by Paul Tassi
He was in a stone chamber lit by open flames all around him. There was no one else in the room, but on the ground nearby lay a collection of various primitive-looking bowls and tools covered in the gray paste that was caked onto most of his right side. Reaching up to his neck wound, he found that the enormous lump had subsided under the solidified goo. His thoughts were no longer jumbled, his insides no longer burned. Feeling a tinge in his left shoulder, he looked down to see a small metal disc attached to his skin. He attempted to pry it off, but it was deeply embedded. Part of the healing process, perhaps.
Rising to his feet, he was unsteady, but able to walk. As he moved toward the thatched door, he found the walls were full of pictures carved into the stone. In one of the biggest murals, a large object loomed in the sky, and an army of stick-figured tribal warriors sat below it, heaving spears and arrows upward. The last stand of a doomed people, something he could empathize with.
Opening the door, it became immediately apparent that he’d spoken too soon. They weren’t a dead race after all.
Before him was a village, bustling with activity, housed in its entirety inside the largest cave Lucas had ever seen. Bits of sunlight poured in from holes in the ceiling that appeared to be at least a thousand feet above them. Below, humans milled about between buildings made out of stone, wood, and the occasional sheet of metal. Astonishingly, they’d somehow survived the devastation of their people countless years ago.
Those closest to him stopped and eyed him as he passed. Everyone here had dark caramel skin with brown or black hair and a hunted look in their eyes. Most had white tattoos coating parts of their body, and the villagers wore a combination of animal furs interspersed with metal pieces that looked like they’d been torn from sets of Xalan power armor. Clusters of armed men talked to each other, eyeing Lucas suspiciously. They wielded spears, bows, axes, and knives, though a few were brandishing modified Xalan energy weapons.
Even underground, plant life still thrived. There was mossy grass under Lucas’s feet and trees were rooted along the outside of the settlement, which looked to be a few dozen buildings housing several hundred of these tribal humans. Or Sorans, he supposed.
Lucas’s blood froze when he saw a troupe of Xalans, clad in full power armor and clutching rifles, near one of the warrior groups, but they merely eyed him like the others. What the hell was going on here?
A wild-haired child ran past Lucas and into one of the huts nearby. A second later, Alpha emerged from the entryway with a white-skinned, blue-eyed Xalan in tow.
“Miraculous!” Alpha exclaimed in Soran. “I was told of the Kal’din’s healing abilities, but I did not expect primitive medicine to achieve results this significant so quickly.”
“You do not need to persist in referring to the Oni as ‘primitive,’” said the creature behind him. “They are a race that has survived longer than many more advanced cultures.”
The white Xalan spoke through a translator collar like Alpha’s, surely one he’d given her, as the device was of his own invention. Her voice was tinged with metal as well, but somehow it had a softer quality than his.
“Apologies,” Alpha said to her before turning back toward him. “Lucas, this is Zeta, the contact we came here to meet.”
Lucas gave a slight nod, which she returned. You didn’t really greet a Xalan with a handshake.
“Of course, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“And I, you,” she said. “Though the tales I have heard over the past few days are almost impossible to believe.”
“What is this place?”
Alpha glanced toward Zeta, who began to explain.
“Nearly a thousand years ago, the Xalans sacked Makari, as you call it, like they did your planet. The indigenous people here were the Oni. They were a young culture, and only as advanced as what you see around you. As such, they had no true means to fight back against the Gal’krai or ‘sky demons’ as they deemed their invaders. Their population of a mere hundred million was decimated by the superior force. Armies that had previously conquered entire continents fell in a matter of hours. Great cities were razed along with the vast forests in which they resided.”
