Greets,
Well this is the newest version of Dreams. For those who haven't seen this
before it's the first fic in the Phantom Rider universe. Also one of the
newest stories I've done, along with the first fic I've done in the
first person. _Any_ C+C is welcome. I think I did enough handholding with
the races and stuff but if anything is confusing, mail me and tell
me where it be.
I've seperated it into parts; about 4-5 pages each. In the subject it will
say part 1 of blank. I'll be updating my homepage soon that has all my
stories on it. Any C+C can be sent to: phantomr@sprynet.com. Thanks
for your time,
Bentley
phantomr@sprynet.com
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/phantomr
Bensile Inc. presents:
PHANTOM RIDERS:
Dreams
By. R. Bentley
Email: phantomr@sprynet.com
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/phantomr/Keepers.htm
Gamma Version
1-20-97
I remember what happened.
What I experienced will probably
remain with me forever until I pass
from this world onto the next.
I was the first to experimented
on by our God. I was the first to
escape his experiments. I ran like a child as my family and friends
walked willingly into his arms. Into the light. Into the darkness. I
listened to their screams as I coward in the city that I helped build.
I
watched them be torn apart like rag dolls and stitched up like walking
corpses. And I was the one they tried to hunt down.
Perhaps I should start at the
beginning of all this.
My name is Cassi and I am a
Tendor. You might be thinking why does my
name sound so pronounceable. My name in your language would make no
sense even if I were to try and translate correctly. In my language my
name sounds like Cassi. So that is what you can call me. I was born into
a family of three daughters and two sons onboard a returning star
cruiser from the deep throws of space. I am told that when I took my
first breath of air I was clinically dead for the first hour. My mother
was still having birthing pains as I withered away. My father hadn't yet
been told of my birthing. He was still working; designing ships to take
our race to the stars. He arrived as I'm told when I stopped breathing.
My first and most certainly not the last time the darkness embraced me.
According to my birth records
in the core of our planet I was borne in
a year that been designated as one of silence. A year when no child
would be born to anyone. No matter what you believed in. No matter what
rank in society your parents held. I as a child did not exist. The
records have an note attached to them. It says: "This baby was
born
into our world in the third year of silence and she ceased to exist.
Through no fault of her parents or the doctors she was born a day early.
This baby was a kicker. She survived long enough for the new year to
cross the horizon and she lived."
The first thing I remember was
closing my eyes because of the light.
The death around me screamed as a candle was lit. It began to grow
brighter, whiter then our skin. It was then when I became the first baby
to be born in the fifth year of enlightenment. I've viewed the vids of
my birth when I passed my age of enlightenment. My parents looked so
happy when I came into the world. The camera taking the vids nearly
shorted out due to how much light I was giving off in the room. My
sisters and brothers were informed of my death and almost didn't believe
that I rose from the dead a day later. According them I was a terror
from day one. I guess setting the house on fire three times, practicing
my magic tricks thus levitating the building where my parents worked and
piloting a cruiser into the drink would be called a terror eh?
Tendors are made of pure energy
and thought. A thin layer of skin keeps
our life force together and stable. Without this thin layer we would
look like mists of white blue energy. We normally ware robes or cloaks
wherever we go. Too much friction can break the skin and we loose our
precious life. As a child I was watched over with great detail. My
parents and older siblings made sure I didn't hurt myself. Once I grew
older my skin grew thicker. Our skin can be made to look transparent or
fully opaque it all depends on the individual. My eyes are the only
thing that remind me of my birthday. They are black against my white
blue skin. Deep black pools of light.
The year of enlightenment was
a year where most of our planets
factories began to build new vehicles to travel into the black sky which
one of our famous cruisers dubbed space. Space turned out to be very
boring. I muttered that to my old sister when she took me up in one of
her cruisers. Our planet had light, detail, originality while space was
just black. Nothing, zip, nada. I pouted for about another week until we
hit planet side and went to work as a cruiser's first mate. I don't know
why, I don't know how. Maybe it was the fact we could only go so far
before loosing sight of our home world. The one place that fascinated me
the most was the one place I wanted to leave.
