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 / 0900
Jinn glared down the tunnel as he kept firing. He saw the spider-thing’s corpse was almost gone, and he knew it was time to leave. He had seen what Jess had done, and he was worried about what her actions might have meant. There was one thing that came to his mind, and that was the worst outcome. That would mean that the creatures could think, and reason. Or something directing to them could.
Looking over his shoulder, he saw the girls had moved through the central tunnel. Looking back at the spider-thing, he fired at the rocks above it. As dust fell, he did his trick and ‘dashed’ to just above the opening of the tunnel. Once he landed, he ran down it, seeing the girls at the end.
Making a sign to keep quiet, the girls nodded and as one they ran down the path through the rocks.
Jinn couldn’t believe how this day had been so far. They get attacked by a kind of False Plant Mother Tree, then they find a survivor from another ship. Then they get chased by monster wolves, and then a kind of bug monster. This world seemed to be pushing against all his nerves.
And now their new friend was acting like the enemy might be able to think. That was the only reason Jess would have done what she had if Callahin had done it first. He wanted to have a nice long talk with him later and find out why that was. Because he didn’t know about the bugs there, and only reacted once they came down.
Ahead of them, Callahin poked his head out of a cave set in the right wall. He was looking at them and gesturing for them to move faster. Once they reached him he ducked into the cave and they followed him in. Once they made it in and found the others they heard the sound of stone moving. Behind them, Callahin pushed a boulder to block the cave mouth. In seconds the only light was from crystals set in the ceiling and the mouth was completely blocked.
“We’re safe now. We have to keep moving!” Callahin said as he looked around at the others. “We can’t waste time here.”
“Hold it!” Jinn barked as he grabbed one of Callahin’s arms. As Callahin looked at him, Jinn saw anger in the man’s eyes. “Not so fast Callahin! Why did you think that these things could think!? Or that something was directing them?!”
“Because that was how my captain died! Some kind of Insect that could talk. It was just getting us to lower our guard before other bugs killed two other crew members! I saw that witch bite the captain’s throat open!” Callahin exclaimed, anger in his voice. Then he chuckled darkly. “And what was worse was that the little succubus looked like a normal human!”
“She what!?” Al asked in shocked horror. As everyone looked at him, he seemed to be staring at Callahin with a strange look in his eyes. “She was wearing a disguise to look human, or she was able to ‘shift’ from a human form?”
“Both really. I think her skin was set up to hide her chitin and that her mouth could hinge open. She acted all scared and then her real mouth opened, from her nose to her neck, all teeth!” Callahin said bitterly. “Took out the captain in one bite, then her arms released revealed chitin blades on the outside. Black-hole cursed witch! I killed her and escaped over a river, destroyed a log bridge to get away!”
Jinn was expecting a lot, but not that. As he took that in, the other started to cry out in anger and rage. He could understand them, the idea of someone honey-trapping people to kill them? It was barbaric.
“You didn’t say anything when we went at the hive up that ramp!” Sk’p snarled.
Callahin looked at them, a scowl in his eyes. “Because all the hives around here with flyers are either only fliers or too big to get down here! I thought you’d come back down! And you went too fast for me to stop!”
Jinn had to admit, the three of them had reacted fast. That might be the reason, but there was something else here. After his realization about what Callahin’s tech could really do, he hadn’t trusted the man. He still didn’t, there was just something that told him not to. But he couldn’t blame Callahin for that, it might just be nerves after all.
“Right, sorry. But how close are we to the final clearing before the ship?” Jinn asked.
Callahin looked at them and then sighed. “We’re almost there. Just another few minutes really, less than an hour, at most. Just let me block the boulder here and we can be out of here.”
Without waiting, Callahin moved and started to pack stone against the floor.
Jinn watched him work and saw that this was a practiced routine. That was both surprising and worrying. Worrying that he had taken time to do it, and surprised that he had thought to do so. That spoke of a lot of effort taken to think up more defenses than what the old crew of the Yard Ship did. And that spoke of creativity, and knowing a lot more than his amnesia would say he had.
“So nice cave? How’d you find it?” Al asked from behind Jinn.
“Oh, this place?” Callahin asked joy in his voice. “I found it after I moved in after the first invasion of those pirates. I just followed the smell, one of them came in here to die. Found the path back to the ship here, and well here it is.”
Callahin was about to say something when they all heard the sounds of something outside the cave. They all went still as the sound moved on, and then they heard an insect roar of rage.
