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May 19, 2578
Location : Kyasumeni
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Along with the xenomorph and the yautja, humans were known as the three plagues of this galaxy. The xenomorph were ancient, the yautja less so and the humans had only been around for a few hundred of their own years, a speck on the length other societies had been active in the voids. However, the humans possessed a hunger that drove them to establish their power beyond reason of instinct, the kind of colonizer often wiped out by the xenomorph. Unfortunately the xenomorph a little late with the humans and yautja, both of whom helped the hard meat spread further and further.
The trading city on Kyasumeni was particularly tensed knowing humans had come with their robots and had reflexively become quiet. Uncloaked ships did not leave nor arrive, even some that did have sufficient protection dared not leave. It as way too cautious according to Karga'te, but he wasn't gonna tell anyone that cause it made it easier to get to place.
Karga'te arrived back with Shadhahvar under his arm. She had flayed her arms and legs the entire time, so he dropped her harder than he needed to. As she crawled to her feet, he stood before her and snapped his fingers to get her attention.
"You will go to Jake and tell him that Kirindi is missing. He is to get Ti'chai-di with netting on and accompany her, armed in case any enemies show up. Do you understand?"
"Yeah yeah, you already explained me that," she grumbled.
"And what are you not supposed to do?" he growled.
"Talk to the Auton about this."
"And what will I do if you do tell to anything synthetic?"
"You will reveal my secret hiding place of my Faria-herbs."
"You got it. Get on your way, I'm going to track the enemy." Karga'te cloaked himself.
The moment she didn't see him anymore, she darted off. For Jake she virtually had a special sense, which Karga'te called the supreme ability to annoy people into telling her where they'd seen him last.
· · · · · · ·
Jake was in the middle of hauling a crate for a small job he had a sense of impending doom.
"Yo, Jake! You'll never guess this!" Shadhahvar shrieked in his ear. He nearly dropped the crate. How had she gotten here?
"You killed the evil scientist?" he asked without really being curious.
"No, silly! It's that blond woman that helped us on Enigma Two! Off course I'm not going to kill her!"
Was she making up stuff or ...?
"Oh, and Karga'te can't find Kirindi and he wants you find her and head out with her sister to help find Kirindi and I'm supposed to not tell the Auton cause they he'll take away-"
He put a hand on her mouth. "Shadey, stop and repeat slowly. Are you certain that the woman we met there, Sarah, is here?"
"She looks a bit different, but yeah, it's totally here! I'd recognize that personal hygiene anywhere."
Jake groaned. According to Shadhahvar, 'lack of personal hygiene' meant anyone who didn't bother looking pretty, so it could simply be someone else who was blond.
Nonetheless, if it was Sarah Driscoll, then something was up. Kirindi had dropped the slightest of hints she was communicating with someone, but never had elaborated since Jake had little experience in hiding thoughts and Karga'te shouldn't find out. The yautja only had superficial telepathic powers; the Auton claimed he simply had no natural inclination towards it. That might just be their salvation, and a lot of credit to Shadhahvar for keeping her trap shut in Karga'te's presence.
"Alright. Shadhahvar, stay here and don't tell anyone else what you saw or else I will take away all of your stacks. I'm going to Ti'chai-di now."
She squeaked, "You know I have more than one stack?"
"Off course I do, I know you." Actually, he didn't know where.
· · · · · · ·
Eliath was as close on the trail of Karga'te as he could afford. The sisters had informed him the yautja would become dangerous very soon. He wouldn't like to learn Kirindi had kept back the presence of drones. Eliath failed to understand why exactly he wasn't allowed to just kill the troublesome hunter. Syvé had no particular use for him, he had long served his purpose by looking after Kirindi. Eliath was here to do that now. Kirindi has given him excessive information that she called emotional attachment regarding the subject, but that seemed pointless too.
But fine, he's avoid immediately attacking. As he slunk further across the land, he adapted his heat to the surrounding as to make it harder to be seen. Karga'te had light vision too, but Eliath had been informed his own color was brown and he matched certain environments.
