The Demon Down Below

I peer down into the glossy, almost glassy texture of the ground that lay beneath my feet.  It seems that just beyond the surface, where grass and dirt should be, there is only a cryptic scene of carnage.  Old steam ships, warships, other rusted naval vessels I don't recognize...they are all stacked end on end, vertically, building a ghastly rusted tower that ascends from some hellish world to where I now stand.  A thin, smokey illusion of grass veils the weird window into this strange pit.  A kind of simulation of grass atop the strange surface.

I seem to hover above the grass, as if a glass plate had been placed over it, I stomp my feet to be assured of this.  The grass still seems to move a bit, but the stalks sway as if  they were underwater.

I stare again at the tower.  It goes from my vantage point down into what I can only say is an abyss, a dimly lit, cloudy abyss.  Faint red and yellow lights dance around in black smoke.  This tower, or almost a ladder of some sort as I've come to see it, wasn't just made from the derelict naval ships, I realized, but also ships I would consider futuristic.  And the odd pieces of wood here and there suggested ancient ships.  Still, metal is the predominant material used here, and ships seemed to be the main theme.  Chains, so many rusty chains, hold the thing together, like some kind of giant prisoner.  The metal is extremely rusted, and I've been noticing it's often shredded into shards and is clunkily fused and rammed together with its other parts.  The streaks of blood-red rust are pasted all about this strange structure, and occasionally I swear I see objects of strange fashion on the more futuristic looking ships.

I'm finding that my sense of time is going...away.  Even my ability to grasp tense, to figure out if I'm here, now, or then.  For now, I suppose I'll just have to consider myself here.  I briefly look around, away from the plane of the ground and out to my surroundings here, and they seem to be getting blurred.  I thought I was in a backyard, but now I'm not even sure what a backyard is.  I decided to shift my gaze downward again.

I keep getting reminded of a trainwreck, each of these ships are like separate little cars that got rammed together.  But then some sick sadist giant wrapped tormenting chains around them, bounding them forever into this hellish ladder, that goes to...hell?  I'm not sure what hell is.  I'm not sure what I am.  But I do feel more like meat now.  Like a steak sitting on a glass plate.  Like a bobbing dead seal on the ocean surface.  Rabid sharks below.

In the stirring cloudy smoke, liquid shadows begin to stir.  Drumbeats begin to sound.  I'm not sure if this is happening, going to happen, or already happened.  I'm just in a grass field now, I notice.  The sky is white, erased.  My horizontal field of vision only leads to whiteness.  Grass fades out into a gradient, then dissolves, goes white. 

The drums get louder.  I smell gasoline, but it's sweeter, and mixed with a musky cardboard scent.  I also smell pork, papaya, and dead bird.  I study the ladder closer, admire the intricate port holes, windows, view-screens, old sails.  A hellish, smashed together monstrosity.  But it serves a purpose, I could feel.  Or I can feel.  I'm not sure.  I stop and enjoy the gas smell, I also smell fresh cut grass.  The grass sways as if stirred by a great wind, and I smell an overwhelming scent of dead fish.  Or maybe I smelled it.  I suddenly feel like the ocean, smell salt and sea weed...kelp.  More like ocean water that has pooled and gone rank.  A faint pipping noise flutes across the air.

Something climbs the ladder.

The Golden Twins

Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold
Molten, graven, hammered and rolled,
Heavy to get and light to hold,
Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled,
Spurned by young, but hung by old
To the verge of a church yard mold;
Price of many a crime untold.
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousand fold!
How widely it agencies vary,
To save - to ruin - to curse - to bless -
As even its minted coins express :
Now stamped with the image of Queen Bess,
And now of a bloody Mary.

~ Thomas Hood


"Imagine the riches," said Bart as the clunky Arrowsmith dropped out of hyperspace.

She was an old ore-mining ship from 3258, and it now being the year 4000, she was a bit outdated.  Bart looked over at his partner, Chego, and winked as he flipped a gold coin repeatedly in his hand.  It had the Galactic Queen's grinning mug on it's scratched surface, and the flip side had the Galactic seal.

"What are we doing out here in the Kepler-35 star system again, Bart?" said Chego, frowning as he looked at the holo display.  In front of him sat a gas giant, about the size of Saturn, with glaring twin suns blasting him with light, even through the viewscreen.

The usual creeks and moans of the ship disrupted their conversation, and both ran some nervous diagnostics on the ship's systems to make sure that this wouldn't be their last conversation.

"There is a hidden temple here Chego.  I paid good money to that old preist to get this info, and I know what we have is legit."

Chego seemed annoyed, his Euro-Pan-American features showing his hand for him.  Chego wore his emotions on his sleeve.  His annoyance was further prodded by the fact that this was a gas giant with no land to walk on or build a temple.

"I know what you're thinking Chego, don't even say it," said Bart.  He pulled out a hand-held device and displayed some information on it for Chego to see.

