by Bryan Nyaude
“You will find out soon enough,” he replied to me with a cold smile. “The truth is a two way door. You can’t learn something without losing something.”
“Enough riddles,” I walked up to him and grabbed his neck with my free hand. “What are you hiding? This time, I won’t hesitate.”
“Your gun has no bullets,” he chuckled without the slightest sense of fear in his eyes.
What! I took my eyes off him, for a second, to check the weight of my gun. Before I knew it, he had slipped out of my arm and had me pinned against the wall. The strength and power in his grip was incredible. I could barely budge a muscle even though I was wearing the armor. I looked into his eyes and felt a tremendous blood lust; a killing intent perspired profoundly from his serious face. I felt a jolt of fear rush in me.
“You hesitated. Big rookie mistake! If I was your enemy, I could have killed you.”
Fear flushed all over my face. I felt like I was going to die at that point. His whole demeanor completely intimidated me beyond a doubt, but I still couldn’t give up, just yet. There were questions I needed answered. I freed my hands and began to pry open his grip. His left knee connected with my chest plate so hard it sent shocks into my body. I took a gasp of air as I dodged a right hook that came from nowhere. He was fast and terribly strong. I managed to free myself from him as I staggered on my legs for a bit. This man! Or this alien! Whatever he was, I couldn’t win, in a fair fight against him. My best chance lay in picking up my gun that had fallen to the floor.
“Do not take your eyes off me,” he commented, coming from my right blind spot.
My body contorted right automatically to counter his attack. However, my reaction time was a second too slow to evade him. His fist connected with my face, sending me staggering back against the wall. It felt like he had smashed my cheeks back into my skull. My hands found their way to my face, covering it completely from another attack. I felt a massive inflammation the likes of which I had never felt before. Oddly enough, he had put no weight in his last punch, which in turn is why I still had my head. Was he underestimating me? I couldn’t see him, but I felt his movements stop completely.
“Are you ready to yield, kid? You can’t win against me.”
“I am not a kid. You have something I want and I will do what I have to get it.”
“Are you sure? This is the thanks you give to someone who helped you?”
“Like I said before, desperate times!”
I got back on my feet and squinted heavily. His punch had left a nick of agonizing pain close to my nasal passage, causing tears to flow endlessly down my eyes. Blinded by tears, my eyes lost sight of him for a second. In a twist of fortune, I caught a glimpse of my pistol on the metal floor. It was a few feet from me, within jumping range. Quickly, I rolled down and reached for it. My hand gripped it tightly as I rolled up. If I could get one good shot, I would take it. I wasn’t trying to kill him, but slow him down. I swung my gun wildly into the air, once my vision had returned; however, he had gone.
“So, this was your plan?” the alien asked me, standing right in front me. The glimmer in his eyes looked menacing and irritating. I took a step back to gain some distance although that was a futile mistake. He caught my wrist and yanked away the gun from my hand. Just before it was out of my hand, the gun went off, hitting him in the arm.
I looked down on his arm and saw no blood, just as I had predicted. My intention, in the beginning, wasn’t to fight him, but learn about his anatomy. His physical body was almost human, although I was still speculating. During our physical conflict, I managed to feel his pulse along with a beating heart, which only left me even more confused about his physical identity.
“Yeah, that was,” I rattled, yanking my arm away from him.
As I had expected, his physical strength and speed increased under the influence of a different gravity. On this planet, the gravity was fifteen times stronger, but on the ship, it was fifteen times less—almost close to earth’s gravity. I moved my eyes away from him and stepped back. I had acquired enough information I wanted from him for now.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked, rubbing his wounded arm.
Amazingly, the arm did not look injured or anything. I glared at him and nodded quickly. Gentleness settled into his eyes as he walked away calmly upstairs. He stopped briefly and glanced back. Alarmingly, I moved back cautiously as possible.
“Your armor handled well. It seemed the modifications I did to it increased your speed and reaction time threefold. How do you feel?”
