Chapter 16: Dread
The REFINED, after being on route for more than a week, finally reached its destination.
Ky’ler Station, a Kyu-Kage owned behemoth in the center of the newly reclaimed section 138.
It was the progenitor company of the sector and a supplier of military assets for Branch. Usually it could handle its own problems with its near limitless Contribution Credit score. Things must have been dire for them to call in military assistance, and to be so secretive about it, to boot.
Nako waited at the bridge for his communications officer to hail the station, since they apparently didn’t deem it necessary to hail them first. He stood in the holo projector’s scanner, and presented himself with the awe-inspiring intimidation that citizens expected of commanders.
LC Nako: This is Lieutenant Commander Sir Tar Nako requesting an Audience with the Executive Director of the station.
He didn't need to wait long before a terribly disheveled and stressed out looking Sulin representative appeared on his projection.
ED Mill-Sen: Lieutenant Commander?? Oh, Akira’s blessings have finally reached us!!! We need your troops to secure our facility!
LC Nako: Secure the facility from what? Your company was not very forthcoming with details.
ED Mill-Sen: Much of what happened is still under top secret Corp confidentiality, but we can't contain this threat! None of our licensed security guards can get near them, and our ex-military either get stiffed or shattered after coming into contact!
LC Nako: I need to know what the threat is, Director. I don't plan on throwing myself at it without knowing what I'm up against.
ED Mill-Sen: It's Rajavan, spoils from a military auction. We were given some new amalgamations to deconstruct and produce new military assets.
The director sent data to the Refined: camera files, audio, and a redacted research file.
Nako stared back at the information sent to him. Both he and Tifera knew exactly what they were dealing with.
Humans.
Hostile humans.
ED Mill-Sen: A bomb unit and a vassal, self-governing from what we can tell. We lost almost the entire R&D staff on the floor and we've had to evacuate nearly 1 mil citizens from the station itself. That's not including the structural damage and loss of product since they've been on board. It's close to 500 years’ worth of credit lost…
LC Nako:You did the right thing, Director. These creatures are a new threat and can be extremely volatile. I will take care of this.
ED Mill-Sen: Akira’s drowning in her own tears! The sooner this whole rotting thing is done with, the sooner we can get back to production. We’ve had the whole facility down for nearly 6 [days]!
Hurry, Lieutenant Commander!
Link Terminated
Nako could feel Tifera creeping closer, and the eyes of his crew awaiting orders.
Overpowering them with freq wasn’t really an option. While he was sure he could withstand the fury of a human’s weaponised blast, his crew had not been exposed to the devastation and would surely be lost, even if they were battle hardened.
As much as the knight in him abhorred underhanded tactics on the battlefield, this was not a seek and destroy, this was a recovery mission. Nako would have to find a way to convince them to join him on the Refined.
It shouldn't be too difficult. Namegiver Jasmine was civilised, courteous even. A conversation with someone who didn't fall over dead was probably all they needed.
“Prepare my regalia, and have 1st recon deployed. I’ll need them to escort me.”
He felt the entire bridge look at him.
“You’ll be going aboard yourself, sir?”
“Yes. I have to make up for the aliens’ terrible first impression of the Galactic Council.”
Nako suited up in his armour. Whilst not made of steel like his Sulin and Zenthi counterparts’, his carapace allowed him to take flight and move more agilely through the air. He had no intention of fighting the lost aliens aboard the station, so he made sure to look extra flashy and impressive, his finest blue cape pleated and pressed, all the tokens of previously won battles pinned to his shoulder, with the moon red gem jasmine had given him taking pride of place amongst them.
His soldiers stood at attention, eight steel-coated Sulin, their right arms held across their chests. Nako took up the rear and drew his sword, waiting as the docking doors opened to the station.
They had been given access to all the station's systems, so they had the run of the entire place, from the habs to the R&D facilities, but everything below had been cut off by the humans. They had apparently been crawling inside the ship's inner workings and destroying everything they touched.
That Included the progenitor rooms, and the hundreds of thousands of potential lives within.
Nako could feel the rage in his soldiers as they passed the broken tanks.
“Forward,” he ordered. “Do not engage.” He steeled himself against his own outrage. For all his time spent listening to Jasmine’s attempts at first contact and being with her, these acts seemed beyond reprehensible.
They followed the trail of destruction to the storage decks below, until they could feel… It.
