War for Orion: Ghosts from the Past (27 page)

"Why did you stop me when I came down if you
knew I was going to search for these races?"

"I wanted to see if you'd tell me why you
were really here. I wanted to know if I could trust you."

"Well, thanks for finding everything for
me."

"Not like a humanoid has anything else to do
down here," Camillus winked. "That's why I let Kanti look for her
parents. It gave me someone to talk to for a little while. It gets
very lonely down here staring at black screens all day and
night."

"I'll come back to see you when I've found
where the Deimos Brotherhood is,." Anlon promised. "Thank you so
much for helping me out."

"You're welcome, Anlon. I'll see you again
soon," he waved.

Anlon got on the elevator, inserted the key,
and entered the code again. The elevator lurched up and he waited
for the doors to slide open so he could quickly get out of the
prison.

"Anlon?" He bumped into Kanti on his way off
of the elevator. "What are you doing here?"

"I..."

"You're the one who took Giustino's key from
his desk!"

"Why were
you
looking for it?" Anlon
stepped back.

"I was going to use it for something
personal," she admitted. "The more important question is, why were
you in the database alone."

"I was handling personal stuff too."

"What kind of personal stuff involves
breaking into a prison and stealing information from the database?"
she squinted.

"Kanti," Anlon started. "It's really
complicated and I wish I could tell you, but I can't right
now."

"Complicated," she mocked. "I got kicked off
of your case because I was standing up for you, only to catch you
doing this. You're all dressed up like some sort of spy and who
knows
how you got in here. Looks like Giustino was right
about you."

Anlon shut his eyes. "I promised to tell you
what was going on when I got back from Hera."

"Then you snuck back to Gaea so no one would
know you were here," She crossed her arms. "Why? So you wouldn't
have to tell me what's going on?"

"You have to promise not to tell anyone,"
Anlon grabbed her hands. "This is very serious stuff. Dangerous
stuff."

"I promise. I'm not on your case anymore, so
what does it matter what you tell me?" She cocked her head and
smiled. "I'm not required to tell Giustino anything anymore."

"I lied to you and Giustino about how much I
knew that first day I was questioned," Anlon admitted.

"Giustino knows as much and I got kicked off
the case because I insisted that you weren't hiding anything.
Obviously I was wrong about that."

"I'm sorry Kanti," he replied. "I wanted to
find the races myself. I didn't want you guys to get to them before
I did."

"Why Anlon? That's our job. Why wouldn't you
want us to find them for you?"

"I wanted to kill them myself. I didn't want
someone else to do it for me after what they did to my family."

"That's foolish Anlon! You can't kill these
races yourself! Look at what they did to your family! How could you
possibly think going after them is even a good idea?"

Anlon held his hands up. "It's different now.
I'm not going on some crazy quest to kill them anymore."

"How is it different? You're obviously still
trying to find these races."

"The Queen called me to Hera because she had
a feeling I knew more than I told you."

"She was right," Kanti muttered.

"While I was there, those same races showed
up to assassinate the Queen!"

"What? The same ones that murdered your
family?" she asked. "I haven't heard anything about the Queen
surviving an assassination attempt."

"It happened in her Palace," Anlon said. "But
they were the same exact races! They tried to kill her Kanti!"
Anlon exclaimed. "My father was only the first part of their plan.
The Deimos Brotherhood still plans to do much more."

"How did she survive?"

"I saw them and ran to the Queen to stop the
poisoned food from getting to her. That's when she told me that she
needed help finding where these races are staked out."

Kanti raised her eyebrows. "Your help? How
could you possibly help her find them when she has the GSOU and all
of those other resources at hand?"

"It's complicated. She has people inside the
Palace that are working for the Deimos Brotherhood and I'm the only
one she can trust not to leak any information. If I don't find
them, then Orion is doomed."

"You don't have any experience or training in
this type of thing. How are you supposed to find these races?"

"I'm training at Moran's and he is going to
help me with getting weapons and a ship to get to the Deimos
Brotherhood."

"Were you able find the races in the
database?" Kanti asked, seemingly intrigued at the new
developments.

"Sort of. They're on Erebos, but that's as
much as I know. It's a start and it's further than the Queen would
be able to get without someone sticking in false information. It's
now my job to find their hidden base and report it to the
Queen."

"When are you leaving for Erebos?"

"Soon. I have finish my training first."

Kanti took a step towards him. "I'm going
with you when you leave."

"You can't come with me, it's dangerous! Plus
you work here, you can't just get up and leave to go with me."

She grabbed his hands. "I was going to the
database to look for my parents one last time before I left here
for good," she admitted. "I know you, so I would rather leave Gaea
and stay with you instead of leave alone to start a new life
somewhere else all over again."

"It's too dangerous to go with me," he
insisted.

She shrugged. "No more dangerous than
sneaking off to another planet where I could just as easily be
killed or made a slave. I won't truly be safe anywhere if I'm on my
own. I'm better with someone else that I know."

"Are you sure this is what you want to do?"
Anlon squeezed her hands.

"Yes," She nodded. "I only came here to find
my parents and it looks like I have none after all. You're the
closest person left I have to family. We need to stay
together."

"I can ask Moran if I can take you
along."

"I'm going either way, so you might as well
tell
him I'm going along with you."

"I'll try to," Anlon nodded, not sure he'd
have any success. "Here's the key. I need to get out of here before
I get caught by any guards. I'll keep in touch with you."

Anlon went back down the hallway that he had
come down and made his way back up to the roof. He hadn't spotted a
single guard the entire time he had been in the prison, which was
strange, but that didn't mean that there weren't any roaming
around. After reaching the glider, he hopped on and activated the
pulse jammer, before speeding off into the darkness.

