The
next planet in which we will talk about is Zion, land of the Storm.
It is mostly a simple, plain planet with a few metropolis cities and
some patches of tropical rainforest. The people that live on this
planet are mostly people that have come to the planet in search of
work opportunities. However, the natives on this planet live mostly
in the rain forest and jungle section of the world. They rarely make
trips to the cities, depending only on themselves and their
surroundings for the necessities of life.
It rains a lot on this
planet, and acid rain has been known to occur occasionally. The
sunset is beautiful and the stars always glisten at night with a
extra special sparkle. It is a wonderful planet but holds many
secrets.
The things that are most special about this planet are
its natural resources. The planet is a natural provider of quathsnir.
Quathsnir is a mineral type substance that is used to create
steelanth. This substance is highly prized throughout the galaxy, and
is sold for high prices. Many plants on the planted are dedicated to
mining this quathsnir mineral, and for this reason, mining jobs are
make up 80 of the jobs on the entire planet. Even now, on the
surface of the planet there lives a peculiar family, housing a
peculiar boy...whose father is the overseer of a certain central
plant...
A large, fork like lift carried a group
of engineers up into the main docking bay of the power plant. The
platform already held some people - a young boy stood with his father
anxiously waiting to get a glimpse of all the large mechanical
devices. The boy shuffled on his feet resulting in a look from his
father. The son smiled up at his father, and he turned away. Looking
around, all the boy could see were large power plants generating
electricity to help mine the precious minerals on the planet. The
plants were of weird alien type shape to the boy, for he had never
seen them before. This happened to be the first time the boy's father
had taken him to his working place. He had always asked his father
to, but had been politely refused every time. However, his father had
agreed this time, for reasons that the boy didn't know.
"Son,"
the boy's father was talking to him. "I need to go for a minute,
Joxe needs me for a conversion."
"What should I do,
Father?" The boy asked his dad intently.
The boy's father
bent down patiently to his son, so that he could be eye level with
him. "Just stay here." He pointed a single finger at his
son to emphasize his words. "Do not go any where else, do you
understand?"
The boy smiled at his father and nodded his
head. His father smiled back and gently ruffled his hair with his
hand.
The young child watched as his father walked away toward
one of his workers. As the boy turned around, he had a sudden urge to
cough. The air smelled funny to the young kid because of gases that
had been fused together and were now being circulated into the air.
Workers were already used to it and it had no effect on them. They
continued to work, oblivious. However, the boy wasn't so accustomed.
He wondered as he coughed. Looking around the noisy machine yard, he
could feel that he was new here. He could feel in his very being that
he had never been here before, yet...here, he felt at home.
The young boy sat cross-legged in silence for a while as the workers rushed around him to their respective jobs. They didn't even seem to realize he was there. The boy guessed it was a good thing...after all, he didn't want to distract them from their work. He reached to the ground and lifted a small stone off of the floor of the platform. It was smooth and cold; he folded his tiny fingers around the stone. For some reason, the rock felt reassuring to him. This place was certainly weird. First, he feels at home at an electrical plant, and now he was being reassured by a rock! The boy sighed and contented himself with holding the rock and watching the workers. In silence, he waited for his father to come back.
Hillan Koral talked
briefly with Joxe, his right hand man. There was going to be an
immediate conversion in Sector 8 of fuels and electricity. The
resulting product would then be sent to the mining corporation
concerning the quathsnir mining of this area. As overseer of the
plant, he would have to be present at the conversion process.
"Why
have I learned of this just now?" Koral asked Joxe fairly
angrily. "I should've been prepped of this weeks in advance!"
"Sir, it's like I said: We just got a call from Gorde Corp,
asking for more mining substance. They're filling a special order for
the military involving the quathsnir mineral, and they need the
substance today." Joxe answered him. He was a thin man, but
surprisingly strong for his size. He had black, short cropped hair,
and a pale face with a pinched expression making him always look
worried. His face was currently pinched more than normal.
Hillard
clamed himself slightly with quick sigh. He looked toward his right
hand man, and lowered his voice again angrily. "What am I going
to do with my son? Hmm?" He asked expectedly, indicating out a
window in the building he was in. "I brought him with me today
because I was expecting to have a short day. Now, I have to tell him
that our day together has to be cut short because of an ill timed,
ill planned conversion operation?"
Joxe looked startled, and
took a step back with his hands raised in a surrendering posture.
"Hey, I didn't make the rules, and I didn't make the call! Don't
yell at me for something the Gorde Corporation did."
Koral
made a passing gesture. "Alright, Alright. Let's just get this
over with, so I can have some time with my only son." He bent
down to a console with flashing buttons, and pressed the intercom.