“Well, I could be better if I could take all of it off.”
“Like I said, kid, the armor was meant to be used for a one way mission with no point of return,” he said, while sighing in frustration. “With the current technology on this vessel, there is nothing I can do for you. Although, I did come up with the brilliant idea of remodeling and modifying it with the advanced software I could build at the moment’s spur.”
He turned around and began to walk carefully up the stairs, causing loud clanking sounds with his feet. I followed him upstairs, since I was curious about the new armor modifications. Within seconds, I had caught up with him and walked besides him, in a constant pace. Honestly, it was hard to believe a few moments ago we were at each other's throats. Oh well, that whole feud was over now for good, hopefully. The knowledge I had acquired from him told me a lot about my new enemies which was not a bad start for me.
“Just what did you do?”
“I took scraps of platinum and aluminum alloy and blended them down on an anatomic level to make out coverings for your arms and legs. Your chest coverings were damaged, causing exposed circuits to malfunction around the nuclear power core. I took the liberty of replacing the damaged power circuits and this you will like.”
He stopped suddenly and placed his hand on my chest cover piece. I looked down towards his hand, observing the chest cover carefully from an angular position. I was inclined to agree, there was something different about it. The covering looked completely singular compared to the rest of the suit.
“The chest piece took me forever to make,” he commented, smiling faintly, while looking outside through the ship’s fabric glass windows. “I made it with iridium, one of the rarest strongest metals in this galaxy. That should keep the nuclear power core stable and keep the explosion within a contained environment.”
“So, it still might explode?”
“Yeah and no, depends on what you do.”
I felt my hand slowly rise and touch the chest plate roughly. It was so smooth and yet solid strong, simply amazing. Although, I still preferred to have the armor completely off me, if possible. One thing kept bothering me above anything else, not knowing what his name was. I couldn’t keep calling him the “alien man” forever. Why didn’t he trust me?
Oh well, at the moment, his name didn’t matter. I ran my eyes through my armor carefully—studying all the modifications. It was true, my reaction and speed had improved drastically. Every muscle movement was fast and accurately honed. In fact, I had barely felt any pain when he struck my armor, during our little fight.
“I am curious about one thing,” I began and walked two steps towards him. “You didn’t help me out of the softness of your heart. I am not stupid, you are up to something. Just what is it that you want?”
The alien man shrugged as if startled; his body tensed firmly while motionlessly saying nothing. He kept staring deeply into the morning sky, in a dazed manner, with his arms folded. By then, I knew something was up. A really deep fate changing secret he kept within him. I wanted to reap it out of him, but that was easier said than done.
He suddenly laughed out like a fanatic and stared back at me. One look into his eyes had me scared a bit. His eyes were dim dark, and reflected little light within them. “Are you always this suspicious about everything? Well, to make things short, I built the modifications because I need you to take part in a special mission, to retrieve component parts. I could have asked s
omeone else, but the only people here are mostly engineers, wives, and children of the crew, who were placed inside the ship’s panic room. There is a kingdom five hundred miles from here. I need you to find it and get some engine parts from one of the shipyard shops. Please try not to do anything reckless. Just get the parts and come back without drawing any attention to yourself.”
So that was the reason; now everything started to make sense. All the pieces of my distressing puzzle were starting to slowly come together.
“But why can’t you do it? You seem to know more about this behemoth planet, than I do?”
“I can’t, Den, as you can see, I am needed here to help fix this ship. You wanted answers, right? Now I am pointing you in the right direction, so go. You won’t find the truth here with me; you must go uncover it yourself.”
“Darn! You do have a point.”
There was more he wasn’t telling me, and it seemed he wasn’t going to tell me more than that. I backed away from the subject as I thought more carefully about what he said. Could it be true that there was actually a kingdom on this planet? But how was this all even possible? Who was it that was living here? Were they aliens or humans? So, a great deal of mysteries lay right in front of me, and I had no clue where to look first.
