Descent: Aries Wing

With the chest, Bryan sat down at the table. He had mixed feelings about what he was about to do, but there really was no reason to hide the sphere any longer – at least not to the rest of the wing.

He had decided that this would be something that he’d share with the wing, so he brought them into his quarters on the S.S. Sirius, along with the chest containing the mysterious globe. He knew if there was anyone he could trust, it was his wing.

Before getting out the key to the chest, he looked around the table. Sidney, Andrew, and Natalie were eagerly awaiting what he was about to say. He began, “After Jared’s ship was destroyed, I had a chance to go through the wreckage. In that wreckage, I found this.” He took the key and unlocked the chest. He opened it, slowly at first, as if to check that it was still there. Then, he flung the top back, revealing the beauty of the sphere. It was glowing at its normal rate again, almost too bright to look at.

“Oh my,” came Natalie’s reaction. “What is it?”

Almost on cue, Bryan responded, “It’s a big, white, glowing sphere.”

“Duh,” said Sidney under his breath with a mild grin covering his face.

“Seriously,” said Bryan, “I don’t know. I didn’t even know Jared had this, or how he got it in the first place.”

The sphere, for a moment, began glowing slightly brighter, but the glowing receded about as quickly as it began. “Cool,” muttered Andrew.

“Jared never made mention of such a sphere,” Bryan continued. “That surprises me, because he would tell me everything.”

“Maybe he had just found it,” offered Sidney.

Suddenly, in response, the sphere flashed bright white, and everything around Bryan changed. He found himself in the cockpit of a Pyro-GY, fighting some drillers. Quickly, the drillers had been destroyed. “Are you guys seeing this?” said Bryan.

“Oh yeah.” “I am.” “Yes.”

A voice rang out in the cockpit over an old radio channel, “Well, that was less than fun.” Bryan recognized it as his own voice.

“Yeah, that was disappointing at best,” returned a voice from within the cockpit. “Let’s get the rest of the team back here and find out what else we might have to deal with.”

“Jared!” shouted Bryan. “This was the moments right before he was killed.”

The voice of Jared was heard again. “Aries Leader to Aries Two and Aries Three. Please return to the Apparition Base. We will meet above ground. Do you copy?”

Two more voices replied over the subspace channel, “Copy that, on my way,” and, “Roger, Aries Leader.”

“Hey,” said Sidney, “that’s us!”

“Yeah,” replied Andrew. “I remember this.”

The radio channel boomed again, “Let’s head to the surface.”

“Okay,” began Jared, “I’ll be there in a second. I think I see something out of the ordinary down here, and I want to check it out.”

The Pyro-GY began moving toward the ground. The group noticed a light source shining from the floor. “The drillers,” said Bryan. “They made this hole and Jared saw it.”

The pyro wasn’t able to fit through the hole, but after blowing it out with the vauss cannon, the ship entered the cavern below. The architecture holding the cave up was extremely modern. There was a light coming from further down into the cave. The pyro approached it, and the group was able to quickly tell that it was the same sphere that Bryan had just introduced to them.

“Why is it so dim?” asked Bryan to himself. The sphere was giving off bright light as usual, but it was easy to see the interior of it. The pyro reached out and brought the sphere into cargo.

The pyro continued to look around, using its headlight for guidance. After a few minutes of finding nothing, the pyro was led out of the cavern and towards the surface. As he got to the surface, Jared’s voice came through again. “Hey, Bryan, check out what I found down…” Just then, an object, unable to be identified, smashed into the outside wall of the Apparition base, right next to the pyro. “What the…?” came Jared’s voice. The object that smashed into the wall exploded into bright beams of lightning. The Pyro drifted, slowly at first, but then violently into the vortex of the unleashed fury of the Black Shark missile.

Bryan’s heart began racing as the ship violently rocked back and forth. The voice of Jared began screaming. Bryan didn’t want to see what was about to happen. He tried to close his eyes, but the vision was inside his head, and he saw it all. Bryan began screaming with him. Just as the ship was about to explode…

Bryan fell from his chair violently, making a rather loud thud when he hit the floor. At that point, Bryan stopped screaming.

The rest of the wing was startled twice – once by the sudden change of surroundings, and once by Bryan falling out of his chair.

“Oh my god!” exclaimed Natalie as she got up and went to Bryan’s side. “Are you alright?”

Bryan looked up at Natalie, his eyes watered and tearing, as he let out, “I… I think so…”

“Poor Jared,” said Andrew sadly. “He didn’t stand a chance.”

