Shadows Bear No Names (The Blackened Prophecy Book 1) (21 page)

“It doesn’t explain that much, old man,” Ray narrowed his eyes. “What does this have anything to do with the Consortium?”

“I cannot explain that.”

“Do we even know Agent Caius’s a Consortium agent?” Sarah asked.

“What do you mean?” Ray raised his head. “He’s faking it?”

“No, I don’t think so. But what if he has ties other than the Consortium?”

Ga’an answered. “We had our own traitors who would sabotage the Empire’s operations in the name of Baeal.”

“Stockholm syndrome?” Ray asked but rephrased his words as he saw Ga’an’s confused look. “I mean, people supporting the enemy.”

“I am not certain, Raymond Harris,” Ga’an’s stare moved on to the Arinar. “The Inquisition never found a cult of followers or a group. There were only sabotages and the saboteurs would disappear without a trace. I do not know how, but we were infiltrated from the start.”

“But how could that happen?” Sarah protested. “Ray?” she turned to the captain.

“At this point, I can believe anything,” Ray said. “There’s a lot to explain about how we ended up here, but things are way too wild to ignore. A Consortium agent in league with these Baeal is another matter to wonder about.”

“Maybe he’s Baeal?” Sarah said.

“He looks human to me,” Ray argued. “And how does a Baeal look anyway?”

Sarah rubbed her eyes, sighing. “I guess we’re not going back home.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” Ray said. “They crashed our ship, killed thousands of people and now they’re haunting us at every turn. We need to find the reason why, and—” he gave Brother Cavil a faint but thankful smile, “—it all revolves around this statuette. And me.”

“Well,
Canaar
was our home anyway.”

“There were five stones.” Ga’an bowed to Ray. “Five Arinar. We need to find the others.”

“We need to find out more about these stones as well. Aliens or not, we don’t know anything about this trinket besides a few lines of religious hem and haw,” Ray said. “Sorry Brother.”

Brother Cavil chuckled like a prankster. “You are right. I guess it is time to find Reverend Marcus!”

“You know where he is?” Ray asked, surprised. “I thought he disappeared after he was cast off Bunari.”

“He disappeared from Bunari,” the old man shrugged. “He did not disappear from the face of the galaxy.”

“I thought he was dead or something!” Ray looked at the priest in disbelief. “All this time, you knew where he was!”

“Of course I know where he is,” Brother Cavil snorted. “And heaven forbid, he is still alive. After all, he is my father.”

Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT

THE FOX

“Look what I found!” Sarah entered the cabin with a calico cat in her arms. “She was wandering around in the cargo bay.”

“Cute.” The animal seemed fine with being in company, but from Ray’s experience, cats seldom liked being hugged and kissed unless they clearly expressed it themselves. Ray had always had an uneasy friendship with pets back on Earth, not that there were too many left to live with on the completely overbuilt planet. Still, he felt uncomfortable around them.

“Come on boss, she won’t bite.” Sarah cuddled the now-purring cat. “She was frightened to death when I found her. It’s a wonder she survived with a company like Joe’s.”

“Yeah, probably for a reason,” Ray agreed, not seeing Joe’s people as the cat-lady type. He watched the animal purr and close its eyes in comfort.
I really know nothing about cats.

“I think I’ll call her Darty.”

Ray smiled this time. “Sure.” It felt good to see something cheerful for a change, no matter how small or furry it was. “Darty it is.”

“All right, girl, now Sarah has to talk with the captain,” she cooed, putting the cat down. As if to complement her name, the animal darted into the hallway the moment she was free of Sarah’s
loving
touch.

“She liked you, Sarah.”

Sarah looked after the running animal and shrugged. “At least I named her right.”

Ray turned his attention back to the Arinar sitting before him.

“We’ll make the station in less than an hour,” Sarah said, sitting opposite. “Brother Cavil thinks his father can tell us something concrete about the Arinar and we can be done with whatever this is.”

Ray nodded. “What about supplies?”

“This thing has ceytelium plating, boss!” Sarah’s voice was full of awe. “I thought they only had those on military ships.”

“Smugglers do smuggle ship parts as well, Sarah.”

“Yeah, well, the power core is top-notch black market work. The ship has a small jump drive that can cover some nice distance and we have enough afterburner fuel to skywrite the ship’s manual,” Sarah suppressed a yawn. “We have enough food for three months or so and the water treatment system looks fine. Oh and the thing has radar cloak. I believe we’ll be safe from that agent of yours.”

Ray nodded again without a word.

Sarah narrowed her eyes, examining him.

“What?”

“Something has changed about you.”

“Hmm?” Ray broke his gaze, “What do you mean?”

