Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 153 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 2
Uninhabited Island / Forest one hour from Falls
Galactic Standard Time / 1145
As they ran back towards the others, Jinn kept looking around. When they had left the shoreline, he had made them move far away from the bush he had seen. He was still unsure about what it was. There was something about it that made him want to investigate it, and that bothered him. For some reason, he was thinking about a few plants from his home world, plants that were predatory and used scent.
“So we meet back up with them and we find a trail or blaze a trail. We find a place to set down for the night and leave in the morning,” Racha began.
Jinn nodded when they heard a scream from ahead of them. For a second Jinn wondered who had screamed but he realized it was from Sara.
“MOVE!” He bellowed a split second before Racha ran ahead of him.
He blinked before he ran after her, a small grin on his face as he followed her. She wasn’t anything like he had thought Service Operators would be. Was that another lie the people who raised him had taught? All he could do was hope that whatever had caused her to scream wasn’t even worse than the vine beast. But when he finally reached them, he found something that was probably as worse as the vine beast.
Sara was trying to get webbing off her leg as Paige held onto her arms as Al fired at their attacker.
Jinn blinked as he looked at a large ten-foot-long and wide green spider. It looked almost normal, but it had a small sphere a foot wide with four mandibles in an ‘X’ formation on a stalk behind the head. It was from this growth that the webbing came from. It was using its front two legs to pull the webbing closer to it.
Racha reacted first, firing at the webbing with her rifle.
Then Jinn reacted and called up his aura and charge. As he ran he drew his blade as it transformed he jumped at the spider. As he flew through the air, he readied himself and waited until he was near enough to slash out with his blade. A wave of energy flashed out with his swing, and the stalk was severed. The spider screeched in pain.
As he looked down he saw another two 'heads'. These were to the right and left of the head and they shot out of two craters in the spider.
He landed and heard a scuttling to his right. He turned and saw a small five-foot wide web with ten small spiders, each one a good foot wide. He stared in horror and for a moment he wondered if there were even more eggs around here. If the spider was driven by a need to bring food to its newborns, then it wouldn’t stop until they were food.
But it was something beyond it that caused him to stare in shock. He was so shocked that he jumped backwards without even thinking. Airborne, he realized where he was and scowled, landing he shot at the spider, murder his only thought.
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Racha hadn’t been silent, she looked at Al and made a decision. “You! Pull the webbing to your and help Paige get Sara behind me!”
Racha kept firing as Al and Paige did as she ordered, but Racha didn’t even spare them another glance. She kept her eyes on the spider thing as the two other growths, or ‘false heads’ rose from its back.
As her eyes went from them to the main head, she saw that it was looking at them, and she felt that there was something in them. Her blood went cold and the worse scenario appeared in her mind, and she hoped that she was wrong.
But a blue comet suddenly appeared in front of her, it was Jinn! Then he charged at the spider, his blade a glowing line of blue energy.
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Paige’s mouth dropped open as she watched Jinn blaze as he charged at the spider creature. She thought she had an understanding of his abilities, but this! He was moving like a comet all around the spider, confusing it. When he passed close by the spider his blade flashed out and slashed through one of the false heads. She couldn’t understand how he was doing this, she had seen it once before but she still couldn’t understand! This was beyond anything she had ever seen, this seemed to be in the realm of fiction!
She went still as she heard a chittering behind her and turned, paling at what she found. Coming towards them were three green spiders each five feet tall. As she watched the leader raise a false head from its back and she screamed as she raised her pistol. “AMBUSH!
At her cry Al and Sara looked up and started to fire, each bolt killed one of the spiders.
But before they could turn towards the larger one, five more of the five-foot spiders appeared. They screeched and charged from twenty feet away. Behind them were another twenty of the spiders, moving just as fast.
Al and Paige kept firing as the swarm came at them, yelling screams of defiance.
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Sara stared in horror, she had heard of large arachnids on some worlds, but nothing like this! first the vine-beast and now these things, this world was a mad house! As she looked around, trying to find any other spiders coming at them. She watched as Jinn slashed through the last false head of the larger spider.
As the larger spider rear back in pain, Jinn landed away from it. He seemed to stumble as the blaze around him seemed to condense before flashing out. For a moment he seemed to be in a daze as if something profound had happened to him. The spider meanwhile had calmed down. It turned towards him, raising a front limb towards him, Jinn didn’t even see it.
“WATCH OUT JINN!” Sara called out as the spider thing slashed out with its limb.
