In orbit over Exon 10

Mike had just finished the warp signature search which had found no results. Whoever or whatever had attacked the mining colony was long gone and the search of lifeforms on the rock were negative as well. What the hell had happened here, A hundred people can’t just disappear with no trace, not even a body.

It was at that moment that jess the on board AI switched to security alert protocols, all compartment doors on security lock, defense challenge switched to respond to unknown lifeform.

“What the funk”. Jess what is going on.

I have detected an unknown in dock responded Jess.

Visuals please jess.

The screen came awake showing the dock including infra-red sensors.

There is nothing there jess, are you having a data fart or something.

No mike, Iam an artificial intelligence and don’t have an orifice so am not able to express information in that form. I am sensing a presence beyond scanning data frequency. There is something there.

Ok, no sense of humor. Let’s take a look. Collecting his Q9 on the way he headed for the dock.

Ragna beat him there and was waiting at the door, intent on whatever was on the other side.

Jess opened the door and Ragna dashed in and I followed also moving quickly scanning the area. 

Nothing I could detect, but Ragna sure was seeing something. His hackles were up as he intently growled at what seemed to be thin air by the outer door. Ok I said, who is there and how did you get in. I now believed from Ragna’s response that there was some sort of shielded intruder present.

A light distortion flickered and there in front of me stood a cloaked figure.

Halt Ragna, I commanded as he went to fly forward. My Q9 was raised and ready to fire and I didn’t want the dam furball blocking my sight.

You have 10 seconds to introduce yourself and tell me how you got in here.

The figure flickered and a voice replied, I am Torg, and I am not here, what you see is only a quantum projection and he disappeared and reappeared to prove the point.

Ok, I scratched my head with the barrel of my gun. Why are you projecting into my craft?

I am here for the same reason you are said the apparition calling itself Torg.

What does this mining colony have to do with you? I asked.

Nothing, but the transgressors who attacked this colony do interest me greatly.

You have found no trace of their craft or any survivors. Am I correct?

I looked intently towards the figure trying to see a face in the hood, nothing just moving colors. Very disconcerting. What do you know. I said. I hadn’t yet holstered my weapon. this whole experience was very disorientating.

The perpetrators are from my dimension. Or more accurately have already ravaged the worlds of my dimension. I am one of the few who survived.

I come to warn you. This was only a hunting party. 

My blood chilled. A hunting party?

Yes. My dimension has been ravaged by the Draco for thousands of years. They seek new hunting grounds and unfortunately, they have learned to quantumly transport between dimensions. Not as I am doing. Physically transport.

They have craft which can jump from my dimension to wherever they wish. They are slowly mapping and using long range sensors to find the next target each visit.

At that moment my vision blurred and before me appeared the image of a very nasty looking reptilian creature.

Why would they target mining facilities? They don’t seem to take anything except the inhabitants. Oh. The penny dropped. They are using them as supply stops whilst spying out this system. 

Yes, Torg said. They eat meat, preferably alive and sentient, they also feed on the lifeforce energy and are addicted especially to adrenalized blood. They like to play with their food before they consume it.

Fucking Vampires, I said. I knew those old movies from the twentieth century were on to something.

So how do we stop them?

Unfortunately, we couldn’t, that is why they are moving on. We are few now, hidden away in secret underground bases on smaller planets within our dimension.

They have the means to hunt afar now and are excited by the prospect of new blood. I must go now; I can only hold this connection for a short time the window will close shortly. Goodbye. He was gone.

Oh, boy. This report is going to be fun.

Hey, boss the colony was attacked by fucking vampires who leave nothing behind and are on a hunting slash shopping adventure from another dimension. 

I have no evidence, but I do have a new imaginary friend named Torg who can pop into my space and chat when it suits him. Wonderful.

Back on Mars base Prometheus, General Bravos settled down into his comfy office chair and opened up his computer console. He really much preferred doing things the old way and just refused to let AI run everything.

He punched up the reports page as he sipped his first coffee of the day and saw a report which had come in during his sleep period from Mike G out in quadrant 6. He opened it and spat the coffee all over the screen as he read the heading “Reptile attack on exon mining base.”

What the fuck! Has he gone spin up crazy. He read on. Then headed for the coms room and as he did a chill ran down his spine as he walked and remembered a top secret file that had surfaced when he was a young officer cataloging historical files from the 21st century.

The year was 2023 and the earth had just been shut down by a biological virus which triggered a rushed vaccine response which wiped out a huge number of the planet’s population. That obviously was not the whole story, censorship in those days was extremely controlled. The pharmaceutical industry and media owned the political process.

There was a hell of a lot of skullduggery and manipulation of all areas of society happening. Secret societies, corruption in all levels of public institutions and politics was the norm and the whole population of the planet were being manipulated by forces apart from a very few mostly had no idea even existed.

The earth had a secret that few inhabitants apart from the elite and a few world leaders new. A race known as the Aldebaran mentioned in the bible as the Elohim, which had the ability to take on a humanoid appearance and the Draco a rather nasty henchman also shared the planet and had for thousands of years.

They lived in an inner earth and happily traded with the selected human partners technology and secrecy for sustenance. Human sustenance, which the surface seemingly had an abundance of.

A group of the elites had long planned to cull the population of the earth and with the help of the Draco’s formalize the control system, so they had total control of the human livestock and no longer had to secretly trade for the advanced technology which was on offer.

 Over the years the generational collaborators gained not only great wealth, but they had also learned a secret from their master’s that human blood, younger the better could be adrenalized by arcane methods and was a very addictive life enhancing elixir.  

It was at this time a multinational military resistance formed who were not under the control of the elites and with the help of an off world race began an underground war which eventually drove the Aldebaran and Draco’s from the planet after annihilating their underground world using tactical nukes and flooding. 

The political leaders at the time all agreed to cover up the whole war by using firstly the virus shutdown and ongoing world events. The cleanup took a decade. There was no way the general population could ever know the truth of their planet. It was thought that the average person could not cope with the magnitude of the false history and horror it entailed. Along with the scope of the betrayal by leaders and prominent people.

Bravos himself at the time of his discovery of this report had problems with the magnitude of what he had read. Now after all this time the name Draco bought chills, would they find their way back to Earth.

.

ALFORDSON Gaming Chair with Massage and 150° Recline, Height Adjustable Racing Chair with Footrest, Ergonomic Executive Office Chair PU Leather with SGS Listed Gas-Lift, 180kg Capacity (Vogler Green)