Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 528: Island
"I suppose... that makes you the owner of this lighthouse?" Jace asked as he watched the woman walk further into the house before stepping behind a paper screen.
"I am. That bastard was my date for the night. Turns out he was just a bastard with debts that was running." The woman answered as her torn dress fell over the top of the screen. "You have to be a survivor of that ship that arrived through the black hole."
"I get you seeing the ship falling into the atmosphere but how did you know it came through a blackhole?" Jace asked as he saw some undergarments join the woman’s dress on the top of the screen.
"Because there has been mention of it over the radio. Apparently your ship appeared in a black hole that suddenly appeared and disappeared. Then it fell apart. A large chunk ended up in the Northern Lands. Several pieces stayed in space and fell into orbit. Then there were the various pieces that fell across the planet." The woman explained before stepping out from behind the screen and revealing her new outfit which consisted of jeans with leather jacket and several hidden weapons.
"Huh... interesting. This planet would not happen to be Earth would it?" Jace asked as he followed her out of the lighthouse past the dead body and toward the woods.
"It is. But now the planet is called Prima Terra. Which is not much better but generations of wars and disagreements had the entire galaxy divided. You actually landed on an island. Lucky enough for you since there is not a piece of land within ten days to travel by sea." The woman informed him as she pulled an axe out of a wood stump and moved to a thick tree.
"Damn..." Jace cursed as he looked at the clouds that were still clearing up. "Where did I end up in relation to the other pieces that fell?"
"You are in the Great South Sea. It is directly south of the Northern Lands. If you want to get there you miss the ship by a day. The next trade ship will show up in a month." The woman swung the axe and it slammed into the tree.
The tree shook as wood chipped and the bark cracked then she swung again and the axe cut a quarter of the way through the tree. "Why did you not fend off those attackers? You clearly have enough strength."
"They had knives and other weapons." She explained, "even if I am stronger, those can kill me. My skin is not as thick as the other natives of this planet. One of my parents was not native to the planet, that is the reason my skin is not as thick."
Now that she pointed it out he noticed that she was using a pair of gloves as she swung the axe. "Hmm... I suppose that makes sense." Jace looked back at the lighthouse. Most of the hooligans had run off on their horses. Only the dead one and his horse were still laying in front of the lighthouse. "You said this is an island? How small of an island?"
"I... only ever lived here. But I suppose I would say it is big enough? There are three islands each with a major city and a few smaller towns. Obviously I am located out on the edge of one of those islands far from the cities. But there is a logging town a short horse ride away. I will take you there after I make a new door for my house. In fact while I am doing this you can pack that corpse on your new horse. He is probably wanted somewhere so you can get a decent sum..." She looked over at him after glancing at the body and the lighthouse. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚
"Then I will help you with the door once my new horse is set up." Jace agreed as he started moving toward the lighthouse.
"Hold up a minute. You are going to want to get out of that armor and clean up if you can. The villagers will try to kill you if they see you with armor on." She admitted almost with what sounded almost like shame.
"Got it. Do you have a bath or something I can use?" Jace asked with a nod of his head.
"Second floor." The woman told him before focusing on her task of chopping down a tree so she could make a new front door for her lighthouse.
Jace moved over to the lighthouse and patted the side of the horse. It neighed in response and shook its head before following Jace toward the front area of the lighthouse where Jace flipped the dead body and pulled the remains of his sword out of them before preparing the body so it would not leak while on the horse. Tightening the dead man’s clothes and tying his limbs helped with that.
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"I do not get it." A man stated as he watched the footage of the ship arriving through a portal unfold. It tore itself apart before the scattered remains fell across Prima Terra. Not exactly the gem of their empire so why was it even happening?
The reason why is probably why they called him in. Just to solve this mystery. It was probably something simple but they still wanted the best on the case. With that being said he could already tell it would be annoying to deal with.
"Far as we can tell it is just another one of those angel pricks attacks. We are the only non-fledgling galactic nation in a few galaxies. Which is probably why they are so fixated on us." His assistant explained as she handed him a tablet with the scans of the ship’s remains.
"You say that. But... These scans show a clear lack of living angels. But like a few of the ships we managed to destroy. They do have a number of captured species and other races aboard. Do we have eyes on any promising pieces of debris?" He asked as he started creating an algorithm to find the landing spot of all the debris.
"The piece in space had lifesigns but when we arrived they had disappeared. The trawlers and looters are still wading through the wreckage to find anything else that could be of use." A mechanic indicated.
"Looks like most of the debris fell on the northern hemisphere. That part of Prima Terra has easily accessible travel and a low level of complete registration. It will be difficult to find any survivors there and it is unlikely that they will stick out." The head investigator declared as he looked over the information before stopping. "Ah... this will be promising. One of the pieces of debris with a faint lifesign crashed right off the coast of an island. Prepare a ship, we are going down."
"What about the other points of interest?" The assistant asked as she hastily grabbed a device to make a call and preparations for their trip to the surface.
"Put other trackers and investigators on it. We are going to go to the most promising point of interest." The man decided as he started pulling information on the specific island. "If we can find a survivor then we should be able to track the others with whatever information we can find as well as learn why they came here."
"Investigator Sherlock, before you leave, the commander wanted a few words about your mission and the impact it could have." His assistant informed him as he moved towards the door and walked out into a busy hallway of the ship.
"Don’t respond to his messages. It will delay us if we get dragged into another nonsensical political scandal. All these military commanders think about is the power they can get from their next assignment. Go around him through the Maintenance Chief to acquire what we need for our jaunt down to the planet." Investigator Sherlock declared in excitement.
"You seem to be excited? I thought you said this task was going to be menial." The mechanic pointed out as they moved through the hallways.
"I thought it would be menial at first as well. But take a look at the scan of the ship’s remains we are going to look at." The investigator handed over the tablet.
The mechanic frowned and accepted the tablet and his face changed from one of shock to horror and then switched to overwhelming excitement. "How is this possible? The implications..."
"I know. We need to find that survivor if we want answers. Especially since it means at least some of their technology is more advanced than anything we have." The investigator explained his thoughts. "But more importantly is that the scan we have indicates at least a partial relation to humans but matched nothing we have on records. That means another human species we have never seen before. Maybe even a galaxy we do not know about that our ancestors colonized."
