The Lost Fleet: Genesis: A Slaver Wars Novel (16 page)

“What have you
found?” asked Kelnor as he stopped and gazed through the open doorway at the
lighted corridor beyond.

“I’m not
certain without going inside,” Reesa said. “We can see paintings and what
appear to be small statues on pedestals.”

Kelnor gazed
down the corridor for a moment and then nodded at one of the Marines who had
come with them. He took a piece of brightly colored metal in the shape of a
pipe and laid it across the doorway.

Reesa looked
at Kelnor feeling confused. “What’s the pipe for?”

“It’s made of
the same metal as the Dyson Sphere,” Kelnor explained. “I feel fairly certain
the door won’t be able to close with the pipe lying across the entrance.”

Reesa didn’t
bother to remind Kelnor she still had the key. If he wanted to take this added
precaution, that was fine with her.

“I’ll leave a
couple of Marines here as well,” said Sergeant Wilde. “They’ll make sure the
pipe stays in place.”

Reesa nodded
and looked at Kelnor. “Can we go in?”

“Yes,” Kelnor
answered. “Let’s see what you’ve found.”

Stepping
inside, the group proceeded down the corridor, stopping at the first painting.
It was of an Originator standing in front of a small spacecraft on an alien
world.

“Interesting,”
Melvin said as he stepped closer to examine the painting and then looked back
at Kelnor. “If this Originator had white hair, he would be very similar to an Alton.”

“There is a
resemblance,” admitted Kelnor. “But we’ve found many similar races across the
galaxy. It could well be the Originators themselves influenced the development
of life on myriads of planets across our galaxy as well as others.”

“Perhaps,”
said Melvin with doubt in his eyes. “Why is this painting still intact after so
many years? You would have thought that by now it would have turned to dust.”

Kelnor aimed a
small instrument he was carrying at the painting and then spent a few moments
studying the readouts on the device. “Hmm,” he said, his eyes widening
slightly. “There’s some type of stasis field around the painting. That’s why
the painting looks as if it was only placed here yesterday.”

“So that must
hold true for all of these others as well,” Brenda said as she looked at the
long corridor and all the paintings it held.

Reesa slowly
walked down the corridor, recording all the paintings and statues on a small
device she was carrying. Stopping, she turned back toward Kelnor. “This reminds
me of the building above the main computer center back on Astral. There are
very similar paintings and murals in that building as well.”

“Reesa,
Kelnor, you better come over here,” Corporal Metz said excitedly. He was
standing in front of a large arched doorway. “I think I know what this place
is.”

The two Altons
hurried over to where Metz was standing, followed by the others. Looking
inside, they saw a cavernous room filled with hundreds, possibly thousands of
display cases.

“A museum,”
uttered Reesa, as her eyes widened in anticipation “It’s a museum!” She could
hardly breathe, realizing they had finally found something she could study. Her
heart was pounding as she gazed at one display and then the next.

Brenda walked
over and stepped cautiously into the room. She realized it was easily several
hundred meters long and nearly as wide. Huge display cases stood everywhere,
beckoning them. She turned back toward the two Altons who were still standing
in the doorway with a look of awe on their faces. “I think we’re going to be
here for a while.”

-

Several hours
later the group stood near the center of the room. They had found several other
arched doorways leading to other display areas. In addition, in what appeared
to be a small office they had found two additional keys. Kelnor was now in possession
of one of the copper colored globes as well as Sergeant Wilde.

Brenda was
standing in front of an exhibit that held what appeared to be some type of
ancient ground vehicle. It was very similar to one of the combustion engine
vehicles used in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century on Earth.
The biggest difference was that this vehicle was taller and more streamlined.

“There’s so
much Originator history here,” Reesa said, her eyes aglow from everything she
had found. It was as if her lifelong dream had finally become a reality. “It
details their early development and what their life was like during the early
stages of their civilization.”

