Aurelio pulled Kalani into the room. The neon blue hue of the transmission request consumed the darkness. White strands of light from the letters making the request strobing in and out of existence.
“W-what am I looking at?” Kalani asked as she gestured at the console screen.
“Something… unprecedented.” Aurelio replied.
She frowned, “Are you sure you just haven’t forgotten an event or-”
Aurelio was quick to shake his head, “No. No. Not even remotely.”
But that was only a half-truth.
Once contained memories in his mind were slipping away from him, the container slowly becoming porous by which his past could disappear. He hadn’t spent a long time on the planet. His memory was certainly shoddy but it shouldn’t feel like every time he attempted to recollect information from his past that granules of knowledge disappeared in the sieve of his mind.
Kalani looked at his wide-eyed panic and refused to push the situation further.
“Alright. Unprecedented turn of events. Fine. What does this mean for us?” Kalani asked.
“I’m not sure. Depends on the caller. I have a vague recollection about a mercenary that scours the planet for marks to make scrap off of but the description of their arrival was something else. Not a patch in but a bombastic entry to the outpost.”
“So we won’t know anything until we pick up the call.” Kalani frowned.
It was a tough position to be in but they didn’t have a choice. The alternative was leaving the caller out to dry and missing out on information that could protect them in the future.
She snapped her fingers in his face, “Hey Lio, I need you to focus up here! We’re gonna respond and I need you to have your game face on.”
Aurelio took a deep breath and drew in the peaceful stillness he’d adopt when reading a particularly good moment in a book. Anxieties were subdued but not erased, their needling presence incapable of being quelled by something as simple as a sound mind.
Of which his mind certainly wasn’t.
Kalani reached towards the console and accepted the transmission. The main monitor recalled the neon blue tone and replaced it with a visual feed the color of rust and sand.
Standing in the center of the feed was what Aurelio could only describe as a ghoul. The creature retained features of humanity but their brown skin was desiccated and taut on pristine white bones. Their cheeks were long gone, letting the upper death display the unpleasant array of upper teeth on the creature's body. Their lower jaw was marked by a bolted iron prosthetic.
Most striking of all was the creatures gaze. Two thick, ball-shaped cameras rested within the creatures sunken eye sockets, their pupils flashing red for some reason.
“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.” Their voice was deep and sonorous, maintaining a pressure that Aurelio failed to pinpoint. Gravitas in how words were delivered and their imposing posture.
“And you.” Kalani slowly responded.
Aurelio elected to remain quiet.
“I find it quite fortuitous that you have responded to my transmission request. The planet is large and full of horrors. Lights like yours are welcome reminders that we all yet struggle and live.” The man stated. Neither of them were sure how to reply to the comment but their mysterious conversational partner was quick to move things along.
“For introductions, I am but a humble king to my subjects. King Jad Salazar of the Rusted Plains. Who am I speaking to?”
“You are speaking to Commander Kalani Ekoni of the currently marooned U.S.S. Skipper. Standing next to me is our resident Archivist and receiver of your peculiar signal, Leonidas.” Kalani responded.
Aurelio found it curious that she would obscure his own name and not her own but he nodded just the same at his identifier.
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The creature leaned in close to the video feed and scrutinized us peons on the other side before nodding in approval.
“Ah… an Archivist. How wonderfully quaint my time was sifting through those hallowed halls.” Salazar sighed with a gentle longing. An uncanny display, a skull with emotions.
“You’ve been here before?” Kalani asked.
“Yes. During a simpler time. A time when I was just freshly drawn into this land of slumbering gods and war machines.”
He wanted to know what generation Salazar originated from and Kalani’s reaction to his claim suggested she was equally invested in that information.
They were both unwilling to pounce on it though.
“I apologize for the straightforward nature of my inquiry but why are you contacting us?” Kalani drilled into the source of their insecurities over this meeting of the minds.
Salazar could not smile, but the tight strip of flesh above his brows rose with a feverish excitement.
“You need not apologize. I am a guest in your home and you’ve set the rules for decorum here. I requested an audience with you to ask if there is anyone in your group that should not… belong.”
Aurelio’s blood ran cold.
Kalani, to her credit, made no indication that he could glean information from, “What do you mean by this exactly?”
“It might not be a stretch to suggest that there is someone amongst you that is particularly loved by that… loathsome stone.” The derision dripped out of his tongue like a venom.
Kalani paused, “I can think of someone off the top of my head that meets that description, right Leo?”
Aurelio nodded, “Yeah. I have someone in mind.”
“But that doesn’t exactly explain your intentions, Salazar. They might be receiving preferential treatment but they’re a part of our crew just the same.”
Salazar shook his head and clicked his tongue, “Oh the joys of camaraderie. What a beautiful and terrible sight to behold from fresh faced mewlings.”
The candor that Salazar carried himself with shifted to one of an imposing and zealous figure.
“You would be a fool to remain in the embrace of that insidious dream. You do not see the strings that have a hold over us. The board has made us players in a game long lost to time and purpose.”
“You’re not making any sense.” Aurelio was quick to respond.
“The connections are there if you are willing to open your eyes, Archivist. Surely a man devoted to inquiry would see the ebb and flow of these societies, of the cullings, of this condemnable dance as all one and the same? The universal pattern. The everwinding path.”
The two stared at each other over the man’s growing incoherence.
“What do you want to do to our crewmate?”
The rambling of the man ceased as his eyes bored through the screen and through their resolve. It felt like coming under the presence of a god, the immeasurable weight of their presence bearing down on their infinitesimal form.
“I want to speak with your chosen and request they renounce the slumbering ember and give themselves to our cause in the Heretics. That they strip themselves of their flesh, of the stone that has calcified on their skin and become one with the ash that fills this planet. That they join hands with the rest of us and commit to the single-minded endeavor of training for the coming end times. When the barrier between the gods above and below draws thin and they walk the earth amongst mortals, we will be there to greet them for their… benevolence.”
“And what if they’re unwilling?” Aurelio whispered.
“Then they will be put to use like my former chosen. With or without a struggle, they will fight for the cause, just the same.” Salazar held firm to this objective.
Being “put to use” did not appeal to Aurelio in the slightest.
“You can send a contingent of your men our way to the Rusted Plains to organize a plan for the upheaval of this chosen. Any resistance on the rest of your crew members would be indicative of insubordination and be met with a decisive termination of their being.”
Kalani looked affronted by the declaration but Salazar afforded them no space to provide a counterpoint.
“And be sure to invest in [Decryption] when you have the resources. Lights in the dark are want to attract all manners of beasts, and there are few on this planet that are currently shining as brilliantly as yours.” Without warning, Salazar cut off the transmission.
The screen warped, providing them with coordinates in the Rusted Plains as to the groups whereabouts.
Kalani and Aurelio digested all the information that they could from this interaction.
He’d hoped to gain information from their encounter but Aurelio was left with more questions than before.
Chief among them was the discussion of lights and the suggestion that their outpost was not the only one housing scavengers.
An unfortunate development, to be sure, considering the nature of his usefulness revolved around handling future variables and providing predictive countermeasures.
Not a good sign to have the information he held dear lose value with each shifting variable.
They had no frame of reference as to the strength that Jad Salazar possessed but if he was confident with his declaration of war against their pocket of society, then their next course of action would need to be to assess by what metric was this confidence based on.