The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

The two Detectives pulled up in front of Jupiter Vistas and went through the door
procedure asking to be let in to 79. The door opened but the Guardsman signalled them
over.

“He’s in the Infirmary at the present sirs. Down the corridor to the right of the stairs in
through the double doors at the end” he said pointing the way. “He’s having Physio after his
recent mobility surgery.” He added as the two of them headed down the corridor. Tom
Hasperand; The Song Bird of Korva was in the hydro therapy pool. He seemed pleased to see
Krank. He signalled the male nurse to help him out and joined them at a table on the pool
side, lying on a reclining day bed.

“I would hazard a guess that this is in relation to the incidents I heard about from Carlo. He
sends his regards by the way and hopes to be back in service when he gets back from his
honeymoon. Now; there’s a rumour on the “Grape Vine” that Marco Lydissian has met an
untimely end on the glaciers of Thoth. You’ve been asking about Buraxin trader ships going
out to the Trust Rim worlds. I got in contact with one of my old buddies who captains one,
he remembers the freighter exploding with the loss of all crew. Field generator failed as it
entered Hyperspace. Am I right so far?” Tom said, surprising Krank.

“OK; now do you know of a Josiah Lusern; if he’s alive or any news that might help?” Lomax
asked. The Song Bird looked like he was having difficulty recalling events then smiled.

“That line of the family had a lot of troubles back then. I do remember the mother though, a
showgirl in the Casino’s on Velgas 3. Millicent DuVerre I almost married her, but Mansard
Lusern got to her first. He used to do weapons runs to and from our sector. I believe your
old superior nearly caught him in the act eh Krank” Tom laughed and started to cough and
splutter the nurse brought him a breather mask.

“Yes I remember, she was a looker, still is, why do Delevans have to keep their looks so long
and the rest of us show it?” Krank replied adding “We can’t find any records to there being a
son, and we lost a lot in the fire” He replied

“I recall that they never registered the birth as they divorced soon after. She took him to a
Medical facility run by The Order. They did some Gene therapy to correct a genetic flaw;
never heard anything until she turned back up six years later. She didn’t have the boy in
tow, so everyone assumed the therapy had failed. I heard she remarried a Casino owner…”
Tom continued but Lomax interrupted

“Cordeaux; I should have guessed. You don’t know the name of that facility by any chance
Tom?”

“The Fildar Gemstar Clinic on Rigel 5, but that place closed down a decade or so, I don’t
know who has the records now. Hope I’ve helped you to. Now I have to go to see the Psycho
for my regular “assessment”, just love messing with her” Tom chuckled and coughed again.
The two Detectives left and Krank drove them back to HQ. Lomax was the first to speak

“The Chief’s Nephew might be able to find the Clinic records, but at least we know that
there was a Josiah Lusern. His birth not being registered, well not here anyway, so he may
well have survived. But he must have been fostered out if Millicent came back without him.
That might be why we couldn’t trace him” he said as they arrived back at HQ. Krank went to

the Chief’s office to tell him what they’d learned from Tom Hasperand and Lomax informed
the others.

On Asgard a Cleric of the Order walked in on Josiah while he was putting the final
touches to a new Nano delivery unit.

“Mr Lusern: it has come to our attention that the Authorities on Kelgar are enquiring into
your treatment on Rigel 5. It would appear that they are looking for you. The head of the
Order has requested that you make your departure as you planned a little earlier. We hope
that we can confound their efforts. The Abbot thanks you for your service here and hopes
that we may interact again some time.” The young Cleric said. Josiah carefully finished what
he was doing and spoke to the Techs.

“That should be it. Try it out on a Mud rat and see. Now where are my wife and Son?” he
asked the Cleric

“They are in the new Hydroponics Unit overseeing the final equipment install. Morgana’s
“Brew” is going to help fund our activities almost indefinitely and all legally too. Shall I let
them know about the situation?” he asked

“No; I’ll tell them, and I’ll need a secure link to the Dark-Net, I need to prepare my “corpse””
and he chuckled as he left to meet with Marco and Morgana. He would send a signal that
would trigger the demise of his proxy remotely and it would be untraceable. The requisite
information would be “leaked” over the “Grape Vine”. That should leave them free to finally
disappear, their new ID’s in place and to a new life.

In Force HQ word had reached Dispatch about another corpse found in the Hedebar
Province that arrived on a freighter from Thoth. Forensics had DNA and other trace
evidence pointing to it being Marco Lydissian. He’d been dehumed by unknown assassins.
Frustrating as this was the team continued to trace their last and only suspect. They could
not know at that point that he’d already arranged his demise and would thwart them in
their efforts. Dreck was in the Crime Lab when word came of the discovery of a decayed
body in a Hotel suite on Jedburgh. Evidence was being shipped to the lab and would arrive
in stasis.

“Damn! I really thought we finally had a handle on this investigation Doc. Have you had any
luck with Marco’s body?” he asked. Mary Harrigan was just viewing the spectral analysis of
metal traces from the slash wounds on the body.

“Tri Cobalt Steel; sounds like Assassins Foundation standard issue blade. Whoever they were
knew how to make the poor sod suffer before they expired. Not quite
the same pattern as Whelks’ wounds, but close enough. Could be the

same killer, but this was done in a hurry. Look at the wound pattern here…” she pointed to
an area on the body just above the fourth rib on the right side “These strokes were done
fast, to terminate the suffering, as if the killer had a conscience. Unlikely I know, maybe the
Assassin was disturbed.” She concluded

“Thanks anyway Doc, but I doubt it would be The Vasilly Triplets, their handiwork turned up
in the Unity sector a couple of weeks back, two lovers brutally sliced. I’ll get these results to
Lomax. And as soon as you get those materials from Jedburgh do a quick analysis and feed

the results back to the Incident Room.” Dreck said as left with the Doc’s report. The Chief’s
Nephew had come up trumps with a load of records from the Clinic. The team were going
through them as Dreck arrived and handed Lomax the Doc’s report. Jenna spoke up

“This may be what we’ve been looking for. A male child underwent Gene Surgery at about
the right time. They had to keep identities hidden back then; it was the Law to do so, to
protect the child. He was fostered to a couple on Terra prime, rich landowners and pillars of
the community. Records are sparse, but it would seem he was legally adopted by the couple
and inherited a vast fortune, a number of properties and land. Most of which he liquidated
before vanishing from the records when he reached the age of twenty-one” she said.

“Do we have a name?” Krank asked

“His adopting parents were called Myra and Clark Westerton. They gave him the name of
Stephen, that’s all that’s here.” she added

“Hmm; I’ll look into this Stephen Westerton. I think I know who might have some info. In the
meantime, you continue to investigate Marco’s last movements Dreck, take Hurden with
you; that should give the “Boys Cartel” a distraction. They might know how he ended up in
Hedebar. Jenna could you help Doc with further analysis of the weapon used to kill him.
Jason you come with me, we are going to see an old flame of yours” Lomax said and Jason
looked puzzled.

Josiah had planned his death a long time ago, when he’d become aware of his real
heritage. He sent the signal via the Dark-Net to the device implanted in his proxy. The man
never knew what hit him, and there would be no trace of the device soon after. He then had
his messages leaked to the “Grape Vine” and prepared to evacuate with his new family. His
revenge on the world that had abandoned him and on his biological mother was almost
complete. He could arrange the final details from their new place of residence. The accounts
he’d set up were untraceable, the new Identities were inscrutable, and the histories. He,
Marco and Morgana were in the clear. Marco had even found a new friend to come along
with him, Darius he’d named his pet, a Sand Devil from Asgard, one of the few creatures
there that could tolerate living on the surface for brief periods. It was an intelligent thing;
and had learned a number of tricks. It followed him around constantly. It could also be
vicious and protective of its master. Every boy must have his dog. Morgana had finalised the
deal with the Monastery over payment of royalties etc. for the Brew, and other financial
considerations. She really had a head for figures. Marco, it turned out was an excellent
negotiator and had managed to broker a reduction on the property finance for their new
home. He felt he finally had the life he wanted. They eventually said their goodbyes and
boarded the Freighter that was taking them to the border of Rim space. The Unity and the
Trust had no jurisdiction where they were going.

Lomax and Jason were at The Blue Scarab. Jason took a moment or two to recognise
his “old flame” as Lomax had put it. Dorrie Henks. She was looking after the girls at the
place, seeing to their health etc.

“Jason; Steve what brings you to this part of town? You after some action Jason?” she
grabbed Jason and almost hugged the life out of him.

“Actually I’m here on an official basis; Jason is helping the Force out with our investigations.
We need to ask you about a young playboy type that used to frequent this place, came in
from Terra Prime every so often went by the name of Stephen Westerton, ring a bell?”
Lomax asked

“Oh my, now you’re going back. Ah; tall chap with blonde hair and a smile a gal could die
for. Spent money like water and tipped well. You sure you don’t want some company Jason?
That Stephen always asked for one girl, Heather, you remember her Lomax ended up
marrying a Guardsman. Last time he was here was oh… all of ten years ago. I did hear he
ended up dead when his Gene treatments backfired. Pity he was a good customer.” She
added. Jason remembered now how smitten he’d been with one of the girls back then and
blushed at Dorrie’s suggestion

“I’m a widower now Dorrie; I’m busy just getting along with my life. Thanks for the offer
though. How’s your Norman doing? Jason asked

“He’s at Thule Academy now, doing his second doctorate.” And she grabbed him and
hugged him again. Lomax smirked and they made their excuses and left. On the way back to
HQ Jason was quiet; Lomax started a conversation but was interrupted by a call on the car’s
comms

“All units in the vicinity; vehicle accident on Main and Sixth, any vehicle in the
area capable of traffic control please respond. Emergency services enroute;
Four vehicles involved, message repeats…” Lomax responded that they and
another Mobile unit were closest and would engage. He passed word on to
Krank and the others about what they’d found out and headed to the scene.

On board the Buraxin Freighter Marco and his pet was the talk of the crew, who in
this case were mostly female. Jason and the Captain were discussing landing arrangements
on a moon near to their destination. Morgana had found a fellow “Herbalist” on board, a
Genovan Male called Hesper. He had some interesting sources of spices, including a one
that caused an increase in body metabolism.

“I sell a mild mix to my female clients who need to shed some excess weight. It has to be
mild as it has a compound that’s addictive. I don’t want to lose any customers to excessive
weight loss” He laughed. She gave him a sample of the Brew and told him how to acquire
more from the Asgard Protectorate. He winked at her and asked for a few more details. “I
know some older customers who would pay handsomely for a “Fountain of Youth”” and
they both laughed. All seemed to be going well for them. One of the crew had a young boy
with her; about six or seven, he seemed to take well to Marco, though he was unsure about
Darius, until that is Darius made the first move. The boy was small for his age and Marco
lifted him up and sat him on the Sand Devils, broad shoulders. Darius seemed to instinctively
know what to do and marched around the ship with the boy giggling upon his back. The
boy’s mother took an interest in Marco; a gesture not unnoticed by Morgana, Marco could
do worse she thought. The journey went quickly and they departed in time to make the
connecting flight to their new home; Marco taking the details of the young woman for
future contact. He was obviously smitten and Morgana and Jason were relieved that he
looked like leaving all trace of his “Boys Cartel” habits behind him.

After the hectic activity of the Accident; Lomax and Jason returned to HQ to freshen
up. Krank had been going over the reports from Velgas 3 with Doc Harrigan. From what the
analysis showed the corpse had died from an embolism brought on by Gene Therapy
degradation. Dental records and DNA profiles matched one Stephen Westerton. That
seemed to be it. Their last suspect demised because of poor therapy treatments. He hated
leaving a case unsolved, but there was a more urgent need to get word out among the
Syndicates of how they all had been duped into violence against each other. They needed to
put a lid on that fast.

“Have I missed much?” Bellowed a deep voice; one that all in the HQ recognised. It was
Frankie, the Chief’s son, back for a visit. “I still have some recuperation ahead so won’t be
back on active service for about a month, did you catch the bomber or not?” Lomax and
Krank looked at each other and were about to speak when Mark Wiggins popped his head
round the door

“We have a suicide in the Bedlam Bronx area which one of you is going to respond?” he
asked. They all said “Me” and then broke out in laughter; Dreck took Hurden with him and
responded. Lomax brought Frankie up to speed and Krank got a message on his
communicator. It was from Sylvie; Victor was asking for him, could he come over. Krank sent
a reply to the affirmative and he went to pay a visit to the Widow Whelks.

Chapter 1 The Chronicles of the Tribe – Series Two

Chronicle 8 – Finding the Lost Ones

A signal from the Veil

Many of the colonists of the First Exodus were exploring the Galaxy for the first time,
seeking out new trade routes and places for Mankind to settle. Some of these colonists met with
tragic ends; but more importantly, some just vanished without trace, and many of those were in The

Veil of Shadows, or as
most simply call it The
Veil. The Veil is a vast
dust and gas cloud left
over from some
gigantic exploding star
from the time of the
early formation of the
Galaxy. Like most Gas
and dust clouds, it is
the nursery for new-

born stars and other stellar phenomena. Unlike most such clouds though; The Veil was formed by an
exploding Mega Star; a super massive Blue-Ultraviolet star. Rare and unstable these Mega Stars
don’t just explode they rip the fabric of Space-Time causing Hyper spatial rifts and interdimensional
tears. The Veil is littered with many such rifts and tears making it possibly the most dangerous place
in the Galaxy. Ships entering this region usually skirted the edge of the cloud; detouring around
rather than through. Many stories and legends grew about the place; some even believe it to be the
Gateway to the Nether realm, The Valley of Death, even Hell, but none of this was provable.

The Veil was also one of the strongest sources of Sub-space static and interference;
communications therefore were fraught to say the least in The Veil and nearby space. Very few ships
have ever surveyed more than a few hundred kilometres into it. As a result; little was known about
the vast interior other than from the strange distorted echoes high up in the sub-space bands that
indicated the presence of some kind of space living life forms; possibly Space Whales or their larger
cousins the Behemoths, both creatures seemed to be unaffected by the weird distortions that the
rifts and tears created. These creatures feed on the dust and gas fields of Nebulae; so The Veil was
probably their richest feeding ground. Of a number of Nomad races; the Ilkar and the Zolan followed
the Space Whales and Behemoths all over this sector of the Galaxy in much the same way that the
Inuit and Laps did with the animals and beasts of the Arctic region of old Earth. The Zolan capturing;
taming and herding Space Whales had a ready source of mineral rich waste products from the
intelligent creatures. The Ilkar utilised the waste products of the Behemoths, following the small
family groups, pods, with their processing ships. They even found use of the elderly; injured and
dying Behemoths. The hide was a rich source of ultra-dense materials; the bones of the huge
creatures were mostly comprised of Metals and ceramics. Life on this scale used microorganisms to
build itself molecule placement by molecule placement, much like Nano mechanicals do. Thus the
bodies of these beasts were the Ilkar life’s blood, livelihoods and much more. Even the Ilkar would
not follow a Behemoth that ventured deep into The Veil; above all, they were not stupid.

When Humans and other races came across the Ilkar and the Zolan; they used their
knowledge of the region to create trading routes and pathways around the outskirts of the vast
cloud. Some mining companies were more adventurous; actually sending huge processing platforms
into the clouds to extract its rich Deuterium resources, for those outlying colonies that used Fusion
reactors. This was a dangerous practice as the richest fields were further in and near to the Rifts and
Tears. Quite a few ships strayed too close to these and were lost. Many techniques were tried to
protect against the Space-Time distortions in the early days; though it would not be until the seventh
millennium that a safe shielding against the effects would be developed. Even so, the risks of
venturing too far into The Veil were very prominent in the minds of many Captains and crews. A
belief system of sorts developed with the central entity being a devilish creature known as “The
Great Evil” among the simpler societies. Still; ships did try and ships and whole expeditions were
lost. The Veil claimed them in silence; taking them to the silence of the static hiss, and leaving no
trace or clue behind.

It was some time after the second Expansion into the Galaxy by the Humans of Old Terra
that rumours began to spread of strange noises and signals coming out of The Veil. Many in the
Unity dismissed the tales; at first, until one day an expedition to the Hub passed through the
outskirts of The Veil. Their coms technicians were just changing shifts when the signals began. Feint
and distant at first; sounding like some old Radio transmission, garbled and echoing. The regularity
of the bursts and the modulation seemed to be less natural; certainly not Space-Whales or
Behemoths. It was thought at first that it might be coming from some other space living entity that
lived inside the environment of The Veil. But that shift change would give the lie to that explanation.
A Junior coms Technician called Jason Hagrad; a Genovan, heard the first sequence and was about to
dismiss it like many others had before when… the same exact sequence repeated three more times.
It was clearly an automated beacon signal. But where was it coming from; signals got bounced
around in Sub-space for great distances around The Veil, he needed to rule out a number of possible
causes.

“Chief; I’m getting the same signals repeated again here look” he finally spoke out to his Commander
Chief Coms Engineer Klute Halaran, who looked at the display traces and said…
“It looks like one of those old Freighter buoys that they used to use in the Markab sector in the Third
dynasty. There are still a few around, it must have picked up a charge from a stellar wind or
something, and Sub-space drift would account for it appearing here. Still; it’s mighty odd that it’s so
clear, and that echoing…” he was about to tell the young man to forget about it when the signal
changed. A phasing and sweeping; swooshing sound was added then the original signal was replaced
by what appeared to be a distorted voice, speaking an old Terran dialect, Atalaman…
Hiss… swishes… “Delta Nuevo Uno Trey Cinque. Preastra Del Har Vuelvo nomiar trellor swint questor
yanvarglis. Por Favora Luna Mechia sentra…” more hisses and swishes then the message repeated
before going silent. Jason and Klute were white, blood drained from their faces and the rest of the
coms deck was stunned into silence.
“That was a Human voice; there are no Human colonies within five Parsecs of here and Sub-space
drift doesn’t account for this. Could you get any kind of fix on that Jason?” Klute asked. Jason triple
checked the coordinates the signal came from.
“It’s definitely coming from about half a Parsec into The Veil around here” he replied pointing to a
location of one of the few known rifts near the outer regions of The Veil on the standard chart.

The coms deck erupted into a flurry of activity. Klute passed on the discovery to the
Command deck and the Captain ordered clarification of the message. A young Fenian spoke out
“My Great grandfather taught me Atalaman, I can translate it. It’s a routine call in message from a
scout vessel to its main fleet command ship. The ship is called the Luna Mechia. He’s reporting a lack
of response. The rest of the message is garbled. But there is one odd thing; that kind of Atalaman
was only used in the High Born.” He said.
“High Born? Get onto the Hive Net and see if any of the Upper echelon Congress had any ships go
missing here. My suspicions are we are receiving a “skip” transmission that has somehow got
trapped in The Veil’s rifts and has taken centuries to break free. If this is a current transmission we
may have just found trace of one of the Lost Colonies” Klute responded. One of the other Coms
techs managed to get the information from the Hive Net about the Luna Mechia. Klute read the
message from central Archive. The Luna Mechia, two Factory ships and sixteen smaller ships were on
a surveying mission; privately funded by one of the ruling Houses of the Atalaman Congress in the
early expansionist era. The expedition was lost without trace when they encountered a severe Ion
Storm and detoured too close to The Veil.
“They must have got caught in the pull of a rogue rift in the outside edge of The Veil. Has anyone
managed to get a time stamp on the signals?” Klute asked. The Fenian; Hasbid Luthaan, replied
“It’s concurrent with Central galactic Time index, so it must be a live transmission, but with the way
Sub space works in The Veil, there’s no way to get an exact pinpoint to proper location, Sir.”
“So we’ve overheard a live broadcast. You realise this means somehow the expedition survived and
we are listening in on descendants of the original crews. I’m taking all the data we have to Captain
Hart. In the meantime see if we can find a way of sending a message to them, wherever they are.”
Klute barked and took the data crystals up with him to the Command deck. Hasbid and Jason
organised the techs and engineers to work out a solution to the Sub-space drift and find a means of
tracing the path of the signal. Standard charts were not going to help much; then someone
remembered that there was a set of Ulahri maps in the ships database. These were more detailed
and showed more areas of The Veil…

Captain Melissa Hart was with Klute in her ready room; off from the main bridge. Klute was
explaining what he thought the signals meant when she interrupted him.
“If we are going to pursue this we need to get the High Councils’ approval. Leave that to me; I’m sure
Councillor Magridson would be only too willing to grant approval, I’m not sure of the others.
Magridson is a descendant of one of the original founding Houses of The Atalaman Congress. Her
personal Archive may have more details. Diplomacy has never been one of your strong points Klute”
she laughed “In the meantime I’ll order a Full Stop and your crew can continue their efforts to find a

means of contacting this scout vessel. I’m as curious as you are about all this.” She gave the order
over her desk intercom and fired up her private coms “You get back to your crew and I’ll take it from
here.” Klute headed back to Coms and Melissa made contact with the High Council on Terra Prime.

