Equinox: The Sphere Wars

Chapter 6: Darkness

Icame up on a cliff overlooking part of the eastern desert. I saw alarge thunderhead with a wall cloud of some kind circling around alarge area, not moving in any direction, just spinning. I lookedcloser to the ground and saw a small camp of Teranors, Siege, andSphera. I looked even closer and saw Kate and John, briefing a coupleof Siege guards whose tech was far more superior than I had everseen, not even the Teranors or Sphera's tech was that advanced. Ijumped off of the cliff and traveled the rest of the distancenecessary to reach the camp. I walked up to Kate just after the twoGuards she was debriefing walked off.

Chris:"What's this storm? It's like nothing I have ever seen before."

Kate:"It has had us baffled for the past seven months ourselves. It justappeared out of nowhere one day and engulfed this area. There used tobe a small lake in this area but the storm encased it too."

Chris:"It's been here for how long?"

Kate:"Seven months. We had originally explored this area, hoping toresearch herbs as the lake here grew medicinal herbs, but on ourthird trip here to collect samples of the herb this thing showed up.It seems to have cut a very deep ravine in the sand as well, whichmeans the only way across it is that bridge."

Shepointed at a bridge that was made of some kind of dark brick. Itglowed pure black.

Kate:"Whatever is inside this thing spawned the bridge to cross it butthat was six months ago and the storm hasn't shown any signs ofletting us in. That's when we started sending small scouting partiesinside but unfortunately every scout we have sent in so far has neverreturned."

Chris:"What do you think happens to them? Is there any signs of a threaton the other side?"

Kate:"Obviously some kind of threat, but the only thing is that anythreat that is greater than the soldiers we have sent would have hadthe power to break through the cloud barrier without any kind oftechnological help whatsoever so if it were the case then why hasn'tit come out itself?"

Chris:"Maybe it's waiting for you to send it some more food. The soldiersyou send in there are obviously trapped."

Kate:"That's just the thing. Here, let me show you."

Wewalked over to a table they had set up, and she pulled up aholographic picture.

Kate:"This image was taken via a remote controlled sentry robot that wehad sent in there in the early stages of the investigation."

Theimage was dark, but there were some artificial black lights strewnacross the black plane. Everything in the image was dark anddistorted. It was fuzzy though, so it was hard to make out. I sawwhat looked like black plants, black dirt, and black rock as a pathon the ground. Enzon inside me lurched at the sight of this pictureand fear struck me.

Kate:"Because of this image, we have named the area inside the DarkTerritory. Does Enzon know anything about it?"

Chris:"It looks like the dark side of the Sphere home world; Rahlm KinGZorann, or RahlGzoraan for short."

Kate:"Interesting... But anyway, as you can see, there aren't any signsof life in there."

Chris:"That doesn't necessarily mean that there is no life in there. Iwant to go in. Your technology has come a long way in the past year,but I'm still ahead of you. Maybe I can survive whatever is inthere."

Kate:"Just be careful in there."

Chris:"I will."

Iwalked towards the cloud barrier on the bridge and put my handagainst it to see that it was completely solid.

Chris:"Just how did you get through this barrier anyway?"

Kate:"It took us two months to figure that out. We have developed thesegrenades..."

Sheheld out two small orbs with red and blue lights on them.

Kate:"We roll these under the space under the barrier on the bridgealong the right side rail and it will expand an area about six feetin diameter so you can walk through, but they only last a couple ofseconds. That shouldn't be a problem with your TDD, though."

Chris:"How interesting... Wish me luck."

Itook the grenades and absorbed one of them so my suit could make themitself. I rolled the other one along the right rail of the bridge andwhen it exploded, the cloud barrier slowed to almost a halt comparedto how fast it was traveling. The opening was circular and it left athin cloud in front and in the back of the opening that was easilypassed though. I activated my TDD to pass through the opening but assoon as I did it closed behind me. I ducked behind one of the blackrocks to avoid any possible detection by whatever is in here.Whatever it was, I knew it wouldn't be easy to defeat.