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 / 1430

Racha blinked as her ears rang, trying to see through the dust. For a moment she didn’t remember what had happened, but then it all came flooding back. At Jinn’s yell, she had gone still, shocked she was right in her wild guess. Al had barely her back into the tunnel before the electric bolt hit the tunnel mouth. As the dust cleared Racha paled at what she saw. Where the tunnel’s opening had been there were only large rocks blocking the way.

For a second Racha could only stare, but then she realized the rubble was the result of the force behind the bolt. She tried to figure out how something organic could have that kind of weaponry built into it, but she came up blank. During her career with the service, she had seen weird things, but this was beyond anything. All she could do was clench and unclench her hands in awe and horror at the possibilities before her.

If Jinn was right, then his powers had been caused by nanites that had invaded their bodies. If that was true, then everyone had them. If this thing’s powers were the same as Jinn and Sara’s from the same source, then that was very bad. It meant that anyone could develop the same power as the creature in the chamber ahead.

The very thought of Jones gaining abilities would be beyond bad with his psych profile. And that wasn’t even counting all the other problem cases among the passengers and crew.

Racha turned and saw Al had just looked at the ruble, but the way his eyes were wide told her everything. He was using some kind of nanotech in his eyes to try and find something. She had seen the specs on a few proposed models, but with Al’s past, he had to have beyond cutting edge.

“You’ve got this, right Al? You can find the best way through this mess?” Racha asked softly and Al looked at her.

“Yeah, just give me a few minutes. I think I’ll be able to figure out what we can move. Just give me some time to run the numbers,” Al said before he looked back at the rocks.

“Just hurry. Jinn needs help,” Racha said as nodded and turned around, trusting that Al had this handled. The view of their rear caused Racha to release a sigh, it was still there. The boom had to have echoed down the tunnel, and for a moment she wondered what that would do. If those lizard things could find their way down here chasing prey, then others could. And what would something tracking that sound do to them, run away or fight?

All she could do was shake her head and look to the now, not the after. But the thought of other things coming after them caused her to grit her teeth. That thing within was in the perfect place to ambush the party as they came out, it was only luck Jinn had gone ahead. This had to be the place that the bird was leading them to, maybe it flew out of reach of the creature within.

Or it was leading them to be food, and she had a hard time understanding how it knew to do that. So far, things on this planet seemed to fight and kill anything that wasn’t one of their kind. Unless that thing within was a giant bird, she couldn’t see how the bird Sara and Paige healed would have led them to slaughter. Would it even have been able to do that?

Racha stopped as she thought about Paige’s abilities, and how she could feel emotions. But did she feel the whole of what a being was feeling or just the kind of emotions? That made a big difference. If the bird thing was happy it had found easy prey everything would line up to the theory; ‘Bird wanted to kill us’. But that was dependent on Paige not being able to sense complex emotions beyond the front ones.

“Why is this my life!?” Racha muttered as she shook her head and sighed. Before the crash landing, she had never even thought that she would be in a position like this. She was thinking about talking to someone about their extra sensory abilities to read the emotions of a semi-sentient bird. And to think, that before all this she used to laugh at the Special Division’s cases about people with powers. And that thought made her wince, wondering just what was true that those people ran into. And she had to admit, that this whole planet was up their star-lane.

Still, something about this place was bothering, something she couldn’t touch. The tunnels were like that time on that moon, that smuggler's base in those lava tubes. But this tunnel was beyond it, there were those strange tunnels up. No matter what she tried, she couldn’t think of anything that might explain this place.

Her mind went back to the few ‘Ruin Explorations’ she stopped or risked to save lives. This place did tick off most of the signs, but how had it gone unnoticed for so long? Any halfway decent University would have found this planet before too long! No, there was a deep mystery here, something that she couldn’t see, something beyond what she knew. Her gut was telling her that this was going to be a lot worse before they even started to go well.

And now she had to watch out for anything that might eat them too! And some of these things might be sentient, capable of planning. But then they saw nothing wrong with eating anything they could kill. Because for them anything that could kill them would eat them in turn. All in all, this planet was great, she wanted to retire here for a hundred years!

