Dark Haven - Chapter 14

[crunn]

Chapter 01 (Fate of the Armadeaus)
Chapter 02 (Portents)
Chapter 03 (Passing of a Fantasy)
Chapter 04 (Fissures in the Dark)
Chapter 05 (Reminiscence)
Chapter 06 (Things that go Bump...)
Chapter 07 (The Rocky Road)
Chapter 08 (Escape Plan)
Chapter 09 (Becoming)
Chapter 10 (And it Begins Again)
Chapter 11 (Flight)
Chapter 12 (Cut-off)
Chapter 13 (Spicy Noodles Under a Blood Coloured Moon)

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DARK HAVEN

Chapter 14 (The Dreaming)


'I still can't feel my body, or see, I don't think my eyes are open.

Time has passed, I don't know how much but I am sure that I'm not in space anymore.

I've been having dreams, or visions of things I have never seen.
I have knowledge of things I don't know.
When the Spore tried to absorb me we exchanged thoughts and knowledge.

Yes, the Spore, that is the best way to describe it.

I didn't, I don't understand their language, nor do they ours, but I felt what it feels, what it does.
Feelings and sensations attached to each image. Knowledge of what they do, not through words but through feelings.

I call it the Spore because that is almost exactly what it is, its purpose the same.
And when it germinates it will be a glorious thing.
No... no... the feelings. A glorious thing for them.
For us it will mean the end of everything. There is no hope, no possibility.
Or is that the dreams talking again?

I am drifting away again... I see...'

...

'I am flying through space.
There is a planet.
As I near it I start to slow down.
I see oceans, greenish blue. Several land masses.
Cities, large, very large. Everywhere, covering much of the land.
I'm flying low over the land surrounded by black ships, like the ones that destroyed the Armadeaus, no, that will destroy the Armadeaus.
The land is bare, dry, cracked, desert. Nothing but sand and rocks.
I feel the heat of the suns above.
I pass over a lake, I see my reflection in it, but not my reflection, I am one of the black ships.
We continue towards one of the cities. As we get nearer we slow further. It is like nothing I've seen before, but I know it well, this is home.

Giant towers, spires, pierce their way up to the sky. They are the colour of the desert, reds and browns.
We are in the city now, slow.
There are smaller structures between, round, oval, flat. And between them are great crevices reaching down beneath the surface, depths which the light will not reach.
I am descending, the others follow. Into one of the fissures.
It is dark, soon the light is gone, but I see everything as if it were still light.
The walls are black, I see it as alive, moving, breathing.
Further and further.
I sense more of my kind deep below, different.'

...

'This is one of their cities, not the homeworld, not even a capital, but it is old.
They take great pride and great care in their worlds and cities.
Most of their population live below the surface, though their buildings often extend for great distances above.'

...

'An alert.
We are needed.
A Spore may be in danger.

We accelerate upward.
More of us now.
I see the sky again, a red desert sky, dusk.

We join other groups from other fissures.
A black cloud in the sky.
We are ready to jump.

A flash and we are there.
I see the Spore, it is young, nestled in a large asteroid.
We sense danger, we must protect.
There, a ship, we do not recognise it. Green pointed.
It is bigger than us, no matter.
It is moving in on the Spore, it must be destroyed.
It will make good nourishment.
We surround it and kill it, as always its remains are gathered and placed with the Spore.

The danger is gone, we will return home.'

...

'I didn't recognise the green ship either, not any of the races I know, I don't think even Earth.
I get the feeling that happened long ago.
These small ships are capable of jumping vast distances. I believe they act as guardians to the Spores.'

...

'We are needed again.
Still night time, or is this a different night?
Jump.

Atmosphere.
We are at a planet this time.
It is always best when the Spores land on planets, though the risk is greater.
We see it, older, near germination.
Germination is a glorious sight, I have seen it many times now, it brings life.

There is the danger, we must protect.
An army of life-forms with primitive weapons.
They pose little danger, but so close to germination we will not take the risk.

We fly down.
They see us and fire, their weapons like tiny stings, no matter, they will be gone now.
We kill the enemies and their vehicles.

