Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2 Read online

  “The wraith, according to my studies, have never been seen in the galaxy for thousands of years. If one were to acquire the virus that can create them, then they could be brought back into existence.”

  “And you.” Phylarlie aimed the edge of her blade directly toward Odelea. “You, happened to make that virus?”

  “No, High Scholar Telinei, my mentor, did during his stay on Earth along with other scholars recruited by the Celestial Order,” Odelea said. “I continued his work. Rather the order wanted me to.”

  “But yet, you’re not officially part of the order?”

  “I was forced to assist.” Odelea paused, staring down at her hands, still trapped inside the environment suit she and everyone wore except Phylarlie. “There was something in his lab . . . it spoke to me. Told me to do things, I didn’t want to do that work with them. It started as a woman’s voice, but then gradually became that of a man.” Phylarlie winced at Odelea explanation. “You don’t believe me.”

  “After what I saw out there? I’ll believe anything,” Phylarlie said. “Except your gods. Sounds like you guys found some alien tech you didn’t understand and now it’s backfiring. This could very well be the start of an alien invasion of the entire galaxy.”

  Odelea held her hands to her chest and cried out. “The gods will never allow such a thing!”

  “Come on now, you are a person of knowledge.” Phylarlie stood and stepped closer to Odelea. She saw the small Aryile girl tremble slight, probably because Phylarlie still held her daggers. “Is it possible that the order, in their quest for ‘divine justice’, stumbled upon something that they think is your gods but isn’t?” Odelea sat in silence and mulled Phylarlie’s words. “Look, those things leaped through that portal hole, what did you call it?”

  “Wormhole.”

  “Yeah that. And that thing, that wormhole, was it not originally Lyonria tech?”

  “It is believed to be so yes.”

  “And from what you told me, some strange stuff was going on in that room you all just teleported from into this ship . . . which was . . .”

  “A Lyonria fortress . . .”

  “Don’t you see the connection? Because I do.”

  “Perhaps . . .” Odelea began to conjure a theory. She found it. “The gods, they must have visited the Lyonria before the Aryile.”

  Phylarlie sunk the blade of one of her daggers into the wall. Her free hand stretched toward her face, pressing her palm against it. At least human scientists are smart enough to not believe in religion. “Even if that were true,” Phylarlie mumbled through her hands. “It completely contradicts your religion.”

  “I’m more interested about you knowing of the virus these things spread,” Danyal said.

  The two directed their attention to the half human-half Hashmedai sitting in the corner with his arms crossed. “Ah he speaks . . .” Phylarlie said as she retrieved her dagger from the wall.

  “I’ve seen enough horror movies when I was a kid to know this will get a lot worse unless a cure is found,” he said.

  “What are you worried about?” Phylarlie said to him. “You seem to be immune to it.”

  “That’s the scary part. I’d rather have people to talk to if this spreads throughout the entire galaxy.”

  “A cure . . .” Odelea whispered to herself, then moved closer to him with a data pad in hand scanning his body once again. “That’s it, our solution to this. And you could be the basis for it.”

  “Basis for what?” Phylarlie asked her. “Undoing all the hard work you did to make this mess?”

  “I didn’t want any of this!”

  “Right, the voices told you to do it.”

  “So . . .” Danyal said to Odelea. “You think you can cure this?”

  “I might, or at least prevent it from spreading,” Odelea said. “The virus mutates the victim after they receive massive near-death trauma. The body is rapidly healed while the subject’s body is rebuilt into the wraith. Danyal however, got the healing half, while the mutation itself failed. If we can figure out why, I might be able to force the same to happen to others that are attacked by the wraith.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “By getting the fuck out of here,” Phylarlie said.

  “I doubt any of this equipment will work,” Odelea said, eying all the centuries-old equipment around them. “This ship is operating on emergency power for life-support.”

  “The Crimson Arrow should still be outside,” Danyal said. “Assuming those pirates didn’t run off with it.”

