Trapped by the Storm: Megalith Sequence - 3, page 1
Trapped by the storm
Megalith Sequence - Book 3
James F. Miller
Maison d'édition SAMO
Copyright © 2025 Maison d’édition SAMO
All rights reserved
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
© 2025 Maison d’Edition SAMO
First edition (v1 15-07-25)
Publisher: Maison d’Edition SAMO
Contact: samo-solar@orange.fr
Author: James F. Miller
Editor : Aybiline I. Dahlson
Cover design, illustration: Andrei Gherman
Publishing & Printing: Maison d’Edition SAMO; Haguenau; France
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Afterword
About The Author
Megalith Sequence
Chapter 1
“Are you there?”
Talaya’s voice was barely more than a whisper, fragile and trembling against the thick, oppressive silence. “Don’t leave me.”
Red blinked. He felt her hand on his cheek and her breath warm against his skin. She was close, yet he couldn’t tell from where exactly she was speaking. Everything around him seemed hazy; the pale glow that suffused the air was now blurred and indistinct, as though viewed through frosted glass.
He drew a slow, tentative breath. Then another. His lungs burned, as if he’d just run a marathon. His head throbbed, ears ringing, his whole body echoing the fatigue of a different kind of hangover—one not entirely physical.
“I’m here,” he murmured at last, trying to sit up. But it took a moment before he could even feel the ground beneath him, and another before his arms would obey. He struggled upward, only to be hit with a wave of dizziness that nearly toppled him again.
“Take it slow.” Talaya pressed a hand to his chest. “It’ll pass.”
“You’ve been... awake for a while?”
“Not long.”
Red exhaled, this time holding the breath in his lungs before releasing it. His eyes finally focused on her. Talaya hovered above him, her expression a strange mix of relief, astonishment, and something else he couldn’t quite place. She looked exhausted, utterly drained.
“You alright?”
“A little shaky. I’ll survive.” A faint smile ghosted across her lips. “What did Bergqvist call me? An electric space eel?”
“We’ll never live that down, will we?” he muttered, managing to push himself into a sitting position with great effort. “As long as you’re still able to joke.”
He looked around. There it was; the oval object they’d touched. Still in the center of the oval hall. Still embedded within this alien ship—no, this builder. This strange, incomprehensible, and yet real entity. It had spoken to them, though his memory of it was still foggy, fragments only now trickling back.
They were sitting exactly where they’d been when they reached out and touched the object. The end of the platform was only a few centimeters behind them, a sheer drop just beyond. Yet Red felt no fear of falling. He didn’t know why.
“How long have you been conscious again?” he asked, noticing her silence.
“I don’t know. A few minutes? Maybe longer. I’m still... not myself. Thinking is hard. Time feels strange.”
“Same here.” Red ran a hand through his hair. “So... what do we do now?”
“I don’t know.” Talaya shook her head slowly. “I didn’t get the sense that the conversation was finished.”
“Should we try it again?”
“I already did.” She leaned forward, both hands resting on the object. “Nothing. I think... the builder is gone.”
“Then we need to leave.” Red rose, wobbling and grabbing her shoulder to steady himself. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
“But wasn’t that the point?” she asked.
He paused. “What do you mean?”
“He said he wanted to help us. That he came to give us tools to survive. How does he do that if he’s no longer speaking?”
“What if the help was the conversation itself?”
Talaya let out a bitter laugh and stood, crossing her arms. “Come on, Red. That’s it? A chat? These builders constructed the Megaliths. They uploaded their consciousness into these ships. Their technology is tens of thousands of years ahead of ours. And you think he came all this way just to confirm things we already suspected? That humans and Anu are related? That there are enemies out there? That we opened a Megalith cluster? Thanks for the recap, I guess.”
“Talaya—”
“No, Red!” she huffed, throwing her arms up. “I may be primitive next to him, but even I can tell this doesn’t make sense!”
“You’re right,” he said, placing his hands gently on her shoulders. “There has to be something more. We just haven’t found it yet.”
She shrugged off his hands and spun in frustration. “Look around! Everything looks the same! This whole thing is made from one single material. What are we supposed to find? A data carrier port? A stone tablet? Schematics for a galactic superweapon? We—”
She stopped mid-sentence. Red had heard it, too.
When she’d spun around, her tail had grazed the oval object, just for a split second. A spark jumped, blindingly bright. A sharp crackle filled the air, and the object began to glow once more.
Talaya froze, then suddenly staggered to one side and collapsed.
“Talaya!”
Red lunged, catching her just before she tumbled into the abyss. Her weight dragged him to his knees. Her eyes were wide with fear, mouth moving silently. She trembled violently, gasping for breath.
“Talaya!” He gently patted her face, pulling her close. “What’s happening?!”
“C-cold,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “So... cold.”
Panic surged in Red’s chest. He looked around, desperate for any kind of help, though he knew none would come. She was shaking so hard he could barely hold her.