“Something’s different about you.” She leaned forward. “The Raymond Harris I know was only interested in staying on the road and delivering his cargo. He wouldn’t even take the shore leaves.” Sarah’s eyes looked him up and down, trying to glimpse the truth behind his transformation. “What happened on Bunari?”

Ray put the artifact away, sinking back into his chair. He ground his hands into his eyes as if he could take away the memories. When he spoke again, his stare was distant.

“How many innocent people died because of an artifact they didn’t even know?” It wasn’t really a question.

“How bad was the crash, boss?” Sarah whispered gently, reaching for Ray’s hand on the table.

“Brother Cavil says over a hundred thousand—” Ray tried to keep his voice from cracking “—burned and buried alive.” He raised his stare to meet Sarah’s, “We need to learn
why
. We owe those people that much. I owe them that much.”

The computer’s voice announcing their approach to the asteroid station saved Sarah from the despair of not knowing what to say. “I’ll get on the horn.” She rubbed Ray’s hand, then made her way to the cockpit.

“All right, enlighten us Reverend Marcus,” Ray murmured, following Sarah out of the room.

In the cockpit, all the others—including Darty—stared at the station in silence. The cat quickly lost interest, focusing instead on batting the blinking lights of the flight console with its paws.

“What are we looking at?”

Brother Cavil nodded at the station. Something inhuman distorted the station’s silhouette.

“What
is
that thing?” Ray’s lowered his voice to a whisper, as if trying to avoid alerting it to their presence. “It’s almost as big as the station.”

“How big is the station? Three thousand meters?” Sarah leaned forward to see the upper end of the dark silhouette.

“Two thousand, give or take,” Ray answered.

“That thing is bigger than a dreadnought!”

“Is it what I think it is?” Brother Cavil asked.

“It is Baeal,” Ga’an said.

No one else dared speak. They stood watching the black, spider-like craft in silence and in terror.

Chapter TWENTY-NINE

K’TA

“I still think this is a terrible idea,” Sarah said one more time.

“Reverend Marcus is our only lead, Sarah.” Ray said, reaching for the airlock doors. “That
ship
’s here for a reason.”

“Do we really have to learn
why
?”

“Yes.” Ray looked over his shoulder. Brother Cavil looked afraid but determined. “Besides, would you like to explain him why we’re leaving his father behind?”

“Ray!” Sarah whispered, “For all we know, he may be dead by now.”

Ray didn’t say anything.

The doors to the docking bay corridor hissed open. The station was illuminated only by orange emergency lamps mounted every few meters. Ray had hoped to bump into security guards or scientists trying to escape the station. Instead, the hangar bay looked like a ghost town. The place was deserted and Ray didn’t think the personnel had abandoned B-533.

“No announcements, no sounds,” Sarah said, walking cautiously toward a door at the end of the hangar bay that she guessed connected to the base. “The utility tugs are still parked and that’s a shuttle at the far end.”

“No nothing.” Ray followed her.

All except the priest carried sidearms Sarah had found aboard the
Fox,
though none of them had any idea if guns worked against a Baeal. Brother Cavil refused to arm himself, saying it was against his core beliefs. Ray had had no intention of giving a weapon to the old man anyway, but he kept that to himself. He had no desire to get shot by mistake long before facing Baeal.

“You think these guns will work?” Sarah asked Ray.

“I really don’t know. They’re projectile-based, so there’s that. Careful with your ammo.”

“I wish we had some of those military grade laser rifles or piercing rounds. These’re junk.”

“I wish we were somewhere else, in a bar preferably.”

At the main door Sarah hesitated, looking to Ray for approval. The silence in the corridors was eerie, disturbing. He nodded slowly, raising his pistol and hoping he was ready for what might be on the other side of the door.

The duo dashed into the room, weapons searching for targets, but it was as empty as the halls. Ga’an moved behind them silently, observing the chaos in the room.
Oh, boy…

“By the Light,” Brother Cavil murmured, looking around in disbelief.

“Now we know where everyone went.” Sarah said.

Brother Cavil covered his mouth with his hand, resisting the urge to puke.

The reception room was no larger than twenty by twenty meters. One would say it was tastefully decorated, if not for the scattered furniture and bodies. The walls were splattered with blood, and Ray was thankful the low lights saved them the full view of the massacre. However, even the dim light of the emergency lamps was enough to measure the scale of gore.

Ray looked at the bodies, torn to pieces by something large and with claws by the looks of it. The bleak texture benighted the otherwise neat, almost sterile looking room. The terror of the moment was carved onto the scientists’ final expressions; their hollow eyes staring beyond the plains of life and into unwelcoming darkness. Ray knelt to close a female scientist’s eyes, trying not to look below her belly, where she was missing both legs.

“Here,” Sarah called, pointing at a terminal near the info desk, “a station map.” Gritting her teeth, Sarah pushed down a severed arm and wiped the blood off the screen. “God…”

“Do you know where your father is, Brother?” Ray asked, leaving the woman’s body to join Sarah at the terminal.

