Out of Space 176 Deja Vu

Dr. Sharon sat alone on the workbench, staring at the broken golden amulet encased inside a clear containment unit. The voices in her head grew louder and clearer the nearer she was to the artifact and she felt a tingle of fear down her spine, yet the academic part of her brain was calmly analyzing her situation.

"... i' anar ondo..."

"... i' anar ondo...!"

"... I' ANAR ONDO...!"

"... I' ANAR ONDOOO...!"

"Doctor?" Someone suddenly shook her shoulder, making her jump, the voices that spoke in her head seemingly accompanied by tribal drums, cut off, leaving her mind back to her own thoughts.

"Ye-yes?" Dr. Sharon turned and saw a pretty redhead female dressed in a grey tech suit, with strips of a Petty Officer 1st Class, standing over her, "Can I help you?"

"PO Kristine reporting for duty Ma'am!" Kristine stood at attention. "I was told you needed help on some history stuff!"

"Oh, OH!" Dr. Sharon rubbed her temples as her mind slowly recovered. "At ease, sailor and grab a seat."

"What help do you need me on?" Kristine asked as she dragged over a chair.

"Well," Dr. Sharon scrolled through her tablet as she pulled up Kristine's academic records from her service record folder. "Says here you majored in archeology and history in Cambridge. What degree did you take on? Ancient history or Modern?"

"Yes, Doc," Kristine answered, "I got a BA(Bachelor of the Arts) in classical archaeology and ancient history. They mostly cover Mediterranean cultures."

"I see," Dr. Sharon looked slightly disappointed, "Do have any knowledge of ancient Latin America cultures?"

"Eh, I did read up on them but I am not very well versed in them," Kristine replied, "Why do you need knowledge of Latin America cultures?"

"We found something, that might be connected to something from Earth," Dr. Sharon explained, "That's why we need your expertise in archeology and history."

"Wait? You meant we found something here that could be linked with the ancient civilizations on Earth?" Kristine looked excited as she heard Dr. Sharon words.

"Yes, this," Dr. Sharon gestured to the containment unit on the end of the table. "We pulled this off the Hero's body."

"What is it?" Kristine played with the display screen as cameras inside the containment unit enlarged the imagery out.

"Well, its made out of pure gold as far as we know," Dr. Sharon said, "24 karats, 99.999% pure gold, weighing at 289.4 grams. It appeared to have broken off into pieces, judging by the cracked edges."

"To have the ability to smelt pure gold is quite hard, especially the separation of gold and silver is a difficult process," Dr. Sharon continued, as she dug out a gold royal coin. "These have a purity of 89 - 90% gold, 5 - 7% silver, and the remainder 3 - 4% copper and some minor impurities."

"This is either made by advanced melting technology, alien tech or... by the Gods themselves..." Dr. Sharon explained. "The natives here surely do not have the technology nor the means to refine such pure gold, and this amulet is several hundred years old by carbon dating."

Kristine's eyes widen as she listened to Dr. Sharon words, "The engravings on the amulet does look familiar. How are you sure it is related to us?"

"The computer had analyzed the symbology on the surface and managed to match this," Dr. Sharon showed a printout of the amulet with certain portions of the engraving being highlighted and displayed on the side, with English translated text. "Hummingbird of the Left."

"Hummingbird of the Left?" Kristine frowned, "Wait, let me get my old books! I should have a couple of reference books on Latin America in my tablet!"

Kristine quickly left the lab and headed to her office, as she was also a teacher here teaching Elementary English and Maths to the students here. Along the way, students bowed and greeted her back she was in too much of a rush, only giving a quick acknowledgment, and not stopping to chat with her students.

Reaching the Teacher's Room, she grabbed her tablet on her work table and started to scroll rapidly, searching for her old ebooks on history. "Found it!" She saw the book titles under her history folder, .

Hurrying back with her tablet, she found Dr. Sharon appeared to be staring into blank space, seemingly similar to how she found her the first time. "Doctor?" It felt like deja vu to her.

"Doctor?" Kristine called again and reached out to shake her after calling her a few times without any response. "Are you alright?"

Kristine shook Dr. Sharon's shoulder gently and the Doctor seemed startled by her touch. She turned from her seat and asked Kristine, "Ye-yes? Can I help you?"

-----

Somewhere in the Forest north of the Wreck

Sergeant Mills sat with the rest of his platoon, everyone spotting some kind of injury, watching the men of Bravo Company, Platoon 3 wrap explosive charges around the trunks of trees and roots.

"Clear! Fire in the hole!" A Sergeant from Platoon 3 yelled, "FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

A series of clumps echoed through the forest, and Mills feel the pressure wave slamming into his body despite being behind cover and over a hundred meters away. Loud snaps and cracking of wood could be heard and as Mills peered over his cover, he saw a small clearing had appeared.

Rays of sunlight flooded in, highlighting the drifting smoke and wood particles in the freshly created clearing. "Burn it all!" Someone yelled, and several magic circles could be seen formed by Marines who have some magic affinity and balls of fire rained onto the pile of broken tree trunks, roots, fallen leaves, and branches.

"Damn, this shit is gonna take some time to clear", as thick grey smoke erupted from the burning green wood and leaves, Mills cursed. "Well, at least we can have some form of communications and resupply."