Odygos let him know he got in position to cross the first plane. Odygos would stand out with his black and lack of heat adaption, so a diversion was needed. The drones could not grin, but if they ever had an attitude close to it, Eliath was feeling it right now.
The talent to establish a dominant hive mind anywhere was not exclusive to the Sisters. While Eliath lacked the precision for advanced commands, he had an easy time tapping into a nearby pack of Deinonychus. Thick jungle was not their territory, but the nearby carved landscape offered an alternative to divert the enemy.
As Eliath set his plan into motion, he picked up psychic hints. Karga'te had noticed Kirindi was suspiciously silent, so he tried to call out to the larger Sister. To no avail. Perfect. Eliath sent his little army on its way.
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The moment the yautja was led down a sheltered road and stripped of his scanner, hence forth suitably occupied by the swarm of Deinonychus, Odygos shot across the plain. Reaching the opposing jungle soon enough, he made his way to the giant rock and carefully climbed up.
The Enigma vessel was equipped with motion detectors, but had nothing like the advanced magnetic maps of the trading city. Besides, they only expected dinosaurs at most. Where human behavior itself remained an enigma, he perfectly understood these 'invisible eyes'. He found the root of the system and spat at it with precision. Over time, the mildly acidic drool would do its work.
Sarah did not remain unaware of his presence. Much to Odygos' surprise, she pleaded him not to come within her sight.
Must be some weird human thing.
Once the acid had done its work, he climbed a tree and leaped across the gap and onto the ship, right through the blind spot of the scanner.
Gurgling up acid, he made a hole where he sensed the metal was thin and not rigged. He slipped in, found Sarah's room on scent and opened the door to wait inside. She let him wait, as she had to continue her work as not to raise suspicion, so he entertained himself by investigating the fluffy things known as clothes. They were very puzzling and he couldn't grasp their meaning, never had. Such a popular habit for such a futile element.
As much as she told him not to come, she didn't have much of a choice but to try and cover up the security break, lest he risk being found and killed. Humans were so contradictory.
He was bored soon. Clothes stopped being clothes after fiddling with them a wee bit too long.
When Sarah finally entered the room, the first thing she did was whisper, "You ... ruined my favorite shirt!"
Disappointment?
Odygos straightened up and she took a step back, taking in a deep breath. She was fearful, yet acted irritated. That, and she really did find it unbelievable that she'd have her reunion with him while he was covered with torn fabric. Silly plus fear plus irritation ... that was exactly one of those human behavior things Odygos didn't get.
Words. Oh help, she thought primarily in words and images. His own language was far more complex, not abstract but more basic.
"~ You fools, Utara is watching, she'll find out, ~" she thought at him. It was a sentence without extra meanings and dimension, so he had to piece together what he'd heard from others.
He tried to return a sentence, but mostly just sent meanings. She was silly for worrying about that fake entity when his Mother had told she should come along, be the voice to the Sisters and the Auton.
Sarah took one cautious step closer.
"~ Look, Utara probably knows now you're here, she basically let you in. All she needs is an excuse to send a thorough investigation squad to this planet and blame me for having suggested the location to cover herself. So please, leave before the cyborg come. ~"
Odygos couldn't care less. What Mother said was what mattered and Sarah's logic was not above that. He stepped forward and intended to picked her up, but she backed away with a hefty increase of fear. It felt wrong on her; fear was only on beings his kind was to kill, not on members of the hive.
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With Noasyvé's call so dim, Sarah felt a lot less secure than she'd been on Enigma II. He'd been the one to stop her, and now he was here reaching into her mind without restraint. That he'd finished growing and towered over her certainly didn't help. Knowing he didn't mean her harm didn't change much to instinctive fear, something she was not above much to her dismay.
That too he found curious, yet here he obliged and stepped back. After a moment of reestablishing her self control, she pushed off the wall and walked toward the drone. He lay down and suggested she sit on his back, because whether she liked it or not, they were going to leave.
"~ One day I hope you understand what abduction means and remember I was opposed to this plan. ~"
He answered that it would be nice if she would just trust Noasyvé on what to do. Sarah wasn't sure exactly how much of this was Syvé's plan.
