Castaway Planet

Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 153 of 365. Sol standard year]

Days after of Crash landing/ 1

Uninhabited Island / Ruins / Room looking at Indoor forest

Galactic Standard Time / 1400

Bryce healed back a snarl as he looked up at the broken cables. “Nova scum! What is wrong with this abomination!? How much power did they use daily!? Did they never even heard of a simple watt!?”

The three of them had spent the last hour looking around the chamber they had taken shelter in. Their examination revealed it to be around fifty feet wide and a little over twenty long. There had been a large door next to a computer terminal built into the wall on the left side. When the group made it to the right side they found the remains of a dead humanoid behind a bar like area. The body had four limbs, four fingers on the hands, and six toes on retrograde legs. The head had four eyes, two on each side of a round face in column formation. The eyes were above a wide mouth that had two fangs pointing down below each column of eyes. The body had been there so long it was nothing but its bones but it was still more than had ever been found before. That is if this was one of the Ruin Builders.

Zane and Rodolphe were freaking out about finding a possible skeleton of one of the Builders. Bryce didn't get it really, it would help them. So he looked beyond it, trying to find anything that could help them. The left side of the chamber had a smooth wall with a door near the window. Examining it, he found that the door was locked and there was a small scanner next to it on the side opposite the window. Looking to the right Bryce had seen another door on that side, and this one had a small open grate next to it.

After a few minutes of talk, they had a small argument about what to do next. They all agreed that they had to leave, but they couldn’t agree on what to do. Bryce had at first wanted to break the window and get into the forest. Zane had sacked how to get down, and what if more of the creatures that attacked them were there. Zane had suggested that they look over the body, maybe there was something that might open one of the doors.

Bryce had said he’d look over the open grate, maybe he’d be able to open the door. So far that was just nothing but wasted time! And he felt a small spark of shame that he couldn’t even identify the materials that the cables were made of. Nor could he even damage them at all. Even with holes the cables were too hard for him to break to see the wires within. And all he had been able to figure out was that they could handle a much larger charge than he could generate. And that was only if the cables were in one piece! With the way they were, it would take a miracle to even fix these halfway. And he had to admit, that he wasn’t even sure that he was figuring out this right. For all he knew this might have been not the door, but a power source for an intercom.

No matter how much he wanted to pull off a win, he had to admit that this was beyond him. All in all, he now knew what not to do to fix this at least. He had to hope that the others had better luck and that they could get them out.

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Rodolphe looked out the window and felt a tear leave his eye. With how dangerous the forest above was, he never thought he would see such beauty today. All in all, this place was amazing! The beautiful birds were all, and the trees were full of food! So far, he hadn’t seen anything that might be a danger, and that was worrying. He had grown up on a desert world where creatures preying on each other was a basic fact of life. There wasn’t any life that wasn’t predatory, even the plants. And now after the horror above, he saw this!

But it didn’t work out in his mind. They had guessed that the builders of the Ruins had made this place, and it was still mostly active. But then what had this place been for? The way the window was set against the wall, there was something about it that bothered him. He couldn’t describe where it was coming from, but there was just something there. As he looked around the chamber again, he tried to figure it out. The room had been abandoned, and only the remains of one possible sentient had been found. That opened up a few ideas, and none of them were good.

The first was that if this place had fallen because of a war, then only the victor had taken their fallen. That meant that whoever attacked this place wanted it destroyed more than to take control of it. There were a few reasons he could think up off the top of his head, and some of them turned his stomach around. That meant that the victors hated this place beyond even thinking of using it. Like the old death camps that one side of that ethnic cleansing on that world the Spirit passed a few months back. The people of that world did nothing, they just let the world reclaim the lands around it. But there weren't remains of buildings on the surfacem no sing of any civilization was ever on this rock. So what was this place?

Or this place was abandoned because one of the sides used a species-specific viral weapon. And if this had been a ‘civil’ war then it made sense, however much the thought made him feel sick. Those kinds of weapons were always more trouble to the creators than the war itself. “Still, that’s some forest. Wonder how the things are fed down there……”

Rodolphe went still as one of the birds flew by the window and looked at him. He fell backwards and when he poked his head up he was sure the bird was laughing at him. All the breath left him as he realized that this thing might be able to think, to reason.

He looked at it and took in all the bird’s appearance. Its body was at least five feet long and it had a wingspan of at least ten feet wide. Its beak was long and crimson while its body was covered in white feathers. He saw that it had three eyes in a row that were looking right at him. He swallowed as he looked deeper into the eyes, and he hoped he was seeing things. But when the bird opened its mouth a long tongue with a bard on the end hit the glass.

