Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]
Days after of Crash landing/ 3
Uninhabited Island / Clearing of Escape Capsule # 405
Galactic Standard Time / After 1140
Qiana
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Qiana ran to Jessie as she tried to figure out what was wrong with him.
“Someone go and tell the Chief what happened! The rest of you get ready to defend!” Terra called out as Qiana reached Jessie. She looked over his and for a moment she thought that an undertaker would be better. He had hit the shield head-first, and most people died from the impact! The only thing that she could do would be to call the time of his death, but then she saw his chest moving. With shaky movements, she moved her hand in front of his mouth and felt him breathing.
She stared in shocked horror, he was still alive. Those who survived a wound like this, their brains would have been damaged. And in this situation, there was nothing they could do for him. The most humane would be to kill him now. So as she tried to find something to do that, he moaned. She looked up slowly, gazing into his face as his eyes opened. She fell backwards as she saw the way that Jessie’s eyes were focusing on her.
“What happened?” He muttered as he moved his body into an upright position.
She fell backwards, staring at him in shock and wonder as he tried to get to his feet.
“Wait!” Qiana stammered as she scrambled to her own feet and moved towards him. “You’re lucky to be alive! Please, let me check you over!”
But as she tried to get her instruments out, Jessie took a step past her looked around, and scowled.
“Later doc, we’ve got one heck of a situation to deal with first. What happened while I was out, where’s a fourth of the shield!” Jessie demanded.
All Qiana could do was stare at him as he started to run towards the opening. She couldn’t understand this. All her studies told her that he should be brain-dead at best! How in the name of the stars was he okay!?
It was a proven fact, papers had been written about it! The shield's energy field always caused terrible injury when organic matter touched it. That was how all shields worked, that was a scientific fact! She couldn’t understand what was happening!
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Jessie
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As he ran towards the others, he looked over his shoulder at Qiana. Something was bothering her, but he didn’t understand what. There was something about how she reacted when he woke up, something that bothered him. If was as if…… he shook his head. He didn’t have time to even think about what was bothering her, he had a greater problem to deal with now.
He reached Terra, finding her and Dalila looking over the console. Vivian was guarding them, and she nodded at him when she saw him. He looked at what Terra was doing and winced as he saw the destruction. From what he could see there was nothing that they could do. It had been broken in two and the keyboard was smashed. The faster thing would be to get one of the spares and set it up to join the array. “Stop working girls. That’s nothing but spare parts now.”
Terra looked up at him for a second before looking at Dalila who nodded.
“He’s right, this is just mostly trash. If we’re lucky, I think I can salvage maybe half of the components at best. Probably just a bit more of a third if I’m being real about it,” Dalila said bitterly.
Tessie looked at the consul and felt a bit of respect for her. If she could get that much salvage then she was a lot better than he was. The most he would have been able to do was collect maybe a little less than a fourth of the components.
“That much? You must spend a lot of time on hunts gathering tech then. Not that I’m any better,” Vivian said with a smirk on her face as she turned her face down.
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Jessie nodded, that was an old trick that the old Bounty Hunters taught young ones. Looking down kept most lip-reading programs from seeing how the words a mouth formed. A good way to talk in plain sight and still keep from being ‘read’. A bit old-fashioned but it still worked and that was all that mattered to some of them.
“Oh?” Terra asked as she looked at Vivian with a small smile. “You spend time looking for data in nanites or computers?”
Both Vivian and Dalila looked at her in shock before they whipped their heads to look at Jessie who shrugged.
“You told her about those!?” Vivian asked a note of shock in her voice.
Jessie understood their feelings. Those nanites were an invention that the Bounty Hunters Guild kept secret from everyone. They were part of what identified Hunters as Hunters after all, and to speak of it to anyone was Taboo.
“I never spoke of about them. She saw me use it on someone once and well, she figured it out. Our Terra is pretty smart,” Jessie said with a smile.
“Yeah, I did. I don’t mind really. And the fact that the Hunters have kept them from destroying the galaxy is impressive. Really,” Terra said as she looked at them.
“What do you know about them?” Dalila asked robotically as she and Vivian looked at Jessie. He just grinned at them as Terra was looking away from him.
Terra just grinned back at them. “Just what I figured out. Our mutual friend didn’t say anything about them. All he did was say that he couldn’t say anything. He has a lot of loyalty.”
A cry from the others nearer to the breach caused the four of them to look up. Zevortro was standing just outside of the shield, moving his rifle around as if he had heard something.
“Vivian, go and tell Duncan what happened and have the others get that other console. Dalila, take everything you can from this wreck. Jessie, with me,” Terra said as she walked towards Zevortro.
