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

Galactic Standard Time / 1320

Paige looked ahead, trying to see if she could ‘sense’ anything ahead of them. So far she hadn’t felt a thing, the light from the crystals illuminating the tunnel. On both sides of her, Sara and Al kept pace, looking at the sides as she watched the front. She felt Al’s questions and Sara’s wonder, and for a moment she thought if she should ignore it. But then she wondered if they were from the Service, then why would they even feel those emotions? She swallowed and decided to take a chance, see if that half-thought was right.

“You know, you could ask me questions,” Paige said softly. She hoped she was right, and it would feel good to talk about what she could do.

“I have so many….. were you born with that power or did it just appear like Sara’s?” Al asked softly as he tried not to turn and look at her.

“I was born with it. I… it took me so long to understand that others couldn’t ‘see’ what I could, that they couldn’t understand everything I did,” Paige said as she smiled, thinking about how she had learned the truth. She shook herself and smiled at Al.

“And to cut down the questions, I can ‘sense’ strong emotions. Imagine that you can hear the emotions that other people are feeling. I….. I learned to ‘close’ that ‘ear’ and it lets me stay sane. And I can’t sense anything beyond a hundred feet, so there’s that at least,” Paige said as she sighed and looked ahead.

She felt a touch of awe and a little bit of concern from Sara who let out a deep breath.

“Wow. And I thought my powers were something. Sooooo….. are these powers any good at card games?” Sara asked point blank.

Paige looked at her, her mouth dropped open and she felt a bubble of laughter come from within her. She covered her mouth with her right hand, a few giggles came out as she felt her mouth form a grin.

“I don’t like to gamble really. And that’s why I don’t like to work the casino floors back on the ship. All the emotions there, all the people trying to win……. It’s just too much for me,” Paige said.

“Makes sense, our brains aren’t at that level yet. Still, I think we can put the idea that this planet can give humans powers to rest. This place must just awaken them or maybe…..” Al muttered softly.

Paige felt a spark of something from Sara, a kind of nerves that caused her to look at her.

Sara looked up at Paige, and Paige saw a spark of fear in Sara’s eye.

Paige just smiled at her and brought her finger to her lips. Paige almost felt a tear leave her right eye as she felt Sara’s relief.

“I guess we’ll never know, but why can Sara heal and Jinn kill?” Paige asked and Al looked at her before nodding a strange look coming over his face.

Paige felt things from him, things she had never seen at the same time. She looked at him, wondering why he was feeling pride, shame, and rage about something. She could see the gear tattoo on his face, and she knew his faith prided research. If he understood something, why did he feel shame?

“Hey, Al? You okay?” Paige asked. Al just kept walking. Paige could feel his emotions going all over the place. There was shock there, but to her senses he seemed to be spiraling down into the dark.

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

Al ignored Paige’s words, barely hearing them. He was stuck, thinking about an old project that his friend had done. She had taken a few lab rats and changed their genetic structure. He had thought it would be all she did, but she shocked him by introducing a nanite strain she had created to the rats. It was only after this that she told him her true aim of her project. The experiment was to see which rat the highest enhancement percent.

The accepted idea was that that genetics didn't affected nanite enhancement at all. The Pope had even done a research paper on it saying it was false, but his friend had been sure of her theory. He hadn’t gotten much out of her for why, but she just said that she was inspired by medicine. Most people expected nothing, maybe a best a loss on the enhancement the nanites did. Every person who saw the results was shocked. The tests had shown that together the genetic effected the nanites. Some of the rats were faster or stronger based on the genetic modification.

For a few days, she and him had gone over the research together, trying to make sense of it all. They had thought that there might be some secrets to find, and discoveries to make. Together they saw a new field of science opening up before them, a new age was about to start! But then the Inquisitors had attacked, and they had been split up. The whole class fought back, escaping by the skin of their teeth. Before they left, they all shared their research. The idea was that what they all found was too important to let politics decide if it was true. To increase their chances of survival, they went their separate ways. Last he heard some were going to fight back, others were going to become Hermits, some just running. He had run, he had gotten on a smuggling ship and left his world behind. The last he heard there was a rebellion there. Sometimes in the dark he wondered if one of his classmates were leading it, he wondered if he should have stayed.

But the research, that was what he was focusing on. If the research she had done was right, then the composition of the body could affect nanites. If one took that thought further, the picture was there. It was logical to think then that nanites could give different abilities based on who had them. If that was true then maybe the abilities of Jinn, Sara, and Paige followed similar laws. If that was true, then maybe their genetics or skills unlocked their powers. But there had to be an external source of infection, but they weren’t injured when they all woke up.

