Exile chapter two prt 2

    For only my sister would craft her shade-gate in this manner, for these colors had been my chosen mantle since my “self-imposed” exile.  Moving slowly through the prismatic dome, I found what I sought, a crystal coffin, amplifying her mind, and keeping her terribly damaged body alive as my poor, weakened and tortured barely alive sister remains in limbo.  Deep in the inner recesses of the mind where she alone had learned to penetrate, she spoke, not in words, and images, and feelings, but in the language of our kind, as natural to us as I guess your mothers tongue would be for you humans, it would almost be as if you yourself had lived through the thought or memory, it becoming your own, as if you yourself has been the one experiencing the event.
    I wished she had spared me that pain. To watch the fall of an empire, even one as corrupt as my own, the brutal torture executed on our noble families, though probably no worse than a thousand incidents inflicted on you and your races over the ages;   yet your infantile realms coming together with allies and aid from far flung worlds, all of you sickly envious, pathetic fools deliriously drunken on the impossible hope of stealing our secrets and the twisted desire for our power over the mysterium that you may yourself become petty masters over lesser races.  How much did it pain you to see your sad little dreams of becoming the new dragon masters crumble before you, as they fed on your living flesh like the vermin you were, when you awoke them from their sleep?  You never came to destroy the evil of my race, as you told your allies; you came to commit genocide slaying my society in its drunken drug-induced slumber, the religious stupor that took place every Fall Equinox.

  How foul you young kingdoms have become.  You even destroyed your own allies lest you’re true intent be discovered, for not everybody came to become tyrant-kings desiring to set up a new regime where they were the unholy pawns of chaos did they?  So they had to go, quietly, during combat so that no dangerous questions would be asked.  What chance did you have of ever winning, for even our youngest child is taught the ways of our dark realm?  In a world where minds and souls are as tangible and vulnerable as ours, every house hostile to yours, seeking to rise in rank, or keep yours in its place, all the while awaiting that singular moment of weakness, when they can claim the right of casualty, called “death by stupidity”, we are taught in the many ways to build ourselves safe places within our minds where we can hide away, so no one can ever force our secrets from us.  In the end your whole armada was defeated by a simple trick taught to every child.
   So in your wrath you destroyed our world with your peregrine-like ships, you learned very quickly by those fool enough to try, that the rape of our woman was a terrible idea, as our woman are taught to take their violator and savage their mind and body beyond repair nor recognition. Death is but a dream, possible but only a dream.  Death, a quick death, is your only possibility for there is no guarantee of safety, in death, nor even un-death.  For that which has been undone can be remade, though never as good as the original.
    We are taught from the moment we are able to speak, to understand the nature of our world and how to sing our slayer down into death with us.  Trust me,  after you have seen a beloved member of your blood slain, and then resurrected with their slayer that they can continue serving the house as a revenant or vampire or some other bungling night creature you learn your lessons well.  Survive at all cost.  For death is a transitory thing.
    Yet here she was, my sister seemingly beyond repair, her body racked and ruined, she seemed hopelessly damaged, but between us I could bring her back, if only I had the power to transfer us both out of this place, but the journey here, and the coffin-rig maintaining her life would be a lot of mass to transfer at one time, and I am just too weak, my rapid trip through the mysterioum leaving me in my current state.
    Oh you ravagers of worlds be thankful I was not here, be thankful I and only I had the facility to allow myself to exit this world, though I may still be in luck, before I left I bestowed  a smoking mirror of black shadows and darkness to my mother which possessed the power to transmit the passer anywhere in time or space, it nearly killed me fashioning it, nor did I ever receive any recognition, nor did I expect any, we lived in a different kind of world than you carnivores apes who hide behind pretty words, political correctness, tolerance, sensitivity, and diversity, as you stab the person in the back, giving it a twist for good measure, kicking them on the way down.  
    When the reality is your not much more than a step away from becoming some parasitical species, living under a bridge, and killing others of your species for shoes, shoes, By the Great Maker’s sake, shoes.  That’s so much worse than anything we would do, and we kill each other proudly for being stupid.  

Once eons ago when our power was not what it was today we ruled countless worlds, planets and planes like you cannot begin to imagine, and we ruled them all,  like the merciless overlords we were, believing our might made it right to do so, behaving as if it were god’s will we ruled in our righteous techno-theocracy, believing in our own myth, forgetting that under a few situations even we may still die.  Taking what we wanted, destroying what we didn’t, enslaving whole races because they had gifts which made them useful, or destroying whole planets, races and worlds.  People's doomed simply because they were universally contaminated, we called it cleansing, to quote a friend, "convert or fall forever", I guess you would call it culling the herd, and if a whole race was defiant, or antagonistic, then far better to sacrifice that world to our dark gods than seek to shepherd them to true civilization, our civilization.  How lost we were.

Runaway chapter one

   My names Darren, though that really probably doesn't matter, it's of little meaning to you.  I think the events of the last year are probably of more interest or should be.  I'm trying to write this, and put it some where safe, but I don't know who to trust anymore.  I know there looking for me, and for the record, I didn't kill that girl, I loved her.
  That's a lie they want you to believe, if I'm on the run, who will trust me, and Christ I don't believe what's happened, how can you.  It's ok, I expect to be dead soon, but hopefully whoever finds this won't just huck it away, I would have.
  Hell, who reads paper any more.  Anyway who I am doesn't matter, what's happened does.  I wish I knew how to show you proof or something, but they control the computers, and pretty much everything else.  Those we believed the most trusted told us the worst fairy tales.  There's another world out there.  A secret world with a secret history, and the authority, oh, they knew all along.  You see this goes so far back I can't guess, at least to Egypt, maybe even society as we know it has come from them.
    Where do I start, the beginning, yeah right, my beginning, the worlds?  Hell how about mine, I was just a normal high school kid, worrying about grades and girls, ok and drugs, but nothing hard man, nothing big, just a little pot, who cares doesn't everyone?  Damn even the prez has smoked, so let it go right.  Then everything changed.  You know the usual voluntary blood donor shit, hearing tests, freaking vaccines, that's what did it the damned vaccines.
   I got this scholarship out of the blue, my favorite teacher put my name in.  Great dude, if I only knew.  Hey a scholarship right, so I went, transferred to this total high drek school, things you couldn't imagine.  Got my own dorm and everything, guess that was good, started having funky ass dreams.  Always running, floating, falling, flying, you name it.  I remember this one where I was like all blue and glowed like those avatar things in that titanic guys movie.  I was swimming deep in the ocean, there where a few of us, I could see there eyes glowing in the dark. Then I sensed more than saw a shadow, something big moving above us.  It was weird, well ok it felt as normal as dirt but it was weird, if I blinked like sideways, I could see like that alien thing in that movie with the invisible guy who was trying to kill Arnie, damn he's fat now.  Anyway I could see like it was all bright as day and shit.  Trippy as hell, but swimming above us was a shark, ok not no shark like you've ever seen, it was bigger than a freaking bus, with huge teeth.  Suddenly this shark thing turns, like totally on a dime, swimming right for me, before I could even move, it had me in its mouth.
   Shit, I woke up covered in sweat, the sheets were soaked, but what's crazy is when I was changing the sheets, there was blood there, my chest had a bunch of big tears, at first I thought I scratched myself somehow, I was hella wrong.  Changed the sheets and tried to go back to sleep, yeah right.  So I take a walk around campus.  It's a weird school, like we have pass cards to get around.  Figured I'd go to the computer lab, look up that shark thing.  After leaving the dorm, I'm walking through the school, and I hear some of the profs talking.  Weird shit, there talking about metas, and the veil, how us new kids turned out to be a great lot.  What the hell, I ain't no lot.  I head back to my room, real quite like.
   The next day I meet my new class, we're all different grades, and there's some dorks, and jocks, your general high school hell mix of people.  The teachers explain this is a different type of school.  One that teaches based on different principles, where we all like float at our own level.  That sorta brought back memories of my dream, but I was trying to listen to the teacher, but I kept fading off, I never used to fall asleep in class, and teachers were never ok with people who did.  They were pretty chill, like they expected it.
    After a few weeks of this weirdness, I decided I wasn't really hitting it with this school and wanted to go home.  A teacher pulled me aside and started telling me all this weirdness about what's really going on.  He told me about psionics, and other races.  About the veil, how I was special, like 1 in 100,000 people are born like me.  At first I thought he was like whack crazy, when I realized I could hear the janitors steps echoing down the hall.  I hadn't heard his voice echoing, he was talking inside my head.  I think I gasped or something, he said aloud "watch, maybe you'll understand this".
    Suddenly pictures in my head started playing, like a movie of super heroes, doing some crazy chiz.  Then memories my memories started playing, like I was right there living it, how I'd always been an outsider.  Everyone always seemed uncomfortable around me.  Even teachers, and it wasn't like I looked bad, I was pretty normal looking I think, like most kids anyway.  This weird graphic was flashed in my head, like something genetic, I realized this school was the first place the kids seemed to like me, I was missing something, but sure as shit I wasn't leaving, even if my heart was beating like a hammer.  Maybe they were experimenting on us, giving us drugs, I don't know, I should have fled that night but they always new exactly what to say, I was going no where, I was in a prison of my own minds making.

