Darklight: Precipice

Part 17: Aftermath

In stark contrast to the lifeless vista that Soran and the others were now looking out on, the cavern from which they had departed from was now in a state of bustling panic. As he walked through the rough archway leading from Rammachandra’s base, elected leader of the Skry Laurant Faraa felt his blood boil at the chaos that confronted him.

“Where is Dr Day!?” His voice boomed over the din of the dozen bickering and panicked Human-Skry scientists that were trying to ascertain what had happened to the leaders of Utopia and Eresmai that had vanished from within the device. They were all suddenly silent. They all knew that this was a joint Human-Skry project and they also knew that with both Draz and Ana gone Laurant Faraa and his aid Gaius Solomon, former Sage, were the had the upmost authority over them all.

A human woman with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and a heavy black fringe that Faraa recognised from the committee brief earlier that morning came bustling towards him. Her determined blue eyes looked at Faraa through her rimless glasses without fear, but with respect. She wore a black skirt and purple blouse under a white lab coat.

“We don’t know where Dr Day is” she said. “My name s Dr Helena Hammond, I’m Dr Day’s  Deputy at the Gravitational and Spatial Division”.

“Then please tell me, Dr Hammond…” Faraa said through gritted teeth. “What the hell is going on here?”

“This?” Dr Hammond said, eyebrows raised in frustration. “This is lack of leadership. Michael has left us here with no instruction, no one in charge and now the Utopian leadership has vanished. Upon trying to allocate tasks and place these people into teams of investigation, all I get are arguments from both Skry and Humans saying that I have no authority!”

“Do you have an idea of what’s going on here?” Gaius asked the woman. Faraa’s second in command had as much right as Faraa himself to take command here.

“I believe I have a working theory” Dr Hammond replied, brushing a rogue dark hair behind her ear as the din of the scientists rose once again.

“That’s good enough for me” Faraa told her, stepping past her to address the room once again.

“Now I want you all to listen” he barked, attempting to keep his frustration under control.  “Dr Day is missing and so until his return I am appointing Dr Hammond to run this investigation. There is to be no discussion regarding this. You are to follow the instruction that she had given you, and if you don’t like it I’ll find others who do. Report all findings directly to Dr Hammond. Get to it”. There was a slight murmur in the room as the scientists grouped together and split off into their allocated working teams, spreading throughout the space with much less noise and panic. Faraa sighed and turned back to Dr Hammond.

“What is the current theory?” He asked.

“When the device activated we were able to detect highly distorted gravitational and displacement signatures” She explained, talking as quickly as possible to avoid wasting time.

“Bearing in mind that we only had basic equipment here at the time, that’s good going in itself. My hypothesis is that the gravitational distortions somehow shaped and controlled the displacement energy into a specific shape. It wasn’t a wave, it flowed around the outside of the device and was concentrated at its tip. Alongside this we think that the gravitational phenomena was so strong that it bent space-time. This could exponentially increase the distance that displacement energy could transport matter. We’re talking of distances in excess of multiple Astronomical Units, sending the passengers deep into interstellar space and causing…”

Faraa attempted to listen to Dr Hammond’s explanation, but all he could think about was the main reason why he was so angry, so panicked himself, so worried… Alex. Alexander Draz had been ripped from him, and all Faraa could think was that he hoped his fiancee wasn’t floating dead in some dark corner of the cosmos.