A dark foreboding, like sharp needles in the back of their brains and a tightness wrapping around their lungs, every step closer made it harder to breathe and think. Usually, aggressive pulses were pure rage, hate or pain, designed to overpower and override the enemy’s senses. If all you can feel is rage, critical thinking goes out the window. But this was different.
Pain, anger, fear, Nako could sense them all but there was something else, a loathing about it all, a clear sense of disgust, he was suddenly aware of how repulsive everything around him was, how grotesque he was, a horrid, despicable, insufferable weakling--
“HALT!” Nako ordered his men. “Defensive formation!”
His soldiers instantly formed a shield around him, melt-guns primed and ready.
The lieutenant commander took a moment to clear his head.
Human freq was both obnoxiously powerful and insidiously subtle. He had not even noticed he and his men had been lured right towards the enemy, out in the open without any sort of guard up.
“It seems you have a lot of words for deplorable!” he shouted. “Care to share a few more with me?”
The freq pulse rippled, focusing its vitriol on the assault team, yet the humans remained hidden in the debris.
“() If that is your wish/you’re asking for it insect/ <nine enemies, center leader>.”
The pulse hit like a hammer to the chest and his intestines wanted to crawl out of his abdomen, his saliva caught in the back of his throat as he heard and felt the words pouring from their enemy’s mouth.
“Awful(horrid)/grotesque/putrid/monstrous(nasty)/abhorrent/vile/dreadful/(foul)/revolting!”
A torrent of almost intolerable pulses wracked his men, who were struggling against each wave. In the end only Nako remained on both feet.
Had he not steeled his nerves beforehand, he would have been in incredible pain. Akira blessed his forethought.
“Very impressive,” Nako complimented the unseen enemy, between hidden laboured breaths. “I can see now why the upper levels are filled with bodies. Versed in battle, are you?” A moment of pause. The oppressive atmosphere did not lift, however. “I am here to talk, young prince…it appears we have come to a most disagreeable misunderstanding. I am not your enemy--”
“Liar! (Like we’re going to fall for such an obvious ploy.)”
“It is no ploy. You must be very confused, you and your friend. We can provide answers, and better food! You must be getting sick of eating processed waurdess…”
“(I am sick of this awful food, I’m sick of this whole fucking thing!)”
“Then allow me to take you and your fellow prince away from here. I am not here to fight.”
A wave of panic and confusion hit Nako. A soft blow. He may finally be breaking through.
“(I can’t trust him--)”
“You can trust me.”
“(Can he read my mind?!)”
“Your uncalibrated translator projects your second voice very clearly.”
“()(So you can read my mind?)
There was another voice, deep like a growl, short and sparse.
“(<Panic worry concern anger>) Damnit, Bo, not now, what do I say? What’s the word in English? Talking! Alien! (Human friend stay in position.)”
Nako was taken aback. There really was another human there, and he was completely void of freq, hidden from sight and sense.
The gruff voice called out again and Nako tried to pinpoint where the other was hiding. “I can't read your mind so much as you are screaming it out onto the network for everyone to hear.” The lieutenant scanned the room. Broken vats and machines as far as the eyes could see, wires and fluid covering the floor.
“Alien lie! Not die! () God damnit Bo just shut up!” the young prince yelled. He was arguing with his companion. Then it dawned on Nako, he was dealing with aliens, everything he knew about relationship dynamics had to be tossed in the void. This wasn't a ‘Commander/Vassal’ situation. He didn't need to win over the young prince, maybe he could appeal straight to the unconnected one?
“Leave us!” Nako ordered his men, before they were permanently crippled by the freq being thrown about. The soldiers left with disciplined speed, while Nako unsheathed all three of his segswords and placed them on the ground, then held his hands high in the air.
“I am not here to lie to you, young prince, nor am I here to harm you or your companion. I am here to punish those who mistreated you and to deliver you to a place of safety--”
A thin figure popped out from behind a pushed over vat, clad in makeshift clothes, both hands outstretched before him and dark, piercing, focused eyes meeting with Nako’s.
The pulse was oppressive, anger and hate held him down, the young prince's wishes for him to die were loud and clear but muddied with conflicting emotions. He was undisciplined, and the notion of peace had made his resolve waver.
Nako had held his own against a human cry of hopelessness. One of desperation hit his body differently.
