Chrystal Bones (Finding Home Book 1) (2 page)

"It was their energy weapons that did the most damage. They took out the computers and fried a couple of the fuel chrystals. They are going to need to be recharged and we cannot do that here. We have replacements but it will take time to calibrate them. Dro says he should have the computers online in a couple of hours and Sparks will probably get communications back before I get the engines online again."

Sparks nodded and said, "Not that it will make any difference. I would prefer to know where we are before sending out any calls just in case any unfriendlies are waiting for us.”

Idris spoke into the silence that had fallen at that pronouncement, "I designed the stealth system so I will give Vihan a hand with that."

Jayden looked at the men who were more than brothers to him and said, “It is not like we have not been in worse situations, at least no one is shooting at us right now. And if we do not know where we are I doubt the Ragillians know where we are. So let’s get to it. Jos I will help with the chrystals. Sparks get with Dro and get the computers online as quick as you can. Idris, Vihan get to work on the stealth system. I want it up and running as fast as you can make it happen. We may need it sooner rather than later.” He spoke with the authority of being in command.

The men stood to leave and do their jobs. When they reached the door Sparks stepped back with a sweep of his arm and said, "Ladies first,” to Jos.

"Thank you for noticing,” Jos replied before stepping through the door.

Jayden just shook his head at their antics and turned to look out the viewport.
Where the hell are we?
He thought before he gave a huge sigh and followed his men out the door.

Twenty hours later the alarms blaring throughout the ship woke Jayden up from the first sleep he had gotten in two days. He jumped out of bed and grabbed his pants on the way out the door running to the control room. When he got there he found Vihan at the weapons station and Sparks at the helm, no one else had made it there yet. “What is going on Sparks?" he asked closing the fastener on his pants.

Sparks did not look up as he said, "Something out there is pulling us somewhere and I do not have enough sensors to see what it is. Jos says it will be six hours before he can bring the engines online.” He threw his hands up in disgust. "There is nothing more I can do at this point."

Idris ran into the room the ice blue chrystal he

wore around his neck glowing brightly and a stunned joyful look on his face. Jayden forgot the ship’s peril for a moment and asked him, "What is it?" Then paused when he saw the chrystal glowing. "Why is your necklace glowing?" He had never seen such a look on his friend’s face in all the years he had known him.

"Aa, Aa,” Idris stuttered, closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing, "The chrystal is connected to my little sister Aaliyah. It glows when she is close by."

"Why would your sister be out here in the middle of nowhere?" Then Jayden added, "I thought your sister was dead.”

"So did we,” Idris said quietly, the joyful look turning troubled.

Sparks gave a happy shout! "Sensors are back,” he said bringing up the view screen.

The walls of the control room turned transparent, giving the illusion that there was nothing between them and the space outside. It gave them a 360 degree view to see what was out there. What was out there was nothing, just a lot of empty space. No nebulas, no stars, no light, just a big empty nothing as far as the sensors could see.

Puzzled they looked at each other and then back to the black dead space. Sure there were dead spots in space but you could always see distant stars or some type of light. But this was something they had never seen before. There was literally nothing to see. So what was pulling at them and where was it pulling them to?

Jayden activated his com and called to Jos. "Jos I am sure you are aware of our plight. Is there any chance that we will be able to break free of whatever has us any time soon?" he asked with exaggerated politeness.

Jos replied in a slightly irritated voice, "I know we are in a situation Jayden. There is not a thing I can do about it right now. We are working as fast as we can, but it is still going to take six hours to get this piece of crap engine going." Then Jayden heard him say in a low whisper, "I am sorry sweetie. I did not mean that. It is not your fault. It is those nasty Ragillians."

I am surrounded by crazy people
, Jayden thought shaking his head. "Did you just apologize to the engine?" he asked.

"Of course not,” Jos denied then hurried on. "I have not had a lot of time to familiarize myself with the new engines so it is taking a bit longer than I thought it would. I should have them up and running in about six hours and then another four hours or so for the hyper drive. That is the best I can do unless you have more chrystals hidden somewhere on this ship.”

“All right, I will leave you to it. I need to talk to Idris for a minute then I will come down and do what I can to help,” Jayden said to him. "Keep me informed of any changes,” he told Sparks before he turned to Idris and nodded towards his office.

Chrystal Bones Billie Jo Hanlin

Chapter 3

Jayden leaned back in his chair and demanded, "Explain why you think your dead sister is alive and close because your necklace is glowing?"

“This is going to sound crazy I know, but it is not,” Idris said with a frown on his face as he paced the room. "This chrystal is tied to my sister’s life force. It has been dormant for twenty two years but it has never gone completely cold like it would if she were dead. No one has ever paid too much attention to it but I always wondered if there might be a chance she was alive. I have carried it with me every since she was lost.

Look, I need to give you a little background information so you understand why this is so important and why we have to follow it." Idris took a deep breath and let it out before he started speaking again.

"What I am about to tell you is highly classified, not many people know all of this even on Shillidon. Those that do know, do not speak of it to outsiders. It would be considered treason. Some of this my father is getting ready to tell the Alliance Council at the next full meeting.”

"Quit stalling Idris and get to the point,” Jayden said.

"I'm not stalling, well maybe I am. This is hard to talk about. I am about to break a few thousand years of silence. Everyone knows that the chrystals that power this ship and others come from Shillidon and that some chrystals are better than others. Most chrystals have special properties that make them better for some things than others.

Pink chrystals work better for communications, yellow for light and heat. Our whole society relies on the crystals. All of that is common knowledge. What is not, is that the chrystals are dying. When they die so does Shillidon." Idris paused to gather his thoughts.

Jayden’s jaw dropped at that revelation but he did not interrupt him.

