The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three

by Mike Marlinski

  Chapter Twenty One

  Fortunately for Daelon, his alien companion knew the most likely search routes his people would take to find them, and knew the best way to avoid them. After learning of the origins and motives of the creatures, Daelon learned that the one who was helping him was called, Yin. Yin was known by most, as the most sensitive of its people, and knew it would be the most likely suspect in aiding Daelon’s escape. Another flash of green light, brought them into a narrow metal corridor, barely wide enough for them to fit inside. Once they arrived, Yin handed Daelon a laser pistol, with a moderate charge on it. It was one of the many weapons that had been confiscated from his cargo ship, while he was unconscious.

  They shimmied several feet, while Yin explained via its thoughts that there was a protective shield around the chamber, where the humans were being held, preventing anyone from teleporting inside. Yin assured Daelon that they were just a few hundred yards from the chamber and were nearing the shield barrier.

  Daelon struggled to push himself forward, as his shoulders occasionally became wedged in between the two walls. After a few more feet, Daelon came to a break in the wall on his right side. He was expecting relief, but came to find that the wall to his right, was merely continued by an invisible force field, separating the pressurized corridor from the vacuum of space. He quickly pressed himself against the wall to his left and walked sideways, while fearfully staring out into the stars and the planet below. Yin assured him that the field was impenetrable and that there was nothing to fear, but Daelon was still shivering with anxiety.

  Every few steps, his nose would come into contact with the force field, giving him a quick jolt that momentarily numbed his face. Peering down at the lifeless rock below, he saw the ruins of the Emperor’s palace and the head of the giant stone statue of Tyrran’s first Emperor, which had stood before it. It pleased him to know that the ship was once again in orbit around Tyrran, and that he hadn’t been pulled away to an unknown distant world. He noticed green search lights being projected onto the planet’s surface, as the ship maintained a slow forward momentum. The aliens were obviously searching for more life pods to harvest, given the treasure of living bodies they had found in The Depths earlier.

  Daelon silently asked Yin about their intentions with the humans, and the drones that had sucked Core dry of every last drop of his blood. Yin told Daelon that its leader’s only priority was survival. Since the Architects were out of reach, the last survivors of humanity were to be tested, to see if any of the contents of their bodies could be harvested and safely ingested. Yin opposed the idea, but remained silent, ensuring that it would be able to slip away to pursue its own path.

  Moments later, they reached the end of the narrow corridor and came to a much wider one. They waited several seconds and saw no one else in the vicinity. Directly across from where they stood, was a metal double door that Yin was able to open with a single thought. Yin also assured Daelon once again, that they were well inside the protective shield that prevented teleportation, and that if someone was going to come for them, they would see them coming.

  Yin also expressed the likeliness of its people, simply waiting for Daelon to find the other humans, rather than searching the entire ship for him. Daelon understood the risks, but knew no other way to ascertain the condition of his people. Without another moment wasted, they entered the green misty chamber on the other side of the parted double door. The doors automatically closed behind them, as soon as they entered. Yin had already informed Daelon that it sensed that none of its people were inside the room waiting for them.

  A foul rotting stench filled the air, as Daelon brushed away the thick green mist in front of his face. Finally, he came to a row of metal tables, identical to the one Core had been strapped to earlier. At that moment, Daelon’s worst fears had been realized. He stepped through the end of the thick green cloud of mist, to find a row of 36 dead bodies. He looked upon the pale, shriveled faces of the men and women he had been instructed to bring to safety; their eyes wide open and fearful expressions frozen beneath them.

  Each table was accompanied by a powered down drone, containing the blood of its respective victim. Daelon cried harder than he ever had before. He then looked back at Yin and said, “I’m sorry. But I can’t let you take that.” He then used the last of the charge in his pisto,l to blast a hole in the side of each drone. The blasts spilled the contents of each drone onto the floor, rendering the extracted blood and nutrients, useless to the aliens. A moment later, Yin’s thoughts violently entered his mind. Yin was telling him to run. Daelon heard violent stomping, coming from the other side of the double door. The doors parted ways seconds later, revealing over a dozen enemy soldiers.

