Hearts of Darkness - Plague of the Void Seeds / 4

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Please click here if you would like to read Post 1, the beginning of the story

Please click here if you would like to read the previous post

Post 4

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25 Years ago

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Anna is looking anxiously between the monitor and the small window. Three months ago, the main body of the telescope had successfully separated from the space craft. Several other pieces had been delivered and today, the final sections were being fitted and aligned by Gavriil, one of the station’s resident cosmonauts. It was an awesome sight, 30 meters in diameter and capable of seeing the hairs on the back of a fly zipping around on Neptune. Once the install was complete, the telescope would be guided to it’s orbit at the 2nd Lagrange point, about a million miles from Earth.

Gavriil – “There. I have it.”
Anna – “Great work Gavriil.”
Gavriil – “You owe me one bottle of Vodka.”
Anna – “As promised, it’s waiting for you back on the ground.”
Gavriil – “More waiting. Ahhh well. I’m coming back inside.”

Gavriil begins the module re-entry protocol and Anna glances out of the window. Right now, all she could see was the infinite darkness of space. She was just about to turn away when a massive vessel appears before her eyes. Not there, there. Silent. She gasps and steps back as her shock catches up with her eyes. Mouth agape, she moves closer to the window. She freezes as the words ‘stay calm’ appears on the module’s window.

Gavriil – “Anna, are you….?”
Anna – “There’s an alien spacecraft outside. It appeared as you were coming back in. Look at the window.”
Gavriil – “Stay calm. This is a joke?”
Anna – “Look out the window.”
Gavriil – “Wow. Ok. Stay calm. Good advice. I can do that. It’s easy. I go outside, inside, in space, on the ground, it’s all the same to me....."

As Gavriil is coming to terms with what he’s seen, two alien forms appear in the module. Both Anna and Gavriil’s jaws hit the floor. One is about six feet tale with delicate features and four compound eyes….a Ziff. The other is slightly smaller and very much like a large, standing millipede. The millipede alien has multiple appendages that seem to be split in function between arms and legs, a slightly emphasized head and hundreds of small oily black eyes. The millipede-like alien is a Daxsiste-agori, called…what can only be described as a series of rapid clicks. He begins to speak to Anna and Gavriil in a series of clicks that repeat. He presses something against both Anna’s and Gavriil’s hands. When they both look, there doesn’t appear to be anything there, but immediately, they begin to understand what the alien is saying.

Click – “I am click click a Daxsiste-agori click from the click click planet Agori in the click Clazeck system. Do you click click understand me?”
Anna – “Yes….I….I can understand you.”
Gavriil – “Yes. Me also.”
Click – “That’s good. I apologise for the haste of our arrival and the fact that we must have startled you, only there just wasn’t the time for pleasantries.”
Anna – “Um. No problem. At all.”
Click – “That is most gracious of you. Let me get straight to the point. We are here to enhance your telescope, monitoring systems and to hasten it’s relocation to your 2nd Lagrange point.”

As Click begins speaking, the Ziff begins darting around the module, fitting small pieces of alien tech, altering settings, configuring panels and doing it all at dizzying speed.

Anna – “Um. Thank you.”
Click – “It has become necessary to expedite your acquisition of knowledge as it pertains to the galactic conflict of which you have recently become aware. It is raging ever nearer to your borders my dear and those of us who have been providing the resistance are losing ground. Sink or swim, the choice is no longer ours. But we will help you, if we can.”
Anna – “Why are the stars going out?”
Click – “We’ll get to that, I promise. For now, we’d like you to come with us in order to prepare the way for your race’s inclusion into the alliance. We have been observing you and you will do very well. Will you come with us?”
Anna’s heart was racing. This was too much. A visitation from aliens, galactic war, disappearing suns…..go with them? Before she could think it through…..
Anna – “Yes I’ll…..”
Click – “Brave girl. But be warned. You may never return and if you do, you will never be the same.”
Gavriil – “Anna. Are you sure this is wise?”
Anna – “Why are we here Gavrii? Did we really think a telescope would save us?”
Gavriil – “No. You are right. It was something to do to help control the fear. Go with them. I will inform command. They won’t be happy but they will understand in the end. Good luck.”
Click – “When we go, everything will disappear. Shortly thereafter, you will begin to pick up a signal from your new telescope. May I call you Gavriil?”
Gavriil – “Certainly.”
Click – “Gavriil. You must prepare them for what they will see. It will be…..devastating. Ok Anna, let’s go.”
Anna – “What should I bring?”
Click – “You do not need to bring anything.”
Anna – “Ok. Bye Gavriil. Thank you for looking after me during my stay here.”
Gavriil – “It has been my pleasure. Be strong.”

Anna has a quick thought and grabs a polaroid of Gary that was stuck to one of the module’s consoles. Then the aliens, the spacecraft and the telescope, silently disappear.

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1 Year ago

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Joshua had always had a highly developed sense of right and wrong, but more importantly, what could be tolerated and what couldn’t. Perhaps it all came back to his Father and the damage he had inflicted on him and his mum. Possibly. But he’d always been a defender, he’d always had empathy. Bullies most definitely fell into the ‘couldn’t be tolerated’ side. Unquestionably. He’d encountered a fair few of them in his life already. As he’d gotten older, he’d come to understand words like, compel, coerce, threaten, abuse, rape, extort. There were a lot of words to describe the terrible things people do to each other. It all boiled down to the same thing, bullying. Making people do what you want or punishing them if they won’t, sometimes, even if they will. The very idea of it filled him with outrage.
When he’d come home from school that day, his breath frosting in the frigid air, he knew something was terribly wrong. Jim, the next-door-neighbour, was out front talking to a police officer. Joshua suddenly felt hot and claustrophobic. He took off his jacket and walked unsteadily towards them. The police officer had a cut lip, like he’d been punched in the face. It's funny what you notice sometimes.

