Chapter 2: Messages from beyond the grave

As I headed towards the Cyclops, for some strange reason, my heart began to race, my mouth went dry, I broke into a cold sweat and then my body just froze on the spot; I couldn't move any closer to the docking hall, and each time I tried to move my body just refused to obey me. Confused I looked up at the gleaming submarine and slowly went dizzy before collapsing, why? Why can't I move and why does my body refuse to move? I can't move… No, it's not that it can't move; it's that it won't move, have I? Have I become scared of using the Cyclops now? I kept on trying but my legs went to jelly and then I had a flashback of what happened and I understand now… after nearly dying on the last cyclops I have become terrified of it and looking at my husband my eyes began to well up to which he ran over and asked me what was wrong so I told him "Bill I… I'm too scared to go near that submarine, I can't do it, I just can't!" Frustrated I took a deep breath and headed to the observatory that was over the kelp zone. Observing a nest of stalkers swimming around playing with the metal scraps of what was once the Aurora calmed me as I watched the stalkers play. It cheered me up a bit and shortly after that my husband came over to me, put his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder asking if I was okay and gently taking his hands from around my waist I placed them on my shoulders saying "I'm fine honey, I guess I just can't use a Cyclops anymore; not after what happened to me the last time."

After I said that he looked at me inquisitively and asked my what had happened so I took a deep breath and told him "When I was out on a resource gathering trip on the cyclops with my supposed crew, we went close to a hostile area and stopped knowing what was there; at this point I felt really tired, the crew noticed this and said to me "Hey, why don't you get some rest? We will take care of things here." I agreed to this and went to sleep; then from what I can gather, while I was asleep those bastards set the cyclops on autopilot and abandoned it. Next thing I know I am awoken by the critical damage alarm blaring as the cyclops was heavily damaged by some unknown leviathan attacking it and you know what happened after that? I escaped from the cyclops as it exploded and got sent hurtling into a rock face in the Seamoth and got gravely wounded to the point of losing consciousness." As I explained this to him I saw Bill get angry and looking at Richard he said in a calm tone "Son; please go and get me the crew manifest from mommy's last trip because daddy needs to do some investigating." Richard silently nodded and ran to the office to look for the documents that Bill asked for, what does he intend on doing because they are long gone now and I do not think that he will find them. About ten minutes later our son came back with the list and Bill, despite his seething temper, took the list from Richard in a gentle way before telling him to go and play for a while. As he scanned the document he accessed the communications logs between the Cyclops and began to correlate what had happened to me with the suspicious activity he noticed, I guess he neglected to tell me what suspicious activity had gone on; probably by accident so I gently asked him what suspicious activity had taken place to which he said in a genuinely confused tone "What do you mean 'what suspicious activity', I thought you knew," I shook my head and told him that I hadn't heard anything so he broke it down for me; "during the past few months we have detected several anomalous signals being broadcasted in and out of the atmosphere, but at the same time we also intercepted several messages, however; whenever we tried to locate where they were being sent from the signal would drop so we haven't been able to trace them. at the same time we couldn't find out who was receiving them because their ID's were masked somehow." This concerned me because it was then I realised that our home was no longer safe and as I thought about what happened I came to a terrifying conclusion… Someone was trying to weaponize the Khara! My initial conclusion was that it was lady Celestine; my father's twisted mother who killed him with a weaponized form of the Khara, causing him to sacrifice himself in an effort to save the treacherous Alterrans… I guess my father's one flaw was that he saw some good in everyone; even if they were cruel and unforgiving tyrants.

Noticing that I had zoned out … again, my husband gently shook me by the shoulders and asked what was on my mind, but because I didn't know I told him that I wasn't sure; I then reminded him that I needed some form of transport to get me from A to B and with the Cyclops out of the question he suggested using the Seamoth, but I refused due to the injuries I had sustained in the last one I used, so he suggested a new form of transport known as the Sea truck; It was something that he and a bunch of former Alterra engineers came up with to which I eagerly accepted to try out; he also mentioned that with one of the modules I could dock my P.R.A.W.N suit to it, I got excited but then realised, that it had been destroyed about a year ago as I stupidly took on A Reaper Leviathan; Naturally I won, but just as I finished off the bastard, my P.R.A.W.N Suit ejected me and blew up. I told Bill this and he laughed before saying to me "well head to the far Moonpool at the back of our base near the communal area; there's a little present there for you and one more thing… Happy anniversary sweetie!" hearing those words my heart swelled up like a balloon so much it could pop with happiness; I then got a little bit sad because I'd forgotten about it and didn't have a gift for him; seeing my sorrow Bill just walked over and gave me a loving embrace holding me so tightly my breasts pressed against his chest and I could feel his heart beating next to mine to which he said, "Jade, Don't worry about forgetting our anniversary alright? It wasn't your fault because after all, you were knocked out for a while due to your wounds." Hearing those words my once heavy heart became light and I smiled, did I mention I REALLY LOVE this man?" Anyway… graciously accepting his anniversary gift to me, I promised him that I'd get something special for him in return for his kindness but what he said surprised me, he told me that the only thing that he wanted was for both me and Richard to be safe and well before adding "that is the only gift I need and nothing else."

