Ancient Relics (Shadow of the Ancients Book 1) (7 page)

He shakes-off the comment and continues on his
duties as Logan marches past the officer over to his station.

“Lighten up Logan,” Paige remarks. “You have to eat,
drink, sleep, and work with these guys for at least the next year.”

Paige pauses for a moment at the thought of her
comment and shyly restates, “Well, maybe not ‘sleep’ with… exactly, but you get
my drift.”

Logan turns on his workstation’s DataCom interface
and logs in.

“I know,” he replies, “Just give me some time to
wake up first.”

Paige shakes her head with a glowing smirk, “Oh,
Logan. What should we do with you?”

Paige laughs to herself and walks to her station to
begin her work.

While The Wayfarer was en route to the wastes of
Orsen II to unlock its potential cache of secrets, two Drak nobles on
Dragonlyre forge plans in a secret meeting.

Even though Nobles make up the majority of the
civilian government, the military rules. By command of the Emperor, a
democratic-like civilian government controls the economy, legislation, and
everyday administration of the empire.

Their purpose is to govern the empire in the absence
of military presence or on behalf of the Emperor himself.

If the Emperor does not like a law the nobles have
passed, he can strike it down without question, however the Emperor keeps most
laws in favor of allowing the larger masses to govern themselves.

This leaves more time for important matters of
state, like wars.

The Noble cast breaks down more casually than
military structures, as noble families join their Houses by assignment. The
Houses of the empire take the names of the founding members.

The most notable houses are the Regalis House, the
Amun’ti House, the Tempest House, and the Gax House. The oldest of the Houses
is the Regalis House.

No one knows of the origin story of the Regalis
family, therefore the Regalis House initiates only the most notable children of
certain families into the house at birth.

Each House has a Family. Family members can be born
into the family or 'adopted.'

An adoption is essentially when an adopting family
officially names a Noble without a Family, or an honorable member of an outcast
Family, as being a new member of the family.

Noble circles do not use ranks as the military does,
but instead use lineages.

A person noted as being the First Cousin to the
House Head, or patron Family leader, simply take on the lineage of First Cousin
of the named house.

The title Kirill and Siti, or Lord and Lady
respectively, denote the prestige of the family member.

Kirill Seryeshka, Eldest son of the House Regalis
and Patron of the Family, calls for a meeting with his protege Siti Subira.

Kirill Seryeshka is a Drakein of normal stature and
girth. Smaller in comparison to Emperor Seesh, Seryeshka is still taller than
the average humanoids of the Alliance.

The Kirill's leathery skin is dark green to the
point of almost being black. He has no special markings or adornments, like
most other Drakein. By this account, other Drakein often see Seryeshka in a
feminine light.

Often they tease the Kirill as being less Drak than
a female Tharisian.

As patron of the Regalis House, Seryeshka holds
responsibility for both his family and the empire. His favor and opinion holds
a vast amount of weight among the Noble houses as a well- known and respected
member of the empire, despite the teasing.

If they only knew the irony Kirill Seryeshka has
in-store for the Empire, the other Nobles would not be so quick to tease the
leading civilian ruler of the Drak Empire.

The protege Seryeshka has summoned for this secret
meeting is his right hand, and a powerful woman she is. Cloaked in a long
hooded robe, which hides her beneath a dark shadow, Drak nobles and commoners
both move aside to allow her passage unhindered.

Siti Subira is a tall and slender Kamelein with a
foreboding presence.

She walks up to the door of the Regalis House and
makes her presence known by pressing a button on a control panel next to the
main door of the house.

Waiting for an answer to her call at the door,
Subira looks around her environment to gauge her security status, looking for
would-be attackers and spies.

The door to the house opens and a Squamein servant
greets Siti Subira, motioning her into the house.

As she enters, the servant closes the door and
escorts her to the house study.

The house is large, with relics of ancient
paintings, sculptures, and furniture adorning the halls and rooms.

As Siti Subira and her guide enter the main study, a
voice from a chair welcomes her. Directly opposite the door, Kirill Seryeshka
sits facing with his back towards the door, peering out a large window
overlooking the lower levels of the city.