“I’m not lying…” Nako focused all his might into firing a counter pulse, the cold anger freezing the human in place with wide-eyed shock. “This power runs both ways, and I have been holding back…” Nako fell to one knee but did not break the gaze. “I am here to help. There is another human under my care, and there are other creatures from your planet. It would be a shame for you never to see them--”
“Just s-shut up the b-both of you!” the thin human screamed in desperation. His pale skin was tinged blue, his hands shaking. The young one was becoming erratic, truly beyond the reach of reason. If he spoke another word it would likely draw an even worse ire.
If he couldn't speak, perhaps there was another way?
Nako rested on both his knees in a humbling display and began to whistle.
Jasmine loved to sing, she told him about the millenia worth of music humans had produced, yet he had only learned one song thus far. He hoped it would be enough.
*
Beau stood back and watched the exchange between Ryo and their new alien visitors.
Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
The new captain and his men looked much flashier than those who had come before. The dinosaur space marienes were their first clue, the mere sight of them triggering an instinct to hide, and the fact they didn't immediately fall over dead was their second clue that they were up against something much worse than before.
They might have finally sent in their equivalent of infantry. There was no way he and Ryo could have taken on the numbers without his new psychic death powers, but Ryo wasn't able to stop this one, and had completely given up trying to hide.
The flashy alien soldier didn't attack, but Ryo started screaming in Japanese and wasn't telling him anything anymore.
The kid was turning blue, something wasn't right.
The alien soldier put down his weapons and raised his hands in the air. He wasn't trying to fight. If Beau had wanted, he could have jumped out and simply taken the guy down.
But then they'd send more. And they wouldn't hold back like this one did.
Beau didn't want it to end here, but if they had to, they had to.
“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” he muttered under his own breath, readying for an assault. Then the alien’s calm clicks turned to whistles.
It sounded like crickets and cicadas on a summer’s night, except Beau knew this tune. He had sung it so many times, he could hear it in the memory of his mother’s and grandmother’s voices, and somehow, this bug was singing it now.
Beau stood up to listen, revealing himself, taser lance in both hands, crackling and ready to strike.
The bug did not stand, and Ryo kept shouting incoherently, but Beau stood above the kneeling insect and his voice whispered in tune with the alien.
“... She broke your throne and cut your hair, and from your lips she drew the hallelujah…”
Beau raised his sword beneath the bug's chin, so his many eyes were lifted to his gaze.
“How do you know that song, alien?”
The alien raised a hand, a right one, and made a shaking motion.
Beau’s eyes shifted to the kid, who had since scrambled his way over, a panicked expression on his face.
“Ryo,” Beau growled. “You said you talked to it?”
“Yes, he lie!”
“Lie about what?”
Ryo shook his head.
“He says there is other human, but it lie.”
Beau had noticed that Ryo had stayed a good few feet away from the pair of them. He was shivering. Beau’s brain was screaming at him. These aliens had captured, tortured them, made experiments of them and now they were sending in the peace talks.
He knew what Ryo was saying should have been correct, that the aliens would lie to them now that they were known to be a destructive force, lie to them then recapture them.
But his gut was telling him otherwise.
“What other humans? In vats like this? Prisoners of war? Captured for experiments?”
The alien seemed to have a hard time keeping eye contact, but one of its many hands gestured for itself to stand up.
Beau lifted his head in kind and took a step back as the elegant bug took to its feet. They almost stood eye to eye then, the bug having half a foot on him.
Then it bowed, deeply, a hand across its chest, plucking a red gemmed brooch from its cape and offering it to Beau.
The soldier warily plucked it from the alien’s hand, and inspected it more closely, blinking several times.
What the hell was it doing with a 24 karat gold brooch with a ruby the size of a jawbreaker? Maybe he had the purse to go with it?
The alien gestured again, tapping its head and pointing to Ryo with one pair of hands, then shaking its head while the other pair pointed at its throat and at Beau.
“So, you want to negotiate huh...? Fine.” Beau tossed the gem back. “Then let's negotiate.”
Chapter 17: Nightscares
drip drip
drip drip drip
drip drip drip drip
drip drip drip drip drip
Xant waited in the back as the Ranger soldier opened the long-sealed door, to the abandoned facility. He and his research team would be the first people to step into the complex in nearly a thousand years. The planet had been abandoned in anticipation of the oncoming Rajavan invasion, wiped off the records and sealed away in hoped that the original residents would be able to return. The Rajavan swarm passed over the planet it had been completely untouched, save for the eternal hands of time. The surface had mostly eroded away, but the underground complexes were preserved.