The data displayed showed that a "floating" temple existed in the upper atmosphere of the planet.  It used the swirling gases of the planet to power large wind turbines, and the large amount of solar energy provided by two suns was used to gather the rest of the power necessary to generate a neutron field large enough to keep the temple 'afloat' and shielded from the harmful toxic gasses of the planet.

The gas kept the temple hidden well from sensors, in fact unless you knew it was there, it would be near impossible to find out here in this rarely-visited star system.  But here they were.

"Tell me about these two idols we're after again," Chego said as he looked over the data.

"Solid gold, my friend.  1500 years ago, some pagan cultists, believing that somehow these idols had magic powers, placed them at this temple to protect the stars."

"Protect them from what?"

"From THE DARK BRINGERS," Bart said while laughing.  He uncorked a glass flask and took a drink of a turquoise liquid.  He coughed at the harshness.

"Who?"

"Somehow these twin suns are supposed to be sacred.  Apparently, the core of the planet is some fancy gateway to another dimension, or some such bullocks.  The suns provide enough light to to keep these Dark Gods at bay."

Bart showed Chego more information on the data pad, explaining how the two gold idols, one representing each sun, kept the 'Dark Gods' from using their Elder Magick to literally blow the suns out like a pair of candles.

Chego and Bart both took another swig of the turquoise drink and went to go prep the yacht for an outing.  Soon, the small craft was launched from the Arrowsmith and headed into the swirling and tumbling gases of the Giant.

They found the temple surprisingly quick.  The directions were very accurate, and within a short amount of time, they were docked and inside.

"I can't believe they are just sitting there," said Chego, extremely surprised that the temple was very small, and lacked any maze-like hidden passages.  In fact, it lacked almost any features.

"Well, the place was supposed to be secret."

The two gold idols, one of a lamb, the other of a serpent, lay on a small, un-assuming iron block.  The two men grabbed them, and wrapped them up in light-weight protective-foil.  Everything seemed easy.  But the duo didn't stop to think that it was too easy.

                                                                      ###

"Admiral, we've just lost the entire Kepler-35 system," squeaked a rookie officer, troubled at the news.  It was his first day to boot.

Before the admiral could respond, Ensign Estes blurted out more.

"Sir, lost may have been a bad word to use.  It's just gone, completely removed from existence.  The physics team is already working on theories.  But there's more; before the system was, um, erased, an encoded transmission was sent out of the system.  It used a centuries old encryption, we broke it instantly.  Must have been an old ship."

"Spit it out, ensign," beemed the gray-haired Admiral.

"Here's the message sir."

"[STATIC].......Echo?....[STATIC]..... of course this is Bart.  Listen, Echo, I got a great deal for you.  Solid gold here, but it could be sold to an art dealer....you should see these...[STATIC].............what the?.......did you feel that, what's shaking the ship.  Wait.....[STATIC]...........hand me the flash light Chego.....[SCREAMS]......[STATIC]."

"That's the whole thing sir."

                                                                      ###

As the Galactic Army sat and studied the empty hole of non-existence, the Dark Bringers ate at the darkness, fed upon it like a leech feeds upon blood.  They were hungry now, they needed the dark, yearned for it.  Where they went, so did the darkness.  And the Galaxy is so full of stars.  They grow ever stronger, able to withstand the slight sting of light now.  But it is only a fleeting sting, for where they go, the scourge of darkness descends. 

Some Say In Ice

---

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

~Robert Frost

The Dwarf Planet Eris, Pluto's twin, is a desolate but iridescent graveyard that sticks out in ghostly contrast against the blotchy abyss that lay behind it. None survived the re-freezing, when the frozen gaseous atmosphere of Eris returned to it's normal state after the reactor failure. The terraformer couldn’t do it's work anymore, and the entire atmosphere was flash frozen before a single alarm went off.

Eris is now a frozen memorial, a cemetery of silent carnage. The atmosphere and air of Eris, frozen solid, creates a grotesque museum. Citizens of Eris turned to icicles before the expressions on their faces could change, although skin and bone cracked from the extreme cold, leaving people as broken mannequins. The mundane daily life of Eris is know immortalized forever in an icy tomb, perhaps a cautionary tale for those who would so willingly colonize something in such dark isolation.

The Dwarf Planet has a strange and oblong orbit, and during some of it's journey around the Sun, it sits alone in the void, far from star or celestial body. In these deep, dark places, Eris became infected. The very molecules of the planet became tainted by unholy lurking entities of pure chaos and blackness. The citizens of Eris never noticed creeping tendrils of black ice forming around the Zeon Reactor, never noticed it rotting the protective alloy coating of the safety harness. Never gave creedence to the strange dreams, nightmares even, of the seedlings of evil within the icy core of Eris.

