Lokians 1: Beyond the End of the World (18 page)

“
Korit. Open a line to the ambassador,
please,” O’Hara said.

He nodded and set his comm. for the correct
channel. “Whenever you’re ready, Captain.”

“
Tell him we’ve cleaned out the
Lokians, that there isn’t much here, and that I’m sorry we couldn’t
do more, but I….”

After the Thewl relayed the information, he
gave the ambassador’s reply. “He says he understands. This is the
way things go when dealing with Lokians anyway. He’s putting the
admiral on now.” Another moment of silence ensued between O’Hara
and Korit. Others were talking about the items the agents had
recovered. “Yew wants to know if anything at all turned up. I told
him there might be something.”

“
Tell him we’re returning,” Franklin
said. “We need to reorganize, and we have these.”

He held the items up. O’Hara agreed a return
was the best option.

“
Ain’t leaving them here like this,
Cap,” Martinez snipped.

He nodded, and they all worked together to
recover whatever bodies were relatively intact; there wasn’t much
of Becker or some of the Thewls. A silent journey back through the
tunnels ensued; an endless slog. When they reached their
destination, they climbed out to raging winds and a flurry of snow.
Multiple rovers idled as the drivers awaited the crew. Before
anyone boarded a vehicle, they piled corpses into one. Finally,
they started a return trip for the Explorer.

****

Aboard the vessel, members of Phoenix Crew
went straight for the showers. Hot water wasn’t enough to wash away
nightmarish scenes, which played behind closed eyes. O’Hara still
heard screams.

Once docking procedures were announced over
speakers, the captain and the agents met with Korit, Weh, and Yew
on the Carrier’s bridge. Admiral Yew was eager to see what they had
recovered. He palmed the canister, looking over the markings. Then,
he inspected the ziggurat. He admitted he had no idea what either
meant or if they were anything more than nick-nacks.

“
We’ll attempt to decipher the
canister,” he sighed. “In the meantime, I’ll have my men run tests
on the ziggurat.” He handed the objects off to his kind. “I truly
am sorry you’ve been personally pulled into this mess, and
truthfully, things are only going to get worse.”

“
Agreed,” Weh said. “If we can’t locate
the travelers then our only option is to unite with your kind and
the Yvlekesh.”

O’Hara was pensive. “Why not just take that
action to begin with?”

“
Your government has already kept our
meeting a secret, not to mention they have more secrets than you
know,” he said as he looked over Adams and Franklin. “On top of
that, your people would also have to build relations with the
Yvlekesh, and we both know how difficult it is to build such
relations. Furthermore, the Yvlekesh are not much more advanced
than Humans, though they do have some experience in fighting
Lokians.”

“
All-in-all, O’Hara, fighting the
Lokians is like trying to solve a puzzle; we must take one piece at
a time and find where it fits. Only once we have done our due
diligence can we either place that piece or move on to the next
one.”

“
If you’ll excuse us, we have reports
to file,” Franklin started.

“
Once we wrap up our reports, we’ll be
more than happy to answer whatever questions you might have,
Captain,” Adams added.

O’Hara narrowed his eyes and took a deep
breath. He was getting angry. He turned his head and looked over
the ambassador, and then the admiral.

“
They certainly know more than they
reveal,” Weh commented.

“
Do you think they’re dangerous,”
O’Hara asked.

“
There is no doubt they are on our
side, but they are clearly not under our control.”

“
I have reports to file, too, and a
crew to check on,” O’Hara said and began to walk away.

“
Captain,” the admiral
spoke.

“
Yes,” he asked over his
shoulder.

“
An effective leader knows how to
remain objective.”

O’Hara nodded and exited the bridge.

****

Back on the Explorer, in the mess hall, an
overabundance of questions plagued his mind. Something told him
Adams and Franklin were waiting for those questions, and without
asking, they weren’t going to reveal anything, which made him
wonder who they really were, what they were doing there, and what
connection they had to Lay. Sitting uncomfortably in a Thewlian
chair, he observed his alien acquaintances eat.

Nearly all of them wore battle attire. The
ones who didn’t instead wore thick robes of varying colors. A Thewl
caught his eyes, so he looked away.

Grumbling to himself, he waited impatiently
for the agents to show. He had called them over ten minutes ago.
With too much idle time, his concern shifted from tardy agents to
guilt over deaths. Never again were those cherished lives going to
grace the world with their smiles.

Finally, he saw the men in pinstriped suits
wander in. “Let’s start with those questions, Captain,” Adams began
and took a seat.

No sooner had he opened his mouth to start
that Franklin interjected, “To begin with, the Thewls are not our
first contact race.”

“
Correct, we first made contact with a
race simply known as the
Grays
in the 1940’s,” Adams
revealed.

O’Hara arched his brows as he set his jaw; he
had heard of the Grays. “The Grays were actually created by another
race. They were genetically engineered to carry out certain tasks,”
Franklin continued.

“
From their technology, we were able to
reverse engineer a few things, patent a few ideas, and finally, in
1963, we created The Bureau,” Adams said.

Every time one of them spoke, O’Hara gave his
attention, but they kept interrupting each other. He hated how just
one bit of Intel was provided, and then, the other one gave the
next bit; he was in no mood for their quirks, and demanded that
just one of them give a complete answer.

“
Of course,” Franklin feigned a
smile.

“
We made little contact with the race,
which created the Grays,” Adams said.

“
Apparently, they weren’t interested in
building relations. Then, other occurrences took place; the
androids on the moon, the pyramids on Mars, and finally our
knowledge of the Sumerian culture,” Franklin said.

“
Right, the Sumerians clearly had
contact with the travelers. It wasn’t until Christianity took root
that some of this knowledge was squelched, though I do believe much
of it is available to the proper eyes,” Adams said then
paused.

