Castaway Planet

Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 154 of 365. Sol standard year]

Days after of Crash landing/ 2

Uninhabited Island / Underground tunnel/ Circle Cavern

Galactic Standard Time / 1545

Roy looked around the cave as he rocked the baby. He had brought up what they were going to eat and how they thought to even feed the baby. Racha hadn’t had a good answer before she blushed and said that Paige and Sara would look the baby over later, they’d know. He had mentioned that he had seen the baby feed semi-solid food back on the ship, so there was that.

Roy wasn’t blind thought, he had seen the way Al and Racha looked at him. He knew he was a coward, the fact that he had spoken up about this child was something he was surprised the most at. He had seen a lot of things, and then there was the reason why he had joined the Spirit of Adventure, he was different.

But when the capsule had landed and some of the others had been attacked as soon as they got outside. The screams and pain, that was when everything crashed in the capsule. The officer in charge had looked at the door and screamed for it to close, and that was that. No matter what pounded on the door that night and the next, they stayed closed. All that time the passengers had been going mad. He and a few others had tried to keep them calm, but the officer and the others seemed to be feeding their madness.

It was after a day that the officer had emerged from the room he took over, a mad glint in his eyes. He had spoken to everyone then, how this was a trial of the creator. How the weak and the lame would be killed, purifying the ‘herd’, letting a race pure of mind and soul emerge. He spoke of how the only way was to sacrifice those weakest, the baby the first one.

The old him would have just been happy the scapegoat wasn’t him, but this baby had called to him. He wouldn’t let the child die, some important part of him would have been lost if he did. But when he spoke up, saying how it might invite them to attack the capsule, he had been grabbed by those mad fools. He and the baby had both been dragged outside, the officer had been talking about killing them first. But before that could happen, the other deckhands who were still sane attacked. The a roar shook the clearing followed by those lizards things attacking. In the chaos, it was all he could do to grab the baby and run.

He hadn’t been able to stop running, those things hunting him had kept him away from the others, and here he was. When Jinn had turned up he had run past him, not stopping until he found the others. Now they were supposedly ‘safe’, but he still felt that terror. All he knew was that everything seemed to be safe, but something was still making him feel that terror.

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Racha sighed as she leaned against the wall, relief flooding her body. After everything that had happened, the fact that they were safe for now was a star blessing. All they needed to do was find out where they were in relation to the yard-ship, and they were golden! Now if they could find another capsule and leave their problem there, that would be perfect.

“Don’t worry little one, we’re safe here,” Roy said from farther back in the cave.

Racha looked up and saw him, and she kept down a sigh.

As Roy rocked back himself and the baby, Racha frowned. All she could think of was Roy was the opposite of his psych profile, and that worried her. The file on him spoke of a sure person, someone who had a mental strength to him. But the person she was looking at seemed to be on a hair trigger. The odds that the psych was so completely wrong were possible, but she doubted it. Racha had thought that this was another item on the list of the many things that this planet was crazy.

What had happened to him, had to have been more than just the being hunted. The problem that he had, she couldn’t say at all. But he needed to get over it or deal with it. And no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t figure out how to help him. It wasn’t like they had someone who could….. Racha went still before she closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. How could she have forgotten that?! The sheer stupidity of her thoughts stunned her for a moment. After everything they found on this island a creature that could make people terrified was possible.

And that meant whatever had done that to Roy was the boss of those lizard apes. It was probably a stronger member of the same species, and used its ability to rule the others. And that meant whatever it was might track them down into the tunnels!

“Stars and the void! Al! We’ve got work to do!” Racha barked as she ran toward the cliff, Al following behind her.

“What is it!?” Al demanded as he reached her

Racha looked beyond him and saw Roy looking out from the cave. It took all she had not to say anything, but this was a problem, a big one. She had a terrible idea, one that she didn’t want to say in case it set Roy off, so what to do? After a moment’s thought, she looked at Al and spoke carefully.

“That conversation we had before we found Roy, the subject? It made me remember something, and that something tells me we need to cover that tunnel!” Racha said as she started to climb up the rope to the ledge.

As soon as she reached the top she saw the tunnel’s mouth was the same as they left it. With a hard look, she dashed to it, pulling out her pistol as she ran. As soon as she entered the tunnel she turned and looked back. She saw Al climb up and sighed, not liking the trouble before her. How to tell Al anything without Roy hearing anyting. She felt something fall on her and she looked up, seeing the dust drift down. She just shook her head in wonder, sometimes the simplest choices were the best ones.

