Dark Universe & Forbidden Love (9 page)

After Mark crash landed in one
of the black spots on the planet, he soon learned what those black spots were.
They were gases suspending 10 meters above the ground and the source of gases
were tens of thousands of elephant like creatures. It smelled very bad. The
face transformer couldn’t hold back the smell and by the time he walked out of
the spot, he threw up everything he had in stomach.

All Mark
was thinking about right now was finding a spacecraft so that he could get out
of here. He noted there were three deep wells arranged in triangle shape in the
distance. When he got closer, he could feel air was being sucked into those big
wells. Each of them was about 50 meters in diameter. While Mark was checking
how deep the wells went, he heard engine sound coming closer and closer. He hid
himself in one of the wells and saw a small vessel land not far away. Two
Glycans stepped out of it with guns in their hands. They were scanning the
ground with some kind of equipment. Then one Glycan suddenly pointed at Mark’s
direction and they ran towards him. Mark thought about jumping out of the well,
but that would be like a shooting practice. He took a deep breath and dropped
into the well.

After a
long ride down, he hit hard on a filter structure. The Glycan suit he was
wearing did help ease the impact a little. Mark stood on his feet and looked
up. The exit was now looked as big as a penny. He applied Laiehe bacteria on
the filter and passed through it. Then he went through some infrastructure and
entered a corridor where a few Glycans walked by from time to time. He followed
behind a group of Glycans and headed to the hangar. Some 10 heavily armed
Glycans rushed by him. That was what he worried. They might have find the
breach.

“All
personals return to your posts. All personals return to your posts.” A cold
voice came from the broadcast.

In the
conference room, General Kalan, commander of Glycan Seventh fleet, was
accompanied by General Doisgy, commander of Glycan Fourth fleet, General
Caytion, mission commander on planet Agirue and Zserie, the chief scientist.
They were talking about their kids before they learned about the breach. Doisgy
was the father of Didian. Caytion was the uncle of Carila and Zserie was the
father of Zier.

“How
this thing passed your patrol fleet?” Kalan said angrily as he turned to Doisgy
who had a large build, a fat body and a round face with small eyes.

“I
don’t...don’t know. It might...I will find out.” Doisgy stammered and then
started to hail the fleet.

“Why we
didn’t see this coming from the scanner?” Kalan turned to Zserie.

“I am
not sure. It could mean this is one of us. Or it appears to be.” Zserie said
calmly. Just like his son Zier, Zserie was thin and had a long face.

“General
Kalan, we have sealed all the exits and entrances as you requested.” Caotian
said respectfully. He had a small figure, a wide face with round eyes, much
shorter compared with the other three.

“Very
well. Scan every room and compartment. Check everyone’s identity.” Kalan
ordered.

“Right
away.” Caytion said.

“I got
the report from my fleet. Thirty minutes ago, the motion detector sensed
something on the ground. A patrol vessel was sent to check it out. They found
the footprint leading to one of the ventilation tube.” Doisgy said as he showed
the location on the screen.

“And
when it got in through the filter, it triggered our security system.” Caytion
said.

“They
also found a capsule in the middle of a black spot. It was very small. That was
why it went undetected and the capsule itself had some kind of decomposition
mechanism. There isn’t much left when we found it.” Doisgy said.

“You
mean self-destruction?” Zserie asked.

“You can
say that, but this was some kind of biological decay.” Doisgy said.

“So
whoever in the capsule cannot flee the planet. Then there must be someone
waiting in the space. Double the patrol in the outer space!” Kalan said.

“We
should bolster the security at Hylocan eyeball stockroom, the big eyeball and
the prison cell.” Zserie said.

“Those
three rooms were closely monitored and heavily guarded all the time. I will
send more securities there.” Caytion said.

“Keep
monitoring those places but remove securities at those doors.” Kalan said.

“You
want to use them as baits.” Doisgy said.

“Yes and
I am more interested in catching the bigger fish.” Kalan said. He wanted to
know how they found this planet.

