ON THE MARX

Entry 60

10 Brahma

The ES7R was a every surface vehicle. I am sure I mentioned that earlier, and by every surface I mean every surface. From rock surfaces, to ice, to mountainous ranges, to forest floors, to muddy plateaus to even liquid surfaces the ES7R could drive on all of them.

The ES7R was created some time ago because a vehicle was needed that could travel all the different terrains of all the Golordian moons, and also any planet that we could go to. I don’t remember saying this but Golordians had not really traveled beyond the Deneb system before the Fakirs had arrived. In fact the best that the Golordians had been able to do was to go to Hetniss, the 8th planet in the system and back.

That however would take an awful long time because before the Fakirs arrived, we did not have light speed travel. We knew things faster than light travel was possible of course, especially when we had discovered Tachyons about 100 years ago or so. The ES7R did not travel at the speed of light. The top speed was 800 miles per hour. It was slightly faster than the speed of sound. Having a vehicle make booms all over the place when it reached that speed was highly impractical so they created sound dampers on the vehicle.

They were slits around the body of the vehicle, they allowed the pushing of the sound barrier to be absorbed and dissipated by the dampers themselves. It also made the ES7R make almost no noise when being operated. The frame of the ES7R was made of Titanium, the same grade of Titanium that covered the ships that went into space. It was lightweight and durable as hell. It was reinforced by the fact that it had its own field generator that was technology that was given by the Fakirs. The field generator was a sort of shielding that all Fakir vehicles had.

The field generator was essentially impenetrable, but it was still theoretically susceptible to damage. Firing at it enough times at the right frequency would be able to break through the shield, but it took a lot of firing and a lot of strain on the shield to overheat it and cause that to happen.

As I walked towards the model that I had assigned to use, I saw Sal and Amber next to it. Sal was leaning on one of its tires while Amber was pleading her case about something, I only heard parts of.

“I am telling you, there are two of them,” Amber said.

“Two of who?” I asked.

“Amber thinks there are two versions of Janus,” Sal said as he flicked a cigarette that he had been smoking as I had reached them. I walked over to them and c****d my eyebrow at Amber as I pulled the duffle bag and threw it into the back of the ES7R as the back door opened.

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because of the chatter, Colonel,” Amber said.

“Chatter?” I asked.

“Remember how I said earlier that Janus had gone to the constellation of the Hunter?” Sal asked as he tapped on the side of his collar and his sea lion helmet reappeared on his head. I nodded. “Amber says there was chatter of Janus being in Albadios during that same time.”

“Albadios?” I asked.

“You must believe me Colonel I would not even bring it up if I did not believe it was of significance.” Amber said she played with her hair and made it into a bun and pushed her collar and her bull helmet with the upside-down horns appeared.

“Olga and Heather aren’t here yet?” I said looking around.

“We’re here,” Olga said as she appeared around the corner.

The glowing pink that she had earlier, had calmed down significantly. She looked indifferent otherwise as if nothing had happened. Though she kept giving glances over at Heather who was off next to one of the front tires of the ES7R. Heather looked nervously at me before she looked like she suddenly found the ground interesting.

“Okay listen up,” I said clearing my throat.

“So, we don’t know if something is guarding the Chasm or not, I am kind of assuming that there is something guarding it.” I said. 

“Why are we going to the Chasm?” Amber asked after she raised her hand nervously. For a moment I forgot she was the youngest one here, she was barely 20 years old. She had made it to the Black Knights because she was called a prodigy. If I remember correctly it was in communications, and information transcription. She had become a black knight because she could get info off needless chatter, or what they would think was mindless chatter.

I wondered if Sal knew that or not. When I remembered this, I suddenly realized what she had been hearing in the chatter was of more importance.

“I found out that there is a significant possibility that there could be someone that can help us out a lot right now.” I said carefully. I sure as hell did not just want to say ‘oh by the way, you know that Star Builder Methuselah? Yeah he’s trapped in this chasm.’

Then I thought about it. Then how did Rossa Redd know about Charles Platinumus? How did Zephyr Platinumus exist? I decided I would ask him that.

“And this person could be guarded?” Sal asked.

“I actually don’t doubt that,” I said.

“Sir, if I may,” Amber said raising her hand again.

“More Chatter?” I asked.

“I believe I know who you mean,” Amber said. “The Iron Hand are very interested in trying to free him.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Sal looked like was about to say something but I shut him up.

“Well Sir,” Amber said. “There has been a couple of things that are in the chatter that made no sense to me.”

“You mean aside for the chatter of there being possibly Two Januses, or is it Janusi?” I said scratching my head. I realized I started to sound like Hanuman when I said that.

“Yes, aside for that,” Amber said.

“And that was?” I asked.

“There is a lot of things Colonel, perhaps we can talk about it on the way.” Amber said. I nodded and looked at the time it was 0405 if we started to head to the chasm we would make it shortly after 0500.

“Alright everything loaded?” I asked.

Everyone nodded.

“Oh before I forget,” I said before I closed the back door of the ES7R, I pulled out the belts from my bag. “I got these and figured we could use them to make sure that we are identifiable. I need not stress that we are dealing with a lot of unknown variables including not knowing exactly who we can trust.”

I gave a casual glance at Heather and Olga who both looked down when I looked at them. It was not my intention to make them feel that I was putting them on the spot like that, but I did not care if they felt that I had.

“You will see that this belt is unique, like it was created specifically by whoever created it, and could not be created in any other way.” I said as I handed the belts out.

I stopped and wondered if I should tell them about Thoth.

As if on cue Thoth pulled out a picture in my face that showed him still transparent. With a Sea Lion, a bull with his horns upside down, a brown bear, a pink bear a panther all looking like they had blind folds on there eyes.

“Fine,” I said under my breath, then I said out loud, “It gets some getting used to, you will see it has a display that is somehow directly in your face.”

“In my face? I would call it in my eyes,” Sal said after he put the belt on.

“How did you get these Colonel?” Amber asked.

“It’s…” I started. “A really long story.”

“Anyways, come on let’s roll out, Amber come up front with me, I need you to tell me about the chatter you were hearing.” I said.

“Yes sir,” Amber said she walked up to the front passenger side door and jumped in. I looked at everyone else who just stood there.

“Well come on,” I said.