Al went still, paling in fear as his mind suddenly had a thought on how that was possible. He followed the thought to what he saw as the logical conclusion, going over everything in order. There had to be a similar spark for both Sara and Jinn’s abilities, fact. Something external to both of them had to have caused them to gain their abilities, fact. Then it had to be something that they gained on this planet, fact. And based on the time involved, it was something that took time to integrate with them, fact.

So to go over everything; they both had the same source, something that gave them their abilities. But they didn’t develop the same abilities, the same source gave different abilities. But the time difference between when the abilities awoke. That was something that followed the research she had done, so the source was nanites. If he thought of it, seen. So who else had that happened to, and what abilities would they gain over time? The sheer chaos that could happen, if Jones or someone like him gained the ability to fire a death ray!

“This is so bad. This is so, so monstrously bad!” Al exclaimed as he looked up. He saw Sara and Paige a few feet ahead of him, looking at him in concern.

“What is it Al, what’ve you figured out?” Paige asked as she looked at him.

Al winced, she had to have been a spectator to his internal meltdown. He was going to have to look into trying to blanket his emotions or make her something to block them. He already had a few ideas, but it wasn’t the time for that now. Now he had to tell them the truth he had figured out.

For a moment he kept silent, if he talked about what he knew, he’d after to talk about how he knew it. If he brought up just what happened to him and the sentence he was under, that might cause problems. It wasn’t like Paige’s abilities, this was a legal sentence of death. The few movies with people under similar sentences were always the worst villains. But she had trusted them with her secret, could he not do the same?

“I think I figured out how Sara and Paige got their abilities, and it's bad, really bad. Now how they got them, but how they got what awoke them. If I’m right, we’re looking at a major problem sooner or later,” Al said with a hard tone.

Sara and Piage both looked at each other before they looked at him. There were questions in their eyes, questions that Al knew he had to answer. He took a deep breath and mentally gathered his strength, what he had to say was not going to be easy at all.

But before he could even speak something happened that caused him to go silent.

“YOU HAVE CLASS WHAT!?” Racha screams from behind them.

They turned and saw Racha pushing Jinn against the right wall, Jinn not reacting at all.

Break

As he ran through the forest carrying his precious cargo, the screams behind him made him run faster. Even since he had escaped the capsule, those things had hunted him down. He had thought he had lost them when he destroyed that bridge, but all it bought them was a few hours. No matter what he did or how he tried to escape, they were following him like a predator after a limp prey thing.

As his cargo moved against him, he swallowed. He didn’t know what he could do, but he would lay down his life to protect his cargo. As he ran, he felt his pistol at his right bump as he moved, and tried to draw strength from it. When they came, he would make sure that those things had a few of their own to eat too!

He never would have guessed that this would be his fate when he got a berth aboard the Spirit of Adventure. He had wanted to make money for a few years of college during his first regeneration vacation. But when he woke up in the capsule everything went down the black hole. The worst officer possible had been in it, and after they discovered where they were he took command. The next day they had been attacked. They had come and killed, taken only one body back with them. The scum had cracked, talking about how the creatures were their holy judgment. Most of the passengers had believed him, seeing him as their guide. They just ate everything he said up and when he spoke of sacrificing something, they jumped. Some of the other deckhands had objected, some hadn’t. He and his cargo had been chosen to die, the doors closing behind them.

But then an explosion from behind showed him the other deckhands were fighting to get free. As the others broke out, one of them had thrown him his pistol, and with it, he had saved the other sacrifice, a literal baby. But as the officer led his fanatics out, more of the creatures had attacked. In the chaos he had run, the last he saw the other sane deckhands were running the other way. He hoped they were alive, if they weren’t then his chances of survival were next to none.

A louder screech from behind made him tense, which meant that his chasers were much closer. He needed to find a place to make a stand, someplace he could fight without fear of them attacking from behind.

But, he missed a step and stumbled down a large hole, curling around his cargo as they traveled down the hole.

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

As soon as she saw Racha’s actions, Sara was in movement, Paige and Al right behind her. As they neared them, Sara hoped that this wasn’t something that would cause them to become divided. Out here they had to stand together to stay alive.

“Hey Racha, drop him! What the void did he say that made you react….” Sara began only for Racha’s next words to cause her, Al, and Paige to stop and stare.

“How the hell do you have class ten nanites!?” Racha snarled at Jinn as she held him against the tunnel wall.

“You’ve been gene-modded Jinn!?” Al exclaimed in shock. Racha dropped Jinn who fell to his feet, her face turning to stare at Al who backed away.