Squatting down, she started to write.

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Al looked ahead and saw Racha in the dirt, messing around with it. He frowned, not understanding just what she was doing. When she had said there was a problem, he honestly expected more than this. Had she caught whatever was affecting Roy? He was about to turn and walk away when he realized she was making characters in the dust!

He moved faster, reaching her in moments. Looking down, he read the words she had made and felt his blood freeze.

‘Could Roy have been affected by a creature that used a Terrorize Ability?’

Al blinked and reread the text, his mind going dark places. The very idea was more than possible, but what could they do? If this was true, then Roy might be a danger to the group, and the baby! The Ability might set off a ‘kill anything near’ mode if Roy found out about it. He was sad to say that he had seen a few robotic units with that kind of coding. And he was ashamed to admit a few viruses his former classmates had made. So how could they do this safely, keep everyone alive that they could?

“So, you see the problem here!” Racha said loudly and Al looked up, his mind going strange places before he nodded.

If Roy was a possible living bomb, they couldn’t set him off. They needed to keep talking, keep his mind from activating the possible bomb.

“Yeah, just give me a few minutes to think about this,” Al said with a shrug as he squatted down next to her and started to write in the dust.

‘Yeah, I see. But there’s a chance that Roy could go mad if he learns about what happened to him’

“Take all the time you need, we just need to do this as soon as it’s safe to do the work,” Racha said as she looked over Al’s shoulder before nodding and looking back, writing in the dust. Al watched and winced as he saw what she had ‘said’.

‘Good. Second problem. How did Roy get hit with the power in the first place, and could the source come down and find us?’

Al looked from the ‘writing’ to Racha, his mind going over the problem. He could see what she meant, and he agreed with her line of thought. If that creature was small enough to go through the tunnels, the chance that it might find them was high. If it was a tracker like the lizard apes, then it would be easy for it to find this place. So that was the second problem, how to block the tunnel.

“Yes, well I just need a few minutes to figure out the best way to do this. But I just need to take stock of this first,” Al said as he looked around and activated the same nanites that he had opened the tunnel.

‘Simple solution. I’ll just do what I said I would. It’ll be simple to block this place off from the rest of the tunnel system. And with a few lookouts back here, we’ll be safe. And we don’t need to keep anything open if I set them up right.’

Racha looked at the ‘reply’ from Al and nodded.

“Good, so you don’t need me? I can go and keep an eye on the important things like the baby?” Racha asked and Al nodded.

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Jinn whistled as he walked back to the others. His backpack had enough of the fruit pods for everyone to have with their next two meals. For a second he wondered how they would feed the baby but then he shrugged. Hopefully, Sara or Paige could handle that, they might know if the baby could eat solids yet. They had to know something, at least he hoped so. Once he had heard a few other deckhands in Health training talk about the ‘Baby Portion’ at dinner once. So if it was the stages of a baby’s life and what it could eat, they were fine. But he had to admit that was something, and he might be wrong. Again, his reasoning was logical to him, but it might not be logical to the others.

As Jinn moved on, he frowned a little as she stopped whistling. Ever since he left his homeland, not even his world he had shocked more often than not. All the values that he thought for years to be proper, were, in reality, nothing but outdated practices. He didn’t understand what those people wanted, or if his first thought had been true. Still, after everything he had gone through, he hoped that he was right about healers.

A buzzing overhead caused him to look up, and frown. Flying around a tree was a flying worm, but this one was pure white. It seemed to be eating some of the leaves and was ignoring him. Activating a strain of nanites in his right eye, the worm suddenly becoming much clearer. From what he could tell this worm didn’t have a stinger, the tail ended in a small ball-like growth.

Jinn kept looking at it as he moved slowly away, keeping it in his sight. After a few seconds, the worm seemed to notice him and flew away. Deactivating his nanites, Jinn looked around and drew his blade. As it changed from a knife to a sword, Jinn kept his eyes roaming around the clearing. The last thing he wanted was for other worms to attack him, but as he tried to find them, he found nothing.

He kept his eyes roaming around, but after a few more minutes he slowly calmed down. Walking away from the clearing, he kept his guard up but nothing happened. Finally, he had no choice but to admit that the worm he saw wasn’t aggressive.

All Jinn could do was shake his head, surprised that such a creature had ‘evolved’ here. Everything on this planet seemed to eat everything else, at least most of them. So to find a herbivore was surprising, what did it do to not be food he wondered.

