The Deep Beyond: A Relic Worlds Novel

By Jeff McArthur

Something strange is happening on the mining planet of Gamma Sardia. A mysterious reading of enormous power is being detected below the surface. Men will kill for it, go to war over it, anything they must to make this powerful relic their own.

But a small group of scientists are willing to sacrifice everything to get to it first so they can discover its hidden secrets. Who created it? Why did their civilization disappear? And can the same thing that happened to them happen to us?

From the universe of Relic Worlds comes this exciting back story of Lancaster James' early adventures, and the history behind the mysteries that beg the question, are we alone in the universe?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff McArthur
• Release date: Jan 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781476454047

Jeff McArthur

Jeff McArthur was born in Nebraska where he began writing before he could read. He went to school in New York, then moved to Los Angeles to begin a film career. In the past couple years he has written a comic book series and published three books. His most recent one, Pro Bono, has just been released, and his upcoming books include a new Relic Worlds novel, and The American Game, about a baseball game between enemy soldiers in the American Civil War.

Book preview

The Deep Beyond:

A Relic Worlds Novel

by

Jeff McArthur

SMASHWORDS EDITION

*****

PUBLISHED BY:

Jeff McArthur on Smashwords

COVER ART COURTESY:

Dreamstime, Inc.

www.dreamstime.com

The Deep Beyond:

A Relic Worlds Novel

Copyright © 2002 - Jeff McArthur

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

*****

Preface

'The Deep Beyond' is part of the series 'Relic Worlds', which chronicles the adventures of Lancaster James, the anthropologist adventurer who travels to distant planets exploring ancient ruins in search of artifacts that will unlock some of the greatest mysteries of the universe.

This book tells the backstory about what happened before Lancaster’s most well-known adventures; when he met his partner Little Jack; when he worked closely with his wife Mika; what led him onto the trail of the Siguerans, a fascinating and powerful race of aliens who spread across the galaxy, then mysteriously disappeared.

This story was originally created in 2002 in a previous incarnation of the series. It exists now in the form of a prequel to the primary storyline, which can be seen at:

www.relicworlds.com

You will find at this site not only the continuing adventures of Lancaster James, but also games and other interactive puzzles which can be solved by the reader.

*****

To Carl, Julian & John

the original travelers

*****

CHAPTER

ONE

The Mission

Where'd they go? asked Steurad. His words were clipped and rapid, a little louder than normal, especially for a man who was trying to stay hidden.

Little Jack recognized it as the early signs of panic. He could sense the emotions of others and where they were going. He expressed none of his own, his eyes perpetually hidden behind wide, black rimmed glasses that were usually fogged over; a result of information beaming into them. His repression of sentiment was especially helpful when reading people’s feelings; their body language, their use of words, the speed of their actions and speech. He focused nothing on himself, and saved everything to study the other person’s signs.

He was intensely focused when he was on a job. And this was a big one; infiltrating the Dynasty Corporation, one of the most powerful in the galaxy. Jack's organization, known only as Unter-Org, didn't work for any corporation. They operated on their own for whoever paid the most. They had even done a job for Dynasty several years earlier, and the business had made the mistake of allowing Unter-Org's electral jockey close to their intra-system. She had gathered passwords and fastwall info for a rainy day, and that day had come.

Takeko Intergalactic, one of their competitors, had detected an extremely intense power source emanating from below a Dynasty refining plant. It radiated far more energy than the planet could ever use, so they wanted to know what Dynasty was creating; and if it was useful for them, they wanted it stolen.

Jude, Jack whispered calmly. His communications were all handled through his glasses. His face gave no sign of his own worry for their safety. He inspired neither encouragement nor fear in those around him. He gave nothing through his stone, rigid face as he watched the windows of information appear on his side of the pale glasses.

Jack! Where've you been all my life? Jude answered casually. Her consciousness was where she enjoyed it most, floating through the electrons of Virtua; the galaxy's electronic universe. It was like another dimension, allowing the user to travel to any computer system in the galaxy, as long as they had the passwords and proper clearances. It was safe for the body, but not always the mind, which was susceptible to damage from malware, anti-personnel programs, viruses, and other online dangers.

Still stern, Little Jack said quietly, It's crater quiet ‘round here.

That reads like a nova sign to me, Jude said back, still not as quiet and discrete as Jack would like.

Not this quiet. We should be underneath the union relations centers, but we haven't spied any seeker bots or heard any talk for an eon now. They're either onto us, or we're lost.

Sec, she said, and she disappeared into a beam of light, flashing along the glow of Virtua, landing on a platform that blinked like lightning. Touching the surface gave Jude a full body sensation she always took a moment to enjoy before connecting with the server. She was asked the password and in the blink of a millisecond she was able to feed it. It was like a key, and another sensation lifted up her body. At home, with the wires connected to her real, physical head, she squirmed and smiled.

Jude, Jack said firmly. He knew she got distracted while receiving information, and he didn't want to know why.

Sorry, she said. I lock you. You're a click backwise and half a degree westerly.

How do we make target?

Hold your thrusters a tick, she said, and she uploaded the schematics of the inner workings of the base. Her avatar jumped inside, and in a flash, her consciousness zigzagged through the tubes and tunnels which spread like a cancer under the buildings. She could see light signatures where people roamed above, and even ghostly smudges where rodents and other underground animals squirmed below the surface. Jude had placed some of the rodent smudges into Jack’s position. She had shut down the sensors in the area, but if she left it completely empty, the guards would have gotten suspicious.

She had shut down sensors in a very wide area in case the very thing that happened came to pass. Jack didn't often get lost, but when every tube looks the same, it's sometimes unavoidable.