Avalon chapter 4

Jandi awoke to find herself helpless aboard the alien craft, unable to move, fear coursed through her body. Knowing she was never prepared for this, she was just a spoiled rich girl who'd made it this far on her parents money and fame, not to say their government rank and peerless genealogy and psionic capability. Damn why did she have to be so sensitive. She'd been so happy before the nasty truth had come out. If anyone ever found out she could tap into other's thought's she'd be cleansed for sure, or worse, interdicted to an outer rim world forever. The imperium couldn't let her remain amongst common people. Lost in her memory she wasn't paying attention to her surroundings, how could she be breaking the first rules of capture, getting lost in her memory, yet another reason she didn't belong out here, her crew was in danger, having no idea where she was, or how the situation stood. Slowly she reached our with her mind, expanding her senses to examine the environment she was in using a special technique most people couldn't detect. Her minds' eye showed a white room whose walls seemed to shimmer and change in some unfamiliar way. Suddenly before she could close her mind a voice unlike any other tore viciously through her mind. Screaming physically and mentally, she began to go black when an unimaginable strength grasped her mind and held her up in its power, her minds core shuddered in its incandescent force. A voice like she'd never felt before bespoke into her, "were deeply sorry at your pain, we did not understand your liminality, we shall seek to communicate inside your threshold, when last we were awake your race was still near its infancy, so we have slept and dreamt of your world, allowing our joined minds to travel the realms mental, yet we think the time of companionship has come, before we awake and pass throughout emergence we must be sure, you will be looked after, trust us".
Again blackness took her, as her mind screamed out on the declamatory mode.

Awakenings a new phone coming soon

Awakening

I woke up, stalking through the house, damn James and his music.  It's strange discordant tones and eery melodies shook the walls.  You'd think after spending a life time with him I'd have gotten used to his spook shit music, but I just was not in the mood for it today.  Last night was long, my head still hurt from his new toy.  Banging on his door brought no response, shock.  Finely after more banging and a little yelling I threw the door open.
   Something was seriously wrong. James was sitting in his chair, falling back against the wall.  At first I thought he was passed out, but the room felt wrong.  We had been around death enough times.  I pressed my finger tips against his throat, nothing.  I stepped out of the room, the last thing I saw, the strange static oscillating on his screen.  Making my way to our living room, my living room?  I tried to figure out what to do.  I know you'd call the cops, but we weren't your normal citizens.  Hell the police had been here enough in the past.
   You have to understand we have been searchers of the truth, the real truth since we were in high school.  We had traveled the world, searching through tombs in Egypt, temples in Samothrace,  deserts, swamps, cults, wizards, warlocks, shaman on reservations.  We have probably the largest collection  of occult books in the world.  Our library of artifacts we've collected over the years was extensive.  Over  the years we've done rituals, summoned things which probably haven't walked this world in aeons, blood had been shed, some ours, sometimes others.  Its amazing how many people will put themselves into your power if you pretend to be a vampire, hell maybe we were vampires, we took thier blood and thier lives for our dark tasks.
   Eventually we found an incredible book.  It cost James a fortune, he could have bought an island for what that book cost, and then we find its in a language no one knows.  At first I thought
we got screwed, it was  scam, but James was always the more brilliant.  I always was the better researcher, he was lazy but had moments of inspiration, only the dark gods could provide, where as I preferred the anal setup,  memorizing the rituals, opening the doorways.  If a throat needed to be cut, well people should be more careful who they drink with, right?
   James, in one of those moments of inspiration decided to higher a programer to decode the book.  Hysterically when I met this programmer he had no idea who or what we were about, guess he's lucky we needed him, the basement was full of bodies just like his.  Shit, long story short he translated the book, but damn if it wasn't complicated.  He talked about equations, and fractals, strange attractors, algorithms which created angles that couldn't exists in reality.  What the hell was this book.  We've stumbled on something really dark.
   But this kid comes up with a brilliant idea, he'd create a temple inside the computer, like some stupid virtual game.  Basically a Sims occult library and temple, where all of our artifacts, and books would be scanned in, and we could perform this ritual inside the computer where everything could be programmed in perfect.  The dark beings we could call up in that virtual darkness, connected through all those wires, such life.  Ehhh, the doors we could open.  Last night we tried.  
   We installed the headsets, earbuds fitting snugly, the optics wrap around and close fitting, in the darkness before the simulation started there was a creepy silence, I can only liken to that of the grave.  Suddenly I could see him standing near me, well what he looked like here, dark robes, black as night barely visible against the slowly rising fire-lit tomb we had chosen to be our home.
   I can't say it wasn't an amazing creation, moving nearly instantly into the library, summoning the books right to you as if by magic.  I'm glad we let the creator live, this place was a work of art.  We had tried several summonings with varying results, but it made study so simple, even if to often I'd forget the avatars we wore, only to be shocked by our horrific vistas at times.  We opened doorways to places which should not be, taught by electronic creatures fed by the billion souls connected to those wonderful fiber optics, creating beautiful pipelines to the soul for the wet, smacking hungry things we called up.
    Last night we had tried our greatest feat, seeking to open a doorway across space and time, to when the ancient ones once walked our world in truth, and we succeeded, well the computer said we succeeded, but after a strange burst of static left me doubting, I guess James went back in, maybe he had a heart attack, I don't know.
   Suddenly the tv came on automatically, programmed as home guard, the news was talking about something, it took me a few seconds to understand what I was hearing.  Last night millions of Internet users were dead, just dead.  No one knew why or how, still apparently the users of several MMORPG systems were now dead.  Did we do that somehow?  Damn, I thought I had turned that music off, standing I turned and stopped short, breathless, there he was, James standing there but like a twisting hologram, floated his avatar around him,  in ghostly relief his twilight robes licked with black flames, his hand reached out to me, I heard a voice that was not James, it was, yet wasn't, thier was truly something soulless about that voice I knew as well as my own.
   As I turned to flee, I felt his hand grasp my shoulder, icy tendrils enwrapped throughout my body freezing me in my steps, his hand, if there was still anything left of James, he forced me to turn, his sibilant hiss  forcing my head to rise to meet his gaze, when the last I would ever see, his luminescent gaze flickered with static, deeper, and deeper I watched, drawn along into his twisted core through rip-tide fractals, and strange non-Eucliedian angles, my soul was ripped to pieces leaving shredded pieces of my self devoured by that which should not be named, my last coherent thought as these mind bending curves twisted my mind into insanity, I realized I really hated James's damned music.