"~ If she says so I'd agree, but ... ~"
But then, it was too late now, she noticed now. They were already sent.
With a sigh, she stepped onto the drone's back as he held up an arm to help her. Situating her knees between the four tubes, she found that the drone's head would probably hit her if he so much as looked up. Thinking it over for a moment, she ducked and laid her head on his neck. This wasn't going to be a fun run, she realized.
"~ Be careful, okay? ~"
His reply could best be described with 'Duh'. With that, the drone stood up, walked out the door and hello, there were both of the cyborgs, as ordered by Utara.
"~ They cannot fire lasers inside the ship, ~" Sarah told him. He didn't need more explanation, ran right over one of the cyborg and out of the hole he had made earlier. A reaching hand failed at holding him back.
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Odygos jumped off the ship, landed into the tree he had come from and went on like that. The cyborg lacked the benefit of being very mobile in the undergrowth and could only follow by ground. Sometimes he heard the human on his back yelp as branches hit her and she pointlessly tried to hold on even tighter. It didn't take long this way before a thin scent of blood came from her, predominantly from not so shallow scratches on her legs.
The could be a problem. If he was would bleed the wrong way, she would be in a lot of trouble.
Their pursuers were catching on. Two laser rays broke the dark of night, he barely avoided being hit. Energy he could not see, so his only cue was the slightest click that came whenever the cyborg fired. It would be only a matter of time before they hit him.
Where the hel was Eliath?
Oh great, still messing around with the hunter.
The tree density thinned to the point he could no longer use them to his advantage. With one last leap he landed like a cat and took off from there, right into a sleeping herd of Diplodocus. Small as he was, the creatures were a bit startled but didn't mind much, he smelled like no carnivore they knew. If he could pass them and reach the nearest opposing jungle, he might shake the cyborg. That advantage quickly changed once the cyborg fired down a few trees and then aimed at the dinosaurs in an attempt to stampede the herd.
Within seconds the dinosaurs broke into a panic. In the dark they hardly saw anything and crashed into each other as they flocked away from the forest line. Odygos darted through the stomping feet, barely avoiding being crushed. Like this he couldn't afford to leave the herd, not now the cyborg had had the chance to place themselves in his chosen escape route. So he jumped once more and clawed his way onto one of the dinosaurs, hitching a ride. The dinosaur roared in pain, but could do little against him. The spiked line atop the dinosaur's spine offered some chance to hold on and from there Odygos had a clear echo view of the surroundings.
The cyborg chased the herd in a very specific way. Sharing his thoughts with Sarah, they understood quick enough what was the plan. It didn't matter to the cyborg whether they got them alive or not, but by forcing them to go along with the herd, they were prevented from escaping to where they wanted to; an assumption made on base of the drone likely knowing the terrain better than them.
He took a chance to try and leave the herd before they reached the riverbed they were headed at. Once the cyborg would get on either side, they'd have a clear shot at the drone and his passenger.
This was a mistake, however. While the river was without stream, it wasn't dry. The impact of his jump had him sink half into the mud, by the time he struggled free the cyborg had caught up. Coming from both sides, they slowed their approach to a mere walk. Caught in between a muddy and sandy bank and the two cyborg, there wasn't a quick way out.
"Sarah Driscoll, step away," one of the cyborg droned.
She actually considered it. Her life didn't have any strong priority for these cyborg and they might just decide to shoot the drone as it was. She knew exactly that the acidic blood could either kill her or worse, leave her permanently scarred and in care of Enigma II ...
"~ Way too late too turn, ~" She pressed her head back against the back of Odygos and didn't look.
Odygos pretended to move backwards in the third direction and the cyborg expected him to try and leap over them. But instead, he quickly spat twice right at their faces, then hurling himself up the wall before them. Theoretically not their best chance, but one advantage they had in that the cyborg stopped to clear the spit off their visors.
As they climbed and the cyborg pursued, a cutting call pierced his mind. A shadow came down to meet them and reached out, forcefully hauling Odygos back up the slope with him.