Sidney added, “He deserved more than that. Much more.”

Bryan stumbled to his feet with Natalie’s help and sat back in the chair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect that.” He wiped his eyes to remove any evidence of tearing. He noticed that, again, the sphere was dim. But not as dim as when Jared had found it.

“It’s okay,” responded Natalie gently. “I think we all needed to see that.”

“I didn’t,” responded Bryan quickly, as he hung his head.

Sidney interrupted the moment. “So what do we do with this thing? It obviously has powers we can’t even comprehend.”

Bryan answered, “I know what I’d like to do. I want to find out what this is, where it came from, what it can do, why those drillers were going for it, and why this was in a cavern beneath Apparition base to begin with. There are more questions than answers, I’m afraid.

“Our mission has been delayed until tomorrow. Five more wings and two warships are arriving then. We will be able to get a good night’s sleep. But please keep this in mind; we may get our first answers down there. Let’s keep this among ourselves, don’t let anyone know this is here. Now, get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Bryan,” said Sidney, as him and Andrew took leave.

But Natalie stayed behind for a moment, staring at the glowing sphere, which was getting slowly bright again. She reached out to touch the sphere with her left hand. As she touched it, the light seemed to ripple through the object. She noticed that the globe was comfortably warm as she ran her finger along the edge of the sphere, sending waves flowing through it.

“So, what’s on your mind?” asked Bryan.

In response, the globe flashed brightly again, and the surroundings around Bryan and Natalie changed. Bryan was unable to recognize the place. It was a large room with a bed in the corner, a nightstand next to the bed, and a dresser on the opposite wall.

Natalie looked around, seemingly in familiar surroundings. “Home,” she said lightly, as she sat down on the bed. “I haven’t been here since I began flight school.”

Bryan walked over and sat down on the bed next to her. “This thing took me home, too.”

Natalie said nothing for a few seconds, looking around the room at familiar objects. “I know,” she said, her voice a little uneasy. “You saw me there.”

Bryan turned his head to look at her. She was still looking around the room. “How did you know?” he asked.

Natalie shrugged, “I don’t know how, but when you said that, I knew what you saw.”

Bryan thought for a moment before responding, “Then you know the first thing I saw from the sphere?”

She didn’t speak a word for a second as her eyes began to unfocus. It seemed like several minutes had passed before she turned her head and looked at Bryan. Not just at him, but into his eyes, trying to see something she hadn’t seen before. Finding what she was looking for, she smiled, and let out a quiet, “Yes.”

Bryan smiled too, sharing unspoken feelings with Natalie – feelings that he wasn’t sure were his. As he began to dwell on whether or not he had control over what he was saying while inside the influence of the sphere…

A high pitched beeping was heard from the opposite side of the room. Realizing it was now the next morning, Bryan tried to get up and out of bed, but he was unable to with Natalie nestled comfortably in his arms.

“Natalie?” he asked, almost not believing it was her. The last thing he remembered was staring at her and her staring back at him.

Natalie began to stir with a groan. She stretched as she looked up at him, realizing she had slept in his quarters. “Bryan? What happened?” She slowly sat up, unsure of what else to say.

Bryan had a blank look on his face. “I’m not really sure…”

Natalie was unsure how to feel. She didn’t remember what happened after she was flooded with Bryan’s thoughts. “We didn’t… do anything, did we?”

Bryan, noticing they were both still in uniform, returned, “I don’t think so.” He thought for a few moments, and then responded more resolutely, “I wouldn’t with someone under my command anyway.”

“Oh,” responded Natalie, almost in disappointment. A few uneasy moments passed where all that filled the room was the sound of the alarm. “Um, I’m going to return to my quarters.”

“Okay,” said Bryan weakly. Natalie got out of the bed, and walked out of the room. When the door closed behind her, Bryan commanded, “Alarm off.”

It was at this point Bryan decided that he was beginning to like Natalie a lot. But his feelings were interfered by what the sphere was causing him to feel for her. He began to wonder if he would have felt this way if he hadn’t brought the sphere back with him.

Nonetheless, the new day had begun, and Bryan got ready for it. Looking out the view port, he saw two new warships, all orbiting with the S.S. Sirius over Fieradia. It was a bright world, swirling with red and orange throughout the entire surface. From up here, it looked beautiful.

