“Did this work?” Rocky blinked a few times and looked back to his brother, who was seated in one of the tiny seats directly behind the pilot seat.
The small research craft was now plunging under the ocean, while zooming away from the small uncharted island chain. Rocky allowed the ship to continue its dive for some time, while monitoring the depths and the projections he had made several minutes ago. He finally pushed a button and leveled out the steering column to cease their descent. The monitor screens that showed the outside view were now completely dark, in these depths the light did not penetrate.
“Hopefully you can navigate with no optics.” Ricky stated while getting up from his seat.
“It’s all done largely with math. I’ve plotted in a course with the system’s AI and it’s…”
“Good luck.” Ricky patted the pilot’s shoulder while sliding out of his chair and out of the cramped cockpit section. He had little time to listen to the technical descriptions that Rocky loved so much. All he needed to know was that they were on course and not about to immediately die from some new threat.
Ricky moved towards the rear of the ship and into the research section. The room was spacious enough for a small vessel, there was enough headroom for even Rocco to stand up to full height, but just barely. The center of the room was dominated by the waist high center research console. There were large screens that could be interacted with, as well as input and output ports, but besides that the Procyon had little idea what any of it was used for.
Ricky smiled when he saw the tall young Foxen lounging on one of the couches built into the recesses in the wall surrounding the room. To his surprise, she managed a slight smirk back, though with her much longer maw, the smaller gesture looked much bigger.
“I didn’t get a chance to thank you for like, well y’know, saving us from that fighter earlier.”
Amiga rested her head on her hand, which was in turn resting on her elbow. Her eyes narrowed for a moment, regarding the Procyon’s statement. Or maybe she just enjoyed seeing him squirm.
“Yeah well, where would I be if I went and let the lot of you all die?” The smirk widened. “I don’t know how to pilot this thing.”
“I know I’ve seen you do and survive some amazing things so far…” Ricky crossed the room and sat at the foot of the couch she was lounging across. “But it still doesn’t cease to amaze me every time I see it. The thing that I can’t get out of my mind though is….it’s a mighty relief that you are on our side…but you did mention that you were part of a program…right?”
“Unfortunately, yes. It was a secret program that Zenith had been running for quite some time. I’m not even sure how long.”
“There’s more like you out there. They look normal…”
“Gee…thanks.” She cut him off sarcastically.
“…well I mean to say I’m sure none of them look quite as fantastic as you, I imagine the rest of the lot, especially the blokes, look fairly average.”
Amiga seemed to drift away into her memories as he studied her reaction, perhaps she was unlocking a few.
“I suppose.”
“They look average but can absolutely tear shit up. I mean, you’re worth more to me than a bloody tank!”
“You have a way for flattery Ricky.” The female stated flatly.
“Do you have any idea how many more like you might be out there?”
“No.” Amiga’s facial expression changed, darkening a bit. “As I said the program had been running for some time before I was thrown into it. The rumors were that the initial soldiers that were produced were greater successes than my generation.”
“That’s interesting. I wonder why that’d be.”
“Who knows. There were rumors that the entire project was scrapped soon after I escaped. It’s possible that they eliminated most of the ones that were in the same facility as me.”
“You mentioned hearing about one that was still alive? That was the reason you came with us?”
“Just a fanciful lead is all. I have no clue how reputable the claim was. They spoke a name that I had not heard in a few years, not since I left. It was the Canid that helped me escape. His name was Domingo.”
“And they thought he was hiding out on the Rook Coast?”
“Maybe? That’s what one of the workers at that labor camp told me. Truthfully, I can’t imagine Domingo lying low anywhere. He was quite boisterous.”
“Do you think that he could be trusted if we can find him?”
“I hope so. I’m not sure. I’m not sure if he’s even out there anymore. I just don’t know…”
“Hey.” Ricky leaned forward and placed a reassuring hand on the female’s shoulder. She had such a feminine frame it was hard to remember just how ridiculously strong she really was. “If he’s out there I promise I’ll help you find him. Hopefully that will give you some closure…or whatever it is you’re looking for.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Amiga patted his hand, when they touched, the atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted. They were now inadvertently gazing directly into each other’s eyes.
“Well then!” Ricky stood up suddenly, breaking any type of romantic connection before it could begin. “As long as you’re there to save us from all the Zenith troops and planes and tanks and whatever else we’ll probably be up against in a few hours.”
Ricky smirked and moved away with a slight nod. He next entered the third section of the ship, which held two small sleeping cabins. Gazing into the room on the right-hand side of the tiny hall, he saw the prairie dog pair that he had originally meant to speak to.
“Does it look like we might get away?” Reegan asked as soon as the young Procyon entered the room.
Everything inside a Titan ship was built to maximize space. The double bunk bed was pulled out at the moment, but it had the ability to push back and disappear flush into the wall. The same could be said for the small round table that popped out of the floor near the bed, which was at that moment, still hidden in the floor, and the desk which was deployed along the far wall.
Ricky held his hand up with his first two fingers intertwined.
“Cross our fingers. It just may work. They’re looking for a ship above the water, not below.”
“Brilliant.” Eligah huffed in between pulls of a stinky pipe that he was smoking. “Good thinking lad.”