A small commotion Racha looked up, her pistol in her hands within a second. Her thoughts went down dark places, the sound could have been whatever made these tunnels. If something big enough came at them, the only way it would die was if its brain was at its front. However, what instead came around into sight was Sara and Paige with Roy behind them.

Racha felt the tension leave her when she saw that they weren’t running from anything. This might not be as bad as she feared.

“What took you so long?” Racha said trying to pay off the tension, anything to keep them calm.

“We went back after the boom, wanted to protect the little one. Where’s Jinn and…… where did those rocks come from?” Paige asked point blank as they saw the rocks blocking the tunnel.

Al stopped examining them and looked back at the group, his eyes locked onto Racha.

Racha sighed and looked around. After a few minutes, she sighed and looked at them. “Jinn’s beyond the rocks, in the same chamber as something that can fire lightning. Lightning powerful enough to make that blockade.”

Roy said nothing, only paled in fear. Sara and Racha looked ahead, and Paige eye’s widened, a reaction that Racha saw.

Racha’s eyes went to Roy and she barely kept from speaking. “Sara, go with Roy and move back deeper into the tunnel. You hear combat you wait, I yell run you try and take Roy back to the clearing, tell the Chief what we found.”

Sara looked between Roy and Paige before she nodded, grabbing Roy’s arm. “Got it, boss! Come on Roy, we’ve got cargo to protect!”

As soon as Roy and Sara were far enough away to not hear anything under a yell, Racha turned to Paige. Leaning close, she whispered a question. “What can you sense?”

“Roy and something else. It can think, I’d state my life on it. But we still have to kill it, don’t we?” Paige asked and Racha nodded as Al finally started to try and get through the rocks.

“Yeah, we will. I already realized that. Anything that lives in this place, this planet. Anything that was borne here, those creatures? Every day is eat or be eaten here. So far we haven’t seen anything beyond the same species, but I don’t know. I think they see us as food, so there’s no chance for peace,” Racha said softly and Paige just looked at her.

After a few moments, Paige nodded and Racha could see a hard edge in her eyes, and that made her both happy and sad. Happy that Paige wouldn’t backstab them, but sad that Paige would have to ‘hear’ the creatures die.

“Sorry, but there’s not any other choice here. I…. could you handle hearing their deaths?” Racha asked and Paige blinked before looking at Racha with a smile.

“All I can hear is the absence of thought for an instant. I can’t hear death, not really. But thank you for worrying about it Racha. That was more than I expected from a Service Operative,” Paige said and Racha scowled as she sighed.

“I…. stars I hate that thing! It’s all a pop-culture thing really, we didn’t even create that conspiracy!” Racha admitted and Paige looked at her in shock.

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

As the creature looked around for what had destroyed its seeing sphere, it found nothing. It walked up the ramp, munching on the remains of its kill. So far it hadn’t been able to see anything new, but where destroyed it’s seeing sphere? That spoke of great power, and a tricky mind. Most with such power usually were very straightforward without being very smart, this might be bad.

It had to wonder if what it was chasing had been the big small one. It was rare but it had seen some of those small ones have powers. It remembered one of who had been able to shoot flames with a cry. And another who could create a shield to block its strikes. They had escaped, but this one wouldn’t.

For a second time the creature looked around, a sense of wonder in its glaze. It had tried to form another seeing sphere, but it was too soon. This had never happened to it before, ever. Its sphere went up and from its roar, the creature knew where every creature around it was. It only needed to use one per battle, and from its sight, it defeated all those who attacked it. The greatest problem it had was the sphere staying active after the battle was over. It never would have thought that the seeing sphere could be destroyed!

Still, this was something it had to learn from and plan for this to happen again. It also had to wonder about the way that big little one had tried to sting it. The strange darts it fired had bounced off of its spikes, and that was interesting. The sparking was only good for making its shots easier to build up and aim. It had discovered that after it took the electric power from that sea dweller's body. It had found it in one of the traps the normal small ones had along the shore, usually good feeding there.

Now that it thought about it, that was one of the last times the creature had raided there. Soon after it had to leave its home, when the invasion had begun. After the invaders had started to attack deeper into the land, it and many others had lost their homes. It had been smaller then, and only able to find the strength to grow after leaving.

