The Awakening: Book 1 of the Evaran Chronicles (14 page)

Dr. Snowden wrinkled his eyebrows and flattened his lips as he nodded at Evaran. He glanced at the krall walking alongside them and noticed the blood stains that stuck out against her silver fur. Evaran had allowed her to kill Gaellus. Apparently Hulldar and Gaellus learned the hard way of what happens when they cross Evaran’s line.

V returned and projected several feet off the ground a holographic display of a high-level research labs map. One of the labs had a red glow to it.

“Twenty-four labs. One inaccessible. No life-forms detected. Unknown energy source detected at inaccessible lab.”

Evaran stepped into the hallway entrance and put his UIC on the door console. He motioned for them to step in. After they were inside the hallway, he interacted with his ARI, and a shield went up. He pulled his UIC off the wall. “This is the only way in here, so we should not have any surprises. Now, on to that inaccessible lab.”

They walked for another ten minutes. Dr. Snowden looked into the open rooms as they passed them. Some had dead creatures on slabs similar to the ones Emily and he had lain on. He noticed the mist was faint in these areas, and the lighting was better. These creatures did not have on specimen robes. He shuddered at the thought that maybe there were no robes because they would have gotten in the way of being sliced up. Some rooms had tables with unusual objects on them. He could not imagine what those objects were for, to have garnered the attention of the Krotovore.

When they reached the inaccessible lab, he noticed the shielded door also had a physical door behind it, like the worm pits. The krall growling at the door caught his attention.

Evaran glanced at the krall and then perused his ARI. “She senses what I am sensing. Be alert.”

Evaran laid Jay down and then walked up to the door console and placed his UIC on it. The UIC emitted a blue light after a few moments.

Dr. Snowden noted that it sometimes connected very quickly, like it did on regular doors, and sometimes slowly, like on the bridge and at the worm pits. Maybe it was due to the complexity of the system it was interfacing with. Evaran interacted with his ARI. The shields dissipated, and the door to the research lab slid up into the wall.

Evaran stepped back and stretched out his right arm with a horizontal flat hand toward Emily. The krall looked at Evaran and then walked to Emily’s side while gazing intently at the door.

“Dr. Snowden, Emily, get behind me,” said Evaran as he pulled out his utility handle. He extended it into a staff. Evaran stood in a defensive stance and motioned to V, then pointed to the room. “V, scout mode.”

“Acknowledged. Scout mode engaged.”

V flew into the opening doors and scanned the room. After a few moments, V flew back out toward Evaran. “No life signs detected. One inactive life-form detected. Power is minimal. Illumination required.”

Evaran relaxed and then used his thumb on the utility handle, causing the two poles to retract. He placed it back on his belt and pulled two orbs off the right side of the utility belt. He pulled one of the orbs apart a bit, then twisted it until a soft beeping sound played. Pressing it back together caused a snapping sound, and it began glowing. He did the same to the other one and tossed them into the room. The glowing orbs took off, illuminating as they went. He picked up Jay and walked into the room, with Dr. Snowden, Emily, and the krall in tow.

The glowing orbs were hovering above at opposite ends of the room, illuminating the inside of the research lab. There were several slabs, but the one in the middle of the room was the first thing Dr. Snowden saw. On it was a decayed Krotovore with wires injected all over its body. The strange black mist surrounding the body seemed to obscure it somewhat, but he was still able to get a good look at it. The eyes looked like they had been sewn shut, and it had restraints on its legs and one over its body. The dead Krotovore was missing two of its arms.

“What in the world … ,” said Dr. Snowden. He wrinkled his nose at the strong ammonia scent coming off the Krotovore.

Evaran laid Jay down on an adjoining slab. He walked over to the decayed Krotovore in silence. He placed the UIC on one of the side consoles as he walked by them. It began to glow. When he reached the base of the slab with the Krotovore, he swept his hand in an arc over it. A yellow beam emanated from his ring onto the slab. The yellow beam cut through the black mist, revealing the Krotovore underneath it in more detail. Dr. Snowden glanced at Emily and the krall, who were both staring intently at the dead body. The krall’s skin had turned a slight tinge of red. She really seemed to dislike the dead Krotovore.

