U.S.S.A Umbra

Chapter 5 The obelisk

Alice hurried herself to get to cargo bay 1. As she made her way through the ship, she noticed that people looked more tired and jumpier than usual. Alice was good at judging other people's emotional states. She was just empathetic like that. Alice could feel the tension in the people around her by looking at them. People were speaking in hushed whispers among each other. Alice could pick up a few things they were saying, mostly about strange and disturbing dreams they were having and how they've been having them all week. More people had to take time off as some were too shaken to focus on work while others mainly researchers focused more heavily on theirs. Alice made her way to a mag lift on deck six that led to cargo bay 1. As she stepped inside, she could tell it hadn't received much maintenance as it was poorly lit and grungy.

"Bleh gross, when was the last time this was cleaned?"  She said in a disgusted tone while quickly tapping the cargo bay button, she looked at her finger to see there was a black liquid on her pointer finger. She hadn't paid too much mind to it other than disgust as she wiped it on her gown. As the doors opened a dark figure lurched towards Alice stumbling into her. "Whoa hey! Careful!"  She said grabbing onto the man, he was an engineer. "Oh sorry about that, I haven't been feeling too good lately, I haven't been sleeping so well either." He was a tall, thin sickly looking man who stood a head over her wearing a dirty dark blue jumpsuit with black stains covering it. She could see a bit of black liquid oozing from his gums and some coming out of his ears. "What is that black stuff?"  The man looked confused. "Oh this is just old oil, I was just lubricating and replacing parts. The oil just tends to spill all over you, it's kinda like blood, and it's very difficult to get out,"  He said with a wide grin. His answer sounded plausible but the way he said it made her spine chill. Alice stepped out of the elevator, as she turned back she saw the sickly-looking man giving her a wide grin as the doors were closing, and then he was gone.

Alice was making her way to cargo bay 1 when her wrist com received a call. It was Connor." Alice where are you?"  He asked curiously. "I'm just heading down the hallway to the cargo bay as we speak,"  Alice said now jogging down the hallway.-"Alright well please do hurry, the Ebony has just arrived."- "Will do sir."  Connor ended the call. Alice could feel her heart beating faster as she got closer to the cargo bay entrance, "Oof, I need to work on my cardio."  She said starting to feel out of breath from not only jogging many meters but also having traveled half the ship mostly on foot. As Alice got to the door it opened automatically. As the large door opened she could see the Ebony landing along with the rest of her team who were waiting below it. Alice looked in awe as the large, sleek silver ship landed; it was an intricate and beautiful engineering work. She finally met up with her team as they all watched four blue armored soldiers carrying a large bizarre looking machine with a black obelisk on top of it.

The scientists all gasped and wowed as they saw the alien device." Isn't it beautiful Alice? Rarely do we ever discover such large and intact pieces of Umaran technology; I can't wait to see how it works."-"It really is Dr. Murray, but I didn't expect it to be so...alien-looking...I mean, of course, it is, it's alien tech but I didn't think it would be so bizarre looking." -"Trust me, when we discover what it does it will just like any other piece of Umaran tech, but I don't think it will be just any machine. No...I know it will be something special. Alright, let's take it to the lab." The scientists along with the four soldiers carrying the obelisk took the tram car to the labs on deck 33, where they would uncover the secrets of the mysterious machine. It took ten of the longest minutes of Alice's life to arrive at deck 33 where they would take a route through an unknown part of the ship, so none of the other staff could see the obelisk. Alice had only traveled through here once as part of her orientation in case of this particular situation. The hallways were dark but not disheveled unlike decks 10 through 16. The way there was only lit by small green lights on the walls that lit up when they detected motion.

Alice started feeling nervous walking down the not so well lit hallway right next to the alien obelisk. It wasn't active but she could feel a low vibration coming off of it. She was feeling compelled to get closer to it, to touch it. She was transfixed by it now, almost unable to take her eyes off it, before she knew it they had all stopped. Alice bumped into the soldier on the right who only looked back at her with what she could feel was a glare. Once they had entered the lab, Dr. Connor showed the soldiers where the machine would be kept and tested on. Alice then, while no one was looking decided to call Damien. While patrolling through deck 18, Damien saw that he had an incoming call on his heads-up display, "Hey Alice what's up?" – "Hey...the Ebony arrived and we've got what it was carrying in the lab now." She said quietly. "Okay, but why are you talking so quietly?" -"I'm not supposed to be talking to anyone outside the lab while we're working on the artifact."-"Uh, what kind of artifact?"-"I honestly can't say much more about it; we have no idea what it even is, I can't say anymore. I took a few pictures of the Ebony though." Damien saw several images of the Ebony pop up on his visor, wow it's a beautiful ship, how long is it staying?"-"No idea could be here for a while or could be gone now." Damien was acting as if it didn't bother him, but that was the ship from his dream. "Thank you for showing me."-"No problem but I gotta get going; we're getting ready to study it."  Alice disconnected the call.

"Dammit my patrol route doesn't go anywhere near cargo bay 1, I'll have to check it out after my shift is over if it'll even still be there,"  Damien said to himself. Hours had gone by as Damien patrolled the decks of the Umbra while Alice along with Dr. Murray and the specially selected members of the Umbra's science team ran tests on the obelisk. They radiocarbon dated it; damage tested it and collected various samples of it. They experimented on it in more ways than was normal to do even with something as unknown and as bizarre as the machine. It was made out of the same dark, purple grey alloy as most Umaran tech was. The stone the obelisk was made from was unlike any they had seen before. It absorbed more light than any other material known to man. But soon the obelisk will absorb more than light and none shall escape its warping effects.