“One problem with that plan,” I said and walked closer to him slowly. “I don’t exactly, for say, fit in with the locals. I mean, seriously, it would be impossible to blend in on this planet, since I am human and I need to wear armor to move on this planet.”
“I already know that,” he cut me off quickly, before I could say more. “Don’t worry about it, I took the liberty of creating a new dye, using some of the chemical compounds I found on your ship. I mean, look at me, I tested it on myself and it worked. This dye should temporarily turn your skin grey for a day or so which solves one problem. The other problem about gravity is of no concern since the interior of the kingdom reduces the effect of gravity inside. So you see—everything is good.”
“Well uh!”
He left me speechless; it was like he knew what I was going to say before I could even say it. My jaw opened wide for a long second, although, no words came out. I placed my back against a wall, completely drowned in thoughts.
“Ugh! This was getting more complicated,” I sighed out loudly and took a few steps back.
“Just calm down, I know how dangerous this mission is, so I took the liberty of adding a few more outer modifications to your armor.”
“How will that help me, if the enemy is as strong as you? Yeah, I figured you are one of them or used to be one of them.”
“Very smart; I realized a while back that you fought me just to test out my abilities and skills against your armor. That being said, I already had accounted for that fact which is why I added new parts and increased the output threefold.”
Amazing, he had me figured out completely. His level of thinking was worlds apart from my own intellectual abilities. True, I had tricked him into sparring with me just to see how far apart our speed and power differences were. Sadly, it was just as I feared. Hand to hand combat was by no means an option, I had to rely on guns against these aliens and the terror beasts. I shrugged firmly and moved slightly, to the left, placing my left arm on my waist.
“Okay! So where are the modifications you were telling me about?”
I spoke to him as I massaged my stiff neck, with my right hand. I might as well go along with his plan. I figured it couldn’t hurt to snoop around this planet and gather intelligence.
“Excellent,” he commented with a great big smile and led me upstairs, to the other armory room, on the west side of the ship. “I worked on the equipment for two straight nights and came up with some great new ideas, and trust me, you will be impressed.”
With the way he phrased everything, I was excited to say the least; and at the same time, worried. I mean, I wasn’t sure if this equipment was going to work, considering I didn’t know anything about him. Was he truly trustworthy? For all I know, he could be leading me directly into a trap. I suddenly noticed the giant walls of the armory room as we closed in. My eyes widened with sheer excitement; I had never been up this far before. This armory was restricted, only for Special Forces and high ranking personnel. I stopped in my tracks for a second, wondering if I should go in or not. With my military ranking, I wasn’t allowed inside without permission from my superiors. However, circumstances were different and the captain was not here.
“Come on in,” he spoke and signaled me towards the giant door.
The door slid apart automatically as the lights inside all turned on automatically. There was a strong smell of melted metal, lingering in the air. I walked in slowly, observing the room in amazement. It was much bigger than I thought, probably four times bigger than the one downstairs. Level 3 and above weapons bedazzled the walls in an ordered manner, from lowest rank going up. Strangely, the ground did not make any noises in response to my footsteps. I bent down and looked at it curiously. Far beyond ordinary, this floor was made from a silent metal—a very powerful and rare metal, with an ability to absorb any form of energy, especially sound.
“Take a look at this,” he spoke from the other side of the room.
I got up and walked towards him in silence. I slid past broken glasses on the ground and hopped over a few fallen assault rifles. The whole armory was a mess, probably because of the crash.
I, unexpectedly, stopped and looked up at the walls. Honestly, I was not expecting to see such a sight. It was the work of a genius, simply astonishing. The modifications were beyond great, definitely not what I was expecting. I walked up towards them and raised my arm to take a closer look. My right hand straddled across the new arm bulky modifications intensely; most of them were enhancements that increased my strength as well as my flight capacity.
“It’s amazing,” I said, turning my head towards him. “I can’t believe you built this all by yourself.”