The time after that, it didn’t like to think about it at all. It had traveled over half the land, and been chased out of every den it ever made. It had only started to understand what it took from the slimy thing only three days into its track. Still, it wasn’t that good with it yet, but over time it had learned to throw its might. But in those days all it could do was run, and with its speed, it had escaped from the Rulers it stumbled across. Some had chased after it, but it escaped every time. But finally, after so long it had made it here.

Since its den was far enough from the Shinning Mountain that it had a good life here. It had fought off forces from both sides and independent rulers and gained a bit of strength. Still, it had been bottlenecked with no way to grow stronger for a while now. Without a new supply of meat to eat it couldn’t create minions, not without weakening itself. Still, with the amount it had just eaten, it finally had enough to create one! It was starting to think of what to create when it stopped, seeing a void before it.

The creature stared at a large hole a good five feet wide in the rock of the ledge. It blinked and looked at the burns on the ground before it. It finally realized that this must have been from its strikes against the big small one. It looked at the hole and then down at the lower level, seeing a few rocks here and there.

Without a thought it turned and walked towards the nearest rock, hoping to make a bridge. It wasn’t the worst or best plan, but it was all it could do. It stopped and looked towards the other side of the cavern, to the higher ledge. For a moment it thought it saw something, but there was nothing there now. It stayed there for a few minutes, trying to see if anything was there.

After a few moments, it turned and walked towards the bottom floor, its mind off the upper level. If it had watched for another minute it would have seen something after all.

<>------------------------------------------------<>------------------------------------------------<>

Above the insect bear, Jinn lay prone on the floor. He had thankfully found a large rock he had been able to hide his body with. As he listened to the creature move below, he scowled. Its actions were totally unlike anything he had expected. From what he had seen, he expected it to climb the walls to get up here. But this told him that it couldn’t climb the walls, and that was something he could use. The only problem was the fact that its back spikes could deflect the range weapon they all had.

But instead, it was trying to build a bridge, even more concerning. Those actions told Jinn that this thing could reason, it could plan. All signs of sentience and sapience, and in a creature that wanted to kill them to eat them, so not good. All in all, he should have known his luck wasn’t that good. After the vine beast and the spiders, he had to expect this. He was starting to think that maybe size or the ‘power’ was a sign that something could think. But again, if that was the case then there were things out there with powers they didn’t understand.

Plus based on what he knew, each one of them had the potential to grow worse. He could see one of those things getting into a situation where it had to make a new way to use its power to survive. He didn’t know how they reasoned or thought, he had to hope they were only as smart as the smartest sub-sentient. Otherwise, each one they encountered had the potential to become a world-ender. All he could think of was that this was very bad.

If that thing could see them, it could send a bolt like before and destroy them, even if it missed them by a foot! The only way he could see was for the others to draw its attention. Once that happened, then he could use his aura to speed by and slash through the spikes. Hopefully, his speed would get him out of the way before anything happened, if anything did happen. The way he saw it, there were two choices before him. One, this thing lost its ability to fire at them or two, it exploded and took a lot of this place with it. A devil’s bargain to be sure, but one they might have to take as he saw no way around it.

He looked at the timer in the corner of his left vision. So far he only had a few more minutes to go, then he could go on the offensive. Those abilities, skills, or whatever they were, the Aether Bolt seemed the best bet. With how whatever he did drained him so much, the first one might let him recover. But that was only if it drained less than the aura did. If only there was a way to see how much energy he had to use!

No sooner did that thought pass his mind than, in the corner of his right vision numbers appeared. He stared in shock, but he understood just what it was.

Aether

Max/ 2000

Current/ 200

The information had come with but a thought, another indicator that he was right. Whoever created this wanted people to develop powers, and this was a way to let them know how much they had to work with. He could see a few reasons why this was a feature, and none of them were good.

If his first thought was right, then these abilities were meant for the armed forces. The worst thing in the field was a soldier who didn’t know how much ammo they had left.

The sounds of belching from bellow caused him to look around the rock. He saw the insect bear had its mouth open as a fleshy sack came out. For a moment Jinn just stared in horror, he knew what that was. He had seen enough of those kinds of ‘eggs’ before on his world. If that thing could reproduce on its own, then all it needed was meat to fuel its ‘births’. He looked around and saw a few pieces of the lizard apes, few but then he knew where the rest had gone.