Beyond Light

The Source of the Signals.

Without more distractions, Team Bravo reached the other side of the advanced alien structure. There was a 20 meters radius platform inside the hexagonal gate.

An elevator, perhaps? The tunnel was inclined down 90 degrees, its walls hosting more tiny lights and bays fitting for drone deployment. They made John feel a little anxious; stepping on the platform would put them at disadvantage.

He ordered his team to keep an eye on them, and everyone crossed inside. There was a control panel next to it. The triangle mark updated the signals’ location: 998 meters below.

“Alright, here we go,” said Derek, putting his hand on the panel of unrecognizable symbols.

Pistons hissed. The platform began to descend, with everyone’s eyes sharp on the drone bays and the empty edges around the elevator.

“Commander, are you there?” spoke Com. Officer Emmerson, interference distorting the call. “I’m losing your signals. We’re having trouble to separate them from those of the Eternity of Return.”

“We’re going further underground. The next mark is almost one kilometer below us,” responded John. “How are things up there?”

“We’re in orbit. Everything’s relaxed with Alpha Team. They’ve counted casualties and collected the bodies,” he made a small pause. “Three people from the destroyed firefly and four marksmen from Alpha.”

“...We’ll give them a proper burial once we’re out,” responded John.

“Understood. The connection is weakening. Please establish a connection with us as soon as you get out from there. Good luck. Take care.”

“Take care too,” John closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling a knot on his chest.

Those soldiers weren’t the first casualties on an extrasolar system, but they were the first deaths on Hawking-616e, and the first people he lost under his command. Thinking that they would not return home, and those expecting them on the solar system would not see them again filled him with bitter scorch.

John never let death around interfere with his duty and performance, but it always affected him no matter how he tried. One of his demonic wonders was thinking about his division back on the academy; what would it be of Jose Rico, Chad West, Adisa Musa, Veronica Philips, if their lives didn’t have to end in hands of terrorists 9 years ago?

To think you could always imagine your next goals and struggles, your grandchildren and elderhood —or how the world would turn to be in the future— always reminded him that nothing was assured. One day you had dreams, goals, people to fight for, or even trouble and depression, and then the next day you died and it was all over. Life didn’t seem to care.

But he would honor those seven soldiers who sacrificed their lives upon the canyon. What mattered at that moment was to keep advancing. There were lives to be saved. Not only those on his team. The ones belonging to the Eternity of Return too.

“How deep does this thing go? We’ve been here a little while, ” said Heinrich.

The elevator continued bypassing tiny lights, alien hieroglyphics, and sealed hexagonal doors on the dark, purplish-silver walls around.

“Only 123 meters,” said John. He had forgotten to share the updated mark with those on his team. He sent it to their HUDs. “Keep ready.”

No more than 30 seconds and the platform halted its descend, making its users face another hexagonal gate. It automatically spread, its six sections retracting like the petals of a rosebud. A drone crossed first to secure the area, and everyone crossed after, their weapons ready to dispatch any foes.

But no one was there. According to John's scanners, it was a much smaller room, 60 meters in width, 50 in length, and 20 in height. Contrary to the structure above, the place was even darker. Some liquid was spilling through the floor, and a fog similar to the one that built the bridge hovered at the level of their waists. The walls on the right and left sides had exposed mechanisms and skeletal structures. No maintenance drones seemed to be taken care of anything.

“Perhaps they are still constructing this part?” said Derek. “There are no any signs of violence around to say this is the result of a fight.”

“So, we are on a house that ain’t even finished,” said Heinrich. “Something tells me this place isn't abandoned by its creators.”

The triangle mark on John’s HUD got updated. It reappeared on the other side of that room. “Maybe. And we’re only fighting their robot maids and guardian dogs. The signals are coming from ahead. We must be near.”

Everyone advanced, the DEFENDER.v4 making steel chirrings, and the V99m’s illuminating the floor on light blue. On the other side, a final hexagonal entrance, not taller than two meters stood, its margins decorated with more indecipherable symbols. An alien panel was next to it, shining lilac.

“Well, ‘less you’ve brought with yourselves a shrinking machine, we are not getting our vehicles through,” Heinrich unlocked the hatch of his triangular and rounded V99m. He, Derek, and the pilot came out of it, and the soldiers aboard the other two self-propelled vehicles left them too.