  “The fact that Trin hasn’t contacted us, or come down looking for us means the pirate ship is still after him,” Phylarlie said. “Or they killed him, either way we need to get out of our own accord.”

  Phylarlie faced the large vault-like door they used to seal themselves away from the wraith outside. Stepping toward it got Danyal to rise and confront her. “Whoa, whoa, let’s take a vote if we are going to open this.”

  “No need, I’ll jump port beyond it.”

  “And when the wraith finds you then what?”

  Phylarlie smiled at him, then reminded him that she was a Hashmedai assassin by activating her psionically enhanced cloaking device and vanishing from sight.

  “Alright, fine you win this round,” he said.

  “I’ll clear a path to the airlock. If what you say still holds true, the Crimson Arrow will be right outside waiting for us.”

  “You’ll still need an environment suit thingy,” he said. Her invisible hands patted him on the back.

  “Good point, thanks for volunteering.”

  “I what?”

  “You got a suit, you know where the ship is, and you’re going outside to fetch it.”

  “Whoa, why me?” he said, shaking his head then pointing toward Eicelea and Vynei who both donned environment suits. “Why not them? That motherfucker over there has a gun!”

  “I’d rather they stay for now,” Odelea said. “Eicelea knows a great deal about the Lyonria. Perhaps with our combined knowledge we could learn more of their secrets that will aid us.”

  “You see? They got a use, you don’t,” Phylarlie said. “I’ll kill the wraith in our way, from there you move your ass before they resurrect and come after you. Besides they can’t infect you, you got nothing to lose.”

  “What if they rip my head off? Will I heal from that?”

  Phylarlie slowly stepped around Danyal while still invisible and whispered into his ear from behind. “Only one way to find out . . .” He didn’t expect that move and leapt back in shock. “Relax, you know a great deal about my sister, it would be in my best interest to keep you breathing and talking.”

  Danyal groaned. “Let’s get this over with.

  Phylarlie focused her psionic mind. It caused her to jump port outside of the vault. She moved her head from left to right and saw two wraiths limping around, oblivious to the fact she was next to them. She switched her plasma daggers with her psionic daggers and focused her mind, transferring psionic power into them. They heated up and she then drove them into the backs of the two wraiths. A five second battle broke out, resulting in victory for Phylarlie and defeat for the wraiths that fell to the floor with multiple burning stab gashes.

  Two jump ports were then made, one placing her back inside the vault then another teleporting her back into the hallways, this time with Danyal in her arms. A very confused and terrorized Danyal at that.

  “What. The. Fuck,” Danyal said as Phylarlie removed her embrace from him.

  “Don’t get any ideas,” she said, then pushed him toward the direction of the airlock. “Now shut up and move. Airlock is this way.”

  The two traversed through the hallways. Phylarlie took point while invisible, while Danyal followed behind, doing what he could to not make any noise, especially when a wandering wraith appeared. Phylarlie’s psionic blades put them down, one by one. Beheading them proved to be a much more difficult task, their skin was tough, there was no way she could cut the
ir heads off with one stroke of her blades. Perhaps with her plasma daggers as they were much deadlier but such an act would require her to drop her cloak as the plasma that was fed into the blades drained power from her cloaking device, thus exposing her.

  As each previously dispatched wraith eventually rose from the dead, speed was everything, along with the need needed to make sure neither of their presences was sensed when the wraith awoke. The airlock was finally in sight, its doors still operating after the pirates hotwired it to function.

  Phylarlie pushed him toward it, while she looked back behind her. There was another wraith creeping into sight.

  “So,” Danyal mumbled.

  “Shut up.”

  “You sound like your sister.”

  Danyal entered the airlock as she instructed and began to place the helmet he had back on. Phylarlie gazed at the buttons on the wall and wondered which ones to push. Her knowledge of the Linl language was limited, in the same way Jazz’s was during the year she spent living with him. She fiddled with the controls as the wraith from behind got closer then one of them noticed Danyal standing in the airlock and began to charge toward him.

