Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 5
Uninhabited Island /Tunnels near Yard Ship
Galactic Standard Time / 1240
Jinn could only stare at the battle into the hanger shock. He had been taught a lot about current combat robots growing up, and these were unlike anything he knew. Their legs were in the wrong places for combat models, that formation was for artillery types. Plus they seemed to be only using brute strength, no weapons at all. The Apes were using simple items that they picked up from the floor of the hanger. The large one was wielding what looked like a broken piece of wing like a sword. It was attacking one robot that had a black spiral back unit.
He thought that he had seen everything, but then he noticed wrecks on the ground. They looked like robot parts, but they were different from the battling ones. He looked around and then saw something by the right side of the hanger. But looking around also found another door with an Access Pad, and it was on the same wall he was sticking his head out of. That had to be where the others were going for. But before he could pull his head back, he saw something else.
It was a large open doorway into a darkened space. The area around the opening had wrecked metallic parts. He saw that these parts weren’t made of black metal. They were not from the robots that were fighting the Apes, but the other type that was destroyed.
Then he realized everything, and it made sense. The robots had to be from another group of castaways or descendants. That meant that these robots were trying to take control of the ship! The Apes must have been trying to get to Callahin when they found each other. He looked down the corridor and saw a wall twenty feet away. There was another door there, and for a moment he felt a spark of hope. That might get to the other part of the ship, but there was a chance it was an office. He could see the builders putting the hanger’s manager there. But he had to check, to see if that was another path.
He looked at Jess and sighed. There was nothing else he could do. “Jess, that wall. There’s a door there. I’ll stay here, you check it out.”
“Got it. But what if you need my help before the others get here?” Jess asked as she looked around.
Jinn looked at her before nodding. There was one way to make this work, and that meant sharing what he had learned.
“Then ‘Dash’ trick. Just move the heat that the Power uses to your feet. Then just think of where to appear. You don’t even need to be facing that way or moving,” Jinn said bluntly.
She looked at him before nodding before she did his “Dash’ trick.
He just chuckled as he looked at the battle. As he didn’t want to admit it, the robots and the Apes were holding their own. There were a few reasons for that, and all of them bothered him. But before he could even think of them, he heard the sounds of the others making it to him. He turned and saw Karakpace, his bugs, and Sara moving towards him. He took another look through the door before ‘Dashing’ to right in front of them, making a sign for silence.
“What is it?” Karakpace rumbled softly.
Jinn only smirked as he chuckled. “Robots fighting our Apes in the hanger. And the bots came with their own ship. I wonder, when Callahin leaves, does he put on the Vacancy sign?”
“A what sign….. oh. Funny joke. But there is no other way for us to go?” Sara asked with a desperate tone in her voice.
Jinn looked at her and saw the worry and fear in her voice. He looked at her and saw where she was looking, nodding after another moment. “Yeah, I don’t know. Jess went to scout that out, and we just need to wait for her to find out what we need. I have to admit, I kinda doubt it. This ship, screams ‘Pirate’ to me. And that means that this place was meant as a maze to fight off boarders.”
Jess made it down and scowled, shaking her head. “There is a door, but it has one of those Pad things, can’t get through it. We have to brave the hanger.”
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Jinn waited a moment before sighing. “There’s another problem. I saw one more type of robot wrecked in the hangar. I think the bots fighting are trying to take the ship or take parts from it. Bad news if we want to use this place.”
“So we help the Apes?! Is that what you’re saying?” Sara asked shock in her voice.
“No. The idea of the enemy of my enemy is my friend is a lie. The Enemy’s enemy is just not our friend. We wait, we watch. If those bots or Apes attack us, we fight back. But we need to be ready to pull the others to safety.”
Karakpace had only stood there before speaking with a growl.“What do these robots look like?”
Jinn looked at him for a moment, wondering what Karakpace was going for. “They were some of the strangest models that I ever saw. They were made of these weird-looking black metal and their ship…..”
“The ship was a box, yes?” Karakpace interrupted a hard edge to his rumbling.
Jinn looked at him and nodded, wondering how he knew that. “Yeah, it is. How did you know that?”
“That was the ship that took down my ship-beast! Those things attacked my people! They attacked with no warning, it was as if they were just killing the unthinking! They are a plague that deserves to be put down!”
“So now we have to deal with killer robots? Great!” Sara moaned as Jess made it to them.
“You mean the robots fighting the Apes? They’re not the ship’s security?” Jess asked as she looked around at the others. “And there is a door there, but there’s a problem. An Interface Pad is locking it. So that’s a no-go.”
