The Agathon: Reign of Arturo (25 page)

She suddenly saw movement in one of the large cannons to the port side of the ship. It looked like it was beginning to glow.

“Shit!” she said.

She reached her hand over to the thruster control and engaged full engine power, just as a bright red burst of energy shot straight
past the window of the cockpit, barely missing the glass by a matter of inches.

“Fuck!” she shouted grabbing the flight controls and pulling a hard turn to the starboard side and diving The Unity straight under the bottom of The Kandinsky.

She straightened up the ship and directed it to fly along the length of the large ship, emerging at its rear, before pushing the flight controls into a nose dive, taking The Unity away from The Kandinsky at right angles to its current axis.

“Ollie, I need those engines!” she shouted down the comm system.

“Hold on, bridge, we have a problem down here. One of the drive stabilisers is jammed, it’s gonna take me a minute to unlock it,” he shouted back.

Great
, she thought.

The doors to the cockpit opened and Aron Elstone entered wearing a Colonial Guard’s uniform.

“What the hell?” India said looking around at him.

“Keep your head in the game, India, and get us the hell out of here,” he replied taking his seat next to her.

The computer chimed suddenly drawing both of their attention to a heat signature which was currently being directed their way.

“Weapons lock!” Aron shouted.

“Yeah, I can see that, hold on,” said India, pulling a hard manoeuvre, putting The Unity into a spin. The sudden onset of G force threw Aron out of his seat and onto the cockpit floor as another beam of red energy flew straight past the cockpit window.

“Fuck, that was close,” India said.

She looked around at Aron, who was picking himself up off the floor.

“What the hell did you do to piss them off?” she said.

“Never mind that, what the hell are we still doing here?” Aron replied.

“Problem with the sub light drive. Ollie is working it,” she said.

Aron clicked the comm system.

“Ollie, what the hell is going on down there?” he said frantically.

There was a tense moment of silence.

“We can’t outrun them, Aron, they’ll get us with the next shot,” India said, still in shock that The Kandinsky had not already blown up the ship.

“Got it! Engaging the sub light,” Ollie said.

There was another warning from the computer indicating another heat signature. India looked tensely at Aron. The stars outside the window began to blur as the ship accelerated to sub light and the cockpit went quiet once again. India released a long breath and looked at Aron.

“Okay. You want to tell me what the hell happened over there? And where we are going?” she asked.

Aron looked at her with something in his eyes she had not seen in a long time. A desperation.

“We are going home, India,” he replied.

The Agathon

Shuttle Pod 2

There was a small drop before they slid into the water. The opening in the ice was just large enough for the small craft to fit through and within seconds they submerged into the darkness. Chavel activated the forward facing lights and checked the hull integrity before activating the engines. They glided slowly through the darkness. The ice was so thick that virtually no light penetrated its surface, but Chavel could see patches of reflection in the solid sheet of frozen water above them. This was a mission he would not have volunteered for. These shuttle pods were not ideal for underwater work and while the hull was designed to withstand the pressures of deep sea missions, he secretly harboured a phobia of the sea. He was no coward, far from it, but his healthy fear of the ocean had been ingrained in him from a young age. He looked over at Jerome Young who was scanning the surrounding area using the console in front of him.

“You like living on the edge, don’t you, Mr Young?” he said quietly.

Young looked at him and smiled.

“David, you need to stop calling me Mr Young. It’s Jerome,” he said, “and why do you say that?”

“Honestly, you are not what I was expecting at all,” said Chavel.

‘I get that a lot,” replied Young.

“I’ve heard stories you know, what the world used to say about you. The way you appointed Sienna Clarke, so you could hide from the responsibility of it all and plot devious plans on Phobos,” said Chavel.

Young laughed.

“That’s not far from the truth, David. Seems so frivolous now, doesn’t it? Governments and power and wealth,” said Young, “that is why I left Earth, David. The pursuit of the signal. It’s bigger than all of us. Look at us, David. Under an alien ocean hunting for artefacts. Someone out there wanted us to know who they were and my whole life has been dedicated to finding out who they are, or were. This is life, David. We are evolving. Look at Carrie.”

