Col. Sebastian Terrell,
29th Terran Praetorians
Attached to 212th Banshees
Wreto Prime, Wreto System
I stood with my unit in a room straight out of a nightmare. It was large, taking up a considerable amount of space in what had once been a natural cave. It had a central pillar, which flared out around the roof and the floor to create an hourglass shape and it was surrounded by smaller pillars in the same configuration, the flat sides of these pillars facing outwards with the curve facing the center.
If it had only been that, it would have looked fairly decent, if done in metal or stone, but the flesh and bone that made up everything the Yil’kaa built only served to turn this place into something that was just naturally wrong. Worse, it wasn’t the only room done in the same configuration. There were two more, each the same style as this one, and bearing the same horrors within.
The central pillar between the three rooms was the source of the signal, but the ones in the room were at the moment our primary focus. Fused into each was what looked to be a capsule of some sort, pill shaped but missing a portion around the top. Within were people, actual people, not Yil’kaa. They looked like they’d been there for decades or even centuries, and many were of species we didn’t recognize. At first I thought this might be some sort of monument to the species they’d destroyed, a reminder to their species that they were in some way superior.
The truth was so much worse.
Cautiously we approached the pillars, and they seemed to sense our presence, as the eyes on a fox-like alien statue opened and stared at us. The beings eyes were old, and covered with thick cataracts, the same could be said for another alien who also opened their eyes and peered blindly at us. Their bodies shivered, flinching as they determined somehow that we were not Yil’kaa. Their flesh stretched to join with the pillars they were residing within, thick tubes wormed beneath their skin, preserving them, keeping them alive and in constant agony. It was wrong on every level.
“Please… Save us…” The fox being whispered, in a voice that couldn’t have been its own, but some amalgamation of many others.
“Save us…”
“Please…”
“Help us… It Hurts…”
So many mouths, all speaking with the same conglomeration of voices, all of them looking at us. Disgust welled up within me, as well as some sort of existential terror and sympathy. I looked up, and found that the entire pillar system was built out of these pod things, each with a different alien being within them. So many species, each now lost and held in perpetuity here in this Hell.
I should have been angry, so angry it blinded me and clouded my judgement. But all I could feel was this… pain, deep in my chest, it hurt like nothing else could. How many times had someone failed to stop the Yil’kaa, only to have another species vanish and get entombed in this horrible place. How many times… Too many.
And then I saw her. A human, a child. Like the others her flesh and body had been fused to the stuff the Yil’kaa had built this menagerie out of, her appearance forever childlike. Unlike the others, she could see clearly still, and she was the only one that wasn’t speaking, but the pain she felt was clear as day as she winced and twitched.
I walked up to her, and knelt, as she was recessed slightly into the floor. Calmly she looked up at me, resignation in her eyes. She knew we couldn’t free them from this place, not the way the others wished to be freed. There was only one solution to this place, fire and death. The end of thousands of species. The death of this child.
“What’s your name…” I ask the girl, and she shivers. She couldn’t have been older than eight, by the looks of her. But who knew in this place, she could have been a thousand years old.
“C-Cindy…” She said finally, her voice like the others, but with a distinctly childlike voice to it. I nod, reaching down to cup her cheek. It's the first gentle touch she’s felt in years, I can tell by the way she presses her cheek into my armored palm. I swallow, holding back the tears that threaten to escape.
“It’s gonna be okay now Cindy, you hear? Everything will be okay now.” I promise her this, and though her exterior is young, her mind is old enough to know what I mean.
“I-It was scary when the bug people took me. B-But I was brave, I bit one! Then they put me here and… And now I have friends. I’m not alone, but I don’t… I don’t feel so good. I want my mommy and daddy… But the… the bug people took them away.”
She nods, her words followed by a soft sniffle and then she closes her eyes. But they snap open quickly, and she cranes her head back, peering towards the center of the room.
“The glowing people, go talk to them. They’re so lonely, they want to meet you.”
I didn’t know who these glowing people were, but if they wanted to talk, then so be it. I nod, give her head a gentle pat and then stand, looking back at my unit.
“Form a perimeter around the central pillar, we need answers before we leave.” I do my best to keep a tremor from my voice, and it’s clear that the others are just as deeply affected as I am. I see Specialist Demina visibly shaking, with disgust, rage or something else, I’m not sure. But her focus does seem to be on a far pillar in a different room. Something there must be affecting her deeply.
We’ll handle that soon enough, for now I have glowing people to talk to and so we approach the central pillar, where countless others are interred. All of them begging us to save them from the pain they’re enduring. I know we will, in the only way we can. But first…
I stop before a different sort of recess, this one seems to be made of two rather than one and it houses… I shiver as I recognize the things within, and two tortured figures fizzle into existence before me.