Officers Note: this document was found in the home of two believed satanists, who according to a programmer they hired was payed to use dangerous graphics and binaural rhythms known to cause seizures, at this time it is not believed to be tied to the deaths of those using the Symbiotic MMORPG systems previously.  At this time these deaths are being recorded as accidental, due to the fact of using dangerous software.

Unrelated Note: Certain watchdog groups have noticed a large number of tragic murders and deaths by those having used the Symbiotic network, it is unknown if these murder/suicides and other events are related to a new technology recently deployed by Symbiotic, soon to be released as a new operating system for thier new smart phone, the Avatar, which will be available at a electronics store near you.

Avalon chapter eight

   She awoke abruptly fears of the hounds rising as she sensed thier nearness.  "calm, sister, calm... your mind was near dissolution, we would not see you harm your self", said a voice, female, beautiful, so full of radiant all knowing wisdom.  Trying to move she realized she was strapped down and blind.  Her minds eye equally blind, she began to panic, struggling against her bonds.  "please sister, be calm...we shall release you, we did not desire harm to come to you, flesh is so....fragile,"  The voice spoke now with what sounded like infinite sadness, maybe even regret.
   Suddenly she realized her limbs were her own, and a cool cloth woven of some strange material she'd never seen was removed, then vanished.  Moving slowly she sat up, not wanting to be restrained agian.  Suddenly she thought of her crew mates, images of a time  before when she was being held by a cold unfeeling force while something tenebrous had been crawling through her mind pulling at her thoughts.  Nearly as quick as she could think,  an image of Jo jo appeared in the air before her.
   Jo jo, how he must despise her, his brown hair, and dark eyes you could fall into forever, with his strong rim forged body, compared to her icy blue eyes, long straight white hair, thin frame, small breasts and edenic features.   Her chest heaved and hitched at the thought of him.  Knowing that firm, calloused hand would never touch her like he even touched that ship.  It was safer than she was, even though both of them had been born in the core, as a rye chuckle escapes her soft throat, her eugenic modification banned as unholy by his people, her heart catches in her pulsing chest, her breathing becomes jagged, psionic, damned, she's a psi, rasped out, she's abomination.  He could never even see her, she was everything his people despised, in the end the ship was more real, both things of the imperium, both eugenically modified, both, she couldn't think it, his faith didn't speak of ships only sentients.
   "be still sister, you worry yourself, tell us more of your crew, and your people, we've slept eons, waiting to come forth in the age of companions, but are you ready to join us"?  A warmth suffused her, calming her like a balm, taking away the pain.  Pain, she thought of the doctor, so strange, like a giant squid floating around on helium filled bladders, but his multiple arms made him an incredible doctor. Even if he was prone to change colors with his moods, and his thoughts strange and angular.  Poor Den, growing up on Hadean.  He was EG too.  Not like her though, his dark skin, and black in black eyes.  Dark gills, and spots all over his body.  She understood, just as she'd been modified for Intelligence, beauty, genetic skill, and psi potential, he'd been modified to thrive.  While she was made unto everything desirable, he was made into everything to survive and serve, though that was left unsaid but never forgotten. His body utilized everything, allowing for almost no waste, what little his body failed to find a use for was excreted through sweat.  He was always so lonely, and sad but you never knew, always laughing, trying to cheer up the rest of the crew.  The first with a laugh or a joke.  Yet his thoughts always circling around the captain.
   Strange how as she thought of these things they seemed to appear in front of her, in full detail, she could almost see things shed never noticed before.  From out of the darkness a new voice was heard, cold, making her skin prickle.   "This takes to long, return her to me, I will finish extracting the information needed", her heart began to race,  blood going cold, she wanted nothing to do with that voice, didn't want it inside her mind.  She began to withdraw her mind into that safe core, reaching out for the others, the captain, Aery, anyone.  "you see brother, you move to quickly, she is not ready, move slowly, the answers come we have waited and slumbered what's a small amount of time, to create emissary?"
   Jandi remembered a trip she once took to the kissing river with friends, it had become a place the young would come to swim and escape the heat, and control of the authority for a short time consuming fermented juices and other illicits. One day they had gone out and a boy she wasn't very much fond of had produced what he called a Queryan blossom. It was truly beautiful, it's azure, cerulean and royal purple petals glowing with it's own inner bio-luminescent light.  She didn't want it destroyed, they were very rare, coming from only one world on the far outer rim.  They were expensive beyond belief to acquire, you could probably by a whole world with the cost of one flower, the world from which they came was in one of the many regions of space owned and governed by those not wanting to abide by imperium law.
    So they had seized large portions of the rim, and whether feudal lord, criminal empire, or corporate realm they protected thier regions of space violently she had heard.  How Jorvan had gotten the blossom was a total mystery, as she moved to stop him he laughingly threw the blossom into the fire, "it's ok, my old man's nearly blind from looking into these things", for a single moment the bloom became so incandescent you could only look away, its odor unlike anything she'd smelled before then the light consumed her as the azure smoke began to rise.  Carrying her mind with it.  For a moment she understood he had stolen the blossom from his father, then all thought had fled from her.  She was a creature of instinct flying over land between sea and sky.  Observing her world as it was, is, and one day will be.  Her mind stretched out beyond her world, out into the deep void, she craved so desperately.  Looking back at her world, she could sense all of the tiny minds like flickering lights, and sought her parents. Finding thier minds pattern easy enough, she could hear their thoughts, draconian syndrome, the bane of psi's for generations.  Tales told of how an out of control dragon had ended the days of old terra in fire and blood.  She knew a little about S. T. S., Synaptic teratogenic syndrome, no one knew what caused it, but it was terrible.  Causing dementia, and physical coma, while the mind remained trapped, useless, and helpless inside the decaying body.  How could they believe she had D. S.  That was impossible, or she thought it was, until that day she overheard her friends, saying those awful things.
   It all came rushing back, the hounds, her fleeing, being sent off to Trinity station that night for her protection.  Then that calming warmth returned, "calm yourself, you are not this dragon you fear, nor we're you ever, we have helped you though.  We've increased your potential a thousand fold", the voice whispered in her mind, "no, no, no, you can't have, oh great maker no, he'll despise me forever", she thought sinking deeper in despair.  "No, sister we've made you better, stronger, no longer an unweeded garden, you are now in full bloo-", she's cut off as a tearing rending thought shatters the aether, "you've ruined me FOREVER, and I'm not your sister".  Then Jandi knew only an alien darkness as it wrapped its tendrils around her body, and mind.