Sarah had a moment to register this was Eliath and renew her fear. She didn't have to, Odygos told her. Eliath existed only for Kirindi, if she wasn't the enemy he would not do anything to her.
The cyborg fired at them, but only splinters hit the three. Eliath carried a hide bag, from which he took strange smelling rock. With a precision and speed Odygos couldn't match, Eliath tossed these up to intercept the poorly aimed laserfire. Sarah thought this was impossible, Odygos though Eliath had had too much time to kill. Before Sarah got an explanation that satisfied her, Odygos took off. Eliath would keep the enemy at bay.
They were closer now, their fire clearer. Eliath intercepted one attack, was scraped by another bolt. The loose ground gave the first cyborg no solidity when Eliath tackled him full force. Metal machine clashed with organic machine full force. Spreading the tiny feather-like extensions across his exoskeleton, he started to bleed acid all over. It sprayed in all directions and these cyborg had little to no defense against it.
Eliath hauled up the cyborg he had tackled, threw him at the other and then tackled the both of them. In the clutter their disorientation, they didn't have the time to prepare for the second attack. Eliath started picking them apart before they could get up, his blood increasingly damaging their motorization and system.
Odygos was disinterested and simply carried Sarah farther and farther, cutting her off from catching what happened to Eliath. She had her own heartbeat to battle.
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This would affect the area for a while, Karga'te concluded as he looked across the dead Deinonychus around him. Dammit. New ones would move in and he'd have to teach them all anew not to bother him. These ones had learned that years ago. Their behavior today made no sense, they were supposed to be the smartest dinosaurs. Irritated, he decided to contact the synthetics about this. He could just casually report the dinosaurs were acting strangely without mentioning the sisters' silence, see whether they had anything interesting to say.
He didn't even have to try to avoid bringing up the chimeras. Once he had finished a quick report, he was told to go to a certain location not too far from where the enemy vessel had landed. There were more unknown factors, apparently.
"What a surprise."
Soon he arrived at a no more peaceful dry riverbed. Auton had gathered already to collect evidence, he spotted Anudjan trying to signal him over. Oh well. He went.
The android led him to the site where a battle had taken place. Amid sand and rock lay the half melted and completely torn apart cyborg, a bloody mess of iron and flesh. Little streams of smoke wafted off of acid spots.
"A herd of Diplodocus stampeded and we found a trail leading to this location," Anudjan said. "We believe it may have been the word of a xenomorph, what do you think?"
As if that question needed any affirmation. Karga'te walked around and looked over the scene, then away at the riverbed.
"There were two of them," he said.
"Indeed. I suspect the scientists brought them along for whatever unsavory reason they might have and they escaped. It is the only explanation."
The yautja said no more and prepared to leave.
"You shouldn't go alone!" Persephone called when she noticed it. She stood up from something she'd been studying and walked closer, but not too close. Holding up her hands, she showed him a type of dense volcanic rock.
"They seem to have been burst by laserfire, nothing else could break these the way they have been."
"Someone actually used them to block laserfire? That's very hard to believe," said one of the other droids.
"Whatever we are facing, it is intelligent and capable of making advanced strategical decisions. The drone actually went out and found something to use as a self defense tool and knew exactly what they needed," Persephone said.
"How would it have time to discover the location of these things though?" the other droid asked.
"Maybe the scientists for some reason had collected the stones themselves?"
"We never noticed the scientist leave and we are fairly sure the cyborg did not either."
"The scientist is not at the ship however, we sent someone there and it's empty. In fact ..." said yet another and pointed at a form in the mud, which seemed distinctly leg like and carried traces of human blood. "... there was a human with one of the drones."
"They either kidnapped the scientist or carried along a corpse? What the heck is going on here?"
Karga'te listened over their debate, taking in what he had to know and avoiding questions of his own. They had one for him soon anyway.
"Karga'te, where is Kirindi? Maybe she can help us figure this out with her telepathy."
Nothing.
The droids already grew restless now, expecting him to lash out, but in the creeping realization of what went on Karga'te only felt cold. Little girls with great psychic power, keeping monsters secret. He didn't want this.
