Starship Hellbent

Chapter 6

Levy Alhum stepped into the Excalibur's shuttle bay. It was a vast, mostly empty rectangular space that ran along the bottom of the Exaclibur, spanning most of the length of the ship. The far side opposite the entrance opened directly into a view of stars, only an invisible energy field separated the inside of the bay from the coldness of space. There were four shuttles, two scout ships, and one light combat fighter positioned around the room.

Just beyond the upper lip of the bay, Irfan could make out the shape of the Avalon in the distance. Two crew members chatted near a maintenance terminal. Alhum walked towards them.

"Hello!"

"Sir." The shuttle attendants broke off their conversation, and faced him.

"Would one of you be available to take me over to the Avalon?"

"Absolutely. I assume you're authorized?"

"Yes—pursuant to my active orders."

"Okay." He leaned to type into a nearby console, "Well, what's the purpose of the shuttle for the log."

"Just put, meeting with expert on Avalon pursuant to orders from Captain Gaisler."

"Alright. He tapped in the requisition order. "Right this way," he motioned for Alhum to follow, walking towards a shuttle. As they walked, the other worker left in the opposite direction with a cursory wave.

"They know you're coming?" Alhum's escort looked over his shoulder as they made their way to the shuttle.

"Yes. It's been arranged."

It was a long walk across the bay. Alhum was lost in thought, looking forward to his meeting with experts in the field of magic—mana dynamics, as they called the academic discipline. Researchers from the Alliance were far ahead of the Federation in their understanding of magic. The isolationist policies of the Federation had virtually guaranteed that they would fall behind. He counted himself lucky that they supported the Viziers at all. After all, their skills were passed to them from outsiders.

The shuttle door slid open with a hiss. Alhum entered, pulling up his robe to avoid tripping over the edge as he stepped in. He sat in the small compartment on one of two benches running along the sides, and the door hissed closed behind him. The pilot entered through a separate door. The cockpit was not visible to Alhum. A series of clicks, whirs, and hums preceded the eventual lift-off. He felt a tingle through his body—they had just passed through the energy field and out of the Excalibur. Switching on the viewscreen, which acted as virtual windows, he could see the surrounding stars.

The Excalibur shrank in the distance as they approached the Avalon up ahead. Far off to the side, Alhum could see the massive Delta Gate—an Alliance facility used to send ships across one of the more powerful wormholes in the known galaxy. It would be the first major jump in their journey to Clarion, taking them beyond the edge of their native galaxy to the Apex, an intergalactic crossroads on the way Caldwell 57, nearly a million light years away. The Delta Gate was surrounded by a constellation of Alliance vessels. Alhum gazed absent-mindedly at the fleet of ships in the distance. Before he knew it, the shuttle was touching down onboard the Avalon.

The door hissed open. A familiar figure stood near the shuttle door, looking towards him. Alhum had met him only hours earlier. Seaton Gemini, head of mana dynamics research on the Avalon. Seaton was an older, silver haired man with a sturdy frame, who walked with a wooden cane.

"Welcome to the Avalon," Seaton extended his arm.

"Thank you," Alhum said, almost stumbling out of the shuttle to shake Seaton's hand. "It's good to meet you in person."

"Shall we head to the testing area?"

"Yes, please."

The two began walking together, Seaton only a half step ahead. They made their way out of the bay and into a long, twisting hallway.

"I appreciate you taking the time to help me," Alhum said.

"Of course. I am happy to help a fellow mystic."

"You practice as well?"

"I do—most of our department does, in fact."

"I would love to speak with them."

"I'd be happy to introduce you."

They continued winding their way through the halls of the Avalon. A labyrinth of tunnels connected the various areas of the multi-purpose research vessel, and a constant flow researchers, maintenance workers, security, and other foot traffic passed through the corridors.

Alhum tried to hide his fascination as they passed by diverse Avalon crew members. Unlike the Federation, the Alliance had alien species among their ranks. They walked by several of the short, baboon-like Mangeroma making their way through the halls. Hunched over an open maintenance panel was a large, scaled bipedal creature. Further along, they approached an enormous, wolf-like alien in a security uniform, standing guard at an intersection. There was an energy baton hanging from his belt and a gravity rifle slung over his shoulder.

