Terra Archaios

Chapter 1: Ceres

“Remember, nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say.” Mission Commander Hughes of the Spacecraft, Odysseus stated as he smiled at Mission Security Specialist, Jake Oglesby.

“Thanks, grandpa.” Jake quipped back at his senior.

Hughes was a veteran astronaut of over thirty years who delighted in easing stressful situations with a bit of joviality. Jake smiled back at his senior as he prepared to become the first person to set foot upon an asteroid. That asteroid just happened to be Ceres, the largest asteroid located in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. The brains and money behind the historical moment were none other than the global entrepreneur, Aidan Cologne, and his corporation, GalaxyX.

The original mission had been to make a manned flight to Mars and complete two weeks of surveillance from space before returning to Earth. There was to be no planet-fall or landing of any type on this flight even though the Odysseus was designed specifically with two drop ships, the Penelope and the Telemachus. Each drop ship could land and take off from the surface of a low gravity planet, moon, asteroid, or other heavenly body. Aboard the high-tech Odysseus were fifty-eight of the best and brightest individuals that could have been assembled from the fields of science.

This was Odysseus’ maiden voyage and it was hoped that it would be the first of many to the red planet and others. It had been designed to carry a complement of a hundred and fifty crew and passengers for colonization and galactic tourism. The ship had been loaded with the maximum fuel and provisions to see how well it would fare. Even though future tourism flights were envisioned, the living quarters were not luxurious. Luxury took a backseat to functionality and minimalistic décor. The viewing areas of the ship were the only luxury that could be seen since the passengers would more than likely be spending most of their time.

In addition to the scientific team aboard the Odysseus were twelve individuals that would handle any type of situation outside of the mission perimeters to include landing if necessary. These individuals were trained for emergency maintenance outside the spacecraft if needed, onboard maintenance, and unforeseen situation that may arise. Unknown to the public, these individuals had extensive military backgrounds and four were experienced pilots. The CEO of GalaxyX was adamant that a security force accompanied the scientific team just in case the unthinkable may occur and hostile lifeforms were encountered during any phase of the mission. All the security force was trained in zero gravity combat and the use of lethal and nonlethal weaponry.

The mission changed drastically when the GalaxyX team back on Earth spotted a structure on Ceres while viewing photos taken by a flyby of an unmanned probe. The probe had been launched two months before the launch of the spacecraft, Odysseus. The probe was to help map the voyage of Odysseus to Mars and to continue to the Asteroid belt where it would survey viable asteroids for possible future mining operations.

The GalaxyX team was beside themselves when the probe relayed photos of Ceres. In the photos, the structure couldn’t be anything but artificial. The reason to believe it was artificial in origin? The photos from the probe showed clear Sumerian cuneiform writing over and around what appeared to be huge doors set into the structure. The structure was positioned at the end of a long flat crevice or valley. What was also exciting yet terrifying was the fact that the crevice or valley was at least a hundred yards wide and five miles long with what appeared to be phosphorescent rocks that absorbed UV rays and glows when the UV source is removed. The valley and structure had gone unobserved due to its location on Ceres.

When word reached Odysseus, Commander Hughes had joked with the GalaxyX CEO about making an unscheduled stop on Ceres for takeout. The joke had caused gears to turn and in a matter of hours, the mission to Ceres was born. Odysseus had ample fuel for the flyby of Mars and a quick jaunt to Ceres and then back to Earth. A media blackout was ordered by GalaxyX until after a successful flyby had been accomplished. The extra amount of time added to the mission was explained to be an extended flyby of Mars to gather more data on the planet and its moons.

However, on approach to Ceres, the crew of the Odysseus was unable to observe the structure, therefore the Penelope was launched with the security force, two astrophysicists, and Commander Hughes. Upon flying precariously close to the surface of Ceres, the structure was observed and the decision to land was made to investigate the structure and gather more information if possible. The structure was hidden from prying eyes in what was a valley, how the unmanned probe had been able to take the photos was a mystery. Commander Hughes assured GalaxyX leadership that a landing could be made successfully with the following takeoff, due to the clear landing strip leading to the structure at the end of the valley. The go-ahead was given for the landing to gather soil samples and scientific readings from Ceres’ surface as a secondary goal. The primary goal was to get up close photos and video of the Sumerian cuneiform that had been observed by the unmanned probe.

