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Episode 39: Arrival at Bemera
Derek strained to open his eyes, feeling like the weight of the world had fallen on him as he slept.
He tried to look around the room. He squinted into the darkness surrounding him. Suddenly a flood of images swept through him and a wave of panic came with it.
Where was Nova? Mark? Sandor? Everyone else? Were they alive or dead? If the nightmares he'd been thrust into while he was unconscious were to be believed, they were all dead and the ship was ripped in two, floating aimlessly through space.
His breathing came faster as he frantically looked this way and that, trying to see in the thick darkness. Was he even on board the Argo anymore? Maybe he was on board a Gamilon ship traveling to their homeworld or someplace worse. His fear rose as his eyes failed him and he could see nothing.
The feeling got worse when he heard groaning off to his left. Was there someone else in here with him?
Images from his dreams suddenly rose unbidden. He saw his shipmates being dragged through the halls. Some were already dead, but others still clung to life, against the odds. He saw Mark lying in a corridor, eyes staring blankly into space, a mortal wound in his left side. Derek had tried to rouse him, but couldn't. His friend had already gone.
Derek desperately tried to banish the images as he stared into the darkness, trying to see where the noise was coming from, but, try as he might, he couldn't tell where the source was.
He thought about trying to get as far away from the sound as possible. Maybe it was a trap and he really was a prisoner. The feeling that he was being watched suddenly gripped him. That was another thing he remembered from the nightmare – two blood-red eyes staring into his soul. And the voice… it had rolled through him like an earthquake and taken away his courage with little more effort than a child needs to pick up a piece of paper.
The thought sent another wave of fear over him and he felt like he would go crazy. Just when he thought he couldn't bear the darkness anymore, the lights blinked on.
Relief, so powerful he couldn't stand it, washed over him and he didn't even consider holding back his tears as he saw the familiar sight of the Argo's own med-bay.
Mark groaned as he tried to escape the dream. He wanted to run away from it as quickly as he could, but as far as he ran, he couldn't escape the vision. Everywhere he turned he saw Earth – war-torn and sad. Its red soil and radiation-laced ground cried out for relief from its suffering.
Then there were the people… So many of them had already fallen prey to the radiation and lay sick, or dying in hospitals, houses, or even in the streets.
As Mark ran he suddenly realized that he was close to his parents' apartment. He changed directions and ran there as fast as he could, stopping for nothing and no one.
Finally he reached his family's door.
Not even bothering to knock he forced the door open and nearly threw up when the stench of death hit him.
There, on the couch in the living room lay three bodies.
"No!" Mark screamed, falling to his knees, tears running down his face, "No! We're too late!" he cried out. "We didn't make it in time!"
The sadness that overcame him was so intense that he felt like he would die. Seeing his parents and his little brother lying dead in front of him was too much and he finally did vomit. The smell only made the foul reek of the room worse and he couldn't stand it anymore.
He lurched to his feet and managed to get out of the apartment, weeping as he went. His green and white uniform was dirty now – the dust and filth of the streets and the apartment now covered him, but he didn't care. His family was gone.
Just then he felt someone shaking his shoulder and he finally made it out of the terrible nightmare he was mired in.
Derek swiped at the tears on his face, managed to hide most of them by the time others wakened.
Most of the other crew's reactions were the same as his own – tears of relief. He started to wonder what had happened.
Then he noticed Mark still unconscious on the floor a few feet away, twitching violently in his sleep.
Derek reached over and shook his friend, relieved to see him still alive and as well as could be expected.
Mark jerked awake, eyes wild. He grabbed Wildstar's arm and with labored breath and a crazed look asked, "What just happened?"
"Don't know." Derek replied, the panic from his own terrors starting to fade. "It was like… like I was drowning in my worst fears." He admitted quietly.
"Yeah…" Mark whispered, letting go of Wildstar and sitting up very slowly, then leaning against the wall. "Me too…" He looked away, hiding some tears of his own.
Derek pretended not to notice as he carefully stood up, feeling a bit wobbly on his feet after everything he'd seen in his dreams.
Suddenly another familiar face came into view.
Doctor Sane was squinting at Wildstar through his tiny glasses.
"What happened?" Derek asked the little man.
