Return to Atlantis

Chapter 34 - The Sword

The ship is a complex maze of rundown passageways. Lightings that lined the halls provide sparse and choppy illumination. The air is musty and the dark, stonewalls and floors dry. The walls seemed to be made of concrete instead of metals and stuff. If they didn't know any better, they would think that they're running around inside a very huge dark, dismal gothic castle somewhere in Scotland that seemed all deserted.

Garullo was ahead of them with sure steps, his antennas moving and shifting about. Lindsey had to surmise that his navigating ability is rendered by those antennas---a biological sensor, or something more complex than that. Maybe they really are a race born to explore and navigate this universe more than any one else can, she thought.

Luckily for the past half an hour they haven't run across any Zhinra. It seems that their escape hasn't been discovered yet as an alert is not evident. They locked the three Zhinras back in the chamber to make sure they won't trigger any alarm.

"Lindsey, why are you wearing that gown and tiara?" observed Sanders as they all walked together. "Did these aliens abduct you to make you a bride for an evil king?"

"I- I don't really know why I'm here," was her response.

"What could these aliens want from you?" Alec questioned.

She shrugged. "Not a thing. I could not get anything out of their alien conversations. But one thing curious though, hey asked me about a 'key'. What is it?"

That got the soldiers' attention.

"What? What key?" Phil prodded.

"That's what the aliens are in pursuit of, here on Earth---" Lindsey shook her head, "Wait, you should know that. You're WDF--"

Alec looked at Phil. "No...we don't know about that...right, lieutenant?"

"C'mon, Guys, I might as well know. I'm in this now," Lindsey prodded.

Alec shook his head. "But we really don't. The System didn't give us all the information," he said, turning to Phil with a quizzical look.

Sanders insinuated more. "It could be that only the higher ups knew about this key all along and had been protecting it. You knew, to some degree, don't you lieutenant?"

"I absolutely have no knowledge of it," retorted Phil. "And I am confident that the System knew nothing about this 'key' as well. We have all been in the dark and that is the truth," Phil explained defiantly.

"How about Garullo? Does he not know anything?" he asked Lindsey.

"As you all are, I have no information. It's a highly confidential matter for the Zhinras." Garullo said.

Lindsey tapped her lower lip with her forefingers. "Well, whatever this key is, they seemed so keen on obtaining it."

"Is that so?" said Alec.

Garullo nodded knowingly. "It is their only reason for coming to Earth..."

"Really?!" the guys almost chorused.

"Yes - the key is very important to the Zhinras. They've search for it before," he went on. "Thousands of years ago, but failed. Only to come back a couple of years ago to resume their search.

"Really?!" the chorused came again, the boys looking utterly bewildered and not sure whether to believe Garullo.

"Miss Kinski speaks the alien language," Sanders stated what he suddenly remembered and what is, in fact, a highly important discovery. "Could it be another thing the System hid from us?"