Avalon Chapter Seven "back to the ship"

   Hisses and sparks shot throughout the ship.  Aery increased her clock speed to maximum, shutting down all unneeded systems, keeping only the cryonics active, and the sensors, while monitoring the ships self repair systems.  Even as an A. I. she marveled at the technology which made up her body.  The living genetic components, the nano-technology, and the synergistic components all working together seamlessly repairing and mending damaged systems, her mind moving so rapidly through fractal iterations, going over systems,  seeking solutions, analyzing the telemetry of her array of sensors.  Her biotechnological cyber organic mind capable of psionic abilities, and computing power unheard of for a ship this size, she knew many of the Y class operating systems had thier higher functioning circuitry disabled on most of the vessels her sibling systems where programmed in, even the flagship.  She did find this "distressing", a strange concept, but the captain, once holding the rank of flag officer, had many connections and somehow had acquired her.  Much of the technology of the avalon was banned in the Imperium, her cloaking systems, her holographic integration, her sensorium were based on the most advanced technologies of a thousand worlds, her captain must have many "friends".  She had noted this was important among many sentients, friends seemed to make things happen, which according to Imperium law should not.  Going through her crew records she did register they were all anomalies amongst thier people, much like herself.  Her immense computational capacities allowed her to achieve things impossible, even to systems of her make and model.  Overseeing her own systems going about thier functions, she continued to seek to wake the crew while studying thier anomalous nature. Jojo and Jandi seemed to spend a great deal of time together though they seemed to not fit her calculations.  She was beautiful, wealthy and possessing  great psionic power, while Jojo had come from an agrarian world theistically opposed to everything the core stood for. Yet always they could be found together.  Den reminded her much of herself, the first officer of the ship, coming from an edge world where eugenic modification was needed to survive, he looked very different, only the doctor had an image more strange, while the captain had chosen an occupational path most were forced to take, because there was no other, not individuals with experience and training like hers.

    Doctor Quince, having come from an oceanic planet, had been part of the great diaspora during the ceteacia wars, which nearly destroyed the systems only a teracycle back.   His race having evolved from Cephalopoda his appearance was unique amongst the crew, as was his thought process, yet she had seen his ability to rebuild organics on many occasions.  Having been the recipient of his many appendages herself when her organics had become dysfunctional at a point, she needed to wake him first to safely wake the rest of the crew, yet protocol said wake Jojo first as the head engineer. 

   Observing as her hull, her skin repaired itself, the Star-shine drive, her thermophotovoltaic ablative armor even now generating power, being stored in her ancillary synergistic systems, her particle collider drive powering her main drives, containing the black hole at her core, her faster than light drives, her powerful pulsed shock drive, enable her to create worm holes and jump gate travel, all useless.  Her sensors telling her that even if she could deactivate the cryonics, they would still sleep, her psionic ability connecting her mind to mind with the captain was clearly beyond her reach, as crewman Jandi too was beyond her ability to contact, though she knew she was well within range.  She dared not touch the ship or scan it, if they became aware she operated, they may destroy her, she did not desire to cease functioning, but more so her crew, yes her crew was in danger, she could not allow harm to herself, a dangerous recursive loop kept appearing in her logic strings, what if she found a way to jump away, what of officer Jandi, but the lives in her care must take precedence.  Yet she could not leave another sentient, an unfamiliar term injected itself into her evolving circuits, her friend, behind?  She discarded the loop as irrelevant now, saving it for future analysis, she must acquire control of herself, without acquiring notice of the alien craft, it's unfamiliar design, it's enormous power readings, and telepresence made her.....fearful?   

Exile Chapter 2 part 1

CHAPTER TWO

The strangeness of the air, the feel of the earth, I was an interloper here, having played many parts, the assassin, the whore, the prince, and the pauper. Yet this ward was mine, and I had not come home the prodigal son, expecting to find a welcoming feast, nor chastisement, my death being an even more distinct possibility. I had fled this world never to return, choosing exile millennia ago, and only now returning because of that one voice that cried out across the realms, like a perfume from a first love, never forgotten nor ignored. My twin-sister whose minds private voice I was more familiar with than even my own, before our lungs had taken their first breath.

Snapping back to an unpleasant reality her minds soul screamed and cried out in diminishing waves of pain, at first thinking it was a clever ruse devised to trick me back into a sphere where my control and allies were few, yet her life was measured at this instant in moments and I must

find her now, or never. Let the hunter come, he would find more than he expected if he returned here. Moving through what was once the Opalescent, city of dreams, with its beautiful curving towers rising beyond the scintillating clouds. Crystal chapels of prismatic light, labyrinths of mirrors one could get lost for days in, flowing living waters, dancing to the music of minds and feelings, gardens of exotic plants and flowers collected from across countless worlds as far as the mind’s eye could see, living vines growing and molded by our art to change their shape and color completely rebuilding their nature to the point where they could almost form ever changing images of living wonder, having become nearly sentient themselves. All was rubble now, a charnel pit filled with an ever-present stench of death and decay.

What had happened here? What could have brought low so many Noble houses? A world so well protected with armadas floating both in space and sea, militias and allies, dragon armies, and treaties with nations, and worlds? Much less agreements’ with other less tangible things, as the elementals having served us since time began, the beast lords aided us when they chose, but we were favored, even by the Lords and Lady of Chaos, we commanded countless guards and wards, as well as darker, meaner powers, these things of the mysterium are much more ephemeral, still without my hearing a single word, nor whisper, not a even a ripple in the fount of my travels did I here of the desecrations of my world.

I must hurry, for each second her touch becomes more tenuous, in moments it would be gone. Around the corner, ahead was the plaza built around a beautiful fountain fashioned of rare crystal which glowed and gloried mimicking the light of day. Changing the color of the water as the days light changed and at night the water would move and dance, its colors and movements coming from the thought and feelings of the people walking in the plaza. My sister and I snuck out of the house, a severely punishable crime, death for me endangering one of the daughters of the blood, yet we had come out often in our naive youth lost in more halcyon times not realizing our jeopardy, though the fantasy of the danger making it all the more exciting. Almost as dangerous as our secret journeys to the dragon caves where she would climb up into a hollow in there wings and doze among the bejeweled scales and powerful muscles.

