Chapter 27
Mirana hurried to the lift that would take her to her room, filled with excitement. It was no wonder Palandora’s moon had looked strange; it had been invisible the whole time. Once X had pointed it out, Mirana had realized what had happened. There had been a ball moving across the sky, but she hadn’t seen it with her eyes. She had felt it. She vaguely remembered being able to sense the Shadow field her father had generated, and she was willing to bet that that explained what she had just seen: some fast-moving satellite that had been hidden from everyone the whole time. Everyone, except perhaps for her father.
She spent just enough time in the room to make it look occupied, setting the “Do not disturb” light, messing up the blankets, running the shower. None of this was probably necessary, but she needed something to do while she solidified her plan. The fastest thing would be to call Nightsong remotely and board it outside the hotel lobby, but some dragon might try to eat it before it reached her if she did that. In the end, Mirana decided to play civilian for just a little longer and take the shuttle back to the landing bay. It was a short trip but, it felt like forever.
Finally she was back at the landing bay, where she quickly pulled on a flight suit and climbed into her fighter. The moment she had clearance to leave, she blasted out of the bay and headed into the sky. She engaged the Shadow field almost immediately, taking a bit of satisfaction in the confusion it must have caused the bay crew. But that thought was brushed aside by the bigger issue. She had found something. Someone had left her a clue, and she had finally picked up on it.
Mirana could no longer see her destination, but there was little doubt as to where it would be. She quickly brought Nightsong out of Palandora’s atmosphere and moved west, and soon the moon’s round form rose over the horizon. It was still not really visible, but it seemed to light up her mind somehow when she turned her attention toward it. As she approached, she chided herself for not recognizing that the phase of the pseudo-moon was all wrong: it was impossible to see a full moon above you near sunset, since the sun would only be shining on half of what you could see in that position. But again, that was hardly important now.
Whatever the invisible object was, it was orbiting quickly, and it took a few minutes for Mirana to catch up. She slowed as she came near, unsure of whether she should try to land on it or fly right through. She decided to gently brush the energy field that blocked whatever was beneath and found that Nightsong met no resistance. After a quick breath to steady herself, Mirana nudged the flight stick and flew through the barrier.
A short distance below the Shadow field lay a rocky sphere, really no bigger than a small space station, marked at odd intervals with circular openings that seemed to be spewing Shadow Plasma up into the field above her. There were a few other markings in its shell, but nothing that was obviously a door, so she began to fly over its surface, looking. Finally she found a landing site with a low structure nearby, on the side directly facing Palandora. She landed her fighter and got out, then stopped for a moment before the door. She looked up at the planet she had come from and thought of how strange it was that after all the searching that had gone on there, the real secret had been here, just out of sight for all these years. She wondered how her father had found it, and whether he had stood where she stood now. With any luck, she was about to find out.
The structure in front of her was very small, with a door on the side facing her and not much else. She stepped through the door into a small chamber, which she imagined to be a lift pod. There were no lights in the chamber, though, and when the door closed behind her it left her in total darkness. It was a little disconcerting, and Mirana activated a light on her helmet, but there was nothing to see besides the bare metal walls. The pod started descending, accelerating constantly until Mirana felt almost weightless. As she waited for it to stop, she wondered suddenly if someone might be watching her. She had hoped to find some kind of archaeological evidence on Palandora, or maybe a database that she could study, but it had never occurred to her that there might be someone else alive in the galaxy who could tell her where the Shadow Plasma had come from or how she could use it against Viper. But wasn’t that a possibility now?
The lift pod started slowing, and Mirana braced herself. Eventually it reached its destination, and the doors slid open. A thick, black cloud immediately drifted into the pod from the space beyond, rendering her helmet light useless. Having no other options, Mirana ventured out of the pod, testing the ground warily with her foot before trusting it with her weight. The air here was still, and the sound of her footsteps was muffled by the dark mist, but she somehow felt that she was in a very large chamber. Her helmet display showed nothing nearby, but she was not sure how well it would even work here.
“Hello?” Like her footsteps, her voice simply vanished into the fog.