She found the turn they had missed; an easy mistake. A small corridor had opened to their left, but it was above a pipe, probably over Little Jack's head, and the others were so green they probably were more worried about sentry bees than where to turn.

But that was a ways back. Another entrance lay ahead, this time lower, under some piping, a perfect place to crawl into the target area. From there it was only a couple quick turns climbing over some tubes before they would reach a door. Being only present inside the schematics, Jude was able to fly straight through the doorway, an obstacle that would be solid for Jack and the others when they got there.

She came out into the grand opening. Even in virtual reality it was stunning. In fact, it was perhaps more impressive in the schematics, as it was mapped more to reflect what the room had once been more than what it currently was. Long, crystal beams stretched to a pyrimidine ceiling where a blast door opened wide to let in long strokes of daylight, which crisscrossed back and forth down the towering room until they lit the smooth, pearl-like floor. A faint greenish glow illuminated a foot into the air, like a shallow pool. The walls were decorated with fine, interlacing shapes of what looked to Jude like vines. They resembled the twisting, thorny tattoo of a rose she had on her thigh.

Embedded in a couple spots on the walls were discolorations that looked to Jude like doorways, but they led to nothing, no catwalks, no stairs, just emptiness.

In the center of the room at the base of this enormous chamber sat a building that had smooth, curved walls with domes that resembled un-blossomed flowers. The surface of the walls shimmered as though they were made of a pure, precious metal. Like the outer walls, embossed vines wound their way up the sides, as though enveloping the building. There were no windows, but she could see that on top there were three points at which the joints of the roof did not touch, creating gaps where one could peak in. A slight green haze, like the one on the floor, emanated from within these chimneys.

There were also no doors, though at several points along the wall there were riveted support beams and perhaps they could house doorways in between them. No part of the building was painted. Everything was either carved or altered in hue due to a change in the metallic structure.

Jude could not enter the building; it had not been mapped in the schematics through which she was traveling. But she could make out two bright globes glowing from within. They shone with an intensity that could not be measured. They commanded her attention so greatly that it was hard to look at anything else when they were in her field of vision. This was clearly what they had come for.

She started to move toward the globes, a little nervous. Even in Virtua, there was a heavy warmth to the objects, and when she started in their direction, she felt a tug, as though they had begun to pull at her.

Then her attention was yanked away. A sound, like a siren from a city in the distance, was ringing. She knew what it meant immediately. Gotta run, she told Jack, and she fed the directions to his glasses.

She heard him make a sound, like he wanted to say something, but she couldn't take the time. She shot like a bullet to the doorway. As she jumped through it, she realized she hadn't opened it for Jack, nor had she checked the temperature on all the pipes he would have to be climbing through. Jack and his team would just have to figure their way through it.

Then the entire grid went black. They knew where she was, and more than that, they knew where Jack's team was. 'No time to bugger over worrying,' she thought. She would be lucky to make it out with her brain un-frazzled. And even if she did make it out, they might trace her physical whereabouts if she didn't log out before they caught her.

*****

The lights went out around Jack just as he had switched over his glasses to look at the map. He heard the other two gasp. Mouse up, he hissed. They'll be searching for our sounds.

They'll read our heat, Steurad said, quieter than before, but still louder than Jack would like. We gotta abort.

Where's your spine? asked Vincent. She had been on missions with Jack before that had gone south, and he always found their way out.

I'd like it to stay directly where it is, Steurad responded.

It's further out than in, whispered Jack, and he began to lead in the direction Jude had sent in the map.

Two low level beams of fog emitted from his glasses. They projected a blue spotlight to anyone within ten feet, but beyond that, the beam was invisible. Steurad was right in that any bots searching for them would be searching for their heat signatures, but it was better not to give them a lit up target as well. Jack hurried as fast as he could toward the low beam Jude had marked as the first anchor point. A loud boom crashed behind him, and he knew Steurad had bumped a pipe. That would echo into the far reaches of the base. Jack didn't even look ‘round, he just shook his head and slowed his pace.

When the resonance faded, Jack could hear a distant mechanical whirring, and he knew seeker bots would be on them soon.

He arrived at the pipe with the gap below it that Jude had marked and Little Jack waved Steurad and Vincent through. The whirring, like the sound of mechanical humming birds, was echoing off the metallic surfaces. They could be coming from any and all directions. He scraped the ground until his hand found a broken piece of rubble and he scooped it up. He then threw it as hard as he could to a corner where it bounced around and out of sight. That would turn the sentries away for a minute or two.

He ducked under the pipe. The other two had had to drop down and almost crawl, but he merely lowered his head and slipped through. As he did, he noticed a brief rise in the floor beneath him. Looking back after reaching the other side, he saw that it was the ruins of a wall. Not a wall for the building they were under, something older. He didn't know how he could tell this; maybe it was the material, perhaps it was the way it was carved, he didn't have time to consider it. Sentry bots could slip through the tiniest holes, and once they did, the mission was over.

Little Jack didn't say a word. He pushed forward, and the other two followed.

They slid over intertwining tubes and around metallic corners until they came to the door Jude had seen. But to them it was hardly visible as anything but a rocky dead end. Jack could feel the panic resonating from Steurad, and even Vincent was tensing up and looking behind them. Somewhere, beyond those pipes, the bots had realized that they had been duped, and the whirring was spreading out, searching for them.

Jack studied the wall with the spotlight from his glasses. It wasn't merely stone. This was the same material he had stepped over beneath the piping. There was an order to the texture that would not come from the raw chaos of nature, but it was meant to look like nature had built it.

This is where the secret entrance is supposed to be, Vincent whispered. Must be some way through. She felt around at the wall. As she did, crusted rock