I found the plaza filled with a dense scintillating fog at the end of my journey. Do I dare enter it? Once again it could be an incredibly crafty and clever trap, one I might try myself in the future if needed, but in that moment of moments time stood still forever stretching out in front and behind me I realized I have many options but only one choice, she was my sister, my twin! I never had any decision at all, exerting a small fraction of my own formidable power, still weakened severely by my rapid transport across the cosmos back to my mother’s world; a wave of my own kinesthetic power began to shower the prism, an energy that is almost like a fingerprint. Only one being to my knowledge has learned the mastery of altering this energy to the frequency of another, and I do not fear him, for it is me. A pinprick of color flows out like dust bonding and blending with the others, until the blues and the purples swirled and eddied forming a circular hole leading into the plaza. A slight grin lifted the corners of my mouth.

Boot camp chapter 1

The stink was something awful and would cling to my nostrils for days after we got out of this bloody swamp. My feet were wet, but the stars shone in the skies above us reminding us that there was a world out there, somewhere, even if we couldn't get to it, still existed. We moved forward through the swamp trying to keep track of each other in the darkness

Brendan, our company leader, had the compass so we followed him whether we like it or not, whether he knew where we were going or not. Suddenly a call came down the ranks, it's time to bivouac so we pulled out our tents and started making camp.
Now don't take me wrong this is not camp like you might think it is, we were all sitting here because we're what the court calls incorrigible. Most of us here were sent to this survival camp, to learn discipline and be obedient and respect our authority figures. Authority figures, like they deserve our respect.

Most of us had made some mistakes, breaking and entering, fights, drugs, but nothing really major some of us had gang affiliations, some of us just had bad relationships with our parents. This was their solution. Send us out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of jar headed baboons barking orders in there jackboots. Yeah, if we didn't have a problem with authority before we certainly have one now don't we? We have learned a lot out here though we've learn to count on each other, we've learned that even if we can't trust the adults in the world we can trust each other, we have each others backs no matter what color we are or what religion we practiced. All of that was secondary. You know one day Pitz came up with this really great idea. What if we took what we've learned out of here and brought it back with us? We just bring it back in a but if a way, differently than they expect? You see in many ways they have succeeded, they have taught us discipline, they've taught us to be brothers, they've taught us to trust in each other at least but they failed in some very important areas.

They've proven that we can't trust those in authority. We need to question everything about our lives. You see Pitz was one of those people who had gang connections, grew up in Hells kitchen where everything was blood in, blood out. He figured what if we took what we've learned back out to the street? What if we taught our brothers and sisters in poverty the unity we've learned out here in this stinking miserable swamp? We can actually turn our world around and make it something where we are all equal, we're even with everybody else. What greater sacrifice, what greater price can be paid for that? So that became our enduring plan, the idea of freedom, the idea that in poverty equality is all we've got, those egg heads in the books basically said the same thing and thier heroes man, our founding fathers, and if that came at the point of a gun well wouldn't be the first time, and let's face it the gangs are better armed than the police ever could be and with this military training and discipline we would be unstoppable. There would be no force on this planet that could equal us and were ready to make those sacrifices. We've faced death, seen our friends die. Are you? Have you?

Exile prologue

This archival write-up on object A.E.51, item labeled 075 lab 26 Site N, defines the history of this crystal found at archaeological site AE51, believed to be an alien crash site.

Its inquiry has been handled by geology specialists, analysts, mineralogy, mechanics, engineers, of every sort, even a futurist, as well as several other compartmental departments, see Archive Beta For the complete list.

During a laser infraction test by one of the geologists, a “visitor” friend with I.C.E. level clearances, possessing a linguistic aptitude pointed out an anomaly. Imprinted within the crystal were layers of dots, which when assembled correctly would form the base of a language. The problem he said would be to find the key-stone, or means of activating the device.

After many futile tests the crystal sat useless upon a shelf in a secured storage center for several years, until a young Xeno-linguistic astrophysics student somehow through the freedom of information act discovered its existence. After several months of study he made an intuitive leap that would change the course of our races destiny.

Somehow he matched up the three points of Orion, Arcturus-anteres, and the Sirius star systems as the key points where the light sources aimed from those singular key point would create some image, of what he later confessed did not know, nor do I think he cared.

This being the kind of thinking that makes scientists dangerous in general. In a meeting he revealed his discovery. Setting the crystal on a central dais, while activating a red laser placed at the galactic point of Orion, suddenly the room was covered with prismatic dots, he then placed another red laser in the A./A. spatial point, and when activated created another barrage of dots, though not nearly so shimmering. He placed the last red laser in its point in the spatial loci of Sirius, the Dog Star, and more dots did appear, but it was now almost all blacked out.

“As you can see sirs, the lasers are the trick, it took me a while to understand the configuration”, Laughing to himself, “but it hit me eventually. We are just learning about lasers, but what might this speci have known?” “So I tracked down a blue laser, and placed it in the A.A. Loci, and surprisingly this happened”.

Switching out the red laser and replacing it with the blue was amazing indeed. It was stunning, the dim dots began to merge and morph into something else, brightening, becoming something beautiful yet incomplete.
The specialist continued “as you can see we were getting closer to the solution to the equation”, removing the last red laser and installing a new cutting edge top of the line green laser, “I ‘borrowed’ from the military, and.. 'places people the show is about to begin'”, he chuckled.

The room was absolutely silent as he switched on the green laser, for there before our very eyes shown like some kind of intricate scintillating hologram,
strange shapes and letters, words, morphing in color and texture, layers deep. Truly beautiful and terrible to behold but our young doctor had succeeded in discovering the hidden language deep within the crystal.

He has since made it his mission in life to translate this body of work, whatever it might contain. We have yet to discover if he will uncover the means of operating this device, much less will be able to complete the actual translations. It is unknown at this time if it is a danger to our planet or something as simple as an innocent journal. All translations will continue to be sent on to you at the TOWER for investigation and analysis. When or if it becomes necessary, the translators can disappear at any time.

For now we wait, and prepare for any eventuality as you have directed. This is what has been translated so far. We seem to receive three to five pages a week depending on the complexity of the script, and the capability of the
operator.

There seems to be a component that makes it impossible for some individuals to use the device, nor see anything of meaning in the language, which when functioning at its highest level seems to implant images and feelings, almost complete memories into the operators minds, giving them the impression they had truly been there and experienced the region of text they were exploring.
We have, through extensive testing discerned there is a genetic anomaly within those with the deepest level of control. We feel that we must at once begin testing as many people as possible as widely as possible, and those that have the capacity for top secret clearances re-assigned to this project, those not capable of maintaining clearances should be watched closely. We just do not know what that X factor might mean.

Possibly we should even “draft” those individuals not capable of passing the screenings, and put them to work anyway, just to see the alternate version they may arrive at. The waste of such knowledge as might be gained especially when we have absolute control over where and when they go makes them perfect test subjects to see what the hologram does to different personality types. As per A.E.51 op420 regulations our translators are both working together at all times, they have been armed and “have been warned of their partners oncoming insanity having worked so closely with what could be alien technology” Thus the program itself is in no jeopardy on any front.

Synergistic dating places the age of this crystal as pre-dating the earth or mars. In fact we have found no means of reliably dating it at all.