Mirana took a deep breath, thinking. She had found this place by sensing the Shadow Plasma, and clearly whoever had left it did not want any visitors navigating by sight. She reached up and turned off the helmet light. Slowly, lines began to appear in the distance: more Shadow fields. Like the moon’s exterior, she could not really see them with her eyes, but her awareness of them seemed to be overlaid across her vision, so that as she turned her head she could see the corners of the room in the distance, as well as the outline of various other features. The lift pod had descended right into the middle of the chamber, and the floor extended outward from there for maybe a hundred meters. Before it reached the wall, though, the floor dropped away, forming a plateau. There were additional holes in the floor as well, dotting its surface at irregular intervals. Ahead and a slightly to the left, a narrow bridge led from the plateau to an opening in the wall, where the path continued out of sight.
“Yes, it’s really me,” Mirana said to the air. She moved forward quickly, easily avoiding the pits that would have posed a danger to someone just stumbling around. She stopped when she reached the bridge, checking for anything that might have changed, but the room was still empty as far as she could tell, and the bridge ahead seemed solid. After testing it for stability, she started out onto it, careful to keep her balance as now there was just a short distance separating her from the expanse below.
About halfway across the bridge, her helmet display went dark completely. Mirana’s heart quickened, and she stopped to look around, but again there was nothing nearby. She tried clicking on the helmet light again, but it too had gone dead. The situation felt a bit familiar, and Mirana backtracked a few steps to be sure. As she had suspected, her suit’s power came back on, and it went out again when she resumed her way forward. Just like they had seen on that other planet, there was some kind of field here that blocked electronics. Only now she had only this flight suit, not proper battle armor. Still, in theory she was in friendly territory, so she continued across the bridge.
When the bridge ended at the far wall, the path continued a short distance through a curving tunnel and then opened out onto another narrow walkway. This one wound irregularly at a steady incline, outlined only by her perception of the Shadow Plasma running along its edges. Now Mirana made her way more carefully. As it neared the high ceiling of the chamber, the path began to move in a tight spiral until finally it passed through the a hole in the ceiling. As Mirana left the lower chamber behind, she found herself in yet another small room. There was the outline of a door on one side, and Mirana walked up to it. She touched its surface and found it to be flat but rough, like cut stone.
“Hello?” she called again, not really expecting an answer. There were no controls evident, so Mirana did the only thing she could think of: placing her hands against the door, she sent out a wave of Shadow Plasma. Immediately she heard the sound of grinding stone, but it did not come from the door; instead, it seemed that the hole she had just climbed through had sealed off. Then there was the rush of wind, and Mirana suspected that the fog had cleared, although in the darkness there was no way to verify this. Finally, the door in front of her sli
d upward, revealing another chamber beyond, lit with a dim glow. Even this limited light seemed bright to her now, and she could see the room clearly as she stepped inside.
Mirana was standing in a domed cavern, smaller than the first one and with the walls and ceiling made of jagged stone. The only feature was a low platform at the center, atop which sat a sparkly orb about twice the size of a person’s head and held a little above waist level by a short pillar. The orb glowed with an inner light of various colors, and as she approached it Mirana saw that the points of light were dancing around like snowflakes. She reached out to touch it, but something deflected her glove, like a gust of air emanating from the crystal.
Mirana smirked. “Unauthorized contact prohibited. I get it.” Of course with her equipment dead there was no way to verify that the air around her was even breathable, but she pulled off her helmet anyway, followed by the rest of the flight suit. Her heart quickened as she turned back to the crystal, its glow casting odd light patterns over her clothing. After a deep breath to steady herself, Mirana reached out with both hands and placed them on the sides of the crystal.
Light flared outward from the sparkling orb, and the walls of the room seemed to recede. Wind might have been whipping at her face, or perhaps it was just the sheer power that emanated from the strange object between her hands. Then images began to appear – planets, cities, and people. Wars raged, eons passed before her eyes as she stared in wonder. A voice in her mind spoke, soft and welcoming.
Mirana Kelar. Heir of the Shadow. You have come to us at last.