All Rodophe could was watch, he couldn’t close his eyes. The tongue bard was a solid spike that hit the glass and nothing happened, which only made the bird madder. It gave another wordless cry as it opened its mouth. Rodolphe braced himself for another strike from its tongue, but then. Suddenly something large, fast, and black shot by and carried the bird away.

“So even this place is not paradise,” Rodolphe said shakily. He tried to find the thing but it went into the forest below. All it left was a small sway in the top of the trees it pushed by as it pushed them aside.

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As the creature moved closer to the strange and wonderful scent, it still felt hungry. The burning that had caused changes to it was still there, but at least it wasn’t getting worse. The flame feeling was still the same, and that was very strange. As it came to an opening in the corridor, it stopped to look around. The path split into three ways, to the front, the left, and right. As the creature’s tongue shot out and took in the air, it tried to find the scent of its target. To the left was the same scent, a little less but still there. To the right was a different scent. This one smelled of the place above the cave mouth it had chased the little things through. But this was different, a strange scent that was just different. But down the center route, there was the all-food scent, stronger!

As its tongue came back into its mouth, it moved down the central path. For a moment nothing happened but then something struck it, sending it backwards. It looked down, trying to find what had done that but it went still. There, ahead of it was a floating sphere. As the creature looked at them one of them fired a bolt of light. The bolt hit the creature and forced it backwards a foot. The creature didn’t wait, it called up one of its new strengths and shot forward. This time when the sphere fired again at it, the bolt was stopped by an invisible shield.

The sphere moved backwards and the creature chased it. It had only lived so long because it never let a foe escape when it could be killed! As the creature kept following the sphere, blasts from the sphere forced it to slow down. But with its invisible shield, it kept moving , it kept chasing the sphere. As it slithered down the hallway, it smelled more of the all scent, the scent itself ever increasing as it moved.

The creature was getting excited. It would find a way to the great food and it will kill this thing of the Creators! They would hide away in their places, they would fear it! No longer would the creature hide, it would go to all of the places of its makers and kill them! It would feast on the cowards hiding away, take their strength, and rule over their lands. It would raise an army and conquer all, and find its old home!

As it followed the sphere into a doorway on the left side of the hallway, it was suddenly attacked from the side. As it was thrown to the side by a force, it looked up and saw four more spheres. As they started to fire at the creature, pushing it backwards. The creature screeched and coiled its serpent-like body, its invisible shield protecting it. The creature looked around, trying to find any way out of this! Finally, it saw a grate that had been torn in half, and without a second thought shot into it.

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Rogue Bio Weapon found

Capture protocol, ‘Stray Young’, imitated.

Lone construct designated ‘bait’ approached Bio Weapon

Construct Bait attacked Bio Weapon then retreated into abandoned sector air passage. Hunters following. Map of facility shows that air passage empties out into Oxygen Replenishment chamber.

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Zane looked up as Rodolphe cried out in fear. As he turned he saw Rudolphe on the floor, his eyes locked on the window. “What happened?”

When Rodolphe didn’t respond Zane ran towards him, Bryce doing the same from the other side of the room.

“What’s you see? What’s you see!?” Bryce asked the two of them made it to Rodolphe.

Rodolphe only blinked again and then looked down.

“Big bird with a frog tongue with a spike on it,” Rodolphe bit out. “Then bigger black blur took it.”

Rodolphe looked up, and Zane's breath caught in his throat. The terror in Rodoplhe’s eyes was something he had seen only once before. And he hoped this wouldn’t be as bad as that time.

All Zane could do was look out the window, seeing the birds in the distance in a new light. If those things were predators with long tongues, then that changed a lot. That meant that there were airborne predators beyond the worms, and there might be above them. They needed to get back soon. And then a horrible thought went through his head.

He went still as the thought crystalized and he swallowed as he felt terror. If the forest limited the growth of the life down there, how big would something in the open grow to?

“And there’s something else,” Rodolphe said with a shudder. As the others looked at him he looked up and swallowed. “Before it attacked the glass, it scared me and I think it felt humor. I think those birds at least can think and reason.”

As Bryce swallowed Zane felt his heart freeze and shook a little.

“Bad news from my side too. There’s no way that we can get through the door. The cables are so decayed that I can’t get a charge to flow through them. And I think it was rated for a lot more power than I can generate from my tools,” Bryce said with a rim tone in his voice.