Inside The Veil
The world was called Keteria by its inhabitants; it was a solitary body orbiting a star of
similar size to Sol, but which burned far brighter because of the excess of hydrogen in the Gas cloud.
The planet was shielded from this fierce radiation by dust
that was trapped in its upper atmosphere and strong
Ionising layers. It had two small moons about a third the
size of Terra’s moon and in concentric orbits as far out as
that satellite. One of the moons had a ring of ice particles
that would glint when caught from the right angle. The
other moon was composed mostly of ice itself. This led to
complex tidal ebbs and flows on Keteria’s sea. This
covered most of the world’s surface, there being only
one polar land mass about the size, in area, of the former
continental plate of Africa and Eurasia combined. The
land mass had a long promontory that reached
southward into the sea. Despite the intense radiation and
because of all the upper atmospheric dust; the planet had a tropical climate and only two seasons,
because of its angle of inclination. The day lasted approximately twenty-six hours and its year
around four hundred days. The occasional tropical storm wreaked havoc along the coast, but inland
it was the central jungle that caused most of the changes in weather patterns, being atop a plateau
formed by the plug of a long extinct gigantic volcano. Rain fell regularly over this jungle and fed the
rest of the continent with water by three great meandering rivers supplied by lakes that were
replenished by the numerous waterfalls from the plateau. The clouds seemed to be trapped in a
constant circling motion around the planets strong magnetic pole. Speculation was that the core was
molten iron, but it was not certain. It would appear to be a paradise, were it not for the venomous
local life, both on land and in the sea. On land; there were cockroach-like insects that sprayed toxic
acidic enzymes, a kind on marsupial rat that drank blood and, like a vampire bat, injected an
anticoagulant that meant any human bitten by it would almost inevitably bleed to death. No higher
life other than large grazing animals that bore an uncanny resemblance to pink, hairless Mammoths
was to be found on land. The sea had more life forms. Assorted Fish; with razor sharp spikes riddled
with toxic venom, of various sizes. Something like Dolphins that were carnivorous and attacked huge
Sea serpents that were feeders on the various giant Kelp-like plants, and Jellyfish that electrocuted
their prey into submission, these were found to be edible if one avoided the parts that produced the
electricity. The list went on.
Despite all these hazards, the survivors of the expedition had made the planet their base;
creating settlements on the coast, on the promontory, and some farming communities inland near
the lakes. They had also found the world rich in mineable minerals and metal ores so an industrial
base had been set up to utilise these resources. On the whole; they had a good life, albeit a one
trapped away from the rest of the Galaxy. Isolated and trapped within The Veil. A mineral found
near the wall of the plateau had unique properties, protecting any vessel coated with it from the
Space-Time distortions within The Veil. The expedition had brought with them two vast factory ships
to manufacture products needed by colonists. With the resources shipped up to them from Keteria;
they could create just about anything that was needed. Adding to the resources was a huge annular
debris field orbiting around the star, easily mined for other vital materials. Thus, the survivors were
able to thrive. They had given up on exploring the plateau jungle long ago; it being a dense mass of
gigantic tree ferns and cycad type plants. Local grasses and crops were rich in starches and some
shrubs had saps that were not only non-toxic, they were full of sugars and proteins. Some of the tree

ferns had compounds in their leaf fronds that acted like antibiotics. In short they thrived. A world of
Ying and Yang one of the expedition’s biologists had said; a true duality of nature.

Over the centuries since the “Entrapment”, the colonists had explored and mapped much of
the region they found themselves in. They had also discovered that some of the rifts actually linked
to others within The Veil; like hyperspace conduits. Yet still there was no rift that breached the
barrier that locked them away from the rest of the Galaxy. The Wall of Silence as they had come to
call the energy barrier that surrounded this area of the vast cloud that was The Veil, did have weak
spots, but all attempts to punch through seemed doomed to failure. It would appear that The Wall
was more like a one-way transit into the inner parts of The Veil. The original rift that had sucked
them into The Veil had long ago closed; or so they had thought, until one day a Behemoth came
through along with a mass of signal traffic. This was garbled and distorted, but meticulous analysis
showed that the rift was open but like the wall was a one-way street. Behemoths stayed for decades
feeding on the rich supplies of gasses and dust. Unlike the humans and their puny ships, they could
return through the wall and the rifts. They seemed to be able to distort or fold Space-Time to their
will. Some abortive attempts were made to ride the creature’s “Wakes”; but the distortions played
havoc with the vessels drive systems to the extent that their warp fields would collapse and they
would be bounced off, sometimes fatally so.

Other star systems could be found dotted throughout The Veil; though some even showed
signs of life, very few had higher life forms than simple multi-cellular life, and those that did had life
forms that were only as advanced as the primitive apes of Old Earth. One system was ancient; that
was the only one that showed any signs of advanced life, until traces
were discovered on the Ice Moon orbiting Keteria. Traces were
found of a long extinct civilisation, but interpreting the finds proved
difficult. The race that created the buildings and left the artefacts
seemed to have done so without any kind of written language. As
puzzling as a discovery as this was, the artefacts themselves were far
stranger. The survivors called the place after an ancient fabled place
from an Old Earth legend; Atlantis, because of the concentric
arrangement of the cities and harbours. The land on which Atlantis
stood was; at some time after its abandonment, pushed up by
tectonic activity thousands of years ago and the Harbours and lakes
had long since dried up and dense vegetation had claimed a
foothold. At some time in the past, a shift in the planetary tilt had resulted in changes to the planet’s
atmosphere, dispersing most of it to space. It was now more like Mars before the mining companies
set up shop there. What water there was could be found in vast underground aquifers and lakes, the
planets scrubby plants sending down powerful, deep roots to search this out. The artefacts were
some of the only metallic remains that survived and, oddly, showed no signs of decay. They seemed
to be canisters; but were proving difficult to get into. They all carried one Glyph; the same one and
the only sign ever found of a form of written language. It was an eight-pointed star. Recently some
activity had been noticed in the region of The Wall; signals seemed to be getting through “weak”
areas from outside the barrier. The signals were garbled and echoing, but some appeared to be
languages of some description, or close approximations. Other signals seemed to be more electronic
or mechanical, with the distortions it was hard to tell. So it was decided to send the Luna Mechia and
three scout ships to investigate the nearest “weak” spot…

“Once more into the breach dear friends…”
After the discovery of the Luna Mechia transmission things
escalated quickly on Terra Prime and other key colonies of the Unity. All
agreed that entering The Veil would help clear the distortions in the signals;
but there was disagreement on how this could be done. The Ulahri would

have offered the use of the Sphere craft; but they too had, in their long distant past, also lost ships
to The Veil, so that option was ruled out.
“Perhaps the Ilkar have some knowledge of how the Behemoths manage?” A young Bio Tech asked.
“I know that the creatures hide is extremely rich in dense minerals that the Ilkar use in shielding
their ships from radiation, perhaps it will help with the Space-time distortions too” she added.
“You may be on to something there Marie. Carmichael; get me that Xenobiologist from Genova on a
coms channel. Lorna Felix she’s called; she made detailed studies of many Space dwelling life forms,
if anyone knows she might – and she’s close. You’ll find her on board the Leonardo research vessel”
Captain Hart gave her order to the bridge’s coms officer.

On board the Leonardo, Lorna Felix was reviewing some data that had recently been sent to
her from a Fenian outpost of a creature thought to have been extinct on the Fenian home world for
decades. A Buraxin freighter had come across a Lynarix pride on an inhabitable moon in the Vestaria
System. The Lynarix was a close parallel evolution mammal like animal, similar in size and
appearance to a large feline that once inhabited Old Earth. Lion like was the best way of describing
the animal. Though technically it was more reptilian than mammalian, and an herbivore, its pelt was
luxurious and, as a result, had been hunted to extinction in the Fenian Legislate. It was speculated
that a small number of prides had somehow been transplanted to the moon by “alien” hands long
ago. From the data, Lorna construed that the existing prides were descended from early animals
from a time before Humans colonised Fenia Prime. The buzz of her coms link broke her reverie.
“We’ve had a change of orders Ma’am. We are to proceed to rendezvous with a Terran
expeditionary ship headed to the Hub via The Veil perimeter route. They say they need expert help
from you; something to do with Space-whales and Behemoths. The orders come direct from Central
Terran Councillor Magridson” spoke the voice of Coms tech Lucy Brenner
“Call up teams two and five, and send me a copy of the rest of the orders. I might need to take
Vigson and Creed from the teams with me. Does Captain Muller have any other people that can take
over this study Lucy?” Lorna asked in response. There was a short silence then Muller himself
answered.
“It’s OK Lorna, we are getting relief crews next week anyway, and some of your students from Terra
Prime in with them, and we can handle things here. You concentrate on these new orders,
Magridson is not the kind of person to put a five star rating on just any kind of directive, so I’ve
arranged transport with a Buraxin freighter headed out there.” Muller said jovially.
“Thanks Sid; I owe you one for the lift. I wonder what’s got Magridson so fired up. Not like her to get
this tight on a survey ship encounter. Anyway, I’ll pack; and you let Vigson and Creed in on the
orders. I’m taking one of the Mechanoids with me, Lennie 101, if you can spare him, he’s had a close
encounter with a Behemoth” she chuckled
“Ah; yes, I remember that little escapade only too well. Yes; it’s fine to take him, we have a
replacement inbound from Celica Prime tomorrow anyway. Oh; and “Break a leg” as they used to
say” Muller laughed. Lorna gathered her belongings and packed copies of her reference crystals
carefully in a shielded container. She looked around at her equipment and also packed some of
those items too. She also picked up he Father’s old service pistol, a Henderson 60 Stunner. She had
last used that on a mission to Helva, stopped a bull Horga Beast in its tracks that was charging her
team. It was one of a handful of things she and her brother Reese had left of their parents. A
crewman helped her to take her packed luggage down to the docking bay.

In the docking bay, one of the ships shuttlecraft was waiting to take them to the Buraxin
freighter. Mortimer Vigson, Jonas Creed and Lennie 101 were stood at the foot of the boarding
ramp. Lennie had been outfitted with a new biometric skin enhancement and was showing off how
it worked. Mortimer was being scanned.
“Does that thing show you the Nano-mites that are in my blood Lennie?” he asked as Lorna
approached
“That and more; you have a vitamin deficiency and the start of vascular damage due to Alcohol”
Lennie replied adding “Looks like a small problem with your operation has caused some “damage” to

your... er… I believe the vernacular is “wedding tackle,”” Jonas laughed. Mortimer glowered then
smiled as Lorna drew close
“What’s this all about Lorna?” He asked
“I have no idea other than the orders to ship out came from Councillor Magridson. So your guess is
as good as mine. I do know where we’re headed though…The Hellion Marchioness an expeditionary
craft headed to do a mineral survey of some place in the Hub” she replied. Jonas whistled then the
pilot signalled them aboard the shuttle
“The Buraxin Freighter will meet us a Parsec from here; they’ll take you to The Hellion from there.
The Captain is a Buraxin woman I used to go to the Academy with so this is sort of a favour she owed
me” The young pilot said, his name was Mc Michaelson.
“Thanks… Eddie isn’t it?” Lorna asked he nodded as he helped her off the ramp. They all settled into
their seats, the shuttle manoeuvred to the launch bay, and then it took off into the space beyond the
force shield covering the docking port opening.

The flight to the Freighter; the H’nur’G’ Fan, was short at the speed they were travelling. It
was one of the larger craft that the Buraxin used for long distance trade routes. The Captain; Mircha
Kuflarn-Hadesh was a youngish, raven-haired woman with olive skin and quite affable.
“You’re lucky I owed Eddie a favour; not many Buraxin ships do the route we do, hence our vessels
size. Does he still have that awkward looking smile?” she said in conversation as her crew, mostly
young men, stowed the teams’ belongings.
“Yes; it’s down to an injury he got while riding a Horga on Celica Minor as a young boy. Not that he’s
much older now. I know his older brother Mark from the Academy on Thule Nova” Lorna replied and
winked. Mircha laughed and they headed for Mirchas’ private quarters. Lennie; on the other hand,
went off to explore the engine room and the fast Hyper-Warp drives.

On board the Hellion Marchioness, the Coms crews had worked out a
means of sending a compressed signal through the rift. It would consist of the
Old standard hail with added instructions of how to send a signal back all in
standard Interlac text as used in the early days. Klute Halaran ordered one of
the coms techs to send the burst transmission, wait for thirty seconds, and then
repeat the pattern on the chosen response channel; another coms tech would
listen for the reply. Melissa Hart was in the Coms room when word came that
the Xenobiology team were approaching at high speed and would rendezvous in around twenty
standard minutes.
“I’ll best get to the Trans pad deck to meet them, you carry on with this.” She said to Klute and
departed. Klute and Jason also listened in, as Jason had been the first to hear the original signal.
Captain Melissa Hart had known Lorna Felix’s Father while she herself was a young officer in
training. She had grown up with Lorna effectively and had a long lasting relationship with the family
as a whole. She was looking forward to see her childhood friend.
Lorna, Jonas and Lennie arrived on the pads just as Hart walked in. Their equipment arrived
shortly afterwards. Melissa greeted Lorna with a hug and shook the hands of the other two.
“What’s all this about Mel?” asked Lorna. Hart explained about the signal and the conclusion that
they’d come to. She also explained what they hoped Lorna and her team could help them with
regarding attempting travel into The Veil to make further contact…
“I have my research notes on Behemoth physiology, Jonas here has knowledge of rift distortion
effects he uncovered on Gulea Prime at an archaeology dig, and Lennie is the best Warp Field expert
in this sector of the Galaxy, so between us we should be able to come up with some kind of solution”
Lorna finally said after listening to Hart, Klute and Jason.
“Have you got your ships engine specs handy?” Lennie asked
“They should be in the Ships Hive archive, along with recent modifications made in the last few
months” Hart replied adding “I’ll get a crewman to take you to engineering. But first: I’ll show you to
your quarters” she finished and took them to the accommodation deck…

Chapter 2
Another world, another life

When the Luna Mechia expedition became trapped in the inner part of The Veil, their first
actions were to explore the immediate region near to the rift they had fallen through. It was not long
before they determined that a barrier prevented their exit back through the rift; so thoughts turned
to finding a habitable planet in a suitable system, or, at the very least, another rift that could lead
them back. They found three systems within their first month within The Veil, but none that seemed
to have worlds they could settle on. There were many asteroid and debris fields that provided raw
materials for the Factory ships, but it would seem that the systems nearby were not to be their new
home. By vote; the colonists, as they now were, decided to press on deeper into the section of The
Veil they were in. They made many surprising discoveries, including the linked rifts within this
“bubble” of space. By adapting the scout vessels to use smaller versions of the Factory ships Bussard
Collectors, a plentiful Deuterium and Hydrogen fuel supply could be gleaned from The Veil. Modified
Ion drives powered by this fuel mix made local and long-range exploration using the Scout ships an
economical and practical possibility. Eventually a world was found that could sustain them and
provide shelter in this radiation blasted, dust and gas riddled, tormented place. They managed to
corral a few herds of Space Whales to eke out their mineral supplies and, although they had no
Terraforming supplies or capability, quickly established a viable colony and a base to explore more
efficiently their new realm.

Early during their exploration phase, it became apparent that life here had taken many
vastly differing routes of evolution than elsewhere in the Galaxy. Some hardy examples of fauna
seemed to be immune to many forms of radiation, though were only still in primitive states. One
expedition came across a world much like Jupiter’s moon Io; with a sulphurous atmosphere,
extremophile bacterial stromatolites were processing the atmosphere using chemical reactions.
Their colonies sometimes spread for miles. On a moon in another system, they found a water world
of wonders. Its ocean was several miles deep and completely covered the surface. Here, life had
evolved gigantic copepods that not only devoured their smaller relatives but harboured symbiotic
colonies of photosynthesising plants to supply food in lieu of shelter.

The colony prospered and it developed into a generational society. Laws and government
followed the path that they had used on Terra, from the Atalaman Congress constitution.
Structurally their society was a loose Feudal system mixed with the Ships Command structure, crude
but efficient and worked well when all understood their rank and position. Unlike feudal societies of
the past though, a person could progress upward with effort. Their new home world they called
Keteria. Its two moons they called Hemio and Venetia, Hemio having a ring and Venetia being the Ice
Moon, as some of the lower casts called it. Outposts were established on both for scientific research
and to mine ice for the factory ships, these stayed in orbit around Keteria. Once the hostile and
venomous local life were controlled, some of the venoms actually could be used as raw materials for
medicinal products, and the farming communities established and producing large enough
quantities of essential food stuffs, it seemed they really had a chance of surviving in this realm.

When other systems that could support colonies were discovered, seeds were sown to
expand their foothold in this space. The discovery of the vast ruins of Atlantis at first seemed to dash
all hope of finding intelligent life, if it existed, or had existed, it seemed to have gone elsewhere a
long time ago. As previously stated; life had chosen some strange evolutionary paths here in The
Veil. The Space whales and the Behemoths were extreme examples of life that had adapted, but The
Veil was to throw up some extremes of its own. Six generations had passed when the first
indications of the oddest life in The Veil came to light. On a world in a system, the colonists had
named Hades, because of its blasted and extensive deserts, a form of life not based on carbon but
Silicon was found. The Tektites; as they became to be called were, in appearance, mobile
stromatolite like structures that seemed to feed on the sands and mineral rich rocks by using some
kind of acidic excretion. The atmosphere was low in Oxygen and high in some of the inert or noble
gasses. The Tektites showed a rudimentary intelligence; more like that of a Frog or a Gecko, and

used a clever way of getting around. Like some water living life, they had rows of articulate spikes
that flexed, like the tiny hair-like structures on bell jellies. These would push the Tektites through the
sands, sometimes with a good turn of speed. Their shells were formed of Silicates and minerals, and,
quite often, were photovoltaic. So much so they could; along with friction produced static, deliver a
stunning shock when angered, though quite why they had developed this ability was unknown, as
they had no predators to speak of. Using the Tektites burrowing ability helped establish that Hades
was rich in essential minerals and could be used for mining. The creature’s often uncovered metals
and minerals they could not use so miners tracked their movements and found a wealth of
accessible materials. On one Methane rich planetoid, they found a bacterium that processed the
methane and carbon dioxide into Hydrocarbons that were suitable for plastics production. Nearby
were colonies of algae that ate plastic compounds and produced Carbonates, nitrides and water. Life
was strange here.

Over the centuries, several attempts were made to gain access to the rest of the Galaxy;
with all ending in some kind of failure. Weak spots in the barrier allowed signals to penetrate, but
they could not be certain their calls were heard. Similarly, incoming signals were garbled and
echoing. Recently they had begun to receive signals from near the edge of the barrier on the
opposite side of The Veil. These seemed to indicate some kind of intelligence, but were mechanical
in nature… Could these be from Machine intelligences perhaps? What they didn’t know then, but
would become apparent later, this was the case, and the beings were descendants of cousin race to
the Krall known as The Kryst. Contact with the Kryst would come shortly after the forthcoming
encounter with the humans of the outside Galaxy, and in an unexpected way…

On board the Hellion, Lorna and Jonas set about working out how to proof the Hellion’s hull
against the distortions. By applying synthetic coatings similar to the layers of a Behemoth skin and
carapace, it was hoped that the brunt of the distortion effects could be minimised to a tolerable
level. Meanwhile Lennie and the Hellion’s Chief Engineer, a Fenian by the name of Jock Hasslebraat,
worked on the drive systems to shield and bolster them for a journey into a rift.
Lorna; do you mind if I ask a somewhat personal question?” Jonas said unexpectedly while going
over the latest readings from the rift.
“No; so long as you are not going to ask about my love life” She replied hesitantly
“No! Nothing like that. You are one of three siblings, do you still have contact with your brother and
sister?” he asked. Lorna was silent for a moment then responded
“I haven’t had contact with Felicity since she joined the Sisters of The Order, and probably won’t till
she’s finished her acolyte training. My Brother on the other hand I have regular contact with. He’s on
one of the rim missions to find the Krall home world. The settlement in the Hub was just a
repository. Sometimes I wish he’d leave me be for a while so I can gather my wits. He’ll message me
out of the blue at all hours. The last time was when I was on Terra Prime doing a symposium lecture”
and she laughed “But yes I do miss them visiting me on Genova, since I married Dent.” She looked
him in the eyes. He was smiling
“When we get back from this mission I may have a surprise for you” he said cryptically. Jason and
Klute had managed to send some added data streams along with the hail detailing how to access the
Hive-Net, images of the expanded territories and a brief history of life since the colonists were lost.
So far, there had been no sign that a reply was imminent or that their hails had been heard.
“The waiting and repeating is getting monotonous” Jason moaned “Should I automate the sequence
say four bursts then listen for a while and cycle it?” he asked Klute
“Working shifts of manning the Coms station would be better. The Hive can only interperate so
much, human monitors can define signals better. Have a rota drawn up of free crew and let me see
it before we do anything as drastic as automating the system” Klute replied. Hart walked in with
Hasbid who had a broad smile on his face,
“Our young Fenian here has come up with an algorithm to filter the signals better” Hart said as she
looked over the latest coms reports

“It was relatively simple when I discovered that the interference could be fractal diffraction. Any
future signals can be compensated for. It can also be applied to outgoing signals too” Hasbid
enthused. Klute looked over Hasbid’s notes. His eyes widened and he turned to Jason
“Get him to help you apply this to the message we’ve been sending through the rift. Captain I want
to set a rota for monitoring this station for replies to our hails, are there any free crew who have
some coms experience available?” He asked Hart
“There are two former coms techs in engineering who can be spared and two ensigns in Command
that are in a quiet period of their flight training who have coms experience you could have them
too” she replied. Just then a call came for Captain Hart over the ships intercom requesting her
presence on the Bridge. She left to go to the upper decks.