  She hissed while her invisible hands rapidly interacted with the panel. The wraith getting to Danyal was the least of her worries. The wraith trampling over her invisible body on the other hand, yeah that was going to complicate matters. Finally, the connecting door to the outside world began to slide open, Danyal slipped out into the caves without a second thought as Phylarlie sidestepped away from the airlock doors, seconds before the first wraith got to it.

  The fierce creature began to bang on the glass door, angry that Danyal slipped away. Phylarlie held her psionic daggers toward the wraith and began to power them up and lunge at them when something unexpected happened.

  Another wraith approached from behind, this one was different. It had cybernetic implants, implants that began to shimmer and glow. Blue light swept it away and outside of the airlock via a jump port. The wraith can use psionic abilities too, fuck me.

  A follow up jump port that would be the next course of action. There was only one problem, she didn’t have an environment suit. If she went outside of the airlock she would be exposing her body to extremely high temperatures, unbreathable air, and radiation. The psionic barriers Trin and Ella used kept her safe at first, but now, neither of them was here and Phylarlie being the psionic assassin she was lacked the hardware needed to allow her to conjure such protection. The personal shields would help protect her skin for a brief period of time provided she performed no action that utilized her battery pack, even then they would fail only after a few seconds of exposure.

  She bore her fangs, hissed, then killed the remaining wraith next to her in frustration. Her communication implant activated, there was an incoming transmission. “Hey, can you hear me?” Danyal’s voice transmitted.

  “Yes!” she said. “Are you inside?”

  “Yes but—”

  “I need you to bring the Crimson Arrow closer to the cave, like above it.”

  “I can’t fly this thing.”

  She sighed. “Nothing is ever easy.”

  If the Crimson Arrow was close, she might lock onto his signal and jump port aboard. There was no doubt in her mind that the psionic wraith that just went outside was going after him and possibly their ride out of this mess.

  On that note. “By the way, Danyal you got company.”

  She turned to face the airlock, took a deep breath, held it, then jump ported outside into the hazardous environment. Two more jump ports placed her outside in the searing heat and radiation. Her shields held for now, but breathing along with everything else had to take a back seat. She stepped out into the valley, shielding her light sensitive eyes from the sunlight and saw the Crimson Arrow hovering as the psionic wraith walked circles around it, intrigued by the craft and the defenseless person inside.

  She ran toward it and as predicted, she sensed her light shields fail. Her skin quickly started to seer in the heat, radiation beginning to impact her. Her vision started to blur and her legs became weak and at that point she felt like giving up and falling over. But she kept on pushing forth, ignoring all the damage being done to her body and the fact that her medical systems couldn’t keep up, nor could it supply her lungs with air to breath.

  The psionic wraith noticed her. It growled and shrieked loudly as its implants started to glow. She was in range to perform a jump port, but her psionic brain wasn’t cooperating, not enough oxygen. Too much stress from the trauma. She wasn’t moving. She needed less things for her mind to worry about so she stopped running and standing. Her knees hit the hot sand and rock below followed by her hands. They sizzled as if she was touching the insides of a hot oven. Out from the blurry heat waves stepped the psionic wraith, it raised its hand toward Phylarlie.

  One last time.

  Phylarlie focused her mind. And a blue streak of light sent her aboard the Crimson Arrow, seconds before a beam of pure psionic energy shot out from the palms of the wraith.

  Danyal attempted to help Phylarlie off the floor of the cockpit. She shrugged him off and crawled up to the main seat, a seat her sister Noylarlie once sat in with pride. Phylarlie took to the controls, sucked in several deep breaths of air, now that she could breathe, and began to regain control of the situation. The doors to the Arrow slid shut and its shields powered on, just in time too as the wraith focused its attention on it, blasting it with a continuous beam of psionic energy. Phylarlie brought the hovering Crimson Arrow about, facing the wraith head on then fired its forward plasma cannons at it, vaporizing it and burning the land beneath.

