I had to chuckle. "We can try following that path, yeah. But if we have been moved here, I don't really think we will be allowed to just leave again, sugartits," I sounded and looked at the bottom camera screen. There was water, or something that was of a similar substance. Probably water, though. "You lead the way. Just don't ram the walls. Getting a new paintjob for this ship might be difficult with tentacles sticking out of its butt."
For now, I decided to let Maren be my guide. She was here as my lucky charm, anyway.
The paint wasn't really what I was worried about. Given that it started fading quickly in radiation and with asteroids hitting the hull some time, it was hardly possible to keep a perfectly clean coat of paint on the ship. Sitting down properly, I beckoned for him to let go of my hand so I could manually steer the ship. Slowly, I began turning before beginning to move forward and descending slightly. The sheen of the flood lights was illuminating the ground slightly, and the coat of liquid refracted the light, causing it to dance across the far walls and ceiling. There was a hole in the wall. Its shape was artificial, and large enough to fit three Corvos comfortably. "See how smooth that rock is?" I asked idly, as we closed the distance to it to about one kilometre.
I idly wondered just how long it would take to get out of here, and consequently how I would explain to Dinah that I hadn't been there in the morning. She would know how to get to school herself, that wasn't the problem, but it would be something she'd be curious about. "Four hours and..." For the second time this day, I got interrupted mid-sentence, but this time by something very much visible. I managed to just in time bring the Hoffnungsschimmer to a halt after the scanner had informed me of a group of approaching vessels from the crevice we were headed towards. It looked as though someone had opened a jar of bees as a swarm of small Nomad vessels darted out of the crevice and into the darkness behind up, probably seeking out other tunnels. They seemed singularly focused on their task, ignoring us, but they did get uncomfortably close, mere meters of distance remaining between us and some of them as they darted past us. Just as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. "Uhm," I began, not really knowing how to comment that. The sensors had lost the signatures after they had moved deeper below the surface. With no new signatures being picked up, I began moving the ship again, entering the crevice in the wall. "You okay?"
There was a significant difference between being in open space and protected by the mighty shields and the heavy armor of the Apahanta and being on the Hoffnungsschimmer while Nomads are close. In fact, sometimes when we were in Omicron Kappa, beyond the Peloponnese Cloud, I sat on the bench of the observation deck and looked at the Nomad drones flying by. They were watching, being curious about what we were doing, and sometimes just flying along the Mako in, what I liked to believe, a playful manner. But here, surrounded by claustrophobic darkness and caught in a labyrinth of artificially carved tunnels, I didn't feel comfortable at all. My heart was beating wildly and my back felt cold while the front was hot. I gave Maren a flat look, trying to play it cool when I replied. "Reminds me of bad sci-fi movies," I sounded, refering to a fictive species that had cyborg drones walking around their ships that ignored invaders until they turned out to be violent. I gulped quietly and looked at the sensor controls while Maren continued to manouver us through the depths of the planet.
"They simply passed by," I said, however adding a connotation of surprise in my voice. As if asking for her confirmation I couldn't help but throw a glance at the rheinlandian woman. "Valery, do they talk with you?" That was directed to Maren's incubus.
The distance between the ship and the enclosing walls was quite impressive, I thought. The sheer mass of stone that would've needed to be moved for all of this. His question was a little naively worded. It wasn't so much as they would commnicate in any sort of conscious manner, but it sort of happened naturally, as if looking someone in the eyes and knowing what they were up to. "They're drones briging certain materials back from somewhere," I replied, figuring that this would satisfy his question. "I don't really think they mind us. They realizes we were here, of course, otherwise they might have smacked into us."
The tunnel itself began a slow turn to the side. Shouldn't it be going upwards? Maybe further down the path. The scanner was starting to create something akin to a map, with each moment we went forward adding more to it. The chamber was now about three kilometres behind us. "There is light," I stated after we had continued down the path for another few minutes. In the distance, the tunnel was giving way to what seemed to another great opening. Soft light streamed into the crevice we'd be emerging from, giving me the impression that there likely would be even more tunnels we'd need to traverse. This entire tunnel system might be so big, without the computer we'd be thoroughly lost. My ponderings were interrupted when the scanner alerted me again, this time to a presence that was merely lingering in the chamber in front of us. It came fairly late, and so, if we squinted, we could see what it was trying to tell us. "Well, we apparently need to go past this," I deadpanned, referring to an Ishtar, which was apparently languishing in the glow emanating from several corners of the room.
To be perfectly honest, if I wouldn't've been sitting while embracing the sight of that shining giant there, I would have fallen onto my butt. My knees turned weak at the sight, and as if I had a flashback, I remembered the horrible feeling, the sounds, the screams of Kapheira in Sigma-13. My heart was at peak performance and my blood was boiling. Audibly inhaling and exhaling, I tried to keep my cool. But my body started to twitch in fear. I was glad my bladder wasn't filled, because I was afraid I would have pissed myself at the sight. It was an Ishtar warform, encapsulated by the cavern walls, hovering there.
