Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 5
Uninhabited Island /Beach near crashed escape Capsule 20045
Galactic Standard Time / 0600
As Jinn looked around outside the opening Locke made, he went over his mental checklist. He had checked over the gear and the food he had left. He had enough food to last for two days, and they were almost there. Just another few hours, and then they would have reached their goal. After the night he had, he expected the worst part of this whole mission. As the old man used to say, you always have the worst time when you let your guard down.
He looked at Al doing his own checks, and they shared a single nod. Al had shown that he shared many of the same habits Jinn had. And the Al was better at this than Jinn had expected. But then he looked at Sara and Paige who were looking around, ready to fire their weapons. They had been here an hour with him, they had been the guards for that hour. So far, they were proving the lessons the last two days had sunken into them.
“So, at the way that these people can move, I expect to reach the hill before supper. Don’t do anything that I need to save you, man,” Locke said from behind him.
Jinn only chuckled and got up, holding his arm towards Locke. The two clasped each other’s arm, the way they had done so often before a mission.
Jinn only chuckled as he shook his head. “Hey, you the one with the hard job. All I need to do is investigate a possible death trap. You’re the one that’s watching over civilians!”
“Yeah. And led them through this place. Fun times,” Locke said with a smirk.
Jinn looked at him and chuckled, shaking his head. “If the old man could see us now.”
Locke only nodded, shaking his head before he looked towards the door.
Jinn looked up, seeing Jess and Sk’p finally walking out, both of them with backpacks on. Behind them came both Burt and Racha, finishing out the group.
“You four ready?” Sara called out and Burt chuckled.
“Checked and triple-checked! And I grabbed a few pieces of those Swarmers! A nice bit of flavoring for our victory meal at least!” Burt said cheerfully.
Jinn had to hold back a laugh at this. Burt had proven himself to be quite a character and someone that he would trust at his back.
“Everyone ready to move?” Tomkin asked as he came out. As he looked around, his eyes landed on Racha and Jinn. “Good. We’ll be following after you in an hour or so. However long it takes this guy to make our tunnel, but again I hope to make it there by nightfall.”
“With luck, we’ll have all the resources there to survive here. At least a large enough place to handle all the survivors we can find. I hope,” Jinn said with a sigh, shaking his head.
“Yeah, there’s that. We might find nothing but a wreck. But this is the best chance we have to change everything here. Even I can see the force multiple this can be. But stay alive,” Tomkin said as he looked at Jinn and Racha.
“We will. Okay, people! Move out!” Racha barked and with that, the team jogged away from the dome.
As he ran, Jinn kept his eyes moving around, trying to see anything that might strike at the group. He and Racha had talked about this, and they hadn’t had a good idea about what to do. They had expected the explosion from the escape capsule to have dealt with the threats in the area. Jinn thought that hordes like the spiders might take the chance to claim more territory. Racha had said that they needed to deal with their mission only, and the best idea was to keep moving. With their supplies and abilities, they couldn’t handle too many targets.
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An hour later, Racha called out. “Everyone stop! We stop and rest, ten minutes!”
“Thank you!” Sara said softly as she sank down onto one of the fallen trees, letting her legs rest. She looked around as the others were all doing the same, but there were a few who didn’t. Burt stayed by the end of the group, while Racha looked to the left and Jess looked to the left. She had to admit, that the way that people who were taught to fight was something else. She attacked the smallest enemies in existence, and they dealt with the larger ones. But still, sometimes she wondered if she should have taken a combat class beyond the basics.
“You know, I think we’re making good time,” Al said next to her.
She looked and saw Paige nodding, a smile on her face.
“Yeah! I mean we’ve been making miles and making time that I couldn’t expect us to do!” Paige said with a smirk.
Sara nodded, feeling the same as Paige did. Sara was surprised that they had all been able to keep running for so long. With her physique, she had expected to have had trouble a good twenty minutes ago. But here she was, handling like she had never had before. She looked down at her hands, trying to understand what she had just thought. There was something there, she could feel it. But there was so much that she still didn’t understand about these powers and how they had been gained. This planet, these creatures, they were just a whole realm of unexplained science. She had always been thinking about how to study them all.
“I’ll go and check the area around us,” Jinn said suddenly from the front.
She looked up and saw Jinn disappear, she looked around then she looked up. She saw him suddenly appear a few tens of feet up. The ‘dash’ trick was something that she would not be surprised by. The way that he had described it seemed to be so easy to do, but she had never tried to do it herself. It was something that seemed to be so elusive, and something that was just within reach.
A minute later, Jinn was back down, a scowl on his face. “We have problems nearby.”
“What is it?” Racha asked bluntly.
