Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) (19 page)

Even though the ship had no seasons we still celebrated festivals based
on the seasons of an ancient Earth. Autumn’s festival came and hundreds of
humans celebrated eating and drinking food and wine sent to us from the
Aelita. They didn’t deliver it in person but instead they sent their autons who
stayed providing even more relief. I played my guitar at the festival with
Meddix playing drums and Hayden playing bass. Duv’Mir even joined in on
the fun surprising us all by showing us he could play guitar. We spent night
after night practicing together. We played music I had learned inside the
nexus as well as some songs we had created ourselves. There was very little
that beat the rush I felt watching people sing and dance. For hours we played
watching everyone celebrate until finally the hours passed by and what would
have been night turned into day and everyone exhausted settled back into
their quarters. The next several days were spent cleaning up and talking over
and over about the celebration.

Hayden developed a cybernetic arm for Brecca. The two of them
slowly grew closer and closer until finally they were never far from each
other. I even saw Brecca stay the night with Hayden several times. Most
would have looked down on a Drok and human spending so much time
together but people knew Hayden. They knew the things he had done to save
this ship. The differences between human and Drok were barely visible
anymore. Only some of the eldest held contempt and nobody cared what they
thought. First Descent as a whole was still one of the best squads on the
Erebus. We trained every other day and all of us had grown close. A man
named Addax replaced Lore. He had been a friend of Lore’s and volunteered.
He had twice as many cybernetics; Addax was more machine then human.
Addax had implants throughout his body; his eyes, arms, legs all installed by
the Arr7. He even carried an Arr7 consciousness - A.I. inside him. It fed him
battlefield data and information but it was so much more then that it was also
a companion. He named the A.I. 'Friday'.

I was with Balkava in the mess when we heard someone had spotted the
silhouette of a planet ahead of us. We were slowly repairing our relationship
with small talk and lunches. Soon the Aelita and the Erebus were flying side
by side through the immer. The Aelita was under the Erebus with its topside
facing the opposite direction of our own. Together both ships flew faster. The
Aelita was close enough you could reach out and touch it though you would
have lost your arm given the speed we were flying. The hulls of the ships
vibrated together as if they were one. Had the Tritan still been around it
would have joined the two ships tearing through the immer and out of the
darkness into the real.

When we arrived and came out of the immer we saw a massive star that
looked just like our own sun. The star was a dot in the distance our journey
from here would be done using the ion drives. We couldn’t risk pulling
anything out of the immer so close to our goal. It looked the way I had seen
our sun inside the nexus. It was immense larger then the star that Errikus
revolved around. The Erebus and Aelita flew through a gas cloud at the edge
of the system. We detected several gas giants and one rocky planet alongside
millions of asteroids. The way the asteroids were scattered was similar to the
asteroid belt that lay behind Mars in Earth’s planetary system. It was perfect.
Each asteroid was high in rare metals and natural elements. The rare metals
made this area of space nearly invisible to radar and other tools we had relied
on for so long navigating the stars. They also blocked the exact location of the
planet we had discovered. We let loose several drones and began our final
search for Eden.

“This must be why it’s called a void in some old texts,” Balkava said.
“If you look from far away there is nothing here.”
There was more to it then that. There wasn’t a star in the sky. Not even the
light from Errikus had made its way here. It didn’t seem possible that we
were so far away from stars that there wouldn’t be some light from them.
People began talking telling stories about dark matter refracting the light
around us. That was why this place could only be reached by the immer. It
was a hidden wild area of space. This was why some called this area the void.
We had finally reached our destination.

It took three days for us to
find the planet. It wasn’t what we thought. Two of
our drones were flying through the goldilocks section of space when they
disappeared. We went to full alert preparing ourselves for attack. When we
were close enough several of us went on recon. We found the planet. It was
massive. It was a super Earth. Its mass alone was ten times that of Earth.
Traces of Earth elements existed but the planet itself was burned. It was
black and dead. There was nothing there but darkness.

Several drones
flew down to the surface. They found water full of acid.
Clouds rained poison. There were small traces of life - extremophiles, bacteria
that found a way to adapt to the harsh environment. This was not a
hospitable word and it had not been for nearly a million years. Other parts of
the planet looked like they had been torn apart, stripped or broken by some
large asteroid impacts.

We continued to follow the coordinates we found on Parcae. The Erebus
shifted and moved on its own disregarding the dead planet. That was when
we found it. An orbital. Scans made it look like four massive cones had been
set on top of each other with a small core shaped like a sphere in the center.
Jagged edges and spines spread out in every direction around it piercing
space. It was almost as big as a planet and three times the size of Parcae.
Every spine would have been long enough to stretch the entire length of
Errikus.