  A tiny red gem fell to charred sand and rocks from where the wraith once stood. Phylarlie looked at a computer screen that displayed the Crimson Arrow’s targeting scanner data, in which see saw a close up view of the strange gem. It started to pulse rapidly as the arms and legs of the wraith that didn’t get vaporized twitched, as it attempted to come back to life. But nothing happened and the twitching eventually came to an end.

  She felt the need to do and say more about the situation but her sore and burned body said otherwise. She adjusted the cabin temperatures of the Crimson Arrow to that of room temperature suitable for Hashmedai. A wave of cold refreshing air hit her as she sat back in the chair and waited for the medical systems in her gear do its job.

  Danyal muttered a few things to her, but she didn’t understand them. The stress she put her body through had left her mind shattered. She saw him shrug then sit and remove his environment suit. He had a data pad hidden on the inside his suit which he activated and began to read the contents of it with great interest.

  Chapter Five

  Lejorania Sanctum, Alpha Centauri System

  Eight years ago . . .

  Alpha Centauri, better known as Lejorania to the rest of the galaxy, was a binary system that consisted of two stars that orbited around a central force at a distance of eleven astronomical units, every eighty years. One of the stars, Alpha Centauri A was a G2 type star very similar to the star Earth orbited in terms of its mass, though it was fifty percent brighter. The second star, Alpha Centauri B was a slightly smaller and cooler K1 type.

  It was the presence of these two close orbiting stars that made life, for the human refugees that had fled Earth from the Hashmedai invasion, difficult to adjust to. Lejorania Sanctum orbited Alpha Centauri B and delivered some interesting weather and seasonal patterns. Depending on its orbit, the sun would rise as expected during the day then set when the evening came around only for a smaller one to rise again, baking the planet in a similar amount of sunlight Uranus would get during the daytime. During that time of the year there was always sunlight, bright during the day, faint at night, the plant life on Lejorania Sanctum loved every minute of it. Enormous forests and jungles dominated the landscape during the summer when there was always sunlight.

  Eventually as the year of Lejorania Sanctum’s orbit passed, it moved further away from Alpha Centauri A re
sulting in cooler temperatures as it received less light from it. Daytime at this time of the year typically depicted two suns rising and setting, followed by darkened skies at night. On top of that there were no fixed seasons for the changes in sun rising and falling as the binary stars also rotated around each other every eighty years. Some summers had dual sun rises and night skies, while other summers featured the single sun rise followed by another during the evening. This resulted in varying temperatures each and every summer and winter, every century.

  Lejorania Sanctum was originally established as a colony under control of the old Linl government. As with most Linl colonies, the discovery of Lyonria ruins in the system led them to not only travel to it, but build cities there so that researchers and the likes had a place to call home as they spent their time studying this mysterious ancient civilization. Lejorania Sanctum along with the many other worlds colonized in this system quickly became part of the Radiance Union when the Linl joined, and in the aftermath of the invasion of Earth, safe haven for humans.

  Unity City lay on the eastern coast of a warm tropical continent. Mid to large size skyscrapers made up most of the downtown core of the city while ships littered the skies, taking off or coming to a landing within the many space ports. Its population was in the millions, consisting mostly of Linl, Javnis, and Aryile, with humans living in their own district. Flocks of wing like animals with grey skin soared through the skies in groups of five, one of them male and the other female, the remaining three behind them, their offspring. Water from the crystal clear waters softly hit the beaches around the edge of the city, while enormous three leafed tropical trees provided shade for people relaxing, taking in the breathtaking view of the twin stars on the horizon as they shined their light and heat above the ocean.

  Aryile typically swam in the nude on some beaches paying no mind to onlookers that might have traveled by. On occasion some brave humans joined them in an attempt to embrace themselves in the new alien world they had to live on. Water from the nearby jungles to the west flowed into the city, dividing several sections of it. Foot bridges made of a strong crystal-like substance allowed people to walk across, while looking down below their feet to see the blue river below and the fish that slithered and waved through it.