With those nice words I kissed bill and headed to the moonpool he specified; when I stepped into it I saw a black and green P.R.A.W.N Suit with a black interior, similar to that of my father's old P.R.A.W.N suit; as I climbed into it the on board AI said "Welcome aboard Jade." In a posh British like accent and I loved it; shortly after I left the moonpool on board the P.R.A.W.N, I headed to where the new Sea truck was waiting for me and sure enough as I got close, a new display came up showing me the position of the hydraulic docking arms on the Sea truck and the best part of it? The colour of the HUD was teal, one of my favourite colours; this P.R.A.W.N was customised for just me, it even locked up should anyone else try to use it with an "Attempted unauthorised entry detected… Locking down." And just like that the suit would seize up and activated a repulsion field to prevent anyone but me getting close to it. I love this new suit! As I docked to the Sea truck I climbed out and went into the cockpit of said Sea truck; on my approach a seat came up out of the floor and my PDA synced with the Sea truck's on board AI; changing the HUD to teal showing me a display of the connected modules. Currently the modules I had connected were just the storage, Fabricator, sleeping and docking modules; the down side to this thing though was that it was too awkward to pilot so I radioed Bill and sure enough he came over to the Sea truck and opened the upgrade hatch putting in a few upgrades I hadn't seen before; A Torque boosting module, a power efficiency module and an afterburner module; sure enough with those upgrades the Sea truck moved a lot smoother and faster, then as I looked at the manual I noticed that it could use either one or two power cells and that helped greatly. As I got used to the Sea truck, I looked up towards the Cyclops and sighed before saying to myself "One day I will be able to use you again, count on it!" I then headed off and began to search for answers to what was going on.

About three days later I was resting and once again I was met with the same hallucinatory vision from that entity; amongst all the tones and clicks I could hear her words clearer, "Not much time… your companions… stolen cure… danger comes from the shadows…" then silence as I woke up from my slumber; what did she mean about the cure being stolen? Don't those fools know how much danger they are putting us in? They probably do but just don't care; like all humans once did those creeps are sending us all up the river, giving up their compassion and humanity to make a quick buck; are humans REALLY that selfish? Sadly yes they are; they are more than willing to sell their soul just to turn a profit for what? A few measly stinkin' credits? I thought they knew better than that. Either way it isn't my problem; if they want to destroy their people by trying to weaponize something they do not understand then they will have to face the consequences of their actions; my father knew this all too well and now, many years after his death, the mantle has fallen upon ME to guide these silly misguided fools to a bright future; but in all honesty, why would I want to waste my time helping an already doomed race? I look at the fabricator in the back and my stomach rumbles, I didn't realise that I hadn't eaten anything for a while so I decided to exit the Sea truck to do some "fishing" but I made sure not to stray too far away from my vehicle; I swam around for what seemed like twenty minutes and as I looked at my PDA I noticed that not only was I hungry but was getting dehydrated also; I also saw that my health was at about twenty percent and my PDA told me to seek medical attention; so I looked around for resources to make a few first aid kits while catching any fish to help with sustenance, finally after swimming around like an idiotic peeper, I had caught enough bladderfish and peepers to help make some food and drink with the fabricator.

As the fabricator cooked my food and filtered my drink I sat back and watched a few home videos on my PDA and stopped on the video where I met my dad for the first time when I was five and it made me cry, just the words I said and his response to me; in the video I was watching I remember seeing my green eyes welling up as I looked at him asking if he was my daddy and for as long as I can remember his response hurt me and broke my heart ,"is this some kind of sick joke? How could you do such a heartless thing to me huh? I bet you aren't even real; you're just an illusion caused by my grief! Begone!" All I remember doing was hugging him tightly and saying "Please daddy, don't do this I'm real I swear I'm real! You... you can scan me if you want! Please just listen to me!" Yeah I was a real wimpy kid back then. After remembering that, I ate my food and drank my water before going to sleep for the night but for some reason that moment on the aurora kept on replaying in my mind, but why? Could this be related to the hallucination I had of him? I mean, I saw him swimming with me as I was trying to get his grandson to safety, could he be trying to communicate with me? Oh Jade, stop being an idiot! There is now way in hell that your dad is trying to communicate with you; he's dead… isn't he? As those thoughts swirled around I just shook my head in disbelief but in all reality… It can't just be a coincidence that I am experiencing these hallucinations and visions; all of this started after I nearly die in the Cyclops then a little bit later, nearly get eaten alive by one of the big guys as it crushed my habitat. Maybe there is more to this than meets the eye? Either way, I started to feel myself get tired and cranky; so I went to sleep and put all of these recent experiences at the back of my mind but the only one that refuses to go away was that vision of my dad, it was like he was trying to tell me something about what was going on with the people who now inhabited our planet, could these hallucinations be messages from beyond the grave?