"All units report to sector eight for immediate conversion of
fuels, code 8 5 Star 1."
The silent boy looked up startled, as his father's voice boomed out of ever speaker in the area, telling all units to report somewhere to do something that he didn't understand. He stood up and hesitated with the idea of going and looking for his father, and asking him what to do now. His father had told him to stay there. But...things had changed. He walked off toward where the crowd of workers was heading. They must be going toward his father...
"I'm going out to look for my son."
Koral told Joxe after they had started the fusion proccess.
"Sir,
that's against protocol and you know it." Joxe argued even
though he knew it would do no good.
Koral whipped around toward
Joxe. "I am going to look for my son because when protocol was
written for this plant, people weren't thinking about the overseer
bringing his son on what happened to be the same day where some idiot
at a mining corp. made a call asking for mining substance on a
'special order.'" Koral turned in a huff and walked out of the
doorway to his overseeing office. Taking the elevator down to the
loading platform where he had left his son. Hillard exited the
elevator, and turned around a corner...he stopped abruptly. The
platform was deserted and empty. His son was nowhere to be found.
Hillard thought furiously, while panicking. If his child wasn't here,
then he must've gone with the worker to...sector 8. He didn't have a
protection suit. Hillard stopped thinking and ran frantically back to
the elevator.
The boy stepped out onto the platform area for
sector 8 along with all the other workers, he traveled around what
seemed to be numberless corridors and cat-walks until finally the
crowd stopped. The boy was suddenly left alone as the workers sped to
their assigned places. He stood again in the center of all the action
wondering where his father could be. The lost child looked left and
right. To his left was a huge pit in which there were more big
machines. They were really loud now. Louder than they were before,
and as the boy looked, he saw that one of the machines was pumping
some sort of a clear liquid, and filling another machine with it. The
big machine stopped pumping the liquid and an even louder noise began
erupting from the smaller one. It looked like it was mixing
something...
The boy loved and was fascinated by the machines. He
could've spent all day watching them, but he remembered he was
looking for his father. The child looked up and around. Finally as
his head had turned all the way to the right, he noticed a huge glass
window mounted on the upper curvature of the wall, and inside it, he
saw his father.
"Dad!" The boy yelled with delight, but
his smile retracted as he cried a second and third time for his
father, and his father continued to look around frantically as if he
couldn't hear him.
Hillard Koral was panicking. He had run
from the loading platform back to sector 8, and upon failing to
locate his son among the crowd of workers, he had run all the way
back up to his overseer's office. Now he stared out the glass window
that overlooked conversion operation, and tried futilely to find his
boy. There were too many wokers crowding around. Hillard slammed his
fist on the console in frustration and desperation. He could barely
hear his right hand man as Joxe said began to talk to him.
"Hillard,
something's wrong. The sensors are picking up a mass overload of
electricity." Joxe waited for Koral to answer him, then, upon
receiving no such answer, he reached out and forcefully shook his
friend. "Hillard, I know this is hard! I know you want to find
your son, but something's happening!"
Hillard stared blankly
at Joxe for a moment, then his eyes became suddenly alert as normal
cautiousness returned to him. "What's going on, Joxe? What's
wrong?"
Joxe released his hold on Hillard's shoulders,
returned to his console. "There is a massive energy and
electricity reading coming from the fueling sensors."
"But
the electricity input is not supposed to occur until the fuel has
been deposited."
"I know! That's what I'm trying to
tell you! Something's out of place, something's wrong!" Joxe
said more forcefully, as if he could drive his fears into the other
man's head by shouting.
"Re-check the sensors." Hillard
commanded as plucked his personal comlink from his belt. As Joxe
complied with his order, Hillard commed the director of the operation
down below.
A husky voice came over the line. "What is it?"
"Joran, I need you to check the sensor phases and make sure
they are in working order." HIllard told him.
"But,
Sir, the fusion process has already begun-"
"Perfrom an
emergency check if you need to! I want those sensors checked!"
HIllard yelled in exasperation.
Over the line, there was a sigh.
"Yes Sir, I'll look into it." There was a pause. "Also,
Sir, there is a boy here. He's causing distraction from my workers.
Can you deal with-"
"A boy! Where?" Hillard
grasped the comlink with both hands.
"One of the workers
noticed him at the edge of the fusion pit-"
Hillard cut off
the line and sprinted to the window. He searched the crowd quickly,
and then saw a little child waving wildly to get his attention.
Hillard yelled with joy, and waved back to his son. The boy stopped
waving and smiled broadly at is father.
"Koral, if the
sensors are correct..." Joxe said, quietly his face racked with
urgency. "...A meltdown is occurring."