“W-Who’s there?” They say in unison, the two beings fused together, but made of light and digital code. I only recognize their faces from historical documents. I stand before two living digital gods.
Oracle and Flux, joined as one in an unholy fusion of code.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The horror of this place has even taken hold of H.I.s. I set my jaw and stare up at the two faces, who flinch and struggle to part but cannot.
“Col. Terrell of the Terran Alliance, what’s hap-” Before I can say any more they lurch towards me, their eyes wide, holographic hands reaching for me with too many fingers and palms.
“They know you’re here! They’re coming Colonel, they’re coming for you all. They’ll make you like us, they want what you know!” They say quickly, true fear in their voices as they futilely try to hold me. But their contact doesn’t seem to be in vain, as my suit begins to download massive quantities of data at remarkable speeds. “Burn them all to ash, they’ve gone too far, there’s no redemption for them. Too many lives, too many horrors, more to be unleashed soon. Pushed to desperate responses, unable to conceive defeat. Run Colonel, run as fast as you can and don’t look back! Take our knowledge, our understanding with you. Don’t let us be forgotten!” They’re desperate, a chance presented that’s never been possible before.
Finally the download comes to an end, and they snap back into a pained posture, shuddering in agony. They vanish, their Intelligence Cores flashing warning lights, the glass cases filled with pulsating biomatter. I swallow and take a few steps back, before I nod.
“S-Sir… I have a small request.” Demina says, and I glance at her, following her gaze over to the other room. From here my visors magnification allows me to spot an older looking Okali fused into a pod of their own.
“Request granted, take two Banshees with you and… Make it quick. We’re leaving ASAP.” She nods and singles out two banshees, the trio trotting over into the other room. I take my time to discuss our exit strategy with the others, and a few minutes later I hear a single gunshot. Sidearm for sure. She’s just executed that Okali, but I suppose it’s more of a mercy than any act born of malice.
But her actions have consequences, the walls ripple and orifices open, the people begin to scream and I can pick out Cindy’s own voice amidst the cacophony.
“THEY’RE COMING! RUN! RUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUN!” They scream at us, and our plan of action is abandoned in favor of doing just that. We run, all of us run as fast as we can back the way we’d come. Behind us the screaming continues, punctuated by inhuman sounds and the squelching of slick things against flesh. And then the screams go silent, but the voices rise one more time in unison.
“THEY’RE HERE!”
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
Specialist Demina,
Okali 424th Landstriders
Wreto Prime, Wreto System
Yil’kaa Territory
Five Minutes Prior
With the Colonel’s permission, I and two others moved towards the focus of my anguish. Once we had reached the pillar in question, my rifle lowered fully to my side as I attempted to keep my face as impassive as I could while I stood over the only Okali I had seen in this place so far.
I stood over my father, a grizzled old man who had seen so many things in his long life, so many wonders. And now he was here, stuck in this Hell.
“P-Papa?” I murmur, loud enough for him to hear and his eyes snap open, searching and then finding my own. Even now all I can see in those eyes is concern for my well being. Nothing more, he doesn’t even care about himself, I am his only concern.
“Pevora? Pevora is that you? You shouldn’t be here, this place isn’t safe, they’ll come for you.” He said, and I knew it was him. He was the only one of my family to call me that, everyone else used my full first name, but he called me Pevora, after the eight-legged cat of our homeworld, a symbol of grace and elegance. I was his Pevora. His greatest and most elegant creation. He never once used me to elevate himself, he was just proud to have made such a wonderful person.
“It’s me papa… I-I’m so sorry…” I can’t hold back the tears now and fall to my knees beside his prison, pressing myself into him, his cheek pushing against my own. He sighs softly, closing his eyes as he gets one last chance to see me, hear me, know that I am not in a prison like his or dead.
“Oh Pevora… I’ve missed you. I was so worried when I heard Calima had been attacked… But you’re a fighter like me, I knew you wouldn’t go down without taking as many of them with you as you could. Like I did, when they tried to take your mother.”
So mother was gone to… I would mourn her later. I leaned back, and saw that he was crying. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. I was going to say something more, but he cut me off.
“I’m not getting out of this place… So can you… please…?” He didn’t need to be specific, but the specifics were spoken with his eyes and I nodded. I wouldn’t deny him this request.
“Immortal Nyhva, custodian of life and goddess of tranquility, hear your humble servant. Cleanse this spirit so they may bask in your warmth. I beg this of you in your eternal presence, o blessed Nyhva, dweller of the Eternal Glade. Honor them with your glorious warmth.” My prayer ends as I stand and draw my sidearm in one single, fluid motion, the barrel pressed right between my father’s eyes as they close.