“No, I saw what might be the ship’s security. At least parts of them,” Jinn said with a scowl as he looked at the door. “Then we need to fight those robots, and hope that the Apes don’t fight us.”
“I can talk to them, the Apes. I just need to shoot one of them with a Power I know,” Karakpace said with a rumbling growl.
“No. We wait, we watch. If we see an opening, we take it. But for now, we wait. Can I trust you?” Jinn asked as he looked at Karakpace.
Karakpace looked at him for a moment, and then he nodded.
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As she ran through the corridors, Paige bit her lips. She could feel the emotions that Callahin felt, and they were making her worried. When they moved towards the hanger, she had been expecting him to feel anger and rage. They were going away from the place where he was going to kill them after all. But those died down, and now he was feeling pleasure and joy!
That had to mean that he had done something that was going to help his plan. But what and how? They were still being chased by those robots, the ones that Sk’p called Rail Skimmers. The fact that he knew what they were, that was worrying. Because there was no way those things were as old as the ship!
“Keep moving!” Callahin one called out.
She could hear him firing his weapon and then cursed as she saw a blast fly over her shoulder. It missed Sk’p by inches and the man swore.
“We need to fight them off!” Paige said, feeling that this might be the wrong move. But every minute, there was another one of those Rail Skimmers coming at them. So far, Callahin had destroyed two of them, but there were more. There was nothing else they could do, but they needed something to give them an edge. Just standing there and firing back, would just kill them.
“Keep moving! There’s a room ahead! Once you see the square thing you can put things at and sit on other things, that it!”
“You mean tables and chairs?!” Paige said, anger in her voice. When Callahin had said that, he had felt a spark of joy. Either they were moving closer to the place he wanted them at, or he had done something else.
“So that are the words for them, good! But throw them down, we can use them for cover!” Callahin said with glee.
Sk’p looked over his shoulder at Paige as they ran.
She didn’t need her abilities to know that he was worried, and she was too. They were trusting the word of a sentient eater after all. Someone who ate meat that could talk to you could think for itself. The monsters that all species thought deserved to die horribly. The villains of a thousand stories. And they were trusting the word of something that wanted to eat them. But they were all being chased by robots that wanted to kill them all.
As they entered the room, they found a small chamber, twenty feet wide and long. There were three metal tables and four chairs around them. Beyond them was a doorway that had an Interface Pad next to it. Sk’p grabbed one of the tables and threw it in front of the door after Callahin ran into the room.
The Rail Skimmer slammed into the table, and then Sk’p shot it from the right side. He kept shooting at it until the robot fell to the floor, hovering dead as it was. With a smirk, Sk’p laughed a little.
“Not bad! good plan Callahin!” Sk’p laughed.
“I never needed these things! So maybe they had a use after all!” Callahin said with a grin.
Behind the first robot, blasts fired over the wreckage of the first. Paige scowled as she felt her rage grow a bit. While she and Sk’p were both fighting to live, Callahin seemed to be toying with them. Even now, this monster was waiting to strike against them, feeling greed.
“Then let's fight!” Callahin said with a grin.
Paige glared at him out of the corner of her eyes. The sheer glee he was feeling was starting to worry her. She knew he was planning to kill them, but how? Just what……..
Her head snapped to look out at the walls, she felt pure animalistic fear. There was no other word for what she sensed, it was fear and rage combined. And in moments those feelings died as she felt them disappear, no, she felt them die.
They had to have been some of the Apes, they had split up! But whatever had killed them, it had to have been how Callahin was planning to kill them! And there it was, another being was there. It had a taste to its feelings that told her this was a pure animal. But the longer she felt its emotions, the more they deepened. It was slowly changing. If she didn’t know better, she would think it was becoming aware, becoming an ‘I’. But that was impossible, right?
After a few minutes of silence, Callahin looked around at her and Sk’p. “Friends, let’s be real. Those things must be trying to keep us from this room. There’s a chamber to the far left about forty feet back down that corridor we ran past. It leads into the mountain. I know another path there, we can get back to the ledge and…..”
“So that is where you plan to kill us then? With whatever ate the Apes?” Paige asked as she moved back a step slowly. The closer she made it to the door, the better. Sk’p raised his weapon and pointed at Callahin, who only blinked.
“Kill you, what do you mean?” Callahin exclaimed in shock.
“Don’t lie,” Paige growled as she felt his shock. “I can feel your emotions.”
Callahin went still and then he glared at her with a look of pure rage that finally matched his feelings.