Sensors picked up an Earth like environment inside. We were weeks away
with the ion drives but we had reached our destination. We could see our new
home.

“Sev, I have a favor,” Balkava had come to see me.
“Before we get too close I want you to start using the nexus again.” “What if
I don’t want to?” I said.
“This isn’t a request,” She answered.

Once again I was going to be forced to use the nexus. Turns out the last user
they had been using got burned out he couldn’t see anything past the antliods.
In a way I was happy. I had kept myself so busy with First Descent I forgot
the thrill of seeing through time. The rush that came from living someone
else's life. There was always that hope that glimmer of chance I would see
something good ahead for all of us.

He had already given away too much before I shot him. I didn’t want to. Nobody
likes shooting another man. Right? He was about to give away everything. I’m
not a killer; this is what we have to do. You can’t fight a war with rules there is
no choice but to maim or stab someone in the back anymore it’s them or us. I
couldn’t let him say a word. I couldn’t wait to see who it was on the other end. I
couldn’t confront him later. If there is still a chance I might survive this... that I
might get home to Anna it is a chance I must take.

The war is almost over. I can feel it slowly crawling to an end. A few more
months there will either be nothing left or we’ll all be dead anyway. Nothing
but ghosts wandering ruined remains of cities watching the decay. Shadows
of ash displayed on cracked walls broken reflections of ourselves trying to
survive stranded in dust. Yesterday before we took off I shot a man. I had
survived a trench on the front beside this man. There were dozens of times I
would have taken a bullet for him, a couple of good men did. He was a spy.
Working for the Nazi regime. There is evidence now he was reporting to the
Fehr himself. Apparently he had family in trapped behind enemy lines who
had the unfortunate happen to them and they became prisoners of war. The
third Reich has their hands in just about everything now: weapons, occult,
espionage, blackmail. I wonder sometimes how they can keep on fighting. I
guess I would have to ask myself that same thing.

I was nothing more then a pretty good shot. A soldier on the front, a
sniper, I never imagined becoming a member of any kind of special team.
Since becoming a member of cold squad I’ve found myself doing several
dozen things I never imagined; torturing prisoners, fighting behind enemy
lines, rescue operations, and now killing a spy. We take our orders specifically
from two entities; the white rabbit and the red queen. The white rabbit for
the most part feeds us information from behind the lines. I believe it’s a she. A
young British girl that’s managed to gather Intel on all kinds of Nazi party
plans. The red queen on the other hand. She’s always had a more hands on
approach.

It was night when we made the jump onto Black Island from the B17-G we
were holding onto. It was a risk. A huge risk. We were flying over Japanese
territory in the South Pacific. Our pilots name was Mika. For a woman she
was the best. She could fly better then anyone I had ever met. She was a
looker too. Not like my Anna though. Before my last letter out I got a picture.
It’s the first picture I’ve ever had. Apparently my mother and Anna saved up
so that she could have it made. It was sent to me straight from a professional
photographer. It’s the only thing I keep close to my heart these days and the
only personal possession I carry with me.

My chute opened at just the right time. Low enough to not be spotted by any
patrols and high enough I could glide and land in a clearing. F2 wasn’t so
lucky. One of the French had made a mistake and pulled too late and landed
in a tree. When we got to him we hid behind a bush. This is where we got our
first real look at them. We were in the South Pacific but none of these soldiers
were Japanese, they were from the Thule Society, the Vril although some also
knew them as the Black Sun. They were a division of the Third Reich that
specialized in the occult, mysticism, magic, and just plain weird. We had
stopped one of their ritual sacrifices before - in fact that is what led us here.
There were four of them desecrating our team member’s body with their
rifles. It was easy pickings for us to each find a quick target.

We burned our friend’s body watching as both his parachute and the tree he
crashed in went up in flames. The compound we were trying to locate was a
small munitions factory located near the center of the island. There was a vast
cave network connecting to it that span all around but we had no way of
navigating unfortunately this meant we would have to go up top. Our mission
was recovery. The Thule were using this place to store what our spies and
prisoners claimed were weapons that could cause mass chaos, chimeras and
beasts that could melt people’s faces. We had heard everything from yetis to
the spear of destiny. It was even rumored they had found the Ark of the
Covenant. It didn’t matter what they had we were either going to destroy it or
steal it.