The Stone of Science

     The Ju-el Empire, for two million years this race has been space born, or so they say. In their home universe this mighty empire has claimed three galaxies. Thanks to their concept of manifest destiny, as well as having seeded several of these worlds, they have conquered the Earths of countless others. In appearance the Ju-el would seem to be all female, although a variety of hermaphrodites and disguised males are also part of their species; parasitic genetics, adapted hybrid cells, internally male (cloacae kiss sperm drop, outward look just like females), as well as external hermaphrodites. Due to how wide spread they are, their technological appearance and degree of complexity varies; they also have a tendency when (conquering) a world to use a technology that they locals can adapt to, even adding the local styles at times. Looking closer they are distinct from humans, even being all female in appearance, their eyes are a bit larger, their hair count greater, lack of pores, hair is silkier, bodies proportioned a bit different with longer arms and legs especially in the shins, and their tongues are rather long, not to mention the small noses for the most part, although the larger eyes may be only making it seem this way. It has been said that on worlds they are preparing for conquest they will slowly and secretly alter the local concepts of beauty to match their alien appearances.

    The Ju-el are not alone however, and have in their expansive conquest met with some resistance; although not much. Some races they have an uneasy truce with such as the Kuhrai (humanoid cat like), the Kik (humanoid fox like), The Suihrai (humanoids with shape shifting shadow powers), the Dimension Society (human race of immortals, most notable as the Dimension Police), and individual entities of a cosmic nature *including a few immortal sorceresses*. They are at war with some, the Humans of Reality-Q and the Qwie Empire of Reality-P have proven a roadblock for the Ju-el who prefer a peaceful conquest or to overpower the local humans technologically not giving them a choice; their superiors aren’t happy that humans of any reality reached a competitive level and refuse to join them. Their greatest rivals however are the Croon Alliance species, none-humanoids that view humanoids as pure cosmic evil (there are reasons for that, but not necessary here to go into); only thing important is that the Croon Alliance makes it a point to exterminate any humanoids (not just human) species they come across in the multi-verse.

   Here is where this story begins, a legend known to one of the Croon Races, a nearly extinct race that the Croon found only a handful of members of in suspended animation aboard a deep space colony ship. The ship had suffered damage from enemy vessels killing most of the sleeping members within. Their species told a familiar story to the Croon, their ancestors worshipped and were used by mind controlling humanoid gods, a chaotic backlash from generations of control drove their species mad when the psionic opiate that was given by the humanoids left with them. The colonists told that by the time their kind were able to regain some sense of control over their internal instinctive rage they had already destroyed most of their own species and ruined their world. They left into space, these colonists told of finding a race of humanoids that resembled (albeit much smaller) the creatures they had worshipped. The Croon were proud to hear that the fleet of colony ships intended to exterminate what were clearly the spawn of their gods, demons most likely, and take their world.

    The ensuing war however decimated the world of the “demons”, polluting the seas they lived in, as the “demons” would not die off easily, they possessed something strange, some unlimited power source that ran their greatest city; the city the last of them fled to for survival. They would sooner destroy their own world than surrender it; using their mystic power stone they unleashed a power that cleaned the surface of their world of all life, not even corpses remained, and decimated the attacking fleet. The Croon could identify the world they spoke of, a dead world with ruins beneath the surface, no power sources or signs of life to be seen; but if something were lying dormant it would be worth a look. The Ju-el would agree, thanks to their drone spies.

   ******

   The vessel is relatively small, a stealth vessel with a crew of no more than ten, a Ju-el Infiltrator; normally used to sneak agents onto worlds, both primitive and advanced without being noticed. The captain is Shino, a woman who would easily pass for an Amazon on Earth, nearly seven feet tall, built like a powerhouse with breasts and hips that defy the muscle tone of her arms, legs, and abs with their fullness. She has hand selected her crew, a small group of no more five not counting herself. The Ace pilot Sera, Sniper expert and co-pilot Junira, Shino’s Bio-android companion and a powerful combatant in her own right Ja-Kal, and a pair of relatively green rookies who proved to be experts in combat, explosive disposal, trap disarming, and planetary exploration as well as ruin exploration, Gina and June.

   Shino, Sera, Junira, and Ja-Kal are already in the cabin of the small vessel when Gina and June show up.

  Shino is standing before her assembling crew, Sera already in the pilot’s seat, Junira is her co-pilot beside her, with Ja-Kal leaning against the wall as though she were bored with waiting, apparently more focused on a tiny ball of fluff settling in her dark mane of hair than what is happening around her.

  “Gina reporting for duty,” says the short brown haired rather plane looking rookie saluting.

 “June, reporting for duty,” says June saluting, her short blue hair in the same style as Gina’s a typical style for rookies, having to earn fancier hair style privileges with rank.

  “Take your seats,” orders Shino.

  June and Gina exchange looks and head towards their seats, as June passes Ja-Kal she does a double take at the bio-android and mutters, “you have to be kidding me.”