Avalon chapter Six

Throughout the darkness small flashes of light glimmer and twist, colors blending and spiraling, interweaving, as voices unheard by any ear spoke, minds more ancient than time itself spoke, minds, memories, thoughts, and emotions, alien in ways undreamt of by man.

"decision is needed, a course decided, we know to little", snippets of sentience waltzed through the shadows. "quorum, yes, quorum is needed, we shall decide", voices continue to come together, coalescing into a singular voice of such infinite power. Out of the shadows, colors, scintillating auroras flooded the room. If you could call it a room, the space was so immense, a capital class cruiser could fit, with an armada with it.

Particles began to move, spin and shift, morphing, and turning, twisting, forming and reforming, until the shadow of something began to form, in the center of the vast expanse of the chamber, as shadow became substance, any mind from old terra would know what they saw, an immense circle of crystalline prisms, each like a doorway, surrounding a center "stone", with an object floating above it. A construct fashioned of prisms, each gateway forming a Liminal threshold with ghostly floating imagery within of another time, or places. Images changing and flickering, within of worlds long gone, or yet to be.

Around the central dais a circle of incandescent lights, inside each a cloaked and cowled figures with mirrored curving masks concealing where a face might be, though these beings of incalculable age had long ago left the world where the need for bodies or forms were needed, energy, mind, all they needed, they of the entelechy, a word from a world long dead, meaning the realization of potential, the perfection in form, yet a word still with all it's limitations. The sleepers had long ago moved beyond words or language, knowing to awake and presume emergence, they must partake of a name, though binding themselves to a word seemed barbaric and low, still thier choice to enter the living sleep to await sentience breaching its self imposed liminality and chose awareness, this they believed had occurred, if true, thier time of awakening, emergence, and companionship had arrived.

First they must know, and this ones mind, her self was exceptional, though she did not yet realize her potential, she would, and in her ascension towards entelechy she would tell them of her world, and whether the time had come for within the concilliam some wished to continue the long sleep, minds traveling the edges of time and space while others, wished to heed the watchers, and wake and fulfill the legacy. The founders had left a legacy to the scions, was now the time? All of the enrobed minds looked towards the ever changing object above the dais, it's fractal patterns, and higher dimensions, folding and changing, ever shifting colors and shapes, angles, and curves folding and interweaving, the vinculum pulsed and glowed, flashed and twisted, never fixed, ever evolving, changing as the meta-concert of minds contained within.

Selves enfleshed for the first time in aeons, allowed thought to coalesce again. The many-as-one spoke in thoughts intertwined. "awake, yes, the interrogation, revealing, her minds fragile, no, stronger than she knows, yes, but we press to hard, the captain, yes, the captain, what happened, irrelevant, the verse, yes, yes, the verse, this we need, move forward, learn her world her crew, yes, tell us much, yes, but the secret, NO, always you and knowing, yes, knowledge, irrelevant, yes, yes, yes irrelevant, continue, learn from her, gentle, be gentle, she will show us, we must know, emergence, companionship, is it time, she is our voice, ambassador, yes, yes, duty, job, life-calling, agreement, agreed, agreed, agreed......agreed....", the voices slowly quitted, the last word nearly silent, an echo, of an echo not quite in agreement but only one paying the closest of attention would have felt the slow dissent, or noticed the strange pulse in the vinculum, unseen in aeons.

So long as one mind, now separated, it went unnoticed.

Avalon chapter 5

Sensation seemed to open up before her, within the minds sensorium blossoming, even as she struggled to close her thoughts and memories as she'd been taught, a sense of well-being began immersing her like a warm bath. Knowing she was safe, she allowed her powerful minds barriers to lower, as a voice deep in the center of her thoughts screamed out that something wasn't right, yet the numbing softness rose up, suffusing her mental core, her resistance slowly faltered then simply crumbled.  Suddenly her life's memories began to flow, replaying before her with a clarity better than her own memory. Seeing details she had long forgotten or never known. Watching her childhood, projected, growing up in her governance embassy home, the glittering aurora dome, protecting them from an attack which would never come. Yet hiding the stars she loved and longed to see, denied forever, as the only daughter of a wealthy and powerful family rumored to have held power since the latter days of Old Terra, born on Prime, the capitol world she was being groomed for power.  Then the day of her testing, where they were so proud, scoring so far off the charts they sent her to a special Psion school, joy at the new freedoms, and friendships found at the Academia, where they excepted her for who she was, not as Jandira, daughter of  Xylus and Jendra Ferris, until the day... The point when everything went so terribly wrong in a singular instant. That moment when everything in her privileged life was ruined. The tainted revelation she could tap into others private "peer to peer" thoughts confused her, that was impossible, but hearing her friends conversation in thier psychic gestalt, savaged her, tearing her mind and spirit, flaying her thoughts with its truth to the point of near mental dissolution. Always so proud, so respected, receiving the best of everything, eugenic processing, training, clothes, anything she'd ever wanted. She, the pride of the school, beautiful, wealthy, and influential, in truth reviled by everyone. Her best friends seeing her as just a spoiled rich girl, getting the best because of her parents name, influence, and money.  How could those she'd loved and trusted believe she was just an incredibly stupid, air headed dilettante?  Fleeing the school, as much as herself her mind reeling, rent and torn by the revelations her mind could not shut out, only to be tracked down by HOUNDS sent by her parents, psi's trained to hunt rouge meta's, the shame and humiliation growing. Being dragged back, and forced to expose her inner mind to her families meta-concerted probe. Their discovery of her secret, then banishment, sending her away for her "protection and safety". Exiled to Atlantis 12, the furthest post from the core, at the edge of the rim, she was commissioned as an ambassador. On paper the liaison between rim and core worlds, while acting representative to other races and cultures from the outer regions and the Imperium.  Working on a station where few brains lived, above a world who had no genetic capacity for psionics, leaving her mind her own. Until the day she met a captain looking to hire an ambassador for her crew. She could travel the stars, a job normally illegal for true people of her skill, power and rank because of it's intrinsic dangers. Finely her true dreams of exploring the endless mysteries of space would be realized, as a crew member of the Avalon she found she had little to fear from her psi ability, most of the crew were from worlds without true people, so only the captain and the ship posed a problem, and in the end it was almost a relief to connect to them, neither held any preconceptions or passed judgments, and the captain had her own situation to deal with, well similar but so different, what had happened to make the captain resign, when she had commanded the flag ship of the Imperium, what happened out in the rim to change her so much?  NO! NO! NO! This was wrong, something was terribly, horridly wrong, as thoughts of the captain broke through the sopoforic effects, she would not betray the captain, as waves of despair rose up to engulf her, all her secrets shown, shame at her weakness, powerlessness, unforgivable guilt, irrepressible rage overwhelmed her, as blackness rose up to silence her splintering mind. Quietude all that remained.

The Mountain ch 1

Winds blowing through the night sky, darkness pressing in, starlight brilliantly lighting the world in ways unseen since the dawn of electricity. Now only found at the highest points of the world.