Jim – “Jjjoooshhh. I’m soooohhhh sooooorraaaayyyyy, tttthhheeeerrreeee’s bbbboooooeeeeennnn.”
Joshua – “I……I can’t hear you?”

Jim looks at the police officer gravely.

Jim – “Joshua. Joshua. Look at me.”

Joshua looks up at Jim and finally seems to connect with him.

Jim – “There’s been a car accident. I’m so sorry. Your mum and dad. They didn’t make it.”

Joshua nods slowly and pushes past them, into his home. He had never been so confused. Mum. Fuck you dad! Apparently no-one was to blame. They’d hit a patch of black ice. This was all shades of wrong but there was nothing on which to direct his sense of outrage this time. No sense for the proper thinking, the proper course of action. He was simply alone now. He felt hollow.

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Present

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Joshua is dreaming. He felt again, the electric shock that coursed through his body upon hearing the awful sounds of destruction coming from the woods. The grip of paralysing fear, when the two impossibly fast creatures, flew into the glade and injected everyone with who knew what? The sudden crippling pain that wracked his body, causing him to collapse, certain he was about to die. His last thoughts were, I’ll never know what’s happening…..my friends are dying. Then, nothing. It was the smell of pine needles that was the first thing he became aware of. A far stronger scent than he had ever experienced before. His face was pressed down into the forest mulch and someone else, Cathy, was lying unconscious across the backs of his legs. His mind began formulating conclusions about the age and condition of the degrading Pine leaves from which the pungent aroma came. What? I don’t know anything about Pine….. A huge trumpeting roar, that reverberated through the ground and up into his chest, caused his eyes to snap open. What the fuck was that?! He didn’t want to lift his head. He didn’t want to witness the nightmare unfolding in the glade. No. No! Cathy. Cathy’s dead. Don’t look. Don’t look. They’re all dead!!

Joshua – “Cathy. Cathy.”

He gradually wakes up. He’s curled up on his side in the foetal position, lying on some kind of warm, gelatinous substrate in a spherical, what pod? He didn’t really know. The walls were firm, smooth and glowing with a soft, reddish light. Assuming he wasn’t dead, he was surprised at how relaxed and well he felt. However, it was time to get out……mmmm there didn’t appear to be a hatch. Fortunately, a voice appeared in his head, just as he was about to start kicking.

Click – “Excuse me. Please don’t be alarmed. You are in, what we call an ‘optimization pouch.’ The conditions within can be optimized for over four hundred million different, reasonably sized, intelligent species. It enables us to maximise subject data acquisition, healing and optimization….naturally.
Joshua – “That’s great. Can I get out now please?”
Click – “Certainly. Before you do, please understand that you are presently aboard a Daxiste-agorian navigator….you might call it a spaceship. I am Click, a Daxiste-agorian scientist….well, we’re all scientists. I have been tasked with the familiarisation of humankind with their new reality and the great predicament facing the known universe. Part of my remit is to study your race and help you to discover your potential…..if there is any.”
Joshua – “I get the spaceship, after what I’ve already seen, why not. I get that you’re an alien scientist but the rest went straight over my head.”
Click – “Fear not Joshua Logan. You are about to embark on the most intensive, grueling, mind-expanding period of study and physical training any human has experienced in history. You will pray for your ignorance before the end, I’m sure.”
Joshua – “That’s appealing.”
Click – “Needs must, I’m afraid.”
Joshua – “Ok. Before we get started, I’d like to know a couple of things please.”
Click – “Go on.”
Joshua – “Are we using telepathy?”
Click – “Yes we are.”
Joshua – “Did all my friends die in the glade?”
Click – “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

Joshua could feel the sincerity in the alien voice in his mind. He could sense other things, a great oppressive age like the bones of a mountain and a profound sorrow as deep and wide as an ocean. It was…too much. But before the strength of those monumental depths had a chance to wash away his mind, they were closed off. Not before he glimpsed intelligence, bound to a determination so sharp, if it was a knife, it would cut through the heart of a star.

Joshua – “We are at war with those black monsters.”
Click – “I’m afraid so.”

Joshua thought about his friends, thought about everything he’d been told. He had no-one left on Earth. He would seek justice for those that had been lost and vengeance for himself. He hated bullies.

Joshua – “Let’s do this. I’m ready……”

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25 Years ago

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Gavriil – “Are you receiving the data?”
NASA Ground Technician – “It’s coming through now. Unbelievable.”
Gavriil – “I know.”
NASA Ground Technician – “It’s a good thing you prepared everybody for the worst.”
Gavriil – “Ya.”
NASA Ground Technician – “Looking at this…..we haven’t got a chance. We’ll be more hindrance than help. I don’t know why the Daxiste-agori are wasting their time on us.”
Gavriil – “I think it’s because they have honour.”
NASA Ground Technician – “Maybe you’re right. I’ll see that the GAN command gets a good look.”
Gavriil – “Good luck........"

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Notice - I have to go away for work this morning for a couple of days, so I decided to post everything I have so far. I'll continue the story as soon as I get back, hopefully writing more over the weekend. Happy Steeming!

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