships tend to use all white decor for
sterility purposes.

The bare white walls hearken the coldness of space,
and the rooms tend to be void of any color, or anything else.

Fixtures are white, just as the flower vases are
white, and the linen on the beds scream for color to boost the morale of the
ill stricken patients convalescing beneath them.

In an attempt to boost Logan’s moral again, Paige
walks up behind him as he still peers through the large pane window in his cell
like room, wrapping her arms around him to place a single yellow flower beneath
his chin.

Logan looks down and a small confident smile crosses
his lips.

“Happiness is a state of mind,” Logan thinks
silently to himself.

The two go on to regroup with their fellow
compatriots of the ancient arts.

In the docking bay, Logan looks up and down each row
of pallets to ensure that everything they began with is properly packaged and
identified for arrival at their new destination.

Norm, one of the archaeologists in the group,
reports to Logan, “I already contacted the charter ship we were supposed to
return on and let them know about our situation. They still want full payment.”

Logan laughs aloud, “Figures, those greedy good for
nothing spacers. As if they don’t have other fares to haul.”

The group laughs quietly showing support for their
sorrowed leader, who is distraught at the thought of failure.

“Well, at least we can go back at some point,” Logan
says appearing to chipper up.

Zoey walks by just as he mentions the plan, “You
might want to check the news boards before making those plans.”

The whole group stops in their track and stair at
Zoey, as if she had more to say, while watching her leave the ship.

“Ohhh k, soooo… now what?” Tess, another one of the
archaeologists, asks the group.

Everyone peers at Logan as if he had some delightful
anarchistic speech to tell.

Logan looks around as all eyes lock on him.

Slightly taken by surprise that he has all of a
sudden become the unwitting center of attention, he informs the group, “Don’t
look at me! I have no idea what she meant.”

Logan and his team disembark the hospital ship and
onto the space station orbiting Olf II.

Olf II is the second planet in the Olf system and
one of three habitable planets in the system. It is a swampy planet with a few
scattered settlements.

Olf III and Olf IV are the other two habitable
planets in the system.

Olf III is a temperate planet with large cities and
is a center of commerce for the region of star systems. While stations around
the other planets of the system are merely transfer stations, the station of
Olf III is a hub station, connecting the system to the rest of the galaxy.

Olf IV is quite a bit colder than Olf III, since it
is so much further out from the single star in the system, but still has the
capability of supporting life so long as precautions are taken.

People need protective gear to traverse the surface
of Olf IV due to the cold environs, so much of the settlement infrastructure is
under ground or in the sides of mountains, using designs from Dogan
subterranean architecture.

The Dogan perfected environmentally friendly
subterranean construction to limit their impact on the surface of the worlds
they inhabit. As a race of underground dwellers, they have adapted a short and
stout frame.

Dogans are also covered in a thick matte of hair
from head to toe. Generally, most all Dogans have black or dark brown hair, but
some of the Dogan off-shoots have evolved to have light blonde to silvery hair.

Given the subsurface nature of their race, they have
evolved to have lighter colored eyes, often being devoid of color. Dogan
spacers, however, evolved to require a greater need to block harmful ultra
violet light, so their eyes adapted a darker pigment.

As Logan steps off the hospital ship and onto the
station access gateway he jokingly says, “Time to finally get ‘Olf’ this pod.”

Understanding his attempt at humor in regards to the
system name, the rest of his team, and a few surrounding crew members
overhearing him, chuckle.

Logan and his team begin to make their way through
customs and look to charter a ship to the planet Olf III. There they can
charter a new freight vessel to other regions in the galaxy. At the very least,
they can do a little business before heading out of the system.

“Anything to declare?” the customs clerk asks.

“Yeah,” Logan replies as he starts his tirade.

“I got shot, kidnapped by the military, and dumped
off here. Anything else you need me to declare? Oh, I have a flower. Does that
count?” he declares to the customs agent.

The customs agent sneers at Logan, enters Logan's
security access code into the customs DataCom, and motions for Logan and his
team to go away.

“Thank you for visiting Olf II. Have a nice visit,”
the clerk responds in frustration.

The team loads their gear and luggage onto a hover
cart and set its program to take the load to the storage docks. The pallets of
equipment can temporarily be stored until they claim it or have it loaded onto
another freighter.