We must now wait and watch over the Spore in its final stage.

Tendrils of the Spore reach out in all directions and down into the ground.
The ground begins to shake.
Tremors, earth quakes, violent shaking, worsening.
Then the body of the Spore erupts.
Oh glorious life, it has begun here.

We are no longer needed, we will return home.'

...

'The body of that Spore was huge and bulbous, ugly knotted tendrils everywhere, all over the area of land.
If any life existed in that area it had been absorbed.
The Spores prefer organic material, it is digested more quickly, but inorganic will do just as well.
This one was big but not much bigger than the Spore on the station.
There can't be long to go.'

...

'Pain...
There is an attack.
We are needed.
Jump.

The Spore is in an asteroid field.
It is not young, but it is still small.
We see them, the enemy we know, they hurt us.

They are attacking the Spore.
Arcs of electricity hit the Spore.
Pain...

Our weapons are resisted.
We can not hurt them as well as they hurt us.
We kill one of them, then another.
More of us arrive.
We kill another, but too late.
The spore is dead.

We are no longer needed, we will return home.'

...

'Those enemy ships, I recognise them...
I have seen one.
Every attempt by every known race to contact them has failed.
They are a mystery but we know them as UFO's'

...

'Our forces have met resistance.
We are needed.
One of our populated sectors is being invaded.
Our capital ships are proceeding to our gate.
We can get there first.
Jump.

This system has been ours for a little while now.
Two planets have been taken, two others are to be prepared.

We can not see the invaders.
The ones who must be protected at all costs are contacting us again.
The enemy are a distance away yet.
They have come through one of the gates made by The Others.
It is beyond our sight, but we have been told where.

We are on the way, faster and faster.
We can hear the defence ships from our planets, they are dying, this enemy is killing them
Our capital ships are coming now, faster than us, they will pass us soon.

The fleet of vast ships sleek past silently. Their size equalled only by their power.
No enemy, not even 'The Enemy', has ever stood against them.

We see the enemy now, they have killed all the ships belonging to this sector.
They will not be allowed to proceed.
Silver, they are not alive.
I do not understand.
Understanding is not necessary, they must be killed.
There are seven of them, very big, not as big as our capital ships.
And forty more, small, not as small as us.

We see the killing has begun.
We are almost there, and it is almost over.
Only the small ones remain.
We have swarmed around the remaining few.
They are all dead.
They hurt two of our capital ships, but they will be healed soon.

Our capital ships are to continue through the gate made by The Others to look for more of this silver enemy.
We are to gather the remains of their ships and those of our fallen defence ships.
Then some of us are to remain here until replacements are grown.'

...

'Xenon, a whole lot of Xenon, M1's and M2's, forty assorted fighters, and these guys just walk over them.
Four capital Black ships, two took minor damage.
The Argon Fleet would have problems with Xenon like that, what chance have we against these... I still don't know their name... These Black.

Those Xenon ships were the old style, so that puts this incident at least fifty jazuras (years) ago.

The Black capital ships are not capable of jumping like the small ships. They need a gate. It seems they can use gates made either by The Black or by The Others.
I wonder if 'The Others' and 'The Enemy' are one in the same. I feel the same hostility when they are mentioned. Or maybe they are just related or allies.
Could one or both of these be the UFO's?
Maybe they could help.'

...

'An alert.
We are needed.
A Spore may be in danger.

We accelerate upward.
I see the sky again, a blue, afternoon, clear across the ocean.

We join other groups.
A black cloud in the sky.
We are ready to jump.

A flash and we are there.
We sense the Spore inside an alien structure, floating in space.
It is maturing, a little while yet before germination.
We sense danger, we must protect.
Three small ships circling the structure, firing in at the Spore, they try to hurt us.
We do not recognise them. Grey.
They are a little bigger than us, no matter.
They must be destroyed.
They will make good nourishment.
We surround them and kill them, as always their remains are gathered and placed with the Spore.

...

'Pirates, two Orinocos and a Mandalay.
And that looks like the station in X8.
This must have happened three tazuras (days) ago.'

...