Jinn just sighed and shook his head. “I saw a battle over there. It looked like either big wolves or cats fighting monkeys with long tails. It’s beyond that hill to the right. We need to move now!”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Without a word, the group all got up. They were back on the path, dashing away towards their goal. Sara looked to the right as they ran, now they could hear the screams of beasts and fighting.
Sara heard Paige cry out next to her and grabbed her when she stumbled. Stopping, she held Paige as she held her head, biting her lips to keep from screaming.
“What happened to her!?” Jess cried out in fear.
Sara knew what this was, she had seen it before. She could ‘hear’ something with her extra sense, and that was why she was reacting. That had never happened for as long as Sara had known Paige on this planet. And that was something that had saved them before.
Sara ignored her and the others as they moved into positions around her. She looked at the others who had known about Paige’s abilities and saw the worry in them. They all knew about what Paige was running from, but they all knew that she had told them because she trusted them. But then how could they break the trust by telling the others about what Paige could do?
“What is?” Jinn asked quietly as he crouched down, holding Paige’s arm.
Sara looked over at Jinn and saw the same worry in them. They both knew that if Paige had an attack like this, then that meant something about her abilities.
“Yeah medic girl, what’s wrong with her?” Sk’p asked from behind them.
Sara looked up and almost said something when Paige cried out again.
Sara reached into her backpack and pulled out a small device that took a scan of Paige. Looking at the scans she saw nothing that was causing Paige pain. Nothing beyond the abilities that Paige had, so there was the answer. With a hard look, she stared at those in the group who knew and tried to think of what to say.
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Paige looked at Jinn and took deep breaths, trying to gather strength. What had hit her had been unlike anything that she had ever experienced before. It was like something had screamed so loud that everything was a white noise. Plus it had been without a voice, hitting her within herself but not through her ears.
After another two moments, she looked at Sara and smiled.
“A scream of rage from the battle site. It was as if someone could use emotions to talk, and turned it into a weapon!” Paige said as she looked at Jinn.
Racha cursed behind her and she heard Burt whistle.
“Wait. Why does that even affect Paige? Why not the rest of us?” Jess asked.
Sara looked at Burt and saw that the man had figured out her secret. If he had, then it was time to come clean. “I’ve been able to ‘hear’ emotions since before I signed onto the Spirit. I’ve been hunted for it. They want to use my body from what I was able to figure out.”
“What,” Sk’p asked in a quiet and deadly voice. It promised violence if he didn’t hear what he wanted to next, then there would be problems.
From Sk’p Paige felt nothing rage, but rage on her behalf. Jess had her hand over her mouth, and she was feeling such shock and horror, not at her but at what had almost been done to her.
“And it could be either side on that battle, or something else. We need to move faster!” Racha said and Jinn nodded.
He got down before Paige but then Sk’p was there.
“I’ve got her!” Sk’p said as he put her over his shoulder, face against his back.
As Paige tried to calm her heart down, she felt a protective feeling coming from Sk’p.
“I’m not the best fighter here, you and Racha are. I’ll carry the little lady until we stop or she gets out of range.
“Thanks,” Paige said softly.
“Nothing to it! help your team!” Sk’p said with a laugh. “Just never play cards with me, kid!”
Paige laughed and shook her head as the others ran on. She couldn’t believe this. She had been so scared for so long, but these people were accepting her. She couldn’t think that this was something that was going so well. But then as soon as she thought that, she felt another roar. She gritted her teeth and then looked towards it. This time, it felt a lot closer.
“Hurry,” She croaked out, her mouth feeling dry as Sk’p carried her away. “It’s coming.”
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Jinn gritted his teeth and stopped as something hit him. “NOVA!”
The others went by him and Racha stopped first. She looked back at him as he looked towards the direction Paige had pointed. “What!? Why’d you stop!?”
For a second, Jinn stayed silent. He was trying to see if he could see anything, any clue to what was over there.
“The others!” Jinn said with a scowl, cursing himself for not seeing it. “Locke and the others! Those things are going to attack them once they make it here!”
The others looked at him, not understanding what he was getting at.
“What do you mean!?” Jess demanded.
Jinn only scowled as he tried to figure out how to say this the right way. “Anything that can use the mind as a weapon, won’t just use it on a few beings. I bet the only way that Paige can feel it is because of her abilities! Probably like you can hear if someone yells at someone else near you. I bet that the effect is a lot worse when it's directed at someone point-blank!”
Jinn looked around and saw the expressions on the other's faces. They understood what he had figured out and they all turned to look at Burt.
Burt looked down, deep in thought. After a few moments, he looked up and sighed, nodding. “Yeah, that sounds like the right thing. I think I heard something when I was drunk, something about mind talking and screaming.”
“You don’t know!?” Racha demanded.