Jinn jumped to the side, dodging the spider’s blow by an inch. He landed on a tree and pushed off it. As he flew at the spider, a blue aura gathering around his blade until it was blinding. With a flash he shot through the spider, splitting it in two.
As soon as the larder spider was killed, the swarm seemed to notice and went still. Paige and Al kept firing, and the smaller spiders all screeched as they ran away.
“CLEAR!” Racha barked out a single word and the group reacted.
Paige and Sara looked around as Racha looked behind them. Al went to Jinn and aimed past him, after a few seconds everyone stood there, waiting for anything to come at them.
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“Clear?” Jinn asked as he collapsed to his knees, panting as he tried to catch his breath. He looked at the lines of text in his vision, shocked beyond words. Aether Template/ Blade Operative. First Ability/ Aether Comet that
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He didn’t understand anything, but if it was Aether he was using it made sense. Those rouge Ancients he met, the way they looked down on them. All those insults , ‘Aether-Blind’, this explained much and nothing. But he couldn’t understand just why this was hitting so much harder than it had before.
Racha looked at the others and their nods, she sighed and put her pistol down. “Clear!”
“Good! You okay Jinn, you stopped moving twice there!” Al said as he turned around and helped Jinn back to his feet.
Jinn sighed and looked at the others with a hard expression. “I found something the first time, something you need to see.”
Racha raised an eyebrow and locked eyes with Jinn, who stared back with a hard look.
“Fine. But I’m guessing that this is gonna be bad for us?” Racha asked dryly and Jinn released a breath he didn’t know he was holding and nodded at her. As the others all gathered around, all Jinn did was point toward where he had seen the spider web. As the others all turned to look, they saw what he had and they all went still in shock.
Al looked at it, blinked, and rubbed his eyes before he looked back at what he saw. He shook his head in shock and looked at Jinn. “How’d this get here?!”
“And for all those years this planet hasn’t been found?!” Racha demanded and Jinn could only nod in confusion as well.
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The creature had been moving down the river from the waterfall, a single scent showing it where to go. As it moved along the river shore, most creatures left it alone. As it moved farther away from its home territory, it kept its senses ready for any attackers. Its master had sent it to find out who had dared to attack one of their own, and this was his task. Once it tracked down these ones, it will kill and eat. Once it took the power of the one they had murdered, it would become its master’s equal. And once their kind had more power, then they could begin to make slow moves to over…….
It stopped thinking when it caught a scent it hadn’t ever smelled before, a scent of the sea. It looked around, closing its eyes as it tried to figure out what it had found. It never noticed a large wake in the river, a wake that came towards it.
As suddenly as it stopped, the creature moved. It turned away from the water, dashing with all speed deeper inland. Moments later an eyestalk breached the river’s surface and looked after the creature.
After the creature from the waterfall left, the eye stalk saw movement. A lizard-like creature with black fur came out of hiding and looked inland. It seemed to relax and nod to itself before it turned around, coming face to eye with the eyestalk. Before the lizard creature could react, four red tentacles shot out of the river at it. They wrapped around it, pulling it into the water as it screamed.
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“I don’t believe this!” Al said as he covered his mouth as he looked at what Jinn had found. A metal ship around thirty feet long and twenty wide. It was kite-like in shape, a long triangle with flat surfaces and four barrel-like engines at the rear. From where he was, he could see three ports on the right side of the triangle. The endpoint had pierced the ground, maybe a third more of the mass was underground. There were vines and webs all over it, signs that this thing had crashed here a long time ago.
“What is it?” Sara asked and Al laughed a little. He was about to answer her when he noticed something on the ship, something that made his blood run cold.
“A fighter!” Al said and he walked closer and started to remove some of the closet vines.
“What is it Al, I mean this is a fighter in use today, so? I mean sure it looks different but what’s wrong?” Jinn asked and Al nodded as he worked.
“The builders' Jinn. This fighter was created by the Corporate Alliance in their rebellion!” Racha said as Al worked, his mind on the work.
“WHAT?! And they’re still around!?” Paige asked in shock and Racha released a huff.
Al understood what she thought, this might be bad. The Corporate Alliance had rebelled hundreds of years ago against the proto Federation. Their defeat created a sense of unity that helped the diplomats during the formation of the Federation. People back on his world once said if there wasn’t any rebellion, then the formation of the Federation would have been a pipe dream.
“But don’t worry. The design's been updated over the years. Today different variations are mostly used by pirates!” Racha said with an edge to her voice that Al didn’t understand. All that mattered to him was cleaning this enough that he could see the marking.
“Pirates!?” Sara asked with a shocked tone, and Racha nodded and opened her mouth before Jinn spoke up.