"How is this even possible," I sounded out aloud, more to myself than to Maren or Valery. "This thing is longer than three Apahantas in a row. There must be a giant opening leading to the surface." It was the moment when I realized something very unsettling. The Apahanta was not able to perform atmospheric flights, at least not without an upgrade. But this warform was below the surface. It must have been able to emerge and submerge again. With others words, this warform was able to move within most planetary atmospheres. I remembered the recordings from Curacao's nightsky showing the first Ishtar, visible with the bare eye. Right before it was engaged by the HMS Dauntless.
To me, it was sort of humorous that in this situation, even though he was shaking, he wanted to talk to the giant creature. It was what he'd come here to do in the first place, true, but it was counterintuitive. "We're hearing little from it. It seems dormant," I stated, typing a little more on the console to find out something. If it was this still, that could only really mean one thing. As expected, I found out two things. Firstly, the room was flooded with all kinds of radiation, although fairly weakly. The creature was basking in it, and this had a simple reason. "Look," I told Ezrael to draw his eyes away from the behemoth in front of him and to the console. "It is hurt." Below the large arm-esque appendages, there was a sizeable chunk of matter missing from its body. It was as though some force had virtually torn it away from the creature. I knew that, if the sensors would not be interfered with by the radiation in the next chamber, the hole would be closing, albeit slowly, proceeding on a microscopic level. It wasn't like the creature was helpless. Far from it, actually. However, this was a sight that probably nobody had gotten to see before. "Valery could try contacting it."
The sight was truly unique. In multiple ways as probably not many humans ever got that close to the rather new warform that is the Ishtar-type. The damage done to it was significant, and wondered whether it was a good idea to particularly contact that specific specimen. But Valery would probably know better what to do. "Valery, can you convey the diplomatic classics to them? That we come in peace and don't want to harm them? That we try to understand them and whether they could leave the Apahanta alone?" The latter was probably rather specific, but then again, Valery knew why we were here and their way of communicating was probably a bit faster than talking. I was twitching less, but still felt incredibly uncomfortable.
Even though I had asked him whether we should do it or not, Valery had already began communicating with the behemoth. It wasn't like we would really need to worry too much, as I was there as the living shield, after all. "This one is Polyhymnia, the one with many voices," I said, only being able to process parts of what was being exchanged. It was all so quick, notions, concepts and emotions being exchanged at a pace that would dizzying. "They thought our ship was scrap flying in space, so they scooped it up. The liquid in the chamber before was some sort of solution to break elements up."
There was a piercing pain slowly building in my head as the exposure to the far greater mind was slowly but surely overwhelming my senses. "It is digging through my head," I said, through grit teeth, the pain causing cold sweating and I instictively started clutching my head with both hands, assuming as much of a fetal position as was possible being seated on the captain's chair in front of this console.
Then it was over. It had hardly taken longer than five seconds. The sudden release of pressure on my head left me dizzy and I had to focus not to puke all over the console. "We," I began, breathing heavily. "We're supposed to approach it." I felt as tired as though I had had a conversation for more than two days, only that it had been conducted by Valery. "Can you?" I asked him, wanting him to take over the steering for now, otherwise I might actually puke. "I can explain everything later."
We got mixed up with trash. That was a funny thing to know, under different circumstances, but when Maren started to spazz out and fold her body in pain, I was about to panic and moved to her, about to say something before she looked up again and told me what happened. The Vagrant was probably rather intrusive, not caring much for her health, or it was just too much to bear for her. In any way, I was glad nothing bad happened, and that it hit her and not me, as Valery was probably protecting her. "Polyhymnia. I think the one that attacked us in Sigma-13 was called Kapheira, I said, more to myself than to her while moving to the console to do as they asked. Carefully, I brought the ship closer to Polyhymnia. Very slowly, and every now and then I turned my head to Maren to have her tell me when we were close enough. My body was still experiencing an adrenaline rush, which made the sensation of the moment way more intense.
"Funny, uh? We almost got digested by a planet, I said, hoping she would smile about the little joke.
I knew what he was trying to do, and I did appreciate it, but I'd laugh once I'd slept for at least ten hours after we were out of here. During the flood of information that had been exchanged by the hulking figure in front of us and Valery, he had merely watched us. He probably couldn't really comprehend that they could've been communicating months worth of information that would have otherwise needed to be voiced in mere seconds. I'd explain everything after I had slept. I knew what was about to happen and I closed my eyes and rested my head on the console while the ship approached the Nomad.
Seven hundred meters. Six hundred. Five.
Just as quickly as we had been trapped underground, we were gone again, the moment we'd spent in hyperspace not even noticable, as the distance crossed was so short. For a moment, the Nomad was still in front of us. Then it slowly moved away from us before blinking out of existence, leaving us alone a distance away from Moros.
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