Amethyst Planet

Pulsar Sky System

Grace had found herself in another chamber and it was immediately engulfed in a new projection—Finding herself back on the surface. She could see people moving around in a panicked rush. This must have been some earlier time. Whilst the illusion was enough to convince her for a moment, Caught the scent of the cave the cave—a most peculiar sensation.

She walked across the open ground, unsure if she was about to walk into a wall. It was nighttime, and several lights were illuminating the area. Someone was yelling,

“Put them out! Put them out!” he said.

People quickly turned the lights off and the scene fell into complete black.

Grace Understanding.

Looking up, she saw that the remaining lights were coming from the sky, and they were fast-moving. Great trails curved across the horizon, followed by the deep boom of distant impacts. There were no immediate shocks here. The tremors wouldn’t hit for minutes, but that side of the world would be devastated.

People were screaming now, trying to find shelter. Turning around, Grace saw the city she and the Chase’s crew had passed through after landing. The buildings were pristine, though she knew that would probably only last for a few minutes now.

In the corner of her eye she noted the entrance to the caverns where she and Chase had first ventured down. People were guarding it whilst others rushed in. These must be who the Trafalgar survivors called the Amethyst people. She could see why—they were humanoid with light purple skin and black hair, slightly taller than humans but otherwise not too dissimilar.

People were rushing down to get to safety. She wondered how this had been recorded—whether it had been some kind of automation or a brave reporter staying to the end to make sure what happened next was recorded for history.

Then the tremors hit and the world below her shook. She turned back in time to see the buildings starting to crumble and fall away.

Grace looked down. The recording was showing a quake, and yet she found herself unaffected by the playback. She tried not to focus on it; a high-pitched whirring caused her to to see that there were now fighter craft strafing the city, firing compressed energy weapons at the streets below.

She pulled out her slate and began recording. The sensors took a detailed scan of the ship’s design. She could cross-reference this later with whatever Chase and his team had found out. The ships were small, if not automated. They only had enough room for a single occupant. Many of them fired at the buildings, which seemed redundant considering the firepower they could let loose on the city from orbit with much less effort. Others targeted the fleeing civilians.

Anger rose in Grace’s stomach. Did these people not have rules of engagement?

The last people around the hatch rushed inside, and they closed the exterior blast doors. Enemy ships continued to swarm through the large towers and more weapons fire and screams echoed from them, followed by explosions. The attack seemed to be on a scale that she could barely comprehend.

Her slate continued to scan the projection, taking down as much data as she could. Up in the sky, she saw more lights streaking, this time in all directions.

This was a planetary bombardment on a scale unseen. Whoever these people were, they were looking to annihilate but to not occupy. Grace couldn’t even understand the reasoning behind it. She stood and watched as the devastation rained down.

Another shockwave struck, and a building that had dominated the skyline collapsed, dust and debris cascading throughout the city streets. A cloud of dust enveloped her. Expecting it to cause her to choke, she covered her mouth before remembering this was just a projection of what had come to pass centuries before. Again, she found it a very eerie sensation and wasn’t sure quite how to process the images in front of her.

She looked up at the city skyline, the building they had seen on their way in was now slumped across the tower next to it in a way it hadn’t moments before.

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“So that’s how that happened,” she said to herself.

The fighters continued to strafe the city, but they were now being fired upon by the lilacs’ defence cannons. One got a direct hit, and the fighter crashed down near to Grace, the burning metal coming to a grinding halt just metres away.

She walked over and examined the smashed ship, her slate detailing every aspect of the downed craft. She searched for an access hatch in the twisted hull, only for her hand to fade behind the recording.

In some aspects, this felt like she had travelled back in time. In others, it was simply a very detailed monitor she was watching it back on. She studied everything that had gone into her slate, checking each detail.

Grace searched through the next cave in the tunnels. She used her slate to compare the data from the holographic display to the readings she had taken on the surface with the topography of the city overlaid what she had and realised that the places the missiles had been targeted were directly above her.

She ran another scan for more crystals. She didn’t have to go far to find one, and activated it. What she stood before her, she could only describe as grotesque.

It was around two metre tall or more. In the gaps between its body armour she could see slick, oily skin and dark, scaly features. She was just grateful she didn’t have to smell it. Without warning, a horrific screeching sound pierced the silence. Instinctively, she covered her ears. It took a moment to understand that this was this creature’s language.

The surrounding environment appeared to be the bridge of a starship. This must be one of the attackers. Grace grabbed her slate and captured the images as well as starting a video recording. A moment later, the screeching was reduced, replaced by a playback that was in English.

“You will surrender to us,” it was saying. The translation did not sound mechanical or artificial, more like an interpreter had been standing next to this person, or whatever it was. “You will give us the...” it said, but the last word cut out. The translation computer seemed to search for the correct word. It settled on “weapon” but substituted it for “machine” almost immediately after. Grace wondered what that could refer to, surely the invaders would have been more specific about exactly what they needed rather than simply asking for a weapon.

There were no obvious devices in this chamber. Of course, centuries ago, when this attacker had asked for it, it is perfectly feasible that the Amethyst had given in to the demands, hoping planetary bombardment would cease. Grace couldn’t blame them for that. Many people would have done a lot more to stop a lot less. She had seen the devastation that had been on this world and would not have hesitated in handing anything over that would have stopped it if she’d been there. She liked to think of herself as brave and willing to withstand hardships for the greater good, but seeing death rain down around her, The reality was, she would have probably given in had she been in charge. It wasn’t something she was proud of.

She made her way into the next chamber. There was no other door than the one she walked in through, and noted the amount of machinery in there. Any one of them could have been the device that the alien had referred to in his broadcast during the attack, which didn’t help her any. There was a lot of movement and noise in the machinery.

She had her slate analyse it. The most likely scenario was that this was some kind of generator room or battery storage, powering all the holographic displays she had seen in the different chambers. Examining the machinery it was comprised of a dark metal, basic tech, some handheld devices, others much larger with things that looked almost like cogs that had a slight light of energy around them. She turned around. Too Look in the far corner,

There lay a transparent case with a cylinder in it around thirty centimetres. Various dials and buttons were on the side and a small display for a readout. A label sat under it in an unreadable set of characters.

Grace scanned it. Despite the fact it was an alien language, it felt familiar for reasons she could not place until her scan came back. One of the documents she had scanned in the Admiral’s Rest pub on New Tahiti had been flagged up - a few alien phrases evident on there, as well as various human phrases. She pulled up the image of the document. It had been a language sheet, a phrase book, as it were. The letters matched up with and her slate did the rest. The closest it could give her was ‘machine.’ That had to be it, but would she be able to get it out of its case?

She bent down and picked up the case pausing, half expecting an alarm to sound before remembering that there was no one else on the planet. Well, apart from that one person, and he didn’t seem the type to be overly worried about rules.

She picked it up. Finding that attached to the table, and she wasn’t able to get much purchase. Grace searched around for anything she could use to smash the case open and found a loose piece of metal at the end of one of the machines. She lifted the pole and swung it as hard as she could. Causing no damage whatsoever.

She tried ramming it again, and dropped the pole, its case too strong dropped the pole, and the metal clanged, ringing around the room for a moment before it went silent. Grace tried to get it in under the case, and somehow that broke the connection, allowing her to lift it away from the table.

She had it now. A cold metallic cylinder, it was surprisingly light, But it was in here hands. She had to get it to Chase’s people. She had no idea how she was going to do that, but they would need it. Whenever this last battle between the hostile aliens and the Amethyst took place, this was their focus. It might just give humanity the advantage.