“Very interesting. I know what it is now. It is a Daedrould,” said Evaran. He interacted with his ARI and looked at Dr. Snowden. “To clarify, because I know you will ask, they are beings that have a specific energy signature. They also commonly have unique abilities. This one could seek out other unique energy signatures, including rifts. I have never seen one so powerful, though, that can do it over the distances this one could. The Krotovore outfitted this Daedrould with a biomechanical interface to translate the rifts it found into coordinates,” said Evaran.

“What do you mean by a specific energy signature? Like an aura?” asked Emily.

Evaran nodded and raised a finger. “Yes. Everything in the universe gives off an aura of sorts. I can read them via a scan, like a spectroscope can read light.”

“It looks like a Krotovore, though. I don’t see any aura or anything,” said Dr. Snowden.

“You would not, as you do not have the ability or technology. It is a Krotovore, however, with a Daedrould energy signature. Imagine if the Krotovore had a pure-green aura, but it also had blue streaks in it. If the blue streaks represented the presence of Daedrould energy, you would know it is a Daedrould. I have come to learn that specific signatures correlate to specific abilities. There are humans with Daedrould signatures,” said Evaran as he walked over to the console. The UIC was glowing blue, and Evaran interacted with his ARI. The room’s power came back on, and the consoles lit up.

“How would, say, me and Emily ever know if a human was a Daedrould if we can’t see their energy signature?” asked Dr. Snowden.

“Since you have nanobots inside you now, you will be able to tell nonhumans from humans by the way they move and smell. Without knowing its energy signature, you would not be able to distinguish what type of nonhuman they are,” said Evaran with a stern look on his face.

Dr. Snowden shook his head. He wanted to believe and thought Evaran was probably being honest, but this sounded too fantastic to him.

Evaran walked over to a panel on the wall opposite Jay’s slab and opened it. He scanned the inside with his ring. “Here it is. The gel in this container should work on Jay.” He grabbed a round, medium-sized container the width of a dinner plate. A cord ran out the top and ended in a large, square, cloth-like material at the end. The edges of the cloth appeared to have some type of metallic lining.

Dr. Snowden and Emily walked over to the slab.

Evaran set the container beside Jay. “I need to put the cloth-like material around the wound and then secure it. Once secured, the container will pump the gel to the wounded area. As the body uses up the gel for regeneration, it will pull more. The piece connected to the limb will then slide down as the limb grows.”

“That’s some powerful gel,” said Emily.

Evaran nodded at Emily. “It is. Can you hold up Jay’s stump?”

Emily gripped her hands in front of her and looked at Dr. Snowden with wide eyes.

Dr. Snowden smiled. “I’ll do it.” He walked up to Jay’s shoulder area and lifted the arm stump. Evaran wrapped the cloth ending around it and then twisted a circular device that connected it to the cord. The cloth ending molded itself over the stump like wax sealing a bottle.

“That should do it. It will take a long time to regenerate fully, but at least it will regenerate. I am going to take some of this gel for my own research,” said Evaran. He walked over to a large screen on the side of the room opposite the entrance. “Since we are here, there is some information about your abduction you may want to see. Come over here to this screen. It is showing a list of their rift jumps. They cataloged all of them.”

Dr. Snowden and Emily walked around the slab to the large screen and stood next to Evaran. The krall walked slowly around the slab as well, never taking her eyes off the Daedrould. She looked at Emily while proceeding to the corner of the room near the screen. She lay down and closed her eyes after getting there. Dr. Snowden, Emily, and Evaran concentrated on the large screen.

Evaran tapped at his ARI. “A shame. This room has a damaged holographic interface like the rest of the ship. I was hoping since this room was disconnected it might have been spared. At least we have the backup interface in the screen.”

“That would’ve been cool to see,” said Emily.

Dr. Snowden had really wanted to see the holographic interface. What would it look like and how would it act? He turned his attention back to the screen. He rubbed his chin as he scrutinized it. This interface was different from the others he had seen previously. While the others had a busy interface, this one was relatively calm. It had a simple circular menu wheel on the bottom left, with the rest of the screen displaying submenus on the bottom and the main content above it, in this case the rift jumps.