“Great, just great. I think I found something embedded into one of the hands. I……. I didn’t want to touch it because we don’t know if this was the only body here. But we don’t have a choice, do we?” Zane asked bitterly.

As the others all nodded, Zane just sighed and shook his head. Walking over to the body, he bent down and grabbed the right hand. He pulled it free and stood up, looking down at the body. “Sorry. But this will keep us alive. Watch over us.”

Walking towards the scanner he looked back at the others and gave a small smile. “Moment of truth. Hope that desecration was worth it!”

As he put the hand under the scanner palm up, nothing happened. With a sigh, he turned around but Rodolphe looked at the door with a small frown.

“Turn it over, then hold it for a minute,” Rodolphe said softly.

Zane just shrugged and did as he was told. After thirty seconds passed, there was a beep. With a small rush of air, the door opened. It revealed a long hallway covered in darkness. Here and there light from the forest chamber coming from short windows set in the wall.

“Wait. I’ve got senses a bit sharper than you all. I’ll lead,” Bryce said and walked into the doorway.

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Stepping into the corridor, Bryce took in everything. So far everything was normal. The corridor seemed to be a solid line with only the windows to provide light. But as he took in the corridor,e he saw darkness at the far end, but worse was that he smelled something. Whatever it was, it smelt like the forest above but somehow wrong. He couldn’t describe it really, he hadn’t many worlds outside the sterile environment of the School. Still, the one thing he knew was there was only one way for that smell to be there. “Keep your eyes open you two. There’s a way into the forest down here.”

“Wonderful. Out of the robot attacks into the monster battle,” Zane muttered from behind.

Bryce smirked as he heard the joke, it was good he could keep his spirits up. Sometimes that was the only thing that was able to keep you going.

Looking down through one of the windows, Bryce frowned. Bellow he could see more of the forest and a view that was different from the main chamber. From this angle, he could see a small clearing that a large tree had hidden. The ground was covered by the purple grass and strange-looking plants. He looked at them more intently, trying to get more details. They almost resembled black Venus flytraps but they were three feet tall and moving . At first, he thought there was a breeze down there, but the flytraps were the only ones that were moving. And as he watched them a small creature that looked reptilian came into the clearing. As he gazed at the lizard he noticed vines on the ground from the flytraps and multiple large red fruit on the vines. As the lizard thing came closer and closer to the fruit, Bryce wondered if the birds were the only danger. But suddenly, the closest Flytrap shouted out and swallowed the lizard in one gulp!

Bryce’s eyes widened until he took in the scene, but then other lizards appeared. As they watched somehow the flytrap was cut from its vine. As the flytrap landed on the ground the first lizard creature cut its way out. As the other flytraps started to fire a strange white liquid at the lizards. But the lizards ignored the liquid, grabbed fruits and ran into the jungle. From his vantage point, Bryce cold see the liquid eat away at the grass it hit. Within moments, the liquid had destroyed the grass, leaving behind bare patches.

“Wonderful. Even the plants can kill you here. Think anything like them is above us? Around the crash site?” Rodolphe asked with a strange tone in his voice.

Bryce had to think and think hard. Something about the plants below told him no. It wasn’t something he could put into words, but it was there. There was a strange cut to the leaves here and there, and he thought the bark on some of the trees were wrong. After a few moments, he shook his head. “No, I don’t. I can’t tell you why, it’s just…. Something about that forest is different. It’s small things really, I can’t explain why that tells me it’s not.”

“Then don’t. Right now we’re dealing with guesses. So the best thing to do is get back to base and let command know. They’ll decide what to do,” Zane said with a shrug.

“If they handled the things that attacked us,” Rodolphe said softly.

Bryce went still and nodded. He had to admit, that was something he was worried about. The pack that they had run from, still bothered him. Why had those things only attacked them, and not the group that found the trees? And then there was what happened at the river. Still, all they could do was keep moving forward.

“Let’s keep going. We can’t stay here now that there’s an opening ahead……” Bryce went still as he turned around. He felt his heart stop beating and he swallowed.

At his reaction, Zane and Rodolphe both turned their heads and went white at what they saw. On the wall around the door, there were claw marks. Bryce felt his blood go cold at the reality before him. There was something here with claws, claws that were sharp enough to damage the walls. He hadn’t been able to even damage the cables with his knife! But this showed that there was something alive here that could damage the walls.

“Guys, move back slowly,” Zane said softly.

As Bryce watched Rodolphe move, he heard something. echoing off the wall was the sound of a footstep. He turned around slowly and he swallowed as he realized what he was hearing.