“Yeah, they're cheap, no FTL systems and space for remote bombs to kill them if a signal goes down. Just what every Pirate Warlord wants! A way to kill their followers if they die,” Jinn said bitterly.
Al stopped to look back at him before he turned back as he pulled loose a vine. He saw what he hoped he wouldn’t, and he felt a spark of terror. He was right, and this planet suddenly got a lot scarier.
“And you know this how?” Racha asked and she felt the spark of distrust grow as Jinn looked away.
“I’ve raided pirate bases a few times. After a while, you learn what pirates use,” Jinn said with a shrug.
“Really,” Racha asked with a glare as Sara and Paige looked at him.
“So, this thing could be only a few years old?” Sara asked and then they heard Al cry out.
They turned and saw Al had been able to clear away enough of the vines to reveal a symbol on the ship. It was a red square with black letters CAF in the center and Racha stared at it in horror.
“The symbol of the Cooperate Alliance… This planet has been eating ships for hundreds of years!?” Racha screamed and they heard things leave branches.
Jinn looked around but Racha didn’t even care. This planet had somehow remained unfound for hundreds, maybe thousands of years! This place was generating more mysteries by the day, and they had only been here for two whole ones!
“Great! This is good!” Al said excitedly as he put his backpack down and started to pull out his tools.
“Al, slow down! Why is this good?” Paige asked and Al grinned back at her.
“An old friend of mine once did a report with me on this class of fighter for school. There’s a way to access the black box. And since it’s in a chamber protected from nukes, we might be able to see what happened before it crashed. Well once I break the encryption on it,” Al said and even Paige understood what he was saying.
Racha looked at Al and nodded. There was a big chance that whatever had happened to this fighter had happened to the Spirit. And if they could learn anything that might help them escape this world. “Do it, but be quick about it!”
“Got it! I was going to do it anyway lady,” Al whispered under his breath and Racha made a show that she heard him but she acted like she didn’t.
Racha didn’t know what the right play here was. The data that this fighter had might be the difference between if they could get off-world or die on this rock. But at the same time, those spiders might come back and attack them. Racha sighed as she remembered something her old commander once told her. Sometimes there were just no good plans, only less bad. And today she had to admit, that the danger was acceptable against being stuck here forever.
Racha looked around the clearing and nodded. “While he does that we need to guard him. Jinn stay close to Al. Sara, Paige, look out and call out if you see anything. And stay in sight!”
“Quick question. Besides Al who had shifts as mechanics?” Jinn asked as he looked at her, Racha looked around as Paige raised a hand.
Racha looked at her and sighed, her shoulders slumping. “Fine! Paige, you go help Al. Jinn, take her place.”
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Paige walked towards Al as he looked over the fighter, a slight smile on his face hiding her real feelings. She didn’t understand why she hadn’t felt the spider, it had to have been big enough for her to detect. This was just another thing that made her wonder just how her other ability worked. But even if she didn't know everything, at least it was useful, most of the time.
Paige looked at him and felt his happiness, joy, and what she thought was the thrill of a challenge. She barely kept from laughing; at least he was in a good mood.
“Are you sure you can get at the data?” Paige asked and Al grinned back at her.
“Yeah, mostly. Maybe around ninety-five percent. The real problem is the age! But I’ll know in seconds!” Al said as he went to work.
In moments he had used a tool to unlock a covering and removed it, revealing a data port in the wing. Pulling out a wired screen, he inserted the wire into the data port. Not seeing a reaction on the screen, he smirked. Putting it down, he pulled out another small device from his pack. Inserting the wire from it into another port on the screen, as the screen lit up he saw text flash by and he grinned.
“Good, good. So the operating system is still there, so the main hardware still works, good! And from that, I can… good, great!” Al said with a grin as he looked from the screen to the fighter, his free hand tracing something.
Paige felt a spark of triumph from him, and she released a sigh that she didn’t know she was holding.
“Good news?” Racha asked and Al looked at her over his shoulder, a savage grin on her face.
“Yeah! I was able to call up the diagnostics on this thing! From what I saw, the enclosure we want is still intact! It’ll take a few minutes to get to it, but I’ll be able to, I think?” Al said as he looked at the fighter with a slight scowl. Paige felt a spark of anger and nervousness from Racha that almost made her react, but she kept her face blank.
“And where is it?” Racha called back, a tense tone in her voice and Al just laughed.
“About there, seven feet off the ground right behind the pilot compartment!” All yelled as he pointed at a point on the fighter. As Paige looked at where he had to get the data from, she swallowed as she tried to think of a way for them to do that.