David suddenly looked at Young intently.

“What about her?” he asked bluntly.

Young looked at him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“She could be the most important discovery of all, David. I know she’s special to you. I don’t know what Tyrell, or whatever The Black is, did to make her leave the ship, but you can rest assured that she had a damn good reason. He has taken her somewhere. Who knows what The Black is, but I can guarantee you that it was not simply a suicidal alien species intent on randomly destroying itself. From what we have already seen, she is more than able to look after herself. What if the entire human race was on the cusp of achieving a biological transformation like what Carrie has shown? We are so much more,” Young said.

Chavel looked at Young. He was certain that he was an obsessed man and was worried what that obsession would make him do, but he had to admit that he liked him. He had a calm and logical mind and had no fear of shying away from an emergency or of action and he respected that. He nodded to him and smiled.

“How far?” Young asked.

Chavel looked at the readouts and saw that they were coming up on the structure.

“Three hundred meters,” Chavel said.

He looked out the window and saw nothing but blackness. Chavel hit the control panel above his head and increased the exterior illumination. The lights increased to full, spreading white beams into the surrounding water. The comm system clicked on.

“Barrington to Shuttle Pod 2,” said the captain.

“Here, Captain, go ahead,” said Chavel.

“Report,” Barrington said.

“Descent vector is normal, Captain, no sign of the structure yet, we are … hold on,” said Chavel.

The exterior lights suddenly stopped on something solid. Chavel slowed the shuttle craft down to forty percent thrust.

“There!” Young said suddenly.

Chavel looked out of the window at the towering rock that emerged from the darkness. It was massive and seemed to reach all the way down to the sea bed. Chavel looked at the strangely familiar shape and thought about how big it must be to reach all the way to the ocean floor, thousands of meters beneath them. The rock was symmetrical, with perfectly sharp corners on all four of its rectangular sides.

“What’s happening, Lieutenant?” Barrington said.

“Sir, we have contact with something down here. It’s huge. Looks like …” Chavel paused and looked at Young whose wide eyes looked perplexed.

“Looks like the structure we found on the first planet that we landed The Agathon on, John,” said Young.

“Keep the comm channel open, Chavel, I want updates,” Barrington said.

“Yes, sir,” replied Chavel slowing the shuttle down to twenty percent velocity.

The shuttle creeped up to the mountain sized rock, with its lights on full.

“Ten meters,” said Chavel.

“Take us right up to its edge, David,” said Young.

It looked like marble. Small patterns began to emerge from its surface the closer it got.

“Imaging scanners activated, uplink established, we are transmitting now, sir,” said Chavel to Barrington, as he began transmitting the images of the rock to The Agathon.

There was silence as the shuttle came to a stop next to the surface of the rock face.

“Look at this,” Young said pointing out the window at the shapes and forms etched onto the smooth rock surface.

“What is it, Mr Young?” Barrington’s voice said down the comm system.

“There are figures on it,” Young said looking at the symbols scattered across its surface.

Chavel looked at the perfectly carved figures on the stone. It was unmistakable how alike they were to the first object they had discovered, before encountering the machine planet.

“We have to go deeper,” Young suddenly said.

“Easy, Jerome,” Barrington said, “David?”

“Sir, we can withstand another thousand meters, but that’s about it. At a push,” Chavel replied.

“Captain, we have to find out what this means … please,” Young said pleading with Barrington.

There was a moment of silence on the comm system.

“Okay, Jerome, but David, I am giving you full authority to pull the plug on this. You see any stress level indicators light up, you abort immediately understood?” said Barrington.

“Understood, sir,” Chavel replied.

Chavel gave the top thrusters a small burst, forcing the ship to descend slowly into the depths. Young was out of his chair with his hands pressed on the glass trying to make out as much of the detail as possible. They slowly sank, scanning the information into the data banks and relaying the information back to The Agathon.