"You expect me to know?" the doctor retorted. "I just woke up." The short man looked around at his staff, taking in the distraught faces of those around him and noting that his robotic assistant, IQ-9 hadn't been spared the power-outage either, and he was still offline, sitting in a corner. Sane looked back at Wildstar and whispered just loud enough for the officer to hear him, "Those were some killer dreams, I tell you. Haven't seen anything like that since… Well, since the last war I was in… Saw some of my oldest friends' last moments again… It's enough to make a man want to polish off a second bottle of saké in one sitting."
Wildstar nodded, "Yeah… I saw some stuff …" he didn't elaborate. "And I think Mark did too." He gestured back towards his friend who was now on his feet and coming to stand beside Derek. "Guess we'd better make sure everyone's okay."
Sane sighed, "I suppose, though after this I'd better not see any of you in here until you really need something." The doctor looked sternly up at Wildstar, then at Venture. "You hear me?"
"Sure, Doc." Derek replied and Mark nodded.
"You're all cutting into my reading time." The little man said loudly enough for all the occupants of the med-bay to hear, "Get yourselves up and let me have a look at you before you get back to wherever you're supposed to be."
Captain Avatar sat alone on the dark bridge, praying that his crew would find someone – anyone else who might be able to help them. With only four crewmen there wasn't much that could be done. The ship required many more than that to run. Even a skeleton crew ran with much more than five people.
He was right in the middle of wondering when they would return when suddenly the lights on the bridge all winked back on and the controls came back to life. The swirling stars outside stabilized and the Captain breathed a sigh of relief.
They'd beaten whatever it was that had tried to kill them one more time, and he thanked God.
Several hours later everyone was back on the bridge, some looking worse than others, but all alive and well.
The Captain looked at his bridge crew one by one and wondered what adventures they'd all been through, then he turned his attention to the matter at hand.
"Venture, all ahead, full."
The Navigator nodded, "Yes, Sir. All ahead, full." Then he pushed the ship onward, knowing, just like the rest of them, that they had to battle through whatever got in their way. There was no other choice. If they didn't… then the nightmare he'd seen might really come true and they'd all return home to find their friends and families long dead.
He shivered at the thought, but didn't let it overcome him. Instead, he forced himself to look out into the vast starry host that lay before them. Somehow, the sight calmed him and he felt less like he would suffocate on the nightmare he'd returned from.
Once the ship was under way again, Captain Avatar called a meeting for all the officers in the operations room.
Everyone filed in, just like always, everyone eager to get the meeting over with and return to their stations.
Derek looked around, trying to find Nova.
There she was on the other side of the room, looking tired.
He quickly made his way over to the radar officer and stood beside her.
"Crazy dreams, huh?" he whispered to her.
"What?" Nova asked, looked at him, confused.
"You know – those dreams we all had while we were knocked out?" he replied.
"I wasn't asleep." She replied quietly.
Derek looked at her in puzzlement.
"And I didn't dream either." She continued, "Sandor, Orion, Homer, Feria, Conroy and I were all awake. We got the ship started again." Nova was about to ask Wildstar what kind of dreams he'd had when the Captain spoke.
"Eager and Miss Forrester tell me that the enemy ships that were following us aren't moving anymore – at all." Avatar announced, "Apparently they're completely out of the fight. Whatever tried to take down the Argo tried the same thing with the Gamilon fleet, but it won the fight on board those other ships."
Venture and Wildstar, along with several other officers, looked at the Captain with wide eyes.
"There are no more life signs aboard those ships." The captain said, frankly. "I thank God that that didn't happen here." He looked around the room at them all, "If this is any indication of what we're to face on the rest of our journey, this will be even more difficult than any of us thought. Please, all of you, be as careful as possible in the coming months. It is clear that we face more than an enemy fleet. The powers of Hell itself are also bent on our destruction, and they are more than willing to destroy our enemies to get to us – as we've just seen."
Wildstar rolled his eyes, making sure that the captain didn't see him.
"Why couldn't it have been some sort of enemy weapon that backfired on them?" Wildstar thought, "Why does everything have to be supernatural with the Captain?"
He turned his eyes back to Avatar who was staring right at Derek.