My mother had started out as
a cruiser Captain and worked her way up
into the High Council. She retired from the HC once I passed my tests of
abilities and progression; a batch of tests that show how much knowledge
one has grasped since they were borne. Rumors circulated that I had
gotten special treatment due to what my parents did, even though most of
my class mates will vouch for me on this one. I distanced myself from my
parents while I study for the test, even though these tests are ones you
can't study for I did anyway. I trekked up into the ruins of the first
city that was built on our world and stayed there with a group from my
class and studied until it flowed from our ears. Each one of us passed
with high honors. Looking back now at all that happened I'm not as
shocked as I was to see all of us getting dumped on the same cruiser or
for my selection of a crew.
But I'm getting a head of myself.
After the tests I was given
the opportunity to either choose which
cruiser I wanted to serve on. It was that or let the Academy Council
randomly choose which cruiser and which post. I was asked during the
celebration party for all of the students that passed. I was completely
drunk on whatever Firewater my parents had hidden away for such an
occasion. I don't even remember what I said, let it not be said I cannot
hold my 'water. One drink of the stuff and I'm in heaven, I'm not
addicted to the stuff by a long shot. I've heard the older the 'water
the worse the hang over will be in the morning. The talk from all the
religious addicts will say 'water pollutes you're soul. All in all, I
have no memory of any of the events of the party. I wish I did. I could
at least remember calling my ex-boyfriend a complete jerk off to his
face and dumping him right on the spot.
At first I thought enrolling
and passing the tests would be easy. They
were. I think the hardest part was remember what job was ment for what
cruiser. To say that I had put a cruiser through it's paces would be an
understatement. I nearly cost my father his job giving his own designs
a
shake down cruise. After a few trials and errors I was suspended. Planet
side was my new home for at least a cycle. I stayed on planet and
basically annoyed the hell out my parents until my youngest sister came
home with her new baby.
Babies started to pop up everywhere,
it wasn't that I had the same idea
as everyone else, I hadn't found anyone yet. My ex-boyfriend was one of
the few to enlist in a military program to Terraform one of the twenty
satellites in orbit of our planet. Friends from my little test group
were crossed off the list. They felt more like family then anything
else. The coupling years seemed to drag by until a rumor that I had been
hearing about from some of the cruiser Captain's came true. A chance to
enlist on a deep space cruiser, it's goal to explore much farther out
then any of us had even dreamt off. My parents presented the cruiser to
me as a birthday present and I was to be her Captain. I was able to
recall most of my test groupies and assign them spots on the manifest,
my oldest brother was given a spot as science officer and we dubbed her
the Searcher. A crew compliment of ten thousand we set sail on the eve
of a new year.
The Searcher was a sleek ship.
She look big on the outside but on the
inside it was even larger. You may think that a crew compliment of ten
thousand is rather large waste of space and people. Ten thousand was a
our scientists best guess of how many people would be on board when we
returned from our journey. The male to female ratio on the ship was a
little biased in my view. The Captain only got to choose her command
staff, anyone else was chosen by the council. We had people from all
walks of life on board; scientists, warriors, civilians. If you hadn't
guessed there were more women on board then men.
We kept in contact with our
home world through a long range
communication set up in the middle of the ship. Something that had been
kept top secret to the public. Our sentient AI that rested in the bowls
of our ship was equipped with infinite memory. One test of this AI was
to record everything that went on during the voyage via cameras and
microphones built into our skin. The only people privileged to any
information recorded was the Captain and Second Officer.
At first I didn't know why they
kept the comm system a secret. It
projected an image over a infinitely long distance. My view changed at
the end of the sixth month when the long range sensors reported another
ship in our vicinity. I ordered the ship out of hyperspace, the ship's
tac drives were brought down to stand-by and the Searcher reappeared in
normal black, boring space.
My brother was the first to
react, he scanned the ship in front of us
and reported. It was one of our cruisers, it just sat out there. Her
hull had been torn apart and a crew of what looked to be thirty just
drifted in front of us. I ordered all communication lines to be cut
immediately and towed the remains on board for an through investigation.
