Story Hub: [link]
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Strange things were happening in the
Cosmic Wall. Outer rim outposts and listening stations insisted nothing was
wrong for the longest time, but suddenly many planets on the fringes of the
Themision Federation territory started going dark. It began with unaffiliated
low-tech worlds technically under the Federation’s jurisdiction, then it spread
to their outermost colonies, and now even planets close to the middle rim were
rapidly losing contact with their scattered settlements. Yet the outposts and
listening stations kept sending the all-clear. When these locations were
inspected to determine the cause of their negligence, they were all empty and
devoid of life. That is, if the teams sent to perform inspections returned at
all.
The Federation Senate was rife with
talks of blame and finger-pointing, more so than usual, but a few cooler heads
prevailed and put more funding and manpower behind discovering the source of
this issue. However, not too many resources were invested in this search, the
Federation had other problems and wars to fight. So many planets were lucky to
have teams as large as three people coming to their aid. And in most cases the
‘aid’ was more inspections and scouting. In some people’s eyes, it was better
than nothing. Others saw the obvious insanity in sending as few as three people
to scout an entire planet.
All these thoughts and more bounced
around the mind of Special Security Officer Mixly. He cared little for his new
“rank,” which pulled him away from the war with the Bacchus Union where he was
really needed and sent him on, in his own words, “senate mandated shite work.”
That’s why he and his partner were shipped to planet Upillio, the closest core
world to the outer rim and the latest victim of mysterious issues and
unexplained signals.
As he gazed at the rolling hills and
city-sized swathes of cultivated land that made up the farming world, Mixly
could say only one thing. “We will find nothing, and receive nothing but grief
for it.”
“Don’t be so quick to assume the
worst, Mixly,” his partner, Jastear, assured. “I’ve been hearing rumors from my
friends upstairs. There’s a lot more to these happenings than the Senate is
willing to let on. That’s why the keeper is with us.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask,” Mixly
sighed. Some of the higher-ups keeping needless secrets had become an
unfortunately common thing in his line of work. He used to be annoyed by it,
but now he was furious because it literally almost cost him an arm and a leg in
his last mission.
“A few of the bigwigs have a solid
idea of who is responsible for all these missing colonies and empty outposts,
but they’re not willing to admit it,” Jastear explained. “That, and they don’t
have much in the way of real evidence. It’s not like they have survivors to
squeeze info out of.”
“So, they’re either terrified of
being wrong, or they’re terrified of being right?” Mixly suggested.
“Couldn’t have put it better
myself,” Jastear agreed. “And of course those jarheads are too spineless to
even give us enough resources to solve the problem if it is as bad as they
think it is.”
“This is not the time for idle
speculation, Security Officer,” a filtered voice echoed from behind them. The
two officers turned to see a man encased in stylized armor that hummed with
enough electricity to power a small tank. The faceplate of his helmet was a
flat, polished silver that matched his stoicism. He stood a full head taller
than both men, but his sheer presence made him seem almost twice as large. Like
a statue come to life, he glared down at the two men with disapproval. “We have
a mission, and we complete it with the resources provided to us. Or are you
implying that you are incompetent?”
“No, sir,” Jastear stiffened up,
desperately suppressing every insubordinate thought he could.
“Do not suppress your true feelings.
I am not a direct superior with fragile feelings,” the armored man replied.
“Explain to me your worries in detail.”
“While I lack official intel, sir,”
Jastear gulped, “I have word from people I trust that whatever we might be
after is a serious threat, and we won’t be prepared for whatever we find.”
“I understand your concern, but it
is unfounded as long as I am here,” the armored man assured.
“Yes sir, Lord Keeper,” Jastear
saluted.
“I am not yet a Lord, Security
Officer. I’m still just a humble Knight,” the keeper clarified. “Referring to
me as Knight Sabre will be sufficient. And despite the rank’s name, calling me
sir is unnecessary.”
“Yes, Knight Sabre,” Jastear
saluted.
“Now, I’ve found an unusual signal
of unknown origin,” Sabre revealed a hand-sized holographic projector
displaying a map and coordinates. “It resembles signals from other locations
like Theta-4, Iluxio, and Bulliries.”
“I heard about what happened with
the first two, but what happened on a backwater planet like Bulliries?” Mixly
asked.