"I know some of you don't put any stock in the existence of anything other than this physical world, but I ask you all to think on the things you've seen and at least give it some consideration." The Captain turned his eyes to the rest of the group and continued, "Prepare for warp. We need to get as far away from here as we can." With that, he dismissed the gathering.
With numerous affirmations, they all left to prepare the ship and crew for another jump out into the unknown.
"Warp complete." Mark announced upon their emergence into normal space once again.
"No damage reports." Sandor said, glad that they'd gotten through this one unscathed. Maybe the adjustments he'd made after the last warp had made a difference.
They'd been warping regularly for four days, with a day's break for a short Christmas respite. The holiday boosted morale enough to get them all ready to continue their journey.
"Reading a planet ten thousand megameters to port." Nova reported. "Size and location indicates it's the planet on Starsha's map called 'Bemera.'"
At the mentioning of Starsha's name Homer, Sandor and Orion all looked at Nova for a split second, then looked back at their duty stations, all hiding smiles at the memory of their brief meeting with the Iscandari queen several days ago.
Sandor brought something up on one of his displays then said, "Captain, the sensors indicate that the planet contains plant life that might be a suitable food source for us. According to the reports, several tons of perishable food was not recoverable after the ship's prolonged power outage. I recommend we send a team down to the planet to investigate."
"I agree." The captain nodded, then looked around the bridge. His gaze settled on Nova. "Miss Forrester, I believe you have the most expertise in this area. Take another crew member of your choice as well as IQ-9 and go planet-side. Bring back as many samples as you can. We'll use them to make a determination as to what might be harvestable."
"Yes, Captain." Nova accepted the charge and began to think about who she'd like to come with her.
Finally, she settled on the one she thought would be best, Daniel Rowland, one of the science team with a specialization in botany. Her own scientific background was a strong one, but Rowland's expertise would be invaluable on a mission like this one.
The other duty shift arrived and all the officers gladly relinquished their posts to their replacements.
"Go get some sleep," the Captain said before sending his chair rising up through the ceiling into his own quarters.
"Fat chance," Wildstar thought as he left the bridge. "Right now I never want to sleep again…"
He looked at Mark and could tell his friend had a similar thought. Eager still looked spooked too.
Once they were all in the elevator, Wildstar said, "So who's up for some racquetball?"
Nova slept for the next several hours, though she dreamt vividly. She'd never gotten a chance to ask Wildstar what he or any of the others had dreamed about during their sleep. She wasn't sure she really wanted to know in light of who caused their slumber.
Then there were the deaths of the Gamilon crews. If the demonic host that infested their ship had also overtaken the enemy, why did none of Argo's crew die? Surely it wasn't just the presence of the Iscandari queen.
She thought back to the words the foul spirit said to her in reference to Starsha, "She is protected by the Most High. We cannot touch her."
The words echoed through her dreams and in them she saw the great dragon she and her fellows banished. She saw it reach out to touch the Iscandari queen, but when it came to within several feet of her, it was pierced through by a great sword, though the sword was not in Starsha's hand. Instead, the strong hand of what looked like a man gripped the hilt with a confidence Nova had never seen – even in the eyes of her friends down in the engine room. It was… otherworldly.
Then as if to further illustrate his ethereal nature, the man unfurled a mighty pair of snowy wings.
Nova gasped as she looked on the sight, realization dawning on her. This was one of the host of Heaven – an angel. She'd never seen an angel before, and she was not at all sure this was even an accurate picture of one, since she was walking around in her own dreams.
The vision broke after that, sending her into another dream, this one more normal, and until she awoke she rested in a deep, peace-filled sleep.
Daniel Rowland waited for the Lieutenant to arrive at the survey craft. She wasn't late. He was just early. He'd been going through his list of equipment over and over, making sure he hadn't forgotten to bring anything. So far, he was certain he'd remembered everything. This would be his first time off the ship since its launch.
He was eager to see this planet – this "Bemera" – more closely. From the sensor data he'd been given, it looked like most of the planet was one solid plant-filled mass – a botanist's paradise.
He just hoped that none of the species they'd encounter were carnivorous. He cringed, thinking of one particular run-in he'd once had with a carnivorous plant during his academy days. He'd lost a perfectly good ham sandwich to the thing – three times. He'd wondered why his lunch was disappearing every time he'd leave it near that particular plant. Then, one day he'd caught the thing in the act. He'd never left his food there again.