'An alert.
We are needed.
A Spore may be in danger.
Jump.

This is the same place, the same structure.
We sense danger, we must protect.
There, a ship, we might recognise it, similar to the previous. Grey, near the structure.
It is much bigger than us, and much bigger than the previous, no matter.
It must be destroyed.
It will make good nourishment.
We surround it and kill it, as always its remains are to be gathered and placed with the Spore.

Wait, there is another ship, smaller.
I will kill it while the others collect the remains.
It is a small ship almost as small as me, it is not alive.
And a life-form behind.
I have killed the ship
This life-form interests me, I can feel it, I see its face and its thoughts.
It is thinking of another of its kind, I sense a loss, hurt, pain.
I sense that it will go into the structure. The Spore will deal with it.

The danger is gone, we will return home.'

...

'The Armadeaus.'

[KiwiNZ]

Good description of his dream! Very lively, even well recognisable the Xenons. The term UFO sounds a bit odd but I could not come up with a better word for them.

I only hope the Khaak battleships are not quite as powerful as that

Good read, I look forward to the next chapter.

[Moss]

Very strange and interesting but I guess alien memories would be! strange that is!

Its nicely described but leaves me with loads of questions, Spores and germinating! sounds very plant like, the small and large ships seem to behave like insects, but more intelligent! and I do wonder what a lifeform like this would need cities for? and what exactly happens when they erupt? i'll be looking forward to learning more about these creatures.

I'll also be very interested to find out whats going to happen to Monroe, and of course how the races in the X universe will be dealing with this problem!

[Mercenary]

Very good read,

Reminds me a bit of Final Fantasy.

Looking forward to the next part...

[crunn]

The term UFO sounds a bit odd but I could not come up with a better word for them.

Me neither, I originally wrote 'The Ancients' but I'm not sure if those little flying saucers in the game are actually the ancients.
So I just used the term used in the game 'UFO'
If anyone has suggestions, please suggest away.

I only hope the Khaak battleships are not quite as powerful as that

Agreed.
Very challenging, but not almost impossible.


There is something I've been carefully avoiding putting in the story so far.
Whether or not these are the Khaak.
When writing Ch1 and not sure I'd continue writing. I thought 'yes these are the Khaak'.
Ch2-4 never gave it much thought.
Then I started thinking
'I will need to give some detailed info on these guys at some point, but we know almost nothing about the Khaak.
What can I write? what can I write?
I'll have to make stuff up, but come September, my story will be all wrong.
What can I do? What can I do? Panic!!
Maybe they are not the Khaak, maybe they are a different race.
Maybe they are related or allied to the Khaak, or maybe they are a whole new race entirely of their own.
Yes that's it, a new race, I can write what I want and it won't conflict with anything else.
But I already said 'Black' and 'Swarmy' That sounds 'Khaaky' to me.
What to do? What to do?
Maybe no one noticed?
Don't be ridiculous crunn, of course they noticed.
Ahhhhh.
Maybe the Khaak are not the only 'Black' and 'Swarmy' aliens about, B5 has the Shadows they are kind of 'Black' and 'Swarmy', I'm sure Trek had something similar at some point.
Yes that might do, they are a different 'Black' and 'Swarmy' race.
Mmmm but they could be the Khaak, I could go back and edit anything necessary in September.'

I'd probably best not elaborate further on my insane panicings, they'd put me away for my own good, for everyones good.


But for the record -
(not really a spoiler but in case you haven't guessed and don't want to know what I decided to do about it for now.)

Spoiler

Show

These guys are not the Khaak that will be in X2.


They might or might not be related,
a slightly more pleasant/unpleasant cousin,
or a differently evolved colony,
or unconnected entirely.
(I haven't decided myself yet)

<<crunn off the panic some more. (j/k)

[crunn]

It leaves me with loads of questions.

Good.
*chuckle*

Spores and germinating! sounds very plant like.

Well, technically spores are fungal, not plant. But it comes to the same thing anyway.
Besides, that was just Monroes perception of it, it's not an actual piece of fungus. It just acts like one.

And what exactly happens when they erupt?

Ahhh. It will be glorious.