He nodded to Seaton as they passed. "Sir."

"Korda," Seaton acknowledged him as they passed.

Alhum could only imagine the alien creatures residing in the specialized decks with alternative environmental conditions. Some of them would be flooded with water, housing tentacled aliens. Others would be filled with poisonous gas or deadly bacteria—deadly to humans, at any rate.

"I have to say," Seaton looked back to Alhum as they walked. "I respect what you're doing, the Wizers, I mean. Bringing magic to the Federation. I don't suppose it is easy."

"What do you mean?"

"I don't want to generalize too much, but they don't seem to be very open to outside influence."

"That's fair to say," Alhum agreed. "But in a way, it was that same attitude that led the Federation to incorporate Wizers into its defensive strategy."

"How is that?"

"Well, what the Wizers promised was a detection system for wormholes—a way to locate back-doors into Hellbent territory."

"Dowsing for wormholes."

"Exactly. That, and an early warning system for attacks. That was really how the Wizers got brought into the Federation."

"So, exclusively for the sensitive arts," Seaton observed. "And how has their use of magic evolved since then?"

Alhum shook his head. "It hasn't, really. I mean, our role, our political role, has shifted somewhat."

"We're here." Seaton stopped beside a large metal door. A prominent sign above the door read 'mana dynamics—channelling potential testing laboratory. "Before we start," Seaton turned to Alhum, "do you mind if I ask why you wanted the test?"

"No, of course not. My Captain—Captain Morgan Gaisler, he doubts the ability of the Wizers. He ordered me to provide proof... of magic."

"So you need the test results for him?"

"Well, that's... part of the reason..."

Seaton raised an eyebrow. "And what's the other part?"

"Can I be honest with you for a moment?"

"Of course."

"I feel like you are someone I can trust—someone I can talk to about this. It's not the order from Captain Gaisler that's been bothering me. What really got me was... part of me felt that he might be right."

Seaton looked to Alhum for a moment. "You're doubting yourself?"

Alhum's eyes dropped. "I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it. But, yes."

Seaton paused in thought for a long moment. "How long ago were you initiated?"

"More than forty years. Why?"

"Do you remember how it made you feel?"

"Yes!" Alhum's face lit up. "I remember being connected, feeling at one with the universe—a powerful surge of visions. It was life-changing."

"And what do you make of that experience now?"

"I don't know. The memories are still strong, but it was so long ago. I haven't felt anything like that since. Back then, I was sure about magic, not a doubt in mind. But now when I'm seeing the visions... Could it just be in my head?"

"Alhum," Seaton placed his hand on Alhum's shoulder. "You have faced great challenges in your journey. Working within Hellbent, you have been cut off from the resources that other mystics rely on. You don't have access to the knowledge of the outside community. And there is a greater challenge that you face, as far we can tell, your system Hellbent is nearly devoid of mana. Magic requires energy—energy that flows through space and time. Starship Hellbent has virtually none. The fact that you have maintained your practice in spite of these challenges speaks to me of your great potential."

"Thank you," Alhum replied tentatively. "I hope you're right."

"Should we proceed with the test, then?"

"Yes. I am ready."

Seaton tapped the keypad beside the door, and it slid open revealing a small room. A dozen metal boxes rested on a solid metal table in the center, arranged neatly into rows. Alongside the twelve miniature crates was a small scanning tool and a hand-print identification system.

"Place your hand here," Seaton said. Alhum complied. One of the crates slid open, it contained a large number of wooden splinters, piled half a fingers length deep at the bottom of the crate.

"There are 1000 of them," Seaton explained. "One of them is imbued with magic."

"Am I to find it?" Alhum asked.

Seaton nodded.

Alhum slowly reached into the crate, and his fingers probed across the bottom. He shuffled through the splinters slowly, pushing them aside and working his way through the crate. A cold sensation ran up through his hand, shooting up from one of the splinters. Irfan shuddered.

Seaton noticed, and smiled subtly. "Go ahead," he said, "pick it up."

Alhum lifted up the splinter with his right hand, and placed it into the palm of his left.

"What do you see?"