"Oh, Rowland, good, you're already here," Lieutenant Forrester said happily as she appeared, pack in hand, ready to go. "Let's load up. As soon as IQ-9 gets here we can get going."
"Already loaded up," Rowland said. "I thought I'd go ahead and do it since I got here pretty early."
"Wonderful!" the woman exclaimed, just as IQ-9 rolled up, looking like he'd recovered well from his recent, un-planned slumber. "Let's go. The sooner we get down there and get back, the sooner we can get to harvesting whatever we can. Our food stores need bolstering fairly badly after the power outage."
Rowland nodded, and followed the Lieutenant into the survey ship. She climbed into the co-pilot seat while Daniel got in opposite her. IQ-9 took up residence in the back.
Daniel was no stellar pilot, but he had more experience than Lieutenant Forrester, and IQ had refused to do it, so he was the one nominated to fly.
Rowland went through the pre-flight checklist carefully. All the while IQ-9 droned on about some of the data he'd gotten about the planet's atmospheric content. In any other situation, Daniel would have told the robot to can it, but he was too excited about this trip to be irritated.
As soon as they were ready, they got the signal to take off.
Daniel looked out the front of the ship and nearly gave a whoop of joy as they left the confines of the ship and flew out into open space.
Once they'd cleared the Argo Daniel turned the ship around and headed straight for Bemera's lush jungles.
Episode 40: Strange Findings
Daniel looked this way and that, trying to take in the magnificent landscape spread out before him. He had lowered the scout ship's altitude significantly so they could all look more closely at the sights surrounding them.
"It's like a gigantic jungle." Lieutenant Forrester said from the co-pilot's seat as she peered down at a knot of vine-laden trees.
"Yeah." Daniel replied wistfully, "Almost like home used to be." The young scientist's heart sank a bit as he remembered a time not so long ago when trees and other plants such as these grew in abundance in some of Earth's great rainforests. Maybe… someday they would return. If they got to Iscandar and then made it home in time, though he didn't see how it was possible for such extensive botanical restoration to occur. Maybe the Iscandarian scientists could explain better to him and the rest of the science team when they got to Iscandar.
Daniel turned his attention back to his piloting and was just about to zoom out of the area when he heard a startled exclamation.
"What's that?!" Lieutenant Forrester pointed at something down below them.
Daniel slowed down and circled around whatever the Lieutenant was intent on.
"IQ-9" she looked back at the robot, "Are you getting any readings from that?" she asked, indicating whatever she was looking at. Daniel still couldn't see it from where he sat.
"Negative." IQ replied, "No life signs."
"What is it made of?" she continued.
"It is comprised of a material similar to that of the princess Astra's ship." The robot droned.
"Rowland, take us down." The Lieutenant directed.
"Yes, ma'am." Daniel replied, still not knowing what she and IQ were looking at. Once he stopped circling and started trying to find a place to land, he saw it.
Down below them, in a tiny clearing, lay the remains of what looked like a ship. The pictures he'd seen of the wreck from Mars immediately jumped into his mind. What was this thing? Had Iscandarians found their way out here? If so, why hadn't they just brought the Cosmo DNA machine to Earth themselves? Why did Argo and her crew have to venture all the way out to Iscandar to come get it? It didn't seem to make any sense.
"Rowland?" the Lieutenant's voice startled him. "How about down there?" she pointed to a clearing that was a bit larger than the one the other ship lay in. It wasn't too far away either.
"Yeah, that looks like a good spot." He replied, mind still wrestling with all the thoughts that now cascaded over him – thoughts about Iscandar, this ship they were about to go look at, Argo's mission, and a hundred other things that he had been thinking about since the day Argo launched.
Nova looked back in awe at the wreck they just flown over. She felt a thrill of excitement run through her. They'd come here for food, but this… this was too important not to investigate. She was glad they'd brought so much equipment with them.
"IQ, what's the atmosphere like?" she asked the robot, who seemed to be preoccupied with something down below them.
Without looking up, IQ replied, "Atmosphere is 78% Nitrogen, 20% Oxygen."
