Chapter 3

I looked around at the gathered women, and then realized I’d begun seeing them as women, not magical creatures. Each of them would do anything I told them, which was getting more and more bothersome to me.

“I think we need to lay low for a while. There’s been enough shit stirring as of late. Also, we need a permanent, secured portal location somewhere safe. Something an artifact can bring you to without using up your energy. Have any of you ever heard of such before?”

Electra’s avatar appeared “Master, this place is known to all of us ships. I advise we make this stay short.”

“Agreed, is there anything here worth taking with us” I asked?

“This place is empty, but there is another location in the second planet of this system, only known to me. There are also stronger leylines to charge from there, along with some technology remnants from the creator. It will only fit one ship however, so Inia and myself cannot go there simultaneously.”

“Where should Inia go then” I asked?

“I wasn’t suggesting it would be me going there, only that no one else knows the place. I only know it as I was created there. There are places scattered across this solar system. I can pass on to Inia the directions to this place and go elsewhere.”

I didn’t like that plan, so I asked “How is it those other two ships know of this Antarctic base?”

“This is where the polity of the United States found them in 1947. They called it operation High Jump. The leader of that operation, one Admiral Richard Byrd discovered the defunct German Polity had a nearby craft that the Grey’s of Andromeda created that they had captured. The forces clashed, with the two ships in question destroying the German’s craft. Unfortunately, enough of its detection gear survived, along with a surviving pilot who knew how to use it.

The Greys are a race in this arm of the Galaxy that enjoy consuming other societies and cultures. By consume, I mean that literally. Their goal is to turn those beings into food for themselves. They often offer the leadership of those planets and societies technology and genetic modifications that they can subsequently use to kill or use in order for them to take over. The polity known as the German Third Reich sold many of the Jews to them in exchange for technology.

Using that technology and the remaining trained SS officer, they searched for and found this place. As you know, we are designed and coded to accept human command. So, when they found a way in, they took command. In fact, the place I was held that you freed me from, was where those other two had been created to start with. I already knew those two as we all have a mandate to communicate if we are not under the direction of a human.”

“Shit, we need to get out of here now if that’s the case. Everyone load up into Electra. Inia go to the base on Mars and lay low.”

Everyone started moving. I sent out my detection force as strong as I could make it and detected two monitoring devices. After frying both, I climbed into Electra and we were off.

Making my way to what I thought of as the bridge, I sat and said, “Show me the outside view.”

I watched as we pulled away from Antarctica. Just as we got out of the atmosphere, I saw a bright flash from where we’d just been.

“What was that Electra?”

“Inia just converted a few grams of matter into antimatter in the base. The entire area was destroyed.”

I sent a mental message to both “Never do that again without my command. That could start a nuclear war.”

A few hours later, the image of Venus came into view.

“I understand the atmosphere is very unstable there, will we be OK here?”

“It was deliberately made that way to hide the remnants of the society that used to live there. The creator of Man did that to wipe out the Grey colony that was there.”

As we descended, I struggled to understand why anyone or anything would want to live here. We approached a mountain range that looked to my eye like the visions of hell in several movies. The view shifted as we approached one of the mountains at breakneck speed. As we got close to it, we passed through an energy field that reminded me of the field I passed through when I first entered Inia. A portal opened and we entered the mountain and stopped. The inside appeared much the same as the inside of the Antarctica base, except on a much-reduced scale.

The notable difference was a tunnel leading off and down from the hanger. Looking at it, I took the precaution of sending out a scan. That scan apparently got some attention.

Another apparition appeared in front of me in the form of an Elf, only this one was male. It looked at me and those around me and said, “You were human very recently, are you claiming this facility?”

I looked at him and said “Yes, I am.”

I thought to myself, “Hope I didn’t just fuck up.”

The apparition looked at me and I felt another mental door open in my head. Knowledge of this place entered my mind along with a voice. “I am the creator’s guardian for this place, your life force has been registered as commanding this facility as per the creator’s instructions. I sense you were unaware of the mandate. You took a great risk accepting it. If you had any trace of Grey control modules or influence, you and all those with you would have been destroyed.”

I felt a shiver in my spine, knowing I just dodged a serious bullet.

The Guardian nodded his head and said “I see you understand. What is your command?”

“First if anything or anyone approaches without my personal authorization, they should be destroyed. Second, I need another slot for a ship to land. There is another under my command that needs to come here. Finally, I need a basic information package regarding this facility.”

After I spoke, the wall to the left of me, began to push back and kept going until the floor space doubled.

Guardian then asked “Should I teleport the one you called Inia here.?”

“Yes, if you would please.”

In the next moment, Inia appeared in the newly cleared space.