CHAPTER 15

Hamunaptra Resort

Earth, Sol Sector

Ardeth Bay and Monica were working on their computers in the library. Lt. Com. Data and Lt. Marcus were also there. The four of them were busy working to find out all information about the key.

Ardeth and Monica searched the data based on all the recorded information about the ancient artifacts, while Lt. Data who had the ability to search as fast as the computer was reading all the journals left by Med-Jai Leaders. Lt. Marcus was searching on all records other than artifacts and journals.

They had been working for hours, without sleep, without break. The dawn was almost breaking when Data suddenly stopped and cocked his head.

"Mr. Bay, I believe I found something about the key. However, some of the information is written in hieroglyphic characters."

Ardeth hurriedly went to see the data displayed on the monitor in front of Lt. Data. He motioned Monica to come and see it.

"This is the journal of Ardeth Bay, year 1933." Monica read out loud.

"Yes." Lt. Data answered. "I have read all the journals beginning from Ardeth Bay VI. According to the records, the key was lost in the year 1913, stolen by tombraiders in the Island of Philae. The key was found 200 years later and since then kept by Ardeth Bay IV who then passed the key to his descendant. But it seems that the key was somehow emerged in the year 1933."

Monica started to read the hieroglyph but after a few words she stepped backwards and let Ardeth read the rest aloud, translating it for the others to hear.

"This journal is for the eyes of Ardeth Bay VII alone. It is imperative that you must save your beloved one. As I write this journal, you and your beloved are already safe back home. I now write the message you wish to be reminded of: She arrived at Hamunaptra, the city of the dead, on October 3, 1933 about 4 hours before dusk. May Allah helps you find the way to safe her, to safe us, to safe humanity."

Ardeth stopped reading, he was astounded. He was sure that neither his father nor his grandfather had read all the journals. Neither one of them had known about this message. Thanks to Lt. Com. Data who was able to read hundreds or even thousands of pages of information in a relatively short time.

"Ya Allah…. That’s where she is now, Ardeth. She’s still here, only in a different time."

Ardeth seemed to hesitate. "What does it mean… safe humanity?" He murmured.

Lt. Data rose from his seat, "Mr. Bay, I suggest we inform our findings here with the other team."

Ardeth looked at him, startled, "Yes, yes, of course. Let’s do it now."

________________________________________________________________________

Dnunian Vessel Horsk

Earth orbit

General Gunn hurriedly entered the bridge of Horsk. The Captain of the vessel was talking to Prince Janoj. His face filled the screen. General Gunn stood by the Captain and gave his military salute to the Prince.

"General, I want you to beam down to Hamunaptra Resort now. Gather the science team and bring them along. We have located Princess Salvia. Janoj out." The monitor blinked, Janoj’s face was replaced with the view of a blue planet, Earth.

Gunn barely made it to tap his comm. badge when the Captain said, "There’s one communiqué for you, General, from Dnunia."

"On screen, Captain."

The screen blinked once again, this time revealing the face of an old person. He had dark brown hair and beard. His white skin was wrinkled, consumed by his age, yet his green eyes gleamed showing the vitality of life in him.

"Dr. Faric!" Gunn was surprised to see him.

"General Gunn, I have received the pictures of the artifact that you sent to my assistant. May I know where you found this artifact?"

"Earth, Dr. Faric. Do you have anything to tell me about the markings, Doctor?" He replied impatiently.

Dr. Faric noticed his tone of voice and lifted one eyebrow. "General, I suggest you take a seat and listen carefully to what I’m going to tell you. This is certainly much more important than whatever business you’re going to attend to. You might not like it."

General Gunn sighed and sat on the Commander’s seat, beside the Captain. "Go on, Doctor."

Doctor Faric seemed to be thinking. He had to find out how to explain very complicated scientific matters so that non-scientists people could understand them. He cleared his throat and began explaining.

"This picture you sent, is a picture of Ananka Pass."

"What?" The Captain couldn’t restrain himself from asking.

"If you let me explain, without interrupting, you will find out about what I’m talking about, Captain." The Doctor seemed annoyed.

"Go on." General Gunn said, motioning to the Captain to let the scientist finish his explanation.