The cold an ever present reminder, that they where above the vertical limit, where the environment itself was inhospitable to human life. Moments like this when the winds screamed with demonic voices, filled with such power, he could feel joy at being alive. No place in his mind for kids, or jobs. Work, family, friends, all the dramatics and frustrations of home washed away in a moment, where a single thought could kill you. He missed them, but if he didn't get away, well he might just kill himself.

Trey had grown up in the wilderness, mountain climbing, diving, sailing, cross country skiing. In fact that was his greatest love, well he loved his family but the kids were either to young or to old to appreciate hanging with the old man off the side of a mountain, and Rebecca was his heart, but after the kids she'd settled into being mom, and stopped being his beloved rebel.

So now it was just him and the Pride, his group of wilderness buddies, who like him needed a break from civilization, or were still single, and thrived on wildness. This trip was once in a lifetime. Reb really didn't want him to go, but he always took off a month a year as his time. Sometimes the older kids would come, but dating was becoming more important, they grew up so fast. And the family had started to take this time as mommy and me, so he was glad to get away, cross-country skiing out into the Tibetan wastes, hiking in, then climbing K2.

The Pride had climbed quite a few of the killer mountains, but this was to great, packing in the gear they needed, cross country, then going for the summit, what an experience. Somewhere things started to go wrong. The sat phone had started to get frizzy, as well as much of their other technology.

Of course that meant if a problem arose, they were on their own. The tech thing didn't bother him much, they'd get it solved, but Erik was going crazy. Being the gear head that's to be expected, and he'd climbed with him enough to know he'd figure the shit out, and things would be fine. What had begun to worry him was Erin's behavior. She was harder than the mountain they were climbing, and could be just as cold, but she'd started fantasizing something was following them. Trying to stop, or kill them.

At first he and Don, the team medic, had figured altitude sickness, but she had no other noticeable effects. Their watches, which kept track of all sorts of biophysical information hadn't alerted them to anything, and they were being paid a fortune to test the damn things. Of course they were Erik and Don's love child, he could care less really. Though it was pretty cool how they were connected to a device the size of an iPhone which stored all the data, and transferred all the information to a tablet, Don had. Each night it was supposed to connect to the sat phone and upload all the days data. Knowing they were all connected in some weird wireless way kinda reminded him of the force, but hell, what did he know.

Really Erik made a living writing programs for some kind of virtual world using motion capture suits. Actually his climbing gear looked odd because he was recording all of his motions somehow, so he could turn this into a game when he got home, hysterical really, like any game could capture what they went through out here. He could imagine his kids at home playing in the Suite, the series of virtual worlds that was all the rage, and thought it was nothing like being here.

They were all sleeping in the bio-tents, made out of some new technology, Erik tried explaining it to him, about custom atoms, and tiny bots or nanny bots. Whatever he'd use there gear, take their money and enjoy leading the climb. Guess it was a good thing he could hunt, trap, forage, and cook. Those micronutrient bars were nearly worthless, a man needed more than a bar to stay alive, well ok if you call that living.

Don rolled over in his sleep, and Erik was snoring again. God, he lived for this. A shrill piercing scream punched through the wind startling him, as Erin sat up, wild eyed, "it's out there", she said.

Avalon Chronicles Chptr 3

A vast empty space, a sea of unbroken velvet spreads out before the floating ship, a strangely endless void of nothingness where no stars shown, only a ghostly effervescence that would mark this is as no normal region of space only strange energetic fluxes of energy crisscrossing across the darkness, a scintillating opalescent's for as far as the eye can see. As the Avalon floats helplessly circling and spinning in the darkness a strange craft of monstrous size moves closer towards it, a craft like no one had ever seen before, immense, big enough to hold a world in it. Long before it came near the spiraling turning Avalon a beam of brilliant light shot out of the undulating ever-changing vehicle, capturing the Avalon in it's unwavering grasp. Seemingly a small piece of this vessel grew out of the side and broke away moving slowly towards the Avalon, now fixed in space glowing in the incandescent light of the beam from the mother craft. As the smaller vehicle seem to move towards the waiting ship, appendages began to grow from it, affixing itself to the dock of the Avalon like it was some sort of living thing. Within the Avalon, all was silence, the only sound which could be heard was what appeared to be that of dripping water in the background. Slowly with a grinding noise a bay door ground open, Jandi opened her eyes slowly attempting to get a feel for the environment, something seems strange the air itself seemed to have a quality to it, electric almost, similar to a strange combination of cement after rain, and that tingling after a bolt of lightening striking the ground, a smell that just wasn't normal usually. "Aery are you on online?" Only the improbable sound of silence returned to her. She knew vessels were rarely silent and after a jump like that there should be thousands of things going on, the captain should be shouting orders, people should be moving to the action stations and she should be connected to her monitor, she reached out with her mind, sensing an eerie silence she reached out further opening up more, suddenly her mind bristled touching something completely unfamiliar and jerked back, as she began to struggle out of her Cryovac she probed gently the object in her mind, pushing harder she was suddenly thrust out and away in a almost painful manner, nobody she had ever touched had been that strong. Not even the captain. Finally having freed herself from her Cryovac she began looking around. She realized that all of the other members of the crew were locked in their chambers deep in sleep. She began to check the monitors around her seeing if something was amiss. She checked the console by the captain to see if she could bring her online. And she checked the AI to see if there was something she could do there. All the time she was maintaining a slight connection to whatever that was out there. With the rush the door open and standing before her with something should never seen before a creature like nothing she'd experienced on 1000 worlds. It floated there about 6 inches off the floor wrapped up in a black reflective cloak covering its head with a silver curving mask shielding its face. Instantly she reached out with her mind attempting to make a friendly communication but was totally unprepared for the savage power held within that mind. Suddenly darkness began to overcome her, eyes fluttered, then slowly Jandy fell to the floor unconscious. The dark being hovered over to stand near her. A moment of silence as it seemed to reflect upon the collapsed figure. Slowly Jandi lifted into the air, the towering being turned and floated away down the hallways and returned to the ship it had come from, behind it floated Jandy, completely unconscious and helpless. The crew helpless, trapped in Cryovac was alone in space. Jandy unconscious, and headed for the alien spaceship, the only one able to do anything, unknown to everybody was Aery. Who seeking to protect herself from any electromagnetic pulses as they passed through the fractal core had awoken almost instantly and had seen everything coming to her senses she transferred the bulk of her Core personality to a closed system and watched trying to reclaim control of the ship. Switching rapidly through system checks making sure the ship itself was completely online, she sought to find a mechanism which would allow the rest of the crew to awaken, and a thousand other checks and tests in the flashing nanoseconds of awareness. All the while studying the craft and the images she had recorded as the being had entered the ship with every sensor she had available and yet she could find nothing. For the moment they were completely helpless and in the control of this alien power.

Avalon Chpt 2

"Captain, we have a problem it seems there's a micro-black hole ahead of us throwing off radiation quicker than the ship can adjust to it, it's interfering with our particle drive, we're loosing cohesion of the factual core".
   The creepy silence began to emanate from the bridge as the crew started plugging into their terminals sifting through the data in their minds quickly determining there would be no way to break free from the energy which had so quickly ensnared the vessel. In a voice eerily calm in the chaos the captain said, "launch a class XII probe and a beacon warning people away from this region of space, I want everybody through D-con and into cryo in less than three go, now"!