"So we can safely breathe it without helmets?" Nova asked, wanting to be completely sure that if she opened her suit visor, or if the EVA equipment were damaged that they wouldn't suffer any ill effects from it. She winced, remembering Wildstar's incident with a damaged suit back on Jupiter.
"The atmosphere is breathable for humans." The robot confirmed.
Nova sighed to herself in relief, glad that, at least one factor could be checked off the "potential hazards" list.
The ship landed and all three occupants jumped out immediately, hauling everything they thought they might need for this foray. IQ proved to be quite handy, carrying the heaviest of the items they would need.
As they walked through the strange jungle Nova began to see things she'd never expected. All around her lay plants she almost recognized. There were organisms that looked almost like ferns, orchids, cocoa trees, and thousands of other plant species she hadn't been able to see or interact with before since she'd begun her scientific education well after the bombs began to fall on Earth. It was like being in a giant treasure trove.
She stepped over a beautiful flower and forced herself to keep going without stopping to study it. Maybe they could come back here when all was said and done and take a proper look at the life that teemed on this world.
The closer they got to the downed ship, the more the trees began to thin.
Finally, they cleared the edge of the jungle and came to the clearing they'd seen from the air.
Nova stopped and stared. It looked so much like Astra's ship that she had to take a moment to convince herself that this wasn't the Iscandarian woman's craft.
This one though, was covered in what looked like vines, or thick fungus of some kind. Clearly it had been here for quite some time.
Nova finally tore her eyes from the scene and stalked through the thick grass, hoping there wasn't anything resembling a snake hiding in the area, but thus far, she'd seen no signs of animal life. Then an idea came to her and stopped, setting down what she was carrying. She slowly reached for her suit helmet.
"Lieutenant, what're you doing?" Rowland looked at her in horror, seeing what she was about to do.
"Don't worry; IQ said it was breathable." Nova reassured the man, quelling the rising nervousness in her own stomach as she said it.
She unsealed the helmet and slowly pulled it up off of her head, ready to jam it back on if she discovered she needed to.
She took a breath of the strange world's air. It was tangy and a bit sweeter than she was used to – probably because of the lack of industrial activity here. Not as many pollutants to dirty the air.
She took several more shallow breaths before inhaling a deep dose of the air.
It passed into her lungs easily and caused her no discomfort. She smiled at Rowland triumphantly, "It's okay! You can take your helmet off if you want to."
Daniel nodded slowly, but kept his helmet on.
Nova started to pick her equipment back up and stopped when she heard the song of a host of insects, as their chorus rang through the clearing, just like it used to on Earth. She'd heard recordings of the sound and it thrilled her to hear something like it in real life. It just wasn't the same hearing such sounds coming from a computer.
She grabbed her equipment and quickly caught up to Daniel, eager to find out more about this place and the wreck that was now looming in front of them.
"I wish she'd be more careful." Thought Daniel as the Lieutenant – now helmet-less – came to walk beside him. "What if IQ had been wrong?" he shot a look at the strange red robot, "If something happens to her, what am I supposed to do? If I have to call for help they might not get here in time." He kept walking, still a little annoyed at the officer's needless risk.
His unhappiness was forgotten as soon as he and Lieutenant Forrester came close enough to the ship for them both to see it clearly. Since Daniel still had his helmet on, he could see things that the Lieutenant couldn't as a result of the helmet's HUD unit.
The plants that covered the ship were indeed fungus, and it seemed to ooze over the entire body of the ship. There wasn't one bare patch he could see.
He reached out to touch the stuff with his suit-covered hand, but was stopped by the Lieutenant, who handed him a scraping tool.
"Never know if it'll melt through your suit." She said.
She was right, but Daniel nearly rolled his eyes. She'd just proven she wasn't always the most cautious person.
Daniel took the tool and scraped away a little bit of the substance.
When it didn't deform the tool or otherwise act in a threatening manner, the young man scooped the sample into a container to take back with them.
As he cleared away more of the fungus he saw that the color of the craft was a dingy, metallic gray – nothing like the brilliant gold of the Iscandarian ship he'd seen before.
As he studied the ship, he began to notice subtle differences in the two craft. This one was bigger, more bulky than the Mars wreck, and this ship seemed to be much older – almost like some group of travelers had crashed here and never made it back out to the stars.
