The Exiled Earthborn (24 page)

Kal’din? Moltok? Oni? Lucas didn’t understand any of these words. But first questions first.

“Why can’t I see?” Lucas asked.

“It is a side effect of either the Moltok poison or subsequent cleansing treatment. I am assured it is temporary. In most cases.”

Most cases? Alpha was reassuring as ever.

“What happened to the ship?”

Alpha fell silent before his tone turned dire.

“Upon entry into the atmosphere of Makari, we were shot down by a highly concentrated barrage of surface-to-air ordinance. The ship broke up and was scattered throughout the jungle.”

Then it was true.

“How is that possible?” Lucas asked incredulously. “What about the stealth drive?”

He could hear Alpha moving around him.

“They must have improvised a way to detect the ship, knowing that we had appropriated the vessel. It was likely relayed by [garbled], by my mentor before his capture at the Fourth Order base. They may have predicted we would attempt to reach the colonies on a mission such as this for sabotage or other purposes.”

Lucas felt the medicinal goop in between his fingers. There were coarse grains in it. His brain felt numb.

“Where’s Asha? The rest of the crew?”

“Many Guardians died in the crash despite the safety systems onboard the Spear. Others landed in the jungle. Some are still there. We can track their vital statistics remotely from here and locate them, but retrieval has proved … difficult due to Xalan interference. They scour the landscape hunting down survivors.”

Lucas was starting to get groggy. Someone was lathering more paste on his neck. The corpse-like odor burned his nostrils, but fogged his mind.

“Yeah … I know, I ran into a few of them. But Asha … Where …”

“She has been located and is presently en route with her Oni escort. Her vitals are stable.”

He was floating up toward the blackness, trying to keep his thoughts straight.

“Where is … here? Where … are we?”

“That is something better explained with the benefit of sight.”

Lucas hoped that was something that would find him again. He succumbed to the all-encompassing abyss.

When Lucas woke this time, the blackness had been replaced by a bleary light and amorphous shapes. With each blink, his vision became a little clearer, and finally he rubbed his eyes to the point where his surroundings were finally revealed.

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 and 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.”