Chapter Ten: Proof?

Lyonas made his way gingerly into the dark, the colors all around him fading into shades so similar there was little he could do to distinguish one blue from the next. Pulling his helm from his belt, he donned it and shifted the view so that he could see once more. Rain clouded shades of gray gave him more contrast and he could now make out a narrow and nearly round tunnel and the slightly concave floor.

He made his way slowly...sure that he was headed back under the trail he had walked above. It was deathly silent around him now, not even the accompaniment of the creatures above made it down this far. Reaching out, Lyonas ran long clawed fingers over the walls of the tunnel. He noted immediately that there was a smooth texture to it, the rock had been melted, all the way to the shaft that led above. The slight undulations crested and fell toward the direction he had come from, suggesting that the tunnel had been cut from further ahead.

Al Eesa quirked his head to one side as he processed that information, puzzled on the implications. He managed to clear his mind as he continued into the claustrophobic pitch around him.

He could only say that he traveled a long time, his mind seeming only partially on the trail before him. There came a point in his trailing where he had felt as if he had overshot the South Gate altogether he had been under here so long. Vaguely he wondered if any in the city would miss his presence by this point.

He felt dull, sluggish, and began to wonder if there was enough atmosphere in the tunnel to support life. He found himself suddenly wishing he had brought along his tank.

That would be the problem with an unknown situation, his mind fed him.

Doggedly he pushed forward, beginning to notice the creeping increase in the heat surrounding him. With a few quick swipes of his fingertips over the studs on his armband, Lyonas switched once more to his primary light filtration.

His assessment was accurate, as the heat rose toward surface temperature once more. The change makes him forget his previous lethargy, and his senses sharpen with the heat. His assumtion became that he was no under that heated portion of trail that he had seen and felt under his feet as he departed the South Gate on this odd exploration.

Lyonas was forced to pull up short when the way proved to be blocked by the smooth surface of some sort of metal or hardened ceramic he was unfamiliar with. It looked like no design he had ever been exposed to in all his years of leading pack ships. No race they had encountered on those trips showed any technology such as this.

Tilting his head, he pondered on how the mystery here only seemed to deepen the further he went. There was a thought that this search might turn into a mind numbing circular chase with no answers to appease his mind.

Heat permeated the door, and the edges of the oval portal were much brighter in his vision. His gaze roved the surface of that portal for long moments, searching with attuned eyes, for some sort of opening mechanism or trigger that would allow him beyond this point.

Nothing became evident, even after he searched through the rock either side of the door for a possible mechanism. He even rotated through the many spectrums made available to his kind by the mask with no better luck than with ultraviolet.

He cursed softly behind his mask, and it echoed thinly back to him in the small space, leaning forward and laying his hand on the surface of that strange material. He was startled into removing it again when the area around him shuddered hard enough to threaten his footing. He stepped back, his feet slapping loudly on the hard pack of the tunnel floor in order to prevent getting dumped.

When he managed to regain his balance, he returned his sights to the entrance. He was shocked to find that in the rumble around him the door had disappeared.

Lyonas twisted sideways, cross-stepping nearer the maw shining nearly white with heat that was now facing him. As he shifted he could make out symbols and heat signature displays beyond the immediate play of heat across his senses as well as his skin.

He moved forward silently, half expecting some form of attack. Despite his years of training at the hunt and almost as many taking charge of other hunters, the last thing he had expected was to be addressed by such a foreign place.

The voice was mechanical, the language lilting and nearly incomprehensible. It was Soua...he thought. And yet the dialect was so skewed he couldn't make out more than a few words. He had extended his Sraha unconsciously and was standing in a defensive position.

Then he felt it, something powerful, something ancient sliding tendrils over his mind, even though he was strong in mental defense. There was amazingly no pain, the touch was gentle and the contact left as abruptly as it had intruded.

"Put away your weapon, warrior," the voice came again, perfectly understood now.

The grizzled old Soua did not relax one iota.

"You will come to no harm in this place."

"And what is this place?" Lyonas found his voice, skeptical and just a tad fearful of the surroundings.

"You would...refer to this place as the cradle," that voice said firmly, "Bou'haina."

"Bou'haina?" The Eesa repeated, "What does that mean?"

"Are you not of the Noranai?" The computer said, "The guiding light has not illuminated the purpose of this place?"

"It has been long since there has been need for such a place. Even the most stringent of religions lose their center over such long periods of time," Lyonas replied, thinking quickly on his feet.

A heat screen flickered to life just to the right of Lyonas hand.

"Your ancestors were the product of genetic engineering," the voice droned, "based on a warlike race indigenous to this planet. They were already warriors, but your masters, the Kaila, were not completely satisfied. Over five generations they were able to more accurately create the kinds of soldiers they wanted for their continuing war with universal rivals, the L'alai.

"There came a technician to the tenth line of Oraha, whom had been named Noora. Her ability in the insertion of controls and the integration of weaponry for the army was beyond reproach. Yet she was obsessed with the tales of a home planet."

Lyonas knew of these procedures, the bioware that allowed all Soua to control their weapons in the heat of battle without needing to interface the computer in their arm band. Each warrior was installed with the needed hardware upon acceptance to a pack ship.