“N-No, I…” Brother Cavil babbled. He was trying to avoid looking at the spoiled bodies. His face was pale, almost yellow and more than once the old priest had to lean on a chair or a sofa to keep from losing his balance.

“Station time’s way past midnight,” Sarah said at the information computer. “He may be in his quarters.”

“If he is still alive,” Ga’an said, voicing the possibility no one had wanted to say out loud.

Ray broke the silence that followed. “Well, it’s as good a guess as any,” he said, looking at the cracked terminal screen. “There,” he pointed. “Two floors up, in the parallel wing. Crew quarters.”

The group left the hall, following the map. They moved fast—Ray was unsure if it was purpose or because they were all hoping to get off the station as fast as possible. Most of the corridors were empty and clean of the stench of desecrated bodies, but twice they bumped into similar scenes of horror. The first was the lower two-thirds of a body, sliced into two just above the abdomen, stuck in a semi-closed elevator door. The elevator shaft was too dark to see through the small crack between the doors. Their best guess was the owner, a male, had gotten stuck between the malfunctioned elevator doors, the moving elevator having done the dirty work for his pursuers. The second instance was a copy of the reception room; another butcher shop where several guards lay dead, their body parts severed.

“Why was your father here?” Sarah asked Brother Cavil. She felt as shaken as the old priest looked.

“Keep it down!” Ray whispered harshly.

Sarah waved her hand apologetically and Brother Cavil whispered “He moved here last year when he learnt there was a new expedition. They found new ruins of the Nucteel, the Ancients,” he explained. “We only wrote each other every few months,” he said regretfully. “I do not have any knowledge of the extent of his research.”

“Perhaps they found another Arinar,” Ga’an added. “It would explain the arrival of Baeal here.”

“How do they know of this site?” Ray asked

“I do not know, Raymond Harris.”

“Perhaps they feel the calling of a stone,” Sarah said. “I saw something similar in a movie once.”

“Maybe. At this point, anything we
think
we know about Baeal is mere speculation. He complained about the insensitivity of younger scientists the last time he wrote.” Brother Cavil said.

“Hush!” Ray warned them, signaling them to get down. “Something moved.”

Ga’an pointed to the far end of the large room they were about to enter; someone was crouching behind a knocked-over couch. He looked back and leaned close to Ray. “This hallway is too narrow to defend, we should move into the room.”

Ray nodded. There were two service desks and couches to hide behind if they needed cover.

Ga’an readied his weapon and started around the left side of the room, like a panther readying to attack its prey. Ray aimed his pistol at the shadow, waving Sarah and Brother Cavil to hide behind the nearby service desk but Sarah scowled and moved right, aiming her own weapon while pushing the old priest gently toward the nearest service table and signaling him to lay low.

“Is that—” Brother Cavil started but Sarah stopped him.

“That doesn’t look like someone who killed a station full of people,” Sarah whispered. “Crouching and all, you know…”

“Is that—”

“Hush, old man!” Ray stopped Brother Cavil. “Keep your voice down. Sarah, we don’t know
what
killed those—”

“Father!” Brother Cavil suddenly called, narrowing his eyes, “Is that you?” He put his head up from behind the desk where they had taken cover.

“Dammit old man!” Ray hissed, grabbing for Brother Cavil’s robe but the man heedlessly rushed into the room already, running clumsily to the shadow.

“Gabriel?” an elderly voice answered from the shadows, “Is that you?” a man raised his head from behind the couch.

“Yes!” Brother Cavil said joyously, hugging the elder man, almost bringing him down.

“By the Light, what are you doing here?” he asked, holding his son’s face in both hands. “You look older.”

“I am old, father,” Brother Cavil said, “It has been decades!”

“You are not looking after yourself,” the elder man said angrily. “Did I teach you nothing?”

“I am!” the priest protested. “I always carry a kumat in my pocket.” He pulled out one of the apple-like fruits.

“Excuse me,” Ray interrupted, “I really hate to break up the reunion, but we’re in the middle of a death trap.”
Where the hell does he find those kumats?

“Oh…” Brother Cavil said, looking around in surprise. He looked down and realized he was stepping on someone’s right foot, and jumped back in disgust.

“Here,” Ga’an pulled the priest by the arm, guiding him into a storage room.

Ray pushed Brother Cavil’s father into the room behind them. Sarah came last, scanning the bigger room one last time for any surprises. Ray locked the door and turned to face the excited elders hugging.

“…The soup here is mediocre at best. You know they use broccoli with carrots. With carrots!” Reverend Marcus said, and Brother Cavil shook his head in disbelief.

“All right, what the hell happened here?”