“Heave!” Sir Klyren, the Knight in charge of security shouted as one of the soldiers under his command tore open the steel sliding door with his claws.
The dark, cool air from inside rushed past him.
For everyone, standing in that cramped hallway, the expected, stale, rotting air they were so used to feeling was no longer there.
It was fresh, vibrant, alive.
“There’s vegetation!”
Dr Aalsutia Roveen shouted as she turned off her bioluminescent light, her grey skin glowing from the light in the room.
The excitement was contagious, Xant especially remembered how desperately he wanted to see the plants inside, what new discoveries they would be able to bring back to the inner worlds.
The reclamation was normally documentation of dead worlds, to find such life was a reaffirming of their life's purpose, the work they were grown to do.
The scientists tried to scramble in first but Sir Klyren stopped them in their tracks.
“Let me clear the room first!” he shouted, growling under his breath “Ravenous maggots…”
The large red caped knight stepped into the room, his escort of three rangers following after.
They scanned the room for Rajavan bio signs,
“Clear commander,”
“Clear commander!”
“All clear commander.”
“Right, all clear, citizens file in-” the research team didn’t need to be told twice.
The entire room was giant, completely overgrown by unknown vegetation, the UV lamps in the room had not been turned off, and its power supply uninterrupted in all this time, they had grown into the water reservoir. Lush red grass, blue climbing vines, green bushes with white flowers all manner of varieties unknown and known.
New strains of medicinal plants, and mutations of those strains, this room alone was a treasure trove for the galactic council.
Xant approached a small section of the room, where new shoots of the red grass were growing, he could hear the excited chatter of his companions, the bored sighs of the soldiers.
He recalled Sir Kylren taking his men deeper unto the undiscovered facility, leaving their team to sample and record their findings.
How engrossed he was examining the veins and inner workings of its structure, lost in his own world, it wasn’t until he heard the sickening crunch of teeth on flesh that was he snapped out of his trance.
The Scout Vassal had peeled itself from the overgrown wall, its skin covered in growing vegetation, stirred to life from hibernation by the sudden movement and the scent of the living.
With one bite the Vassal had eaten Dr Roveen, swallowing her whole, before lunging toward his coworkers, jaw unhinged scooping up plant matter, dirt and a screaming scientist.
Xant backed up against the wall, a monster between him and the exit while another friend lost their life. Bitten in half, their voice silenced with the crunching of their skull and the wet, oozing noise of blood and drool dripping from the vassal’s mouth.
Soon it was just him, and his looming death.
Fear had frozen him, but desperation forced him to try something crazy.
Freq pulses were little more than electric waves flowing through his nerves, controlling the nerves of another was military-grade, he’d only accomplished it once before in training, he was never supposed to enact it outside of defence.
He threw himself into the pulse, stopping the vassal as best he could, slowing its movements.
Stomp,
Stomp
Stomp.
The beast drew closer, salivating with an open mouth, the stench of fresh blood on its breath, an eternal hunger for flesh. Xant was forced to stare into the abomination, his own muscles and nerves burning under the strain. He didn’t want to be eaten, he didn’t want to die here, with the rangers so close.
He didn’t want to die here!
He didn’t want to die!
The light shifted.
Xants arms held the looming figure of the Vassal in place, vicious words poured out of its mouth, mimicking his name.
“Doc, Doc, Calm down-”
Xant squeezed the muscles in his arm, locking his opponent’s nerves from receiving any other input. A vassal in branch? Had they been invaded so suddenly?!
He needed to warn Jasmine, he needed to get Rynard!
Xant broke away from the vassal, throwing his body and the vassal to one side so the flesh monster toppled over and into the empty pool reservoir. His whole body ached, he had been tense for so long, a citizen wasn't supposed to last as long as he did, nerve holds tended to strain one's own nervous system.
Xant scrambled off the deck to the halls below searching for Jasmine,He stormed into the master bedroom startling the sleeping human and her dogs.
“Jasmine!” Xant panicked, “there's a vassal! We need to run!”
The dogs started barking incoherently, Jasmine was yanked from deep sleep and charged towards Xant, faltering when her subconscious recognised who she was rushing.
“Jasmine we need to leave!” Xant shouted more forcefully, taking the humans arm and pulling her down the hall.