"Noora in her research traced the tales to solid fact, surreptitiously hacking into the recordings the Kaila kept of each new habitat they encountered in their travels across the universe. Armed with this information she slowly gathered support from many on her ship to overtake the Kaila who had leashed them for so many centuries. There was a bloody defection, the Kaila caught unaware when the Soua's fear of their masters had always kept them in check."

Scenes of efficient killing and bloodshed spilled past Lyonas as he divided his attention between the sourceless voice and the horrifying and fascinating video account of the slaughter.

"Kaila were not fighters themselves, physically they were not made for fighting, and the uprising was a rout. Afterwards Noora and her freed Soua crew, fighters, and hunters, sought out the cradle of their existence. It took them many rotations, but they finally arrived back at Soona, some 800 rotations after their ancestors had been removed from their simple lives.

"This ship, the one on which you stand on the deck, Bou'haina, is the very vessel that brought them back to their heritage.

"But their return was not as well received as they had dreamed. Their long lost relations did not, could not recognize them for what they were. Their long absence had not only resulted in physical changes between themselves, Soua, and their cousins, Noa, but had put a communications gap between them that neither could cross.

"Dark days resulted as many of Noora's freed hunters took out their frustrations by slaughtering the Noa who refused to recognize their relations. For nearly fifty rotations the Soua slaughtered, taking from them the treetop homes that had been the Noa's for longer than the Soua had been rift from their planet.

"Noora, and her more loyal supporters, were forced to take drastic measures. Killing the defectors, striking their names from the records was only a start. Noora had envisioned a much brighter future for her people and their newly rediscovered home. She saw only one way in which to stop all that had transpired.

"Thus they buried the Bou'haina," the sound was almost regretful, "Stripping much of the technology in an effort to recreate smaller vessels they could use to get off planet.

"Along with this drastic action," the ships computer continued, even as the scene's played before him, "The Noranai was formed from the remaining Soua after the civil war. Their first goal was to erase the memory of their time as slaves to the Kaila, and also to erase the bloody trail back to the Noa. That rift had grown so large that none felt it ever amendable. They taught their children a skewed version of their heritage, hiding the truth of their existence so thoroughly that none knew...except the Noranai.

"Each generation a Noranai is chosen from the different ancient lines, a cadre of warriors whose duty it is to know the truth, to expose that truth when the time became appropriate to do so."

"This much has been told to me," Lyonas agreed, "But my people, even the Noranai no longer believe the tales."

Another door slid open, one curvature Lyonas had thought only to be another contour of this strange ship. The plate peeled back to reveal an enclosure, coolly filled with liquid. In it was a body, a body of a creature he had never in his life seen, and he had seen many ends of the universe before.

The body was so tall that it had curled in on itself slightly to fit into the tube that was still taller than Lyonas was. Long fingered and thin hands rested on emaciated thighs, and the lower extremities were still thinner. The feet were long and blunt ended with no show of toenails or claws in the few that he could see. The head was oversized for the thin neck on which it was perched, and the slim shoulders were narrower than the heads widest spot. Large bulbous eyes, slanted slightly toward the peaks of the creatures head looked lifelessly out the surface separating this room from the enclosure. The nose was nonexistent, two mere slits between large eyes and small mouth.

It was all Lyonas could do not to retreat when lids shuttered those eyes and then opened again. It was impossible that this creature had been here so long and still lived.

"Do not look so incredulous," the creature spoke through the dead sound of the speakers, "I am the Kaila, honored with the care of the Bou'haina. I was reindoctrinated by Noora herself to serve the Soua, I was their flagship in the early years, their only way to get back off planet. I am the physical proof of the story you have heard, false Noranai."

He did not try to deny what the Kaila had claimed, quickly schooling himself instead to better guard his thoughts.

"Your world must be in a sad state of affairs, Soua, if a non-initiate has been chosen to treat with me."

"I was not chosen..." Lyonas replied, "I am investigating a rumor that was brought to me by one of our warriors. A rumor brought to her attention by a Noa sympathizer."

"Then what have the Noranai of this time been doing? They had been tasked to bring the truth forward if genocide has been threatened of the Noa."

"The Noa are not the ones in danger of being wiped out," Lyonas answered, "They outnumber our population ten to one, and have been incensed into all out war on our race by a fanatic. The Noranai have done nothing, but to deny the truth of the rumor and ignore the threat that stands on our very doorstep."

"And what is it you truly seek?" the slow blink followed the words.

"Proof," Lyonas spat, "The factions on both sides needs to be made aware of the wrongs of the past. They need to be reminded of the blood relation between our peoples, and to stop the madness that has sprung up on both sides of this war."

Those orbs seemed to shift, the gaze distant.

"There is much earth and wood between the Bou'haina and the sky," the attention returned to Lyonas, "but it seems it is time to lay bare the sins of the past."


A/N: Here we go again...just when I think I have a head of steam up for writing on this I get bogged down! RRRR! I really did try to get this out to you guys sooner than this, it just didn't shape up as I wanted it to!

So here it is...chapter ten...and I think Lyonas has finally found the proof he was searching so desperately for...now bounce back to Earth and the goings on there! Let me know what you think K?