When Hart arrived on the Bridge, the main view screen showed an image of the rift and
what looked like some kind of vessel traversing its aperture.
“What do those fools think they’re doing, have you tried hailing them?” She barked her orders to the
young female Coms officer
“Yes Captain; but they aren’t responding. I tried using Hasbid’s algorithm too, and they just kept on
going. They are either ignoring us or they have no coms working” she replied
“Magnify the image and filter out the interference; let’s see who they are more clearly.” The Coms
and Techs did as ordered. The image clarified and they zoomed in on the side of the vessel. It
appeared to have suffered in a fire fight and was battle scarred. No identifying marks could be seen
on the derelict.

“Science and Engineering; get a traction lock on it and tow it into a docking orbit.
Run the silhouette through all the databases, get me an identification of the
type as soon as possible, Engineering Chief, get yourself up here to the Bridge”
Hart barked her additional orders. The vessel was about a quarter the size of the
Hellion and drifting dangerously close to the rift. Markings on the hull were in a
script no one recognised at first. Then someone spotted a decal on the upper
rear of the ship.
“That’s the symbol for the Hanover House of the Atalaman Congress” exclaimed
the Navigator; Fjord Hendrickson “It’s an early version used on craft from the Third Dynasty. What is
a relic like that doing this far out?” he continued.
“Get that ship docked and set up an away team number one” Hart said then turned to the young
navigator who had spoken out “How do you know so much about this period...Hendrickson?” Hart
asked less harshly
“It was a study subject as part of my Training at Thule Academy Ma’am. We were required to choose
from a list of additional study materials and The Atalaman Congress history became my choice as
I’ve always been fascinated by it. The script is probably from just before the unification of the
Hunderlight and Hanover houses by marriage to preserve the Hunderlight Dynasty from dying out. I
could cross reference my course notes and pass my findings to the away team if you want?” the
young man queried.
“No I have a better idea, gather the materials you need and join the away team in case they need
assistance in interpreting any ships records that might survive” Hart said and dismissed the
crewman. His understudy took over the helm

Message in a bottle
Julio Panhedran was the latest generation of the House of Hanover
to hold the office of Praetor; head of the Cabinet of rule, his Uncle was High
Chancellor and the last of his generation. His Forefathers were the
commanders of the First Crew. They were the ones who came to this
realm. When word came of a strange find on the world where his
predecessors had discovered Atlantis, he could scarcely believe what was
being told to him. His Uncle was less sceptical.

“You say this canister is older than the other artefacts, and of a different design, how so?” his Uncle
asked the young Archaeologist.
“Sir; its shape is more reminiscent of the old time capsules used by the early spacers. It’s rectangular
and seems to be made of some kind of ceramic. It’s also incredibly light. When scanned there
appeared to be a scroll of some description housed inside” the young woman replied.
“Has any attempt been made to open the object?” Julio asked
“Yes sire; although scans showed a recessed flange to the lid at one end, the seal has remained
persistently resistant. The material used to bond the two parts is set hard as steel. A piece that
chipped off was analysed and… Er… Well it appears to be organic in nature” she said in explanation.
She handed him the lab results. He looked them over. Carbon for the most part, some form of
peptide and amino acids. The really surprising component was a mineral - Lucite. Somehow this
mineral had been restructured into long fibres.
“Has anyone tried to break the end from the ceramic section at all? I know the instinct is to preserve,
but for expediencies sake I think we could allow that” Julio responded adding “This could be the first
sign of any written language associated with the ancient builders. Go and see to it.” He waved the
young Artificer out and turned to his Uncle, who handed him a message from the outpost on Hemio.
“So; a strange Hail signal has been detected by one of the scout ships near to a weak spot. Has
anyone been able to translate it?” Julio asked
“It’s in a strange dialect of Interlac, and it appears to contain some instructions on how to obtain
access to some kind of computer network, also a file of historical documents. A complete translation
is going to take quite a while yet, but I took the liberty of asking the pilot of the Vuelvo to trace the
source more precisely and report back to the Luna Mechia with the information. I must advise you
we have had other strange intercepts in the past and those proved fruitless” his Uncle replied
“Maybe this time it will be otherwise. I wish My Father had lived to see this. I miss his council. See
that I get reports as soon as they come in; you’re dismissed. Have my sister meet me in the
refectory; I owe her a decent lunch.” Julio said in reply. His Uncle did as he was bid. The Feudal
system; although greatly modified over the centuries, was still enforced in the upper echelons of
power and rule. It had served the people well, and the intermarrying of the two great houses had
also proved useful. But to prevent the gene stock from becoming weak, new blood from outside the
houses, from “common” stock, had to be introduced from time to time. Only so much could be done
with gene regenerative therapy. He had ensured this by arranging for his sister Eleanor to marry into
a family from semi noble stock. She didn’t object; knowing this had to be done and it was the first
such marriage in many decades. Besides, she would have chosen Giuseppe Hadrioni herself anyway,
and it brought new talents into the House repertoire. He headed to the Refectory.

Lyris Valderna Chief Archaeologist was in the main laboratory of the preservation section. In
front of her were the latest artefacts recovered from a moon in a system about a light-year from
Keteria. The moon had been inhabited at one point, probably as an outpost, but very little remained
of the settlement. It was now a blasted, airless and barren irregular chunk of rock. At some time in
its past there had been a massive collision with a roving body that had all but destroyed the satellite.
The planet around which it orbited had also been damaged, though it was recovering, the
atmosphere was mostly methane. The objects were odd survivors, with the same simple eight
pointed star being the only markings on their surface. The group consisted of what appeared to be a
drinking vessel made of a mineral, a flat octagonal metal plate with an indented groove encircling
about two centimetres in from the edge, another of the mysterious metal cylinders as found in
Atlantis, and an obsidian dagger about fifteen centimetres in length with a slotted hilt. If this had
had a scabbard or sheath at some time it had long ago disintegrated. She had also just been given
instructions to try and open the ceramic container. So far any attempt to do so with the metal
sheathed section had proved unsuccessful, and the ceramic part, particularly around the seal had
already blunted a number of heavy duty saws. She ordered a diamond edged tile saw and tried
again.

About ten minutes in the seal cracked and the lid released with a faint hiss. She gently pulled
at the cap. It surprisingly slid out very easily. Using gloves she gingerly removed the rolled up scroll
inside. Taking it over to a vacuum table she carefully unrolled it. The vacuum sucked the scroll; which
appeared to be some kind of synthetic film, flat against the surface of the table and she clamped
down the transparent lid. She had seen early star chars before, but this one was a revelation.
Whoever its creators were really knew how to compress a vast amount of data into a small space.
The tiny Glyphs used on the map were almost microscopic. They appeared to be similar to ancient
Egyptian Hieroglyphs, though some didn’t fit with that language. She
darkened the room and turned on the table’s backlight system. She
used a jeweller’s loupe to look at a couple of the locations on the
map. She changed the light source to different spectrums. When she
put on her forensic spectacles and turned the light source to UV
something miraculous happened. Above a centre rectangular section a
visible glowing cube of space appeared showing the map in a
holographic representation. The UV light had activated long dormant
photo circuitry that turned the film into a touch pad. Tapping or
touching a point on the map highlighted that star and/or system in the
holographic display. She picked up her pocket recorder and made
verbal notes. She then contacted Julio’s office. One of the sets of
Glyphs highlighted the location of rifts and other anomalies in The
Veil. One Glyph had been decipherable… Kryst!

Approach with Caution
The Hellion crew had worked out, with the help of the Ilkar’s knowledge of Behemoths, how
to shield the ships against the brunt of the Rift distortion effects, preventing wake backlash
problems were another matter altogether. Lennie had accessed some Krall archive data on trans-
phasic warp stabilisation that lead him to create a set of differential stabiliser systems that might
compensate for the backlash that could occur.
“You must realise that we have no means of testing the systems prior to entering the rift, but from
what the Ilkar have noticed during a Behemoth entrance; we have a very close approximation of
how the animals do it. Nature beat us to it if you like and has had a lot longer to come up with the
solution. The mineral composition of the Behemoth skin gave me a vital clue - thanks to your notes
Lorna” Lennie said during the meeting to discuss their first approach.
“I got a lot of help from the Ilkar too, and while we’ve been in this region of space, I’ve had contact
with a local group of Spacers working a mining operation. They take notes of Behemoth and Space
Whale pods journeys as a means of avoiding disruptions to their operations. They noticed that there
are a number of rifts that the animals seem to use out of preference. The one here being one that is
used on a five yearly cycle. The main influx of pods to the region is not for a few months so we won’t
be disrupting the animal’s life-cycles” Lorna added
“We have finally got the go ahead from the Unity Council HQ to try outfitting two of the single man
speeders with the modifications to trial the systems. They’re hoping that if we succeed; it could
result in safer travel being possible throughout The Veil region.” Hart commented. Jonas was
contemplative concentrating on some of the medical feedback reports he’d had from testing
members of the crew. He realised he was meant to contribute and spoke up
“From these latest reports I’d say we have a choice of six; possibly seven crew that could handle the
flights and the stress, and four Mechanoids, Lennie included, who would be suitable. But we should
really modify two speeders and use one of each group to get a better assessment of personal
experience. We can’t; realistically, simulate the effects as there is no way of predetermining them”
he said adding “I want to contact a Neurologist friend of mine who could supply us with the latest
Neuro-inductive monitoring equipment. She’s on Valhalla 4 doing research into the neurology of the
natives there. Would it be possible to send a message over the Hive-Net from here Captain?” Jonas
asked

“Valhalla 4; that’s in the Proxima region; yes it would be possible for a direct link through, I think I
see where you’re coming from. We would still have data even if the pilot became unconscious, those
monitors record all data, neurological, biological and physiological so yes;’ I’ll set that up. There’s a
military cruiser that might be able to get that equipment out here I believe you know the
Commander Lennie – The ship is The Bastion!” Hart replied. Lennie had been fitted with facial
response mechanisms and he smiled
“Yes I do; and he owes me for a favour from when I got them out of a Gravimetric Occlusion Trap,
left behind by the Gantrax, a few years ago. He’d be more than interested in helping us as the
Military possibilities of our work could even help them.” He made a close approximation of a
Flutvarn gurgle and had the others laughing.

On Keteria the Archivists had managed to translate some of the message that The Hellion
had sent. They were working through the details of how
to contact the “Hive-Net” when a report from the Venusi
Mechia, a factory ship, came in about a strange
discovery on the Ice moon of Venetia. A research team
had discovered an artefact in an ice layer about twenty
kilometres from the surface in the equatorial region. The
object appeared to be some sort of ceremonial staff
about sixty centimetres long and about eight
centimetres wide, with a sunburst image on one side of
a disc at one end of the staff. Hieroglyphs on the lower
half of the shaft seemed to relate to those on the star
map scroll found in the ceramic bottle. Upon closer
examination; the end of the staff with the hieroglyphs
looked like it unscrewed to reveal a hidden hollow
chamber. Not known at the time; inside was a crystal rod
about twenty centimetres in length and twelve
millimetres in diameter. Notches and ridges could be
seen at one end of the rod. It would not be known at the
time, but these glyphs and the rod would prove to be
the key to unlocking the identity of the mysterious race

who had built Atlantis so long ago. Clues to a race that predated many of the early civilisations in the
galaxy; even the Krall and the Ulahri, but for now it was decided that the Keterians should confine
and concentrate their efforts to respond to the message in some way. From what they had deduced
so far; they were sent the message as a guide to re-establishing contact with the galaxy outside the
barrier. From the history files the Keterians learned how much the galaxy had changed since their
entrapment. They could not at that time foresee physical contact being possible; they would soon be
proved wrong. The culture shock alone would send ripples through their society, shaking it to its very
foundations. At the time the Luna Mechia expedition vanished into The Veil; contact with Alien races
had been with only a few races, the Flutvarn, the Grexel, the Rexorian, the Delevan and the
Velecasians. Many more races had been encountered since then, many of which had somehow
“interbred” with Humans. The Keterians society rules would need a huge overhaul if they were to
reintegrate into the galactic community. They were rapidly realising how isolated they had actually
been.

The Hellion Marchioness had been docked with the derelict by a tether tunnel to a port on
the side. The Away Team, Hendrickson, a coms Tech called Bryce, engineering ensign Halvers, two
techs and a Mechanoid called 5724 Glock had entered the wreck. It became apparent very quickly
that the damage at first thought to have been due to a battle, was in fact due to distortion effects
from Warp Field interaction with some kind of external force that had sent shockwaves throughout
the vessels exterior hull.

“I’ve seen examples of this kind of damage before; a scout vessel pilot had tried to ride the wake of a
Behemoth, he got his phasing a little off and he was ricocheted away. He was lucky his escape pod
disengaged or he’d have ended up crashing into the asteroid his ship hit” Halvers said “Glock; check
and see if any escape pods remain” he ordered. The Mechanoid scanned the vessel and replied
“Three have failed to launch. One near this port, but it is ruptured, and two others by what should
be the Engineering deck. No obvious signs of life…” Glock spun its head round when a creak came
from a wall panel “I’d best adjust my gravity compensation, my mass is having a bad influence on the
structure of this deck” he added and made some internal adjustments. A tech scanned for radiation.
“Minor peaks above background, safe levels of radiation despite the damage. There’s an access shaft
down to the next level to our right a corridor should take us aft to further shafts down to
Engineering. No energy readings; so the backlash must have shut the ships main power systems
down. What readings that are showing seem to be very low and fluctuating” one of the Techs said
“From what I’ve been able to read on my scanners, the outer hull took the brunt of the hits, the
inner and tertiary hulls are intact; so if we can pressurise, we could take off our helmets. You should
be OK without shielding Glock. The tertiary hull is Tridivium monomolecular plated, radiation proof”
Hendrickson commented “From what I can read of the script on those panels, we are near to Med
bay and a secondary ships log data store. Glock have you got an adaptable interface unit?” he asked.
“Affirmative; I should be able to download the database when the power is restored” Glock replied.
The party proceeded down to the next level and headed down a second access shaft to the aft
Engineering section. Hendrickson relayed what they had found so far back to the Hellion and Glock
operated the manual opener for the heavily shielded doors to the Engineering section. There was no
sound as the interior of the ship was at near vacuum. They could feel the vibrations though through
the soles of their Mag-boots.

It took Halvers and the Techs about thirty minutes to restore the fusion reactors and get
main power and life support active. The gravitational plating systems were another hour, as they
had suffered inertial stabiliser alignment issues, probably due to the buffeting the ship had received.
Hendrickson and Glock had made their way to the command deck. The vessel was a Gener-Technik
made mid-sized launch from around the third dynasty period. Old even then; the vessel had been
retro-fitted with upgraded systems, dives and electronics. Bryce managed to fire up the Coms
station and made contact with the Hellion.
“These systems are in excellent condition for Museum pieces” Glock noted. They quickly found the
ships logs console in the Captains ready room.
“It must have been a military craft at one point. There’s an impressive armoury locker on the main
flight deck. But that sword is ancient indeed” Hendrickson mused when he noticed a display case on
the wall “That’s not only pre Economy Wars; its early Japanese Samurai period. The Katana was the
sword of choice for general combat. We studied these in our history courses at the Thule Academy”
he added. Carefully he opened the case and removed the weapon. It was in a jet black lacquered
sheath with yellow metal mounts. The sheath was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and gold filigree work
and bore the legend of its maker stamped into the lacquer and highlighted in red. The blade was
pristine carrying the distinctive patterning caused by the hand forged method of its manufacture.
With the atmosphere replenished he took off his glove and gingerly felt the cutting edge. It was still
razor sharp. He returned the sword to its sheath. Whoever the Captain of this ship had been; he, or
she, had excellent taste.
“The name of this vessel is… the Gardonna Axilla!” Bryce said in astonishment. Hendrickson nearly
dropped the Katana onto the desk
“What? But that’s impossible! The ship was declared lost millennia ago! I read archive entries
covering the loss in a fire fight with an unknown alien race. Only two of the engineering crew made it
to life pods and escaped.” Hendrickson gasped. He quickly relayed this information to the Hellion.
Hart was more interested as the Second in Command of the ship had been a distant ancestor.
“I’ll see that you get salvage rights, but this is going to rock the Council. I would assume they would
want me to have my ancestor’s possessions, but there are no living descendants of the Captain

around. I’ll make the arrangements. And I’ll ask for a couple of Archivists to document the find. Relay
those logs as soon as possible. The more information we have on the Lost Colony the better, Hart
out!” Hart replied to Hendrickson’s message. She stood bewildered for a moment, and then went to
her cabin to find her Family’s personal Archive.

Finding the key
Julio was in the Archaeology office examining the staff when he noticed that the end
opposite the Sun disc plate was ribbed like a thumb screw. He experimentally tried to unscrew it.
Lyris joined him and noticed what he was attempting.
“May I suggest you try these pliers sire? Like the Ceramic jars over there it’s sealed with some
compound.” And she handed him a pair of Engineers’ pliers. He took them and applied a hard grip
and a sharp twist. There was a loud cracking sound and the end screwed free. Something dropped
out from within a hidden cavity. Lyris managed to catch it mid fall. It was a crystalline rod about
twenty centimetres in length and just over a centimetre in diameter.
“Curious; it seems to be notched and ridged at one end she said, and placed it under a magnifier.
Julio took a closer look at the end of the staff.
“This is the first sign we’ve seen of any written language. The Glyphs seem oddly familiar, like those
on that strange Calendar device that the Arterus found on that jungle moon. They were lucky to

escape when the quaking started. The whole moon started to
break up. Had any luck translating it yet?” He asked
“It’s similar to a script used by a race of reptilians in the Markab
sector, their language was given to them by “Space Gods”, or so
they say. Because of that I managed to translate a cartouche on
that Star Map. It read “Kryst”. The language is ancient and could
relate to our mysterious creators of Atlantis.” Lyris replied. She
looked at the glyphs on the staff and continued “There are some
common symbols on here that tie in with those on the map. I’ll see
what the computer translation program comes up with. But I’m
more curious about this rod. It almost looks like a Delevan lock key.
But this is crystalline, probably ruby, but I’m no mineralogist.” She
finished.
“There’s a slot next to the Sun disk that looks
like it fits into!” Julio said. He took the rod and
placed it in the slot. A series of clicks and pops could be heard as the rod was
inserted. It suddenly glowed; the map activated and the holographic image
changed. The head of an alien creature shimmered into existence and the same
name cartouche appeared beside it. The head was vaguely reptilian and skin
texture was smooth.
“They could almost be a relation of the Flutvarn, if it wasn’t for the two ridges
instead of a crest their males have; an almost human bone structure. Those eyes
are something else, almost insect like.” Julio said. The image changed as they
approached the table where the map was displayed. It was a star system
representation with a single Symbol notating the star.
“That’s one of the Symbols on the Calendar, the one in the two o’clock position.”
Lyris remarked. They were both startled when a vocalisation came from the Sun
Disc atop the staff. It was a soft rasping, warbling kind of voice and it said
something that sounded remarkably like “Hyom Peeyla KH’reeS’ht” Neither of them moved or said
anything for a few moments then Julio spoke
“I’ll convene the council in the main hall. Have everything taken there and we’ll present… all this to
everyone”

The Gardonna Axilla logs were a rich source of detailed information. They even explained
the ships existence. Apparently the remains of the vessel were purchased by a wealthy member of
an Atalaman household. She had been restored to her full glory by him and re-commissioned as a
private cruiser. The owner had used it for pleasure a number of times before handing it over for the
use of an exploration mission to help colonise worlds for the Congress; the Leader of that expedition
being a member of one of the ruling houses. It was also noted that the ship had been outfitted with
long range sensory scanners and other then state of the art equipment. Among these
“extraordinary” additions was a prototype field generator. Glock and Lennie found this on their
second sortie of the ship.
“It looks like it’s meant to envelope the ship in a force field, probably phasing, but the emitters
weren’t fitted to the hull. One of the engineers found them stowed in a crate in the hold” Lennie
said to Jonas when he returned back to the Hellion.
“Odd, they probably thought they wouldn’t need them until they set up base somewhere.” Jonas
responded. Lorna was deep in thought, she had been studying the entries on the fauna they’d found
in space near a moon.
“They seem to have encountered some strange life forms as they came close to The Veil. They were
similar in appearance to Space Whales; but smaller and aggressive. They regularly had to dissuade
the creatures from feeding from their drive nacelles energy feeds. These creatures drained energy
rather than consume dust and gasses. Sort of Space Leeches if you like.” She said without looking up
from her pad.
“The Ilkar have seen similar creatures hovering around dying or old Behemoths. They steer clear of
Space Whales though. They probably don’t like the taste” Jonas chuckled. Lorna glowered at him and
he turned away. The two modified speeders were ready to launch. A Mechanoid pilot had been
rigged up with the Neuro Inductive Monitors and the Human pilot likewise. Pre-flight checks of all
the monitoring equipment were showing no signs of any trouble. The modified shielding showed up
well in test and looked to have every possibility to behave as expected.