Doctor Faric nodded and continued, "Our ancestors had traveled and roamed the galaxy long before the other races. I’m sure you all know about the fact. However, they didn’t use starships to get to another planet. They created a much more cost-and-time-efficient way to travel. They use inter-dimensional passageway. A pass or a key like the one in the picture is required to open the passageway. This way allowed them to go from one place or time to another in merely a few seconds. All they need was one key. Yet, they created 20 of them." He took his breath, shook his head as if regretting the stupidity of his ancestors.

"Our explorers and scientists had used this method of traveling for thousand of years, until one time it was misused by a man to conquer other worlds and caused tremendous damages to the course of history. He used the passageway to alter the history, to interfere with other races’ stages of development, to get involved in other races’ battles, and so on, and so on. The ruler of Dnunia Empire realized the mistakes he had made by allowing the scientists to create too many keys. He then decided to destroy all the 20 keys. However, only 17 were retrieved and destroyed. Three pass remained missing. Ananka, Rothlion and Masiel Pass. This one you found on Earth is Ananka Pass." He nodded as he finished his explanation.

General Gunn had heard of this story when he was a boy at school. It was part of the history lesson. Now, it seemed unbelievable that the ugly thing in the picture was one of the legendary 3 missing-pass.

"Can you read the markings on the side of the pass, Doctor?" He asked.

"Oh yes, I almost forgot to tell you about that." The old scientist seemed embarrassed for a moment. Then he continued in a much more eager tone, like a child describing his toys.

"Each key was activated by trans-dimensional energy source which is triggered by DNA pattern. So, it’s timeless, General. No battery needed, no power source needed. One person who has a matched DNA pattern can activate the pass and open the passageway to wherever or whenever he wants. The markings you mentioned are the encoded symbols of DNA pattern and some are actually buttons to set the time and place of travel. My assistants have analyzed them and came up with a very surprising result. The pattern belongs to the Royal family, General. This is such a great finding. Now we know that the Ananka Pass once belonged to a member of Dnunian’s Royal family, most likely the Emperor himself or one of the Princes. What an ancient yet efficient technology. It is very interesting that….."

"I’m sure you find it quite interesting, Doctor." The General cut him out before he continued on rambling about the greatness of the technology.

"If I give you a replica of the pass, do you think you can imitate or find out more on how to open the passageway, Doctor?"

"Replica?" The Doctor seemed very surprised. "What’s wrong with the original pass, General?"

General Gunn sighed, yet he kept a stern face while saying, "I suggest you go to Sol Sector as fast as you can, Doctor. We have a big problem."

"What problem? Regarding the passa…"

General Gunn cut him again, "Doctor, please. Just bring your assistants here. Fast. Believe me, you don’t want to keep Prince Janoj waiting. Gunn out." He disconnected the transmission and tapped his comm. badge to bark some orders. In a few seconds later, his body dematerialized from the bridge of the Horsk.

CHAPTER 16

Med-Jai Village

Egypt, 1933

Salvia looked around her as she sneaked carefully out of her tent. She consulted her tricorder and resumed walking under the shadows of the night. Captain Picard had stored the location of the oasis in his tricorder and gave the coordinate to her, as if he had known what she had been planning in her head. He seemed to be a very understanding person and Salvia grew to like him very much.

The barbarians that called themselves Med-Jai had an awkward way of bathing for women. They were not allowed to have a bath in the oasis. Instead, they took some water in a bucket and washed themselves inside one tent. There was no way she would do such a bizarre habit. So, here she was, sneaking out in the middle of the night just to have a bath. Never before she felt as miserable.

A dark figure of a man followed her from a far. He moved fast and managed to keep himself hidden under the shadows of the rocks. Once Salvia reached an open place he stopped and turned to walk towards the hillside. He didn’t want to take a risk of being noticed by her. Unknown to him, another dark shadow followed behind. But this one was of a woman.

Salvia reached the oasis. She looked around her to make sure that she was alone. She dipped one foot to the water and found it very cold. She smiled and started to take off her clothes, one by one. The only things that she was still wearing were her wristbands and G-belt. She dared not take off her weapons and protections in an alien environment. She took her time and walked along the oasis before plunging into the depth of the water.

Ardeth crawled up the hill to take a look at where Salvia was going. He was surprised to find that she stopped at the oasis and started to take off all her clothes. He closed his eyes and lowered down his head. He had been mistaken. He had thought that she had planned to go back to Hamunaptra and somehow lost her way. He hardly believed that she actually went all the way to take a bath. He lied down and stared at the dark sky and watched the stars. His chest was heaving up and down slowly, like a person in deep sleep. Yet there was a battle inside him. His mind told him not to look beyond, but his heart desired so. For sometimes he lied still in the dark. Five minutes later he gave in to his heart and looked beyond.