“I wanted to take the time in between bouts of fighting for our lives to ask about what you told Rocky. You said you knew our father?”
“Quite right young man. Quite right. Your family was descended from the last royal guards from the Tristanian reign.
Ricky had of course heard some of the history growing up, mostly from his father since much of the history regarding anything that the Zenith Corporation viewed as unfavorable to itself was scrubbed and had become exceedingly difficult to find over the years. This information of course included many of the details about any of the old autonomous countries and kingdoms that existed prior to the Zenith Corporation.
“According to what we were told, the king was slain by Zenith and no one knows what happened to his son. My guess is they probably killed him too.”
“The probability is high. If they’d have left the lad alive, he would have had a rightful claim to his father’s throne.”
“What I don’t get is this: what does any of that have to do with us now? Why seek us out after all this time? Dad’s been gone for nearly ten years now.”
“Ah but that’s the part I only got the chance to hint at with your brother. You see, your father talked of his grandfather, who had actually worked for the king. He had passed down a few secrets to your old man.”
“Secrets?” Ricky squinted one eye, trying to figure out the old Titan’s game here. Hopefully he wasn’t some kind of con artist. “What secrets?”
“Secrets from the old kingdom.” Eligah paused with a beaming grin on his chubby cheeks to project an image from his Net-comm onto the hovering holo-image board above the desk roughly an arm’s length away. A floating image of a map depicting his homeland of Gunrock appeared.
The floating holo map bathed the room in a ghostly glow and zoomed in where the well-known ruins of the royal palace were located, along the upper-east coast of the relatively small continent of Gunrock. The elder prairie dog continued speaking as the image continued to zoom in.
“The story goes that once upon a time, there was a supernatural force that looked after Titan. It was known as the Phoenix Force. It was made up from all the life force across the galaxy…or something like that. The science behind it isn’t quite clear to be honest.”
“Fairy tales? They used to make holo-vids about all those stories. They called him Scorch. Don’t tell me you believe in all that.”
“Let me tell you, King Tristan knew the ancient rituals to summon the great protector.” The image zoomed in to a cave system a few hundred kilometers inland of the site of the ruins. “It was a secret passed down from monarch to monarch. Years ago, your father and I decided to put it to the test. This may have been before he met your mother come to think of it. We were two young and foolish Titans set out on an adventure for the ages! He was the one with all the knowledge, I was just brave enough to go with him.”
This drew a chuckle from his daughter, Reegan, who was now sitting up from the bunk above the one he was seated upon. The thought of her father’s wild younger days were quite amusing to imagine, she had only known him as the kind and respectable Titan that he was today. She reached over into one of their personal duffle bags and retrieved a curious item.
“Well, we found something that he said the guard’s legends called the key. Supposedly this key interacts with a number of sites on the planet. Centuries ago these sites were well known and documented, and the various kings of the different lands protected the sites. But Zenith has all but erased any knowledge of these locations from history.”
Reegan handed the object over to Ricky, who studied it curiously. It was certainly old, that could not be denied, but it did not look like some primitive item, in fact, it looked like a rather sophisticated piece of technology. It was key sized in general, but rectangular. It looked more as though it were made of many smaller interlocking pieces rather than one solid uniform frame. It would have taken quite a level of craftsmanship for anyone to have fashioned such an item with ancient technology.
“Ah, before you can say, ‘what does this have to do with us, or some such nonsense…” Eligah leaned forward, holding up a stubby finger. “Your father used to say there was one for every continent but that the keys worked with any. This site that Zenith claims to have unearthed in the Federated Territories was not something that they uncovered.”
Ricky blinked and scrunched his mouth tightly together. Ancient myths and fairy tales were all well and good, even if some of them had some type of truth behind them, but he still did not understand what some ancient artifact or archeological dig site had to do with them. He had more important things to worry about at the moment with what seemed like the entire Zenith Corporation gunning for them.
“You see, your father and I discovered this artifact in our youth, but for the life of me, all my research, my entire life, I could never uncover the locations of these summoning sites that the ancient tales spoke of. Zenith had buried the information too well I’m afraid. I had searched for decades for proof of their existence and came up empty handed. But then a few weeks ago an old colleague of mine, another archeologist that had been working his entire life to uncover the same secrets called me up to tell me he thought he found one.”
Eligah turned towards the desk and shifted the image to a news story that Zenith had put out about the discovery.
“And then my old friend Ingo went silent. Just before this story came out. I believe my colleague is now dead. Zenith could not risk leaving someone alive with such knowledge. But this has undoubtedly got to be the very same site that Professor Ingo found.”
Ricky leaned against the wall and scratched his chin. This was all suddenly too much to take in. Even if everything he was being told was true…
“So even if this all turns out to be true…these ancient tales of some godlike defender of the planet.” Ricky began. “Are you suggesting we sneak in and use this to call this omnipotent being?”
A dangerous look played in the old prairie dog’s eyes. The glimmer of ancient adventures long lost danced across his face.
“That’s exactly what we do. Imagine being able to literally summon a God. This would be the single greatest scientific discovery in history!”
Or the most reckless, Ricky mused.