Mortimer had been busy with translations of the signals that seemed to originate deeper
into The Veil than the signal in Atalaman. They were almost song-like, but the cadences were way
too strange.
“If that’s a language it must rank as one of the most bizarre. I’ve heard just about every tongue in
the Unity, but that’s unlike any, even the Unat and Osir vocals have something standard about them,
but this…” he was talking with one of the female Coms officers, Lucy, “There used to be a sea living
mammal on old Earth called a Dolphin. Some of those clicks and whistles are reminiscent of the
sounds those creatures made” he added.
“There is a race of reptilians in the old Markab sector that have a language that is similar, try using
the trading Archives for a translation matrix. The Achenazi have traded with them for a long time,
they might have created one” Lucy commented and opened the link to the nearest Hive-Net relay.
There was indeed a matrix available, Mortimer applied it to the ships translator bank and ran the
signals again. To both their astonishment, they got a partial translation, some sounds didn’t translate
and remained in their original state. What did translate read more like a crazy shopping list or
inventory.
“That’s screwy; some of these materials are obviously for mining, others just don’t make sense. It’s
hopeless; we need more examples of the language for the translator to compile a proper vocabulary.
But you were right it does seem as if the languages are related. I wonder…”
“Perhaps a tighter reigning in of the transmissions location would help. I could ask Jason to trace the
source using Hasbid’s filter” Lucy suggested but Mortimer was on a roll. His mind was turning over
possibilities.
“Didn’t that race say their language was given to them by “Star Gods”? See if you can get me a link
to the Sonoran Trust Archivist Bella Utrecht on Casarist Prime. She spent some time on a Unat vessel
that did surveys in the Markab sector before the Dark Empire was formed. She may have some of
the Unat matrices from that era in her personal archive. I once dated her great granddaughter, I had

the feeling Bella liked me, though as old as she is, she may still remember me. Some very dodgy
practices went on in the old days” he said, and chuckled.
“I see where you’re headed; the Unat had far better algorithms for their translators, they needed
them as the Gantrax language is so complex. We could probably adapt them to operate on our
translator system. I’ll get right on it. Oh; it looks like they’re ready to launch the speeders” she
replied. Mortimer left to watch the launch.

The scout ship Vuelvo returned to the Luna Mechia with the latest signal captures. Pilot
Giovani had not been informed that a full translation of the earlier captures had been performed.
When he heard the translations and the implications of them sank in he felt proud that it was on his
watch that contact had been made. He rushed to the Coms deck with his latest transmissions. It
could be an hour before these were translated so he headed to the Mess. He was greeted with the
usual salutation by the other Scout pilots. He ordered a Stygian tea and some Telvia Biscotti then
headed over to the table that his sister was sat at. Krysta was also a Scout; and a year older than Gio,
as she called him, she was tall, slim, blonde and very “street savvy”. She had one of the other “boys”
move to let Gio in.
“Ah; my hero little “brother”. Have you heard the latest from Home World? They have a possible
name for the race that built Atlantis; they’re calling them the Kryst. Lyris sends her love by the way”
she pinched his cheek playfully. He squirmed and reddened, embarrassed by the attention.
“We’re just friends, sis, she hasn’t decided whether-or-not we are an item, but I’m sure you’ll be the
first to know if she does.” He said and sat down with the four of them. The others jeered. As he
drank the other scouts regaled their stories. Hugh had discovered the remains of a small vessel in a
binary system; it seemed to have been a drone
“This thing is being dissected as we speak. The tech is way beyond anything we have” he finished
and drank up the last of his draft of wheat beer “I’m going to get some down time while they service
my craft. He made to leave but Christo; the other scout at the table made him sit down.
“I can top your find; unless Gio has a new one in his latest captures. I intercepted a live Bakra
creature on that rogue planetoid the Jugo came across. It’s only a youngster and its parent had been
killed, savaged by something much bigger. Bio Labs have it, it’s an herbivore. The mother was
undergoing autopsy when I left. If the bite marks are anything to go by, the killer was thirty feet at
least. Lots of teeth and claws; wouldn’t want to come across that in a hurry. Now; Gio what do you
have?” Christo asked. Gio slowly sipped his tea and munched on Biscotti before answering.
“Apart from some new intercepts from outside The Wall, I too found a derelict, one of ours this
time. Remember when Darius Blake made his attempt to follow that creature back through the rift
and his ship bounced off the wake field? He barely escaped in his life pod. Well; I found the remains

of his ship. Salvage ship Carpathian should have it in tow. Darius will
be pleased to know I salvaged something for him!” He reached into
his flight suit and retrieved a medallion “His Star of Juran service
Medal. He always placed this on his console; before setting out, his
good luck charm he called it. Not that it helped him when he
bounced. But I thought he’d appreciate having it back instead of it
going to salvage”. He held the medallion up for them to see.
“Whoa! You’d best not let the Captain see that. You know that’s
classed as treasure trove. Put it away before someone sees” Christo
hissed. Gio put it back in his shirt pocket
“My brother the sentimentalist; though this time I have to agree with
him Darius should have it back. There are precious few of us lower
mortals who have gained such a high honour. Keep it safe for him till
you get back to Iona City” Krysta said smiling over the rim of the
tankard of beer she had been drinking. It would be a day or two
before they would be back on duty again; so it seemed only just that they celebrate. A dark voice
came from a table behind her.

“Gio, I’d be careful what you say and do in the next couple of days. Christo is right; you’d best keep
that booty hidden. I’ll not tell the Captain; though I really should, And Krysta is right, I say he should
have his trophy returned to him. He earned it; I was at the front with him when the Horde
descended on Cal Patria. The infighting between the great houses was terrifying during the last
skirmishes of the Economy Wars. I was a lowly private in the Crozier Guard, Darius a Captain at
Arms. He saved his troop almost singlehandedly” said the voice. The speaker was the ships Bursar.
Halibrad Giuseppe, a Kurian and former Crozier patrolman. He was one of the few remaining Gene
spliced Humans from the longevity trials, like Darius. Both were over two thousand years old, but
barely looked past fifty. His dark skin had few wrinkles and his eyes glinted like those of a
mischievous child. He smiled and his gleaming white teeth seemed to slit his face in two. “You lot
had best get back to your cots and buckle down for a jump into Hyperspace. We have been called to
the Sidian sector, a weak spot has just appeared there and we are to investigate.” He added still
smiling as he headed up to the Command deck.
“Is it just me or did any of you sense he knew something more?” Gio asked the others. They all
nodded, finished their drinks and left for their quarters. What they were did not know then was that
this was the weak spot/rift that the two speeders would attempt penetrating The Wall.

The Hellion Marchioness positioned itself at a safe distance from the rift ready to launch the
two speeders. The two chosen pilots were doing their pre-flight checks. The Chief Engineer and his
team had done all they could to minimise danger, but as with anything new, they were prepared for
any foreseeable happenstance. The pilot’s cockpit controls had been duplicated in the escape pods,
and these would jettison with their occupants if the worst scenario occur. The docking bay was de-
pressurised as soon as the Engineering team vacated the bay. A countdown was started. And the
relay of information between the Ships hive and the equipment on the speeders initiated. The
launch happened in an eerie silence; the two craft exiting the larger vessel with a strange sort of
unhurried departure. It had been decided that a sharp increase in speed as the craft approached the
boundary of the rift may minimise the buffeting effect still further. The adapted shielding was
switched on just prior to this.

As the craft accelerated it seemed; from the viewpoint of the observers on the Hellion, that
they distorted and elongated before vanishing into the boundary layer of the rift. Data streams from
the speeders continued, despite there being heavy interference, and the data recorded. Then there
was only the steady burbling of the data stream and the two craft had disappeared from sight.
Mortimer was the first to speak “Well; that seemed a tad understated, I had expected something
more dramatic” he said disappointedly
“What were you expecting, the shielding held or the result would have been more of a spectacle”
Lennie intoned in an imitation of a Unat professor he’d once met. Captain Hart and the others stood
silent before a flurry of activity of the rest of the crew broke their immobility. Lorna asked for a copy
of the Biological and Neurological data to be sent to her quarters. Lennie and the rest of the
Engineering team decided to outfit a scout craft, should the mission prove a success, with the
adaptive shielding and sensory equipment. Mortimer and Jonas went to the Coms deck to get an
assessment of the first data decoded. Hart and the command officers returned to their posts. Little
could be done until their explorers emerged on the other side of the rift. The time could best be
spent in scanning the surrounding area, which contained debris fields from some ancient space
battle. These fields consisting mainly of materials from Gantrax ships; and those of another race,
which was as yet unidentified. The Hellion would be in constant communication with the High
Council during this time. This would fill up the crew’s time waiting for a signal from the two speeders
that would signify a safe arrival.

The Luna Mechia arrived at the coordinates that High Command had said to expect the weak
spot. What they found far exceeded that, it was a large, full blown maelstrom of an emerging rift.
Strange signals seemed to pervade the very fabric of space-time in the area. The Captain ordered the
launch of two scout craft and a recovery craft, a stripped down shuttle with docking clamps and
traction field equipment. These were ostensibly mining vessels, but occasionally they had been used

to recover damaged vessels and crew. As per his orders, the reason for their being present at this rift
was censured. Only the ships Command crew knew the real reason; that being to observe the results
of a penetration attempt by the outsiders to the realm of the Keterians. The future of both peoples
hung in the balance upon the outcome of this endeavour. Krysta and Gio were chosen to fly the
scout craft, the Vuelvo and the Nero. They had been informed that all communications from now on
would be in Interlac, and seeing as the two of them were well versed in the language, they had been
chosen above others of more experience. The Vuelvo and the Nero took up equidistant positions a
safe distance from the emerging rift. Using a secure private channel between the two scout craft Gio
talked with his older sister Krysta
“Well; what do you make of this sis?” he asked
“Damned if I know. All I was told was to expect the unexpected, you know how cryptic Henderson
can be” she replied
“Very odd behaviour even for him, did you see the look on the Captains face when you were
chosen? I thought he was going to explode. He’s got a crush on you!” Gio taunted
“Cut the chatter, I’m getting some strange scanner responses; check them out” she said and gave
him the frequencies she was using.
“Mass disturbances, that’s common, but they seem to be paired and matched. I see what you
mean.” Gio added. They monitored the same area sending the data back to the Luna Mechia. As if a
switch had suddenly been thrown the opening of the rift snapped into coalescence and the great
maw of blackness stunned with its presence.
“Oh; man, that’s something. I’ve never seen one
that wide before” Gio said astonished.
“If these readings are right there’s something
coming through, scratch that, two something’s
are coming through!” Krysta said excitedly.

Indeed; two disturbances could clearly
be ascertained, it was a few seconds before any
visual presence could be seen. There were two
faint glows from field interactions with the tract
of Hyperspace. These became clearer as they approached the boundary of the rift. Two small vessels
sheathed in writhing glows appeared and emerged from the rift. They were traveling at incredible
speed. They were braking hard using a reverse ejection from their Bussard collectors. It took the two
tiny craft about ten kilometres to reach a slow stop. The glow of their shielding fading slowly; it was
ascertained they were heavily modified speeders.
“I’ll try hailing them” Krysta said and sent a standard hail in Interlac. There was no response. She
tried again and an automated acknowledgement signal was returned. “Contact established” were
her simple words to the Luna Mechia. The recovery craft moved in closer, its pilot relayed his
findings
“Two occupants both seem unconscious, one is non-human, looks mechanical, possibly robotic.
There are some strange signals coming from the cockpits.” He said
“Robotic?” was the stunned response of the Captain. “Have the vessels put in tow and taken to the
docking bay” he ordered and added “I want all ships contingent assembled. I think it’s time I
explained our orders.” He concluded. The two speeders suddenly sent out a directed signal burst
back through the rift before going silent.

An echo from the dark
The Hellion received the burst signal that the two speeders automatic transmitters sent back
through the rift. It was meant as a sign that the ships had made it through the rift intact. They would
wait for confirmation from the pilots themselves when they were able to respond. From the delays
in the data signal and a significant Doppler shift they could tell that the tract of Hyperspace was
about half a parsec in length and that the speeders had been accelerated to a terrific speed. The

shift rotation pattern resumed on the Coms monitoring. The data streams suggested that the pilots
had both lost consciousness around halfway through their journey. The monitoring teams were
waiting for them to regain consciousness and report in.
“Judging from these readings; the two of them blacked-out within two minutes of each other. The
equipment carried on recording all the data including from the exterior sensors” Lorna was telling
Hart at the review meeting. The others were going over technical data in more depth.
“Has anyone figured out when the Gardonna acquired her damage?” Hart asked.
“The hulk has been drifting since the incident, which occurred around twenty years ago. From trace
materials retrieved from the outer hull; it happened deeper into The Veil. The logs suggest it was
due to an abortive attempt to follow a Behemoth back through a rift” Lennie replied Hendrickson
sent a copy of the Archivists findings to the main screen and highlighted an inscription scratched into
a console
“We have been unable to translate these symbols; they are in an unknown script. But temporal
signatures suggest it was inscribed sometime after the ship was abandoned. Furthermore; there is a
DNA trace that points to an, as yet, unknown race that managed to send the craft back to this sector
of The veil from the region of the incident Lennie mentioned” he added, and stood down and
awaited questions. At first no one spoke. Then Jonas looked up from the Neurological report
“There is no logical reason for the pilots to black-out as far as these readings tell us. Stress and other
levels are high… but within expected parameters. The Mechanoid pilot suffered what I can only
describe as some form of impressed overload of his positronic circuits. In other words he seems to
have had a brainstorm triggered from an exterior force?” he said looking puzzled
“Biological data would suggest the human pilot suffered a similar intrusion. It’s as if someone or
something tried to telepathically communicate but seriously over did the strength and power of the
thought message. I wish I’d thought to have translator bands fitted to the pilots, and then maybe we
would have a copy of that message” Mortimer added.
“The engineering data sent back shows no sign that there should have been such a rapid shift in
speed. Thankfully the braking system cut in automatically when they emerged on the other side. The
actual jump in speed is phenomenal. It might explain a few things” Jock Hasselblad the Chief
Engineer reported “The really odd thing is the time signature of each of the burst transmissions is off
from Central time index by a negative figure… forty days?” he added shaking his head.

“Hyperspace can do strange things to time. Remember the first experiments in Hyperspace travel?
Early ships didn’t have the heavy shielding we use today and some crews actually ended up days or
weeks younger when they exited to normal space. We call that temporal drift today and we have
compensators for it; back then they called it The Fountain of Youth effect” Hart said in response.
Jock thought for a moment then laughed and said
“Oh; yes! I remember now. One of the first test pilots on the Sirius run got stuck in a fold in a
Hyperspace tract and came out as a fourteen year old boy. His wife got a heck of a shock. His name
was Hart too…” he stopped when he saw the Captains face realising he’d made a terrible faux pa.

A Coms tech entered and handed the Captain a pad. She read the message and excused
herself leaving to the Command deck and also leaving the others bewildered. She came back a few
moments later looking pale and asked them to follow her. On the Bridge main viewer was a visual of
the current state of the rift. It had increased in size and a faint glow could be discerned in the distant
depth of the rift.
“What are the readings now Ensign?” Hart asked one of the Science station crew
“Fifty per cent higher and rising Ma’am” he replied. Jason walked in from the Coms Deck
“Whatever that is; it’s kicking out some strange signals high up in the sub-space bands. It’s a regular;
repeated signal that sounds eerily like Whale song?” The young man said puzzled.
“Have we a visual Number one?” Hart asked the Bridge officer
“It’s distorted; but yes, on main viewer now” came his reply. The image of the glow had brightened.
As the object moved closer to the boundary of the rift it became clear what it was.

“Is that a solar shield? It’s a Krall probe ship. The last time anyone encountered one it was a derelict.
Where has this one been?” the Coms officer fired questions and disbelief. Hart ordered the probe
taken in tow until an away team could inspect it. The probe had some damage but was intact for the
most part; however there was something strange about it.
“Hart to Senior Archivist Krantz; please come to Command deck with a translator ring” Hart ordered.
Hubert Krantz was one of the Archivists the High Council had sent to document the discovery of The
Gardonna. That job was easy enough for his two juniors to complete on their own, so he had felt like
a spare wheel, until now, he was only there to confirm findings and authorise them for deposit into
the central archive on Terra Prime. He arrived on the Bridge still a little befuddled as to why he’d
been summoned
“Archivist Krantz; I’m at your service Captain Hart; How can I help you?” He asked. He was directed
to the Science station and to a view of the probe.
“It looks like a Krall probe, but that script isn’t Krall. Have you seen anything like it before?” Hart
asked. Hubert put on his translator ring and tried linking to the Hive-Net language matrix.
“It looks like a derivative of a script used by natives of a world in the Markab sector, but this is more
complex. Some of it translates; but … What does translate makes no sense” he said after a few
minutes “It’s more like instruction code for a computer; but in a form of prose?” he added looking
confused. Mortimer had entered the bridge. He saw what Hubert had on his screen
“How do those glyphs translate into sound?” he asked Krantz. Krantz linked his translator band to
the console and tried the translation matrix audio creation subroutines. From the speaker came a
sing-song rendition of the translation.
“Hah! I thought so. It’s the same as those weird signals we received earlier. They must have been
coming from this thing. I’ve also had time to think about those and these glyphs gave me an idea. I
think the language is based on metaphors, allegories and similes. Try a translation using the same
grammatical rules as Kirillian Beta 2 please Krantz and see what you get” Mortimer added excitedly.
Krantz modified the Translator band’s matrix and tied in the grammatical subroutine from the
Kirillian sub set. The output was sent to the main viewer.

What appeared on the screen was definitely a set of metaphorical phrases, the first being a
reference to some kind of battle or war between two races. The next a meandering verse on the
merits of justice prudence and the next two referred to locations of some sort, but without a way of
relating them to an origin point they made no sense. The key would be in the last two phrases. That
was where the ships Hive had difficulty and had only partial translations that read like complete
gibberish. This was yet another mystery to solve. The rest of Lorna’s team had arrived on the bridge
and Lennie asked to hear the last sections in the original sing-song sound of the message. As it was
played back he froze.
“Uh-oh! I’ve seen that happen before. Remember when the Mechanoids first encountered the
Electric Vines and the Radio Trees on Venosia Prime. They were given messages in base code. This
looks like what happened to them” Jonas said.