“They went dark a few septocycles
ago. It likely wasn’t mentioned in your briefing as it was recent and
considered low priority,” Sabre explained. “However, the signal on this planet
most closely matches the one on Bulliries, so I saw it relevant to mention.”
“Know anything about that place?”
Mixly turned to his partner.
“They’ve got an obscure language, I
took it for a couple of semesters in the academy,” Jastear commented. “Other
than that, all I know is it’s another farm planet, and not a very expansive or
profitable one.”
“No surprise it went dark then if
the threat is real,” Mixly sighed.
“Agreed, I request that you two head
out to investigate the signal,” Sabre ordered. “I’ll follow shortly. I wish to
investigate the wider area.”
“Consider the matter done, Knight
Sabre,” Mixly and Jastear saluted.
\\\<~--~>///
Following the signal, Mixly and Jastear
descended into the furthest, most remote corner of the planet. The endless
rolling farmlands gave way to uncultivated forests before they finally tracked
the signal to a cave system hidden near its heart.
It was an odd sight: while the cave
entrance appeared natural, the formation was equally out of place. It looked
old, as though it had been carved out over centuries of nature doing what it
did best. However, the entrance sat in the middle of a clearing in the trees,
as if dropped there by unseen hands.
“I have no clue what to make of
this,” Jastear admitted. “Does that look right to you?”
“Not by a long shot,” Mixly replied.
“The clearing on its own would be fine, and the cave on its own would be fine.
But together? The whole thing looks off, like two different environments were
carelessly jammed together and this is the result. Normally I’d think someone
culled the trees to make way for the cave, but it looks more like someone found
a clearing of trees and plopped the cave right there.”
“Think it could be a trap?” Jastear
theorized.
“If it is, it’s the most obvious
trap I’ve seen in my life,” Mixly answered. “Message the keeper and tell him
what we’ve found, then we proceed with caution.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Jastear
agreed.
\\\<~--~>///
As the two security officers delved
into the cave, their questions and confusion grew by the minute. Within was not
a sprawling maze of rock walls nor a giant cavern, but something resembling a
village with a mushroom motif and an artificial sky. It resembled a village,
but it was most certainly not a place where people lived. The area was
deserted, and the “houses” were mere facsimiles of a home, with either no
interior or a completely hollow inside. Even the false sky was merely paint,
very meticulously applied paint, but paint nonetheless that was already in the
process of peeling.
“What do you make of this?” Mixly
asked his partner.
“Honestly, I’ve got nothing, and
even if I did, I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Jastear admitted. “Gates of
Paradise, look at this place from another angle.” Jastear tilted his head left,
and as Mixly did the same, he immediately realized the problem. The “village”
only looked vaguely convincing from one angle. If you angled your head even
slightly, it started to look like you were on the wrong side of a cheap movie
set.
“Why even bother? It already looks
wrong. I think those houses in the back are blending into each other,” Mixly
pointed out. Once his partner pointed it out, Jastear noticed it everywhere.
Mishapen buildings, melded structures, and plastic plants growing out of random
surfaces. It looked like the area was designed by a random number generator.
“I guess this narrows down the list
of suspects. I can’t think of many factions that build like this, in fact, I
can’t think of any,” Jastear exclaimed. “This makes the whole thing…hold on, I
saw something.” The officer shifted into a combat stance and raised his laser
rifle. It was a much higher-quality weapon than the standard-issue pea shooters
given to most enlisted soldiers. This thing was designed to kill the much
nastier creatures that stalked the darkest corners of the Outer Rim. “It wasn’t
big, nor was it moving fast, I don’t even think they’ve seen us yet.”
“Then let’s take this slow,” Mixly
drew his own rifle as the two began to skulk after the unknown life form.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long to find it, as it wasn’t running away from
them. It was a small humanoid figure seated at a crude replica of a café. Mixly
pulled down a visor that magnified his vision and got a better look. “It’s…a
cyangel? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one completely on their own.”
“Let me look,” Jastear pulled down
his own visor to see. Just as his partner said, a lone cyangel gynoid sat at a
table, pouring a drink from a thermos. She had medium-length black hair that
covered her eyes, was barely taller than your average teenage girl, had very
small wings on her back, and was dressed like she was attending a fancy
military prep school. “I see her, and the signal is really strong around here,
so either she’s involved or knows something about it. If she’s really on her
own, we should be more than capable of dealing with her.” The two broke from
their hiding spot and rushed the gynoid’s position.