“I see you have arrived, my young apprentice,” the
voice of her master welcomes her.

Siti Subira walks toward the middle of the study as
she replies, “Yes, Kirill. I made preparations to come upon reception of my
invitation.”

The pivoting chair hiding her master’s presence
turns around to reveal Kirill Seryeshka sitting behind a large metallic desk
covered in trinkets, DataCom pads, and a monitor inlaid in the center of the
desk.

“Come and sit, my dear. Sit,” Seryeshka says while
motioning to a chair across from him.

Siti Subira walks over to the chair and sits as her
master commanded.

“I have called you for a mission of great
importance,” he continues, “Intelligence reports that the Alliance captured one
of our scouting parties.”

Seryeshka stands and paces slowly around the desk
toward Subira. As he walks towards her, he picks up a DataCom and starts to
poke and prod the device.

“I am sending a file to your DataCom with the
details of your mission and the reports gathered by intelligence,” he says as
he continues his stroll.

While the file uploads to Siti Subira’s DataCom, she
rummages through the files that have already finished downloading. She reads
the files as Kirill Seryeshka continues his debriefing.

“Ghost Squadron is dispatched to search and
retrieve, if possible, this missing team. You are to accompany them and ensure
a secondary objective is met,” Seryeshka announces.

Looking at his protege, Seryeshka gauges her
understanding before completing his debriefing. After a short pause, satisfied
that Subira has no questions yet, Seryeshka finishes issuing his orders to her.

“The special objective Ghost Squadron is to complete
is to destroy any Alliance ships operating in the vicinity of the team,” he
pauses another brief moment before continuing, “This includes all Alliance
vessels en route, at the objective location, and upon returning. Leave no
survivors.”

Subira finishes her examination of the files and
looks up to Seryeshka. Nodding to show she understands Seryeshka’s orders,
Subira stands while replacing her DataCom pad back into her cloak.

Kirill Seryeshka smiles while examining Subira from
head to toe, as if inspecting her equipment before a mission. He raises his
hand gesturing towards the door, indicating he wishes to walk her out.

Taking her master’s lead, Subira turns to the door
and walks with Seryeshka.

“Good, I knew I picked the right person for this
job,” Seryeshka says as they walk, “Send me reports every step of the way.
Inform me of any problems or accomplishments.”

Subira nods one last time before taking her leave,
then bows to her master showing her respect to Kirill Seryeshka.

Seryeshka bows slightly back to Siti Subira and with
a malevolent tone says, “Then go, and kill.”

With that short message, Subira takes her leave to
meet up with Ghost Squadron before they embark on their voyage.

Since Seryeshka’s protege is Kamelein, her special
racial abilities may have influenced Seryeshka’s choice in proteges.

Due to their natural ability to blend into their
surroundings, armor and clothing prevent them from hiding, as only their skin
changes color and pattern.

The Kamelein use worn armor when needed, but most
Kamelein serve in the scout forces of the military or Special Forces, where
they wear no armor at all.

Most often, Kamelein simply wear robes, which may be
quickly and easily disposed of when they need to camouflage themselves.

The Research and Development division desperately
seeks a modulating light armor capable of adapting this same deceptive ability.
Accomplishing such a feat would provide the Kamelein with armor that adapts
with them, and provide adaptive camouflage armor for the rest of the military.

Although the Kamelein have the ability to blend into
their natural surroundings, they do have a base pigment.

The skin colors of the races vary only slightly.

The Drakein tend to have dark to light green primary
tones with dark or light red, yellow, and orange highlights. The Testudein have
a similar skin pigmentation.

The Kamelein, however, have a natural loam color.
Their eyes are always either yellow or red with elongated slits for pupils.
Their eyes give them superb night vision capabilities.

The Imperial Medical Corps attempts to find the
genetic code in Kamelein that give them their natural stealth and night combat
abilities to biologically engineer the perfect Drak super soldiers. For that
reason, Kamelein citizens may be tempted to join the Medical Corps upon
adulthood instead of the military.

Thin tentacle-like growths also grow from the upper
lips and lower jaws of the Drakein, Squamein, and Kamelein, much like you would
expect hair from a mammalian humanoid male.

