Planet Dead Arc. Cassiopia Galaxy.
Dust filled marvelous structure. Stones, rocks. An alien planet known to hide many uncovered secrets. Miles across, mountain tall.
Eve walked in a hypnotizing outfit, lining her abs and thighs. She was crossing a bridge that went from a huge hall into the gates of a tomb. As she traversed the edges looking down the bridge, mind dizzying drop to the caves below.
Kai, Axel, Hannah, and Nadia followed. Anya, Vayne, and Jax waited outside in the Soul Drifter.
"Comm check," Eve chimed.
"Clear and sexy!" Anya replied.
"Heading into the tomb, comms might not work," Eve comm‑ed.
"Copy that," Anya replied, sipping coffee watching the surreal megastructures through the viewport of the spacecraft.
The bridge must have been 300 meters across. Eve continued towards the gate. The bridge.
"Looks like a stone age civilization built this with the help of terraforming alien tech. Simple minded, rough aesthetics," Nadia observed, running her hand across the stonework.
"Nonetheless, highly defensive and cautious," Eve added.
"They colonized, prospered. Not far enough. They were wiped out," Nadia deduct‑ed.
"In a way that nothing else was affected. The structure is intact. Could have been a virus. They were millenniums older than early Earth cavemen," Eve.
Now they stepped inside the tomb.
"Like ancient Egyptian Earth civilizations had a twin civilization," Nadia exhaled.
"You don't say," Eve murmured.
The chamber was square, with etched lines leading to a central shrine.
They walked up to it.
"Axel," Eve prompted.
"No organic or cybernetic life forms on the radar," Axel replied scanning the perimeter.
"No electromagnetic or thermal activity either," Kai added, tapping controls on his glove. Three of his drones split off, sweeping through cracks and crevices. Two others floated nearby, watching, guarding.
Eight side chambers circled a central fountain. Narrow channels ran from each chamber, feeding into the fountain's basin.
Nadia studied intriguingly, "they were religious, as the markings say they looked like humans, except for their faces and blood, which was gray."
"You learned all that just by looking at it?" Kai asked, doubtful.
"No Kai, she's been reading the glyphs and markings all along," Axel said. His usual red eyes were yellowish green.
"Obvious." Hannah, as always, rarely spoke.
"I just don't get archaeologists and librarians," Kai commented.
"That's because you're blind to anything not digital," Nadia said, circling the fountain. "You barely know your own planet's history. I know it better than you."
He grinned, "tech got perks," he waved his hands and the two drones projected a 3D hologram map of the entire structure that his scout drones had scanned. The map kept expanding as drones dug deeper. "My green‑eyes lady!"
She turned, sighed, and shrugged. "I don't speak wireframe."
"Oh, my bad." He snapped his fingers. One drone floated to Nadia and projected a simplified holographic interface filled with symbols, showing different hieroglyphs.
Nadia interacted with the holographic screen with gestures, shifting texts and symbols.
"Find anything?" Kai asked.
"Still looking," she replied.
Axel just stood there observing. Hannah took her pad and started reading the latest posts on Intergalactic media. Eve sat on the rim, brushing her hair.
"Strange. Our comms are still working," Axel noted.
"That's because the whole thing is electronically dead Axel," Kai told him.
"Axel is right, thickened walls should have weakened the transmission but comm signals are strong. That almost never happens," Anya comm‑ed.
"Well, Nadia is the expert here," Kai looked at her.
"Not relevant here," she replied.
"Well, it is an alien myth town so something has to be strange," Kai huffed.
"That's your explanation," Nadia said, irritated.
"I left the rest to your imagination," Kai responded, smilingly looking at Nadia. She gave him a cold gaze.
He read her frustration. "Alright, give me a minute…" and tapped a few notes on his gloves. The 3D map minimized. Drone‑projected data appeared in front of Kai. His hands gestured as streams of data cascaded before him.
"No missy, this god‑damn ruin is hack‑proof for a reason. I have got nothing. If walls this thick aren't disrupting signals, then either the material isn't behaving naturally… or something untraceable is boosting the transmission," Kai reported after a minute.
Nadia, still absorbed in reading text, symbols and glyphs from projected holograms, replied, "Can't blame you. I have also got nothing," she said and dismissed the holographic screen. The drone stopped projecting. She turned to the fountain.
"Looks like we are empty here," Nadia said.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Eve spoke up.
"Yes, but why would they sacrifice their own people?" Nadia asked.
"Sacrificed what?" Kai startled.
"They used the chambers to bleed dry inmates and feed the pond," Nadia said.
