H.O.M.E. 21
by
Fin
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The meeting had already taken its seats when Franklin and James Blade entered the room. Over a dozen or so mutlicolored alien beings, each adorned in clothing the style of their home dimensions, were sitting at a small central circular table. The ornately clad beasts barely turned their head organs to greet the Umons. The Council of Outer Ring City did not take visitors into their forbidden chambers lightly, and in this circumstance specifically, all wanted such an occassion to end quickly.
"May I present to you Admiral Franklin Blade of Earth, and his son, Lieutenant James Blade, also of Earth."
"Earth!" One of the aliens scoughed at the sound. "If I haven't been cursed to hear that name too many times! That is how they referred to this miserable rock too, if you did not know."
"I did not," answered Franklin for both himself and his boy.
"Earth," grumbled the beast again. "What a terrible place to have all found ourselves."
"I suppose that's what you are after right?" questioned another of the rulers, as he stared out a nearby window at the chaos below. "To reclaim all that you believe yours?"
"No. We only wish..." began the ret. admiral before he was interrupted by a renewed tirade.
"Because I'll have you know that our blood is in the crust of this world!" it yelled at the humans rather exasperatedly. "That our temperature regulating liquids are just as much in the stone as yours! Whom are you to come here and claim otherwise?"
"No one wants to take your city!" James cut in frustrated with the conversation's course. "No one wants anything like that at all!"
"Then what do you want Umon?" said a red alien menacingly. "Why have you done all this if not to challenge our rule?"
"Is it not obvious?" asked Franklin holding his cool. "The technology you have found... it is fit only for fools!"
A chorus of amused chuckles was elicted from the alien leaders at his announcement.
"First it was the use of my son!" continued the man loudly. "Now it's your desire to return home. Your city will no longer listen until you abandon the route you have chosen."
"Easy for you to say Umon," called out one of the leaders. "You already are home! What could you possibly know of what its like to have been damned here!"
"Oh he knows," said a withered voice from the shadows across the room. "Admiral Blade knows all too well how far from home The Core actually is."
Turning to face the mysterious talker, Franklin started once more.
"That doesn't mean I'd risk all our lives in order to get back there."
"Then let a better man risk them for you."
At first it was just the pale smile that could be seen responding from the darkness. And then as Franklin stepped closer, a whole human head grinning ear to ear as well. There was another Umon in the meeting.
"I know its been awhile Admiral," said the old man, smiling from his wheel chair. "You do remember me correct?"
The room was frozen. Franklin could almost not bare to look at the other human being. Fear on whose features he might find staring back growing in the man's mind. But when his tendons and ligaments finally forced his eyes to look at the stranger, it was not the visage of an age worn son that met his gaze. But instead that of another military man from his home world.
Captain Reginold Kyrce. First in Command of The Icarus Mission.
Franklin Blade did not blink.
"Where's my son Kyrce?"
"You know how long it's been since I've talked to someone from home?" said the elderly captain from his chair. "You really could be a bit more..."
"Where's my son Kyrce!?"
The same wicked grin returned to the old features.
"Samuel?" questioned the man. "Oh I'm sure he's around here somewhere. Safe and sound as always."
"You tell us what you've done with my brother or I'll...." shouted James from across the room.
"Did you not like visiting Wesley at the cemetery. He never has many visitors," continued on the old man as if he had not heard.
"That was you?" asked Franklin caught off guard.
The elderly human continued his less than friendly smile.
"I thought maybe... if there was but a reason to abandon your search..."
"You bastard!" called out James.
"Alas Mr. East failed to dissuade you much it seems, as here you both now stand," said the captain from his chair.
"You can not go through with all of this Kyrce," said Franklin to his former comrade. "Surely you must know that."
The elderly man's smile became a weary one.
"You sound like your boy, Franklin. So many years now it was. That was always the debate you know. An entire advanced civiziliation's technology at our fingertips. All it takes the will to wield what is rightfully ours."
Kyrce's sunken eyes glowed in his skull as he talked.
"They offered it to me Admiral. They offered me the keys to the city of the dead. All it required was a blood sacrifice. Ha! What else would it have been? One of our own to get the wheels of progress turning. One of our own to start the magic flowing once more."
Turning toward the admiral, Captain Kyrce had tears in his tired eyes.
"I still regret that Wesley did not survive the process," confessed the man, blinking water from his eyes. "But there was still one other to try."
James recoiled as he began to understand the rants of the half senile man in front of him. About whom the man was talking on.
"But when he succeeded Franklin. When he was accepted... this place came alive like its creators had never left!"
Looking at his bretheren on The Council, Kyrce continued.
"And the gifts it then gave to us! Technology to control!" the man clutched his chest, indicating he meant the nannite Fever. "And technology to excel!"
Meeting Franklin's incredulous stare, the elderly man once more tried to convince his former colleague.
"Technology that I will bring back to Earth... for the better of us all!"
The commander of The Icarus Mission held his foe's glare, hoping the man would see his reason. But Franklin remained unbudged.
"You're going to kill us all Kyrce."
Agrieved at once more his good will being turned aside, the newest alien to join The Council snarled.
"We've come too far to turn back now! Mark my words, admiral! I will be taking us home. Every last one of us!"