That was when the shit hit the
fan.
Accessing Searcher's Captain's
Entry, log 0061.
"I detest this, Captain!"
"Move out of the way, Ciro,
we need to get through." I replied and held
back the security guards. I glared down the religious figure, the one
I'd had been butting heads with ever since we left dry dock. The man
according to his files was known as Ciro and he was one of the older
Mages on board and he was so stubborn. He and two other of his kind
blocked the door way to the main hangar bay. All the debris from the
derelict had been tractored on board per my orders. After that all of it
had gone through deep detox and was ready to be looked over. Why is he
here, I thought. "Get away from the door."
Ciro and his two lower disciples
took an aggressive step forward. Their
bows flickered for a moment as their mystic energy surged from their
bodies to their weapons. "We cannot allow to go any further Captain,
we
have orders." The younger female disciple retorted and looked away
from
my ole holier then thou don't piss off the Captain death glare.
Something I had begun to perfect almost to a T. "Only followers can
enter and see what remains."
"Orders from who?!"
Decca responded from behind the two groups of
armored security guards. She's the senior helmsman for the Searcher and
probably the second most heavily trained person in hand to hand combat
on my boat. She also has very short fuse when it came to the religious
sect, pairing her up with my brother had been the first thing I'd done
when we set sail. He'd calmed her down considerably. She stood on her
tip toes to see and nudged the navigator to move over more so she could
see. This corridor was getting cramped, it wasn't ment for a close
quarters confrontation. If the Mages started up with their magic the
door to the hangar bay would be the first thing to go then outer hull
and then us.
"Our orders are to search
space and record what we see," my brother
Alex semi-quoted the rules engraved on the wall on the bridge. He stood
right behind me, behind him were the guards, then Decca, then Dina; our
navigator. I could have sworn I heard one of the guards say "pleaze
start a fight, pleeze start a fight." I heard Alex shuffle to the
right
of me. He ducked his head under the outer airlock frame to try and get
a
better look. This was as far as we had gotten before one of the younger
Mages had dropped water on me by accident. I was the only one inside the
inner air lock, the others were still clustered in behind the guards. "I
take it you have orders from the Black Arts Council, right Ciro?"
Ciro's fluffy white eye brows
shot to the top of his head. His hands
nearly dropped his bow on the deck. He recovered quickly and sucked in
his chest. "I do yes." He replied. "And they told me not
to allow anyone
besides our followers through this door."
Alex leaned forward through
the door frame, reached out with his right
hand and pulled me back just enough so he could whisper in my ear. My
eyebrows raised this time and I smiled. "Then you won't mind Alex
taking
a look then?" I said and crossed my arms.
Both of the younger Mages looked
at each other then at Ciro. "What is
she talking about, sir?"
"He's a Mage's apprentice,"
Ciro muttered through his white beard.
Alex nodded gleefully, pulled
out his final test scores and his
certification of passing. Decca was the only one who gave a pat on the
back to Alex while the other people in the corridor let out a slight
groan. He had been showing it off to people since the ship left dry
dock. They had almost forgotten about how much of a show off he was
until he pulled that one piece of paper out. I know he didn't hear one
of the guards say "if he does that one more time do I have your
permission to slap him around, just a little sir?" "Cassi would
be too
but she filed her papers before we pulled anchor. She should qualified
by now. So are you going to let us both pass or are you going to stand
there and let us wait until you pass out or your power runs out."
Ciro's teeth started to grind
together as he motioned for both of his
apprentices to stand down. "You will tell none of your crew this
Captain."
I took a step forward, little
droplets of water trailed behind me.
"What am I supposed to tell them Ciro, the debris you all saw was
reflection of our own ship? There's nothing out here but space. No one
would believe me and sooner or later I would probably be asked to step
down due to incompetence or something." I said in one deep breath.
"Besides how bad can it be?" I commented.
Ciro's eyes met mine as the
outer air lock door hissed open.