His thoughts were interrupted by the Lieutenant's excited voice.
"Rowland!" She called to him over the com, "Come around to the far side. There's a door over here."
Daniel immediately stopped clearing away the fungus from where he was and quickly appeared next to the officer.
"Is it sealed?" he asked, feeling a strange anticipation growing inside him. What if they could get in? What would they find? Then with trepidation the question arose: Was it even safe?
The officer started to scrape away the fungus that had grown over the door seal.
Daniel helped, scraping as quickly as he could. Once he accidently jabbed the tool into the ship's hull. He winced as the tool made contact and pulled it away instantly. He studied the offended portion of the hull, but to his surprise, there wasn't a mark on the metal. What kind of material was this? Surely it was like no metal he'd ever seen.
"Shouldn't you put your helmet back on before we go in?" Daniel asked, then thought to himself, "If we can even get in…"
"Oh! Yes, I suppose that would be a good idea." The Lieutenant retrieved her helmet from the stack of equipment and returned to the door.
Once they'd finished getting all the fungus off of the entrance the officer called IQ-9 over and the robot carefully examined the door. He laid one thick red hand on the hull, his round, yellow fingers starting to glow. Then he took his hand away and studied what appeared to be some sort of lock near the edge of the door.
With a precision that only he could have wielded, IQ-9 reached out and took hold of the lock, giving it a good twist, then pulling it clear off the door. The perfectly square hole IQ had left gave Daniel and the Lieutenant some leverage to try to tug the door open.
Lieutenant Forrester tried first, then Daniel, then they both attempted to pull it open… with no success. It was stuck closed.
"IQ-9, do you think you can open it?" The Lieutenant asked the robot.
IQ gave an insulted whistle and replied, "Affirmative." Before reaching out with one hand and giving a mighty yank on the door.
It flew open and if either of the crew members had been standing near it, it would have knocked them off their feet and perhaps sent them across the clearing.
"The door is open." The robot announced, sounding a bit full of himself.
"Thanks." Daniel said as he stepped past IQ towards the door.
The inside of the ship was dark. That was all he could tell from outside the door.
"Shall we go in?" the Lieutenant asked him, suddenly standing right beside him.
Daniel nearly jumped at her sudden appearance, then replied shakily, "Maybe IQ-9 should go first."
"He won't fit through this door." Lieutenant Forrester replied, "It's just us this time." She peered into the darkness, "Trust me, this is nothing compared to what I've seen even in the last week."
Daniel didn't say anything as the memories of the ship's strange encounter with something that had sent them all into comas – all except a select few who had somehow gotten the ship back on course.
He shook the thoughts out of his troubled mind and nodded slowly.
Nova saw the look of fear cross Daniel's face at the mention of that dark day they'd so recently come through, but she knew that, whatever lay inside this wreck was nothing compared to the host of darkness she had come face to face with in that pitch black engine room.
With one deep breath, she stepped up into the strange ship.
It was dark, so she turned on her helmet-light. She looked around, trying to figure out what part of the vessel they might have found themselves in.
She stepped farther into the ship, carefully looking down to avoid anything that might still be strewn around the floor.
Every few steps she looked up and then turned to see if Daniel was behind her.
For a minute or so she didn't see him, then his head poked through the door, looking all around before stepping up into the fallen ship.
He looked like he was petrified out of his mind.
"What's he so scared of?" she wondered, then turned to continue her exploration.
She found several containers – strangely made of something resembling glass or crystal, but the sides and lids were frosted over so she couldn't see what was inside them. She even tried to get a reading on the contents with her suit sensors, holding her hands over one of the boxes so that the sensors were within an inch or so of the lid.
Nothing.
Whatever was in them, it was either unidentifiable, or they were empty. Or, she supposed, that the sensors weren't capable of penetrating whatever substance this was.
She slowly moved away from the boxes and continued her search on this side of the ship. Finally, she came to another door, this one nothing like the outside door they have broken through with IQ's help. This door was much like the doors on board Argo, though it was shaped strangely and looked to be a bit on the clunky side, like whoever had made it hadn't had the tools to make it with much semblance of quality.
She started to touch the door, then looked behind her to see where Daniel was.
