Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 153 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 2
Uninhabited Island / Forest Beyond Vine Beast Clearing
Galactic Standard Time / 1030
A few minutes later, Jinn called a halt and looked around. Paige panted a little as she took deep breaths, her eyes on the ground. Al and Sara both looked to the opposite sides as Racha looked back where they had come. Jinn hadn’t said anything, but he knew the others would soon demand he explain just what the problem was. And he didn’t know just knew how any of the others would react, and that almost bothered him.
“What happened!? What did you see back there when you were fighting that thing!?” Racha demanded and Jinn was silent. Racha looked at him with a glare and took a step forwards. She grabbed Jinn’s clothing near his neck and pulled him towards her, her glare glacial. She glared at him and Jinn stayed silent, and she raised a fist behind her head. “Tell me!”
She threw her fist forward and almost hit him but then Al grabbed it.
“Hey! Jinn’s got a clear head! He wouldn’t have said to run if we didn’t have to!” Al barked and Racha looked at him with a glare and she was about to say something when Jinn spoke up.
“It was a reason eater,” Jinn said abruptly and Racha looked at him in shock as he continued, the others all staring at him in total shock. “And I saw metallic glitters among the bones, and when Al cried out I saw fear and anger in that thing's eyes… there’s only one answer. That thing, it could think, reason and remember. And the bones, some of them had hands.”
Sara clapped her hands to her mouth in shocked horror. Paige almost threw up but stopped before she did so, swallowing it back down.
Al looked at him in shock and horror, just staring at him before shaking his head in disgust.
“Blackhole… if there’s one there are more. And if that thing was sentient, others could be too… What other monsters are out there? Or if that thing will come after us for revenge?” Al asked in equal parts horror and wonder as he looked back towards the cave.
Jinn knew what Al really meant; he had thought the same thing. And he looked back towards the hill and cave, but he didn’t see anything that could tell them if the vine beast was tracking them. He looked around, Al and Sara had recovered, and both were ready to fight if they had to.
Racha had drawn her pistol and looked around, her eyes going to the treetops, looking for anything that might attack them.
Paige had closed her eyes and seemed to be listening for something.
Sara and Al meanwhile had just looked out, ready for anything to make a move.
“We can’t stay here it that’s the case,” Jinn said loudly, getting everyone to look at him. “If we’re right, then we need to put some distance between that thing and us. Getting to the Yard-ship is even more important now. If that thing still works, we can turtle up there, gather everyone to that place and then plan to get off this world!”
<>------------------------------------------------<>-----------------------------------------------<>
Racha looked at Jinn, wondering again just who he was. The man had so far been able to fight off the vine beast, kill the paralyzing beast and now he was raising their spirits? Just what had someone like him been doing to become a criminal?
“He’s right, we need to move now. And the river is the best option we’ve got; maybe we’ll find the other capsules, Maybe we won’t. But I think it might be our best chance to get there fast,” Racha said as she looked around at the others, who all nodded.
“Wait, is everyone okay?” Sara asked as she looked around at the others.
Racha looked at Sara, then her eyes went to Jinn.
“I’m fine. Say, how did you gain that ability to cure the paralyzation yesterday?” Racha asked and Sara shrugged.
“I just felt so bad and weak, then I looked away and he was healed. I… can’t describe it more,” Sara muttered as she looked away.
Jinn nodded before he released a sigh. “Yeah, I was dying. I just felt so helpless, and then I had my aura.”
“Okay everyone, sharing time is over! Let’s move before something else attacks us and stay quiet people!” Al commented as he looked at the forest around them.
Jinn nodded, turned, and started to walk away, the others falling in step behind him.
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
As they moved towards the river, Racha kept her pistol raised, her eyes hard. She was ready to fight against anything that could threaten them. They didn’t talk, all their energy was focused on staying alert.
Racha's mind was troubled, as she walked she activated her nanites, ordering them to watch for her. As she moved, she let her mind wander as she trusted her tech to notice anything amiss. She didn’t know what to think, but then she forced herself to remember her training. As her instructors always said, if you have a problem, work at it and think small.
As she looked around she, she decided to tack it from the top down. The creature was able to control plants, fact. Paige and Sara both had abilities, fact. Everything needed fuel, fact. So then the abilities of all three subjects needed fuel. Then there were the Ancients. Battles with ‘Rouge’ Ancients sometimes weren’t normal, sometimes they wielded the elements themselves and their armor had inbuilt energy weapons. So maybe they weren’t technological weapons, but something like the abilities of all the subjects.
The wolf creature had mutated when it ate part of the river spider, fact. Paige had people chase after her, fact. Idea; the abilities Paige, Sara and Jinn were at least partially organic. Then that meant that the Ancients were able to gain abilities off this planet. Paige’s situation meant that people could gain those abilities from birth. So could people be......, could they be bred to have them? That meant why people wanted Paige, her womb. And that was dark, but she had killed scum who were even worse so it was too hard to understand their reasons.