Unlike the Testudein and Drakein, the Squamein and
Kamelein have flatter faces, more reminiscent of a humanoid face and head.

With fleshy mouth-like snouts, they have a better
ability to speak other languages than the Drakein and Testudein, making them
the prime choices as tradesmen and political ambassadors among the Drak races.

All of these factors make Siti Subira the best
candidate to act as the Empire's official ambassador to the Alliance, despite
her mission to kill any Alliance member she finds.

As the ambassadorial affiliate assigned to Ghost
Squadron, Siti Subira is set to travel to the Orsen system to make direct
contact with any Alliance vessels in the area, and destroy them.

As the Wayfarer's journey continues, the time comes
near for the crew to begin preparations to enter the Orsen system.

Flight data needs updating for uneventful
progression into the star system, to ensure there are no complications due to
magnetic or gravitational fields, radiation, or debris from the ancient nova
remnant.

Most star systems in the galaxy cannot be navigated
due to these reasons and more, so when exploring uncharted territory,
precautions must be made to ensure the safety of the ship and crew.

The bridge crew scurries about the bridge to make
all needed modifications to the bearing and speed of the ship. Computing of
flight logs, updating of data tables, storing of flight records, and assigning
prediction variables are all necessary to precede safely.

Furthermore, they establish navigation corridors to
isolate known dangers into pockets, or walls, so the navigator can avoid these
dangers.

While a ship is traveling between star systems, the
warp bubble produced from the warping of space diverts all mass away from the
bubble, like the bow of a sea vessel splitting the water.

At sub-warp travel, however, the only protection the
ship has is the plasma field around the ship.

These plasma field acts as a sort of shield against
smaller dangers, but are highly susceptible to electromagnetic interference,
such as the interference produced in nova remnants.

“Azimuth, One-Two-Zero Mark Seven. Ascension,
Four-Five. Full ahead, nacelle power only,” the Ship’s Commander, Commander
Mathias Asim, calls out.

“Azimuth, One-Two-Zero Mark Seven. Ascension,
Four-Five. Full ahead, on nacelle. Aye, Sir,” the navigator calls back.

“Comms open, all stations,” the Commander requests
to address the entire ship, “Prepare for a turbulent entry into the Orsen
system. All Damage Control crews to stations, Yellow Alert, all hands stand
by.”

Logan looks around at the other crew to confirm his
appraisal of their tension.

Everyone in the science room pauses as they expect
to hear one way or another if their ship is successful in navigating the
nebula.

“Tense,” Paige whispers towards Logan.

“I’m sure these guys are used to this. It’s our guys
I’m worried about,” Logan replies.

As the ship gingerly moves forward at speeds
actually closer to a comet, a near silence sweeps the ship.

Awaiting commands for stations or a stand-down order
from the Commander, the crew hold their positions awaiting further orders.

As the tension builds, a few turbulent bumps from
interstellar gas pockets from the nebula around the Orsen system periodically
break the silence.

Logan can hear a few sighs of relief among the dead
silence in-between breaks in the nebula.

“All clear. All stations stand-down. We have reached
the Orsen system. Congratulations everyone,” Commander Asim cries out after a
seemingly infinite pause in the crews awareness of time.

Logan looks around and listens as sighs signal
relief in every room on the ship from tense crew-members unaware that they held
their breath, releasing it upon confirmation that the ship navigated the nebula
safely.

“Wow!” Paige exclaims, “That was intense!”

Heard throughout the room is an exchange between
crew-members of laughter and congratulations.

Logan continues to look around at everyone, and then
when he fells the group had exchanged enough pats on the back, he stands to
address the team.

“OK, everyone,” he begins, “We’re here. Let’s get to
work on preparing for the away mission. Get the equipment loaded onto pallets,
prep and moor the shuttles, and let’s get this show underway.”

Immediately, the crew breaks into previously
determined teams and begin their assigned duties.

As matter transport systems have yet to be invented,
Logan and the expedition away team crew must travel down to the surface using
drop ships, which are heavy lifting shuttle craft.

Designed for both atmospheric and non-atmospheric
flight, these shuttles have adaptations to allow large crews and heavy
equipment to drop onto a planet’s surface with few incidents.

