Chapter 94: Chapter Ninety Three

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

Days after of Crash landing/ 2

Uninhabited Island / Ruins / Window Corridor form Black Windows Gallery

Galactic Standard Time / 0645

“So you’re all Civilians?” Yogix asked in shock as they walked down the corridor towards the door.

“Yeah, kinda. We’ve all got our own stories and let’s say kinda,” Zane said and Yogix looked at him.

It had taken the trio five minutes to get the natives moving, and Yogix had started to ask questions. Rogix was looking out the windows, seemingly in awe at the scene. The soldiers had all looked around, and Zane was beginning to smile. These people were adapting well to what they were told. It seems that the fact that they hated dead beings was slowly getting through to them.

Rodolphe looked at them and tried to not smile. They were reacting a lot like his friends had once they were in the stars. To think, that after all those years he had found people in the same situation he had been. It made him think about how the universe always seemed to go in circles.

“It’s persona so don’t ask,” Rodolphe said as the group reached the doors. Looking at them he pulled out the bone hand and moved it under the scanner.

Rogix looked at it in shock and awe. “Is that a hand from one of the Builders?”

Yogix turned around and stared in shocked awe. “How?”

“First galley we got into. And let me tell you, getting away from floating robots was a lot harder than it sounds. Or the stories say,” Bryce said with a smirk as he aimed at the door. “Now me and Zane first, you all follow once we give the all-clear.”

As the door opened, he and Zane rolled through the door and gave the new room a once over, each of them taking one side.

“Clear Right!” Zane barked.

“Clear Left!” Bryce finished as he and Zane got up.

Rodolphe only shook his head and chuckled a bit. Looking at the others who watched what Zane and Bryce did in awe, Rodolphe only smirked. “After you all!”

Yogix ran into the room, looking around in awe. As the soldiers followed, Rogix looked at Rodolphe with a hard look in his eyes.

Racha only looked at Rogix for a few moments. “Yes?”

“You are going to close the door behind us, aren’t you?” Rogix asked with a cold voice.

“Of course, SOP for these kinda things really,” Rodolphe said brightly.

“And how does a civilian know Standard Operating Procedure?” Rogix asked as he clenched his axe.

“Sorry man,” Rodolphe said as he pointed at the room. Rogix only looked at him for a few moments before walking through the door.

Rodolphe followed behind him. But he stopped at the doorway and looked back the way they had come, something was bothering him. For a minute all he did was look down the hallway, but he finally turned around and walked through the door. Looking right at Rogix he grinned as he put the hand under the scanner in the room. “That’s something I need to trust you to tell. And that takes time.”

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As the door closed, a small insect flew out from hiding on the ceiling. It flew around until it reached one of the crystals and landed on it. As soon as it did the crystal started to grow dimmer as the insect started to spin a cocoon around itself. After it against the crystal, the cocoon slowly started to pulse. After a second it started to glow as the crystal grew dimmer with each moment that passed.

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Rogix looked around the room, trying to take in everything. The room itself was at least two hundred feet long and maybe a hundred wide. There was a large pillar in the center of the room. The only light came from four large jagged crystals set in a line around the middle of the pillar. As he looked all around, something bothered him. It took him a minute to find it, and when he did he frowned. They had thought for years their people had been captured for a reason, that was the core of their Revenge. But to learn that the beings who built their prison were dead, and had been since before they were captured? That and the way this room was set up bothered him so much. To him, this place was almost like a fairground. But why would a large underground forest have a fairground near it? This place looked like the rooms the Queen used for her parties, a place of high emotions. But why?

He shook himself and looked at the scanner as Rodolphe put the bone hand away. That it had been used as a key sounded like the old tales his line had of the command deck. “So that scanner. It reads a computer chip, right? In the bone itself?”

Rodolphe only chuckled and shook his head. “Something like that or they used a bio scan as the key. But most scanners back home that do that look for signs of life.”

“Could they have been that sure nothing could kill them?” Rogix asked as he put his axe on his shoulder.

“Yeah, that or the beasties here just couldn’t………. We think this place was made for the production of Bio-Weapons. Just a theory,” Rodolphe said.

Rogix only looked at him as his troops reacted. While they were shocked, his mind was going a mile in second. Little things that had made no sense at all were suddenly jolting into place. In his mind a a puzzle was slowly becoming clear. And he didn't like anything about what he was seeing.

“Bioweapons? What Bioweapons?” One of the soldiers asked.

Rodolphe was about to say something when Yogix spoke up.

“The beasts,” Yogix said with a shocked tone. They all turned and saw Yogi falling to his knees, his face going white.

“You figured it out, teacher?” Rogix asked softly, yet loud enough that all heard him.

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Yogix looked at Rogix for a few moments before turning to look at Rodolphe. “You’re saying the strange beasts that preyed on our people before we killed so many of them. Those things were made to kill before they were born?”