After the meeting and the display of the Artefacts, star map and what effect the staff had,
the High Command meeting chamber was awash with excited conversation, debate and one or two
radical vocalisations that were, quite frankly, offensive. Lyris and her team were inundated with
questions, all of which they answered as truthfully as they could. When word came through about
the two speeders the debate swiftly refocused. Julio and Lyris actually welcomed the shift of topic.
As the other debate was becoming heated with some people feeling wronged because of their
religious beliefs, others self-righteously taking the discoveries as vindication for their decisions in
exploring their realm. The news that contact had come with others from the outside changed
everything.
“One of the pilots is robotic!” cried one Command official in disbelief
“It would appear so. But the technology is more advanced than our people’s early experiments. We
can only assume that the Congress and the other ruling parties had advanced more quickly than we
did. We will know more when they have regained consciousness. They have been taken aboard the

Luna Mechia and are enroute to Keteria as we speak. Their craft appear to have been greatly
modified, and ingeniously I might add” one of the Technical Advisors said after reading the
preliminary report.
“What of the other pilot, I understand she’s human. Have we any way of identifying where she’s
from?” asked Julio
“Markings from her uniform tie her to an organisation called The Federal Unity. The technologies
used in the craft seem to have come from several cultures and levels. She did have a medallion from
a University on her person… Thule Academy, Extula Prime, System Delvaria near Proxima Ultima,
was inscribed on the rear. With a class rating which made no sense to the crew of the Luna Mechia”
the Tech replied.
“I want regular reports sent to this council and my personal Coms as soon as they come through!
Gentlemen, ladies; I suggest we end this debate and review what we have been given in seclusion.
We should reconvene later to discuss how to relate this to the populace. Has anyone contacted the
other outposts?” Julio asked. There was a shaking of heads “Then do so at once and only give them
the basics for now. This session is dismissed!” he said and slammed his gavel on the rostrum. As the
Councillors and others departed, Lyris and his Uncle approached.
“It’s time that these fossils were shaken up!” His uncle Rene said “present Company excluded” he
added looking at Julio with a smirk on his face. Julio laughed and Lyris glowered then smiled
“Thank you Uncle; I needed that. It has been a somewhat tense few days and my brain was getting
overloaded” Julio said. Lyris held his hand
“I’m glad your Father chose you to take over his duties, your Brother would have had us retreat from
the outside world, being of a pious sect. My husband was one of your Fathers greatest allies, and to
lose them both when we did…” she let go of his hand when she saw his face. Julio had watched in
horror; then only twelve, as the experimental craft that his Father and Lyris’ husband were piloting
went out of control over The Great Sea. The rescue hovercraft found only wreckage; their bodies
were never found. Julio had already been named as heir to the throne by that time. He had relied;
wisely as it later proved, on the support and advice of his Uncle Rene.
“We never did have a memorial to Father erected. I think it’s time we did, and to all those lost over
the centuries of our entrapment. A commemorative tribute that the people can respect and so sadly
need; prior to our visitor’s arrival, who by all accounts could be here soon, it would give them an
impression of our resoluteness. I leave the matter in your hands Uncle. I need time alone to digest
this news; I will reconvene the Council in three hours. We will make a decision as a Council then as
to how best to proceed” he said and left the two of them to go to his private chambers.

Lennie unfroze and staggered as if he’d lost his balance. His facial response was odd to say
the least. He didn’t speak at first, signalling he wanted a pad.
“What happened? Did you decode any of that last part?” were the first questions fired at him. He
didn’t respond just feverishly entered some data into a pad. After a few minutes he handed the pad
to the Ensign at navigation; asking for the locations to be put on a standard chart of the nearby area.
He then went back to the others

“The message was a series of locations, odd sort of nomenclature, the
makers use constellations as reference points rather than fixed stars
relative to Galactic Centre. I had to make adjustments and calculate the
relative positions of those constellations from our viewpoint in space”
he said finally.
“I’ve been looking at the Glyphs on the hull. They’re degraded but
some are almost like ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs in part and some are
close to the Krall script that was found in the Great Chamber on the
Krall outpost. It could be a subset or a dialect though I can’t be really
sure. In particular that one that looks like a name Cartouche. Using
phonetic relation I think I have a translation… Kryst!” Lorna said not
looking up from her pad. The ships Hive had managed to highlight the

constellations in the message and displayed them on the main viewer. Two were easily recognisable
as being the area around Sol viewed from the region of the Hagunenon world of Halagraah; which
was only recently found near the Hub. Another one that stood out was a constellation that would
only appear as it did if viewed from Old Terra. The rest; six in all seemed to be scattered around the
rim regions of the Galaxy. The Hive then did a quick recalculation and displayed the point in space
from which all would appear as they would from a planetary system in the region of The Veil. It
cantered in on a system on the outskirts of Krall space near The Veil. It displayed the results showing
their relative position to the system highlighted by the results.
“That’s definitely in what we now know to have been Krall controlled space.” The Navigator said
adding “Approximately twelve light-years from here. There’s a Gantrax debris field from one of the
later skirmishes the Osir had in our galaxy between there and The Veil. That field is particularly
dense and still radioactive after all this time. It was the site of a test use of the doomsday device the
Osir came up with to rid their galaxy of the Gantrax menace. It could explain why we never noticed
that region before”
Hart contacted Engineering “is it possible to bring that probe aboard?” she asked. Jock replied
“Aye; but we’ll need to set up a containment area, it’s barely holding together in our traction field as
it is” he barked an order to some of his crew and added “ The materials used are degraded a bit, but
we might just be able to get it aboard intact.” He answered
“Then make it so!” Hart ordered. She then turned to all assembled on the Bridge “It may be some
time before we get a reply from our colleagues in the speeders so I think we should concentrate on
this probe and send as much data as we gather to Unity Central for analysis. Coms; resume the
monitoring rota, Navigation. Ready planned routes to that system; we are after all an exploratory
expedition, that system may well be our next objective. That is all… dismissed!”

Chapter 3
Waking up in a strange place

Trok 772 and Misha Lyndsey; the two pilots of the speeders slowly began to awaken. When
they did they were astonished to find they were in some kind of medical facility; Trok in particular as
he was a Mechanoid and needed no medical assistance. However he was connected to some ancient
and primitive form of monitoring station. Likewise Misha who took a little longer to come round
“What happened; I remember trying to compensate for that strange warp surge then nothing?” she
asked of her companion
“I’m in the dark too. I did manage to make a personal recording, but it appears to have been
scrambled by the phenomenon we encountered. We appear to have been rescued by someone and
brought here. If I can get to our craft I might be able to reconstruct what
happened.” Trok replied. A noise to their right focussed their attention. It
was snoring coming from a young man dressed in some sort of medical
coverall. He stirred and yawned. He looked a little startled that they were
awake but went over to a desk and scribbled a note before making a call to
someone. Trok recognised the language as a variant of Atalaman though he
couldn’t quite pin down the region. He was about to ask where they were
when the young orderly spoke in Interlac
“You’re finally awake. I’ve just called my superiors; they will attempt to
answer your questions. Just for the record; you are in the Facilitia Medico
Centrali Jesus. We are a military facility on the outskirts of Juaneras City.
The world you are on is called Keteria; home world of our peoples. I suggest you dress in your
uniform Ma’am; as to your metal friend, I’m not sure. Do you require refreshment?” he asked. Misha

thanked the young man but said she was fine; he pointed to a locker at the side of the bed and a
screen. She retrieved her cleaned and pressed uniform and went behind the screen.
“What is your name young man? I don’t want to be impolite by just calling you Orderly” she asked
“I am Called Alejandro Metsali Ma’am; May I ask your names… So I can enter them into the records
officially?” he replied. Misha gave her name and her rank. When Trok spoke the young man nearly
jumped out of his skin. It was obvious he had never confronted such a wonder as the Mechanoid in
his short life. A sound from beyond a pair of doors signalled the arrival of the young man’s
“superiors”.

Alejandro went outside and the two of them could hear an exchange in Atalaman between
him and two; possibly three individuals outside. One expressed the same astonishment when told
about Trok. That voice was obviously female. The others sounded male but muffled and low. The
doors swung open and Alejandro held one aside to allow the visitors to enter. One was a younger
male in what appeared to be some sort of robes of office, there was an older female in a similar
coverall to Alejandro and the last an elderly male in what looked like some kind of military fatigues.
They approached Misha and Trok and the elderly male spoke first.
“I am First Minister and Advisor Rene Panhedran; this is His Highness Prince Julio Panhedran and this
is our Chief Archaeologist Lyris Valderna. We had thought our peoples had been cut off from the
outside galaxy by the Wall; which is what we call the barrier that you passed through. Your craft are
remarkable; you may relax they are safely stored in a hangar at the nearby Military Base with explicit
instructions they are not to be meddled with. I take it your people were responsible for the
messages we received. Forgive us if we have not yet responded as we were having difficulty in
translating some of the last parts” he announced. Misha introduced herself and Trok and confirmed
that her people were responsible. Trok asked a question in Atalaman to which Julio laughed then
spoke back in perfect Interlac.
“Your accent is terrible but please don’t be so formal. My title may be inherited from the old formal
regime, but I am merely a figurehead my Advisors and others do the actual governing. We still have
a legacy of the old Feudal system in our ranks and titles but we adopted a more democratic system
once our ancestors realised they were trapped here. It just made sense that we settle and explore
our new realm. I’m sure you have as many questions about us as we do about you. May I take this
opportunity to offer the hand of friendship and ask a pertinent question?” He said holding out his
hand to shake theirs in turn. “Are you at all hungry?” he asked.
“Actually; now you ask, I really am hungry, what do you suggest?” Misha replied. Trok declining
politely and asking instead to be taken to their speeders to check the recordings of the warp
distortion they encountered; Rene took him to the hangar and the Julio guided Misha and Lyris to
the Refectory.

On board the Hellion the probe was being examined further; the radiation levels having
dropped to just above normal background levels. It was; according to the temporal signature, over a
thousand years old. The signals that it had radiated out came from an automated system. Most of
the other systems were dormant and had been so for some considerable time. Its surface was
heavily pockmarked where its shielding had weakened or collapsed. Markings on the hull did seem
to bear some semblance to an early Krall script, but with obvious differences, the Krall having been
known to have long ago discarded their written script in favour of a phonetic electronic variant. This
seemed to be a descendant tongue of the original Krall or a contemporary cousin.

Because of the size of this ancient craft; it was no surprise to find that scans showed a
hidden chamber inside. What was found inside was the real shock…
“I’ve seen ancient historical records from before the Economy Wars about this legendary craft. One
of Mankind’s first deep space probes. I believe it was called Voyager 1; one of two such probes. It
was hoped that some spacefaring race would come across them and decipher the message discs
they carried. I wonder what our ancestors would make of our discovery that one of them at least
was discovered by an “alien intelligence”” Bryce said when he saw the scans of the object in the

chamber. Lorna and Mortimer laughed; Lennie wanted to examine the craft, but finding a way into
the chamber, without destroying the alien probe, was proving difficult.
“I wonder how it got inside. Did the probes creators build it around the ancient craft?” he asked
rhetorically. Even Jock Hasselblad seemed to be stumped for an answer. A technician eventually
found the answer to that when power was restored to the probes circuitry. He found a set of
symbols; presumably numerical, on a key pad underneath the chamber. The Probe had been
suspended so the underside could be examined. Playing around with these triggered a mechanism
and a beam shot out to an empty spot in the docking bay. The Voyager craft vanished from within
the chamber to reappear in the vacant spot and the beam ceased.
“By the Maker! A Matter Transporter!” Jock exclaimed turning almost white. The poor Technician
fainted when he realised that the beam had only just missed hitting him by millimetres. An alarm
suddenly sounded over the ships intercom followed by a terse message
“All personnel, we have an unknown craft approaching, all personnel to ready standing and
emergency positions!” it announced
“We’d better get up to the bridge” Mortimer said to Lorna and Lennie and they headed up to the
Command Deck.

They arrived to a scene of “controlled chaos”. Hart was receiving data pads and issuing
orders. Suddenly a signal came from the strange ship. It was a Hail signal in early Interlac.
“Requesting initial contact. We are the Scharnhorst. Identify self and respond!” the message
repeated. Hart ordered a standard acknowledgement sent with a stand by.
“Scharnhorst? That’s an experimental craft the Untharans were working on when I was last in their
sector. They must have progressed quickly for them to get here so fast!” Lennie said.
“You know this craft Lennie?” Lorna asked
“Yes; I was consulted on the shield mechanics a year or so ago. The ship was still under construction.
Captain Hart request a ship’s crew contingent and use my access code” He said, giving a numerical
index. The Scharnhorst replied and Lennie smiled. “That explains a lot. Those Mechanoids are the
new Biotech enhanced units from Venosia Prime. They are capable of working ten times as fast as
humans, they have six limbs and multi- rotational joints. They make excellent construction workers.
The body model is based on Krall Exo-suits made for the Hadra, an amphibian race that the
Hagunenon once used as slaves.” He added
“Stand down to general quarters! Lennie I’ll let you make contact as they should recognise you. Ask
them why they’re here please” Hart said. Lennie established digital contact with the Scharnhorst

Coms and did as Hart asked. The main viewer sprang into life. An image
of an Untharan appeared.
“Forgive our surprise arrival Captain Hart. We were asked by the High
Council to assist you, but our earlier attempts to contact you were
hampered by the local distortions The Veil throws up; I’m sure you’ll
understand. If it might be possible could my Bridge crew I and come
over and you can bring us up to speed on current circumstances. I am
Captain J’unmat Thugrah” the Untharan asked.
“By all means Captain… Thugrah; I look forward to your arrival. I think
Lennie would like to come aboard your vessel to inspect the work that
was done. Would that be O.K.?” Hart responded
“That would be most fine. He is the best Engineer I’ve ever come
across; excluding one or two Terrans that is. Thugrah out!” and the
screen blanked.
“Well there’s a turn up for the books. I recognise one of the Flutvarn names on that list. She’s a
Xeno-Archeologist like me. I would value her expertise on the probe. With your leave Captain I’d like
to go over to the Scharnhorst with Lennie and take copies of what we’ve discovered so far” Lorna
said.

“Yes; the more heads we get together on this the better. We still haven’t had any news from the
speeders yet so we’ll concentrate on the probe and the Gardonna. I’m sure I recognise our Untharan
Captain from somewhere; I just can’t place where” Hart replied. Preparations were made for the
ship-to-ship exchange.

Trok examined the speeders carefully; the Keterians had not tampered with the craft in any
way, so he downloaded the flight logs and ran an analysis. The Technicians were wary of him at first;
until he explained what he was and how his kind had come into being. He even helped them with
the translation of the history files that the Hellion had sent. They were astonished at how much the
rest of the galaxy had advanced. One of the Techs; a young man called Carlio Venetti took a shine to
Trok and the two were soon chatting as though they had been friends all their lives.
“It’s going to take some time for my people to re-integrate into society. We still have a partially
feudal system of government” he said while helping Trok to interface the speeder’s flight recorders
with the Keterian Master Computer Bank.
“Oh; there are still some older style governments out there that are even more structurally harsh.
Take the Bolatii for example; they execute their outgoing politicians so that they can never cause
trouble again. Mind you; their class structure is based around genetically engineering people fit to a
particular role. All those destined to be politicians accept the fact that eventually they will die and be
replaced; it’s the same for the other classes. It’s a highly organized society in which everyone quite
literally has their place.” Trok said, Carlio looked horrified by the idea then realised that Trok was
goading him
“Aha; a machine with a cruel sense of humour, now that truly is amazing” Carlio said and they both
laughed. Misha and Lyris approached. Lyris spoke first.
“We have managed to get our ships antiquated Coms to accept the filtering system you people used
to get the signals through the rift. The Luna Mechia will depart in about an hour; so if you wish we
can take you back with us so you can properly identify yourselves when we establish contact. Our
Engineers still haven’t quite worked out how it was you two managed to penetrate The Wall without
getting killed yet though!” she said
“That’s what I’m hoping to find out from our speeders’ flight recorders logs. It might take some time;
but If we can establish how; it might be possible to retro fit our systems to one of your vessels and a
proper first contact can be made.” Trok replied.
“I’ve been looking over some of the finds the Keterians have made. If a means of beating the barrier
does come about then I think the Unity might want to send an exploration team here. They have a
number of Krall cylinders – unopened. These could contain data crystals; and yes I explained about
them. Odd thing is there’s only the one Glyph; the eight pointed star. That would indicate they are
from the period when they went to total mechanisation of their bodies and ceased using a written
language. We know of course that eventually they evolved into an energy form and have since left to
another Space-Time parallel. That was a hard concept to get across, but eventually they got it. It’s
the other artefacts that have got me puzzled, the glyphs are similar to early Krall, but have a
different grammatical basis. That being mostly metaphors, allegories and similes on the whole. It’s
really difficult to get any sense from the translations. If this communication link-up works we should
get the Hive-Net to work on them.” Misha said adding “two of their scout pilots would like a closer
look at our drive systems; I said that should be OK, you agree?”
“Why not, and Carlio already has a working knowledge of some of the systems. A sort of exchange of
ideas. Yes; make it so. Carlio; can you take care when powering up the circuits in case there has been
some damage we haven’t seen. And make sure nobody stands too close to those Bussard intakes.
The attractional fields had to be greatly enhanced and they tend to pull in all sorts of stuff” Trok
answered and he, Lyris and Misha left heading for the main spaceport.

In the Coms section monitoring for a contact signal from the other side of
the rift; Jason was using a second terminal to scan the Unity Archive-Net for any
reference to the word Kryst. Lorna had asked him to also check with the Unat and
Osir archives. It was something to do while the automatic monitoring continued.

He was about to give up when a file highlighted. It was by a researcher in the Unthar system of
Daemos; he requested a copy and contact details. Jonas walked in and come over.
“How’s the monitoring software working since we added that new set of parameters?” he asked
“It’s much more stable now; thanks for that. Here; take a look at what I just found in the Untharan
Archives” Jason replied and opened up the file. The contact details were not going to be of much
help as the researcher had passed away thirty years ago, but the file contained a basic Phonetic
matrix, a simplified translation matrix, an abridged alphabet and a collection of field notes and scans
of some objects.
“What made you think of doing this research Jason? It’s not your field of expertise anyway” Jonas
asked
“Oh; I used to study Xeno-Archaeology as an extra subject during my Academy training, it sort of
stuck with me as an interest and a hobby. I thought; since we are studying the probe, then maybe
some background data might help, and a friend of mine on Terra Prime who works in the Archive
owed me a favour. I now owe her one next time I’m back there, she’ll probably want me to wine and
dine her” he chuckled “I’ll send a copy to Ms Lorna as soon as she gets back from the Gardonna.
She’s looking over some strange samples one of the Archivists found in the ships hold. Some remains
of some creatures. She promised to share her findings with me, because of my “hobby”” he added
“You are a continual source of amazement Jason; I wish I’d been so enthusiastic in my youth. Now;

could you see to it that I get a copy of those telemetry logs from the Probe?
I think I might be able to work out a way of backtracking where it came
from precisely. Astro Navigation was my “hobby study project” when I was
at The Academy” Jonas asked and smiled broadly. Jason ran off a copy to a
data crystal, handed it to Jonas and the latter left. Jason looked at the
scans; finding them to be of broken utensils, some pottery shards with
inscriptions, pretty much mundane stuff, until he got to the tenth, eleventh
and twelfth scans. What confronted him almost knocked him out of his
seat. He transferred the object scans to the zoom display of the Coms
centre console so he could examine them in more detail. If what he was
seeing was for real and the object still existed; he had probably found
something that could blow the whole Kryst thing wide open. He quickly sent a textual message to
Lorna’s private coms and awaited her arrival. On the screen in front of him, in exquisite detail, was a
wall image with two sets of Character Glyphs, one was the strange Kryst set, and the other was early
Hagunenon. He could be looking at the “Rosetta Stone” of scans. The script was extremely fine and
tiny, being one small part of a panel depicting two physical beings each on one side of a shield like
emblem. The one on the right was Hagunenon with its snouted crocodile like head and reptilian
body reminiscent of Sobek the Egyptian Crocodile headed god; the other must be a representation
of a Kryst form. Apart from the eyes, it looked vaguely Untharan, but it was blue green in colour and
the skin was more amphibian, just like the Flutvarn but with scaly patches, not leathery like
Untharan skin. The scripts were in the upper right quadrant of the shield on what looked like an old
Hebrew depiction of the Commandment Tablets. The other quadrants depicting star systems and
symbols that were unrecognisable.
“So that’s what you look like; and what’s the connection with the Hagunenon?” Jason mused. He
looked at the field notes; the scan was done on a field excavation of ruins on a planetoid referred to
as the “Broken” moon. From the details it seemed a pretty dismal place; and practically
uninhabitable. Most of the excavation was done in protective shield suits. “I can see where Lorna
will be going next” he thought out aloud.
On board the Luna Mechia Misha and Trok made themselves useful
by helping Lyris and her assistant Marcus to open one of the Krall Cylinders.
“When our people first encountered some of these cylinders the seals had
deteriorated so much they were easy to open. This sealing stuff is
incredible; what did you use to open the flask Lyris?” Trok asked

“We tried everything, most of the high strength saw blades blunted; acids and corrosives didn’t
work, then somebody though about an ultrasonic Tile saw. It’s a vibrating blade with a diamond
edge. I think we just got lucky with the frequency, it cracked and we were easily able to slide the cap
out. A piece that chipped off was analysed, you have the results in front of you. We tried the same
technique with the Cylinders, but finding a resonant frequency that wouldn’t destroy the contents
was too difficult. I was hoping your people may have some other technology we don’t have that
would achieve the same results; only more safely” Lyris answered. Misha looked at the list of
compounds in the sealant. The organics were somewhat of a surprise; then she saw what the fibrous
strands were and gasped.
“Tundronia Oil from the Buraxin sector world of H’n Shebra; it dissolves this and other minerals, it’s
used a lot in the mining industry it has a relatively low flash point so any dissolved minerals can be
restored by heating it up till it either burns off or evaporates. You’d be surprised to find where it
comes from, and you have a ready source on Keteria, it wouldn’t surprise me if you have some of the
source in the ships Mess.” She exclaimed “If we use that to dissolve the mineral fibres; the sealant
will weaken naturally” she added.
“I’ve never heard of Tundronia Oil before, what exactly is the source Misha” Marcus asked
“That’s what the Buraxin and the Flutvarn call it, Terrans call it Camphor oil, and it comes from the
Camphor tree, one of the few surviving plants from The End event. Some Alien visitors in the distant
past must have found it useful as it appears on several worlds; or rather a genus of the original plant
does. Our ancestors once used it in medicines and remedies” she replied. Marcus got the Mess on
the intercom and asked the Chef if they had any of the stuff. The Chef replied yes, he used it too in
his cleaning solution for the cooking equipment, adding some scent or fragrance killed the smell, but
it killed the bugs also. He sent one of the kitchen staff up with a bottle. When the lad arrived Lyris
took a syringe and filled it with the pungent liquid; with it she carefully applied some of the oil to the
seal around one of the Cylinders. Nothing immediately obvious happened other than they were all
feeling the effects of the Camphor fumes. Marcus switched on the extraction system and turned it
up full. As they watched there was a noticeable change in the sealant, it had started to discolour and
bubble a little. Misha gently pulled at the cap on the end and it came free with a slight hiss. As
expected the cylinder was packed with crystals; all shaped like flat disks about two or three
millimetres thick and fifty-eight millimetres across. They appeared to be grouped in batches of
different colours. There must be at least a thousand in this cylinder alone; and it was one of the
shorter ones, and they were tightly packed.
“They appear to have been sealed in there with a vacuum, hence the hiss when the seal was broken”
Lyris said.
“What do we do with them?” Marcus asked
“We’ll need to rig up a laser diffraction apparatus and an optical receiver. We should have some of
those spare in my kit bag” Trok replied adding “Do you have some kind of electronics bay where I
can jury rig the contraption and a terminal I can send the data to?” he asked. Marcus pointed to a
section next to the laboratory they were in and led Trok in that direction. On the way he picked up a
portable data terminal from a storage locker.
“It’s a pity that our speeders were not retro-fitted with readers like the ones that were found on the
Krall installations Unity explorers came across. We found a huge database and consoles that had
data crystals already in place. It’s a similar technology that the Osir and Unat gave to the Anasazi and
their descendants the Achenazi, but on a whole power higher in density level than those data
crystals. We still haven’t identified what they’re made of. It’s harder than diamond and an artificial
element; that seems to be related to polonium, though the structure of the atoms is radically
different” Misha said to Lyris; who thought for a moment and said
“While we’re waiting for them to make the reader; why don’t we open a couple more cylinders, one
of the larger ones next I think, but first let’s clean up this sealant residue” she said producing a stack
of cleaning cloths from a drawer in one of the side installations of their workbench.

