New Hope: Book 1
28

Near the end of the surprisingly short flight, most of which she slept through, Ellie opened her eyes. She felt her body pressing with great force on the safety belts that locked her into the chair. That’s weird, shouldn’t I be feeling the pressing seat from behind more? Thankfully, the seat belts are holding me tight, she thought in gratitude for the alien technology. If any of the belts were to break... She’d go catapulting from the seat and violently hit the front of the vehicle.

We must be braking! That went quick... She thought, suddenly realizing why the sensory sensations weren’t adding up with what she initially expected when accelerating toward Earth.

Technically, the vehicle didn’t have a front or back - just the seat inside suggested the flight direction. Nothing outside or inside the vessel indicated the proper direction of movement. It didn’t have any visible markings, engines, nozzles, or even a navigation desk. Ellie realized the flight is controlled by some computer or even by the Protagonists’ avatar.

“Hmph,” she exhaled slightly, still strongly pressed to her harness.

The interior of the vessel, besides not having any characteristic markings, seemed to be glass-enclosed. Or at least transparent enough to be able to look around a little during the strong braking maneuver. Ellie saw the Earth’s globe quickly grow before her eyes. She saw that at that speed, she’ll crash on its surface within a few minutes.

However, the vehicle had a different solution to this problem because with every passing moment, the vessel’s speed was falling drastically. Then she understood that the seat belts are no longer holding her body and pressing her into the seat. On the contrary, the harness came undone on its own and hid into the chair. Ellie could now stand up, which she did. She was surprised to realize, unlike in terrestrial vehicles where there was no acceleration and everything was enveloped by weightlessness, here she was able to put her feet on the floor and take a few steps.

The view before her was spectacular. The Earth’s curvature and lowering flight path heading for the largely white continent in the south pole of the planet was staggering, even for a woman who’s taken several space trips. The vehicle reached the planet’s atmosphere and, to Ellie’s dismay, without feeling any turbulence caused by the quick entry in dense planetary gases, it headed toward its destination: the Protagonists’ installation hidden under the several dozen feet of deep snow heaps on the south pole.

As soon as the vehicle landed on King George Island, Ellie understood that things were starting to speed up and becoming more... real. The vehicle stopped just feet from a descent where a hidden passage to an installation was meant to be located. To the astronaut’s bewilderment, she had not encountered anything like that. At the bottom of a small ravine in the middle of a hot dry circle, amidst the snow, she saw an opening in a rock wall large enough for two adults and very tall figures.

Elrael anticipated it’d be highly probable the security systems would deactivate for a short while once they detect my landing, to enable my passage inside the control center. Excellent, thought Ellie. At least things aren’t uphill at this stage. If I had to additionally go through all those obstructions inside the corridor which the avatar mentioned... Ehhh, she added in spirit with open satisfaction.

When Ellie entered the tunnel leading to the installation, she was surprised to discover it was quite dark, though it had perfectly smooth walls. As if they were polished. Or hollowed out with some laser,” she joked to herself, still nervous about going through dark corridors in a prehistoric installation belonging to aliens in Antarctica. Well, almost in Antarctica, she added. As if this made a huge difference... Could the Protagonists have built this in some more accessible place? Under the pyramids in Giza or Machu Picchu in Peru?

Luckily, Ellie had a flashlight so it was relatively easy for her to get to the end of this long corridor leading down the mountain where the Protagonists’ complex was hidden. At the very bottom of the tunnel, there was a metallic gateway. On its surface in the pale glow of the flashlight she could read an inscription in the ancient alien language. Even though Ellie hadn’t devoted even a second to learning the Protagonists’ language, Elrael explained that the hovering orb had programmed a certain dose of knowledge about them in her mind, including the ability to understand the ancient writing. This is why she knew that she had reached the underground equivalent of a lobby that branched off concentrically in various directions and contained lifts leading to the various sections of the ancient complex.

“Let’s hope there’s at least a little power left, otherwise it’s not going to be easy getting through that door,” she said to herself.

Ellie approached the door and touched it. She was surprised to discover it was warm to the touch. The whole construction was vibrating from energy like some gigantic machinery was working on the other side. Ellie carefully ran her hand over the texture of the partition, until she felt a smooth surface, right next to the passage. When the astronaut pressed it, the door made a heavy sound of grinding, rusty metal, then they started to open like a Japanese fan. Ellie was hit by a gush of hot and stale air.

“Woah, oh yea, nobody’s been here for a long, long time!” The astronaut spat out the unpleasant smell with disgust, then she pulled herself together and stepped over the threshold. In comparison to the corridor leading to the door of the complex, which was forged or hollowed out in the rock, now a completely different kind of material started to dominate the surroundings. Ellie wasn’t sure if the walls are covered in metal or a pleasantly warm stone. Or maybe something in between? Regardless, when she entered, light strips along the walls started glowing, flooding the installation with light. Ellie realized she was on a highly positioned walkway leading to a landing in the center of the huge cavern. She leaned over beyond the walkway and saw there was a deep and dark abyss beneath her, so she decided to keep to the middle of the walkway while making her way to the center.