Jake had persuaded Commander Hughes to convince the CEO to allow a manned surface reconnaissance of the structure. The Odysseus’ crew were all excited but filled with anxiety as the Penelope performed a perfect landing upon the Ceres and taxied within two miles of the structure. Now everyone was waiting for Jake and the moment of truth.

“In all seriousness, do not take any chances. We don’t know what you may find out there. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Keep on coms and relay everything you see.” Hughes instructed.

“No worries. It’s just a walk in the park.” Jake replied.

“A park over five hundred thousand miles from home and with no trees or air to breath.” Hughes reminded the younger man.

“Piece of cake. A little stroll around and I’ll be back for dinner. Have my celebration waiting when I get back.”

“You know it,” Hughes said as he placed the helmet over Jake’s head and locked it into place.

The environmental pack on Jake’s back was easily connected to his pressurized suit. A hissing noise sounded in Jake’s ears for a moment as the suit pressurized. The stale air of the environmental rebreather filled his nostrils.

“Still having those dreams?” Hughes asked Jake.

“Every night,” Jake replied. “But now she speaks to me, at least.”

“Are you sure you’re up for this? I can have one of the other security members take this one.”

“Not on your life. This is why they chose me. Besides I don’t put any stock into dreams, you know that. Plus, if I find a beautiful woman walking around in the vacuum of space, I’m not going to stick around to ask her out to dinner.” Jake laughed.

“Just be careful.” Hughes pressed.

“Com check,” Jake said, testing the com-link of his suit.

“Command reads you, Jake. All systems show green across the board. Oxygen tanks at full with eight hours of primary tank and four hours of emergency air.” Ruth said from Penelope’s command deck.

“Jake, this is Sergeant First Class Kennedy. Are you certain that you don’t want someone to accompany you, as backup?” The second in command of the security force asked over the communication channel.

“Negative Sam. Have the team ready just in case I find anything hostile. It’s doubtful since this is a dead asteroid.” Jake replied.

“Remember, the material composition of the valley is going to play hell with communications. We’ll be able to receive you but you may not be able to receive us. It’s your show but if you have a bad feeling, get your ass back to the ship, understood?” Hughes emphasized to Jake.

“Understood.” Jake acknowledged.

“Ready?” Hughes asked and Jake gave him a thumbs up.

Hughes moved back, out of the inner chamber to the airlock. Jake turned to face the hatch that would lead him into the airlock chamber. Stepping forward, he palmed the control to activate the inner airlock hatch. Once the hatch had swung open, he stepped over the lip of the hatch, taking one more step closer to making history. Turning, he palmed the control that would slide the inner airlock door back into place. Once the red light showed that the hatch was sealed, he palmed the second control that pressurized the airlock chamber and pumped the precious oxygen supply back into Penelope’s oxygen supply.

Jake stood before the outer airlock door, anticipation and anxiety pressing down upon him. He palmed the control for the outer airlock hatch. A soft hissing sound reverberated in his helmet as what was left of the air in the chamber was quickly sucked out into the void of space.

Without ceremony, Jake stepped past the outer airlock and onto the ramp leading to the surface of Ceres. The outer airlock slid back into place once he was far enough away. The monitoring display on his left forearm showed the interactive real-time mapping GPS. It showed his exact location and the distance between him and Penelope. He stepped gingerly due to the lack of discernable gravity on Ceres. The multiple cameras were feeding information back to the command deck from his suit.

Jake’s suit, like all the other suits aboard the Odysseus and the two drop ships, was equipped with cameras that captured every possible angle and direction including night vision and thermal images that could pick up images through fog or debris in the air. The corporate bigwigs had spared no expense in capturing all the data they could with their venture.