Lorna was looking over the files that Jason had found; in particular the scans of the wall
mural. He was right of course; the Hagunenon script was an early version, she’d studied under
Archivist Halaran senior while at the Academy.
“If this Hagunenon passage is a direct copy of the Kryst passage; even with minor differences, and
the translation is correct, the Kryst were not slaves to the Hagunenon like many races from that time
period, but were considered Masters like the Krall. We may have found our mysterious encoders.
The race that encrypted a code in the DNA of virtually all known species in this and the other galaxy
that the Osir come from; We might just have found the race the Ulahri and Alurak called The
Curators of Everything” she said after a few moments startling Mortimer and Jock, who were
tinkering with a field generator salvaged from the Gardonna.
“What! But that’s…” Mortimer exclaimed but she cut him short.
“It’s only an assumption, it might relate to the coordinates you managed to work out from the origin
point of the probe, but I’ll need to consult with Councillor Magridson as to how we proceed…” she
was interrupted by Hasbid who had been on monitoring duty.
“We’ve just received a signal from the rift; its encryption index is that of the Mechanoid pilot Trok, it
basically says to standby for further transmissions. They’re alive!!” he shouted excitedly “Looks like
the shield mod worked sir” the last part directed at Lennie who had joined them from the Docking
Bay where the probe was stored.
“Wow! I’m going back with you Hasbid, I want to link with him if that’s possible, data transfer will be
faster that way” Lennie said and followed Hasbid to Coms leaving the others speechless with
astonishment. It was a few moments before anyone spoke; when they did, they all tried to speak at
once, before they decided on a “pecking order”.
“You’d better get back to Coms Jason, they could probably use you’re expertise. Mortimer and I
should go back to the task of checking through the probe logs, now we have a working, well sort of
working, translation matrix for the Kryst language, thank you the Untharans” and they set about
their tasks leaving a bewildered Jock to head back to the Docking Bay shaking his head.

Contact
From the bridge of the Luna Mechia; Trok, Misha, Lyris and the Captain prepared to tie in a
link with the capital on Keteria with the Hellion on the other side of the rift. An Ion storm had arisen
during the last attempt and disrupted the first reply. The storm was abating and the static that had
caused so much disruption was decaying down to a background rumble.” The storms here are more
violent than in the rest of the galaxy, probably due to the gas and dust of The Veil” the Captain, Klute
Vetinari, was saying “It caused our ancestors no end of trouble in the early days of exploring our
realm” He to a pad from the Coms technician and signed it.
“I’ve actually encountered worse” Trok said in response “I was assigned to a survey ship in the Rim
region near to a large Gravity anomaly. It was Ionic re-radiation caused by the collapse of a red giant
nearby. Our ship had to overpower its Gravity compensation systems to keep us from being pulled
in. The Ion blast from that swamped all coms in a fifty parsec area almost completely. We eventually
pulled clear and we set up a marker buoy as a warning.” He finished saying as the Technician
indicated a three-way link had been established with the Hellion, them and First Minister Panhedran
on Keteria. The call was a vid-link with the Bridge of the Marchioness Hellion; the screen was blurry
to begin with but cleared rapidly once the filtering protocols took hold. An image of a middle aged
woman appeared
“Hello; I’m Captain Melissa Hart of the Federal Unity vessel Marchioness Hellion. I offer greetings to
you on behalf of the Federal Unity High Council. They apologise for being unable to be present on
this auspicious occasion, but the Hive-Net link to tis location is tenuous at best. I am to act as
mediator in any negotiations that may ensue from this… first contact. To whom do I have the
pleasure of addressing?” the figure said. Introductions were made and the formalities of political
protocol were dispensed with quickly and a less formal communication began between those
present on the two vessels. The team on the Luna Mechia brought the Hellion up to speed with the

way things had progressed on their side of the rift. It was decided that the two speeder pilots would
remain in Keterian space and a reciprocate pair of pilots should pass back through the rift in, either
modified scout craft from Keteria or the modified speeders. The pairs of pilots therefore; becoming
de-facto Ambassadors for the two communities. Trok and Lennie did manage to exchange data over
the link; with what the two learned from each other about the Kryst and the probe; it was decided
that if the initial exchange of pilots went as planned further exchanges would be made.
“I’ve been contacted by a member of the High Council representing the current Atalaman ruling
class; he just happens to be President of the High Council, his name is Armoro Thelexis and he would
like to be among the first to meet with the Keterian Council of Rule at the very first opportunity”
Hart was saying to Julio “Apparently your ancestor was a cousin of the first Atalaman High
Magistrate Genua Thelexis when the first colonising missions went out to explore space. He has
some history files and objects he wants to give to you in person” she added.
“I have no idea who this ancestor might be as our predecessors records were damaged in the
incident that led to our peoples being here on this side of the barrier. I welcome the exchange; as do
many Keterians, some of whom have expressed a wish to travel to the Unity to explore and learn.
You must understand of course; that we have been isolated from the rest of the Galaxy for many
generations, so this will be somewhat of a culture shock.” Julio responded.
“I do understand, I’m part Terran, my Father’s side of the family are Hurisan, a species of Hominid
from the Galateria Conclave. They only joined the Unity about seventy years ago, so we went
through a similar “culture shock” ourselves. Prior to our first contact; we lived in a small sector of
space, now we have most of the Galaxy to roam. One of my first official duties is recumbent on that
idea, to make the transition easier. A race called the Jebran came up with a process of induction that

was easy and simple. With your consent I want to relay
some data materials that will bring your people up to speed
with the ways and customs of the many races in the Unity.
I’m sorry that it’s a lengthy set of files, but it is in a series of
“manageable” chunks. Do you consent?” Hart asked
“By all means; and likewise I will secure access to our
records as part of this cultural arrangement. I do hope that
we can meet in person soon. I think you’ll find Keteria a
welcome environment, besides, it has always been the case
that the best negotiations take place outside the formal
environment, where barriers are let down. It has been said
that; back on Terra before The End, Atalama had the finest vineyards in all of Terra, some of those
vines still grow on Keteria, the offer stands that you will be given the chance to enjoy the fruit of
those vines” Julio said in a jovial response.
For the journey back through the rift; it was decided that the speeders were already
equipped, and, as it would take a month or so to equip two Keterian Scout ships with the necessary
modifications, a training program in familiarisation with extra controls for the shield and drive
systems, was put in place. It was decided that the two Keterian pilots would be Krysta and Gio. As
the flight controls for the Scout craft and the speeders were very similar; Gio and Krysta picked up
handling the craft very easily. What they were not prepared for was just how fast the two speeders
actually were and Gio in particular had problems judging actual distance travelled with what he
perceived as distance travelled. But it wasn’t long before both pilots were as proficient as Misha and
Trok. It was the day of exchange and both were a little nervous.
“I feel like a new graduate at the academy all over again” Gio whispered as he and Krysta stepped
into the cockpits of the speeders.
“I feel a sense of trepidation too. From what Misha said, we could pass out and be in recovery a
while, like her and Trok were when they broke through. I hope we fair in our mission as well as they
coped here.” she responded. They buckled in and the engineering crews closed the cockpit hatches;
then warily departed for the safety of the observation booth. During engine tests one technician had

been blasted into a support stanchion by blowback, so they were taking no risks with this launch.
They needn’t have worried; the launch from the Lluna Mechia went perfectly. As agreed they would
do a circuit of a nearby rogue planetoid on thrusters then head at maximum speed toward the rift,
turning on the shielding and augmented drives a kilometre from the entrance.

From the viewpoint of those observing on the bridge of the Luna Mechia, the two speeders
seemed to briefly blur; then just as quickly vanish as streaks into the jet black maw of the rift their
trails fading into nothingness. The two Keterians were on their way.

Chapter 4
The Exchange

About sixteen hours later on the other side of the rift
in Unity space a repeat of the emergence of the two tiny
speeders occurred. As before the pilots had lost
consciousness, so were transferred to the Medical bay of the
Hellion Marchioness to recover. Gio was the first to recover;
with a raging thirst then Krysta. After formal introductions
were made a reciprocating transmission of success was sent
back to the Luna Mechia and via a link to Keteria. One of the
first things that the two did was to meet with the young Coms
tech that had made the discovery of the first transmission.
Neither had expected Jason to be so young; nineteen, but they were not aware until he told them he
was Genovan on his Father’s side of the family, necessitating an explanation of the slow physical
growth rate as opposed to mental growth of his people.
“Most of us Genovan s grow slowly until we reach maturity around thirty, then our growth patterns
are similar to others in the Unity. It’s a genetic quirk that comes about because of the harshness of
our home world’s climate. Many Terrans have compared it to living in a forge! Hot, dry and
relentless, most of our days are spent in underground cities, as Genova has an eccentric orbit and
summers are even harsh for us” Jason chuckled.
“The transmission you received accidentaly was from my Scout craft. I was doing a regular sortie of a
region near a disturbance making a report to the Luna Mechia over a parsec away” Gio confirmed
adding “I wasn’t aware at the time; that my signal was being bounced half way across the expanse of
The Veil” he smiled, showing his pristine white teeth for the first time. The two young men chatted
while Krysta met with the rest of the crew of the Hellion.
“Gio is one of the youngest pilots we have, he seems a natural at it, I had years of basic training
before qualifying, he managed on fourteen months!” Krysta said to Jock the Hellion’s Chief engineer
“Aye; lass, some people just seem to have the knack” he commented. Lorna was eager to see the
data crystals that Krysta had brought with her.
“When we came across the Gardonna; we had some Archivists take a look at her, one of them
brought a crystal reader from the Krall outpost in the hebridon sector. From the look of those they
should fit staright in and we can examinte the contents easily, probably without the need fro the
Hive-Net” Lorna said when Krysta handed her one of the recently opened cylinders and an odd red
coloured data crystal. Captain Hrt was amazed at how well the two pilots had fallen into their roles
as Ambassadors for the Keterians. She was also pleased with Krysta’s diplomatic skills. Krysta had
been the first to meet with the Untharans and broker a diplomatic exchange on her Governments
behalf. Gio was more into learning as much as he could, being that young she naturally assumed that
he would be curious. He didn’t seem to be unusually phased by it all, but his youth and inexperience

did show a little. He actually reminded her of how she used to be at his age.
One of the female Untharan technicians who had been assigned to

the team examining the probe entered the bridge her crest shimmering
bright and incandescently. She could barely contain her enthusiasm of the

news she had to offer. Hart calmed her down and had her relay her news more sedately.
“It would seem from the initial DNA analysis; that your, and our, previous assumption that the Kryst
were the race responsible for the genetic sequence coding was entirely wrong. From the trace DNA
evidence left by the probes constructors, the Kryst too had the code and in the same base pairs. This
means that there must be an even older race out there that has traversed both galaxies! They may
even have come from another Galaxy altogether!” she said her crest throbbing and flushing blue in
excitement.
“Another race! Have you and your people communicated this back to the Unity yet?” Hart asked
“Our Captain wants to hold back until more tests and finer results come through before we do send
this information. I can ask him to hold off till he’s confered withyou, if you wish” she replied
“It might be prudent; to do as your Captain says, but I’d like to see those further findings myself
before we make a joint transmission.” Hart said and dismissed the excited Untharan. This was
unsettling news, it had long been assumed that the originating race that implanted the Genetic
Cypher, would have been from this Galaxy or the other where the Unat and Osir came from. This
was definitely going to cause a stir back home. She went into Coms and asked to have a direct link, if
at all possible, with the Keterian First Minister. Coms said it would take at least an hour to get a
stable link, the ion storms around the rift were taking longer to subside than expected. She asked to
be informed the moment the link was established.

When the Crystal discs were examined in the lab; it was immediately
obvious that they differed from Krall discs in one obvious respect. They all
had the same geometric design etched into the surface. On the clear discs
this was difficult to see, but the red one showed it prominently. The
symbology was not the usual eight pointed kind.
“From what I’ve seen so far, I don’t think these are Krall in origin. They’re
closely related, but this six pointed symbology doesn’t fit. I wonder if the
Kryst obtained their technology from the Krall or …” Lorna was saying when
Krysta interrupted
“The two races may be related in some way, distant cousins perhaps” Krysta said. Finishing the
sentence Lorna was about to put forward.
“Maybe; but from what we’ve been able to gather, the Krall had eight limbs, hence the eight pointed
star, that was when they were predominately biological I’ve seen the glyph representations of the
Kryst and the holographic image from the information exchanged during the first communique. The
Kryst appear to be more homonid like. The Krall opted for cybernetic enhancements and complete
mechanisation, apart from the brain and spinal chord toward the end of their physical form of
existence” Lorna added
“I’d read that in the information you sent through in the history archives. I’m a fast reader and a
quick learner, you’ll get to know just what I mean if you test me!” Krysta said smiling broadly. The
two women then put the red crystal into the reader. It took several attempts at refining the reading
focus, but what eventually came through seemed to confirm what the two sides had inferred from
studying the Kryst.
“The Kryst language was based on allegories, metaphors and similies, it’s hard to translate, but
thanks to an Untharan aceaology expedition, we have a working translation matrix… of sorts.”Lorna
said as she inputed the results to the ships Hive. As expected it came out with the afore mentioned
weird syntax, but it became clear that it was some sort of index of the contents of the other crystals.
There were inferences to the Hagunenon, the Hadra and the Krall as “colleagues of discovery and
conquor” It was also inferred that the Kryst had evolved along side the Krall, but had stayed true to
their biological roots.
“We had suspected for some time that the Krall had not evolved alone on the worlds we found
traces of them on. I think you were right to conclude that the Kryst were a kind of “cousin” race to
the Krall. They probably coexisted on a home world at one point in their history, hence the faint
similarity in the language Glyphs.” Lorna said after the two of them had read through some more of

the discs. Because of the metaphors and allegories the translations were hard to pin down to any
kind of sensible, relative, meaning.
“Without a context for these allegorical texts, we could just be looking at a fictional work, we need
to find more of the language in context to its surroundings” Krysta added “You say the Untharan’s
discovered the wall panel on a planetoid. I wonder if it would be possible to organize a joint mission
to that desolate moon? Seeing the language in context with the surroundings might shed more light
on our mysterious Kryst” she mused
“Likewise ; maybe your people could go back to the site the cylinders were found in your part of the
galaxy; a similar examination may throw more light on all this” Lorna responded “I’ll take what we’ve
discovered to Melissa; sorry, Captain Hart and she might be able to get the ball rolling. Do you want
to contact your people and sort the other side of things?” she asked. Krysta nodded in agreement.

On the Luna Mechia the news of the crystal decoding elicited a mixed reception, and the
immediate agreement from Julio, who had rejoined his Uncle Rene on Keteria,that a joint expedition
would be the best way forward in both regions. Trok and Misha had expressed a wish to see the
ruins of Atlantis “close up”, so he and his Uncle had already dispatched a transport to retrieve them
and Lyris so that could begin.
“I’ve been meaning to go back to Atlantis for a while now, like the return to that moon, maybe our
return to the ruins might, with your knowledge, lead to a better understanding of who the Kryst
really were who settled there” Lyris said to Misha and Trok as the transport took them back to the
system where Atlantis was discovered. Lyris had already warned them of the conditions on the
planet; Trok seemed unconcerned by this saying just
“As long as the atmosphere is Non-corrosive; then I don’t need the protection of a suit”. An obvious
statement considering his Mechanoid nature. It was also obvious he was deep in thought for most of
the journey. He had been withdrawn since his last data contact with Lennie.
“Trok; what’s wrong. I’ve seen you like this before, and it was when you received some bad news.
Come on; out with it” Misha said, goading him slightly.
“Oh it’s nothing for you to worry about. Lennie gave me news about a recent find in the Hedebar
district on Kelgar. The locals unearthed an early mechanoid drone. It was constructed strangely and
dated from a period in the decades around the time of the Economy wars. It bore an uncanny
resemblance to one of the founding members of the Mechanoid race - 6371 Silas. It was found in the
remains of an alien craft of unknown origin?” he said puzzled at his openness about the subject.
“From when? That’s got to be wrong! Their robotics may have been advanced, but they didn’t have
the sophisticated positronic pathway circuitry that maide true Artificial Intelligence possible. That
only came about after the settlement and the reconstruction. Are they sure they haven’t confused
the dating?” Misha asked in shock
“No; the temporal signatures are correct. It dates from before the time of the Entity Baal and the
separation that formed the Dark Empire. The remains were burried deep in a calcite layer under the
region they call the Dessicated Sea. It’s the easiest material to fix a temporal signature on. That’s
what has me worried it doesn’t add up. It looks like we both have mysteries to solve.” Trok replied
and fell silent and broody again for the rest of the trip leaving Misha to explain the anomalous
discovery to Lyris.