He forced himself to focus. She’d touched the object. A spark. Like an energy transfer. She’d said earlier she felt like the place was draining her. If the material was like the Megaliths, which were activated by energy pulses... what if she’d somehow reactivated the builder?
With a shaky breath, he reached for her hand and pressed it to the object along with his own.
Nothing happened.
No buzz. No surge of power. Just Talaya trembling.
“No,” he whispered, clenching his jaw. “Come on. Do something!”
“Hello?!” he shouted, glancing around in desperation. “Do something, damn it! You can’t just—”
Talaya gasped, her body jolting. She tore herself away from him, springing to her feet and scrambling as far as she could from the object without falling. Panic and horror filled her eyes, and her tail whipped wildly, sparks crackling at its tip.
“Talaya!” Red stood quickly, hands raised in reassurance. “Talaya, can you hear me? Are you okay?”
She looked at him at last. A low, warning growl rumbled from her throat. Sparks flew again. Red froze.
“Talaya?” He tried to steady his voice. “Talaya, it’s me. Can you hear me? Do you understand? God—Esu... Esu van’dar hirru? Red ha’ve yasa ne min. Talaya?”
Her eyes flicked open wider. She stared at him, confused. Then she gasped, squeezed her eyes shut, and clutched the horn plate on her forehead with both hands. Her body trembled before she dropped to her knees.
“Talaya?” he asked, stepping closer. His heart thundered in his chest. “Are you okay?”
“R-Red?” Her voice cracked. She seemed unsure how to even say his name. “You... Xenaran-te’en alligan.”
“‘Xenaran’ means alien, right? ‘Alligan’ is friend. You... I became a stranger to you? You don’t remember me?”
She shook her head and buried her face in her hands. “Da fach’ver ba-lok.”
“Hey!”
“Vira’teh,” she whispered. “Forgive me. Speaking is hard. Thinking is hard. Your language is returning. You are returning.”
“That’s okay. Just breathe. We’ve got time,” he said. “We’ll figure it out. Do you understand me?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s coming back. Everything. I... For a moment, I forgot it all. You. Me. Everything. And then I relived it again. Whatever that was, I think it’s over now.”
Red let out a long breath. “So you’re okay? How do you feel?”
“Weak.” She looked at her hands. “Drained. Confused. Red... I think I touched the builder.”
“What
“I’m not sure. But for a moment, I felt the same as when we spoke to it.”
“If you did, it was brief. You collapsed. I thought maybe you reactivated it, but when I tried, nothing happened.”
“I don’t think we can bring it back. At least not that easily.” She glanced at the object. “But maybe we don’t need to.”
“What are you thinking?”
“The builders became Megaliths. That’s what it said. Some of them, at least. This ship—it’s made of the same stuff. It reacts to energy impulses. Maybe there’s still more to discover. About this builder. About the ones it tried to warn us about.”
Red looked over his shoulder at the object. It still glowed faintly, though not as brightly as when Talaya had touched it. The light was fading.
“You could be right,” he said. “But promise me you won’t try that again. You were—”
“I know,” she interrupted, not letting him finish. “I won’t. I promise. But maybe Varras and Sokolov’s scientists can still learn something from it. I... Shit.”
She trailed off and sank slowly to the floor.
Red sat beside her. “What is it?”
“Nothing. Just… shit,” she muttered simply.
He snorted bitterly. “Yeah. Tell me about it.”
“Red, what have we gotten ourselves into here?”
“I don’t know,” he said softly. “Sometimes I think we’re being punished. There’s a story on Earth about Icarus and his father Daedalus. They were trapped on an island, and built wings of wax and feathers to escape. But Icarus flew too close to the sun. The wax melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. Maybe we flew too high. Too close to the sun.”
“We have a similar tale. Ariathar and Xenavay. Mother and daughter. They dove for shells in the sea. Xenavay kept diving, believing she was still one with the ocean, like our ancestors. She didn’t realize she was drowning until it was too late. Her death was what convinced our people to leave their roots—the water—behind.”
“So maybe we’re meant to fail?”
“I don’t think so.” She reached for his hand. “You never know that you’ve failed until the end. Pride is never a good guide. What’s done is done. Pandora’s box is open, as you humans say. But it’s up to us whether we face the future with arrogance or with humility and foresight. The builder recognized the pride of its kind, albeit too late. Maybe its death is our warning. And if the storm does carry us away... at least we tried.”
δ δ δ δ
“Hands in the air! On the floor! Now!”
“We’ve got movement at the site!”
“Put your hands where I can fucking see them!”
“Put down your weapons, you idiots!” a voice with a sharp French accent cut through the chaos. “That’s Talaya Tuur and Adam Sullivan! Mon dieu, you’re as useless as that fool Sokolov!”