  “Is something wrong?” asks Shino in a commanding voice.

  “Nothing,” says June, “I mean…just…never saw a Bio-Android with a warrior’s rank before.”

  “Ja-Kal has earned her place,” says Shino eying the rookie, “is this going to be a problem?”

  “No ma’am,” says June, “my apologies ma’am.”

  “Good,” says Shino, “as you all know from debriefing we are heading for the planet Dry-Iial. A world destroyed in a war between the natives, a humanoid race of reptilians and a tentacle glob race, apparently survivors of the invaders have made contact with the Croon alliance, who are on their way to Dry-Iial as well. You already know all of this of course, this is just your second and only chance to back out, if you can’t work with each other say so now, because you will watch each other’s back am I clear?”

  She eyes an uneasy June and Gina as she speaks.

  “Get this bucket moving already,” says Ja-Kal, “I don’t have enough time to be goofing off at this part.”

  Shino looks uneasily at Ja-Kal then quickly covers that up, “Sera, Junira, get us out of dock and to Dry-Iial as quickly as possible. Gina, June, keep your eyes open for anyone and anything getting too close, Ja-Kal take your position.”

   Shino seats in the captain’s seat while Ja-Kal sits in a chair at a fighter station. The vessel leaves dock and is vanishes into sub-ethereal space.

    ******

    Dey-Iial fits its name, at least how it sounds in English far too well; for it is a desolate world. The air is breathable; however there are no sounds of higher order life upon the surface, not even the chirping of small simple creatures that can be found on even the most war torn of worlds. The Ju-el stealth craft sends down near some ruins, only distinguishable from the surrounding landscape by their geometric forms. Gina, June, Shino, and Ja-Kal are armored up; although aside from the visor helmets their armor seems a bit more form fitting than one would suspect from advanced protective gear; on a practical purpose it allows for ease of movement even in tight areas. Sera and Juniro stay at their posts on the cloaked ship, scanning for Croon ships, Life Imprints on the surface, and ready at the surface and anti-air weapons.

   The three Ju-el and Bio-android are silent as they make their way through the ruins; nothing has moved down here in centuries at the least. The security system is long corroded away, defensive mechs lie about more than half rusted; yet the energy scans show something is down below them giving off a signature; one that is only detectable by multi-dimensional scanners. Shino gives the hand sign to be quick as the walls crumble while they force a door open and hover down a shaft to the bottom floor. The mission has been uneventful thus far, as it should be, even as they approach what would be the central power room; their schematics and scans show that indeed all the lines and decayed tubes that would be the power conduits of this ex-city all originate from this one small room; befitting the rumor of an immense power source.

   June and Gina enter first, having been trained to spot and dispose of any active traps. June waves Shino and Ja-kal into the entrance of the room, Shino watches Gina look around the circular blue room while June makes her way to the alter like pedestal in the center with a small palm sized blue gemstone sitting in a circular impression under a broken clear dome. Ja-kal is watching the rear, ever vigilante of the Croon that were supposed to also be interested in this planet; although the likely hood they’d both be here at the same exact time would be unlikely and poor timing on part of the Ju-el.

   Gina is halfway around the perimeter, her scanners detecting nothing, and not picking up on any signs of simple machine traps either. June is examining the pedestal, her left hand shifting over the surface brushing aside ancient dust and chips while her scanner waves in from the other side. She turns around with the blue gemstone in her hand to face Shino, she gives the hand signal of “safe” and walks over to Shino and Ja-Kal. While holding it out she waves her scanner over it in front of Shino, the scanner reads out a zero power outage and a makeup no different than any other stone. Shino gives the signal that it’s time to leave; June takes the blue gemstone with her as they leave.

   Safely back in the ship, which is quick to take off, just missing a Croon drone passing their part of the city; apparently they lacked the information of where the power core would be or knowledge enough of humanoid aesthetics to pick up what their power systems would look like and trace them back to their point of origin.

  Shino looks at June who is holding the gemstone and asks, “Why’d you grab the rock?”

  June *shrugs*, “I figured since this was what we came for, even if it’s not active now, it clearly was part of that machine; in the lab back at base we might be able to find something the field scanner missed.”

  June looks over at Ja-Kal who June is surprised doesn’t show any concern over, or even really gives more than a casual glance at the stone, she merely says to June, “Time has expired, I must return…go to sleep.”

  Shino doesn’t look happy at this news but nods as Ja-Kal exits to somewhere in the back of the ship.

  June whispers to Gina, “I wander what that is all about.”

  “If you must know,” says Shino surprising the two rookies, “Ja-Kal has a glitch in her system; when she was built somehow her system developed a power output higher than her structure could handle; this was unfixable; however it gives her bursts of speed, strength, and energy manipulation capabilities far exceeding normal Bio-androids; the down side is she has to enter a self-repairing hibernation period at irregular intervals as the power fluctuates inside her…even when not in combat.”