The soldiers all looked at him in shock.

Rogix only looked at the windows, his mind going dark places. The army was the descendants of the force that the survivors made to deal with the beasts. They had fought monsters with weapons made of stones and then claws, and they lost people in each battle. But they had grown, created better weapons, and gained the Power, and they had thrived. He had personally had led a mission that made extinct what they thought of as a new species. But they were made?

Zane sighed loudly and they all looked at him. “That or the things were designed by DNA and then made. We’ve made a few advances in the last few years. So if we could do it they might have been able to as well.”

One of the soldiers only stared at them in horror and backed up until he hit one of the windows. He looked out it and blinked, shocked beyond words. “Sirs! We’re at the outside of the Rest!”

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Yogix looked at him and stared, his mouth dropping open in shock. “WHAT!? We’re still miles away!”

Yogix ran, the others following behind him. He reached the windows and stared in shocked horror.

Over a hundred feet below them was the Scholar’s Rest. He looked at it, seeing the one-hundred-foot-tall castle. It was made of the strongest material they had for construction, a kind of purple stone. He could see everything and he was almost sure he could see people moving about below.

“How!?” Zane demanded horror in his voice.

“Teleportation? After the windows were replaced by a solid wall, could the door have been a wormhole? Could they have made something like that!?” Bryce asked.

Yogix shivered as he heard the horror in the Star-Walker’s voice.

“This is bad, this is so bad!” Rodolphe said in horror.

“How is this so bad? What new horror do we have to deal with now!?” Rogix asked in fury. A fact that almost made Yogix smile.

That was his old student, give him a problem and he would find a way to destroy it. But this might not be something that could be destroyed.

“If we’re a hundred feet up, where’s the window looking out behind the Scholar’s Rest? And how will we get there?” Zane asked softly.

Yogix felt the world shift beneath him as he heard the truth in Rodolphe’s words. They were in such a terrible situation, how could they survive? The only way that he could see was hope, luck, and the knowledge that these three people had.

“Think there’s a security room or something over there?” Bryce's voice asked from the edge of the group, looking towards the far wall.

“Maybe, but good for volunteering to look Bryce. Zane go find the door out into the complex, take some of these guys, and barricade it if possible! I’ll check along the window over by the wall and work to the right.. Bryce go to the right there and work left. Everyone else stay here and watch that door!” Rodolphe said with a hard look at it.

“Expecting trouble my friend?” Bryce asked as everyone looked at the door they had gone through.

Rodolphe shook his head and gazed around the group. “No, just got a bad feeling when I closed it. Maybe it’s nothing, but I’d feel a lot safer to have something watch it!”

“I’ll go with Zane to help! We’ve got a few tricks you don’t!” Rogix said before a yellow energy aura engulfed him.

Rodolphe just looked at him, shocked still as Zane stared at Rogix as well.

Bryce only looked at him and blurted out. “Wait, you’ve got that drug here?”

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“Drug!?” Zane asked in shocked horror as everyone looked at Bryce. “What do you mean, drug?!”

Bryce looked around, and seeing the looks he was getting sighed. “I….. I’ve seen someone do something like that. He needed a drug to do it. He could summon this fireball that burned anything. It even could fly ten feet fast, even melting through metal. He tore through a lot of my friends before we could space em.”

“Using a drug to get the Power? To use Skills?” Rogix asked shock in his voice.

Zane looked at him and he saw Rodolphe do it too.

“Not normal then?” Zane asked with curiosity in his voice.

“No, the Power is gained through many ways, but not that. Some say martial might is the truest way. Others say that sometimes it just happens. Others say that there is something within us, that fierce emotions lets us break through it. Some say they hear a voice, that something gives the Power to them. It never happened to me, but Rogix? That was martial training,” Yogix said with a small grin.

“Aye. To use a drug….. that is amazing and worrying,” Rogix said with a shudder.

“Enough of this, we can talk later! For now, we have to find our way out!” Rodolphe said with a hard edge.

“Right! Sir Rogix, who’s the strongest who can help the two of us?” Zane asked and Rogix nodded.

“Right, get to work! You three, with me!” Rogix barked as he pointed at three of his soldiers.

As they all went to do their work, Zane came near Rogix. “So why was it worrying?”

Zane couldn’t understand that. What did Rogix see that he couldn’t? Sure how he had dealt with the traitors that attacked his people was amazing. A slash of energy that created thunderbolts when it hit. He’d have been able to protect his family if he had something like that.

Rogix looked at him as he took a deep breath. “A drug that lets one use the Power. That equals ‘only use the Power when I say’. And that would be very, very bad.”

Zane looked at him for a few seconds before replying. “Oh.”

That was all he needed to say, and that summed up his thoughts so well. Anyone who wanted to use this Power would need to obey their supplier without question. The kind of authority that would equal was very worrying. It could lead to the kind of dictatorship that was the enemy in bad movies!