The Oni were starting to gather around them now, listening to Zeta who was also motioning with her hands as she spoke, communicating to them in a sort of sign language. A tall, lanky Oni warrior sidled up next to her. His dark green eyes scanned Lucas up and down. He was more heavily tattooed than the others around him, with black-and-white markings weaving in and out of each other all over his body. His hair was shaved into winding patterns on his head and he had a scar that crept up from his jaw and crossed his lip. He wore a chestplate of black metal, lifted from a “sky demon” corpse, no doubt, and had both a long, thin energy rifle and a dark, metal-tipped spear slung across his back. A string of marble-gray claws hung around his neck. Xalan claws. Zeta continued.
“The remaining Oni took shelter in the myriad cave systems scattered throughout Makari, where they have lived since the invasion. Many pockets of the surviving population have been hunted down over the years, but some persist. Some like the Khas’to tribe you see before you.”
Upon hearing their tribe’s name, the Oni around him gave a brisk shout.
“I discovered them after I crashed my appropriated prison ship here some years ago. I was severely injured, but they came to my aid and nursed me back to health when they easily could have executed me. I am told that my unique coloring indicates that I am not a sky demon like the others, but rather a Holoi, a “white spirit.” An opposing force to the evil, meant to aid the Oni and see their people rise again. It is a title I have attempted to live up to these past years. I outfitted each Khas’to with a device to mask their biological signatures from detection, and they are able to live in relative peace here in S’tasonti. ‘Sanctuary.’ They no longer have to move around constantly to avoid detection.”
She pointed to the shoulder of the man who stood next to her. There sat a metal disc like the one on Lucas’s own arm. Looking around, he could see that every Oni here wore one.
“In return for my aid, I have been allowed to live here among them and assist the Xalan resistance movement on this planet and many others. The other Xalans you see here are my personal escort and are loyal to our cause.”
The quartet of tough-looking Xalan soldiers continued to glare at Lucas.
“The man to my right is Toruk, chieftain of the Khas’to. He is overseeing the rescue of the surviving members of your squad. In fact, he was leading the group that brought you back.”
Lucas’s eyes widened as the giant scaly wolf he’d seen in the jungle wandered out from behind a hut. So it wasn’t a hallucination. It ignored Lucas and plodded toward Toruk, who reached out to ruffle the patch of fur on the top of its head. His eyes never left Lucas. With his power armor and rifle, tribal tattoos and trophy necklace, he looked like some kind of strange pirate, lost in time.
“Come,” Alpha said. “There is much to discuss.”
Inside the largest hut in the village, Lucas was surprised to see a collection of machinery that rivaled the CIC of both Xalan ships he’d been in. The walls were lined with floating monitors and a central workstation was alive with light and sound. It was entirely out of place in their present surroundings, but Lucas figured it must be Zeta’s base of operations.
“Alright,” Lucas said. “I need some more answers. Where’s Asha?”
Alpha projected a floating display from his mechanical hand. It was a topographical map of the local landscape, and there were a flurry of red, black, and green dots pulsing all over it.
“What am I looking at?” Lucas asked. Zeta was busying herself shifting through pieces of a video. The video that Alpha’s father had made before his death.
“Each Guardian is implanted with a tracking chip so their location might be known in circumstances like these. It monitors their vital statistics along with other pertinent data relating to their biology.”
Lucas squinted a
nd could see tiny names next to the dots. Wrev. Danna. Kali. Corvin.
“Living Guardians are red, the deceased are black.”
Lucas searched the litany of black spots until he saw the one he sought, Silo’s. He had been secretly hoping that entire event was some sort of disease-induced dream, but no. He still had Silo’s Final on him as well, he discovered.
“And the green clusters?” Lucas said pointing to the dots, which were grouped together.
“Those are rescued Guardians or Oni warriors. We have been sending them out in waves in order to retrieve the survivors. Their vornaa are expert trackers, though I have outfitted them with a copy of this readout as well.”
“Vornaa?” Lucas said. “The wolf ?”
Alpha nodded.
“It is a nearly extinct, carnivorous species, native to the area, that the Oni have domesticated over time. I am told it was not an easy feat.”