Racha didn’t even react as Jinn moved away, locking eyes on Al.

“What do gene mods have to do with class ten nanites?!” Racha demanded in shock as everyone looked at Al.

Al looked around and took a deep breath before letting it out slowly. “I..... the barrier to creating class ten nanites has always been the total effect they have on the body. A friend of mine did some research on the combination effect of gene modification and special nanites built with that in mind. The data showed that even basic civilian-grade nanites could be affected based on how a body was gene-modded. Beyond a full one hundred percent of projected advancement.”

Sara gasped, her hands going to her mouth as Paige’s mouth dropped open in shock. Sara didn’t even notice, all she could think of were the implications. For at least a hundred years, gene-modding and nanites had been two opposite ends of a debate about how to advance species.

Some said gene modifications were the proper way, that the abilities they offered would allow descendants to have them from birth. Those who said that nanites were the way forward said it was possible to take them out of a body, allowing greater control over criminals. Yet the problem with nanites was that the gain was always smaller than expected. Al was saying that both camps were right, that together both sciences could help people the most. The very idea was against everything that most people believed, all the science said that such an idea was heresy!

“Wow. I didn’t expect anyone beyond the old bastard could figure that out. What happened to ya Al, why were you on the Spirit?” Jinn asked as he looked at Al, leaning against the wall he had been pushed against.

Sara looked at Jinn as Al looked at him and his shoulders sank.

“They knew, they knew! They’ve been keeping that knowledge away from the rest of the galaxy! But why!? It’s against everything that we’re supposed to believe in!” Al asked aghast and Jinn just sighed and shook his head.

“Yeah, they know. At least the old Heretic who helped gene mod me would say when he was in his cups said they did. Have you ever see a cyborg get drunk? It’s something else really, and I’m talking a full conversion borg here!” Jinn said with a laugh.

Sara stared in shock at what Jinn said. Full conversion cyborgs it replaced a person’s organs with cybernetic replacements. They only had a "stomach" that sent nutrients to a brain, the only organic part they kept. They didn’t have traditional stomachs, it was a nutrient tank that they could replace. How could one even get drunk in the first place!?

“How is that even possible!?” Sara exclaimed n total shock. Jinn just laughed as Al went still and looked at Jinn, his eyes widened.

“A Heretic?! How the hell did you meet a cyborg Heretic!?” Al demanded and Jinn just smiled as Paige looked at him.

“My stars, the Service do meet the most amazing people!” Paige said in shock. As everyone looked at her, Paige looked up before covering her mouth. Racha just looked at Paige in shock before Sara spoke up.

“The Service? As in the Federation Special Service? Why do you think Jinn’s one of them?” Sara asked in confession. Paige looked away before her eyes widened and she looked ahead of them down the tunnel.

“I just felt terror! There, it felt like someone from the ship!” Paige exclaimed and Jinn moved forward, pulling out his knife.

“I’ll go ahead, we’ll talk about everything tonight! We might have found other survivors!” Jinn exclaimed as he dashed down the tunnel, his aura forming as he moved.

“MOVE!” Racha barked as she ran after him

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

Jinn felt his pulse quicken as he gripped his knife. He had been sure that Racha would react, but to push him against the wall? And Al knew things that his faith had decreed were heresy according to his old teacher. But those scum never told their followers what was heresy after all. And Doc said they loved to take and use the work of the ‘Heretics’ for their ‘Holy Work’. The problem was that what ‘Heretical’. Each branch of that religion had their own measures, and they all enforced their own rules as far as they could.

But that Al had known the truth but didn’t know it, which showed that he had some stories of his own. Maybe he should tell his story once they found a place to camp tonight. It would feel good to let it all out, to finally talk about it. And with Racha around, the proper authorities would find out, and that was good. Anything to send trouble their way was perfect in his books. But now he had to deal with this.

Ahead of him, he heard a cry grow in volume until something landed on the floor before him. He looked and saw a male figure in a deckhand jumpsuit curled around something. It was only when the figure looked up that Jinn recognized him.

“Roy!? Roy, is that you!?” Jinn called out.

Roy looked up, his short black hair shaking as he looked at Jinn with his green eyes. The slash scar below his right eye caused Jinn to be sure this was who he thought it was. As he unrolled he revealed that he had a baby with blond hair in a green onesie

“Jinn!? Oh stars Jinn! Watch out, there’s these things following me!” Roy called out as he got back to his feet.

From above they heard screeches and Jinn gritted his teeth, scowling up as the cries increased.