Evaran pointed to the rift jumps on the screen. “You can see there were eighteen rifts based on this list.”

“The last one should be Earth, right?” asked Emily.

“Not quite. The last one was the one they took to get out here. Emily, press on the seventeenth rift in that list.”

Emily walked up to the screen and pressed the seventeenth item, causing a muted click sound. The main content area switched to a detailed three-dimensional galactic map. A semitransparent gold line connected some of the planets. Each planet the gold line intersected had a number next to it.

Emily glanced at Evaran. “Which one do I pick now? Hard to tell which one is Earth.”

“Down here,” said Evaran, pointing to a planet near the end of the gold line. “They called your planet 17-31. The seventeenth rift jump and thirty-first planet they encountered. They didn’t bother with names. Even though this lab was disconnected, there is still some missing data. I am guessing some security system was trying to wipe it before it got shut down.”

Emily pressed on Earth, causing a green outline to appear around it. It zoomed in, showing Earth at the top of the screen. The bottom of the screen had several large, orange, round menu options. After several moments of scanning the options, Emily pressed the specimens one. It lit up, and the other options disappeared. A horizontal list of square images of several humans appeared. Emily studied the images, then looked at Evaran. “Hey, there’s me and Uncle Albert!” She tilted her head. “There’s Sanjay and Jay, but I don’t know who those other two are.”

Evaran grinned at Emily. “Yes, apparently you are specimen number three, and Dr. Snowden is specimen number four. Sanjay was specimen number five, and Jay was the sixth. Press on the first specimen.”

Emily pressed on the first specimen. An image of a pale, slender human appeared on the left side of the screen. To the right were details and statistics. There was a comprehensive notes section that spanned the screen under the image and details.

Dr. Snowden peered at the notes. They seemed to touch on various aspects of humanity that seemed familiar to him. It was the note on blood consumption that caught his eye. He reread the note, then touched the screen, causing the area under his touch to highlight. He turned toward Evaran. “It says here that this guy drank blood? Like a vampire or something?”

“Good observation. Most vampire types are Daedrould. That is but one type of Daedrould. They missed many other types living on your planet,” said Evaran.

Dr. Snowden snorted. “You’re serious? Vampires are real?”

“A few hours ago, you learned aliens are real.”

Dr. Snowden paused as if in thought. “Point taken, but this is on Earth. I’m sure if they existed, we would’ve known about it.”

“There are a lot of aliens on your planet as well, but you do not know about them either.”

Dr. Snowden wrinkled his eyebrows and paused to ponder Evaran’s words. It seemed that Earth was a lot more than it appeared to be. Aliens and Daedrould. What else was living there, and how could they remain undetected? Although he knew Evaran was probably telling the truth again, it was still difficult for him to accept it. It was a matter of putting aside what he thought he knew and opening up to the new reality unfolding before him.

Emily pointed at a paragraph halfway down in the detailed notes. “Look here. It says they tried to pull this one, but the crew was killed. The retrieval ship crashed, but not before the data transmitted. I’m guessing the vampire had something to do with that?”

“Most likely. Krotovore are not physically strong, so a vampire of the magnitude they picked up would have easily broken any restraints and disposed of them. However, being in an unfamiliar alien ship with nothing flying it would lead to a crashed ship,” said Evaran.

“Wonder if it survived. Well, let’s look at the second specimen and see what surprise is in store for us. It better not be a killer clown or something,” said Dr. Snowden. He pressed the second specimen image. A burly man with muscles bulging through his flannel shirt replaced the vampire. The man had a thick beard, bushy eyebrows, and a look that indicated anger. Dr. Snowden peered at the notes and noticed that like with the vampire, the crew died and the ship was destroyed, but not before the data transmitted. It appeared this man turned into an animal when beamed up. “I guess this is a werewolf or something?”

“Close. They did not have a word to describe what animal it was, other than it was big, furry, and strong. It is a bear shifter and comes from another realm. They are not Daedrould. They are known as Outsiders. They too have specific energy signatures. The Krotovore most likely abducted him in his human form due to his unusual readings,” said Evaran.