Xtreme Saga - Book One: The War for Rig

Chapter 7 - Friends in High Places

Mera came to in a place she had never seen before. The last thing she remembered was touching the white ball of energy and looking at Orb. Everything after that was a blur. She wasn't sure how much time had gone by or how she had gotten to wherever she was.

It was a strange place. Like a world between worlds where both nothing and everything was real at the same time. She stood on solid ground, yet she could see the cosmos all around her. Countless stars and planets floated by as if she was standing within a large telescope. Were the entire situation not so horrifying, the view might have seemed rather beautiful. To be able to look upon the galaxy at such a scale made one seem both insignificant and yet important at the same time. For it is impossible to see the heavens at such a grandiose scale naturally, and for good reason. The experience was quite majestic in nature.

The piece of ground she stood on was quite small. Little more than a floating platform of rock, barely wide enough for three people to stand on. When Mera woke up, she was lying on this piece of ground. Had she moved in her sleep, she very well might have fallen over the side. She rose to her feet and looked around, unable to fathom exactly what she was seeing.

"Hello, Mera. Are you OK?" Orb asked from behind her.

Surprised, Mera turned around and almost lost her footing. She was relieved to see Orb was in this strange place with her. It meant that whatever had happened was real and not just a dream. At the same time, she thought to herself that maybe it would be better if this was a dream. As being trapped in whatever this place was seemed more like a waking nightmare.

"Orb, I'm so glad to see you. What happened to me?" Mera asked.

Orb explained that Mera had touched the ball of energy and then suddenly disappeared. As intelligent as it was, the robot struggled to put into words what they had actually seen. Mera was standing in front of them, talking as if everything was fine, then suddenly they were just gone. She had not been sucked into the ball of energy. Nor had she slowly dissolved into dust. She had simply ceased to be there in an instant, with no warning. Orb had been unsure of what had actually occurred but concluded that the ball of energy had transported Mera somewhere. Unable to come up with any better alternatives, the robot decided that the best course of action was to try to follow Mera to wherever she had been taken. So they flew straight into the ball of energy and was also transported to wherever this was.

Mera proceeded to ask additional questions such as where they were and how long they had been there. Sadly, Orb was unable to answer either question with any sense of accuracy. As to their location, Orb had absolutely no answer. They said that their scanners were completely inconclusive and that they were unable to pinpoint their location relative to anything in their vast stores of locational data. No planets, stars, or other celestial bodies seemed to be within range of them. Yet they could both clearly see countless celestial bodies floating around them. Even though Orb didn't really have emotions, they seemed rather uncomfortable with the fact that they couldn't even begin to hazard an estimation about where they were currently located.

While also inconclusive, Orb's answer to the question of how long they had been wherever they were was slightly more definitive. They explained that while they could not be sure that the transportation process had been instantaneous, their records did not show any gaps in what they had witnessed during the process. They flew into the ball of energy and their next memory was immediately here floating above a sleeping Mera. While it was impossible to say how long Mera had been there before they arrived, approximately 20 minutes had occurred since Orb had appeared there.

"So we have no idea what this place is or how we got here and can only hazard a guess about how long we've been here," Mera said in a frustrated tone.

"Affirmative," Orb replied.