In a few short minutes, he changed uniforms and called the other members of the wing to meet outside of his quarters. He walked over to the door, met the rest of the wing, and began walking toward the central loading bays. Once there, the wing boarded their respective ships and went to get released from the airlock.

Outside the ship, the four pyros began to descend to the surface of the planet. Fieradia was a lava planet with some barely habitable parts. It was mainly used by the PTMC for mining precious metals and other resources. Upon entering the atmosphere, the sky began to fade from black to a bright red. As the wing got closer to the ground, they were able to make out the various mining buildings and facilities. Soon, their landing position was visible. The four ships made their landing, but before they could get out of their ships, they heard, “PTMC Fieradian Mining Center to CED wing, requesting immediate assistance in one of our mines.”

Bryan responded, “This is Commander Bryan Chambers of the CED Aries Wing, go ahead.”

“Three Black Pyros have appeared out of nowhere and are attacking our miners!” shouted the PTMC representative, seemingly in a panic. “We need someone to get them out of there immediately! They are in Inferno mine 21C.”

“We’re on our way,” responded Bryan. He then switched over to the subspace channel the rest of the wing was on. “We’re heading over to Inferno mine 21C to oust three bogies. Be on your best alert, there may be more.”

“Understood.” “Got it.” “Lead the way.”

Bryan’s Magnum led the way through the mining facility grounds. Most of the terrain consisted of covered bridges over several lava rivers. Finally, they entered a cavern just outside of a small lava pool. Bryan had traveled to many remote worlds, but none were as environmentally unforgiving as this one.

The hallway led down into the ground for about a mile. Then, the hallway opened up into a room. The room had blue walls with a short energy center tunnel in the floor. There was a big hallway to the left going up and two smaller hallways to the right.

“Let’s split up,” said Bryan over the subspace channel. “Natalie and Andrew, you take the first hallway on the right. Sidney, you’re with me on the left.” And like that, the four ships quickly split up. Bryan took the lead as they ascended the incline the hallway provided. “Watch out for the gap in the ceiling,” stated Bryan as he noticed a hallway that stemmed from the ceiling, above the hallway they just came from.

Ahead, Bryan noticed another room similar to the one from below. He slowly entered the room and saw the three ships that were spoken about. Bryan realized he had the element of surprise on his side. “There they are!” he shouted over the channel. He let loose a quad fusion blast at the group. But they noticed the noise and were able to move around the fusion. Sidney joined the fray by firing his vauss cannon at one of the enemies. The enemy ship danced around, making it extremely hard to hit. It returned fire with some super lasers. Sidney was unable to dodge the first volley as his shields lit up, but he was able to dodge the next one. “We’re outnumbered up here!” shouted Bryan.

Within a few moments, Natalie and Andrew found them. As Natalie fired a round of mass driver into one of the ships shields, the third ship began pumping some rounds of vauss into Andrew’s ship. “Hey!” yelled Andrew as he swiftly dodged some more vauss. He returned some lasers of his own, which managed to actually chase the opposing ship out of the room. Andrew followed it.

In the meantime, Bryan had his fusion charged and ready again. He let it go, and this time it ripped right through the first ship’s shields, causing the ship’s hull to buckle and break apart. As that ship’s pieces fell to the ground, Natalie released another round of mass driver into the same ship she hit before. Its shields were sparking with uncontrolled energy, but remained in tact. Sidney then fired a single concussion missile at the ship, finishing off the ship’s shields and causing an explosion to erupt within the ship. Pieces of the Black Pyro blew apart and onto the ground.

“Andrew, what’s your situation?” called Bryan over the channel.

Andrew was chasing the Black Pyro through the halls when he came to a room along the hallway. The Black Pyro entered the room, but Andrew stayed behind the glass wall, waiting for the pilot to make his move. “He’s cornered,” responded Andrew.

“Good. We’ll be there in a second.”

Suddenly, the Black Pyro made a run for it. It attempted to fly down the hallway back to the lower level, but Andrew quickly shot a napalm rocket in its direction. It sailed past the ship and ignited the entire hallway into flames. The Black Pyro unknowingly flew through the Inferno falling from overhead and began to slowly roast in the flames. However, before the ship burnt apart, the pilot managed to land the pyro and exit the craft. “Uh oh, he’s out of his ship,” called out Andrew. The man was unable to avoid the flames. He began running around in a panic, trying to douse the flames.