“Alright, here we go,” John disconnected his nervous system from the Paladin’s controls, and unsealed the cockpit.

He jumped outside and drew out from his back his L23n automatic shotgun, colloquially nicknamed as ‘Firework Shooter’. It was a highly configurable model that was designed to use incendiary/explosive/corrosive ammo or mixes between the three.

Depending on the elements used in the shells, the shots came out dazzling in different colors, the most commonly blue and green. Besides close-quarters combat, it was also used in celebration ceremonies, and there were registers of people using it as a flaregun when lost and stranded.

“I wonder what’s expecting us on the other side,” said Doctor Winslow, approaching the tinier door. “I hope it’s some hot blondies waiting to receive us with open arms for saving them.”

John bypassed the soldiers around making a defensive perimeter. “The only thing expecting you inside is some overgrown grasshopper. Get ready..”

Sergeant Williams drew out two Rowie SMG’s and used them akimbo. Winslow put out his IRM22. John approached the lilac panel and put his black gauntlet on it.

The device beeped, and then the gate unlocked like a dissipating whirlpool. “Alright, let’s go,” a drone entered first, then John, Derek —who needed to flinch due to his height— Heinrich, and another six soldiers.

That room was macabrely different from the rest of the anthill they had just visited. The purplish-platinum color was gone. Everything was dark grey and tenous. Fluorescent green lights came from the bottom. With the shape of a diamond, they found themselves in the lowest part of the room.

Two pairs of stairs reached the oval platform above, where the lights came from. It was much bigger than the last room; 100 meters in height, and 90 in width the platform at the bottom, some 60 meters ahead.

“What’s this place?” wondered a soldier.

“Some lab, perhaps?” guessed another.

Heinrich whistled. “This seems like the place where one of those grown-ass bugs would live.”

The triangle mark updated, pointing to the diamond’s biggest part with a finalizing triangle. Were the signals of the Eternity of Return really coming from that strange place? John gestured to advance, and they all rose through the stars until they reached the bottom. The platform at the end was taller than it looked, raising like an inverted cone.

A cylindrical device in the middle was filled with buttons, screens, panels, wires, and other undecipherable devices. Near the ascending walls were some maintenance platforms like the ones on a hangar, and at the conical walls behind, a thousand of objects that reminded John of some primitive cryogenic bay stood.

Elongated tubes with crystal hatches and a fluorescent green liquid inside were pilled in organized rows, giving them the appearance of cryopods. Was that substance some fissile material, fuel, or real cryopods? They were all cramped up to the ceiling 100 meters above, engulfing the whole platform like a stadium of boxes of action figures.

“How many are those?” Aasoldier looked up, wearing impression and uncalm on his hardened face.

“Hundreds. Maybe more than one thousand,” responded Derek, observing too.

“But what the hell is the place?” asked Doctor Winslow. “Captain, are you sure the Eternity’s signals come from here?”

“Yes,” frowned John, confused as him. “This is the end of the tracking.”

Something was wrong. He checked out through his HUD. Using the info updated on the drones, he checked out if the frequencies matched. He caught the signals and connected to them. Static and white noise rumbled, but the entries matched. The distress signals of the Eternity of Return were coming from their very position.

“By the way, what are those?” asked Doctor Winslow, reaching the walls and facing one of the tanks. “Some material containers? Refrigerant?”

“Some cryopods?” asked Derek, feeling the same hunches as John.

“I don’t think so, this liquid seems corrosive enough to destroy metal,” the Medchief responded. “There’s no way you can put a human body inside without reducing it to molecules.”

“A human body? No,” continued Derek. “But what about a giant insect with a natural exoskeleton? One capable of resisting our bullets?”

John remembered the footage Chief Wallace could recover from the burnt modules: a crewman shooting one of those giant insects without inflicting much damage. Were they before a whole army of them, perhaps? No content could be seen inside, though.

He squeezed his teeth. Maybe they had been fooled. No signs of anything resembling the Eternity of Return nor of his crew were there. But there weren’t any insects either. Not even those robots that left them alone and had given up. What was it all about?”

Everyone then turned around to face the cylindrical device in the middle. It shot blue light. From it, a figure John recognized appeared as a hologram. The puzzle was connecting itself...