O’Hara’s lips were crinkled in irritation. He
was trying to soak it all in without exploding from the fact that
they had not heeded his demand. On top of that, he was angry over
the fact that such important knowledge wasn’t made public, nor had
it been provided to him at the onset of their mission.

“
Why was this kept secret?”

“
Actually, it wasn’t,” Adams
answered.

“
No, there were some authors and
entertainers, even a few Presidents, who tried to bring it to
light,” Franklin added. “From Sitchen to Reagan…yeah.”

“
There was always a global, control
issue. The governments of the world needed to keep this information
quiet in order to push their agenda,” Adams explained.

“
A lot changed after we began
harvesting resources off planet. Suddenly, those agendas lost their
impetus. There was also the fact that the Sumerians’ alien friends
never returned,” Franklin finished.

Agendas? Impetus? World leaders knew this
stuff and didn’t think to share that we are not alone in the
universe?
He was in disbelief, but knew they weren’t lying.
Watching their relaxed demeanor, something finally clicked in his
mind.

“
So, you two were sent from The Bureau
once you learned Admiral Lay made contact with Thewls. Then, he
distanced himself by putting me in charge, but why me?”

“
Yes, we came to establish our own
contacts,” Adams replied.

“
The Bureau is always trying to
expand,” Franklin confirmed. “We’re a Human establishment. What we
do is build relations with aliens and handle everything privately.
We’ve no direct, governmental involvement, though we have agents
working for the government. When Thewls popped up, and Lokians with
them, we had to come check things out.”

“
Wait!” when he shouted, some Thewls
glanced over at the commotion. “Why send two agents? Shouldn’t
there be more of you, and why did you let us get involved with
something so dangerous without the proper training?”

“
It isn’t so simple,” Franklin
answered, and for the first time, he exhibited an actual expression
of emotion; he ground his teeth and looked away.

“
There’s no way for us to train the
military for fighting aliens, and all aliens are different,” Adams
added. “So, we’re training you, at Lay’s recommendation, no less. I
know this is tough—a lot to take in—but when it’s time, we’ll build
a force worthy of taking this new threat out once and for
all.”

A Thewl came in to the mess hall, then. He
looked about the room, easily spotting the Humans, and made a dash
for O’Hara. “Captain, the ambassador requests your audience.”

Exhaling powerfully, he crawled from his
seat. All three men went to the bridge. The march allowed O’Hara a
moment of mental respite.

As soon as they set foot on sea foam carpet,
Weh spoke. “Your comrade, Nandesrikahl, helped us to ascertain that
the canister you recovered tells a story, one we believe is a clue
to where the travelers may have gone. You see, the travelers spent
their lives delving deep into the knowledge of the universe. They
explored a great many regions. They mastered space travel,
colonization, and the inner workings of all particles, so they set
themselves upon the task of learning how to manipulate energy.

“
First, they used external devices to
help; they fashioned special ships then suits, and later, they
learned to manipulate energy without aid. Apparently, they no
longer function like most, sentient life. They don’t age or
reproduce. They have become…something else.”

“
What?” O’Hara shrugged, involuntarily.
“You said you know where they went. What does this story have to do
with that?”

“
The story ends with their exodus. The
life they live now is different from the life they lived when they
helped us, so many years ago. If they can manipulate energy, there
is no telling where they are or what they are doing,” the
ambassador replied.

“
You did say there was a clue as to
where they might have gone,” Franklin said with a condescending
tone.

“
There is a clue. We just need to know
where one might travel once a full understanding of energy
manipulation is acquired.”

Adams and Franklin exchanged a glance and
winced. The captain shook his head at their similarity in
mannerisms before returning his attention to the ambassador.

“
Any news on the ziggurat?”

“
Not yet. Soon, I hope. It may be our
only chance….”

O’Hara nodded. “Guess we should get some rest
then.”

Chapter Eleven

In an effort to calm his nerves and drown his
sorrows, Swain went to the weapons’ lab, an entire deck of the
Carrier. Thewls there were kind and patient, explaining everything
he needed to know to perform repairs himself. An engineer showed
him a hologram.

“
It’s a magnetic field containing
photons,” the engineer started. “Essentially, it works like a
windshield in which two panes of glass sandwich a thin sheet of
plastic. In this case, two magnetic fields sandwich a sheet of
photons. The fields arrange the photons in a particular way to
prevent the passage of atoms.”

“
Here, let me show you how to retrofit
your gear,” the armorer said as he nabbed some Human
equipment.

Together, they replaced the battle damaged
plating from Swain’s suit with an Element-115 alloy. Oddly, the
Thewl word for it sounded like a baby choking on a fur ball, so
Swain jokingly called it
Swainium
, which to his surprise,
they liked. Swainium plates were lighter, more durable, and
slightly more flexible, which gave the big man an idea; fashion
bullets from the material to refill the Human crew’s magazines.

Since Thewlian guns were too wide to be
carried by Humans, and creating smaller ones took a great amount of
time, new ammunition was a simpler solution. After a thorough
examination of Thewlian technology, Swain retired to his sleeping
quarters.

The rest of the crew was already sleeping.
They had been onboard for over nine hours by then, not a long time
for Phoenix Crew, but recent events had left them emotionally
exhausted. Even Adams and Franklin napped. Nightmares awakened some
of the crew while others only tossed and turned.

Zakowski, who was an early riser anyway,
rolled out of bed and marched for the mess hall. When he finally
found it, he nabbed a tray and piled on all kinds of weird looking
foods. DeReaux and Fitzpatrick joined him by the time he sat
down.

“
It seems none of us are sleeping well,
eh,” he asked.

“
God, what did I grab? What is this,”
Zakowski chuckled.