As the napalm rocket burned itself out, Bryan, Natalie, and Sidney flew onto the scene. Seeing the man burning in flames, Bryan released his guide bot, instructing it to douse the flames. The guide bot whistled in confirmation, flew erratically towards the pilot, and extinguished the flames in a cloud of Halon gas. After the fire was put out, the guide bot whistled happily and returned to Bryan’s Magnum. “Let’s land and put him into custody.”

As the cloud cleared up, the four ships landed in the hallway around the pilot, who had collapsed to the floor. Bryan was the first to get out of his pyro, laser pistol readied. “You are under arrest by the CED,” he announced.

The pilot coughed in response, barely able to get to his feet. There were burn marks throughout his body, but he appeared to be otherwise okay. “Bah!” the pilot yelled out in a gruesome voice. “The CED will pay for this! They will never find the Orb of Infinity!”

This, obviously, got the attention of Bryan. “Orb of Infinity? What is this orb?” he asked. By now, the other pilots had gotten out of their ships with their laser pistols withdrawn.

The pilot responded, “He who controls the Orb of Infinity has infinite power.”

Bryan got out a pair of handcuffs and approached the pilot cautiously. As he got near the pilot, he said, “Well, right now you have no power.” He turned the pilot around, maneuvered the pilot’s arms behind him, and applied the handcuffs. “Nor do you have any rights. I declare you a prisoner of war.”

“The only war there is,” stated the pilot, “is the war against time until the orb is found and you are destroyed.”

Bryan began to wonder the severity of him finding the sphere really was. “Shut up and get in the ship.” He moved for the pilot to walk back to the ship. He announced to his wing, “Let’s take this guy out of here. We’ll need to get another wing down here for patrol to see if there are any more attacks going on.”

“Got it.” “Let’s go.” “Okay.”

Bryan moved the guy into his ship, and then boarded himself. As he closed the door and took off, he said, “So what’s a guy like you hanging around a PTMC facility for?” The pilot was silent. He obviously wasn’t up for any interrogation. “I see,” responded Bryan sarcastically. “Very interesting. Well, if you won’t tell me about the PTMC, why don’t you tell me a little more about the orb.”

The pilot sighed heavily before saying, “The Orb of Infinity has an unknown origin. Legend has it that a great emperor of another more powerful and advanced race found the orb millennia ago and used it to torment his people. The people revolted against him, however, and, through carelessness, lost the orb. It was banished from his empire. He eventually escaped execution and, since then, has been looking for the orb.

“The orb invokes visions and thoughts based on your emotions. It also shows visions of the past that the orb has experienced. Once it understands the controller, it can do whatever the controller decides he wants to do. It has no concept of right or wrong, good or evil. The only thing it knows is infinite power, and that power can be used by the controller however he sees fit.”

Bryan thought about the possible consequences that controlling such a device could have. Bryan then realized that he currently controlled the device. The thought weighed so heavily that he stopped paying attention to his flying for a moment, and nearly ran into a wall.

The pilot chuckled to himself before taunting, “That means you will be wished away in a thought.”

“So,” Bryan bluffed, “no one knows where this orb is?”

“It was determined that it’s not where it should be, and believe that someone or something got to it first, and is planning to use it for their own good.”

By now, the wing had made it back outside of the mine. Bryan brought up the S.S. Sirius on the subspace channel. “This is Commander Chambers to S.S. Sirius. Three bogeys have been destroyed on the surface, with one prisoner on board. Requesting permission to return to dock for repairs.”

Over the intercom, “Request granted. Return to the ship at once, we will send another wing down there immediately.”

Bryan responded, “On my way.” He led the wing into the sky. Slowly the atmosphere changed from a red to the speckled black of space. In the distance, the planet’s sun was seen shining brightly. As they got closer to the warship, they saw the air lock slowly opening. Finally, the approached the ship, entered the air lock, and then landed once out of it. Several guards were around Bryan’s ship, waiting for him to transfer the prisoner to them. Surprisingly, Admiral Gonzalez was also there.

Bryan escorted his prisoner out of the pyro, and then transferred him over to the guards. The Admiral then approached him, smiling widely. “Excellent job, Commander! I am impressed with your wing and their work.”

Bryan responded, “Thank you, sir. All part of a day’s work.”

“Indeed,” the Admiral chuckled.

Bryan’s curiosity got the best of him. “Can I ask you a question, sir?”

“Sure,” said the Admiral cheerfully. “Anything you need.”

“What is the Orb of Infinity?”

