Page 109 - The Chronicles Ser2 (6-10)

ferns had compounds in their leaf fronds that acted like antibiotics. In short they thrived. A world of
Ying and Yang one of the expedition’s biologists had said; a true duality of nature.

Over the centuries since the “Entrapment”, the colonists had explored and mapped much of
the region they found themselves in. They had also discovered that some of the rifts actually linked
to others within The Veil; like hyperspace conduits. Yet still there was no rift that breached the
barrier that locked them away from the rest of the Galaxy. The Wall of Silence as they had come to
call the energy barrier that surrounded this area of the vast cloud that was The Veil, did have weak
spots, but all attempts to punch through seemed doomed to failure. It would appear that The Wall
was more like a one-way transit into the inner parts of The Veil. The original rift that had sucked
them into The Veil had long ago closed; or so they had thought, until one day a Behemoth came
through along with a mass of signal traffic. This was garbled and distorted, but meticulous analysis
showed that the rift was open but like the wall was a one-way street. Behemoths stayed for decades
feeding on the rich supplies of gasses and dust. Unlike the humans and their puny ships, they could
return through the wall and the rifts. They seemed to be able to distort or fold Space-Time to their
will. Some abortive attempts were made to ride the creature’s “Wakes”; but the distortions played
havoc with the vessels drive systems to the extent that their warp fields would collapse and they
would be bounced off, sometimes fatally so.

Other star systems could be found dotted throughout The Veil; though some even showed
signs of life, very few had higher life forms than simple multi-cellular life, and those that did had life
forms that were only as advanced as the primitive apes of Old Earth. One system was ancient; that
was the only one that showed any signs of advanced life, until traces
were discovered on the Ice Moon orbiting Keteria. Traces were
found of a long extinct civilisation, but interpreting the finds proved
difficult. The race that created the buildings and left the artefacts
seemed to have done so without any kind of written language. As
puzzling as a discovery as this was, the artefacts themselves were far
stranger. The survivors called the place after an ancient fabled place
from an Old Earth legend; Atlantis, because of the concentric
arrangement of the cities and harbours. The land on which Atlantis
stood was; at some time after its abandonment, pushed up by
tectonic activity thousands of years ago and the Harbours and lakes
had long since dried up and dense vegetation had claimed a
foothold. At some time in the past, a shift in the planetary tilt had resulted in changes to the planet’s
atmosphere, dispersing most of it to space. It was now more like Mars before the mining companies
set up shop there. What water there was could be found in vast underground aquifers and lakes, the
planets scrubby plants sending down powerful, deep roots to search this out. The artefacts were
some of the only metallic remains that survived and, oddly, showed no signs of decay. They seemed
to be canisters; but were proving difficult to get into. They all carried one Glyph; the same one and
the only sign ever found of a form of written language. It was an eight-pointed star. Recently some
activity had been noticed in the region of The Wall; signals seemed to be getting through “weak”
areas from outside the barrier. The signals were garbled and echoing, but some appeared to be
languages of some description, or close approximations. Other signals seemed to be more electronic
or mechanical, with the distortions it was hard to tell. So it was decided to send the Luna Mechia and
three scout ships to investigate the nearest “weak” spot…

“Once more into the breach dear friends…”
After the discovery of the Luna Mechia transmission things
escalated quickly on Terra Prime and other key colonies of the Unity. All
agreed that entering The Veil would help clear the distortions in the signals;
but there was disagreement on how this could be done. The Ulahri would