With a scared look on his face, Callahin faced them and pointed behind them. Without waiting, Jinn aimed his pistol at the cave's mouth and slowly moved backwards. He saw Callahin walk calmly past him and he heard the others moving as well. This was it, they were on the clock. His eyes found Paige who nodded once as she looked back at the boulder. Jinn felt his blood freeze for a second, at least they knew.
That scream had a note of rage in it. Rage meant that the spider-thing or something else expected them to be down that passage. And that meant emotions and they could think for themselves. They were facing something that could think and wanted to eat them, a nightmare for most people. But for him and how he was raised, this was nothing out of the ordinary.
A moment later he felt someone’s arm on his right shoulder. He turned and saw Racha nodding at him. If she was getting him, then it was time to move on, leave the boulder blocking the cave mouth and race for the Yard Ship.
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
Paige felt a spark of something behind them, something more than just a beast or bug. The idea is that this could have emotions or something controlling. The answer seemed clear with what just felt from that thing beyond the boulder. It was strange if she was honest, something that was both beast and sentient. The way that both felt to her was different, they always were. This seemed to be something that was in the middle of the line, completely balanced.
But what bothered her more was what Callahin felt. When Sk’p said he heard something up above them, Callahin had felt a spark of rage. Not fear or anger, but rage. She didn’t understand this, she just didn’t. The emotions she had expected were surprise or shock, but not rage. That didn’t make sense to her, what was she missing here? Why, what wasn’t she seeing here? There was something that Callahin was hiding, something that was important.
Callahin seemed to be holding it together on the outside but he was acting only. Inside, he was as cold as ice right now with a crack of rage. He was a master actor at least, or he had practice doing this, acting one way but feeling another. But he said he had amnesia, so where had he gotten training for this? The other that survived with him had all died before he found the Yard-Ship, that was what he said. So what was he hiding now, what was the truth he knew they didn’t?
“So, that happened,” Sk’p said next to her. “That’s going to be a problem for the others.”
She looked and nodded, wondering what he meant for a moment. Then it hit her and she breathed in a gasp. He was talking about Locke and the others! He was thinking that they would be attacked by the bugs! She had to admit, she could see it. They had no idea about anything that the group had seen since they left them. They could have been walking into a trap right now. And the wolves and apes? Those two groups were still out there, and one of them had lost their battle.
“Yeah, you’re right. But still, it’s just another reason to get to the ship. We can use the weapons to signal them, signal everyone!” Paige said with force in her voice.
That was the best idea that she had, and the only way that she saw they could go. They needed to do something to signal them. It wasn’t like…… She stopped.
“Is there a part of the ship that is open to the air on our left side? And our as in the way we’re walking now left,”
Callahin stopped and looked at Paige, a question in his eyes. “Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”
Paige only smiled and the others all smiled and Sara chuckled. Callahin looked around, not understanding why the others had reacted this way.
Jinn stopped chuckling to look at Callahin, grinning as he did so. “Don’t worry about it. A friend of mine is with the group. We’ve got a few codes using flashes of light. We’ll just, signal them.”
Paige looked at Jinn, feeling his emotions. It seemed to her that like herself, Jinn didn’t want to let Callahin know about their abilities. She was still worried about how he’d react, but it seemed that Jinn was thinking about something else.
Looking at Callahin, she hid her own frown. Callahin was feeling a roller-coaster of emotions. From greed to anger to lust and then back again, all in an instant. The more she thought about what she was feeling, the more she grew scared. There was something about him something that she just couldn’t place.
“That’s perfect! I was wondering how we would signal your friends myself!” Callahin said with a grin as he felt anger and rage. “I said to myself, Callahin, you’ve got to save them! Those vile wolves, they're still out there! They have to be coming back around on their hunts. And if they lost, they’re going to be hungry! People like the ones that your friends told you, they’re going to be the targets of the packs! How can you save them?”
If it wasn’t for her ability, Paige would have believed him. But there was just a way his emotions ‘tasted; that told her he was lying. But why, that was something that she couldn’t understand at all about him.
“But then you told me about the signaling, and that’s perfect! I was thinking of maybe getting anything in the ship to use as a weapon. Then I’d draw the hive in, and then kill them all!” Callahin said as he looked around, smiling as he did so.
Paige looked at him, shocked that a man like him could feel humor in what he just said. He was either thinking about something or he was feeling the emotions.
“Good,” Racha said with a sigh. “We’ll need to deal with them. But we can ‘talk’ to the others first. It’s not the best idea, but it’s the only thing to do.”