Jake’s mind snapped back to the dreams he had been having since well before the decision was made to visit Ceres. The dream always started the same. He was suited up in his pressurized suit in a valley on Ceres. His com-link was down and he had left his rover behind as he explored a cave of some sort. As time went on, other elements were added to the dream. For the past three nights, the dream had included a beautiful red-haired woman with bright green eyes. Last night he was able to ask her name. She replied, Mira.

“Command, the surface appears to have the consistency of sand and silt,” Jake reported, again without ceremony as he stepped from the ramp to the surface of Ceres, a feeling of anxiety and coming home flooded over him.

“You could have given a memorable speech as Armstrong gave.” Hughes quipped over the radio.

“That would make it seem that we wouldn’t be coming back. I very much intend on returning, if all possible.” Jake replied with a chuckle.

Another airlock opened on the bottom of the craft and a small two-person vehicle was lowered to the surface of Ceres. Jake made his way to the vehicle and uncoupled it from the lift. Sitting in the driver’s seat, he powered the vehicle up. All systems were green including the four extra eight-hour air tanks. The solar batteries were fully charged and instruments were fully operational. The vehicle was also equipped with various cameras and a GPS as a backup to those that were contained in Jake’s suit. Powerful LED spotlights adorn the vehicle, bathing the surface in all directions with their brilliance.

Jake set off in a direct line along the “landing strip” putting distance between him and Penelope. In the distance, a structure observed from orbit loomed out of the terrain with what appeared to be enormous doors. The structure had an ominous appearance, that of having been carved from Ceres’ landscape. Several long pipe-like structures reached out of the dome towards space and were emitting some type of vapor much as underwater volcanoes did. The vapor hung heavy in the space above the structure

Jake stopped periodically to take soil samples as he went. He was astonished to find that the surface had a radioactive reading the closer he came to the structure which he radioed back to Command. They urged him to be careful and if the radiation increased, to return to the ship immediately. But Jake had no intentions of returning when the threat was so minor. He had been dreaming of such an opportunity that this mission has given him and he was going to see it through to the end.

The valley walls were jagged outcroppings of quartz. The valley floor was covered in light sediment that had settled over time but the sediment was covering a thick, deep bed of quartz, similar to what made up the valley walls. It appeared that the valley had been scorched by high temperature and extreme pressure at some point in its distant past.

The closer Jake came to the structure, he began to have an uneasy feeling of being watched. When he was half a mile from the doors, he saw that they were slightly open. On approach, he verified that the vehicle could navigate easily through the doors which meant he wouldn’t have to abandon the vehicle to continue exploring. The spotlights on the vehicle showed bright all around, reaching into the smallest of crevices to expose the surface for video recording that would later be analyzed.

“Command, I am starting to experience radio static. How do you read me?” Jake asked over the radio.

“Receiving you loud and clear. Video feeds are strong. How do you read command?” Sarah, the radio and communication specialist asked from the Command Deck.

“Command, radio reception is spotty at best. The reception is cutting out every few seconds. The density of the valley is affecting reception.” Jake replied.

“Readings show quartz on the surface and valley walls at a depth of twenty feet. Below that readings are showing a high concentration of iron deposits below that to a depth of several hundred feet.” Command informed Jake.

“Copy Command. High concentrations of quartz and iron. I will continue broadcasting even if I lose reception as planned. Continuing.” Jake acknowledged as he pushed forward to the end of the valley.

Jake halted the vehicle at a few hundred feet from the doors. He took soil samples before proceeding on. He found what they had perceived as doors were indeed doors fashioned out of quartz and were sitting on a track system to be slid back out of the way or together to be sealed shut. From the looks and sediment along the tracks, he deduced that the doors had been sitting open for an unknown amount of time. The thought escaped Jake at the time that they were opened just enough that the vehicle could barely make it past.

“Command, I’m going in,” Jake announced as he climbed back into the vehicle and continued forward.

“Be careful, Jake,” Hughes said over the radio.

The vehicle rolled smoothly into a cavernous expanse within the structure. Jake couldn’t believe how large the structure was. Laser readings along the walls and ceiling showed a distance of three miles wide, a mile high, and six miles long. The atmosphere within the structure began to change. Moisture started to appear on his visor while clouds of vapor drifted about. A breeze seemed to be blowing the further he went.