  Yin and Daelon ran to the opposite end of the compartment, where Yin pointed out the entrance to a sealed off chamber that it knew its people would not enter. Yin informed Daelon that there was a strange biological material from Daelon’s captured cargo ship, sealed inside that was still undergoing study. As confused by that as he was, Daelon was out of options and asked Yin to open the chamber. The sliding single door, shot up into the door frame, then slammed back down to the floor, once they entered. Daelon and Yin could hear the sound of the enemy soldiers, gathering on the other side of the door, when all of a sudden, Daelon’s gaze was drawn to a familiar yellow glow, just ahead of him.

  Daelon stepped closer to it. He saw a stream of billions of glowing yellow molecules, slowly swirling above a circular metal pedestal. He asked Yin where it supposedly came from. Yin informed Daelon that its leader had detected a strange element in Daelon’s ship’s hull, and had used an electro-magnetic field to extract it, in order to examine it further.

  He didn’t know how he would utilize it yet, but Daelon felt as though fate had finally given him the small reward he felt he deserved. As the sole survivor of humanity, this was Daelon’s chance to live long enough, to punish the creatures who had taken the last of his people from him. This swirling yellow light before him was Starblood. And Daelon was going to find a way to use it to make his brother proud.

  Without hesitation, he breached the energy field surrounding the Starblood with his head and attempted to breathe in the molecules. Yin stood back in fear, as the yellow light grew brighter and brighter, eventually consuming the room. The enemy soldiers on the other side of the door, saw the intense glow coming from inside the bio chamber and fell back to the opposite end of the row of human corpses.

  The glow eventually dimmed, then faded completely. The alien soldiers then began making their way back towards the bio chamber, when suddenly, the metal door panel before them was violently thrust in their direction, knocking half of them to the ground. When they got back to their feet, they were met by Daelon, who approached his enemy without fear. His eyes glowed yellow, as did his veins from beneath his skin. He stood proudly, still wearing the burnt ragged cloak, he had worn on his last day as Emperor of Tyrran.

  The aliens were wielding gray, thin tube-like laser rifles that fired short bursts of green energy at Daelon. Then one by one, they ran for the exit, after seeing that their most advanced hand weapons were having no effect on Daelon’s seemingly frail body. Daelon’s skin seemed to absorb the energy from the aliens’ weapons, making his skin more durable with every impact. Yin followed behind Daelon, and pointed out the sinister leader of its people.

  The alien leader was the last enemy soldier still in the room, and had stumbled to the floor, while trying to escape. Daelon grabbed the leader by its throat and raised it over his head. It was something he had seen his brother do countless times during the Architect War. Daelon stared angrily into the leader’s eyes and said, “You should’ve killed me when you had the chance. I won’t kill you. But I will make you suffer.”

  Daelon was then reminded of the beginning of the Architect War. Drellic was the first to discover Starblood in a secret chamber, aboard the Architect Flagship. Upon being the first human to ingest it, he used the gifts it bestowed upon
him, to rip the ship apart from the inside, causing it to crash into Siren City. Daelon found himself in a remarkably similar situation. With vengeance foremost on his mind, he made the decision to pay homage to his brother, by repeating history.

  Yin had said that its race had never established a name for themselves. After realizing its own perspective on its people, Yin found itself referring to them simply as, “The Incomplete” from time to time. In Daelon’s eyes, it was the perfect name to be given to anyone guilty of crimes such as these. To Daelon, these were ruthless monsters that were incomplete, in that they lacked souls. He felt that a homicidal race with no conscience, or even a basic sense of morality, had no place in the universe.

  Daelon had already decided that he would not kill them himself, but he would have no problem leaving them to the elements of space. He placed the alien leader on the ground and watched it run off into the dark corridors of the ship. Daelon then turned back to Yin and said, “I’m going to bring the whole thing down. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. All you can do is choose whether you want to die here, or not.”