Meanwhile on board the Hellion; Gio was making his engineering skills of use to Lennie, Jock
and the Archivists examining the Kryst Probe. Gio and Jock
had managed to remove a cylindrical device that seemed to
be part of the Probe’s distinctly odd power system.
“What do you think it might be?” Gio asked Jock
“Your guess is as guid as mine laddie! Although. Mister
Lennie; do you recall thon old fashioned Polaron storage
cells used before the introduction of the portable Cold
Fusion packs?” Jock asked
“I see where you’re heading; it does look vaguely similar,

though those extra crystalline conduits are not standard for a Polaron cell! Lennie replied. Gio
looked puzzled.
“Polaron Storage Cells? That sort of technology is ancient, used laterly only as emergency power on
Life Pods! What would the Kryst be using them for on this very sophisticated probe?” He quizzed.
Then adding “I do recall our military used to use them as regulators for the early unstable Cold
Fusion Generators that were issued. But the stabilisation matrix soon superceeded them. Have you a
copy of the circuitry of one of the Cells for comparison?” he finished with a question. Jock replied
that there was such a file in the Engineering archive and he set about retrieving it.
“If you’re right Gio; then there should be some kind of circuit breaker or fusible link in case of shorts.
Give me a hand removing that bulkhead that seperated the cylinder from the main drive. We
might…” the two heaved at the catches and Gio nearly injured his head and back as he fell over
when the catches snapped open and the bulkhead cover separated from the main body to reveal
three banks of slim crystal rods.
“Aha! There they are. See how they are designed to part and reform when overloaded” Lennie
pointed to the rods near the middle of the central bank.
“Oh; yes, though what kind of power are they supposed to handle? The ones used on those early
generators were miniscule compared to these. Just what kind of power does the generator on this
probe kick out?” Gio said in amazement. Lennie did a quick calculation and whistled
“Fifty seven million Amperes in total through all the lines! As an estimate!” he said finally
“Good greif Mon; that would power a city the size of Hedebar for a decade. What were the Kryst
thinking the probe might have to do?” Jock said incredulously as he handed Gio a data pad with a
copy of the file from the archive. “I dinnae know whether to admire their expertise or condem them
as fools. They have a particularly crazy sense of logic and proportion” he added.Then others nodding
in agreement.

On arrival in orbit around the world of Shust; where the Keterians discovered the ruins of
Atlantis; Misha and Trok saw first hand the nature of the place they were about to set foot upon. It
was very much like Mars just after the Terraforming process was started then aborted; as it was
more profitable to set up mining colonies etc. there. Plant life was sparse and scrubby, apart from
where the harbours and canal systems had once been. The atmosphere was only just breathable;
thin and dusty like that of the High Atacama of old Earth. Most of the planets water was in vast
underground aquifers.Winds blasted the surface of the lower plains, hence the scrubby vegetation.
But some odd quirk of atmospherics on the plateau that Atlantis now stood on shielded the place
from the violence around. Here course grass-like plants and scrub with stunted dwarf trees were the
principal order of vegetation. Suits were need by most organic lifeforms to avoid dehydration and
breathing difficulties. Trok was unpeturbed by any of this; now that he was here his morose mood
had brightened. Misha was more interested in the various parasitic insects and small fauna that
clung to existence here.

“Watch out for those small rodent-like ones, they have a nasty
temperament. And their teeth can pierce the suits easily. Our first
expedition crews had no end of trouble with them, the seem to like the
smell of the equipment cases, they think they’re edible”Lyris commented.
As if to highlight the point two of the furry creatures descended upon her
knapsack that she had placed upon an outcrop of rock while she rested. It
was a fair hike to the ruins from where they decided was a “safe” landing spot; the pilot had opted
to stay with the ship. Trok waited patiently for his organic companions to recuperate and they
continued on together. Thirty minutes or so later they arrived at what the Keterians called the East
Gate. It was the only part of that defensive outer ring wall that remained intact. It was obvious to
Trok and Misha that the Hagunenon had a hand in its construction. The surface of the walls had the
glass-like sheen of vitrious enamel, that comes from the method the Hagunenon used; manipulating
molten rock into incredible structures.

“Why has the rest of this wall been reduced to rubble; when this Gate has survived?” Trok asked, he
was thinking out loud but Lyris had an answer.
“About four or five thousand years ago, this systems star went though some kind of trauma that
caused a massive coronal ejection. The planets in the system had their orbits kicked out of whack.
We think Atlantis and Shust were abandoned much earlier, several thousand millennia ago” she said
unpacking a locator and a scanner.
“Shust? That’s an odd name, where did it come from, it almost sounds Buraxin?”Misha asked
“One of our first explorers here was Luntarian, a similar culture to the Bedouin of Old Earth, she
named it after her Grandmother, “a dry, irracible old crone of a woman” was how she described her.
It’s from an old Luntarian dialect and means dried or withered” Lyris replied.
“Very appropo” chuckled Trok “That dust in the atmosphere; my sensors are showing high levels of
silicon, berylium and boron. Not harmful to me but I see why you organics need the suits now. Is
that some kind of temple over there?” he asked
“We think so; but we never found any significant object that would be associated with religious
belief, not even any markings. The walls inside are vitrified limestone; they look like fine marble and
give the place a distinct light and ambiance” Lyris replied.” The place
we’re looking for is further in and is easily spotted, probably the
ugliest ruin of a building you could ever want to come across” she
added and they headed of in the direction she had pointed. As they
walked she said they had found similar buildings buried in the ice of
Venetia “Near the equator it’s more Tundra like so we laid roads
down for our mining outfits. The Ice of Venetia has lots of useful
minerals embeded in it” she paused to adjust her air filters and to
catch her breath, Misha did the same. The pilot’s voice came over
the coms

“I’m getting indications of a dust storm headed my way; a big one, from
the south, the wind speeds are climbing. At least you’re in the “dead zone”
I’m changing over to the Cold fusion Generators and boosting the shield
configuration so there’ll be no coms link till the storm abates. Virgil out!”
and the coms went to static then silence. They were on their own for now.
They hit a stretch of paved ground and their progress became easier.
About a kilometre away a dark structure could be made out.Trok had
brought a portable generator with him and when they arrived “up Close”
he saw the reason why Lyris had insisted in bringing it and a light weight lighting rig. The “building”
was ugly; compared to its surroundings, it sat or rather squatted into the landscape, its megalithic
presence like some kind of brooding beast. It was constructed of huge blocks of Granites and Basalts.
It had huge heavy doors that seemed to be made of the same unforgiving materials, but close up
that was an illusion. The “Doors” merely had a skin or veneer of the material fastened to bronze
panels by means of a dovetailing method. It looked almost Incan, though it couldn’t possibly be so.
What passed for windows were tall slits about forty centimetres wide and around two and a half
metres tall. Some had lost the material that passed for glass others had remnants of the stuff.
Analysis showed it to be a form of quartz; One door was hanging vertical the other had; at some
point, dropped over at an angle and bent the huge bronze hinges. So it was now wedged in the
ground by about seven centimetres.
“At some time we belive the interior was lit by a kind of artificial sunlight; Polaron Energy powered,
but the system is so badly deteriorated it would probably explode if power was applied. Our
explorers cut a more sensibly sized door into that one, though when you get inside you’ll see why we
should have tried to keep the doors intact. It should be just bolted on the outside” Lyris said.
Entry was as described; there being a sprung opener to help move the still heavy door. There
was just enough light entering by the doorway to allow them to set up the lighting rig and the
generator. When the lights came on they were momentarily dazzled. Surprisingly the walls were

coated in a slightly off-white, polished plaster base. There were rows of shelves and alcoves covering
two walls facing each other. The backs of the huge doors had also been polished to a mirror finish.
Finely etched into this surface were glyphs and images relating to the Kryst. However; the language
was Hagunenon.Lyris explained that the alcoves and shelves had contained the cylinders and the
other artifacts that the Keterians now had in their possession. Glyphs on the shelving edges
indicated that the objects that had been there, were being kept for the “Masters” should they
return.
“That would indicate the Kryst left or abandoned this world before the Hagunenon did” said Misha.
Trok meanwhile was recording everything for future use. Lyris opened the other knapsack that
Micha had been carrying and took out a tripod and a scanning laser assembly which she attached to
the the tripod. She aimed it at the wall opposite the door; which at first sight seemed to be totally
blank. However; upon closer inspection there appeared to be some kind of polished crystalline
surface attached to the plaster. Further investigation revealed that the entire surface was one
massive slab of the crystalline substance.
“We found about about this by accident when one of the archaeologists; using a coherent light
source to get a diffraction index, shone it against this wall” Lyris said, indicating Trok should dim the
lights to an almost off position, so that the level returned near to where it had been when they had
entered leaving the doorway open to shed light on the interior.She waited till Misha’s eyes adjusted
to the dim surroundings then said “Now; watch!”and turned on the laser and set it to scan the wall
in tiny increments starting in the topmost left hand corner.

As the beam from the laser hit a spot on the crystal surface a holographic image appeared.
The images changed rapidly as the beam sacnned a line across the surface. Pages of Glyphs,
diagrams, starcharts, pictures of places and peoples. The amount and variety of data was mind
boggling.
“It’s one of the densest archive of material I’ve ever seen” Misha gasped. Trok barely managed to
keep pace with the fluctuating images.
“I hope I can get the bulk of this and replay it as stills later. You wanted to see the Kryst language in
context… This is going to take decades to scratch the surface. I found the Krall method of data
compaction dense and precise… This is a whole magnitute higher, possibly several magintudes” he
said incredulously. Lyris smiled like a cat that had just finished off the last of the milk.
While Trok continued to record as much of the archive as he could Misha and Lyris went outside to
explore their surroundings.
“Were all of the shelves and alcoves full of artefacts when your people came here?” Misha asked as
she picked over some broken pieces of tile that had been decoration for some long destroyed wall.
“Oddly enough no; there were obvious traces that some objects had been removed in the past.
Some of the missing items it seems would have been quite large. We still managed to aquire a
substantial amount though!” Lyris replied. Then noticing Misha had picked something up said “Oh;
have you found something?” she asked. Misha had been turning over rocks and rubble when
something glinted at her from the dirt. It was covered in a caked encrustation of soil and sand. But
the edge that was exposed appeared to be metallic, more precisely, it appeared to be a firey bronze
colour. Lyris handed her a spare water flask and Misha washed away the crud from the object. It was

a decorative disc shaped brooch about
ten centimetres in diameter.On it’s
reverse side was a sprung clasp
arrangement. When she turned it over
both women gasped. In rich and pastel
coloured enamels and burnished metal,
was a striking geometric design. A
central lower wedge was silvered and
had been machine engraved with fine
lines and concentric circles. About a

third of the way in from the edge and slightly off the centre line was a hexagonal cut and faceted
black Onyx like gemstone. Making a focal point for the design in the wedge. The point of the wedge
rested on the central line of the brooch and a fine cloisonne; formed by an arc of some yellow metal
wire which sectioned off the lower part of the brooch, the top of the arc almost, but not quite
reaching the centre of the disc. The rest of this section was further divided by cloisonneier work and
enameled in contrasting dark blue and pastel yellow sections. From the bottom corners of the
wedge cloisonne wires ran up to the outer edge of the disc. The disc itself was about five millimetres
thick and the burnished edge chamfered to just under a millimetre. The section above the arc was
further sectioned by a design in yellow metal that looked like two bales of reeds crossed over each
other at right angles. Balanced above the vertical bale was a louvred design machined from the
bronze of the disc. Two rectangular cloisonnes filled with a white enamel formed the upper part of a
design that reminded Misha of an old Japanese pictograph for a “house” or “dwelling. The lower two
cloisonnes of this design consisted of some flat, shaped, panels of a translucent blue crystalline
substance. These shaped pieces being held in place by “lapped” silver retainers that were about a
millimetre and a half wide.Who ever had made this beauty had hidden all trace of the soldering and
other fixing methods; they were a true artisan. Misha handed the brooch to Lyris; who was surprised
to find it quite heavy. She turned it over and wear could be seen to the surface near the clasp. She
took out a pocket magnifier. Worn; but just visible and to one side of the clasp were two Kryst name
cartouches. She pointed them out to Trok who had emerged from the room and looked dazed. He
managed to do a phonetic translation from comparison with the rudimentary alphabet the
Untharans had worked out.
“One says Hurhana, the other Khilmek” he said as confidently as he could. “The preposition of the
linked cartouches could signify this being a love token of sorts” he added. Lyris ribbed him about
being a hopless romantic when the coms unit fired up with a loud burst of static making them all
jump. The pilot’s voice came over the hiss.
“You’ best pack up and head back to the ship. We’ve been recalled to Keteria there’s some kind of
conference going on and you are required to attend” he said harshly. Reluctantly they did as they
were told and packed everything for the journey back. A curious group of the furry rodent creatures
eyed them inquisitively throughout this procedure, possibly hoping the strangers would leave some
tasty titbits for them.
“I’m coming back here some day to explore this place more thoroughly. One of my colleages on the
other side, may also want to visit. He’s researching the mysterious race that put the code into the
genes of most of the races in the two galaxies.” Misha said dispondently as they left for the ship. The
rodents scurried over to examine the discarded flask that Lyris had given Misha. A squabble started
but was cut short as a shadow passed overhead and the combatants headed for cover.
On the way back Trok replayed the images he’d recorded stopping periodically to examining the
image in more detail. Misha was talking to Lyris about how the building and its structure was
remenicent of structures that used to be found on old Earth.
“I wonder if the Kryst ever visited Earth in its past, they may have even been responsible for the
Mayan building techniques” she postulated. They were just about to land in the docking bay when
Trok spoke.
“I believe I have made a significant discovery. I will need to contact someone I know on Terra Prime
to consult, but, if what I have found rings true, I may have a clue as to where we can find the Kryst”
he announced.

On board the Hellion Jock and his team were about to test a theory about another device
they had discovered in the depths of the Kryst Probe. Krysta had joined Gio, Jock and Lennie in the
safety of an observation room.
“The last time I tried anything like this was back in he Thule Academy on Fernia. I blew most of the
supply grid to the engineering labs” Jock chuckled and gave the order to slowly ramp up the supply
to the device. “We think we’ve disconnected all the lines to the Probes original supply. If your friend

Gio is right we should…” A strange low frequency hum came from the rear section of the device and
part of the Probes exterior shielding began to shimmer
“I was right!” yelled Gio “It’s a co-phasic modulator, like the system jury rigged to the speeders. But
this is much more powerfull. Thanks to the Kryst’s over engineering, that one small generator could
modulate…” he added but was interrupted by Krysta
“A vessel twice the size of the Hellion! I’m beginning to see why we should meet with these people.
If this is their basic level of engineering… WOW!” she said, Lennie continued to watch as the
technician continued to ramp up the supply.
“If you would please direct your attention to the displays, there is something very strange going on”
he said and they looked at what he was pointing at. As the power increased, there was a marked
shift in the frequency of the modulation. The Hum became a screeching high pitched whine, almost
unbearable then… Silence and a brilliant flash. Part of the Probe just seemed to have vanished. The
rest was still visible, but the section where the shielding had been was apparently gone, or invisible.
There was no radiation showing on the sensors so they entered the engineering bay. Lennie
approached and cautiously put a hand to the empty space, it too appeared to fade and vanish, he
pulled it back
“Hmm. Thermal shift, but I could feel the crafts outer shield resisting me. From what my sensors are
telling me my hand went “out of phase” with the surrounding space-time” he said
The others stood silent in astonishment, then Jock spoke.
“I heard of something like this happening to some military experiments on Mars, during the early
expansion era. The results were fatal as the experimental drive was unstable. Later modifications
arising from the Brandt solution gave us a faster warp drive system that was safer and smoother.
Looks like the Kryst found a way to do what the drive did; but with sheilds, albeit for a limited time”
he said
“That short time may be more than enough to get through space-time distortions. By the
calculations I just did; they could have covered a parsec, shielded, in less time than it takes to power
up the Hellion’s warp drive” Lennie announced.
“We have to mount that expedition to that Moon as quickly as posssible. It could help us to finally
meet these Kryst face to face” Gio said, and they all nodded agreement.

Captain Hart had been watching all this on her ready room monitor. She opened a private
subspace link and sent a short encrypted text. She closed the link and sat back in her chair deep in
thought. She rose and went over to a recessed closet and removed a box. She sat back down at her
desk and retrieved a small key from her breast pocket and opened it. It had been her Great Great
Grandmothers, who had received it from one of the Osir who had first encountered the Terrans of
The Tribe. Inside was a small crystalline rectangular block like object and some personal effects of
the lady. The object was inscribed on one side with single circle, and one end had a number of small
metal contacts. The opposite side had three symbols in Ancient Greek. “Phi Delta Epsilon” she said
softly to herself.

Back on Keteria the two pilots and Lyris were summoned to the Council chambers. Activity in
the Chamber was frantic. Julio looked up from a pad he had been handed by a Clerk. He signalled
them to come over.
“I had your visit cut short because of two developments. Before I explain further I need to ask
something of you Misha; your people’s pilots are trained in field medicine I understand, do you
pssess such skills?” He asked
“Yes; I’m actually qualified to do surgery if neccesary; has one of your pilots been injured?” She
asked in return
“A young recruit on his first solo mission has got himself into difficulties and is trapped in his craft.
It’s in a dangerously eccentric orbit around a dwarf star in the sector shown on the screen. Darius
our Medic will need assistance once we have his craft in a stable orbit or in tow. The poor young
man is delerious, so he may have suffered head injuries. It’s what he’s describing that has me
concerned, he says he hit something, it looked like a small craft. He couldn’t see it at first because it

was so black. It’s all in this report. Darius is at the Spaceport awaiting you. You did say you would
offer any help we needed” Julio said handing her the pad.
“Certainly; the closer our peoples are the better” she said and she followed the Clerk out of the
Chamber.
“Lyris; one of your young assistants has found something on one of the Data Crystals, Trok we would
be most greatful if you could help refine the image he recovered, he’s having difficulty in getting a
fine focus of the scanning beam. The image is disturbing; as it appears to show a small vessel being
enveloped by something, there were coordinates on the image, if our people have interpreted these
correctly, then where this happened is nearby. What we need to know is a sense of when this
occurred as it could explain something that our ancestors discovered when they first came to this
region” Julio said to the two of them.
“I’ll help the young man to refine the scanning, but first I need to get a message back to Terra Prime,
it is important and has a bearing on what happened on Atlantis and to the location of the Kryst
Home world!” Trok replied. Julio signalled a coms tech to set up the link in Lyris’s laboratory and
Trok and Lyris went to the Lab.
“I caught a glimpse of the name of the young recruit. It’s the son of one of Julio’s cousins; and a
favorite of a certain young female courtesan” she said. Trok nodded and prepared his
communication as a data burst.

Lennie was in Coms when Trok’s message came in. Hasbid was on monitoring duty and was
having difficulty grasping the amount of data that Trok had compressed into his data burst.
“I honestly don’t know how you Mechs handle this kind of data flow. It would fry every neurone of a
organic brain; some of the Bio-Hives can’t even process that amount without damage” he said as he
relayed the burst to Lennie.
“That’s why we have a secondary processing unit; a second brain if you like, we can shift
responsibilities between them. One centre processes the data the other acts like a temporary store
and our memory banks collect the results. It’s also why we “freeze” we can’t process other functions
when we handle data bursts” Lennie said in response.
“I’d heard about that happening; but doesn’t that make you vunerable to attack?” Hasbid asked
“I suppose so, but our bodies are more easily repairable too”Lennie replied making a Flutvarn gurgle
to emphasise the humour. He froze while the data was relayed. When he unfroze he had a strange
look on his face.
“Hasbid, have you got the trajectory telemetry I calculated for the Kryst probe handy?” Lennie
eventually asked
“Sure; I’ve been triangulating it, or rather trying to, the coordinate system the Kryst used is strange”
Hasbid replied and called up the data on his monitor.
“Trok has found something out that makes more sense of the system, and from the data I sent him
in the last exchange he’s come up with a possible location of the Kryst homeworld. Can you get
Captain Hart, Lorna and the others to join me in the ready room in an hour, I want to try something
out first?” he said after looking over the data. Hasbid relayed his request to the others. Lennie left a
puzzled Hasbid and headed for the Engineering level.

Jock had passed the results of the Sheild experiment on to an engineer at the Unat built
Shipyard in the Velgas 3 system. His friend had managed to use salvaged Krall and Gantrax
technology to come up with a similar generator that could use a more regular power source.
Between them they had come up with the idea of outfitting a long distance relay drone with the
device and Jock had just received the prototype . The Shipyard had done a remarkable job. A note
had been sent with it and it read…
“We have not been able to test the completed drone, it should be tested in an uninhabited region,
as initial simulations show a fifteen percent possibility the power unit could explode under the
strain. It’s as strong as we dare make it without getting the attention of the Military, we hope it will
suffice” it was signed by his friend. Lennie stormed in
“It that the completed unit Jock?” he asked

“Aye; it is, and I’m sure we will get into plenty ‘o’ trouble if we cause a bonny bang wi’ it” he replied
laughing. Gio walked in with Krysta.
“We are going to Terra Prime for a meeting with the Unity High Council; part of our diplomatic
duites, Captain Hart wanted to know if you had anything you want to pass on, we’ll be taking it. A
Buraxin vessel is taking us part of the way” Gio said. Krysta eyed the drone.
“That looks like trouble; we found a strange device, in pieces, that we have since found out was a
Gantrax drone probe. Keterian space has a region littered with their debris. Our Ancestors thought it
could have been some kind of battle. I hope that’s not a weapon” she said
“No; it’s an experiment, an idea and we hope it won’t blow up in our faces, apparently we don’t
have as stable a power system as the Kryst ones. I’ve processed the data burst from my colleague
Trok, I’ll relay the relevant data to you enroute” Lennie said hastily. Gio and Krysta left and Lennie
and Jock heaved a sigh of relief. What they had planned wasn’t strictly on the level, but it was the
only way to test a theory without relying on the Military, who would have weaponised it anyway.
Who wouldn’t want an ultra fast, stealthy, invisible delivery system?
“I want to make some changes to the initial coordinates we discussed iTrok is right, we could be
looking a real live Kryst in the face” he said to Jock.