“Command, are you seeing this?” Jake asked. “I’m seeing some kind of moisture collecting on my suit and the vehicle. There appear to be vapor clouds but the radiation reading is still nominal. Continuing forward.”

Command did not respond. Jake took their silence as confirmation that the composition of the valley was causing reception issues with his radio. He preceded according to his mission perimeters, hoping that Odysseus and Penelope were still receiving his transmissions.

Back on the Command Deck, Commander Hughes was about to lose his mind. Verbal communications to and from Jake were being affected presumably by the quartz and iron deposits of the valley but oddly enough the video feeds continued to be received with no interference at all. Every member of the crew was watching as the doors slid closed moments after Jake passed through them, seemingly unnoticed by Jake. Readings from the vehicle’s monitoring system began to read atmospheric pressure within the expansive structure. A dim light began to be observed on the monitors higher up on the structure’s interior walls. All that the crew could do was watch and wait as Jake continued along his tract.

After an hour, Jake finally came to the far end of the structure. He veered the vehicle to the right and followed the wall in hopes of finding an opening or something. He halted the vehicle three hundred feet from where he had turned. A massive door thirty feet tall and ten feet wide appeared to be cut into the quartz wall itself. The door, and there was no other way to describe the opening, was partially open with just enough room for Jake to step through. He could see that the door opened into a twenty-foot-wide corridor. He couldn’t see the end of the corridor or the ceiling. He had an uneasy feeling about leaving the vehicle behind but this was what he had signed on for.

“Command, I found a door and I’m going in. Wish me luck. Have the security force standing by with the assault vehicle, in case I get into trouble.” Jake radioed.

“Sam, is the security force prepped?” Commander Hughes asked over the ship’s communications system.

“Affirmative. The assault vehicle is prepped and we are standing by.” Sergeant Kennedy replied.

The tension on the command deck could have been cut with a knife. Commander Hughes could do nothing but continue to watch while pacing about and pray that the need for the assault vehicle was not needed. The specially designed eighteen-person assault vehicle was created by the U.S Space Force and this was its test run on terrain other than the Earth. Its mission was multi-fold. Its main mission would be if an aggressive force was encountered. Its secondary mission was to extract a trapped astronaut, if necessary, be it from a deep crevice or a cave-in while exploring an unstable cavern. The vehicle was made for more than combat; it was a rescue and exploration vehicle at its heart. Each drop ship had one and the Odysseus had four additional vehicles, six in total.

The light from Jake’s suit pierced thirty feet into the darkness ahead. The floor was covered in the same sediment as the valley. Jake made a mental note to do an extensive mineral check once he returned to the ship to see exactly what made up the sediment.

Jake took ten steps past the door and into the corridor when his monitor sounded an alarm. Radiation readings suddenly spiked to a dangerous level before the readings dropped and the radiation dissipated just as suddenly as it began. He heard a loud bang and turned to see that the door had closed behind him. The corridor was suddenly bathed in brilliant white light from the ceiling and walls. Jake rushed back to the door only to find that it had no handle nor a way to open it.

“Command, I’m trapped. Do you read? Command?” Jake screamed.

“There is no need to scream, I can hear you.” A feminine voice came from behind him.

Jake whirled around to find a woman that had stepped right out of his dreams, standing no more than ten feet away with long red hair pulled back in a twisted braid that was draped over her left shoulder and adorned with a gold encrusted diadem. The golden gown she wore brushed the floor but seemed not to be soiled by the sediment on the floor. She wore golden sandals and bracelets of gold and precious gems. Her bright blue eyes sparkled as did her smile. Around her waist was a jewel-encrusted belt that held several pouches and a long silvery knife in a scabbard of gold.