Lucas spotted a cluster of green surrounding a red dot. Asha. They were moving toward the indicator of the village where there was another, larger grouping of green dots, his own included.
“So she’s on her way back?”
“Indeed, Asha should be here in less than a day. Reports from the search team indicate she is without serious injury and in adequate health. More so than you were, to be sure.”
Lucas looked over the entire map in front of him.
“What’s the final count then? How many did we lose?”
Alpha checked a readout.
“Of the 106 crew members onboard the ship, forty-eight died on impact. Twenty-three more have perished in the jungle since the crash almost three days ago. Twenty-five have been found and brought back to the village.”
“Where are they?” Lucas asked.
“Most are being treated by the Kal’din. He is the medical overseer of the community, trained by generations of his own people, and given further knowledge and tools by Zeta.”
Zeta remained fixed on her monitor. It showed the segment of the video where the evolutionary pattern of the Xalans over generations could be seen.
“The healthiest Guardians have gone out with the Oni in search of other survivors.”
“How many are still out there?”
“Ten. Three are on their way back. Four have rapidly deteriorating vital signs. The rest are stable. Teams are en route to almost all of them.”
“We lost two-thirds of the entire crew. And the ship,” Lucas repeated.
“That is correct.”
Alpha looked dejected. He clearly blamed himself for the loss of life and the impending failure of the mission.
“How did you get here?” Lucas asked.
Alpha’s eyes were downcast toward the map.
“I will admit some guilt pertaining to how easily I survived the encounter. The Spear had contingencies for the pilot when the destruction of the ship was imminent. As it broke apart after the unexpected assault, I was absorbed into a highly secure chamber that weathered the chaos with ease. Inside, I still had access to many of the ship’s core functions. This tracking program, Zeta’s signal. As quickly as I could, I made my way here and attempted to explain myself to the Oni. Had Zeta not appeared, I would have likely been skinned alive and had my teeth and claws removed one by one. It is a tribal custom for captured Gal’krai here.”
Zeta strode over to the two of them. She was just a few inches shorter than Alpha. She too wore nothing, but other than her pale complexion and bright eyes, there was no visible difference in biology between the two of them. Lucas had yet to determine how Xalans reproduced, as it certainly wasn’t obvious.
“Imagine my surprise when [garbled]. Excuse me, when Alpha arrived at my door after all these years. I had assumed he was dead along with the rest of his clan, though I activated our backchannel signal as soon as I was able in the hopes that he was not.”
Alpha chimed in.
“I have spent the two days after my arrival attempting to explain our present circumstances to Zeta. Why we came. What we can hope to achieve. And of course, I shared my father’s truth with her.”
Zeta looked shaken. A freeze frame of Alpha’s father’s face hung on a monitor across the room.
“It was … difficult to process,” she said quietly. “To think that our entire existence is built upon a lie? It is almost unfathomable. The scope of this deceit is truly astonishing, even for a ruling body as corrupt as ours. Hundreds of thousands of our own people must have been killed to prevent this secret from getting out. If the public knew our history, that we were created by the Sorans from their own DNA, the unrest would destabilize the Council.”
“Then you think it will work,” Lucas said.
Zeta nodded.
“I do,” she replied. “But the challenge of disseminating the message throughout the colonies and Xala so that all may see it at once is great. And that is without considering the obvious fact that all of you are now stranded here without a ship. I am told you have two sons who need you back on Sora?”
“That’s right,” Lucas said, his thoughts turning to Noah. How lonely he must be without the pair of them, even if he was surrounded by palace staff. And their second child was scheduled to be “born” from the tank when, in a month? Two? He and Asha had to make it back to them.
“We have to find a way out of here.”
“That will be an arduous process,” Alpha said. “And there is much to plan in order to ensure the success of our mission.”
“The success of our mission?” Lucas exclaimed. “Most of our crew is dead and our ship is in pieces. How exactly is our mission going to be a success?”
