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Chapter 7 â€" Revelations

"The sky shall turn to ashes, under the waves of fire that consume it." â€" Zelna Holy Text

Location: Tigris â€" Holding Cells

"I just don't understand it!" Blackfire ran his fingers through his hair as he worked on a laptop computer. Diamond had given him the difficult task of decoding some ancient computer manuscripts that were contained with the Tigris's huge memory. He had been working at it for hours already while locked in the cell with minimum food and water.

Blackfire's cell was incredibly bare, the walls were cold and metallic constantly vibrating from the engines. There was only a single metal table in which Blackfire was working on but he also was required to sleep on in the evening.

Blackfire had never seen such a complex computer language in his life. The computer language did not seem to run in traditional binary coding but worked at a much more advanced level. He did not understand why Diamond was so determined to find out was contained within the program. To him it looked like some sort of location finder or map program.

"Right, let's try this... one more time..." he said as he typed away on the keyboard. So far his attempts to decrypt and analyse the program had been a disaster. He was about to give up for a while but something had occurred to him. Instead of analysing it, he should try activating it to see what it does.

He pressed a button on the laptop and the whole screen went black. Blackfire sighed.

"Dammit!" he said to himself, getting up and lighting a cigarette which laid on the other side of the table. Diamond had left them there for him, he was strangely polite.

The computer's hard-drive started whirling and cranking again as it came back to life. "What the hell?" sighed Blackfire as the computer began to shake wildly. Blackfire ran over to the computer, it was displaying a massive amount of ancient code. A crack appeared in the screen as the computer shook harder, making Blackfire move back.

Suddenly, the computer screen exploded, making Blackfire dive for cover underneath the table. "What the fuck is going on!?" he shouted to himself, waiting until the room fell silent again before emerging from under the table. As he rose, he opened his mouth in awe.

Projecting from the broken laptop was a massive star-chart that spread out over the room. Blackfire looked at this huge galactic map as it began to fade, the even more amazing thing was that it was in a language that he could understand. There were four large markers in purple that seemed to mark out certain planets and other information.

"Terra â€" Sylvain Bow, Silmeriaze â€" Dragon Orb, Atlantia â€"Demon Sword Levantine"

The last marker on the map seemed to be corrupted in some fashion, only displaying some letters within the word.

"Hel... Lance... Gun-ir"

The map began to fade after that, leaving the room as bare and empty as it had been before. However it had left Blackfire with a lot to think about. What did it all mean?

There was a knock on the door of the cell at the very moment that made Blackfire jump slightly. It was quiet but just enough for Blackfire to notice it. "He..hello?" he said in confusion. There was a slight scratch on the door as it unlocked and in rushed a white tiger and a wolf that both had similar black rifles.

"Hey..." smiled the female wolf that tripped on her way in and tumbled over in the room.

"You with the resistance...? Are you working with Ironheart?"

"W...what!?" asked Blackfire. "You mean to tell me... that you're working with the resistance"

"Yeah" said Anna, staring at both Blackfire and Hy who was checking the door for enemy troops. "He gave us a message to come here and rescue peeps... but I guess it was just a trap"

"So that is why Diamond wanted me here..." Blackfire said to himself.

"Diamond?" said Hy. "You mean that Pegasus guy right... he's responsible for Terra's surrender to the Asgard. He..."

"We really should get out of here Hy!" said Anna quickly. Hy turned to look at Blackfire.

"You coming?" she asked.

Blackfire nodded. It seemed a better idea to go with the rebels anyway because he had no intention of performing for Diamond's amusement. He grabbed his cigarettes as all three of them left the cell and continued down the hall.

Location: Tigris - Engineering Deck

The engineering section of the Tigris was spread out over a number of decks, industrial sized piping covered the ceiling and the walls. There were ladders everywhere on the multitude of decks that made up the lowest depths of the vessel. There was no good lighting here, only the hiss of steam and mild glow made the section visible.

"It seems quiet" shouted Eclypse as he moved through a large plume of steam that was ejecting from the pipes all around him. He was amazed that there was no crew regulating all this equipment. After all... a ship this size had to have engineers.

"That's because..." Diamond shouted back as they moved through the smoke cautiously. "97% of the ship is automatically regulated. It was designed to function like a living organism in order to increase productivity or something along those lines... I dunno... I did not design this thing..."

"Surely there must be sentries protecting key areas?" asked Silver who was stood directly behind Diamond. He was ready to shoot him if he tried anything was remotely like betrayal. "Why haven't we seen others?"

Diamond sighed, turning to face Silver. He was annoyed that Silver was proving too cautious for his own good. The steam around him kept blowing through his mane and causing him to keep moving his hair out of his face. "Look... we launched this ship with a skeleton crew, cos we were order to come after you... now... stop treating everything I say as suspicious!"

Silver instantly grabbed Diamond by the scruff of his neck, pulling him round to face his one brown eye. "I don't like or trust you... you are suspicious!" He pulled up his gun to Diamond's head as he looked him in the eyes. "You could be leading us right into an ambush!"

"Do you see an ambush!? What are they going to do!? Materialise from the pipes!?" shouted Diamond back. "Go ahead... shoot me... then I do not have to listen to you bitch at me... you want MY help and your getting it... now either kill me or let me go flyboy."

Eclypse stared back at Silver and gave him a look of authority. His hand drifted over his own weapon. He did not want to but if it came to it, he would have to choose between the person crucial to the escape or his friend.

Luckily, he did not have to...

Silver released Diamond, pushing him back into the pipes in protest before putting his handgun back into the holster and continuing forward. Diamond got up for a minute to gather himself, he was slightly dazed by all this.

For the next twenty minutes, Silver, Eclypse and Diamond made their way through smoke-filled corridors and conduits until they came to a large metallic hatch. Diamond turned to face both of them before speaking.

"This junction" he started, putting down his rifle and slinging it round his back and working on the control panel to the side of the hatch. "Is the only entrance to the core shaft which regulates the reaction for the drive system. There is a control port here that will disable ship onboard systems and allow us to escape..."

He was about to continue when there was a beeping sound coming from Eclypse's belt, immediately making Eclypse curl his tail and take out a small mobile-phone like box. He tapped a button and spoke into it.

"Go ahead Anna"

Anna's voice was crystal clear over the crackling sound of the radio.

"Clypsie... Look's like you were right bout there being hostages here... I found one, he's a cute little dragon called Blackfire. We are on our way back to the Nova now. OH! And by the way. Diamond is on this vessel if we blow it up might make the resistance job easier."

"Good work Anna" replied Eclypse, looking down at his watch. "We found a guard, but he seemed eager to join. We are at the core entrance, get back to ship. If we can disable the engine safeguards. The ship will explode, we can use the teleporter module to get us out of here..."

"Understood, Anna... out"

Eclypse looked down at the floor and then at both Diamond and Silver. Silver could tell that he was about to go on one of his ordering poses again. However he did make a pretty good leader.

"Silver, you head back to the ship as well... since the teleporter will only work for two people." Silver looked at him as if he was mad.

"You expect me to leave you... with him!" he snarled.

Eclypse nodded and after assuring Silver that he would take every precaution and would be careful Silver headed back down the corridor, leaving Diamond and Eclypse on their own as they climbed into the core shaft. Diamond watching Eclypse climbed through the hatch as he unhooked his rifle from his back and readied it.

Divine Will Must Be Served...