“So you see then?” Rogix asked as they moved into sight of the door. There were a few metal structures here and there around the door.

Zane looked around, trying to think what this reminded him of. But he just couldn’t see it, and that bothered him. Something about this place reminded him of something, but what he couldn’t say.

“So these are like the ones you saw before? In that other room that started your journey?” Rogix asked.

Zane blinked and shook his head. “What? No. It had more benches than this place. But will we be able to move it?”

“Cut free then. Stand back,” Rogix said with a hard stare.

Before Zane could say anything, three sets of arms picked him up and carried him away.

“Sorry for this sir!” One of the three soldiers said as he ran carrying Zane.

“But when the Boss says move!” The second soldier said.

“We move!” The Third and final soldier said.

Zane tried to break free but he looked towards Rogix and felt his breath leave his body.

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Bryce cursed himself for speaking up. He hadn’t told that to anyone, but the horror of his escape still bothered him. To see that again, and by a human lost on this strange world. It bothered him so much. Those people were the greatest of the Teacher’s minions. People who were friends that were taken away, and came back changed.

“I would hear more about your story if you would,” Yogix asked from behind him.

He stopped looking at the wall and turned back to look at Yogix. The old man looked so interested that for a moment, he almost spoke. But only the long times he had to keep his silence helped him now.

“You mean to keep the secret then? I understand but I’m near the end of my life. Would have been nice to carry some new knowledge when I go. All the Scholar can dream really,” Yogix said with a sigh.

Bryce only looked at Yogix for a few moments before he paled in horror.

“Wait, what?! You don’t have any regeratives at all!?” Bryce asked in shocked horror.

“What do you mean? What are ‘regeratives’?” Yogix asked a strange note in his voice.

Bryce smiled at the old man. “It’s a kind of machine medicine. It causes the body to stay young and healthy. Basically a way to live as long as you want.”

“By the hull, that’s possible!?” Yogix stammered, completely shocked.

Bryce nodded as he looked at the wall, trying to find the sign he was looking for. Part of him wanted this to work, but then part of him knew it was a pointless idea. If the people who built this place could make teleport for doorways, that changed things. For all they knew the right door they needed was in another chamber. But they didn’t have a choice, they needed to do this.

“Yeah. About fifty years after the Corp War, they were found. The conspiracy nuts say it was something the Corps had for decades before the war, or the government did. Normal nuts talk really,” Bryce said absently. He moved his hand along the wall and then smiled as he found a space he couldn’t see at first. “GOT IT!”

A loud crash caused them all to turn and see Rogix had slashed into the ground. He had sheared away a large slash around a metal square five feet high.

With a grin, Rogix stalked towards another side and slashed down.

“That’s Rogix alright. Show him a problem, he’ll use force to fix it,” Yogix sighed and looked at Bryce. “So these machine medicines? They must be hard to make.”

“There’s a chance the ship’s medical section survived. There is a bed that grows them there. But we have to find them first. Even if that doesn’t work, there other things in there that could help you all a lot. So there’s that,” Bryce said with a sigh. Feeling around the space he found, he smirked as he looked around for Rodolphe. “HEY, FOUND A DOOR!”

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Yogix looked on as Rodolphe ran over, his mind going strange places. The idea that machines could let him live longer was amazing, and a bit scary. The society that his cousins came from was strange and lovely. To have more time than what one could take from the Forest, was a dream that many people had. That alone might let the revengers calm down. And the idea that the Rebels had, they might stop. Most of the Rebel's problems were that the War, how so many lives were lost, and costing needed resource. If they could get better healing, so many problems would be fixed.

Once Rodolphe reached him he looked at Bryce’s hand and got out the bone key. As Bryce moved back, Rodolphe put the key into the space. A moment later a door five feet away opened from the wall, the door opening towards the windows.

“Okay, that’s new. Let’s see what we found here,” Bryce said as he walked over to the opening. He looked into it and whistled. “I think we found the stairs.”

Walking over with Rodolphe, Yogix looked down. The stairs were in a long vertical rectangle at least thirty feet wide. The stairs themselves were over ten feet wide. They went down to a small platform from where other stairs went down along the other wall. As he looked down, Yogix felt a spark of hope that maybe, they would make it to the Scholar’s Rest.

“You know, this might be even worse, right?” Bryce said softly as he looked down.

All Yogix and Rodolphe could do was look at him.

Bryce looked at them and sighed. “What, you didn’t think that there might be another teleported in the door?”

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The cocoon had grown larger, in only a few minutes it was over ten feet long and five wide. It had fallen out of the window when it had disappeared as the crystal had shattered. It was still pulsing and growing for a few moments before something within started to move. No one was there to see a long red chitin-covered limb burst out of the sack.