When she found him, he was standing over another box, this one on the opposite side of the ship that she'd investigated.
"What is it, Rowland?" she asked through the com.
Daniel didn't respond; he simply reached down and touched the box. Then Nova realized that this one was not sealed like the rest, though its lid was nowhere to be seen.
"Rowland, what're you doing?" she asked, just as his suited hand descended into the open box. "Wait – don't –" she started to caution, but stopped when nothing adverse happened to her partner's appendage.
A moment later, Rowland carefully lifted something out of the box.
Nova couldn't see what it was from where she stood, so she returned to the place Daniel was. "What is it?" she asked, coming to stand beside him again.
Daniel brushed off a thick layer of dust that had settled on the object.
"Another box, I think." He replied, after getting enough dust off the thing to see that it was much like the bigger box he'd just pulled it out of. "Frosted over like the rest of these." He said, absently waving a hand over the thing to see if his sensors could get a read on it. "Nothing." He sighed, then exclaimed, "Wait! What's this?" he touched what looked like a small inset control panel near the top of the box.
He nearly dropped the thing when the lid instantly melted away to reveal the contents.
"What in the world was that?" Daniel's stunned question came.
"No idea." Nova replied, "I've never seen anything like that." Then she pointed into the now-open box. "What is… that?" she asked.
Daniel slowly reached down and picked up the small object. He hefted it in his hand, noting the weight of it. It was tiny, no more than three inches long and one inch wide. It almost looked like a writing instrument of some sort, though it was clear, almost like glass, but, unlike the glass boxes, this thing was transparent – all except for a dark blue orb that sat in the center of the object.
As the two Earthers watched, the thing began to glow.
Daniel, startled, nearly flung the thing across the room, but held onto his nerve just long enough for the object to display something strange.
"A map?" Nova asked, confused. The swirling image clearly showed stars and planets and even galaxies she'd never seen before. She reached out towards the image and was startled when, just as her covered hand came in contact with part of the image, a long block of text appeared. She couldn't read it, and she was fairly certain that it wasn't the Gamilon or Iscandarian language. She'd seen bits and pieces of that courtesy of Sandor. No, this was different. It was character-based, like the other two languages, but it was organized differently. Whereas the Gamilon language was written right to left, this one was written from top to bottom – rather like Chinese, though the symbols were nothing like Mandarin or Cantonese.
"Get this into a container." Nova said, "Sandor has to see this when we get back to the ship."
Daniel didn't say anything, just nodded and pocketed the thing as quickly as he could, snuffing out the light the map had been emitting.
Nova took another look around, sweeping her light this way and that, then finally declared, "I think we're in a cargo hold of some sort."
Daniel nodded, then said in a small voice, "Can we get out of here now?"
"You really don't like this place, do you?" Nova asked.
"Not a bit." Daniel replied matter-of-factly. "Gives me the creeps…"
"Let me look at this door over here. See if I can get through it. If I can't, we'll go." She relented, wanting so badly to know what lay beyond that door and in the rest of the ship. If the cargo hold held such things as this map, what did the rest of the ship hold?
The question hung in her mind as she stepped over to the strange door and studied it, trying to see how it opened.
She reached out and touched the center of the door. It appeared to swirl open, like a reverse whirlpool, so she tried to force the metallic pieces apart. She pushed and pulled with all her strength, and finally succeeded in budging the door open an inch or so.
Nova crouched down so she could see through the opening she'd made. She peered through into another dark room.
"I can't see anything. Rowland, come help me get it open farther."
Daniel didn't respond.
"Rowland?" she turned to look back at the man and was confused when she saw the science officer's body lying unconscious on the floor. She started to go back to him, thinking that perhaps he'd passed out from fright. He had been pretty agitated after all, but she hadn't thought it was that bad.
She took two steps and froze when her light hit something else standing behind where Daniel lay.
Her eyes widened and a sudden feeling of being trapped started to close in on her.
There, standing silently, were over half a dozen insect-like beings, green arms hanging at their sides. Yellow bulbous eyes stared at her and two antenna twitched on each head.
What… had they just stumbled into?
The last thing she remembered was a strange chittering sound, following by an agonizing, searing pain that raced through her body. Then the world went black.