The Lieutenant of Platoon 3, came up to Mills with a happy smile on his face, "Well, Sarge, once the clearing has burnt down, we can call in air support to evacuate you boys out of here."

Mills nodded, too tired and wounded to criticize the Lieutenant for burning the forest, which most likely the smoke will kill them off first before any monsters. The Lieutenant gave Mills a nod before he strutted off, yelling at his men.

"Well at least, in a couple of hours, we be on a nice warm bed," Mills sighed as he leaned back against the tree. He looked around his gathered men, mentally doing the butcher's list. His last stand have two deaths, leaving 11 heavily wounded men, but the search platoon had found another five Marines from his platoon scattered all over, three of them poisoned badly by the arrows and darts of the goblins, while the remaining two of the Marines got turned into Furballs, their cute little bleats catching the attention of the search parties.

They found three badly mangled bodies of Marines, killed in action by the Forest Troll, and two other MIA(Missing In Action), which Lieutenant Coraths was one of them. So total five KIAs, two MIAs, and seventeen survivors, all badly wounded, Mills thought to himself and cursed, "Fucking forest, fucking trees, and fucking 'Noob-tenants'!"

-----

Goblin Sea, The Floating Wreck

Elza and her classmates stepped into the main deck of the ship and instantly felt the suffocating heat and humidity of the area. She blushed as she saw the half-naked sweaty bodies crew of hoomans and elves working at the engines.

"Elza! This is crazy!" One of the boys cried as sweat started to form all over his body. His white uniform with a dark blue tie and dark blue pants started to get soaked with sweat and the humidity. "What can we do?" He loosened his tie as he stared with uncertainty at his surroundings.

Chief Matt climbed down the hatch behind them and said, "Can you guys cast a spell to at least blow air out?"

"I-I can do that, S-Sir!" A petite female student shyly raised her. Dressed in a naval like uniform, the girls wore a ribbon instead of a tie compared to the guys. She raised both her hands up and a magic circle formed, and she chanted the spell she wanted.

"Wait!" Chief Matt cried out, "What are you doing?"

Instantly a ball of visible wind appeared to gather before her glowing blue magic circle, the surrounding hot air got sucked in towards the ball of wind and she faced the opened gun ports. The swirling ball of air whipped the skirt of the girl wildly as the air was spinning around her, dropping the surrounding temperature, and the techs cheered and clapped.

"Gale!" The girl cried out and shot out the ball of hot air out and seconds later, it impacted the surface of the sea where a meter high water splash erupted. The girl teared and rubbed her hands frantically as the heat from the ball of air scorched her hands.

"Quick," Matt saw the girl's hand having gotten burnt by the heat, and swiftly grabbed her hands and dunked them into a nearby barrel of seawater. "It's gonna hurt but better than having boils and skin peeling off!"

The girl cried out in pain as the seawater burnt her scorched hands, but she slowly sighed as the water slowly cooled her painful burns. "Damn girl, that was stupid."

"Hey, get the medkit over here!" Chief Matt roared at the stunned techs, who quickly jumped into action, with several of them running like chickens with heads cut off. Matt sighed and turned to the pale faced students, "Well, I appreciate the help, but next time please tell me what you plan to do first. In an engine room, there are a lot of hazards, and we have to take safety precautions before rushing in to do anything."

The student nodded, as they stared wide-eyed at Matt. "Now, the temperature is just solved temporarily, we need a long term solution."

"Those spell formations you all drew on the beach," Matt asked, "Can you do something similar here?"

"The mist spells?" Elza asked, "It shouldn't be a problem. We just need to get our materials and we can set them up"

"Great!" Chief Matt grinned as he took one of the medkits offered by several of the techs, and scowled at them, "Why do you need eight people to grab one medkit? Back to your stations!"

The rest of the students went up to grab their materials while Matt sprayed burn lotion over the girl's hand and gently wrapped her hands up with bandages. "Alright, don't use your hands for the time being, once we are back, go see the doc."

"T-thank you, S-Sir!" The girl bowed and hurried off awkwardly.

"Chief!" The techs whispered, "Didn't know you are such a softie!"

"She's about the same age as my granddaughter," Chief Matt sighed, "A softie eh? I see... I haven't been around much due to all that paperwork, and now I'm getting too soft on you guys right?"

"Oh, no no no!" The techs all shook their head and they quickly disappeared to their stations not daring to show themselves.

Chief Matt shook his head at the antics of his men and grinned, while the students returned armed with sling bags filled with all manner of arcane components. "Ok, I think two of those formations should be enough, I want one here and one there." Matt pointed to two areas next to the engines.

Elza nodded and split her group into, and with the help of the techs, they cleared an area roughly 2 meters by 2 meters on the deck and started drawing on the wooden planks. "Can you just make it collect cold air instead of creating fog or mist?"

"I think we can if we just remove the spell for creating water and heating water," Elza said as they started to plan and draw on their notebooks the new formation.

It took them roughly 30 minutes which by then the temperature has rosed up again, making the students sweat and pant in the hot environment. "Done!" Elza called out as her team had finished the spell formation first followed by the other team.

The spell formations glowed and soon Matt felt the air turn cooler, and a thin mist appeared to form inside the deck, which slowly disappears away in the sea breeze.

"HA! I think I just invented a magical air conditioning system!"

Chapter end