Space stations are like hubs for space travel in
orbit around a host planet. They have many of the same components as planetary
spaceports down on the surface, but have fewer restrictions.

Since passengers from actual spaceports get their
luggage inspected prior to boarding their ships, passengers and their
belongings can just go onto stations until they board a new ship.

The processes of spaceport and space station
screening makes traveling between systems faster and easier.

Exceptions include ships without proper clearance to
unload without inspection.

Typical stations have ports for docking, landing
bays for smaller craft, and storage bays for cargo, station resources, and
passenger belongings. Some even have entertainment and concession areas, or
even space hotels.

In certain parts of the galaxy where gambling is
legal, stations may even have casinos.

“Food?” Paige anxiously asks the group.

The team excitedly replies back in unison, “Food!”

As the small group sits down for a freshly prepared
meal, unlike the rations served on the hospital ship, their mouths begin to
water in anticipation for real food.

A steward walks up to their table and hands them
each a menu.

They all begin to browse over the menu when suddenly
the realization of the menu selection dawns on them.

Simultaneously, they readjust their glazed eyes to
the steward in utter disappointment as they discover that Olf II Station does
NOT serve fresh food, but only rations.

“What is this?” Paige snarls, demanding, “We want
REAL food. We just spent three days on a hospital ship and were forced to feed
on rations and the dashed hopes of crew members who were hoping for something
other than dehydrated fruit as a dessert.”

The steward shakes his head in despair, “Sorry, with
the war on, we cannot afford to serve anything other than rations this far out
from the core worlds.”

War!

The words rang in the ears of everyone at the table
like warning sirens foreboding an attack.

“I’m sorry,” Logan starts as he begs for the
attention of the steward, “Did you just say WAR?!”

The steward fumbles his thoughts for a brief moment
before considering that somewhere in the universe, someone might not actually
know.

It had been almost ten-thousand years since the last
time the Alliance was involved in a full-blown war, and that was also with the
Drak shortly after the discovery of their civilization on the other side of the
Expanse.

“You haven’t heard? Where have you all been for the
past year?” the steward asks.

The small group exchange glares to one another for a
few moments, before Logan breaks the silence.

“We have been on Crete IV undergoing an
archaeological excavation for the past year,” he answers with a snarky
attitude.

Dawning on the steward that this small group of
explorers is unaware of the current events plaguing the civilized worlds, he
explains the dire situation to them in an attempt to catch them up to speed.

“It all started close to a year ago,” he begins,
“One of the outer colonies sent a distress signal claiming they were under
attack by an unidentified group of bombers. By the time an attack squadron
arrived for support, every man woman and child on the planet were dead.”

Continuing his story, including other similar
instances, the steward explains that more attacks followed, system after
system. In each case, the attacking party would be gone before help arrived,
and all cases were outlying colonies within the Kishar Expanse.

“After a pattern started to emerge, the military set
up listening posts in close proximity to systems that were most probable for
another attack,” he continues.

The steward brings his story to a close by saying,
“As soon as they got the call, the 1st Special Forces Assault Division jumped
into one hell of a firefight. Turns out, those garlic-breathed Draks were
shooting our colonies up. Since then, we’ve been at war with the lizards.”

In complete bewilderment, the eyes of the small
group gaze onto the steward in disbelief.

“So, you guys going to order something?” the steward
asks nonchalantly switching gears back to business as usual.

Logan, slightly still in control of his faculties,
said, “Yeah, just… give us a few minutes.”

The steward shrugs and walks away.

Now making the connection to the events of the past
few days, the group of dumbfounded explorers sits in silent contemplation of
everything that the steward just revealed to them.

“We were on the front lines… of a war,” Paige
murmurs softly, in shock.

Tess blurts out, “Wow, that sucks. Let’s eat.”

The entire group turns to look at Tess, dismayed at
her seemingly uncaring response to a galactic scale event that has the
potential to change all of their lives forever.

Breaking the stillness, Zoey walks up and says, “Hey
guys. Mind if I poach a seat from you?”

Logan looks up and sees his guardian angel hovering
over him once again.

“By all means,” he says, “You’re welcome to sit with
us if you don’t have anyone else to sit with.”

Zoey looks back to her comrades and thinks about the
offer briefly, and then replies, “Sure. I can do that.”

She takes a seat with the group of wayward and still
bewildered explorers.

“So, what’s up? Why do you all look like someone
just killed your favorite pet?”