Jessie looked at his fellow Bounty Hunters and nodded, and they nodded back. As he followed after Terra, Jessie looked at his internal report from his nanites. They were a special model, and he had made them due to his biology. The report told him that his body would be healed in a few hours, but he could move around for now. There were no problems or dangers, but he might have to activate his ability soon.
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Terra
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Terra looked at Zevortro as she dashed over. The fact that she could do what Jessie could was something that she was amazed that she could grow so powerful. And she understood why Jessie couldn’t explain how to do it. If it happened in an instant, her will wouldn’t be held back. She didn’t understand how she had done, it just defied everything she thought she knew. And that power she had used, she just didn’t understand it at all. She needed to talk to Duncan about it, and Jessie. Should she talk to them separately or apart? Now that was something she didn’t know, there were advantages for both. She shook her head, now wasn’t the time to think about that.
As they reached Zevortro, Terra looked around. After a moment, she turned to him and nodded. “There’s nothing here, did you see something?”
“Yeah, there,” Zevortro said softly as he pointed at a bush. The bush was right at the edge of the forest, and she could see signs that something had been there. This was bad, was something that could be spying on them? They needed to do something about this now before it became a problem.
Terra looked at the bush and then nodded at Jessie who nodded back. She put her hands on Zevortro’s shoulder and then nodded at the bush, making a sigh for Zevortro to keep quiet. She and Jessie slowly moved from both sides to pincer the bush. If anything was spying on them, then they would find it.
After a moment, they both charged. In a moment, they had both passed through the bush and looked around. After a quick sweep, Terra stood up fully.
“Well? Is anything there?” Zevortro called out.
Terra looked at Zevortro and shook her head. “Nothing. Must have been a prey animal or it escaped. But just because we can’t find anything, doesn’t mean that nothing was here. So keep a watch here, if anything comes at us, fire!”
“Got it, boss!” Zevortro said with a nod.
Terra looked at Jessie who had dropped to the ground, his hand hovering over the ground.
“So what was here?” Terra asked quietly as she looked into the forest.
“Something around child size I would say,” Jessie said softly as he pointed to a small broken plant on the ground. “This was broken by a boot. I think. But the tracks stop here.”
Jessie put his hand on the tree next to him and walked around, looking up. “Whatever was here, they climbed up this tree and moved around. They went up, and used the canopy of branches to move, look.”
Terra followed his finger and saw green leaves on the ground. She looked at them and then nodded. “So the leaves were shaken off by whatever jumped from tree to tree?”
“I think so. That’s the only way this could work. I don’t know what else could have done this. But was this thing able to think or not? I don’t know,” Jessie said as he looked up at the tress.
Terra nodded, looking up as well. People rarely if ever looked up, so going that way to escape was smart. But some animals did that as a matter of evolution. So that meant that they had no idea what was spying on them.
“Not good. Not good at all. And that means that we have to look in direction as well. And that thing, it might come back. Could it have been one of those things that attacked us yesterday, a child form?” Terra asked with worry.
“We can’t know. Not now. We’ll take a sample of the other one, and check if it's good to eat. It wanted to eat us, so we’ll eat it,” Jessie said with a grin.
Terra laughed and nodded along. “Yeah, nothing like freshly killed monster to make you grow big and strong!”
Jessie only laughed and shook his head as they walked back to the clearing. Terra kept her ears ready to hear anything, but whatever had been there was gone.
As she looked towards the clearing, she saw Duncan waving at them, floating above the crater. She grinned, at least Duncan came to them this time.
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????????????
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The Template grouping of 10049 at crash site 03 has divided. Grouping has left area of observation.
Confirmed, sending scouts to find missing specimens. Observation of specimens in main group?
Female Entity has awoken Aether and combat enhancement template. Result of battle with Bio Weapon Hidden Ambush Template; Tall Plant type. Bio Weapon had two units that attacked specimens, one escaped into test site.
Specimens at main sample has created technology-type barrier to repeal Bio Weapon Templates. Specimens has also begun excavations of crash site, ancient void specimen container revealed through excavations. Main specimen group has adopted technology to cut into hull plates with equipment specimens brought when introduced to test site.
Specimens from Template 10049, Sub Template 0203 observing main grouping of Template 10049. No contact between groups as of this time.
Confirmed. Orders are to observe all Templates actions from outside of barrier. As of this time, no combat Constructs authorized to attack main sample.
Status of intruders into damaged sub section?
As of this time, all combat Constructs destroyed. Moving to isolate damaged section from main complex. Authorization to deactivate gateways to improve security of complex?
………… Authorization denied. Authorization authority beyond ability to grant. All gateways powered by damaged section. Possible solution, physical blocking.
……complying. No further report as of this time. Deactivating communications.