“Mind your language, young man,” Reverend Marcus said and turned back to his son disapprovingly, “I see you have found yourself in vulgar company in my absence.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. She glanced at Ga’an and saw he was equally puzzled, looking at Reverend Marcus.

“Everyone on your station is dead, old man,” Ray said impatiently, “and unless we get out of here fast, whatever killed them will find us, too.”

Reverend Marcus pursed his lips. “I must agree this has been shockingly wasteful. Disrespect to science and study is on a galactic scale.”

“Father, things…have transpired,” Brother Cavil said, “And we need your help to figure them out.”

“What things?” the elder man raised his brushy eyebrows over his broad nose. The resemblance to his son was obvious. “Is Damien pressuring you still?”

“No. Well, sometimes he can be—”

Ray took Brother Cavil’s arm firmly as if to say
not here.

“—We can talk about it back on the ship,” the priest finished, giving Ray a frightened look.

“You bought a ship? Are you looking for senseless adventure, Gabriel?”

“No father, I—”

“Hey! What are you
doing?
To the ship. Now!” Ray intervened.

Reverend Marcus looked at Ray. “Very well.”
His whole family is nuts!

The group and their newest member headed back to the hangar bay the way they had come, passing through the rooms, once sterile, now a series of abattoirs.

“Raymond Harris, if there is an Arinar
here, we have to find it,” Ga’an said slowly.

Ray nodded. “Sarah, take Brother Cavil and his father back to the ship. We’ll look for the Arinar.”

“What?” Reverend Marcus stopped and turned to face Ray, “What did you say?”

“You’re in no shape to fight if things go sour. Brother Cavil can explain it all to you back on the ship. We need your help but getting you killed will help nothing.”

“Humph!” Reverend Marcus said, taking a step toward Ray. “Boy, I do not think I like your disrespectful nature.” He waved his finger, reprehending. “I am
the
utmost expert in Arinar and I will not let you take my research away.”

“Gods beyond, help me! What
is
it with you Cavils—” Ray stopped short when the reverend pulled out a small statuette from his robe, similar to the one they had on board the
Fox
, with slightly different carvings.

“My research!” Reverend Marcus hissed.
No,
Ray thought,
he snarled.

“Light be praised,” Sarah said, mimicking Brother Cavil.

“You have the stone!” Ray couldn’t hide his surprise.

“Of course!” the elder sounded hurt by the idea of leaving his work behind. “I am not about to leave a sacred piece of history to some barbaric Neanderthal corporate show-offs who call themselves
a rescue team
to find in a scavenger hunt
.
” He snorted again, “Not that you would understand.” He eyed Ray threateningly, “What on seven heavens do you want with my Arinar?” The elder man tightened his grip on the statue.

“No time to ex—” a deafening howling sound interrupted Ray.

“Definitely not the time!” Sarah yelled, pushing the older men toward the corridor that tied the hall they were in to the lower ones.

Ga’an pointed to the far door of the large room opposite to the one they stood in. He said to Ray, “It came from behind that door.”

“Come on!” Ray bellowed, “shoot the door controls!” He rushed toward a drink automat near the doorway. “Those two can’t move any faster and I really don’t want to know what’s making that noise!”

“Blocking won’t do good with a sliding door, Ray!”

“Anything to slow them down!” Ray pushed the machine to block the doorway and waved for Ga’an to do the same with one of the couches nearby.

“Argh! To hell with this!” Sarah fired a few rounds at the door controls and the panel smoked black, then sparked. Something slammed the door at the other end just after Sarah fried the controls.

“That thing won’t hold for long!” Sarah yelled, running back into the hallway. Whatever was on the other side, it screamed in anger, tearing the silence with its voice.

“Hurry!” Ray ran after Sarah and the two priests, Ga’an following close behind. They caught up near the airlock hallway. A loud cracking filled the room behind them, announcing their pitiful barricade had been breached.

“Move!” Ray barked, turning back to face the source of the scream, aiming his pistol into the hallway.

For a moment it felt as if time stopped. Ray’s ears were dulled, hearing only his own breathing. He turned his head. The Ancient stood next to him, looking at the doorway with vengeful eyes. Ray understood his new friend’s feelings. He’d only learned of Baeal a few days ago, but Ga’an was about to face the enemy he’d fought almost all his life and eons ago. He thought he heard the Ancient growl.

Ray’s heart sank and his guard dropped when the figure entered the hallway. He—
It
looked like a man— was bald and had a dark-bluish skin. The muscular creature was much taller than Ga’an, almost three meters in height. It had long, pointy ears stretching to the back of his head, connecting to his skin at their tops. The eyes—nothing reflected from them, as if they sucked the light in the room. The alien was naked but for a loincloth that shone like silver under the red-yellow illumination, and held a staff. Ray glanced at Ga’an, who stood like a statue.