The architecture of this place seemed strange to her. Quite dry. Not at all similar to what she saw on the Moon. Even though there was no furniture or decorations there, nor were there any paintings or other artworks hanging on the walls, the atmosphere gave the feeling of being in a sublime building, maybe even an abandoned museum. It was completely different here. The walls weren’t decorated by any of the Protagonists’ symbols, and the style in which the rock materials were used reminded her of ancient buildings from the old times, rather than something that could have been built at the hands of a technologically advanced alien race.

Ellie was getting closer to the central platform when she suddenly had a thought that seemed to explain this.

That’s it, I know why this place looks as if it was forged in rock by ancient man... Because that’s exactly the way it was! My vision of the ancient building and people around it, months back when I touched the orb. This must be the place from my memories! she discovered in amazement. That would mean the Protagonists and humans not only met once before but they lived and worked together! Hmm, I wonder why Elrael said the Protagonists only stood back and watched humanity without interfering in any way? This thought stopped Ellie midway. Suddenly, it hit her that what the avatar told her doesn’t seem to add up with some of the information she obtained through her contact with the alien technology, as well as what she’d seen now with her own eyes.

“It’s probably nothing...” she said to herself and decided to ask Elrael directly when she returned to the Moon with the superluminal core.

Ellie arrived at the central platform, which started glowing in the center as soon as the astronaut placed her foot on it. She carefully approached the illuminated circle, and then, forgetting to exhale, she stood in the middle of the slightly raised little platform.

The world spun and her surroundings became as bright as the surface of the Sun. Blinded by the light that appeared from nowhere, Ellie instinctively shut her eyes. Then the glow disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. When she opened her eyes, she saw she was standing in the middle of a deep cavern. Now she was inside a gigantic cave, several hundred feet high and so wide that she could not see the walls. It was as bright in there as it was on Earth during the day, but Ellie couldn’t see a single light source. The cave was simply filled with light. She also saw she was inside a humongous rock formation, but not on the surface of the planet, because she could see a ceiling and stalactites were hanging here and there.

Ellie stood on a small platform similar to the one she stepped on a moment ago. The difference was, Ellie was surrounded by stretches of green, grasses, grains, and trees; she could hear and see birds flying nearby, and even other fauna. In the distance she saw a large complex of buildings with soaring towers, almost reaching the cave’s ceiling.

Where the hell am I and how did I get here? thought Ellie, confused. She relaxed her breathing and decided to head toward the tall structures that didn’t look like anything one would see in history books. The soaring buildings, glistening with gold, stood out in the whole landscape. It seemed obvious to Ellie that that’s the direction she needs to go.

After a short stroll, during which she admired the beauty of nature she’d never expect to see at this latitude, the astronaut reached a metal building several stories high, which looked to be very strong. In addition, it seemed to be reinforced on purpose.

“Would this be the command center?” Ellie wondered.

She approached the door. On the right, she noticed a familiar flat plate. She placed the palm of her hand on it. The gates to the complex opened, and the interior of the rooms inside lit up in cold artificial lights.

“Okay, so the place still has power. Not that teleportation into the huge cave didn’t require it...”

It was quiet inside the construction. Not a living soul in sight. Ellie walked carefully, choosing at random the corridors she would take until one of her choices led her to a room labeled command center in the Protagonists’ language.

“Finally!” Ellie quickly opened the door leading inside.

Rows of console tables appeared before her, visually similar to a control station at NASA or JAXA space flight control but instead of screens over the desks, there were holographic images of various places, functions, and operations hovering above. In the cluster of information, Ellie tried to find any reference to security systems or the option of turning them off. Elrael had said that without their deactivation, it would be impossible to get to the storage room, even for a person who had the right DNA sequences in their genome.

Having spent a long while searching for anything, Ellie started losing hope. Just as she decided to give up for the moment and rest, her attention was drawn by one of the desks located by a window overlooking the section of the cave from where she came. In the corner of her eye, she saw a word that had engraved itself in her memory with the transfer of knowledge from the orb she touched before:

“Security systems”.

“Bingo!” she yelled. Ellie walked up quickly to the console and started studying all the displayed glyphs and symbols. Ellie couldn’t read the Protagonists’ language fluently, but she understood its basics and most important words, so finding the phrases relating to activating and deactivating didn’t take her much time.

Sink or swim, thought Ellie as she brought her finger to the relevant holographic button deactivating the defense systems of the complex.

When she hit the button, nothing happened. The console made a sound confirming the command, but there were no spectacular effects. However, about fifteen seconds later, the lights in the complex dimmed and started blinking red and yellow, creating an atmosphere in the room that had shivers run down Ellie’s back.

That doesn’t look promising... she thought to herself somewhat troubled. This lasted a few more minutes, during which the astronaut went from one console to the next, trying to switch off the irritating disco of lights or at least determine the reason for it, when in the corner of her eye, she saw a figure standing at the entrance to the room. Startled by the unexpected visit, she turned around to face the newcomer.

“Hello, Ellie. I couldn’t have gotten in here without you. Thank you for turning off the security systems. Now I can finally complete my mission,” said Elrael with a somewhat devilish smile on his artificial face.

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