“Xant?” the human shook herself awake as her friend was dragging her towards the surface. Spades and Kimiko were growling aggressively, Sieglinde almost tripped Jasmine over to get under her legs, all three followed their companions, Spades rushing to get out in front.
“A vassal in the underground facility!” Xant shouted back “They’ve eaten Dr Roveen and the Sir Kylen is too far to-”
“Wait wait, whose Dr Roveen? Are they one of Viitoic’s men?” Jasmine questioned, panic rising with her awareness.
“No she's the lead of the Jothram operation! We need to leave, hurry,” Xant explained, pulling her up the stairs while jasmine tried to get her footing.
“Jothram? I thought this place was called branch?”
“Branch?…” Xant reached to top deck of the yacht and the open air of the engineering hangar.
Rynard emerged from the pool’s cavity rolling his shoulder and flexing every muscle in his body.
Suddenly Xant’s memories didn't line up, they had been on Branch the day before, how could he be on Jothram moments ago but Branch now?...
“Didn't know you had it in ya doc,” the soldier chuckled, shrugging off the pulse as he climbed out of the pool “Who knew you could hold someone like me…”
“What is going on?” Xant asked bewildered.
“Xant? Are you okay?” Jasmine spoke softly with her friend.
Xant stood there trying to figure out what was going on, while Jasmine calmed the dogs down.
“I was on Jothram, I was with my old research team… I, I relived the Vassal attack… the memory was as clear as the day it happened,” it was just clear, he could feel the damp, he could smell the foliage…“But how? It wasn’t a memory I recalled willingly, and yet I felt as if I was there…”
“Sounds like you had a *********,” Jasmine yawned involuntarily, sitting on the sunbed and holding her head in her hands, she'd managed to get maybe 3 hours of sleep tops.
“A what?”
“Its, like a dream, only bad, a ‘night’ mare”
“Night scare! Nightscare! friend Xant was having a nightscare!” Sieglinde said proudly, looking to Xant and Jasmine for affirmation. Xant petted the golden retriever’s ears as he tried to piece together what happened.
“A nightscare?” he had heard Sieglinde speak of them before, in regards to humans not being able to wake up.“Dreams can be bad?” Xant asked, Jasmine nodded sadly.
“Yeah, and they suck too,” she tapped the side of her skull “When we sleep, human brain’s sometimes filter in our worries from our subconscious, I mean, the industrial freq, it gets mixed in with our memories and, our greatest fears and stresses take over for a bit.” She yawned, breaking up the explanation, “It may seem real, and I’ve woken up with a racing heart more than once, but they aren’t.”
“Do these ‘dreams’ make you violent in any way?” Rynard spoke up, “Say, attack an ally with a Nerve-hold?”
Jasmine shrugged.
“I mean, it's possible, especially if they’re ‘sleep-walkers’. What’s a nerve hold?”
“Nerve isolating pulse,” Rynard explained, rolling his shoulders and rubbing his throat. “Locks up the connection between the brain and your limbs, a Zenthi speciality,” Rynard smirked, “You're a little too good at that Doc,”
“You mean that creepy controlling my body thing you put me through? Ugh!” Jasmine shivered, “Wait, Xant did that in his sleep?” The human stared at Xant worried. Rynard looked on more impressed than anything else.
“Is there anything we can do to prevent nightscares?”
Jasmine shook her head.
“No, not really, make sure your room is warm and avoiding stress help, but, mostly you just have to learn to shake off the aftermath…” Jasmine explained as she ruffled Spade’s fur.
Xant sat down on the end of the sunbed, staring through the floor below him.
“Learn to shake it off?… how many times have you experienced this Jasmine?”
“More than I can keep count of,” She replied to her absolutely crestfallen friend, “You just, learn to live with them.”
Xant had suppressed those memories for years, he had burnt himself numb from that traumatic event, was he just supposed to relive that again and again? Without warning when it would happen? Would it ever disappear? ‘Sieglinde's job was to wake her namegiver from nightscares, maybe she could help us too?’
Sieglindes job.
The night scares were prevalent in humans lives so much that they had trained a user intelligence to be of assistance. Another phenomenon that was simply a ‘normal’ in the experience of a human, between dreams, nightscares and a second voice inside your mind, it was a wonder a human could keep a grasp on reality itself.
He stroked his ears, folding his hands in front of him.
All that emotional weight and willpower in exchange for a warped sense of reality.
Great power came at a great cost.
And the universe was making sure humans paid.