Paige blinked, trying to understand what Racha just said and what she felt.
“Let me guess!” Sk’p said with a loud look and feelings of anger but resignation was there. Resignation that was equal to what Racha felt. “If we don’t, they might attack us when we sleep, right?”
Paige looked at Racha who nodded and then she winced. Racha might be right. Anything that could think, it would want revenge or to kill a rival. And she had no idea if that was the same for whatever these things were.
<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>
Al looked around the cave, trying to understand just what this was. He had seen enough marks outside to think that the survivors made the passages outside. But the dead ends, and the way that there were so many of them? It didn’t make sense, he just couldn’t think of why they had done it. If they still had enough tech to build the suit that Callahin wore, why waste time to make these paths?
All in all, this place was still confusing him. There was nothing like this that he had ever read about in biology or food chains. All the different species, the fact that they could survive together was shocking. Any one of them would have taken over already, but all of them together, in the same area? It seemed that they had made a kind of balance that was shocking in its deadliness.
“You can’t it them, can’t you?” Sara asked from his side. He looked up and saw her smile at him.
“I’m sorry, what do you mean?” Al asked as they followed the rest of the group.
Sara only gestured around her. “This place, how everything is so strong. Any one of them would have been the alpha species anywhere else. But here? None of them have advanced at all. I can’t explain anything about this. It’s a medical miracle that became a calamity!”
Al only nodded, trying to gather his thoughts. The problem was, she was right. There was nothing in any source of knowledge that he had ever heard of that explained this. But her description put it into content. And he had to admit that she was right. And then a thought hit him, and everything suddenly slotted into place. “Good word. I like it. And that’s not counting the gateways that Burt talked about. Or their impact on this place.”
Sara and Al looked at each other’s eyes for a few seconds as Sara took in what Al said. Finally, she took a deep breath and exhaled. “Wow. You think that the Gateways he talked about had an impact on this place?”
“Work it out like a scientist, go slow,” Al offered and Sara nodded.
“Okay, okay. He said that the Gateways open to any place on this planet. That they’re used for trade. But if they open with no rhythm or reason according to him. That means that distance wouldn’t limit the spread of fliers,” Sara said, frowning and Al nodded.
“Keep going,” Al said.
Sara nodded and looked up at the ceiling. “Some of the evolutionary adaptions could be explained as defenses against predators…. Wait.”
Sara looked at Al, her face going pale. “But then the Gateways would let the adaptions flow both ways! Life could have evolved in competition with things from different biomes! I mean, that’s been theorized, but this? This is the result?”
Al looked at her, happy that she had come to the same conclusion he had. This place was the result of so many different food chains intermingling. Altogether, this had created a planet that was the greatest ‘Hell World’ that he had ever heard of. It was so dangerous that it had to be beyond the Sentient Survival limit. Al went still as the thought went through his head.
“Al? you okay?” Sara asked him.
He didn’t reply, only stumbling to the wall as he tried to think. Humans like Burt and other sentient races had crashed and lived here. The ‘Hell World’ theory said that they would have died in a generation at most. So how had people survived here, and then there was the Power to consider. It had to play a part in their survival, it had to.
But some animals could wield it as well. But why was the Power only on this planet? But Paige, she had gained her abilities on her home world, so it was possible to gain them. And Burt said that he had been taught one of them by others. So was it possible to be taught the Power off world? But why wasn’t it widespread? Who could have learned it and not shared it with their people? His eyes widened as everything slotted into place.
A hand on his shoulder caused him to look up at Sara. “What is it, Al? What’s wrong?”
“I was thinking about the theory we were talking about. And something hit me.”
“How this world is always going to keep trying to kill us?” Sara asked bluntly.
Al nodded as he chuckled at what she said. “Maybe. But there’s something more here. Your thinking was wonderful, it explains so much. But there’s one other X-Factors that did affect evolution here. What comes to mind?”
Sara looked at him, confusion in her eyes. “I don’t see what else could be this X-Factor. What do you see that I don’t?”
“That Power some of us developed, and Paige’s abilities. She got them off this planet. That means that they can be gained off this planet. But why haven’t they?” Al asked as he looked at her, trying to make her understand. “Burt also said to me that he learned one of his Powers from someone. Now Paige shows us people can develop the Power off this planet. And who says that somewhere, somehow, someone did learn how to teach these abilities?”
“Who…. The Ancients. That’s it. That’s how their tech’s so advanced, they use the Power,” Sara breathed out in shock.