Hmm! I still couldn’t believe it at all. The thought of him being the greatest genius was maddening. But the facts, in front of me, did not lie. Just who was he?
“Care to give it a spin?” he asked me, as he unloaded the equipment from the shelves. “It’s really easy to use, plus I built you a modified AI system and a new microchip to allow you full access.”
“Yes, please,” I said, excited like a child receiving a birthday gift.
I guess this old guy wasn’t as useless as I thought at first. He had his moments when he shined. Quickly, I fitted the new modifications on, following his instructions and activated the suit’s new power grid and backup power generators. The armor modifications felt lighter, and felt comfortable in my thorax section. I stretched out my body while it was on, to test out its limit in terms of muscle movements. Everything was good to say the least, and the best part was it offered a variety of encrypted commands for more precise maneuvers. Without a moment’s thought, I headed out towards the exit, ready to take off into the skies, to try out my new equipment. As a safety precaution, I reloaded more rocket fuel packets to my flight system in case of emergency. You never know when a few terror beasts could pop up. After all, this was their home planet. The main processor took a few minutes to load the data from the microchip into my suit’s main hard drive, before allowing me full access to the weaponry and defense systems. Slowly, I learned manually how everything worked and which combinations were necessary in order to get it to become more effective. Once I began to hover from the ground, I sent one of the suit’s small drones out to get a survey of the area. The small machine flew into the air quickly, blinking at every 5 second intervals, flying straight away from me. I stared lazily up into the morning sky, hoping to find some other ray of color.
“Scanning coordinates entered,” I heard a very cold voice speak.
Whoa! I tugged my head briefly in a confused manner. Ghastly memories from academic school flowed back into me like a bad nightmare. My new AI sounded like one of my teachers from school, Miss Lina, the teacher
who taught me Advanced Physics. At one point, in my life, I was frightened of taking her class since it was so hard—and all the other students who took it almost never passed. As it turned out, they were right; however, I did pass but just barely out of sympathy. All in all, I respected her as she taught me the true value in studying and determination, which were essential and necessary to passing all of my classes.
But to now hear my AI system speak in a voice similar to hers was just completely ridiculous, and just plain freaky. Darn! It was that alien man’s idea to do this to me, he knew about my past somehow using a device unknown to me. It was possible he had built something that could read memories. I mean, if he could build me this armor suit, what were the odds he couldn’t build something that could read memories? Well, whatever the case may be, I didn’t really care that much since I was getting a great chance to try out a modified legendary suit from the second Planetary War.
I looked down, but suddenly remembered a particularly important detail. It was directly on the back of my mind, although, I just couldn’t commit it to memory. Oh yeah! The crystal I found a few days ago? I remembered placing it in my left inner pocket, before boarding our main ship. I reached into my inner pockets and found nothing in there. I was sure I had not dropped it. It was that alien man, he must have taken it or was somehow involved in its disappearance. There was a surge of anger that slowly erupted within me. All that effort I had undergone to acquire it seemed in vain. I had to remember to ask him later about its whereabouts, just as soon as I was done with my test drive. I activated the flight system, through my com link, rupturing the wings to respond in a synchronized manner automatically. The thrusting wings caused my body to slowly ascend up into the air. I felt the outburst in the power output as I increased speed and trajectory. A blinking noise came online as my drone reemerged, descending into my vicinity. I stopped and paused in the air, watching the small drone return towards me. It slowly decreased velocity and found its layer within a secret compartment on my armor. Visual data popped up on my visor, displaying a serene map of the terrain all around me. The map covered about a distance of 20 miles in front of me. I angled my position firmly as I decided the location I would fly to first. There was a strong gust of wind that flew by me and back, with no precise direction. At this point, I started to wonder which direction the planet was orbiting. Was it clockwise or anticlockwise? Almost everything on this alien planet did not make any sense. On the other hand, it seemed to be morning for quite some time now. Very odd!