Searcher's Captain's Entry 0062
End of File.
On that deck we saw why the
secrecy of the communication system had
been so tight. The debris on the deck of the hangar bay was the remains
of one of the religious sect's cruisers. Her crew compliment had been
only one or two but the passenger on that cruiser had been one of the
sect's rulers. The other people we found were unidentifiable. All of the
unidentifiable remains were placed down in the core's lock up. A place
no one could get into except for myself, Em and doc' Ch'abo. The doc'
begun his autopsies as soon as we put them through detox.
I had read about the passenger
in books they had supplied at the
Academy for us. The few people in the religious sect who wanted to
become a member of the religious sect were called Mages. Mages
encompassed people who were born into the religious sect. People who
were not born into the Mages Sect, those people were known as Pryors.
Their ruler had been known as Knol, he had tried to unify church and
state into one big bundle. He was also one of founders of the religious
sect and the one that had introduced Black Arts into the Sect. This was
back during the age of silence, a few years before I was born.
Black Arts usage had been foundation
for the long range comm system and
for most our planet's fleet. The military along with my father must
have tried to duplicate the idea with out using the Arts as a crutch. It
worked. A system that was our only link back home. The same system we
hadn't used since we found Knol. So why the hell did we find Knol's
remains on the deck of my ship and why did we find a brand new, never
been touch by Tendor hands Black Arts book clasped in his hands. A book
that had never been released to the public.
Over dinner one night in my
cabin Alex had explained that Knol's ship
had been lost in a solar storm of some kind. He was coming back from a
dig on one of our moons when his cruiser vanished off the radar screens.
The storm according to the transcripts had appeared one moment engulfed
the cruiser and vanished. Knol's vision had snow balled over the next
few years. I was Mage on my father's side, Alex and I were the only ones
who expressed interest in the Arts at a very early age. Over the next
few months the comm system still bothered me a little bit. So what if it
was long range, it wasn't like anyone was out this far anyway.
Me and my big mouth.
Accessing Searcher's Bridge
Entry, Log 1012
Alex moved from one console
to another and eyed the readings as they
came in from the long and short range scanners. His smile was
illuminated by the scanner's monitors as he sat back in his seat.
"Computer AI has confirmed Captain," he reported. He looked over
his
shoulder and winked at Decca. "We've got a planet coming up on us."
I turned in my seat to make
sure Alex wasn't joking. My frown brought
only a very vigorous nod while he showed his science mate what to do.
"Visual!" I ordered.
The view screen that made up
three fourths of the bridge's main window
fuzzed over with snow for a moment and then became crystal clear. A
jewel of a planet appeared to the left of the screen while various
numbers appeared to the other side of the screen. The entire bridge crew
turned in their seats as Decca slowed the ship back into normal space
and blue white planet filled the main window. "Dina, lock that planet
coordinates into the computer and plot a reverse course back to home,"
Decca murmured in awe.
"Aye."
"She's smaller then our
home world, energy output from the core is off
the scale," Alex replied to my thought before it reached my lips.
"Looks
like it's a new borne."
"Reverse course appearing
on screen two." Dina commented and fed the
information from the nav computer into the screen's projectors.
Everyone not in complete awe
of this spectacle turned to see the second
largest screen on the window surge to life. Our homeworld appeared in
the middle of the screen, a wavy dotted line started to appear, it went
from our home world to green dot. "Green dot is location we found
the
debris of Knol's ship," Dina voiced over as the dotted line continued
on
it's course until it came to a blue dot. "Blue dot is this planet."
"Almost a straight line,"
I muttered.
"And if we're the center
of the universe," Alex thought it through.
"We've come to a cross roads in our travels. We either explore the
planet below or return home." He looked up from work and his gaze
met
mine, a wide smile crossed his face. "Your orders ma'am?"
To be continued
R. Bentley
phantomr@sprynet.com
This was part 1. Part 2 is coming...
--
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"What are you doing to me!?!" "Showing you the truth." Mr. Gone-The Maxx.
"If you are here then I will always be here." Kosh- B5