“Stop,” Young suddenly said.

Chavel halted their descent and looked at Young.

“Look at that,” Young said.

Chavel looked out the window at the symbols carved into the marble. A single vertical line intersected with two lines at roughly sixty degrees, cutting through its centre. A small circle was marked out at each point.

“It’s a six point spacial coordinate!” Young said with glee.

The figure was underneath what looked like a humanoid figure, standing tall, with its head pointed towards the top of the stone structure.

“That could be anything, Jerome,” David said sounding sceptical.

“No, look … it’s definitely a spacial coordinate,” Young said pressing his index finger against the glass.

Directly underneath the diagram were a set of lines and dots all laid out in a concentric circle.

“John, are you receiving this?” Young said.

“We are receiving it, Jerome, what do you think?” Barrington said down the comms.

“It’s language, John, it has to be,” Young said sounding excited.

“Okay, so how the hell do we decipher it?” Chavel suddenly asked.

There was silence in the cockpit.

“I have to go out there,” Young said.

“What?” Chavel replied.

“Say again?” Barrington emulated.

Young looked at Chavel.

“John, I have to go out there with a hand scanner to get a closer look. I can’t make out the detail in the shuttle. The atmo suits will protect me at this depth, I will be perfectly safe. Twenty minutes, then I am back on board,” Young said.

There was silence in the cockpit.

“Chavel?” Barrington asked.

Chavel looked anxiously at Young. He did not like this at all.

“Captain, I would not be entirely in favour of this action,” he said.

“Ten minutes,” Young said, “I will stay out for ten minutes, John, this could be a marker to a habitable world. We have to take this chance.”

There was a palpable tension in the cockpit.

“Ten minutes, no more,” Barrington said, “I want you tethered to the shuttle at all times.”

“Got it,” Young said already out of the chair and opening a storage locker behind him.

“Shit,” Chavel whispered to himself.

He steadied the shuttle, maintained their current depth and looked at the scanners to see if there was anything else in the vicinity. All clear.

A few minutes later, Young was suited up and inside the airlock checking his oxygen levels. Chavel looked at him through the glass and pointed to his wrist.

“Ten minutes,” he said through the glass.

Young gave him a smile and a thumbs up. Chavel equalised the pressure and began letting water inside the airlock. It filled quickly. He gave one final thumbs up to Young and activated the outer door letting the former Jycorp CEO free into the darkness. He turned away and went back to his seat and looked out at the giant stone structure before him. After a few seconds, Young appeared swimming gently towards the rock. Chavel’s heart began to race. There was no way The Agathon could send help in time if anything went wrong. They were alone down here. He watched Young as he reached the rock face and began running his hands slowly over its surface as if he was seducing it.

“How’s it going, Jerome?” he said activating the comm system.

“Astonishing,” he replied, “feels like glass. The carvings are so fresh. So clean cut.”

“You have eight minutes, so get what you need and get your ass back in here,” Chavel said.

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Young said with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Several quiet minutes passed, as Chavel watched Young scan and examine the rock face carefully. He had been watching so intently
that he had not seen the blip on the scanner. A light bleeping noise alerted his attention.

“Captain, I have a blip on the exterior scanners out here, can you confirm?” Chavel said looking at the reading curiously.

“We don’t show anything up here, David, what are you seeing?” Barrington said.

Chavel looked at the reading and boosted the confinement beam, pointing it directly at the intermittent blip. He brought up the three dimensional readout and tried to hone in on the moving reading. The screen suddenly lit up with a long bulbous shape moving in their direction. Chavel looked at it and requested an analysis from the computer. Whatever it was, it was massive. AND MOVING.

“Eh ... Jerome, we may have a problem,” he said looking out at the floating man.

Young looked back at the shuttle briefly before resuming his investigation into the carvings.

“Oh?” he said.

“Yeah, something is moving out there. Something big. And I think it’s coming our way. Time to go,” Chavel said suddenly remembering how quickly they had been attacked by the alien life forms on the mechanical planet.