“But where’s
all the modern stuff?” asked Melvin. Melvin had been wandering through the
different display rooms with two Marines as escorts. “Everything we’ve found so
far seems very early in Originator history. We’ve seen very little that tells
about their science or space travel.”

“There may be
other display rooms we haven’t found yet,” suggested Kelnor. “We’ve barely
scratched the surface of what we’ve found here. It will take weeks for us to
properly catalog what’s in these rooms alone.”

Reesa looked
around, imagining Originators walking down the long display aisles spending the
day with their families at the museum. It wasn’t hard to imagine seeing an
Originator come walking through the door at any moment.

Kelnor looked
around at the assembled group. “We’ll spend two more hours in the rooms we’ve
discovered. Make sure we record everything and then we’ll go back to camp and
discuss our next move. We have a lot of work ahead of us. We’re going to need
everyone working on this. We’ll divide up into groups and assign each one a
room and line of study.”

“I don’t want
anyone wandering off on their own,” warned Brenda. She looked specifically at
Reesa. “Stay in contact and if any new rooms are discovered report back to me
before entering.”

-

An hour later
Reesa was with her escorts in the farthest display room they had found. She’d
come up against a blank wall and with a deep sigh decided it was just another
dead end. She had been searching for more indentations for her key. She was
convinced there had to be more to the museum than what they had found so far.

“Perhaps this
is all there is,” suggested Corporal Metz. “Maybe this museum is to remind them
of where they came from. There may not be any displays of their technology.”

“I don’t
believe that,” Reesa said, shaking her head. “It has to be here somewhere; we
just need to find it.”

She turned
around to face the three Marines, her escorts. She leaned back expecting to
feel her shoulders touch the wall. There was no resistance and with a stunned
feeling, she fell to the floor. Reesa felt a sharp pain in her back and lay
there blinking her eyes. Shaking her head she stood back up, realizing she was
on the other side of the wall. There was no sign of the three Marines. Putting
here hand out, she gingerly touched the wall expecting her hand to go through
it. To her surprise, she felt a solid surface. She had been certain the wall
was a hologram. She spent a short while trying to puzzle out what had happened.
Somehow, her passing through the wall had caused it to turn solid; perhaps it
was a security mechanism she had triggered.

“Now what have
I done?” she said to herself as she turned around to examine her surroundings.
She was in another room, which seemed to be much larger than the one she had
just been in. Her eyes widened as she saw what was in the display cases. “So
this is where the more modern items are.”

Walking over
to a case, she began to examine what it contained, her excitement momentarily
causing her to forget she was without her Marine escort.

-

Corporal Metz
gazed in astonishment at the wall Reesa had fallen through. Rushing forward, he
expected to find the wall wasn’t real. With shock, he struck a solid surface.

“Well, this
can’t be good,” said Private Carton with a confused frown on her face. “Where
did she go?”

Metz stepped back and eyed the wall with a frustrated look on his face. “I don’t know, but
we need to report back to Sergeant Wilde, and she’s not going to be happy to
hear about this.” The sergeant had cautioned Metz about keeping a close eye on
the Alton scientist, and now it looked as if he had still managed to lose her.

“Damn,”
muttered Private Trent, shaking his head. “Why’s it always us?”

-

Brenda
couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Once again Reesa had managed to get
herself into trouble. “Are you certain this is the right wall?”

“Positive,”
replied Corporal Metz nervously. “We were all standing here when she fell right
through it as if it wasn’t even there.”

“I’m not
detecting anything unusual,” commented Melvin as he scanned the wall with the
portable sensor he was holding. He turned back toward the sergeant and Kelnor.
“The wall seems to be solid.”

“We could try
blasting a hole through it,” suggested Corporal Metz, feeling responsible for
Reesa’s disappearance.

Kelnor reached
out and touched the wall, running his hand across it. “There must be something
important behind this wall for the Originators to keep it hidden. Reesa is an
excellent research scientist, and I’m sure she’ll find a way to come back
through. We just need to wait.”