Idris continued, "Legend has it that every thousand years or so a woman is born who can renew the chrystals so life can continue. None of us really believed the legend anymore since it has been over two thousands years since the last recorded Chrystal Woman was born and it did not seem as if the chrystals were dying. Then about two hundred years ago our scientists noticed the chrystals were not as strong as they used to be. It was taking two or three chrystals to do something it had only taken one to do before. The chrystals we sell to other planets are dying even faster and no new chrystals are growing to replace them. The way things are right now we expect the chrystals to die completely in fifty to a hundred years. When they do, Shillidon will die." He looked into Jayden’s eyes as he told him that.

"There is nothing you guys can do to stop it?" Jayden asked stunned.

“Nothing,” Idris replied then continued, "The shields around my planet are weakening because they are connected to the ice blue chrystals that are the core of the planet and that core is dying faster than the other crystals. The Ragillians will figure this out soon if they have not already. When they do, they will bombard Shillidon until the shields fail. We are trying to come up with new shields but nothing has worked as well as the chrystals and once the core dies there will not be any need for a planetary shield. We still need shields for the ships and another power source for the hyper drives."

"I understand that this is a bad thing for all of us, not just Shillidon, but what does that have to do with our current situation, and that?" Jayden said pointing at the glowing chrystal.

"I am getting to that,” Idris rubbed the bridge of his nose as if it was giving him a headache. "My parents did not expect to have any more children after I was born because she had such a hard time carrying me and the birth was difficult. The doctors did not think she would ever get pregnant again. But when I was fifty five she did. Everyone was shocked not just the doctors. My dad did not want her to have the baby, but mom insisted. We were all worried about her but we need not have been. She sailed through the pregnancy and birth easily, and suddenly I had a beautiful little sister."

Idris paused again for a moment before continuing, "A beautiful little sister with an ice blue chrystal embedded at the base of her throat. That is when we realized the legend was not just a legend. The first Chrystal Woman born in over two thousand years was my baby sister. She gave all of us such hope and joy. I was so much older than her but that did not matter. She was the joy of my life. She was always so happy to see me when I would get back from my trips. She could have been a brat with the way she was spoiled by everyone. Instead she was so sweet and lovable.”

The memories overwhelmed him for a moment and when he continued Jayden heard the pain in his voice. “When she was nine we lost her when the ship she was on was attacked and destroyed by the Ragillians and it was all my fault,” Idris said very quietly lowering himself to the chair as if his legs could no longer hold him up.

The two men sat quietly together. Each caught up in their own thoughts. Jayden was thinking of Shillidon and the ramifications of the chrystals dying. Even

with the new technology it would be a disaster. The Ragillians had been trying to brake up the Alliance for longer than he had been alive. So far it had not escalated to a full scale war mostly because the Shillidon shields were so good that it took three ships firing at it continuously to break it down. If he remembered right that was what had happened to the ship Idris's sister had been on. Even if you had the frequency codes it still was not easy to destroy an Alliance ship.

If Shillidon was dying then the Alliance really was in trouble. Shillidon’s chrystals came in all different sizes, shapes and colors but it was the ice blue chrystals found in deep caverns that were highly sought out by everyone. The smallest of the blue chrystals were the size of a baby's fist and were worth millions of credits. A small blue could power a space ship for years. The bigger blues were what powered the Alliance shields that were on all of the core planets and ships. Yes, they had other shields but they just were not as good. If the chrystals died it would leave many planets vulnerable to attack by not just the Ragillians but many others looking for power. How Idris's sister could prevent the chrystals from dying he had no idea. If she was alive then finding her just became more important than anything else, and his primary mission.

Idris was also thinking of Aaliyah. He was the one who had convinced their parents to let her come with him to visit a neighboring planet with him for her ninth birthday. She was so sweet and good natured, and she was fascinated with space travel. It was all she talked about and she peppered him with questions for days after he got back from a trip. What were the people like? What was the planet like? What do the stars look like? How fast did the ship go?

Tell me everything she would say throwing her arms up to the sky then twirling around and around making him dizzy just watching. He always laughed and did what she wanted. He swore that at nine she knew more about the different ships than he did and she had never been on one. She knew the specifications of every ship in their navy. She could make computers do anything she wanted and she could probably have built a hyper drive from scratch.

He had felt so sorry for her, knowing that all she wanted to do was explore space and knowing too that once she grew into her chrystal powers she would not be allowed off Shillidon. She was too important, she was all that stood between life and death for their planet. As the only chrystal woman born in thousands of years she had to be kept safe at all costs and he knew that meant she would never be allowed to follow her dreams.

So he had convinced their parents to let her come with him to the neighboring planet Kaya. It was sparsely populated with peaceful cat like people, the tallest of them only four and a half feet. He knew she would enjoy meeting them and be ecstatic to be able to go into space and explore the ship to her heart’s content.

All had gone well on the trip except for a few minor problems when she had dismantled a couple of systems on board the ship to make them better. His little sister had charmed the Kayans.

Just as they were about to board the shuttle back to the ship he had been called back to answer a couple more questions. He told the guards to take Aaliyah up to the ship and send the shuttle back for him. When he arrived back at the Kayans head quarters, the leader of the

colony, Fendark, did not know what he was talking about. There was no message and he had not sent for Idris.

He thought now, he had not even been concerned at that point just irritated. It would take the shuttle over an hour to get back. Idris passed the time visiting with Fendark.

When two hours had gone by and the shuttle still had not come back for him, he had tried raising the ship on the com. When he could not get through that is when he started to get worried. He had borrowed one of the few shuttles on planet and went to see what was going on with his ship. But his ship had disappeared from orbit. That was the beginning of his nightmare.