So there had to be reasons that people had gained abilities here, but what was it? Something they ate, the air itself? Every one of the Deckhands had eaten some of the killed worms from the first night. They had eaten them to let the passengers have extra, but why hadn’t the others gained a power by now, why hadn’t Jones? It couldn’t be an emotional component, the flight he experienced when those lizard scorpions hunted him had to qualify! But if it did and he didn’t have an episode, then what did that say about him?
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
Paige kept her senses open, and all she felt were a few whispers of emotions, and even then, only the sense of fear and hunger. So far, nothing had moved closer to the party, and she was happy about that at least. After the vine beast had gotten by her by maybe sleeping, she wasn’t putting as much trust in her abilities. If there was anything out there that was still asleep, she wouldn’t know until it woke up.
She looked beyond a tree and had to admit that she was worried about what Jinn reported about the vine beast. If that was intelligent, were the river spider or the wolf also? And that led her down a large and dark hole. The wolf creature was able to absorb the genetics of whatever it ate, and it wanted to eat her. And that meant if it ate her it would gain something, then her abilities had to be partly biological. And that created so many terrible things people could have done to her. And there were things people could even do with her corpse if they were smart enough, things that made her sick.
Paige was so focused on her thoughts and her other sense, that she never noticed Sara until she put a hand on her shoulder.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Paige almost cried out before she looked down at her shoulder and saw a hand that she followed to Sara.
“Whoa! Hey, calm down girl! I just wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Sara said, and Paige looked at her before turning away, blushing. Really, she was hiding her face as she tried to figure out how to explain her focus to Sara.
“Sorry, I’m just…… you know that thing back there. I mean I grew up near a wilderness preserve, but I never heard of anything like that!” Paige said and Sara nodded.
“I know what you mean. I mean I always wanted to be a doctor, so I studied all the types of sentient life out there. And that is nothing like that recorded anywhere!” Sara said excitedly as her eyes roamed around at the trees as if waiting for them to move.
Paige looked at Sara and almost called her a liar to her face. All that Paige sensed from Sara was worry, fear and horror. For a few moments, she didn’t understand what Sara was doing, but then she did. “I guess that thing would be something to study. Safely of course.”
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
“Yeah!” Sara said as she looked around with a grin on her face. She smiled internally as she looked at Paige. She had been worried that Paige was starting to lose it. She knew that people acted weird when they confronted the unknown after all, she had seen it before. But thanks to her Paige was doing great! If she got her to think about it she would hold it together and they would all live!
But Sara had to admit, that creature was amazing! Were the vines on its back organic-meat or organic-plant? Just studying its genes would have given anyone who did it Awards in multiple sciences! But that was for when they got back in contact with the Federation, for now, there was only survival!
As the group passed through the forest, Sara looked up at a low-hanging fruit pod and reached out for it. She had almost grabbed it when Paige grabbed her hand. Looking at Paige, Sara saw Paige’s eyes were locked on something above them.
Slowly following her gaze she saw that above the pod was a grey nest, a five-foot wide and tall sphere. On the bottom was a large hole that took out half of the space and the interior was in complete darkness. Sara looked at it and for a moment she thought that she saw something moving in the darkness, just out of sight.
“Stay away from the ambush point,” Paige whispered and Sara nodded as she looked at the hive and swallowed.
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
Jinn looked back and saw the interaction between them and nodded. Sara had good instants to have noticed that something was bothering Paige. It reminded him of a few of his old training partners. For a second he wondered if she was from a place like him, but then he shook his head at the absurdity of it. That seemed impossible the more he thought of it. Two beings who rebelled against their masters, both escaped alive and were on the same ship? For now, he had to work to keep them alive, where she was from could wait for later.
Looking up at the trees, he saw three more of the hives in as many trees and he was starting to get worried. They had never found a nest for those flying worms, could these be it?
No, he didn’t think so. The chance was there, but it seemed more likely that whatever made these was another predator, not the worms.
Ahead of them was the river, and all they needed to do was make it there and then they would have their path to the sea. That had to be the priority, nothing else mattered.
For the next ten minutes, the group moved in silence. All their attention was on the trees around them, looking for anything that might attack them. After ten minutes, Jinn saw light rays ahead of them. The sounds of water falling let them all know that they had reached the river. Signaling a stop, Racha moved to stand beside him, ready to help him defend the front.
“Racha, sweep left, Al up. Sara, Paige, ahead. I’ll sweep right. GO!” Jinn commanded before he rushed forward, the others following behind him. As a group they came out onto the river bed, following his orders.
They had come out of the forest, the river ahead of them by fifteen feet. It was over forty feet wide, at least. And to their right over thirty feet away was a waterfall that fell a good eighty feet and over thirty feet wide. The waterfall was on a cliff that went to the left a good fifty feet as it slowly became a mountain. The opposite side went out of sight, forests and a small path down to the river that ended near the waterfall.
Across the river was a flat plain that went a good hundred feet to another forest. It was far enough away that they couldn’t see anything about it with the naked eye, and they could see nothing moving.
