Astrophysical (completed)

Chapter 17

She felt a shiver run down her back and then turned back to where SA stood at the computer. The downside was that there only was one machine here, which meant that the other one he was forced back to work on was somewhere else.

"Find anything useful?" she said softly walking over behind him.

"Well from here, I managed to actually hack into the network without anyone spying over my shoulder and seeing me bypass security," SA said calmly. "Someone could still catch me from the other side depending on how classified this information really is, but at least I plugged myself in to copy all the information I could before we get caught."

"I meant more of any information on Channing and where his other machine might be? Because if I'm assuming correctly, this is the original here; the one that transports and regenerates life into a different part of the galaxy."

"Correct. Hold on one second while I log onto his file, and we can peek."

SA's fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed on screen. Cassie didn't bother reading over his shoulder too much because the information was flying so fast it was hardly worth trying to pick anything up. However, she did tune in when the picture of the older man with black and grey streaked hair pop up again on screen.

"It says here," SA began. "That after being brought into custody they imprisoned Channing for a year and broke him down because of his unwillingness to work for the Sovereigns again. Finally, after threatening his family which he had a glimpse of seeing for the first time in forty years, he cooperated and worked on the machine while still custody. The machine itself has only limited information on it. One being that it is with Channing now."

"So, we find him and then he can also explain to us what the machine is," Cassie said feeling a little bit of excitement bubble up.

SA shook his head though. "He isn't on Napolyon now. They logged in here that both him and his machine were taken... Really?"

"What's wrong?"

"It says that they took them to the edge of the system, beyond on Sovereign control which is what surprises me. It says in a place called Rian's Dome. But it has yet to make it back yet."

Cassie took a deep breath picturing the exchange from when she first landed on the Keimei. Matt of course had fumbled the name, but Dean had corrected him. She didn't know much about it other than it did freaky things according to her friends.

"Does it say when it is supposed to be back? I hate to propose waiting on Napolyon any longer, but if it isn't too long then maybe it is doable."

SA's eyes scrolled quickly through more words flashing on the screen. He then looked over at Cassie. "I'm afraid the report here says the test was a failure. The ship left sixty-three cycles ago and never returned. The only information relayed back to the Sovereigns was that somehow the ship's energy is still being drawn on since then. Which doesn't make sense, but they haven't made the effort to go back and check it out. I'm sorry Cassie that we didn't get to learn about it."

"Before we give up," she replied crossing her arms across her stomach. "Do those pages mention anything about what the purpose of the machine was?"

SA turned back to the computer and went back a couple of pages through the classified reports on Channing. He took a couple of minutes to search but when he turned away, he paused and looked over to this machine.

Cassie followed his gaze and then looked back at him. "What is it?"

"Well, it says here it relates to something that happened to this machine. It hadn't been used in several years due to concerns that it couldn't be contained except for someone who understood it. Namely Channing since no one else was as professionally researched."