Part 2 of Dreams begins....

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        I sat back in my nice cushioned Captain's chair and thought it over for
a moment. My first thought was to radio back to home world and tell them
what we found. But then the thought of being recalled home didn't settle
with me to well. I was starting to get used to being so free. I ran a
hand through my hair and took a deep breath. "Prep crews for landing. I
want small detachment of warriors, scientists and religious sect," I
ordered and let the breath out. "Once we land we can contact home world
from the surface."
        "How many each?" My brother asked.
        I cocked an eye brow and shrugged. "Twelve sounds like a good number,"
I looked over my shoulder at Alex. "I'll lead, you pick two of you're
best from science, Dina; I want you to come along from the command
staff, I want Ciro and two from the sect, Decca; choose two you can
trust you'll take over for security. We can ponder the leftovers later."
        "What should we dub the planet?" Dina's fingers tapped away at her
console while she saved the location of the planet into the deep core
memory files.
        "Cassi's Hope?" Decca kidded and ducked accordingly away from Dina.
        "Hirala." I stated and found a few people looking at me kinda funny.
"After my mother," I replied to the looks and most of the bridge crew
began to set the Searcher for an atmosphere landing. I felt the deck
plates shudder as the main drives came to life and began to push the
ship onto her side. The ship according to specs began to make achieve
high orbit and with the help of the scanners found a window to aim for.
I must say that the crew is handling this well, watching them prepare
for our first atmosphere landing. I watched in absolute awe as the nose
of the Searcher began to slice into the atmosphere.
        The darkness that I had gotten used to was pushed back by the soft
rumble of the atmosphere, the entire ship lurched to the left which
caught most of us off guard. I found myself on my chin on the deck, a
few others had decided to join me as the sound of re-entry nearly
deafened all of us.
        A sharp wine caught my ears, the sound was coming from the damage
control station that was slaved into Decca's console. "Hover jets two
through four are off-line," Decca reported, she grabbed the controls
with two hands and steered the ship slowly downwards. The nose started
to dip down at a forty-five degree angle, the sound of circuit breakers
popping around the bridge made me pray while everything around us shook.
I had heard that sound before, right before I dumped a cruiser into a
lake. "I'm taking the main drives off line," Decca pointed to the
buttons safeties she needed Dina to press. "Their going to tear us
apart."
        I got to my feet and found my seat, I then proceeded to buckle up with
the safety harness. "Someone's writing this down for further use I
hope?" I tugged the clasps close around my shoulders and felt my stomach
get lost in the reentry.
        "Already on it," Decca replied and sucked in her breath as the clouds
passed from the main screen, I blinked and let out a soft cheer
inwardly. The fluffy white clouds left us and blue sky, something
completely new to us surrounded us. The roller coaster of a ride eased
up as the ship fell slowly downward. What I saw was marvelous, green
rolling seas of water and land, lots of land. "Hirala land ho!" The
bridge crew let out a small cheer and they all stared at the screen for
a moment. They were all getting home sick, I was too at times. They went
back to work gathering information and saving it while the ship under
Decca's control leveled out and Dina began to look for a soft place to
possibly land.
        "There's a bottle of fire water my parents gave me for such an
occasion," I said to my bridge crew. "Once we land and set up camp. I'm
gonna prepare a dinner you'll never forget and we're all gonna get
blitzed."
        That got a laugh from everyone, my cooking had somewhat become legend
on board. My recipes had begun to circulate around the ship, I pondered
what to make for our first night on this world until Alex stopped
laughing and sucked in his breath. "Captain!"
        I swung the seat around and looked at Alex then over at the lift door
as it closed. Ciro stood there alone, his eyes wide with either fear or
excitement I couldn't tell, I was still trying to get a hang of reading
peoples minds. I mearly smiled and was about to turn around to enjoy the
view when my eyes caught what Alex was talking about. In Ciro's left
hand was his staff in the other was the book we had found Knol clutching
in his decomposed hands.
        And it was glowing.
        Well that killed the small celebration dead in it's tracks.
        "Ciro, I sounded general quarters you were supposed to stay there," Em,
my first officer seated to my left found her voice and thumbed towards
the lift door. "Time to go."
        Alex was closer to Ciro then I was when Ciro said something. I know he
said something his beard moved that and he motioned with his staff to
the book. Whatever he said it made Alex drop his pad on the floor, his
face started to lose it color. I frowned. "What?"
        Ciro held up the book that seemed to pulse now. "It called to me." He
said. He nearly dropped the book, he was scared out of his mind. "It
told me to tell you to leave this place and return home. Before it's too
late."
        I frowned at that, I felt the deck shudder again. I turned back towards
the main screen. The hover jets where on full front and slowed the
Searcher as a clearing in the trees formed on the main screen. Decca
slowly brought the horizontal propulsion off-line and geared down the
landing mains. "Hang on folks this may get a little bumpy," she warned
us just in time for the deck to drop out under our feet. "What the
hell!" Decca pulled back on the controls all the way back to her chin
and she pushed the hover pedals all the way to the floor. "We're being
pulled in!"
        "Confirmed!" Em mused, she turned her portable console towards her and
eyed the readings. "Another gravity well, just peaking above the surface
of the planet. It must like us, nothing else is being pulled in!"
        "Planet fall in forty-five seconds!" Decca reported, her harness
activated automatically as did everyone else's, Ciro found the seat to
my right and clutched the book to his chest. I bearly heard him begin to
pray.
        "Drop the shields!" I ordered.
        Everyone looked at me, this time with absolute horror on their faces.
If we dropped the shields then technically the ship would be wide open
for an attack. It also didn't help matters that I A) didn't orbit the
planet and check for life signs before going in and B) didn't test this
little atmosphere drop on another planet. But that's neither here nor
there. "Captain?" Em blinked.
        "Thirty seconds!"
        "Our shields are powered by your Mages, right Ciro?" I asked him, he
looked at me and for the first time he seemed to know what I was
thinking. "Mages and Pryors give off a sphere of power that surrounds
them. The first gravity well didn't harm us, the second one doesn't like
the Arts." I stopped in my thinking, a light came on. I stared down at
Ciro and moved closer to him. "Was Knol here?"
        "Captain?!"
        I punched the comm tab on my armrest for the shield/weapons bay.
"De-activate the shields, now! That's an order!"
        I heard a series of voices about to object but the head Mage shut all
of them up and cleared the channel. "Aye Captain!" I closed the channel
my gaze locked with Ciro's. "What was Knol doing here?"
"Fifteen seconds, fourteen, thirteen, twelve." The bridge lights flicked
off and the emergency lights flooded the room with harsh red light. A
few of our eyes began to glow due to the lack of light while others just
blinked to get adjusted to the light.
        "Shields down to fifty percent," Em reported.
        "Ten, nine, eight."
        "Shields down to ten percent and fall fast."
        "So are we!" Alex retorted!