Hart and the others awaited Lennie in the Captains ready room. He wheeled in with a broad
grin on his face. He set up a personal data link to the viewer screen.
“Trok has sent us data of an accidental discovery by the Keterians. What they didn’t know was how it
related to our knowledge of the probe and the data of the “Broken” moon findings. They don’t have
the fast data processing capability we have, so didn’t make the connections between the images
you’re now seeing.” He said and played back the relevant sections of the data burst.
“That’s a holograph of this galaxy in relation to the Osir one” Hart said “From a vantage point
outside both?” she concluded puzzled.
“Exactly! People I think, no, believe the Kryst come from another galaxy, a third galaxy nearby”
Lennie proudly announced. A few silent moments went by then everyone began talking at once.
After a minute or two of impassioned discussion a concensus was achieved.
“Get this information to our two Keterian Ambassadors quickly Lennie” Hart said and looked at
Lorna
“I still think it would be worthwhile going back to that moon, some pieces just don’t sit in place, it
could fill in the gaps…” she was about to say more when the intercom buzzed and Jock announced
that the drone had been launched and was ready to have the drive switched on. Lennie quickly
explained what he and Jock had been up to and what they intended for the drone.
“… So you see. The phasing shield will catapult the drone across the distance between the galaxies. If
it remains intact it will record and transmit data bursts from the new galaxy. With a great deal of
luck we might just encounter our first “live” Kryst” he beamed. Hart was shaking her head.
“You’ve violated Maker knows how many protocols with this. I just hope I can fend off the Military.
You have put me in a difficult position.” She stopped then slowly smiled as if realising something.
“We do have one thing in our favor though! Even with the time dilation effect, those data bursts will
take months to reach us here. Years to reach the Osir and Unat. That gives us time to get our story
straight, In the mean time I want you to come up with a plan for the expedition to that moon. I do
have some contacts I could get help from” she smiled “OK! Let’s get started”.

Rejoin the story of the expedition in Chronichle 9 – The Broken Moon

THE CHRONICLES OF THE TRIBE – SERIES TWO

Chronicle 9 – The “Broken” Moon

The Journey begins

The Untharan word for Hell is T’Shon;
and the planet the Untharans discovered in
that remote sector of rim space, was the
epitome of Hell. Orbiting around a Star; called
P’rada, that was twice the size of their home
system star, Unt, but half as bright, this
blasted world resembled an oversized version
of the Jovian moon Io. Its atmosphere was
composed of mostly gaseous Sulphur
compounds. What little water there was hung
among these gases as a misty acidic vapour,
the surface and atmospheric temperatures
were far too high to allow liquid precipitation,
what did settle on the surface consisted of
mostly mineral flakes and dust. It was a desolate; barren wasteland. However; the planet had one
saving grace, a single solitary satellite, a moon with an earth-like atmosphere and liquid water
beneath most of its strange surface. At some time in this moon’s past, its crust had been shattered
by a massive impact. This did not destroy the fledgling world; as would have been expected. Instead;
the surface reformed over the oceans and lakes, trapping them beneath a rippled and crumpled
crust that covered most of the globe. Reminiscent of an area on the surface of Unthar; the
Untharans named this satellite She’brakda, the “Broken” moon.

It was on She’brakda that the Untharans discovered ruins of an ancient civilisation; that
apparently had abandoned the moon long ago in the distant past. To begin with; they thought that
the peoples that had lived there were native to the region, but later discoveries discounted that
theory. The discovery of a buried space craft of strange design leant more to this being an outpost of
some “alien” race. It would not be until the discovery of Keteria and the Lost Colony; that a true
inclination arose, one that implied She’brakda was a former Kryst outpost, would the need to
discover more from the “Broken” moon become a necessity. The drone craft that Lennie had sent off
on its journey; would take at least two years to reach the third Galaxy, and all on “hunch” that
coordinates worked out from the data burst Trok had sent pointed to a location within that galaxy
for the origins of the Kryst and another race, as yet unknown and unnamed. But for this to happen; a
regular transport path had to be achieved between Keterian space and the rest of the galaxy. With
the help of the Unat and the Osir an “artificial” Gateway was formed through the barrier known as
The Wall, and a continuous to and fro of space traffic soon followed suit. Two special expeditions
were eventually formed, with representatives of most of the races from both regions. These
expeditions consisting mostly of; Scientists in various fields, Xeno-Archaeologists and various
Engineering practices. Traders also took advantage of the opportunity, none more so than the

Buraxin, who soon established trading outposts in and around Keterian space and the Gateway.
Locals eventually settled on a nickname for the Gateway – The Hole (in The Wall) – from a Flutvarn
phrase meaning the same, but that proved practically impossible for most other races to pronounce.
Besides; it said what the thing looked like and was, spacers are practical, no nonsense fellows after
all.

Lorna stayed on the Hellion as the ships Chief Xeno-Archaeologist for its mission, so a new
Xeno-Specialist was sought from one of the other colonies. Lyris and Misha; who had opted to stay
in Keterian Space, headed up the return mission to Shust and Atlantis, along with Gio as pilot, Darius
in charge of medical matters. Lennie and Trok had traded places and Lennie then headed up the
Engineering and Technical arm of the expedition. Along with a dozen or so other crew and a new
Buraxin vessel; this formed the Keterian arm of the twin expeditions. Their journey was shortest of
the two; and the least fraught with problems. A Flutvarn Xeno-Biologist from Venosia Prime was the
last to join their merry band; she brought with her some newly developed Bio-Neuro-Net tech based
upon the Networked mycelium that linked the “Brain” trees and plants on Venosia Prime. They were
basically data storage that grew to accommodate increasing amounts of data. Lennie referred to
them crudely as “Gel-Pack Technology”. This then was the Shust expedition team.

The “Broken” Moon expedition team would consist of Krysta; who stayed when Gio left,
Trok in charge of Engineering, Hasbid had recommended Trok also be in charge of coms, and a
couple of other Mechanoids. Various other crew members came from requisite disciplines that were
required. That left the Xeno-Specialist; and Lorna had recommended a friend she had made during
her early expeditions. He was called Hubris; a Vahamat, and, by his races standards, relatively young.
He had been one of the team of Xeno-Biologists during the early years of the Unat exploration of
Human territory. He had been a junior technician when the first Humans had been augmented,
Cain’s People. Humans were not the first species that The Unat and Osir “augmented” and it had
been Hubris’s job to categorise life forms capable of augmentation. This assembly had been given a
new class of vessel; equipped with the latest ultra-fast Hyper Warp drives of Untharan design. It had
been named Sun God Strider; or in Untharan, Veklaar T’un Hur, but for expediency sake that was
shortened to Veklaar (Great Stride). She was sleek for such a large vessel; in its holds were all the
equipment that could possibly be needed. The Veklaar was not designed to land on the “Broken”
moon, there were landing craft for that purpose, but it was equipped with extreme range coms,
heavy defence shielding and some armament if the situation called for such a response. Hubris met
the ship’s captain at the observation booth of the hangar bay. He had heard all about Krysta from a
friend in the diplomatic service.

“Good day Captain; is everything ready?” Hubris asked

“Oh; just one or two minor adjustments to make in
Engineering. I see you have your clansmen’s Crest, Jovhar, if I
am not mistaken. A Noble line indeed” and Krysta did a slow
head nod in respect.

“Please; let’s keep things simple, I am not one for formalities.
Did the specialist equipment I ordered arrive from Velgas 3?”
He responded

“Yes and it has already been stowed; an Ensign will take your hand luggage to your quarters, I have
someone on the bridge who wants to meet with you. She will be joining us for our journey.” Krysta
said and directed Hubris to the elevator to the command deck.

“Elevators? A little antiquated for such a new ship” Hubris said puzzled

“With good reason; we will be clipping the outer edge of a Gravity Occlusion on our way into the
sector so internal Transporter pads would probably not work correctly. We have those for when the
dangers are minimal. It’s best to get used to these as they, and the crawl ways will be the only
methods of getting between decks during the Hyper Warp jumps. It also reduces the energy drain
somewhat. We have to keep our Sub-Space signature to a minimum in case of hostile encounters”
Krysta replied.

“Designed by a committee no doubt” Hubris said under his breath, and joined Krysta in the elevator.

On the Command deck Trok was going over some technical schematics with a junior Coms
tech. He explained what he wanted to do and the tech opened up the coms panel and started
making some adjustments.

“Hubris; Veelah Shon Meksha mubraht!” he said in greeting. Hubris smiled

“The last person to use that greeting to me was an augmented human. Forgive me but I don’t think
that could be you” Hubris responded

“Of course not, but he was my mentor at the Academy in Linguistic studies. He said if I was ever to
meet you I was to use that exact phrase. I am honoured to meet with so dignified a member of your
race. Lyle Marchant was always speaking of you fondly.” Trok did the slow head nod in tribute.
Hubris looked stern for a moment then warbled the Vahamat equivalent of a belly laugh.

“You have imitated his mannerisms expertly. But; as I have told your Captain, no formalities please”
Hubris said. A cough came from behind him. He turned and there before him was a slim Genovan
female of medium height and build. “Jennifer Trebant! You are part of this crew?” Hubris said
surprised to see his former student.

“I am sir; and pleased that I will be your second for this expedition. I got my doctorate in Xeno-
Biology last month. I’ve set up the labs as you like them and I’ve also installed some of the specialist
equipment you requested.” Jenifer replied with a broad grin.

“It’s good to see you and I look forward to working together.” Hubris took Jenifer’s hand and kissed
it lightly. The Coms tech secured the panel and powered it up. He had inadvertently spun the volume
control and a loud screech basted out of a speaker on the console. He quickly turned it down to a
more sensible level. Trok laughed and told the young man to head back to Engineering.

“I’ve taken the liberty of changing the settings on the filters to best accommodate the signal sounds
that the Kryst Probe used. And I’ve included an updated version of Hasbid’s filter as well. He sent me
the specs about an hour ago; He’s busy setting up the secondary Coms array at The Hole. Michael
Faraday here will make the adjustments to all the coms as we are underway. He’s a good boy, if a
little clumsy. But I have yet to find another Human so skilled in adapting equipment.” Trok
announced. The Coms bleeped and the voice of Governor Bryce Halaran of the Terran Commission
came over the speaker system.

“Members of the expedition. Your task is twofold; one part is to find out more of this race known as
the Kryst, and the other part is to prepare to encounter them should that be possible. I am a simple
man, so I will keep this brief. May the Maker give you speed!” the voice said and that was it. Krysta
had Jenifer take Hubris to his quarters and she had the crew set about preparations for launch.

The Veklaar slid almost silently from the dock of N’uhr Vergha Orbital spaceport. Within
minutes it had left the planets gravity slope and was on its way out of Unt system. The sector they
were headed for was remote and would take several weeks to reach even at the ship’s highest Hyper
Warp setting. To reduce the load on the drives, the entire ship had been constructed of synthetics,

composites and ceramic metal alloys. It was a tenth of the mass of similar sized vessels. Energy
requirements had been minimised as and where needed. To compensate for the reduced mass,
Inertial Dampening systems had been strengthened to military levels; this would prove an advantage
during a later part of the expedition. One item in the special equipment Hubris had brought was a
version of a Krall Exo-Suit. This one had been extensively modified to suit a Vahamat frame. Most of
the body panels had been changed to flexible materials with interwoven Krall Nano wires. These
emitted a powerful force field. The result was a more flexible suit that withstood nearly everything
that was thrown at it. Trok took an instant appreciation to its design.

“I wonder if the “Skin” could be adapted to Mechanoid specifications?” he asked

“I don’t see why not” Hubris replied adding “I have the specifications to hand in case we need to
reproduce any materials for repairs. Though it’s so tough I can’t see that we’d need to” Hubris
laughed. He brought up the data on a lab screen. Trok analysed this and; after a ten minutes said

“It would mean a substantial change to our power generation systems, but it is feasible. It would
mean an end to bulky armour on the military spec
Mechanoids. I had been tinkering with a modified
version of the Kryst Probe power generators that
would be more than capable of doing the job” and
he showed Hubris the designs and the smaller
version he had fitted to himself. “Regulation would
have to be improved, but the basic systems would
be a substantial improvement” he added

“Ah; so that’s where the power system for the
Hyper Warp Drive on this ship came from! I must
say I am in awe at how you and your kind have progressed since the early days. I was around when
The Tribe were first contacted and your ancestors discovered all those centuries ago. At that time I
was attached to the Unat command on the World Ship, now I’m one of only six Vahamat still in this
sector. Tell me; do you have a spare power unit? I wonder if it can be adapted to power this suit.”
Hubris asked. Trok informed him he had two functional spare units and a third being repaired in
Engineering

“While it’s still apart we could see if it could be jury rigged to the suit. I’ll let them know we’re
coming down with a bulky item” Trok chuckled “Tom Vergon will “blow a gasket” when he sees this
suit. His Great-grandfather was one of the first engineers to find one of the original Krall suits on the
Outpost” Trok added and the two of them manhandled the suit into a service elevator.

“I hadn’t realised Tom was part of the Ship’s Crew; it’s been six years since I last saw his Father! He
was working at the Academy training ground the last I heard of him. And you’re right about him
blowing a gasket; I’m beginning to find this expedition enjoyable. Having two former students I know
will help me get back into the swing of things” Hubris replied and whistled. They fell out of the
elevator as they arrived and both laughed loudly; Tom came over to help. “You two seem to have
struck it off; welcome aboard Hubris… Is that what I think it is?” he said, and helped the two of them
get the suit onto a bench. As they worked, Hubris caught up with his student’s career and Trok ran
through the specs of the skin-armour.

The Veklaar’s first rendezvous was at a way station in the Lubrintz Chancellery at an outpost
on Rega; a world in the star system of Ulrat. A former mining colony processing planet; the world
had traded its origins for the manufacture of high grade armaments during a conflict early in the
Border Resettlements. That had been a hectic period of trade and territorial border shifts. The
borders were finally realigned when Unthar and Hetrosia settled into the Unity. Rega had been

variously in one or both territories many times. So it seemed practical to simply make weapons for
both sides and stay “relatively” neutral. It had led to the ludicrous situation that; at one time, one
half of the planet was running guns and armaments to the other side because the border ran right
through the equatorial region. The Veklaar was calling here for one more member of the expedition.
She was a Buraxin Engineer with a speciality in Field Technologies. Her name was T’luha Habra;
around twenty years of age, five feet six inches, and olive skinned with raven hair. Her green eyes
were shielded from the vivid brightness of Rega’s noonday sun. She was sipping a tall glass of a local
fruit based drink as Krysta approached.

“Miss Habra? I’m…” Krysta started to say but was curtly interrupted

“T’luha will suffice; you are a little early, I wasn’t expecting your ship till tomorrow. I still have a small
business matter to settle with a local. He’s late; as usual. Please take a seat” T’luha said and ordered
Krysta a glass of the same drink she had. “Vidal is a scoundrel, but he does manage to get the most
amazing variety of supplies; usually with the
highest discretion. Ah! This will be him now”
she added and pointed to the east of the
trading establishment. A cloud of dust could be
seen traversing a dry river bed toward the east
gates. As it came closer the source of the cloud
could be seen. It was a most curious
contraption. Part tracked vehicle; part rover,
with a trailer on wheels towed behind. The
whole being reminiscent of old earth vehicles of
the twentieth century (Old Calendar). It looked
capable of going over some very rough terrain.
It roared through the gates to the compound and came to a halt with its combustion engine
spluttering to a standstill about two metres from them. As the driver of this craft alighted; Krysta
managed to get a better view of the stranger. Vidal stood about two metres in height; had a head
like a camel and a body that looked just like a Kangaroo wearing a pair of dungarees, Krysta had seen
pictures of a kangaroo in an old archive. It strolled up to T’luha and took off its hat. A pair of rabbit
like ears twitched as it bowed with a flourish. Returning to an upright position it smiled and winked.

“Hola Miss T’luha; I managed to find the items you wanted. Wasn’t easy though; two of them are
rare in these parts and cost a pretty penny” Vidal said in a rich baritone and he handed T’luha a
scroll. She took it and read the list.

“Usual payment method I take it?” she asked

“As always. And may I ask who this ravishing beauty is” Vidal smiled at Krysta. She found herself
blushing much to her chagrin. Krysta introduced herself. He took the offered hand in his furred hand.
She had expected a clawed foot, but his hands had four fingers and an opposable thumb. He leant
forward and kissed it. She became flustered.

“Stop that Vidal; she’s married” T’luha said curtly.

“Forgive me Krysta, but women like you are a rare sight hereabouts. I am Vidal Herendez Mansur, I
see you are unaccustomed to my kind, we call ourselves the Shardvolk. A nomad race, engineered to
survive in harsh climates.” He went on to explain that he was an “Acquirer” and helped traders, or
anyone for that matter, find objects of value. His race was a race of finders, people who could trace
lost things by some psychic ability. He explained also that he had been hired by T’luha to find some
lost Buraxin equipment from a crashed drone that had impacted in the wastelands to the east of
Luxo, the trading outpost they were in.

“The hardest part to find was the Silith Particle Separator” he said after taking a sip of a drink he’d
ordered, continuing he added “Shiloh “Hunter” Parks had found most of the filter in a Scabber Rat
nest to the north of his property last month. The rest was stuck up a Tyrovon Tree at one of the
waterholes. Those things are high, and the bark is slippery, but somehow he’d managed to get it
down in relatively one piece.” He went on to explain that Shiloh was a cousin of his who had
“settled” on a farmstead; being hired to divine water for the Farm owners.

“What livestock could possibly survive here?” Krysta asked

“A native lizard has a mineral rich hide and edible flesh. The Locals call it a “Thug Claw Skink”; they
can grow to two and a half meters in length, and can survive on the scrub and sparse vegetation
hereabouts. Farther south we have a pampas of sorts, and a mammalian life form similar to a sheep
thrives there. The colonists who first settled here used their fleece to make a fine woollen thread,
though it’s more hair-like than wool-like” Vidal replied. He ordered them another round of drinks
and continued “I saw your landing craft come down while I was in the wasteland, an impressive
sight. Are they of Untharan design?” he asked

“No; they are a new design from Terra Prime. The Untharans have the only manufacturing rights at
present, as they produce the finest Ceramic metals in the Unity, though a variant of the design is
being drawn up that uses Shild Bronze and other alloys for commercial use. My Chief Engineer
should have been here, he would be fascinated by your… er… transport” Krysta said in response.
Vidal laughed and spluttered.

“You mean Old Betsy! She’s my brother’s craft; my Sand ship is in Synvar Docks undergoing shield
repairs. He put the thing together from salvaged parts collected during and after the Border
Skirmishes. He’s the history buff in the family” Vidal chuckled and produced a holograph of himself
and another Shardvolk male “He’s two years older than me, though he behaves more like a teenager
at times.” He chatted until a coms unit in his dungarees pouch bleeped. He answered it and was in
an animated conversation in a language that sounded more like garbled Chinese than anything else
Krysta had heard. He stood upright looking shocked. “Forgive me ladies, but I’ve been asked by the
local sheriff to find a lost traveller who’s wandered away from a Safari group. Till we meet again!”
and he uncoupled the trailer, mounted his strange craft and sped off into the north end of the
settlement and out of the north gate.

“Can you have the items on this list that I’ve indicated taken aboard your ship? The rest of them I’ll
assemble here for the town, it’s what I promised them.” T’luha asked. Krysta nodded and used her
coms unit to get help from the lander. A couple of Mechanoids arrived with a medium sized
hovercraft to take the indicated items back to the lander. Krysta watched as T’luha pieced together
the filtering system to help screen out particles for the town’s water system.

“The local water table hereabouts is polluted with Iridium particulates left over from the Border
battles and other fallout materials from the munitions works that used to be the predominant
industry here, until recently.” T’luha explained. She went on to explain that some mining companies
had started to mine the desert areas again for Silica Schist and other mineral conglomerates. That’s
when the source of a strange element was found that the Unity had sought for decades to
reproduce artificially. The deposits on Rega were the purest form and incredibly abundant. “Many
worlds use the element in Ablative Plasma shielding, despite there being a much more effective
electronic method these days. The element is unusually dense, but the form here is granular and
easier to incorporate into alloys and ceramics” she added. She worked quickly and within two hours
had the filtering system hooked up to the outpost’s main water supply. She then collected her
equipment and joined Krysta and the others on the hovercraft to head to the ship. Before they set
off Vidal arrived back.