“A long way from home, aren’t ya?”
Mixly approached the girl from the front. She looked up and immediately jumped
to her feet in panic, but as she turned around to flee, Jastear was already
waiting for her.
“You’re not going anywhere. Now tell
us what we want to know,” Jastear demanded. The cyangel immediately descended
into hysterical crying and babbling in a language the two didn’t immediately
understand. Mixly could at the very least tell she was afraid and begging for
her life, but Jastear slowly recognized the words. “That’s the language of
Bulliries she’s speaking.”
“Why would that be a cyangel’s first
language?” Mixly wondered.
“No clue, but I intend to find out,”
Jastear tried to grab her, but the gynoid wiggled out of his grasp and
scrambled away.
“Shit,” Mixly primed his rifle. “Go
for the legs!” He fired at the cyangel. Her erratic movements made her a
difficult target, but Mixly was an experienced soldier and could easily adjust.
Before long, two of his shots struck true, one in her upper thigh and another
in the opposite leg’s calf. Despite being stunned for a moment, the cyangel
quickly bounced back to her feet and kept fleeing.
“You’re kidding, you hit anything
else with that, and they’d be lucky to ever walk again,” Jastear exclaimed.
“Fuck it, aim for her vitals.” Jastear fired off his own volley of shots. Three
laser bolts landed square in her back, and while the gynoid was knocked off her
feet, there was no permanent damage, and she kept moving without injury.
However, she had lost her bearings and was running in circles with no
destination in mind.
“Does nothing hurt her?” Mixly fumed
as he fired off the last few shots before he needed to reload. A shot to the
cyangel’s tailbone only made her spring into the air briefly, while a hit on
her arm only made her cradle it like one does a bee sting. Mixly was about at
his wits’ end before his last shot clipped the cyangel’s wing, causing her to
go into spasms. “That did something, corner her!”
“No more running,” Jastear came at
the cyangel from the left while Mixly covered her right. They finally managed
to corner her in a crude approximation of a back alley, complete with hollow
trash cans and solid black rocks that resembled trash bags. The cyangel cowered
in her corner, practically in tears as she continued to speak a mile a minute
in the Bulliries tongue.
“What’s she saying?” Mixly asked.
“No clue, she’s talking way too fast
and my Bulliries is really rusty,” Jastear admitted. “Let me try something,”
the security officer said, thinking back to his old language classes. Using
what he remembered of the Bulliries language, he asked her to calm down and
speak slowly, which he had to repeat three times before the panicking gynoid
heard him. When she finally registered what he was saying, she only replied
with a brief sentence.
“Now what’d she say?” Mixly already
sensed he wouldn’t like what the girl said.
“Your Bulliries sucks,” Jastear
translated. “If that’s how you’re going to be,” the soldier armed his rifle and
shot her leg, but despite the point-blank shot, the laser only inflicted a
fleeting pain on the cyangel. Realizing she wasn’t in nearly as much danger as
she’d thought, the cyangel laughed at the two men, mixing in some colorful
words from her language.
“I don’t even need you to translate
that last part,” Mixly seethed as he put his rifle to the girl’s head. However,
she just stuck her tongue out without the slightest bit of fear. “Don’t test
us, you scrap heap!”
The cyangel kept laughing as she
swatted his rifle away and jumped to her feet. With a few hand motions, she
rapidly assembled her own rifle, as if from thin air, and pointed it right at
the two men. She spouted increasingly bold-sounding words as she primed the weapon.
“Careful, she’s threatening to blow
our heads off,” Jastear took a defensive stance.
“Blast it all, call the keeper! We
need help!” Mixly urged as she cyangel pointed her gun at him and pulled the
trigger. Luckily for him, the recoil of the weapon knocked her off her feet,
and the shot went wide. Fuming, she forced herself back to her feet and tried
to shoot again, but only managed to jam her gun. Her confident boasts faded
away as she returned to her rapid crying and panic.
“…Yeah, let’s call the keeper,”
Jastear said, thanking his lucky stars.
To
Be Continued…
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Lack of communication is just as bad as a miscommunication, because it forces the other party to make assumptions and act on incomplete information. It is rarely wise to act quickly on baseless assumptions, but sometimes you don't have the luxury to wait.
Until next time, Read, Comment and Enjoy.