There she was, standing by the oasis, naked. Her pale white skin seemed to glow under the moonlight. Her long red hair was pulled up so that it would not get wet. She moved slowly along the edge of the oasis.

Ardeth held his breath as he watched her figure silhouetted in the dark. She had the most beautiful body he had ever seen in a woman. He watched her every curve hungrily, but her legs were the most beautiful things in his eyes. She had legs that seemed to go on forever. She was swimming gracefully, like a swan. In fact, he found her every move graceful. Ardeth felt an urge inside him, boiling, consuming him. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There was something about this creature that he didn’t comprehend. He didn’t like her, he didn’t trust her, yet somehow he was drawn to her more than he had ever knew.

The shadow of a woman lied silently a few meters behind him. She watched his every move for a while then left the scene. As she started to move away, a cloud came covering the moon. She moved swiftly in the darkness leaving the place. Her dark shadow was all that could be seen, yet a gleam of hatred glowed in her eyes.

________________________________________________________________________

Captain Picard was seating on the floor of his tent. He looked up and greeted her when she entered.

"Ah, Good Morning, Princess. How’s your sleep last night?" He asked politely.

Salvia looked at him for a moment then sat down in front of him.

"Stop calling me Princess, Jean-Luc. I’m nobody in this place. Just as you are not a Captain. If we are to stay here permanently we better get used to losing our titles."

Picard smiled and sighed. "So you have lost hope, I see."

Salvia looked at him coldly. "It’s easy for you not to lose hope, Jean-Luc. You can go anywhere you wish to go. Once you change your clothes, of course. While I’m stuck here, in this miserable place…. then again, I’m the one to blame."

Picard watched her carefully. Somehow she was not the spoiled brat he had seen the day before. She spoke differently, acted differently, as if the night had changed her character all of a sudden. But when he looked into her eyes, he knew that this was indeed the same person. The gleams in her eyes are the same. Picard understood now that behind her spoiled, childish actions she was actually an independent person. A true Princess. Picard suddenly realized that it took more than just an independent person to organize the Soul Foundation that dealt with wars and refugees. And this person in front of him was one of the founders of the organization.

"Salvia, I scanned the key and found this." He finally decided to trust her and share his knowledge with her. He handed her his tricorder.

Salvia took it and checked it carefully. "What does this mean, Jean-Luc? This looks like some kind of energy pattern. Are you saying that the key radiates a certain energy pattern?"

"Yes. An energy wave actually. But somehow it doesn’t spread out like it should have been. I monitored the wave length and as you can see it travels only between those two frequencies indicated on the left side of the screen."

Salvia’s eyes grew wider when she looked up and hissed the words, "A homing beacon?"

"I hope so." Picard sighed and seemed to be thinking.

"What do you mean you hope so. If this is indeed a homing beacon, then we have to bring this key back to where we landed. From there we can try to find if there are other openings." She blurted.

"If it was a homing beacon, it should have been set on a regular pattern." He took the tricorder and punched in some commands before handed it back to Salvia.

"That’s the same energy wave, only it was recorded from last night."

Salvia checked the tricorder carefully and immediately noticed the difference. "It’s slower, much slower…"

She looked at Picard suspiciously, "Tell me what you know, Jean-Luc. This key is radiating an energy wave that is getting faster and wider by the hour. What does it mean?"

Picard sighed heavily, "I’m afraid that this is not a homing beacon like I thought yesterday, Salvia. I believe this is some kind of a count down."

"Count down? To what? Another opening?"

"I wished I could answer that, Salvia. I don’t know. It could be a count down to an opening to the same passage we traveled, thus would bring us back home. It could also be another opening to another place. Neither of us know what the meaning of the relief carved on the sides of the key, it could be numbers indicating the location of the opening."

Salvia lifted her brows, "But….."

Picard looked at her "But, what scared me most is that the count down is for destruction of the key."

Salvia hit the table in front of her with her palm, "A self-destruct device! How comforting!"

They both sat in silence for a moment. Picard broke the silence, speaking softly to her, "We still have some hope, Salvia. Some hopes against hopes." He placed his hand on her shoulder.