  June *shrugs*, she knows there has to be more to that; but figures its either private with Shino or else top secret; and knows better than the press the issue. Gina does much the same following June’s example.

    ******

   June has kept the stone on her person while the ship enters hyperspace, keeping it in her suit pocket in fact; back in the holding area, not far from where a “sleeping” Ja-Kal is inside a stasis pod, there is a holding crate, inside it is an inert worthless exact replica of the stone in June has somehow manufactured a thermos around and even filled with water. No one but Gina is aware of the switch, or even how June managed it on a small stealth vessel.

  As the small vessel travels through hyperspace it is suddenly hit by turbalance.

  “What is happening?!” demands Shino

  To which Sera replies, “A temporal pocket!”

  “Why didn’t the sensors detect it?” demands Shino

 “It just materialized…inside the ship!”



 “The stone,” says Shino, “hyperspace must have been its trigger…June, Gina, go back and secure that damned rock!”

  As the two run back to the hold Gina whispers amidst the turbelance, “what is really happening?”

 June has no time to answer as when they open the hold the very space around them is consumed by rolling ethereal waves of white and blue. The ship vanishes, Gina vanishes, the crates vanish. June stands alone with the clothes on her back and the gem in her pocket; well…that and the body of Ja-Kal floating horizontally in the air. June fumbles with the gem in her pocket, the thin almost undetectable barrier around it still active.

  As June looks around her at this mystery the folds of time and space part behind Ja-Kal, a tall buxom woman wearing a black corset like top, black tight pants, black riding boots, wearing a calf length black cape with a red inner lining, long hair the color of drying blood, pale skin, and eyes like shimmering blue jewels. June is still as the strange woman only has eyes for the Bio-android.

  As the woman stands over the still form she says, “Ah, Jackal…Ja…Kal…anywho…it has been a long while my…ghost in the machine. I should not let you rest where they may find the
changes I have made and….”

  The woman spies June, “and how do you come to be here Ju-el?”

  Before June can speak the woman says, “Ah yes…I remember…that stone; seems it had some power after all…that you pocketed…do not worry…that gem is of no relevance to me.”

  June gives the figure a curious look as the woman levitates Ja-Kal back towards a rip in the dimensional fabric.

  “Rhulan?” asks the June, “I know that’s you.”

 The woman who is indeed known by the name Rhulan stops and looks at June with a puzzling look and thinks a moment before saying, “How is it that you know my name? Now I know it has been a short trip with you, and for me these events happened decades ago; however not even my Ju-El lover…and…*laughter*…master knew who I really was possessing that body…I most certainly did not tell some Ju-el grunt my name; perhaps that is a mind stone…a tap to the Acoshic record.”


  Rhulan waves her arm and Ja-Kal vanishes through the rip before she eyes the girl named June, “Perhaps I should take that stone from you, least the Ju-el think they should pose a risk to my world!”

  Rhulan summons the shadowy serpent, griffin headed Avi-Wraiths to swarm about the dimensional pocket.
 Rhulan must shield her eyes as a bright flash comes over June, where the Ju-el rookie stood now stands…virtually the exact same woman only a bit taller, longer hair, larger breasts, and wearing a strange blue and white sorceress costume with a dress of cut straps, a belt connected to a simulation of a vest; the whole thing giving a weird grid vibe.

  “This is how I know you Rhulan!” announces June as she summons blue sleek mechanical spider robots that seem made from the very *material that is not material* of the time/space distortion around them, “I am June! The Sorceress of Science! The very creator of the stone I have taken from its resting place, who fed the knowledge of its location and importance to the Ju-el, least it fall into the hands of those aliens who would threaten our creations!”

  “I see,” says Rhulan, “A sorceress…if you be a member of the Dimension Police know this…I am Rhulan the Celestial Sorceress…ranked by their records as the second most powerful spell caster in the multi-verse, second only to the reality-warper Misaline. If you are not them…well you gamble with those like the Ju-el…sorceress; in either case…Do Not Interfere With ME!”

  With that Rhulan vanishes into the ether, her Avi-wraiths vanishing as well. June is left standing alone in the distorted space; as it vanishes her appearance returns to what it was prior to her transformation. As normal space comes back into alignment June reaches her hand out timidly forward and says, “Rhu…lan…did you…did you give yourself amnesia?”

   The world returns to focus, Gina looks around just before Shino bursts through the door and looks directly at the empty stasis pod.

  “What happened?! Where is Ja-Kal?!”

  “I’m sorry,” says June quickly, “She was…taken, just vanished, I thought I saw a person, a tall
woman wearing black with red hair in the flash…I can’t be certain…however it seems they left the stone…”

  “I don’t care about that worthless rock!” shouts Shino standing in disbelief before Ja-Kal’s pod, “I don’t know who this person is…”


  Shino *smiles*, “They have no idea who they are messing with, me, Ja-Kal, or the Ju-El military!”