        Searcher's Bridge Entry, Log 1012 End of file.

        During those last few seconds, Ciro's rough thoughts came to me for a
brief moment, it felt more like a haze actually. A vision of a ship, the
one we found adrift. Knol is on board with two others, the book in
Ciro's hand. Knol was reading it, practicing when there was a flash of
light. It engulfed them. Their screams, can't get them out of my head. I
winced inwardly, too much, too clear! His ship was falling out of orbit,
they knew what we knew, there was an explosion.
        Something happened, can't tell the others of this. Ground coming up
quickly, can't stop. His death pummels my mind like an out of control
train. My mind screamed in pain as the charred body of Knol, his
disciples and their ship are transplanted by someone. Transplanted in
front of us. Can't see him, someone is here.
        Something is coming.
        That's when everything went black.
        I viewed the bridge recorder afterwards. At the time of this recording
I remembered nothing of the following.

        Accessing Searcher's Bridge Entry, Log 1012

        The voices from the bridge were blocked for a moment as the shields
were dropped completely just as landing mains touched the ground. The
hover engines kicked in full and the ship slowly began to ascend towards
the darkness of space.
        "Hover jets: dropping to fifty percent, prep for landing," Decca eased
out of her straps and watched the readout next to her. A very small
computer generated diagram of the plain around the ship, the ship and
air currents started to form. "Touch down in three, two, one."
        The sound of the jets stopped and the soft thud echoed around us. I
didn't understand, why can't I understand? The thud broke the contact
between Ciro and I. He seemed a little more sane when the bridge lights
came back on. I held my head for a moment and then opened my eyes to see
what lay before.
        A brand new world.
        I looked around at the happy looks on everyone faces.

        Accessing Searcher's Bridge Entry, Log 1012 End of File

        Accessing Searcher's Captain's Personal Log, Entry 1020

        We would celebrate later, I somehow lost track of Ciro as he made his
way up the stairs to the lift and silently went back to his room. His
message he sent me, or maybe the what the book sent me was something I
wouldn't soon forget. According to our teachers our planet is the only
planet in the universe, we have sent out signals to other places and
even sent deep probes out into space. They have returned with nothing.
This planet which has been named after my mother is mystery.
        Somehow Knol and his associates were transported to this planet and
crashed.
        Someone is here.
        Something is coming.
        The communication system hasn't been working properly since we arrived
here. We've tried so many times to get it to work it sends our own
messages back to us. Within our ship's stores we have the means to
reproduces smaller cruisers. With the computer working in tandem with
our atmosphere readings we can produce as ship completely devoid of the
Arts. That was the first item on my list of things to do. Our second was
to fix the comm system It would appear we'll need to establish some kind
of satellite system in orbit. The repair crews are already hard at work
repairing the system that were shorted during reentry.
        When I look out at this place as dusk settles, the lights from the
Searcher come on one at a time. I look at the beauty of this place. Why
would they try to hide this place from us? I take a sip of tea and look
at the updated agenda for tomorrow. When light breaks we'll send a
unmanned drone out to sample the planet. Once those results are over
we'll send out a two man team with suits and if that works out then
maybe without suits.
        The death of Knol still weights heavily on me as I fall asleep. I've
posted heavily armed guards at all the air locks and gave strict orders
the bridge crew on night watch to wake me if anything happens.
        Something is here.
        Something is coming.
        I drifted off to sleep. And slept like a baby, if only we had know then
what we knew now......
        And within my dreams I knew...
        The Intelligence was coming......

        Accessing Searcher's Captain's Personal Log, End of file.

        To be continued.

        R. Bentley
        phantomr@sprynet.com
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