Jahdiel sat in the commander seat above all
of the crew working intently on navigational computers below her.
She was in the Mother Colchian, the supreme commanding ship of the
Crodillian fleet. The Colchian was unimaginably large to anything
she had ever seen before being outcast to the Black Hole with its
oblong oval shape and hangar in the center of the ship. This was
the very ship that had intercepted her all of those years ago when
she had been floating aimlessly through space after surviving the
impossible journey through Black Hole.

The Crodillians had made contact with her and
had ordered her to land the ship in their hangar. It had looked
like they were initially going to fire on her, but for some odd
reason they had held back. There had been other broken ships
floating in the black space around her, obviously destroyed by
them, but none looked anything like her ship. She had obeyed their
orders without question and landed on their ship, praying that she
live another day.

After landing, strange looking beasts had
approached her ship, but she had still lowered her ramp and allowed
them to enter against will of her mind. The beasts looked even more
hideous close up, but she had been confronted with only
friendliness, despite their monstrous looks.

The monsters were a very thin and frail race
with a yellowish hue of skin and a curved spine that made them
appear as if they were constantly slouching. They had egg-shaped
head that glowed and viscous teeth coming out from their mouths
that matched the long claws on the ends of their hands. Without
much as a single word, they had brought her to their commander
Merikh and he listened to her story of being wrongly outcast. He
believed that she was innocent of any crimes and had agreed to let
her live among them, even though she was obviously not one of them
and would have a hard time fitting in.

She had started off as simple crew member
doing tedious jobs, but quickly worked her way up to soldier, and
eventually, commander of the Mother Colchian. She was second in
command to only Merikh and she was in charge of leading attacks
against the Crodillian rebels.

The final attack on the rebels had just ended
in success. This attack had been fully planned by her, utilizing
four of the Crodillian fleets at max crew and fire-power. All four
fleets had been organized to attack the remaining rebel fleets
simultaneously from different locations in the Galaxy to obliterate
them in on final, and fatal, blow.

She stared out of the window at the rebel
wreckage floating aimlessly through space around her ship. Rebel
bodies floating torn in pieces aimlessly through space, all long
dead from prolonged exposure to space. The rebels had become weak
after fighting for over twenty-five years and had finally given up
in one hopeless last stand.

Jahdiel called Merikh on the ship's
communication system and made it so that all of the crew could see
his face displayed on the cockpit window. "All four of the fleets
have taken out the remaining rebel forces, Merikh."

Merikh slowly nodded. "Excellent job,
Jahdiel. We are glad to have taken you in as one of our own. You
have just played a tremendous role in taking out the enemies that
have been trying to wipe us out for countless years."

"There are still going to be remaining rebel
ships that didn't take part in the battles," Jahdiel pointed out.
"We should pursue them until there are none left. We can't leave a
single rebel alive if we can prevent it."

Merikh held up a hand. "Do not worry about
the remaining rebels. They are too small in numbers to pose any
real threat to us and our future plans."

"Are you sure Merikh? We should wipe them all
out, just to be sure there are no future attacks."

"I assure you that they will no longer be a
problem. You have shown great dedication to the Crodillian race
since being taken in. You have not seen your race in many years and
have lived side by side with a strange race. I can honestly say it
is more than I could ever do."

"There is no other race that I would rather
live with," Jahdiel smiled. "You have shown me love and compassion,
while my own race showed me death and hatred."

"I think it is time that we talk about what I
have planned next, now that the rebels have been taken care of. I
have some other plans that I am very eager to carry out and I'm
sure once you hear them, you will be too."

"Right now?" Jahdiel asked.

"No," he shook his head. "I will be landing
on Mother Colchian very soon. We will speak in private then."

She nodded and closed the communication,
quickly leaving her post to meet him in the hangar. The hallways
were crowded with celebrating Crodillians, making her push her way
through to get to the hangar as soon as possible. By the time she
reached the hangar, Merikh had already arrived and was walking
right to her.

He smiled at her, revealing his sharp teeth.
"I think it is time I reveal some very exciting and important news
to you Jahdiel. Very few know about it, but soon all will
know."

"What is it?" she asked. "It sounds like
you've been planning it for quite some time."

"After you appeared out of the Black Hole all
of those years ago, I sent scientists to it to start making
observations and further studies on it," He informed her. "After
countless bloody years of war, they have completed a piece of
groundbreaking technology. It was taken from the rebels to tell you
the truth, but it was improved upon greatly by my scientists. This
piece of technology, can send you
back
through the Black
Hole."

"The rebels had technology to travel through
the Black Hole?"

"They did," he nodded. "We have no knowledge
of them using it, so we don't know if they actually knew it could
take them through, but they had the technology my scientists were
looking for. We can only guess the rebels invented it to go through
the Black Hole, but it may have just been a coincidence. They were
fighting us to keep us from going through, so I'm a little baffled
this technology was in their possession since they were so against
the idea."

"I think I know where this is going," Jahdiel
started to smile. "You want to travel through the Black Hole."

"Well,
do
you want to go back to
Orion?"

She shook her head. "No. In all honesty, I
don't want to go back."

"Why wouldn't you want to go back to your
home Galaxy?" Merikh asked. "
This
Galaxy has sadly fallen
apart after years of war and will never be a good place to
live."

"There is no one left for me in Orion," She
looked at the ground. "They all think I'm a traitor and that I'm
dead. Even if this Galaxy is dead, I'm seen as a hero here, not an
outcast. Why would I want to go back somewhere where I'm seen as a
traitor and will be sent to death?"

"But you're not a traitor! You were wrongly
accused."