Behind the female, a half dozen red-haired soldiers with odd-looking weapons stood, blocking Jake’s progression along the corridor. The soldiers were attired in ancient-looking armor that would be the centerpiece of many museum exhibits. Each had a wide belt with pouches, a long-curved scimitar sword, and other weapons attached to it with another belt running from the right hip over the left shoulder. Over the armor was a jewel-encrusted harness that resembled an H. Their legs were bare except for bindings that wrapped around the thigh, knee, calf, and just above the ankle where the sandal footwear was attached. Along the outer and inner part of the leg, another binding held the wrappings in place to keep them from slipping up or down.

The woman’s and soldiers’ piercing blue eyes seemed to glow even in the bright light of the corridor. Jake’s mind flashed back to the theory of what the descendants of the ancient Anunnaki aliens may have looked like. It was speculated that the Anunnaki aliens had either helped create the human race on Earth or had manipulated the species on Earth to evolve into modern humans. These aliens were said to be giants and their offspring inherited their red hair from them. Many of their offspring were giants themselves, standing well over seven to eight feet tall with red hair and having six digits upon each hand and foot as these soldiers had. Even the female had six digits on each appendage. Gilgamesh of Mesopotamian culture and Goliath the giant Philistine referred to in Hebrew and Christian Bibles, were two that were believed to be descendants of the Anunnaki.

“Who are you? How is this possible? How are you speaking English?” Jake demanded.

“It’s ok. Everything will be explained to you in short order. As for how I come to speak English. Simple, I learned from your radio and television broadcasts. As it is, I speak numerous languages of your planet and many others that you probably have never heard.”

“How are you breathing without a space suit and speaking in a vacuum?” Jake asked, fear creeping onto his face.

“The cavern area and surrounding structure have been pressurized and filled with a breathable atmosphere. You can take your helmet off if you would like. No harm will come to you by breathing our air.”

Jake slowly broke the pressurized seal on his helmet, raising the visor, and found the air crisp, clean, and smelling of pine. He checked his monitor and found that the atmosphere was close to that of Earth, with a higher percentage of oxygen in the air. Removing his helmet, he attached it to his belt. He pulled his gloves off before tucking them into his helmet for safekeeping.

“What do you want with me?” Jake demanded.

“Not me. My master. Come, Jake Oglesby, he’s waiting for you.” The woman said.

“How do you know my name?” Jake demanded, not moving.

“We know quite a deal about you and your friends aboard the Odysseus and your military drop ships. We have been listening to your transmissions and were able to communicate with the AIs of not only the Odysseus but your drop ships as well.” The woman explained. “Now come before my master becomes irritated. He’s not nice when he’s irritated.” The woman warned.

“You know my name, it’s only fair that I know yours,” Jake asked.

“Mira. Now, come. Or must the soldiers force you to comply at the end of a sword?” Mira asked Jake as the soldiers parted to fall in behind Jake.

“I can manage on my own, thank you. No need to get all aggressive on me. There is no place for me to go except to accompany you.” Jake assured her.

“That is wise of you,” Mira said, turning to walk down the corridor followed closely by Jake with the soldiers bringing up the rear.

Jake knew his only course of action was to follow the woman but he held out hope that he would find a way back to Penelope to warn the others. With each step, his recurring dreams came to life. Ahead, he knew something horrible waited, but what? Was it Mira’s Master or was it something altogether different? The six soldiers fell in behind Jake. So much for making a break for it, Jake thought.

Aboard the Penelope, Commander Hughes was making ready to join the security force to rescue Jake. Commander Hughes palmed the inner airlock door but nothing happened. He tried the manual release and found it would not budge.

“Commander Hughes. Do not attempt to interfere. I have called you here to deliver the one called Jake to me. No one else will be permitted to leave your ship nor will I allow you to leave until I decide to.” An ominous voice sounded over the speakers of the craft and out of the air itself, reverberated off the hull of the ship.

The dropship fell silent as an intense white light engulfed it. A moment later, the crew of the Penelope fell unconscious as did the remaining crew aboard the Odysseus. The security force was in the process of launching the assault vehicle as they were knocked unconscious by the beam of energy. Deep within the structure, Jake followed Mira not sure if he was dreaming or awake, with no knowledge of what dangers his shipmates were in. His only thought at the moment was what fate awaited him upon meeting Mira’s Master.