The traversing of ship-to-ground is less eventful
than an interstellar ship navigating a nebula, even under storm conditions.
Proper balancing and navigation systems allow shuttles to adjust automatically
to weather and atmospheric anomalies instantly.

The engine of shuttles use the power of the Graviton
particle to navigate through space and atmosphere. The intense energy produced
by the Graviton particle allows a ship to increase in altitude from a planet’s
surface, to reach orbital space with very little power required. The ships
consume less energy than the old space elevators of earlier times.

As each team, engrossed in their duties, prepares
the shuttles for launch, The Wayfarer sets stable orbit around Orsen II, the
speculated planet of the ruins.

Slightly out of range of the heliosphere of the red
giant that previously inhabited the system, the atmosphere mostly remains
intact, but the ground heated-up enough to cause structural destabilization and
some ground melting.

The atmosphere of Orsen II thinned, due to the
release of ionized gases during the nova of the system's star Orsen Sol. The
release of Orsen Sol’s energy was slow, and spread-out over time. It was not
like the commonly perceived Super Nova, where the star bursts at its seams and
releases all of its energy at once.

Orsen I was not as lucky. With a position just
outside of the coronasphere of the red giant, its entire atmosphere burned away
and the ground melted into a single, planet wide lake of molten rock.

Now all that remains of Orsen I is a charred
moon-like planet that orbits the white dwarf, outside of the dwarf’s sphere of
warmth.

Since Orsen II is further out, even though it has
retained much of its atmosphere, the planet is very cold. The cold and the thin
atmosphere require the team to wear Class II suits.

Like space suits, which are Class III, a Class II
suit’s design is for low-pressure atmospheres like Orsen II.

The teams finish their procedures and prepare to
launch the first wave of shuttles to the planet’s surface.

Logan walks through from shuttle to shuttle checking
and double-checking each shuttle before launch.

“Is this pallet part of this load out or the other
one,” Logan asks one of the deck hands.

A pallet stands alone between two shuttles,
seemingly disregarded by both shuttle crews.

“It’s extra, Sir,” the deck hand informs Logan.

“Extra?” Logan inquires.

“Yes, Sir. The shuttle this pallet is supposed to be
loaded on can’t hold any more pallets, because the shuttle has to carry four
extra passengers,” the deck hand explains.

“Four extra passengers? Why?” Logan continues his
inquiry.

The deck hand shows Logan a flight manifest and
points out one particular shuttle, “This shuttle has a faulty stabilizer, and
while it gets repaired we divided the crew into two equal parts. One half will
go on this chalk, while the other half stays to assist with repairs.”

Logan nods in acceptance, “Good job crewman. Let me
know when the damaged shuttle is ready. I’ll go down with it.”

“Aye, Sir,” the deck hand confirms.

After all shuttles depart, save for the one
undergoing repairs, Logan calls his main team together.

“I’ll be going down on this last shuttle with Paige
and Justine,” Logan begins to explain, “The rest of you stay here to sift
through the data and send back reports designating areas of interest.”

The remaining team members acknowledge Logan’s
orders and head back to their stations in the science lab.

Paige and Justine prepare their equipment and get
into their suits for their trip down to the surface.

Logan makes his final checks and suits up just as
the call comes in that repairs are complete on the broken shuttle and it is
ready for transport.

“The last of the pallets are loaded and the shuttle
is ready to disembark at your command, Sir,” the deck hand informs Logan.

Logan answers back on the comms relay, “Understood.
My team and I are on our way now.”

Logan, Paige, and Justine pile into the shuttle,
take their seats and strap in.

Shuttle seats come installed with safety harnesses
just in case a malfunction occurs, leading to a bumpy entry.

It does not occur often, but sometimes stabilizers
may break in flight, causing the occupants and loads to shift abruptly. Highly
trained and experienced flight crews tend to keep ships and other equipment
properly maintained and serviceable.

On the surface, Logan steps out of the shuttle and
takes in his first view of the forgotten wasteland.

“This is going to be a rough search,” Logan says
indicating that the planet is so barren that ground search will be extremely
difficult, if not impossible.