Suddenly, the Admiral’s cheerful expression was removed, replaced with concern, fear, and anger. “Come with me,” he said sternly.

The Admiral led Bryan down a couple of corridors before stopping at a small conference room. Both men entered the room and sat down at the conference table.

The Admiral asked almost immediately after the door shut, “How do you know about the Orb of Infinity?”

Bryan responded, “The prisoner told us that we would never find it, and once they found it, they’d destroy us.”

“Hmmm,” said the Admiral, appearing to be thinking to himself.

Bryan hesitated to ask the question, but brought himself to do so. “With all due respect, is there something you’re not telling me, sir? It’s rare you would drag me aside for such a small item.”

The admiral sighed and looked down before saying, “This is far from a small item. The Orb of Infinity is a legendary power source, believed to currently exist somewhere in the Milky Way galaxy. It has many powers people could only dream of. There are a lot of archeological clues scattered over many galaxies that point to the existence of the orb. Until recently, we thought we were hot on the trail of the orb. Our intelligence told us that it would be found someone underneath Apparition Base. But it was not there, and every lead since has turned up cold.”

Bryan was able to cover himself good, and added, “Have you ever thought that this is only a storybook legend?”

The Admiral confirmed his suspicion. “Many times. But there’s more than enough evidence pointing to the existence of this orb. It’s out there somewhere.

“But knowing that’s what that prisoner was after may give us answers as to what the Rebels’ true intentions are. Thank you again for your fine work. You’re dismissed.”

Bryan answered, “No problem,” as he left the conference room and began back to his quarters.

Bryan did not like the fact that the Admiral was dodging questions about the orb, and why he was being so brief with him. Not providing information was very much unlike the Admiral. Bryan began to wonder what would ever happen if the Admiral found out that Bryan had the orb.

Then he began to dwell on what he would actually do with the orb. The thought of uncontrolled, limitless power to do anything you want at any time was quite unnerving. With nothing to put that kind of power in check, the orb seemed to now have a chill of danger to it. Bryan didn’t know how he could handle such a danger.

He arrived back at his quarters, eager to find out if he could get some more information out of the orb. He punched in the code to his quarters and entered the room. As he did, he heard some scurrying coming from the direction of his bed. He saw a shadowy figure looking underneath the bed for something. “Hey!” Bryan shouted.

As he did that, the figure stood up and quickly raised a firearm at Bryan. Bryan moved out of the way just as the weapon was fired. The laser beam floated out into the hallway and made a burn mark on the opposite wall.

Bryan than withdrew his laser pistol, thinking to himself that it was getting way too much action today. He quickly peeked his head around to see where the person was standing, and retracted it just in time to avoid another shot.

Further down the hall, Sidney, Andrew, and Natalie were returning to their quarters when they saw Bryan in the hallway, pistol drawn, and exchanging laser fire with someone in his quarters. Natalie was quick to react, drawing her pistol as well, Sidney and Andrew following behind her.

Bryan hoped for the best and decided to take a quick shot at the person in his quarters. He made a quick move from one side of the door frame to the other, firing a single shot on the way. The shot missed the intruder, as did the intruder’s return shot.

By now, Natalie was approaching the door. Not thinking twice, she knelt down directly in front of the door frame, aimed her pistol, and fired at the intruder. Taken by surprise, the person was unable to dodge her round. He let out a loud groan as he flew backwards over the bed and onto the floor behind it.

Bryan, Andrew, and Sidney quickly entered the room as Natalie stood up and followed them in. The man was on the floor, groaning quietly in pain.

“Nice shot, Natalie,” commented Bryan dryly.

“Thanks, Bryan,” she responded.

Andrew was the first to wonder aloud, “Why would anyone break into your quarters? Do they know about the orb?” The question went unanswered.

Sidney had already gotten to a panel to alert the bridge of the security intrusion. Shortly thereafter, two S.S. Sirius security officers arrived to take away the new prisoner.

“You’re going to be okay, right?” asked Sidney as the rest of the wing was about to leave his quarters.

“I’m sure I’ll do fine,” responded Bryan. “Thank you all for the help.”

“No problem,” said Sidney, as he led the others out.

Bryan sat down on the bed and let out a big sigh. He was completely exhausted, even though the day just began. Between not knowing if he got any sleep or not last night and all of the excitement that has taken place so far today, he was too tired to wonder who was in his quarters and why. Bryan lay down on his bed, and only had enough time to wonder if Natalie was worrying about him, before he drifted away into unconsciousness.