Now strange solar winds glide by the dead planet, and occasionally, at the right angle, you can almost see the wind push around the planet, as if to avoid it, respect it. Distant sunlight gives the icy glint a halo effect, as if an angel stands watch over the frozen cemetery. Cracking ice sometimes creates moaning noises, giving the entombed dead a faint voice that swirls with snowflakes and dead ice. Heaps of ice have collected over the millennia, the evidence of the original Eris settlers hidden beneath black depths now.

Off in the distance, the sparkling light of a starship, almost looking like a bright star, heralds the coming of a new race, ignorant and ready to make Eris their own.

***

The Whirling Stars

---

BEGIN RECORDING

***

This is Pilot Gustav Breckenridge, giving my official account of wrecked ship # R3EE8U.  Sunburst class, scientific load-out.

I approached the asteroid belt at too high a velocity.  Retro-rockets fired, but didn’t slow me in time.  I hit Partial-Planetoid 3475 at a speed far exceeding what the hull could take, and it crunched like a soda can.

After I climbed out of the safety-foam filled cockpit, luckily still in one piece, I did a systems check on my suit.  Functioning, rations pod filled with food and water.  As I looked around, the surface looked like many of the pocked chunks of rocks I’ve seen during my career.  The rescue equipment on the ship was disabled in the crash, so I knew I had sometime before a retrieval vessel was sent out.

I remember recalling the details of my mission as I slowly began to explore the asteroid, which was one of the larger ones in the asteroid belt.  About the size of Maine.  I knew that looking around on foot was going to take some time, which I had plenty of.  I didn’t have a whole lot to look for, other than lava vents.  Partial-Planetoid 3475 had a molten core, and is very similar to the early celestial bodies in the solar system.  For some reason, a few Pre-Planets didn’t continue their transformation from rock to planet, and collected in the asteroid belt with the solid-cores.

The face of Commander Peachtree kept me motivated, I had it in my memory, remembered that he said this was an important mission, that finding out more about our solar system and Earth’s creation would help with New Terra’s battle against the Religious Extremist Nations.  It would help prove that science and logic are right.

I needed core samples, ground data and samples, and other scientific evidence.  Locating a lava vent would be a good start; I still had some of the collection equipment, the stuff built into my suit, and Peachtree would be pleased that I got some data to him, especially during a crash type event.  He would commend my bravery.

About 7 hours into my investigation of the asteroid, I found something.  At first it looked like a lava vent, but as I approached it I saw that it was actually carved into the surface.  It looked like a smooth open mouth, yawing at the dark, star filled sky.  A faint, yet strangely robust orange light permeated from the opening, and I could see that the angle of the tunnel descending down into ground was optimal for exploring.  It beckoned for me to walk down into its depths, and I obliged.  Tiny holes along the lower walls and ground of the tunnel seemed to be projecting the glow, hinting at the lava beneath the ground.

I should have turned back when I saw the first statue.  It was strange, something like a goat mixed with a whale, fur and blubber fused in unholy unison.  The detail was exquisite, it looked laser carved.  I should have realized right there that I was dealing with something beyond my realm of understanding, but I kept telling myself that maybe one of those Religious nut-jobs back on Earth somehow stole a Federation craft and made it out to this rock, and sculpted it somehow.

Against better judgment I continued into the tunnel’s depths.  For about an hour, it was all walking, passing an occasional Whale-Goat.  But then I came to a large chamber, sealed off by a decorative door, built of a strange metal that exuded a sense of durability.  It begged for fools to try and breach it.

At the time, I was feeling foolish.  I poked and prodded around, but found no buttons or control panels.  I knocked, for fun, and nothing happened.  I remembered I had a small amount of mining explosive in the suit’s on-board science kit, and I planted it at the base of the door.  I moved to an acceptable range out of the blast zone, and detonated.  I didn’t count on a chunk of rock falling from the ceiling and piercing my suit.

Luckily, these suits have nano-tech and the hole sealed quick, not to mentioned my newly acquired wound was almost immediately stitched.  But not before a few drops of blood spurted out onto the suit, un-noticed by me.  As I brought myself to my feet, while bracing my hands against my legs, little specs of that blood must have gotten on my suit-gloves.  I ran to the door to see if that was all worth it.  Nothing visibly had changed on the doors.

Upset at all that wasted effort, I leaned against the door to take a quick rest.  A small red smear was painted across it as my hand brushed by.  The metal of the door howled, and made gurgling noises as it absorbed the blood and seemed to want more.  Before I could process any of this, the door opened.  I went inside, lured by some unknown pied piper.

It was huge.  A slug-like whale tube the size of nine back to back school buses, with stubby centipede goat legs, bobbed around the giant room.  Eye stalks were set atop a doughnut like mouth ringed with teeth, mounted to a strange pig head, and attached to the slug body.  Near the head were little prehensile hands, ready to usher something into it’s maw.

The next thing I remember was waking up back at the ship…dizzy…looking up into the void at the stars, they were swirling in my blurred vision.

I figured I should start documenting this and grabbed this recorder out the holster on my suit.

***