Before
the hallway and corridors cleared out, Mark pretty much tried every door he
could open. But he still couldn’t find the hangar. After another 10 minutes, he
entered an enormous room the size of 10 football fields, with a ceiling as high
as 50 stories. The first and only thing caught him eyes was the gigantic
eyeball sitting right in the center of the room. It had a diameter over 100
meters, its sclera white and its iris dark red. It seemed that the eyeball
sensed his presence, because the blue pupil was moving within the iris to look
at him. Mark couldn’t believe what he saw. While he was walking towards it, he
suddenly felt a sharp pain on his head. He fell on the ground like a stone.

It was the third day of the
selection. Even though Gloria was only able to hear Jason’s voice for several
seconds a day, she felt happy and satisfied. In her world, her parents used to
be the only ones caring about her. But now it was different. She knew Jason
cared about her and he was waiting for her to come back.

During
the first three days, Gloria climbed over mountains, swam across rivers and
stumbled through swamps. She collected fruits and caught small animals for
food. She had finished four checkpoints. Those checkpoints not only verified
participant’s presence in the selection, but also directed participants to the
next checkpoint. There were still two checkpoints left for Gloria. The last
checkpoint would determine a participant’s rank in the selection. It was also
where participants boarded space vessels to leave the planet.

Gloria
stopped by a female Glycan’s corpse and checked its body for anything useful.
She had seen hundreds of dead Glycans, if not thousands. She also saw many
injured ones, but she didn’t help anyone of them. There was no time.

“Damn
it.” Gloria cursed as she didn’t find anything useful.

She
slowly stood up and checked her back. The pain on her back had been slowing her
down and it was getting worse. She reached back and located the pain. It was at
her lower back, deep in the bone. Gloria let out a sigh. She couldn’t find any
medicine or help here. She had no choice but to go on.

By the
time of midnight, she reached the Fourth checkpoint, a colossal structure like
a reversed pyramid. There were numerous doors at the base of the structure.
Gloria could see other Glycans walking inside the structure one after another.
She randomly picked a door and saw a keypad on the jamb and there were 10
different symbols which stood for 0 to 9 in Glycan’s numeral system. On the
lintel there were 2, 3, 5. Gloria pressed the symbol meaning 9 on the keypad.
The ground below her formed a vortex and she dropped in it. She landed in a
tiny room with dimmed light. On one of the walls, there was a quantum physics
question. Gloria knew this was the punishment for the wrong answer. As she was
thinking about it, the room was getting darker and darker. She drew the answer
on the wall and a door appeared on another wall. Gloria walked through it and
found herself on a narrow bridge. Another puzzle popped up right in front of
her. It showed a diagram which had several dash lines in it and it read “Which
diagram results from folding along the dash lines?” There were several options.
At the same time, the bridge was becoming narrower. She took a deep breath and
picked an answer. It was correct and the bridge went back to its original
shape. Another 20 questions came out like this and Gloria managed to get most
of them right. There was a point when the bridge was just wide enough for her
feet. After all those questions, Gloria quickly ran across the bridge into the
next room. There she was given an exam to test her basic knowledge of Glycan
history. It was a long exam. By the time she finished, she felt her brain
fried. Her back was now hurting at every step she took. She shambled into next
room and it was an immense greenhouse filled with flowers and plants. She
stopped at a lawn and sat down. The soft green grass was so comfortable.

“I just
take a break. Just a minute.” She murmured tiredly.

Just
before she lay on her back, her badge flashed. She answered it and heard
Jason’s voice. She couldn’t tell what he said and it only lasted less than two
seconds. But his voice alone was like a stimulant. It reminded her Jason’s
promise. Gloria struggled to stand up, her body trembling in pain. She
continued on the path, further into the garden. After several minutes, she
began to realize that the garden was actually a huge maze. She picked up her
pace, searching for the exit. After an hour, she somehow returned to the same
place. She got scared and started to run like crazy. It didn’t help and only
made her back pain worse. She felt like somebody stabbing at her back with a
knife. It hurt so much that she couldn’t run anymore. She leaned against a tree
to catch her breath. Then it just came to her that maze was essentially made by
one very long wall. She closed her eyes and always touched the wall with one
hand. She kept walking and walking. After 2 hours, she got out of the maze.
There was another exam testing the logic thinking and reasoning. All questions
were basic and easy for Gloria. She was grateful that it was intelligence test
not physical test. Because she could barely stand on her feet.

