Space Odyssey: Spectre-Chapter 526: Lost

Jace grunted in pain as he slammed into the wall. "Cain..." He gritted out as he pulled himself to the ground and began moving into the room.

"We arrived... at a black hole." Cain confirmed Jace’s worry as the entire ship creaked. Then Jace flew to the side as gravity changed on him. As he flew through the air he saw the ship break apart before him.

Now he was flying through space in a chunk of the ship that had been pulled off. But the ship seemed to have mostly made it through in one piece. In fact he could now see the stars through the opening in space. It meant that they were out of the black hole. The loud momentary creaking must have been them going through.

It had to have been dumb luck that they arrived at all. As the chunk of ship spun through space he saw a planet in the distance along with a moon and a number of ships and large things that looked like stations. Hopefully wherever they ended up was not going to be a problem.

The chunk spun around again and he could scan planets in the distance along with the black hole they came out of. But it seemed to shrink and disappear. While the rest of the ship was breaking apart and being pulled toward the planet. But at the last moment he spotted something fly out of the ship. Just barely making it out. Hopefully that was the others.

As the temperature began to rise he moved further into the chunk of ship he was inside. While his armor picked up several frequencies. In fact it was so many that were in constant use that his armor was not able to sort them out at all.

"Cain come in, are you reading me?" All he got in response was static. It would seem that something else was wrong. But as he held onto the railing inside the chunk of a ship he was inside of he could almost feel the heat through his armor until suddenly he heard a loud crack and he naturally absorbed an abnormal amount of electricity that ran into his armor.

Then there was the impact as Jace lost his hold and slammed into the wall and he slipped into unconsciousness.

—----------------

"Ha! Told you!" The Dark Elf watched with interest as the ship flew not at the sun but instead through a black hole that was nearby. What bad luck. Or was it his fate?

{Impossible. I... how...} General Ariel asked. Despite her controlled state she was still in shock.

"Some people are just born with the luck of the stars." The Dark Elf explained before looking at something on the console. "Oh? They managed to send an encrypted transmission as well." She leaned back as she watched a ship suddenly arrive. "Not bad. Not bad at all." She admitted before flinching and clicking her tongue. "Take us away from here. Something troublesome is approaching."

{Yes Madam.}

—-----------------

"We arrived at the site of the ship." Colonel Dahlia sighed as she noticed a clear lack of the ship where it was before when she dropped them off. They were on standby at the edge of the system until the transmission arrived.

"Good, retrieve the team and-"

"The ship is gone. We are tracking the warp trail now." She interrupted the High Priestess and stopped any of the other leaders and at the King’s Gathering from speaking in the same breath. She looked at one of her subordinates on the bridge which was hurriedly working.

Then the main view screen changed to show the path the ship took. Just in time for the black hole that was shrinking to disappear. "Shit." She cursed as she realized what happened. "Start decoding the message. All members of the combined scouting party are assumed to be lost or missing."

"What... what happened!?!" The High Priestess sounded like she was mixed between anger and despair.

"Looks like the ship was piloted through a black hole. But... residual energy indicates a teleportation while they were going through. Theoretically they could have teleported to the other side of the blackhole. But it would have torn the ship apart anyways." Dahlia explained with an annoyed grunt. "What should we do?"

The High Priestess went quiet before another vice spoke up. The emperor of Oda was the one to speak, "Colonel Dahlia, please secure the site. I believe the Mortella are a substantial and immediate threat. I doubt I am the only one. We will have to complete all necessary treaties as we will be allying with all members of the-"

"We have incoming!" One of Dahlia’s subordinates screamed in a panic.

"Who?" Dahlia demanded in anger as the ship turned to face the enemy that was warping out.

"Unmarked and the vessel design is unfamiliar to us." The subordinate announced.

"It is none of ours." Emperor Oda announced.

Dahlia flinched as the ships seemed to come out of space itself to appear. That was a manner of travel she was not familiar with. "We are receiving a transmission."

"Display it on screen." Dahlia told them immediately.

Then the message began appearing on screen. Its contents confused her.

"What does it say, Colonel Dahalia?" The High Priestess seemed to have recovered from her shock.

"Umm... It is an old Vexical Spectre Code, one of the ones we got in place of dogtags, followed by the words. ’He is alive but now out of range. Permission to return to my former post?’ What should I do?" Colonel Dahlia asked.

There was silence before she could hear the High Priestess sigh, "send a return message that says, ’Permission Granted. Welcome back Spectre Zero, also known as Salem Wintry.’"

—----------------

Jace groaned in pain as he pulled himself up. As soon as he did, he noticed several things. First off, he was underwater. He could tell because of what it felt like to sit up, and he was in the pitch black. So he was likely deep underwater.

He also noticed how he seemed to feel heavier. Almost as if gravity itself was pulling him down. But that would mean the gravity was much stronger than what he was used to. Something that was strange considering he mostly preferred twice the normal gravity of the standard.

He began pulling up his armor’s status on his visor. His armor was not punctured but he had a few internal injuries that were healing. Probably from the impact. All transmissions were being blocked, not jammed, it was more like a natural phenomenon.

There was a flash of light above him as the remains of the ship and him continued to sink. He slowly began swimming upwards towards the surface. After a few minutes of strenuous swimming the waves and lighting began to be visible. Then he broke the surface onto a wave that was swaying back and forth. Far above him was lighting that was striking between clouds. He looked around for a moment before spotting something in the far distance through the rain.

A piece of light that was slowly moving around and around. He began swimming towards it. As he did he started to piece together a starmap of where they crash landed. He may not be able to contact the others but the second task would always be to find his bearings.

As he began swimming he noticed something. The star map was starting to look familiar for some reason. But he could not place it. He also noticed that he was getting closer to the flashing light.

In fact it was not a flashing light at all. It was a lighthouse. A tall brick lighthouse that was operating. He had only seen those in historical records. Nowadays there was no need for them. Technology had advanced enough to make them obsolete. Was there a place in the galaxy where they used them?

He arrived at the shore and pulled himself onto the shore made of rocks. As he did he looked back up at the sky. The storm cloud was still blocking it. But after a moment he had a thought. He reached back and touched his book. The one with information and history he had collected in his galaxy. The one with that starmap.

The starmap of the one place all scholars and nation leaders constantly looked for with the intention of claiming it as their own. The one that he had memorized simply because he looked over it so many times trying to figure it out. It looked slightly different. But it was similar enough that he could confirm it. Especially with the likely time lag between when that starmap was made and now.

He just needed to find some locals to confirm it. He looked back up at the lighthouse as he could faintly hear arguing voices as he pulled himself up a few of the rocks away from the waves that were crashing against it.

He really needed to confirm whether or not he crash landed on that planet of all places. He could honestly not tell if his luck was bad or not. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Because he was almost confident that he had crash landed on Earth. Ancient Terra.