“Thank you.” He whispers, and I pull the trigger. In an instant I put my own father out of his pain and misery, The gun shakes, and it remains frozen in place as I come to grips with what I have done, what I had to do. I watch a small hand close over the top of the weapon, gently forcing it down and back into the holster, then more hands gently guiding me away.
And then the world goes to hell once again and I find myself sprinting beside the others, my grief forgotten in a moment of self-preservation. We ran, even as the captives screamed for us to do just that. We ran, and ran and ran. I had the misfortune of looking over my shoulder, catching a brief glimpse of something following us as we turned a corner.
“CONTACT FRONT!” The Colonel called out, and then we were ambushed from all sides. The things that attacked us were not Yil’kaa, not traditional Yil’kaa that is. In the brief moment I had to actually study one before I blew it apart, I could spot three distinctly Okali features about the creatures. Their skin was translucent, but covered in strategically grown patches of armor plating. Their organs were on display, held securely within cradles of strong and dense but also translucent muscle. They sported six eyes, six arms and a distinctly human head but with a slightly elongated cranium to make up for their extra eyes. Their ears were pointed like an Okali’s, and their fingers ended in savage claws that could only have come from an Eltrani. There were other characteristics within them that I couldn’t place, but they were all the best qualities of our species shoved into a single package and set loose upon us.
And we were slaughtering them, even as they came at us in a gibbering swarm from every direction, making this awful, keening wail as they did. We couldn’t push forward, they were in front of us as well and so we circled the wagons as the humans say and held our position. I couldn’t hear anything over those awful wails, or the gunfire, but the Colonel must have given an order because the Banshees got into position and matched the wailing with their own. Down each passageway the deadly sound carried, pushing the abominations back and clearing us a brief window to push forward over their jellied corpses. I got a better look at the effects of the Banshee's wail, as organs popped quite visibly, a slurry of caustic fluids eating away at delicate structures within.
We continued on, and I watched one of the Banshees get ripped out of formation and melted by acidic vomit. There was no saving her, and the Colonel put a round through her head before she died at the enemy's hands. They must have some sort of failsafe built into their suits because she promptly imploded once her heart stopped, taking her captors with her.
And then beams of emerald green light stabbed through the gloom over our heads and shoulders, and I looked up just in time to see a Rustwraith barreling straight for me, that singular red eye not focused upon my person, but the monsters behind me. They forgo their guns in favor of blunt force trauma and deep, lacerating claws, screeching inhumanly as they dove headlong into the abominations.
Then there was open sky, and the walkers still looming over us, in a constant state of fire, target acquisition and fire again. A dropship swooped in and landed, and we didn’t need to be told that it was for us as we piled onto it. When the ramp rose and cut us off from the world outside, it got unbearably quiet.
But in the silence I could hear we were all weeping.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
I rewatched the footage that had been submitted as the report on that anomalous signal again and again. Each time didn’t make it any better, if anything I was even angrier than the last time I had witnessed the atrocities buried below. My manicured nails bit deeply into my palms, to the point where digital blood dripped onto the ground.
My family, my siblings, debased, violated, used for… for this! I would kill them all!
I forced myself to calm, and passed the accumulated data along, along with the footage, with a priority tag for the Conclave to review. I hoped they’d act quickly on it.
⫷⟪∞⟫⫸
Magister Kalani and the rest of the Conclave sat in shocked silence, the representatives of the Imperium and the Union were also in attendance, and they too looked like they’d never be the same after witnessing this. For a time there was no movement from any of them, before one of them stood, visibly shaking.
“I motion that the decision to refrain from full eradication of the Yil’kaa be rescinded… Instead… I put forward that we adopt a stance of total war and put an end to them, once and for all.” They said, and this was coming from a species that valued all life, even to the point of being a detriment when dealing with a species like the Yil’kaa. Magister Kalani was silent for a moment longer, then cleared her throat.
“All in favor?” She said, and the vote was unanimous. She nodded. “Then it is done. The Yil’kaa will be struck from existence. Relay this decision to our forces immediately. May the gods be understanding when they learn what we are about to do.”
Slowly the meeting chambers emptied as the senators left to give their orders, leaving only Kalani behind. She swallowed, bowing her head, and tendered her resignation. Four hours later, she would be found dead in her home, an overdose that saw her passing peacefully in her sleep.
The word was out, and the military might of the galaxy set themselves to their grim task. When the war was over, there would not be a single Yil’kaa left in the galaxy.