"You already knew that—when were you going to tell us?" Kai complained.
"It's common sense, look at the channels feeding the fountain, and how the chambers are made. Can't you guess?" Nadia explained, frustrated.
"I don't brag about my tech, why do you have to flex your archaeological shit?" Kai taunted her.
"Guys, are you planning to spend the night there?" Vayne, who was listening to the conversation, finally interrupted, leaning and swinging on his pilot chair.
"What are you doing on the comm?" Anya spoke from the engineering room of the Soul Drifter, "get some sleep you don't fly well yawning and drowsing."
"Listening to team chat is more fun than intergalactic radios… can't sleep Anya, care to join me in the control room?" Vayne teased her.
"What are they talking about," suddenly Jax's voice intervened.
"Is there anyone not off the comms right now?" Anya sighed.
"Don't change the subject, why am I the last to know things man?" Jax complained.
"So we sleep together sometimes… big deal!" Anya snapped.
"What!?" Jax and Kai screamed at the same time.
"So what if Kai and Nadia are hooking up," Vayne let out a secret like it was a regular note.
Nadia was startled as she cleared her throat.
Anya received the signal, "Go to sleep you idiot," she spoke to Vayne through her teeth.
"Anya, you told Vayne of all the people?" Nadia asked Anya, shocked.
"I didn't… not deliberately," Anya bites her lips, "Sorry."
"Yeah, how about all the friendly and hugging face Jax… no one cares if he's also in the team?" Jax said.
"It's not like that Jax, will you shut up for a second, this is not about you!" Anya taunted.
"Who is it about then?" Jax said, burned.
"Nadia and Kai," Vayne blurped, drinking beer, "oh this is so much more fun than Intergalactic radios," he laughed.
"I am going to kill you, Vayne. Zip it," Anya barked.
"Did you know?" Hannah asked, looking at Axel.
Axel robotically froze. "About who… Anya‑Vayne or Nadia and Kai?"
"So the robot knows and I don't!" Jax exploded.
"That hurt!" Axel commented.
"Sorry," Jax said holding back a little bit, but then he screamed again, "but that is not the point!"
"Who told you?" Hannah asked Axel.
"I was just doing routine checks when I saw… well, I would notice Anya and Vayne coming out of their cabins with increasingly elevated heart beats and respiration rate. I deduced it's after the math of mating," Axel explained. "Same elevated metabolic rate with Nadia and…"
"Yeah we get it Axel," Nadia cut in.
"Who the hell gave you permission to read our vitals like that man?" Kai walked up to Axel as his drones followed.
Axel said nothing and just looked at Eve, who was silently listening to all this, sober but interested.
"Oh… the Mother of hell herself, why did you?" Kai approached Eve.
"Because Axel is the only one who doesn't need sleep while the rest of the crew can dose off when Soul Drifter is on pilot mode," Hannah explained.
"No compromise on the health of my crew," Eve stated.
"There should be a ground rule for this," Anya murmured.
"Squad inter‑relations?" Hannah asked.
"Privacy!" Nadia declared.
"Wait. You don't even speak much and now you are interested in who is dating who?" Nadia crossed her arms.
"Can't come to the party, still hurts if you are not invited," Hannah said sardonically.
"Yeah, you tell them girl," Jax backs Hannah.
"But you are stone cold Hannah, you would rather have me talk to you about my love life than Anya? For you, relationships are all fuck and move on," Nadia said to Hannah.
"Life is too short for long running drags," Hannah states plainly.
"Says the fucking ageless cyborg assassin," Kai was like daaaa!
"You have more cybernetic implants than the rest of the team," Hannah growled.
"That wasn't the argument," Kai says in disbelief.
Eve finally stood up, "Alright, that's enough. Kai, kill the comms."
Kai snapped. Comms off.
"Anya, brief!"
Anya explained the chamber needed blood of their species to activate the alien tech and they wouldn't be able to tap into it. She also shed some light on what she had learned about their history and rituals through the carvings and glyphs.
"That's a wrap, let's go home," Eve commanded. They headed back to Soul Drifter.
Eve thought it would be a serious mission but the team was just as always very vibrant. She missed Mira in these situations, because she was the strict one and covered for Eve.
After her last meeting with Mother Cetra, Nomad had been pushing into fighting mutated species coming out of the Dark Galaxy. At the same time, Eve was trying to connect pieces of the alien artifacts, the monoliths. She had a hunch that Dead Arc might carry some clues because, just like the Monoliths, its mystery was also still untapped.
Thanks to Mother Cetra, her short lived rebellion had ended, and now she was back on Nomad. Back to being space commander.