-

Reesa was
walking through the huge room gazing in wonder at the display cases. There were
hundreds of them showing all types of various machines and scientific
instruments. Most of them Reesa had no clue as to what their function was.
After looking at a number of cases, she decided to return to the wall and
attempt to pass back through it. Surely with her key, she could find a way. A
distant noise suddenly drew her attention. Her eyes widened as she listened,
hearing what appeared to be footsteps coming toward her. She felt an eerie
chill run through her as she realized she wasn’t alone. Perhaps it was one of
the Marines searching for her. She was just about to call out when suddenly,
around the corner of one of the displays, a figure appeared. Reesa drew in a
sharp breath, and her heart began to pound as she recognized what it was. It
was an Originator! They weren’t all dead after all.

-

Fleet Admiral
Race Tolsen was in the Command Center of the
WarHawk
checking on the
deployment of his fleet. Every day he expected the Shari to attack in
overwhelming numbers, but so far, that attack hadn’t materialized.

“What are they
doing?” asked Admiral Stoddard, who had come over for his weekly briefing.

Race was
meeting with each of the fleet admirals once per week for an in-depth
discussion of the status of their crews and ships as well as to update the
admirals on what was going on at the Dyson Sphere.

“Watching us,”
Race said as he glanced at one of the tactical displays showing the myriad of
red threat icons on the perimeter of the system. There was another small group
of red icons two hundred million kilometers away as well.

Stoddard let
out a deep and heavy breath. “How much longer are we going to stay here? We
have no idea what’s happening back in Federation space. For all we know, there
could be a major war going on between the Federation and the Shari. If that’s
true, they could use our ships.”

“I don’t think
actual fighting has broken out,” Race responded. “We still have one line of FTL
buoys intact running between us and Federation space. If the Shari had
attacked, I’m sure Fleet Admiral Nagumo would have sent the recall order.” Race
had also not used their last line of communication as he was saving it for an
actual emergency. He knew once he activated it, the Shari would detect the FTL
communication and trace down the line of buoys.

“So we just
sit here and wait?”

“For now,”
Race answered. “We have a number of teams on the surface of the Dyson Sphere
seeking another way in.”

Stoddard gazed
at the large viewscreen, which was always focused on the massive artifact.
“Maybe we should try to blast our way in like the Shari are planning. What if
they get inside the sphere before we do?”

“Alshan Kalar
is convinced we don’t dare use explosives against the Dyson Sphere,” Race
responded. He and the Alton scientist had already discussed this in depth
several times. “He’s convinced there are automatic defenses which will be
activated at the first sign of such a blast.”

“And what if
the Shari proceed with their attempt to force their way into the Dyson Sphere?
What does that mean for us?”

Race let out a
deep sigh. This was a matter of grave concern, so much so that he had sent a
message to the High Lord of the Shari fleet warning him of what the
consequences might be of setting off explosive charges on the Dyson Sphere.
Alshan was convinced that such nuclear charges, as the Shari had emplaced,
would in all likelihood fail in penetrating the outer hull of the
megastructure.

“Alshan has
put together a friendship message we’re broadcasting on all frequencies at the
Dyson Sphere. He believes the controlling intelligence of the sphere will
recognize we’re not a threat and won’t retaliate against us if the Shari do set off their explosive charges.”

“If there is a
controlling intelligence,” commented Stoddard, shaking his head in doubt. “If
these supposed defenses are automatic, they could very well fire on everything
that’s in orbit, including us.”

Race nodded.
It was a risk, but they dared not leave orbit and allow the Shari full
possession of the megastructure. His eyes shifted over to the main viewscreen.
He could see an exploration cutter on the surface near the structure Kelnor,
Reesa, and the rest of the exploration team had vanished into so many weeks
back. He knew the only hope for the team’s continued survival was if they had
actually made it to the inner surface of the Dyson Sphere. Race hoped that was
what had happened, for they were the only real chance they had of learning the
secrets of the Originators.