“We have reached Zeta, as intended. She is already working on a broadcast algorithm for our message of truth. For every ally we have lost, we’ve gained two in the form of the Oni.”
“No offense,” Lucas said, “but they don’t look like the most well-equipped bunch compared to the Guardians, who would have been here in full armor with high-tech weaponry in tow.”
“You should not underestimate the Oni,” Zeta said. “They have survived here for thousands of years, and the jungle is littered with the carcasses of Xalans who have died at their hands. In fact, the local military base calls this [garbled]. ‘The Black Forest.’ Entire platoons have been swallowed up by the Oni as they have attempted to navigate the jungle. The more superstitious Xalans believe them to be ghosts of the old civilization, haunting them for their crimes against the planet’s people.”
“And what do the Oni believe about us arriving here?” Lucas asked.
“There used to be those on this planet that shared your skin tone, many, many generations ago. I have told them that you are Rokaan. Descendants of the once-great mountain tribes who have come to fight alongside them. They are wary of new faces, but can see you are obviously Oni as well, which builds a bridge of trust. Though to you they would be called Soran. Or human, as you said on Earth. All the words mean one and the same now. I will never understand your people’s presence all throughout this galaxy. And now knowing that the Xalans are not a sovereign race, merely a Soran genetic experiment, it appears you are the only true species that populates the stars.”
“And yet here we are,” Lucas said, “practically extinct on a half dozen planets, save one.”
“We will try to reverse that with our work here,” Zeta said.
“So what’s the plan now?” Lucas asked, turning to Alpha.
Alpha scratched an old scar on his chest.
“Zeta is working on her algorithm and I am attempting to formulate a path off this planet.”
“And what can I do?” Lucas asked. He noticed that Natalie lay propped up against a console and immediately walked over and grabbed the rifle. Alpha had likely placed it there for safekeeping. It was one of his best creations, after all.
“There is one more matter we need you to attend to, if you feel able to take on the task,” Alpha said.
“I’ve been in way worse shape than this,” Lucas said. It was true, and his body had
learned to live with minor discomforts like burns and fractures for years now. With the poison out of his system, he was refreshed.
“There is one last Guardian in need of rescue.”
Lucas already knew what was coming next.
“First Watchman Mars Maston.”
He’d seen his dot on the map a fair distance away from camp. The area he was in had been shaded red for some reason.
“Why hasn’t a team been dispatched to him already?”
“One was,” Zeta said, looking sorrowful. “But they were lost in Ai Los’ri Vin-taasa.”
“What is that?” Lucas asked.
“The Dead City.”
Lucas’s face remained blank. She elaborated.
“It is the two-thousand-year-old husk of an ancient Oni metropolis. It lies in ruins deep within the jungle, and it is most unfortunate your colleague landed there.”
“Why?”
Alpha was growing nervous as Zeta spoke.
“Legend has it the Gal’krai, the Xalans, handed the city over to a powerful beast some time after they invaded, one they did not want living among them. It hunts in the jungle by day, sleeps somewhere within the walls by night. While the Oni have hunted Xalans in the Black Forest, the creature has been hunting them. They quickly learned that stepping foot in the city itself was certain death. None have survived to even report back what the beast looks like.”
“Fantastic,” Lucas said. “How is Maston even still alive, then?”
Alpha spoke now.
“Readings indicate that his cryochamber has not yet opened, and his tracking signal is coming from underground. Most likely, both the Xalans and the creature do not know he is there.”
Maston was still asleep? That would be quite a wake-up call if they managed to reach him. Something occurred to Lucas.
“A beast they didn’t want living among them … Alpha, that’s not—”
“The Desecrator?” Alpha said. “For all our sakes, I hope not. That would be an exceptionally unfortunate stroke of luck if the abomination were being kept on Makari.”
“The Desecrator?” Zeta said incredulously. “You believe the creature to be the subject of an old children’s tale?”