By the
time she left the structure, it was the late afternoon of the fourth day. Now
she had to use a branch as a cane to walk. Worrying she couldn’t stand up
again, she didn’t even dare to sit down. Thousands of Glycans passed by her and
headed to the field in the distance. It was a military training ground filled
with all kinds of gears. She could see some kids climbing on the wall, running
on the log and jumping over barricades. She could barely feel her feet and it
took her four hours to walk just one kilometer. When she reached the field, it
was already midnight. Exhausted and hungry, she was losing it.

“I will
finish this. I will go back. My mom and dad are waiting for me. Jason is
waiting for me.” She said to herself as she dropped the cane and stepped on a
log. It was placed across a big hole which was 30 meters in diameter and ten
meter deep. Gloria slowly stumbled on the log, heading to the other side. When
she just reached the halfway, she felt an unbearable pain on her back as if
someone axed her in half. Her brain went blank and she couldn’t feel her lower
body anymore. Gloria lost her balance and fell into the hole. She crushed on
her chest and passed out.

Jason was in the middle of a
heavy fog. Someone was crying and circling around him. He tried to catch it but
his feet were so heavy that he couldn’t even make a move. Wondering why, he
looked down at his feet. Everything was fine, but when he wanted to take a
step, tens of hands grew out of ground and grabbed his feet. If he gave up,
those hands disappeared right away. He reached down to touch those hands. They
were soft and felt like someone’s hand he held before. He dug into the ground
to see who those hands belonged to and the end of the arm was another hand and
it held another hand tightly. He was scared at this scene. At this moment, the
fog slowly cleared out. Jason found himself standing in the center of Glycan’s
library. The ceiling was packed with thousands of heads.

“What is
this?” Jason said to himself.

Right at
this moment, all those heads turned to Jason simultaneously. They were all
Gloria.

“Gloria!
Gloria! What happened?” Jason shouted in panic.

Thousands
of Gloria smelled at Jason with bloody tears bursting out of her eyes.

“Ah,
aaaaaah!”Jason screamed. He tried to run but those hands grabbed his feet.
Blood soon flooded the ground and formed an ocean. It rose quickly to his
knees, waist, chest and neck. Jason stretched out his neck as far as he could.

“Ah,
aah, aaaaah!” Jason screamed.

Suddenly,
he felt everything was shaking as if he was in the middle of an earthquake.

Jason
opened his eyes.

It was a
dream.

He sat
up on the bed. Erikon and Lucis were standing beside him.

“Bad
dream?” Erikon asked caringly.

Jason
nodded, still in shock.

“You
called Gloria several times.” Lucis said.

“Yes,
yes.” Jason wheezed. All of a sudden, he shot out of the bed, grasped his
uniform and took out the family badge Gloria gave him. He made a call to Gloria
but nobody answered it. He tried again but still got nothing.

“Something
is wrong. Something is wrong.” Jason murmured.

“What is
that, Man?” Lucis asked as he pointed at the badge.

“It is a
communicator. Gloria gave it to me.” Jason said hastily as he walked back and
forth.

“You
said something is wrong?” Erikon asked.

“She
didn’t answer the call.” Jason said desperately.

“Maybe
she was busy. You know.” Erikon said easily.

“No, No.
There is something wrong. I can feel it.” Jason said quickly and he made
another call. He still got nothing.

“If she
is on the selection planet, they probably block the communication. What are you
doing?” Lucis asked as he saw Jason putting on his uniform.

“I don’t
have time to explain this. I gotta go.” Jason said quickly as he headed to the
doorway.