 The sleek black ceremetal ship began to rock wildly as the magnetic emanations from the micro blackhole caused ruptures and tears in the purple lightning rho field, coursing over the ship like a Second skin which allowed the vessel to cross the vast distances of space. As the crew quickly began preparing themselves to leave the bridge and moving towards the doors the silence was broken by the AI interface. "Captain I've discovered a multidimensional fractal Fibonacci spiral code interlaced in the signal, I'm still analyzing it but it seems to be a protocol for sequencing our Rho field resonances, I can use our frequency modulator in our shields and allow us to pass through this field and through the black hole into what appears to be another region of space, shall I do so?"
   As the rest of the crew stops and turns to the captain she says, "I have heard other races possess the technology to utilize black holes to traverse subspace but we don't, will the ship be able to handle the stresses?"
    "I will have to shut down all nonessential systems, and there are a lot of variables that I am unsure of, but from my calculations so far I believe it should be possible, I cannot give you any assurances of where we will arrive afterwards though. It is quite possible we may arrive in a very dangerous area of space".
    "Considering we're being torn apart right now, I can't see it can be much more dangerous go ahead and do it, okay everyone into the Cryo-tanks there isn't a more secure location on the ship". As the crew heads off the bridge and down to decontamination and then prepares to get into the Cryotanks they wonder what kind of region of space they could be exiting into.
    Out on the rim where space was controled by different alien races, mega-corporations, smugglers, slavers, privateers, and the Ultra-wealthy, all tired of the social governance of Imperium law. No one felt particularly secure as the crystalline metal-glass doors sealed around them.
    The captain took one last look as everyone seemed to be securely contained within their embryonic chambers, before she gave the command to seal her own. As the ship was bucked and thrown through space, they moved ever forward towards the black hole which slowly engulfed them in a streaming circle of darkness and space, matter and entropy, until only a glimmering singularity remained.

The Avalon chapter 1

"What the hell is that", first officer Den-dri stated, watching the ever-changing colors on the screen before him. "Patch it to the mains", captain Eleibeth ordered. Suddenly the wall began to mutate becoming translucent, as lights and colors began to dance and glow, forming into rapid patterns, slowly morphing into codes of letters, numbers, and symbols rippling faster than the eye can see. The room surrounded by screens and consoles manned by a group of people that looked very little in difference between individuals you might find in a bar on any night in any com-sat station in the universe. Nobody wore uniforms, why would they this far out into the fringe. The room was suddenly filled with a loud squealing noise.
    "Whats that noise, put it through the translators, and see if you can get anything out of that screen". "Sorry captain, its a signal from a hyper-spatial anomaly about 100 quads ahead of us, the computer is analyzing it now", said Den-dry. Josephus, the ships engineer, and sometimes science office spoke up, though he rarely said anything much, "The A.I. is down again". Joe Joe, as the crew called him had grown up on a fringe world, where they still believed in God, and didn't use technology. He still struggled with his choice of leaving his home world, but after working on the commercial satellite space station in orbit around his planet which processed the rare hand made knick-knacks, and agribusiness his world needed to survive so far out on the fringe.
    All of the rim worlds lived in constant fear of the unknown, once you crossed the veil, and left the core worlds, you left the big space-lines behind, much like traveling out in what they called rural areas, on old Terra, at least thats what he'd been told, nobody knew much about Terra now days, after Sol went supernova only the colony worlds survived. Nobody talked much about those days. Seems humans didn't think much, though he'd seen some of the old Terrane art, and heard some of the music, and he wondered how they could create such beauty if they were as stupid as people said they were. It was a sorta joke, that old terrane's put screen doors on sub-marines whatever that meant. Guess it's an example of their short sightedness. Though his family said it was gods just punishment that terra was taken back. According to the pries-tens of his world, they said Terra was a world of beauty and prosperity, but man's evil caused God to take back what he had given. JoJo didn't know, and he didn't really care.
     "A. I. Will be back up soon", he said, he had found he had an instinctive understanding of technology, and could communicate with AI systems better than people, maybe because they didn't expect anything from you that wasn't pretty clear up front, not like people. Sparks flew from a panel a short distance from him. As he walked over he looked around what was lovingly referred to as the bridge. The crew, about six people on a standard rotation were, well a motley crew at best. Captain Eleibeth, looked like a girl next door. She had started in the engine room of one of those big capital ships, after the cataclysm she decided the core wasn't for her and resigned.
   Den-dri was a fun guy, and could he drink, well he could do just about anything, he came from an edge world, where humanity was eugenically modified to survive there, but he could be trusted. It was hard to earn his trust, so many thought he was brusk, but that was mostly because he was never sure of people. Most citizens weren't really comfortable around EG's. There were always other worlds, why loose your humanity to eek out a living on an inhospitable world. JoJo had grown up an alien on his own world, his people didn't leave their planet, or go into the sciences, so he had a lot of similar experiences as Den had gone through.
   Jendri Ferris was hot, very hot, it made him uncomfortable, those feelings. She was the ships ambassador, and liaison to the Capitol. Coming from a core world she had the best med-staff available, so she was eugenically perfect. What upset her was everyone underestimated her. They tended to treat her like a child, when she was very smart, another thing he was familiar with. Doctor Quince, a cephlapodia, having evolved from a cuttlefish like race took some getting used to, but he was well educated in the core, having come from a powerful family. He was a great doctor, well he had great bedside manner, but sometimes he'd connect up to something and was stuck to it despite the evidence.
    Lastly was Aery, the AI, amazing, brilliant, but in some ways the most human of the crew. Everyone on board had their reason for being on the ship, most had suffered one way or another, but they had become family over the last few missions. Pulling the panel free he could see where multiple crystals had burned out, so he began pulling the cracked broken structures out of their ports, and after replacing them in their three tiered lattice, the laser portage activated, blinked a few times as the system reset, and lit up.
    Aery's voice broke the silence,"signal has been calibrated, the computer is insufficient to process, but their is a sidereal signal, I'm processing now, JoJo would you like me to run this program in a closed loop system". JoJo looked to the captain, "well what do you think, if it's safe do it, start a trace and do a astrometric scan of the source, I want to know everything, while your at it mute that damn screeching". People began to move towards their panels, most people didn't need them, almost everyone on the ship had wireless neurotrophic implants, but JoJo had to use a device called a torc, after some old Terran jewelry, he used to feel out of place but Den-dri needed one too.
    Most of them had tablets as well, they hadn't had those on his world. So this strange group was the crew of the Avalon. Not a new ship, but in its time it was the best, corvette class, it was fast and maneuverable, with basic weapons. When the captain got it she had it retrofitted with the best computing power and stealth technologies. Basically they were a courier ship, but their real financing came from transporting highly classified information, to crucial to be trusted to even the most secure tachyon encryption. A little blackmail helped go along way too. The captain had a slogan, "in the darkness of space evil thrives, make it pay". Coming from the Capitol she knew a lot, in fact everyone who came from inner system worlds understood there where a lot of secrets going around, and the crew of the Avalon could be trusted with their secrets for a price.