Burt only chuckled and held up his empty hands. “It was this wake, free drinks and I just had been dumped after spending a month in that town! Stole from me even. Had to stay there another two months just to get enough Trade Credits to keep moving.”
Jinn looked at him and tried to keep calm. Tried being the right word. He had hoped that Burt would say that he was looking at a meteor shower when it was only a comet. But he was seeing it clearly. There was only one choice here. “Jess, Burt? You two with me. We’re going to see what’s happening over there. The rest of you, keep moving towards the ship. We’ll meet up with you later.”
Racha looked like she was going to say something but Jinn held up a hand.
“The greater mission takes precedence. We’re going to protect our rear and the others. You need to save the others,” Jinn said with a hard tone.
“First rule bro, don’t split the party. But we’ve got someone that can feel all the blasts,” Al said as he looked at Sk’p and Paige.
Paige suddenly blinked and looked up, her eyes widening in shock. “It’s gone. It’s gone!”
“What?” Burt asked as everyone looked at Paige.
“It stopped mid-scream! That’s good, right?” Paige asked, her eyes widening as she looked at Jinn.
Jinn meanwhile had gone still. He looked towards where the battle was and couldn’t stop a frown from forming on his face. The single fact that the ‘scream’ ended mid-scream was worrying. That meant that the other side killed what was ‘screaming’, and how deadly was that side?
He swallowed and looked at the hill in the distance. They had to move now! “Double time people, move!”
“Wait, what is it!? Where’s the threat!??” Racha snarled as she looked around.
“If something could kill something that had a mental weapon, how did it do that? And then what can that thing do to us?” Jinn said with a hard glare.
He saw the way that the others were reacting to his words and the way that Racha’s eyes were hardening. There was a strange feeling that Jinn felt from beyond the hill. All it told him, was they had to move as soon as possible.
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Racha kept a snarl on her face as she led the way. For the last five minutes, they had finally seen the mountain in the distance. It was still so far away, but now Paige was running in the center of the group. Paige still didn’t ‘hear’ another scream, but Racha was worried about what this meant. If something had happened once, it could happen again. That was basic knowledge, something all her teachers in the Service had talked about. But there was something about this place that bothered her so much.
She couldn’t even understand just how this planet was even halfway possible! And that wasn't talking about the strange powers the others had all gained here. There was something that connected the Power to the creatures. She could feel it, it was there but she still couldn’t even try to figure out how the ‘how’.
That was the secret to her success, she listened to her gut. And now that same gut was telling her that something was there.
Suddenly, she heard something ahead and she looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw what was there. “Enemy above!”
Above them was a large strange-looking bird serpent-thing. It was large, from here it looked only ten feet wide but it was still so high up. The creature had skin of a deep blue, and it had white sparks along its body. But the most shocking thing was the three sets of blood-ruby wings. It’s a large hood at the front, the ‘head’.
“What is that!?” Burt exclaimed in shocked horror.
“You’ve never seen anything like that?” Jinn demanded.
“Nothing with six wings! They were only a half foot long and in the Forest Realm, they only hunted the Wolcomies!” Burt exclaimed in shock.
“Wolcomies?” Sara asked, her voice holding a spark of shock.
“Flying eyeless bugs. There are a few species of them colored…..” Burt explained but Jinn interrupted him.
“You mean the flying worms. We’ve seen a few around here,” Jinn said.
Racha only paid attention with one ear, her eyes were locked on the creature. The way the creature was just hovering there bothered her. It seemed to be hitting the winds and staying there. But it wasn’t looking at them, so why was it just staying there?
“I can’t hear anything from that thing. Not even a beast-like mind. What is wrong with it?’ Paige said, her voice full of worry and a bit of fear.
Racha looked at Paige for a second, then turned back at the flying serpent. That was worrying. Paige had mentioned that her abilities had let her ‘hear’ the feelings of anything with a big enough brain. The fact that she couldn’t hear anything from that thing was very worrying.
“Just keep moving! Just keep moving, maybe it’s after something else,” Sk’p said with a slow and sure voice.
Racha just nodded, and without a word, they kept moving. But before they could move more than ten feet, a shadow moved over them. Racha looked up and saw the bird-serpent falling towards them. “EVERYONE MOVE AWAY NOW!”
They all reacted to Racha’s roar, splitting apart by twenty feet before the bird serpent crashed down. It sent up a dust could that went up ten feet and covered the crashed creature. Racha pulled out her pistol as she waited for the next shoe to drop. For a few moments, she almost thought it was dead before something shot out of the dust could. She dodged to the side and fired her pistol. The bolt tore through it before it slithered back into the dust cloud. She looked down at what she had broken off and stared in shock.