Suddenly he stopped and looked around, his eyes going hard as his gaze swept the area. For a moment he had sensed something looking at him, something hungry. He only calmed down a few moments later after finding nothing. He didn’t even wait a second, all he did was turn and run.

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Sara looked at the rustling and kept her weapon aimed at the bush. So far the rustling had continued for the last minute, but nothing beyond that. A stray thought came to her, the plants that the team saw earlier today. When they had left the clearing, the vines had chased them into the vine-beast’s trap. If the vine-beast wasn’t behind them, then that meant the vines did that on their own. Then the plants had to be predatory, and that meant there might be more plants that ate meat or drank blood. And that meant that the bush might be one of those.

It made sense, the bush could use the rustling as a lure to bring in prey to however it killed. She was about to voice that thought when the rustling stopped. Turning to look at Paige, Sara saw that Paige was also on edge, she might be thinking the same thoughts. For a moment she wondered if they should investigate the bush, but she saw the downsides.

If she was right, then whatever trap the bush was hiding might be ready for them. And that meant that they should leave it alone. But there was the other fact that this might not be the result of the bush. Something else, something that could think and plan might be behind the noises. And if that was true, then it stood to reason that it might want them to come closer.

As she was struggling with the problem, Paige took a step forward. Sara watched as Paige grabbed a small stick and without a word, threw it into the bush. A few moments after nothing happened, Paige sighed and turned to look at Sara with a smile. “Guess that was nothing after all.”

Sara looked at Paige and sighed, shaking her head as she looked at her friend. “You are so reckless. Or maybe I think it’s reckless because I grew up on a space station?”

“Maybe. Have you ever seen the documentaries about how colonies evolved based on where they are? I only saw up to the Ice Worlds, I think he did a space station once,” Paige said and Sara only looked at her and laughed a little.

As the two of them moved back to protect the entrance, Sara kept chuckling. The very idea that she wasn’t different because of where she grew up wasn’t even a question. The studies she had read before she signed onto the Spirit of Adventure said that was true. And that thought made her think about Jinn, just who he was.

She didn’t know what about him bothered her more, his strength or how he was an old hand at this. Jinn was unlike anyone she had ever seen before. And there was just something about him that made people trust him, and follow him into battle. She didn’t know if that was because of how he was raised, where he grew up, or just his character, but it wasn’t normal. And with how Racha said he had uninvited yet Special Forces nanites? He had too many secrets, secrets that she hoped wouldn’t get them all killed. Her mind went over where he might be from, and who he might have been, and only came up with movie plots.

The sounds of something coming from their right caused Sara to jolt, but then she saw Paige smile. “What is it?”

“I can feel Jinn coming over. THAT YOU JINN?” Paige called out and a moment later Jinn appeared.

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Paige smiled as soon as she felt Jinn coming towards them. With him alive, that meant that the creature was either dead or gone. Either way, this was good, it meant they were all together in case they had to run. She hoped that wouldn’t happen, but she wouldn’t be surprised if it did. So far the team had faced plants, a plant-animal hybrid and found a piece of history. This whole island seemed to exist only to confuse them, and she didn’t think it would stop soon.

But on that thought, part of her was so shocked that this place wasn’t killing itself every other day. Jinn had saved them back there, and having him with them raised their chances of survival a lot. And given what he had run after, she was just glad he was alive and back with them.

“YEAH! I’ll be there in a second!” Jinn called out and a split second later Jinn landed in front of them. He looked over his shoulder and Paige felt a spark of worry from him, at least she thought it was worry.

“How was the hunt?” Sara asked and Jinn looked at her before sighing as he shook his head.

“It was a failure, that thing got away!” Jinn admitted and Paige felt a spark of confusion from him.

“How? I thought you said once you could track anything!?” Sara exclaimed and Jinn shrugged.

“I think it used a power like mine. Or it can teleport. It was like it was never there,” Jinn said as he looked at the two women. He shrugged and grinned. “Good thing is that I found a few of those pods. Think he little one will be able to eat them?”

Paige smiled as her mouth watered. The few pieces of fruit she had were delicious! The chance to have a whole one was great. And after everything that happened to them, she needed something good to eat.

Paige felt Jinn’s pride and for a moment wondered if it was he had been able to feed them all. Jinn was strange, he seemed to be from no world or culture that she had ever heard of. The way he acted, the values he held, she just couldn’t understand them at all.

“Oh, one more thing. I found the way to the Yard-Ship,” Jinn said with a grin.

“You can tell everyone once we make it back to the cavern. Best we’re secured before nightfall,” Sara said as she looked at the bush.