Red lifted a hand, shielding his eyes. Blinding floodlights surrounded them on all sides. Beyond the glare, he could see nothing; just light, harsh and all-consuming. He had no idea what was going on, but judging by Lecomte’s shouting, he and Talaya had stumbled into some kind of security perimeter around the builder ship.
It took a few seconds for his vision to adjust. When it did, he made out a line of armed soldiers aiming their weapons directly at him. Behind them loomed a makeshift fortress of sandbags, barbed wire, floodlights, and gun emplacements. In the middle of it all stood Lecomte in a red protective suit, helmet in hand, gesturing wildly and shouting at the soldiers to lower their weapons.
“Are you blind, you knuckle-dragging apes? Have you never seen a human and an Anu before?”
“Miss Lecomte—”
“Doctor Lecomte, you incompetent dolt!”
“Doctor Lecomte,” the soldier corrected stiffly. He lowered his weapon and looked to her. “Our orders are clear. Either you leave the security zone voluntarily, or I’ll have you removed.”
“If any of your men so much as touch me, I swear—”
“What the hell is going on?” Talaya interrupted, cautiously stepping forward. The moment she moved, every rifle snapped back in her direction. “Did something happen while we were gone?”
“You’ve been inside that object for two full days,” the soldier said. “We lost all radio contact. No one has come out except you. Admiral Sokolov ordered a full lockdown until we could determine your status and that of the others. No one’s allowed to leave until we get answers.”
“Your men are dead,” Red said quietly. “Or so we believe.”
“You believe? What happened in there?”
Red gestured toward the black void behind them. “Whatever this material is, it seems to serve a defensive purpose. As you can see, we’re wearing nothing but base clothing. Every single electronic component we had was destroyed—AGUs, comms, even our boots. Your soldiers were armed. We believe the same happened to them.”
The soldier processed that information for a moment then reached for the radio on his shoulder and murmured something unintelligible. Whatever he said worked. The others lowered their weapons and stepped back.
“Two days?” Red asked, turning to Lecomte. “Is that true?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“And the others? How are they?”
“Bergqvist is stable and recovering. The others sustained more serious injuries than we initially thought. We’re prepping a shuttle to return them to Earth for treatment.”
“And Bishop?”
“She’s with Varras and the newly arrived Anu in the An’var facility.”
“What happens to us now?” Talaya asked, glancing at the soldiers. “Are we under arrest? Are we being held responsible for what happened to your men?”
“I don’t think so,” Lecomte replied. “But some questions have arisen in the past two days, many of them and you’ll be expected to provide answers.”
“Questions like…?”
“For one, why you vanished and why radio contact was lost. And secondly, why this object could withstand sustained fire from the Warjag, yet became accessible after a simple antimatter detonation.”
“It allowed it,” Talaya said softly.
“What?”
“It wanted it that way,” she repeated, more firmly this time. “This object is a builder.”
Lecomte went pale. “Un constructeur...?”
Talaya nodded. “We spoke with it. It’s hard to explain. We confirmed many of our suspicions and discovered much more about the Megalith network. We need to speak to Sokolov, Varras, and Gar. Immediately.”
Lecomte turned and smacked the soldier’s arm. “Did you hear that, you blockhead?”
“Dr. Lecomte,” the soldier snapped, “I’d appreciate it if you stopped hitting me—and my men.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you showed even a hint of initiative! Bring me Sokolov, Varras, and Gar!”
“Negative.” The soldier turned to Red and Talaya. “You two, come with me. The admiral wants to speak with you aboard the Warjag. Dr. Lecomte, you’re in charge of the research team. Begin investigating the entrance using the information Tuur and Sullivan just provided. Find a way to bypass the object’s defenses. Admiral Sokolov wants your findings within forty-eight hours.”
“But…” Lecomte started.
The soldier’s hand moved to the pistol holstered at his side.
“Dr. Lecomte,” he growled, “comply with your orders. Tuur. Sullivan. Let’s go.”
He gestured toward a shuttle idling nearby, its engines already powering up. Red glanced at Lecomte as he passed her. She returned his look for only a heartbeat, her face unreadable, then turned away and marched toward a stack of equipment crates. Whatever fire she’d shown before seemed dimmed now, probably because the soldiers surrounding her hadn’t taken their eyes off her. She’d clearly earned a reputation.
Red sighed softly and glanced at Talaya. But she didn’t return his look. Instead, she stared at the ground, silent, as they followed the soldier across the dark sands to the shuttle. Something was clearly weighing on her. But what? This was what they wanted, wasn’t it?
Moments later, they were airborne, the shuttle climbing toward the distant silhouette of the Warjag. Red looked out the cockpit window at the ship. Just days ago, it had seemed massive and formidable. But since the builder’s arrival on Te’An, even the Warjag looked small. Lost.
“Are Varras and Gar coming, too?” Talaya asked as they approached the hangar.
