CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: 2

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The world they emerged above was bathed in a sickly purple light. It tainted every building and path and wall and tree, transforming Xylaris into something that more closely resembled a hospital ward painted the colour of madness. Beyond the gate zone's barrier, which dissolved as it detected the ship approaching to let them through, was the Abyssal Cluster itself, sitting like a cosmic thundercloud.

'It's horrible,' Rhama said. Her fingers tapped nervously on the control stick. 'Have you ever seen it before?'

'Not personally,' Crysis said, 'though I know people that have. They used to have a viewing platform right at the edge at one point, so I've heard. They limited people who weren't used to it to only staring into the cluster for one hour at a time, though. Apparently it could send you mad.'

Doone laughed, which turned into a violent cough. 'Considering who's going inside it, we're going to be fine, then.'

Crysis activated a screen on his right and the maps which Ganna had loaded onto the ship burst into life. Nobody had made a concerted effort to chart the cluster; it was too big, and there were more ships that went in than came out. Still, there had been some rudimentary attempts in the past, and anything Celestria had on it was theirs to use.

He gave them a rudimentary scan as they charted their way towards a large tendril of magenta cloud, which seemed to twist and curl like a large finger that beckoned them in. There were large patches of darkness on the maps that nobody went near, plus a few small planetary systems that hadn't been named, or even properly touched. Crysis didn't have the first clue as to where to begin a search, it was too big even for an empire, a desert of phantasmagorical darkness. Having nothing better, he picked a point at random. 'Let's start there,' he said. It was a binary system of two planetoids, one large and another small enough to be its moon. 'Better than nowhere.'

A few minutes later the smoke engulfed them completely, blocking their view. A sweet smell came over them, and then the small craft was buffeted by an errant wind. Rhama's hands blurred as she corrected the ship here, accommodated with reverse thrusters there, side power to counteract the tail fishing out, and diverting weight to the other end to stop the front being pushed down. 'Might want to up the speed,' she said. 'It's less fragile the faster it's going.'

Crysis nodded and applied the power. The further in they went, the more the hairs on the back of his neck were charged with ghostly electricity in the vacuum and stood on end. The lights blinked twice as the cluster tried to get a grip on them, but the Cannon had been made of sturdier equipment than the cluster could throw at them. Upon looking the systems over a few moments later, it was all in working order.

The cluster was breathtaking in its own way, and yet eerie. Usually, even in large gas clouds in charted space, you saw signs of life, or at least its possibility. Lights from trading vessels passing through, ambassador ships heading down to dock at neutral zones, people looking for shortcuts from place to place. You might even catch a glimpse of a pirate vessel's shining hull as your lights sweep across its bow, lurking and waiting for the right prey to come along to board and plunder.

The Abyssal Cluster had nothing of the sort. It wasn't even fair to call it a ghost town, because it was completely abandoned and devoid of any sign that people had visited to begin with. Not a hunk of discarded spaceship floated by, nor a single crumbling ruin emerged from an asteroid they steered around with pinpoint accuracy. It was as if the cluster had been designed purely to show people what the void itself looked like. Crysis had been to the edge of the Blank Space, where everything stopped in a mutual agreement never to press any further into the black. This place scared him in a single second more than a month on Outpost 73.

An hour of drifting through the murk and they spotted the smaller planet of the twin system they were looking for. Rhama took over the controls, far more comfortable with it than Crysis, and took them in for a closer look. It was nothing more than a scarred rock, not big enough to hold an atmosphere. It was grey and old, with no interesting features to be seen. No mountains bulged up for somewhere clearer, and the scans showed no caves or trenches for hiding away a secret army. The second of the two planets showed much of the same. They skirted above a single trench that ran for a few hundred miles like a great belt, but this too was devoid of any signs of artificial tampering. Maybe the trench had once held water. If it had, it was long ago.

They headed off into the purple sky once again. This time Crysis picked out a smudge of emptiness near the edge of the map. To get there required passing through a large planetary system of sixteen bodies, plus moons, and a smaller blank section. He didn't know how much fuel they had, and he wanted to search as much as possible and as efficiently as possible, before they had to turn around again and head to Xylaris empty handed.

'Anything, Doone?'

Doone had been monitoring the sub-channels from his station, with an eye on a particular low wavelength that was a favourite of theirs. If in doubt, check that one out of the millions. It was almost like a password. It was more through hope than any real chance of them having made it out alive, but hope was better than nothing.

'Not yet,' he said. He leaned back in his chair, all his eyes absent-mindedly wandering over the screens. His fingers ran along the buttons on the desk that would get the guns primed and ready. 'We sure they're here?'

'Minister Ganna said they would be,' Crysis replied. 'But the cluster's a big place, and most of it unexplored. Could look here for years and still not find anything. The maps don't go more than a few hours into the gloom.'

'What about that place that he mentioned? The one the Z agent was at?'

'Doubtful. Celestria would have taken over that base as soon as they got their boots on there. Our guys are somewhere else, I'm sure of it.'

Doone turned back around, unsatisfied. Crysis felt the same way. He had a feeling that they were close, somewhere near, and that they were closing in all the time. He didn't know whether to call it a sixth sense, perhaps a seventh or an eighth, but he had been with the rest of his guys long enough to know when they were near.

Static suddenly blasted through the ship. '...help. Anyone there?'

'That's Heratrix!' Rhama squealed. Such was her excitement that the ship suddenly nosedived, and it was only through Crysis' reflexes that they managed to avoid smashing into a passing asteroid.

'Heratrix,' Doone called into the ether as he frantically whacked on his transmitter. 'Can you hear me?'

'Can you get a fix on them, Doone?' Crysis asked as he brought the craft to a stop, hovering in mid-space until coordinates could be fixed.

'I'm trying now,' he said.

Rhama got up and went over to help. Between them they managed to work their way through hundreds of menus, side-headings, screens and toggles. Eventually, there was a blue dot on a screen, and Rhama sent it through to the monitors at the front with a swipe of her finger. There they were. Alive.

'Got it,' Crysis called. 'Come back, Rhama.'

'Heratrix,' Doone said. 'I don't know if you can hear this, but we've found you. We're coming for you guys, just hang on in there.'

The ship drew spirals of cloud behind it as it accelerated. Crysis hoped they would be there in time.

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