Suddenly her fair emotionless face turned sad. This was the first time Picard saw a Dnunian showing sadness openly. The race considered crying as weakness. Tears flowed down her smooth cheeks.

She whispered, "I’m afraid, Jean-Luc…. that I will not be able to see him again."

"Ardeth Bay VII?" Jean-Luc asked, taking her hand into his.

She nodded, looking down to avoid his gaze.

"You really love him, don’t you?" He asked again.

Salvia looked directly into his eyes. She was not crying anymore. "With all my heart, Jean-Luc."

Picard smiled and held her to give her some comfort. She was in fact just a young girl.

"Then we must not lose hope. You will see him again and I will be a Captain again." He smiled and gave her a light kiss on her forehead, like a father to daughter.

She nodded and smiled, "Then I shall help you find the way back home."

________________________________________________________________________

"Come in, Hazanah." Ardeth replied from inside his tent.

Hazanah entered Ardeth Bay’s tent. He was getting dressed. He was wearing his usual black clothes. When she entered he was preparing his scimitar.

Ardeth looked up and smiled. "What brings you hear so early, little girl?"

Hazanah didn’t like him calling her that way. True, they grew up together and Ardeth had been like her older brother. But over the course of 15 years, her feelings towards him had changed. She wanted him to look at her as a woman, not a little sister.

"I hate it when you call me that way." She said.

Ardeth simply smiled and continued sheathing his scimitar into the scabbard. When he realized she didn’t say anything, he looked at her again. Waiting for her to state her business.

"What is she?" She asked.

He sighed, "I knew you’re gonna ask that question, little girl. But I’m no wiser than you are in this matter. She’s a woman from a place called Dnunia, she told me."

"She brings evil into the village, Ardeth." She said again.

Ardeth rose from his seat and walked towards her. "And how do you know that?"

"She looks…"

"Evil." Ardeth finished the sentence for her. He shook his head.

"Hazanah, if she’s evil, she would have slaughtered the 46 men instead of letting them live. I watched her fight, and I knew she could do that easily. But no, she only hurt them so that they couldn’t hurt her back. It’s called self defense. So now, my dear little sister, you can go out there and tell the girls and women not to fear her. Now I have a meeting with the town council. I want you to go and meet her and make sure she gets what she needs. OK." He patted her back as he walked out the tent.

Hazanah went out after him, but he was nowhere to be seen. She turned her attention to another tent and went towards it.

"Hello?" She called. "Hello!" She called again with a louder voice.

"I’m over here." Hazanah heard a very soft yet beautiful voice coming from behind her. She turned her back and saw her standing in front of another tent.

As she walked over to her she couldn’t help but notice her odd yet fair face. She had a really pale skin. Her long hair was red, as red as her lips. Her eyes gleaming green/orange.

Hazanah couldn’t shake the image of her swimming in the oasis from her head. She decided that she didn’t like her.

"The Chief wants me to make sure you get what you want."

Salvia smiled. Hazanah was shocked to see a glitter of her fangs. She disliked her even more.

"How nice of him. Well you can tell him that I… that we need to go back to the tomb. It seems like he somehow makes sure we can’t leave this stinking tent." She waved a hand around her.

Hazanah looked around and was surprised to find that there were some warriors guarding behind and around the tent. She hadn’t realized that earlier.

"Well, you may go now and tell him that." Salvia ordered her.

Hazanah didn’t like her tone of voice. "You cannot order me around."

Salvia lifted her eyebrow, "Well, well, you better get used to it, human. You said your Chief wanted you to make sure I got what I wanted. I want to go to the tomb. Now go and tell him!" With that she turned her back on Hazanah and disappeared inside the tent.

Picard shook his head when she re-entered the tent.

"Salvia, don’t be too harsh on those people, they were trying to be nice to you."

"Shut up Jean-Luc. I hate this place and I hate the Chief. He said we were his guests, yet he treated us like prisoners. And as far as that woman concerns, I have my own reason."

"I suspect there’s something about the tomb that caused the restriction." Picard said ignoring her statement.

"What? A curse? You started to sound like Monica Bleeth." Salvia grumbled.

Picard checked his tricorder again, "If the wave keeps accelerating in this regular speed, I give 3 days for the count down to end."

Salvia looked at him, "Then we’ll see what we’ll see."