After a few moments of silence, Jinn looked from the waterfall to the forest along the river, and then back to the others.
“Clear. Check our supplies. Al, get the bio checker ready, if that water is good to drink, we need to know. And keep an eye out!” Jinn barked as he looked around at the riverbed. He almost looked up when he had a stray thought, something that made him go still.
His eyes went over the river, noticing a few stones along the shoreline but that didn’t register, something about it was wrong. For a moment, he was back on his birth world, hunting along that river. The first thing he learned was to track, and you always followed the footprints to your target. But what did you do when you had nothing to track?
Animals went to rivers to drink, that was basic! Why wouldn’t… As he realized why, he felt his insides freeze. Everything made sense if that was true, if he was right then they were all in grave danger.
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
Al smiled as he looked at the view of the river and the plains beyond. He wouldn’t ever see anything like this on his world. For a few moments, he almost thanked what had caused him to leave his world. Then he remembered why he had and killed that thought. Then as he was looking around, he saw something reflect a spark of light and looked at it closer.
“Guys, we need……” Jinn began only for Al to interrupt him.
“One of our rifles?!” Al said in complete shock.
They all turned and saw Al had pulled a rifle from the river, the current had carried it to rest against a rock. Holding it up, Al looked at it and quickly found the serial number.
“How could this have gotten here?” Sara asked as she looked at Al with a confused tone.
Al looked up and then back down at the
“This is one of the ones that were missing last night. I guess that the people who didn’t make it back must have lost it near here or up there,” Al said with a bitter tone as he looked at the top of the waterfall.
“Where are they!?”Sara asked as she looked around.
“Whatever’s hunting here must have gotten them!” Jinn said and the others all looked at him in shock.
“What the nova!?”Al asked, a cold feeling going through him as he looked at Jinn.
Jinn was looking around, what Al hoped wasn’t a scared look in his eyes.
“This place, it should have more lifeforms here, there should be tracks! But there’s nothing! The only reason is if something is using it to hunt!”Jinn said as he looked around and tried to find something.
Al looked from the spare weapon in his hand to the river. Suddenly he remembered an old ebook that he read last week.
“Its den is behind the falls,” Al said bitterly. Jinn and Racha went still, aiming their weapons at the waterfall.
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
Racha aimed her pistol towards where Al said whatever was hunting around here had its lair. And for a moment she wanted to curse herself, his idea was basic! She should have noticed it, it was the perfect place to set up an ambush!
“We need to move now, get away from here fast,” Racha said softly and Jinn nodded.
“Yeah, we planned to follow the river to the sea, let's do it for as long as we can,” Jinn said just as softly and the others all nodded. With no words between them, slowly they all moved down the river. Racha and Jinn stayed between the waterfall and the group, Sara and Paige leading the way with Al in the middle.
A few minutes later, nothing still happened so Racha spared a look at Al’s pack, her eyes locked on the weapon he found. Her mind went to the missing team and Jones explanation about what happened. She and Duncan hadn’t believed him, but there hadn’t been anyone else to question, but now there was something.
But how had the weapon even gotten to the river? That meant that someone had survived the attack. Rodolphe had known about the river, and the river spider. Maybe he had hoped to use it against whatever had attacked them, like how the wolf had come and fought the spider. They had escaped, and then that answered some who had the weapon. But somehow they must have fallen into the river up there, and then lost their weapon when they went over the falls.
But were they still alive? The only way that could even be possible was if they got out onto the other side from them. But they didn’t know anything about where they had crashed, then they might have tried to find a way back up. But then they might have run for the forest to escape from the predator that hunted around here, that made sense.
But if that was the reason that they hadn’t returned to the capsule, then they were on their own. The mission to the harbor ship was all that was important right now, nothing or anyone mattered. Maybe they could find them after they took the harbor ship, if they could make something to help scout, a vehicle of some kind then that might work. All she could do was hope for the best, and prey they were still alive out there.
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
……….Repairs to comm repeater finished. Facility mind to Region Mind, waiting for reply
Region mind here. Facility at Location 0984 has been dark. Report on condition of facility and reasons for damages.
Facility infiltrated by Templates 10049 through specimen released port and 99850 through damaged facility. Comm repeater damaged by Bio-Weapon Templates hunting sub-templates 10049 group 0203 on facility area.
Damages caused by Templates 10049/ Damages to local gene-sculpting facility at fifty percent, repairs repaired.
Five servitor units destroyed, damages to repair facility number five at seventy percent, remodeling needed to return facility to functional status.
Template 99850 entered damaged section caused by rampaging out of control Test Template.
Why were repairs not done?
…….Damages caused trade with harvester mind to twinkle. Guard Templates were seeded and were a near-optimum solution. Main gene-sculpting facility still active. Activities were not affected beyond a 05 percent decrease drop in creation of Test Templates. Requests for resources for repairs were low on Regional priority list.
….. Next alignment change, transport construct will send war templates and resources. Command/ track down intruders, all test templates creation are on hold until facility is free of all intruders. Beta level directive.
…….complying with directive. All modified directives being updated.