“What?
Where are you going?” Lucis said as he grabbed Jason’s arm. At the same time,
Erikon jumped right in front of Jason.

“You
don’t want to know. Erikon, get out of my way.” Jason said coldly.

“I am
not going anywhere unless you tell me. Man, Calm down. Calm down. I...” A sharp
pain on the nose stopped Erikon. Jason just punched Erikon on his nose.

“Jason,
what are you doing?” Erikon yelled.

“I don’t
want to get your guys in trouble. Understand?” Jason said coldly as he passed
Erikon.

“You are
going to planet Etitaeg, right?” Lucis asked.

“Yes.”
Jason said as he hit a button to open the door.

“And how
do you plan to get there?”

“I will
pilot Cruiser General Klizan.” Jason said and headed out.

“Are you
out of mind? Jason, listen, Jason!” Lucis shouted. But it was too late.

It was
early in the morning. Jason rushed to the museum and entered the cruiser using
the crystal. He quickly made his way to the bridge. When he just finished
putting the crystal on the ceiling, the light on his watch was flashing. It was
Sayilin. Jason answered the call.

“Jason,
would you please open the door?” Sayilin asked patiently.

“What
are you talking about?” Jason asked in confusion.

“The
door you just used to get in the cruiser.” Sayilin said calmly.

“What?”
Jason asked in shock.

“We are
waiting, six of us.” Sayilin said happily.

“Are you
sure you want to get in?” He asked slowly.

“What do
you think?” Titainein shouted.

Jason
opened the door and soon all his teammates arrived at the bridge. When Lucis
told them where Jason was heading to, his friends just couldn’t let him risk
his life and sat there doing nothing. Looking at his friends, Jason knew he
didn’t need to tell them how dangerous it was going to be. Right now they were
waiting for his order.

“The
bridge is very similar to the one we were trained on. Let’s get into positions.
Vampire, you take navigation. Erikon, go to the dark engine room and wait for
my order. Sayilin, pilot position. Idi, radar control. Titainein,
communication. Orizy, weapon system” Jason said quickly.

Erikon
headed to the engine. Others quickly got into their positions.

“Erikon,
the door is open. Let me know when dark engine is ready.” Jason talked to
Erikon using his watch. 

“Copy that.”

“Navigation
is online and ready.” Lucis said as he brought up the galaxy mapping interface.

“Set the
course for planet Etitaeg.” Jason said hastily.

“Communication
ready.”

“Piloting
system is online.” Sayilin said.

“All
defensive weapons are online. Authorization code is required for the use of
offensive weapon and we don’t have one.” Orizy said.

“Noted.”
Jason said.

“Jason,
dark engine is online. We need to extract more dark energy.” Erikon called in
on Jason’s watch.

“Radar
is clear. It is still early.” Idi said easily.

“Sayilin,
take her out.” Jason said.

The
ceiling slowly opened. Cruiser General Klizan blasted off into the space like a
silver bullet.

“This is
weird.” Titainein said as the cruiser was extracting the dark energy from the
surrounding.

“What is
it?” Jason asked.

“The
flight control didn’t hail us. They always ask flight plan and other stuff.”
Titainein said.

“In this
case, we are lucky. What do we say if they ask?” Lucis said.

“Jason,
you really surprise us sometime.” Titainein said happily.

“You
mean this cruiser?” Jason asked.

“No, I
meant you scored a date with a first species.” Titainein chuckled.

Others
also smiled at Jason.

“Jason,
dark engine is ready to roll.” Erikon called in.

“Lucis?”
Jason asked.

“The
course is set. 280 billion light years. Estimate time is four hours and 12
minutes. We are ready to enter dark matter passageway.” Lucis said.

“Sayilin,
punch it.” Jason said decisively.

Sayilin
pushed the throttle forward.

Under
the hull, the black liquid from the dark engine started to circulate and it
moved faster and faster. The cruiser started to blend into the background. When
the circulating liquid reached maximum velocity, cruiser disappeared into the
dark matter passageway.