Alhum shut his eyes, and closed his fist over the splinter. "I see... living corpses. Decaying animals, dragging themselves across the land... their skeletons exposed through hanging flesh. There is death everywhere..."

"Is the energy evil or good?"

Alhum laughed, and opened his eyes.

"What's so funny?" Seaton asked.

"It's strange... The visions were nightmarish... But despite that. It's a good energy."

"Place it into the scanner."

Alhum dropped the splinter onto the scanning device. "What does it mean?" He asked, as Seaton entered a command into the scanner. A blue laser traced over the splinter as the machine hummed.

Seaton turned away from the scanning device to face Alhum. "Have you heard of Corpse Wrought?"

"No."

"Corpse Wrought is a world very far from here, in a distant galaxy—three years out, eight years back through known wormholes. Onlythree survey teams were ever sent, and only one returned... When we landed, the first thing we noticed was the smell death... rotting flesh." Seaton wrinkled his nose as the memory came back to him.

"You were there?"

Seaton nodded. "I was on the first survey team. We were stranded there -so was the second. Rescued eventually by the third. Should I tell you about it?"

"Please."

Seaton breathed in deeply. "The ground was soft. We later found it was alive flesh, covering the surface... a lumpy, sickly pink and red colour. Not like an animal, though. It didn't have any obvious function, just a growing mass over the planet. Although there were protrusions—giant eyeballs and malformed fingers poking out around the landscape here and there...

"We quickly learned that the entire planet was overtaken by a powerful magic, a curse, if you like. Death has no meaning there. There were plagues of rotting animals pulling their crippled bodies along -the worst of them, mangled corpses incapable of crawling, just thrashing around. We found pits filled with writhing masses of creatures that should be dead, biting and clawing at each other. The surface was just some kind of out of control cancer flesh growing endlessly, mutating, carpeting everything."

"And the worst—we found humans there. Packs of decaying, rotting humans, shambling through the hills. Some of them could talk, but they'd all gone insane. We could only guess how long they'd been living in that nightmare. We learned that death can be a blessing, and the people there were deprived of it."

Seaton seemed in a trance, eyes glazed over, relaying in monotone the memories of his horrific ordeal. "One of our team got separated. His legs were missing eaten by... something. We found him at the bottom of a cliff face. I think he threw himself off. He tried to talk to us. We couldn't make out the words, but we knew what he was saying. He wanted us to kill him. But we didn't know how, or what would happen if we tried."

Alhum listened in stunned silence, unsure of what to say. Internally, his fascination about the magic world wrestled with the horror that they all must have gone through. It would probably be insensitive to ask too many questions. At the same time, the idea that such powerful magic could exist in the universe was almost too astounding.

"I'm sorry, Alhum." Seaton looked Alhum in the eyes. "You don't need to hear all these details."

"It's okay," Alhum said. "We are Brothers in Magic. Knowledge should be shared between us... if you are comfortable, of course."

"Yes." Seaton paused and composed himself, taking another deep breath. "Anyways, darkness can't exist without light. We came across a group of living people. They were in a constant struggle for survival, holding off the undead creatures with their own magic, a magic of light.

Among these people, the bravest warriors, and the most powerful wielders of magic, would aspire to be Paladins. Heroes devoted their lives to venturing into the undead lands, and freeing those souls trapped in decaying bodies, freeing them from their torment. They give peace -death- to the undead.

"That splinter..." Seaton motioned to the scanner on which the splinter rested. "That splinter is a piece of an artifact that was used by the Paladins to ward off the undead—a wooden warding circle."

"So the visions I saw were real."

"Yes," Seaton confirmed, "they were visions from the past."

"And it was good energy. The Paladins energy."

"That's right." Seaton turned to the scanner and picked up the splinter. "There was a one in a thousand chance of you selecting the right splinter, Alhum, if you were picking based on chance alone."

"So that's the test?"

"Not quite." Seaton returned the splinter to the open crate, closing the top with the press of a button. "These other boxes," Seaton motioned to the crates on the table, "all contain artifacts from other worlds."

Alhum stared in awe at the collection of crates on the table, and wondered what visions they might contain what magic might echo from those incredible, distant worlds .

"Place your hand on the scanner," Seaton motioned to the handprint device, "and we will repeat the test... ive more times."