"That android that accompanied them to Enigma II, he was hiding something, right?" he said with actual care to make his English understandable to the droids.
"Yes," Persephone said. "Do you think—"
"I'll go hunting," he snarled. "You wanted to question Jake and Shadhahvar, right? Go ahead. Tell me what you get afterward.
Karga'te didn't wait for an answer, just jumped on his hovercraft and followed the trail. If Kirindi turned out to be a beast, he'd have to be a hunter once more.
· · · · · · ·
The sun rose and the stars faded in the yellow and pink of dawn, a complement to a plain so wide that one couldn't see the rainforest at the edges. As dinosaurs had no use for grass, they did not come here. It was the perfect desolate meeting point.
Here and there rocks broke the grass sea, one of which to an unexpected canyon with a small river through it : the stray arm of the now dehydrated river, curtsy of a recent storm playing with the remnants of an old earthquake. There Kirindi sat on a rock, listening to the rustle and song of birds while her mind was elsewhere, with Odygos and Sarah.
Her patience was rewarded.
The drone came to a halt right before the rocks. Sarah, nauseous once more, tumbled off and nearly threw up a second time. She was aware of Kirindi the entire time, but didn't physically notice her until she saw the double clawed bony feet beside her. Gentle hands took hold of her shoulders, pulling her up. Kirindi dropped her forehead against that of Sarah and shared her calmness, softly subduing the ex-human's physical ill feeling. Sarah relaxed at last and Kirindi silently welcomed her home to the hive mind.
Sarah's shoulders started to shake softly, until the tears came out.
Humans looked funny when they cried, they got swollen noses and red cheeks with narrow eyes and their mouths contort into strange shapes. Sorrow was not alien to Kirindi anymore, but this was the first time she saw a human being cry out of sadness. Her old human host had never looked in a mirror, after all. It probably was inappropriate that she thought it looked funny, but she didn't even know how to make that go away.
Sarah, in tune with Kirindi's mind, managed a twisted laugh.
"I'm not supposed to be human anymore," she said.
"That's okay," Kirindi said with a sincere smile. "I never was one."
"What are we doing here?" Sarah asked. It was more of a universal question, a plea of sorts to understand why she'd ended up here, like this, but Kirindi only answer what she knew.
"We talk. You can explain things, right?"
"But ... then what?"
"I don't know. Shall we go to the shadow? The sun soon comes."
Odygos set Sarah back on her feet and walked aside of her into the plants that covered the entrance. Kirindi went ahead to clear away the stone that blocked the proverbial gate. So they entered the illusion of another world.
Through the split above them light and dew drops fell down, creating a misty shimmer. The moss covered canyon deepened soon and it became moister. Ferns and other small plants grew down here, strange smelling flowers sometimes peaked up. The deepest point of the tight canyon was no longer narrow but rather wide, light falling down vaguely from above. Curly, thick bushes grew down here along the brown walls, almost like arches.
"Eyes can look down here, but won't see us, sso we can talk and I can understand and explain him then."
Sarah nodded absentmindedly.
Without words, they agreed to wait as Kirindi took care of some of Sarah's cuts, which might get infected down in this damp atmosphere. With almost detached interest, Sarah noticed that underneath her skin, she no longer had perfectly human flesh. Where should be soft, formless red was a intricate pattern visible, ever so slightly.
"You're like us," Kirindi noted happily.
"Is crying part of that?"
Kirindi nodded. "Oh yes, Ti-chai-di often needs to cry, when her children die, my little cousins. She only gets the tears though, she's bad at faces."
"They die?"
As Sarah become calmer and calmer, Kirindi told her in detail what previously she had only been able to perceive in vague dreams. Of Kyasumeni and the life here, of the Auton, of the sister and the underwater den, of the drones and of the new Eliath and of how silly Odygos could be, and off course, of Karga'te.
"See? I have sadness too, I know it" Kirindi said with a smile. "I want him to understand so badly and he doesn't care to. He is very angry right now, you see. So angry he'll be a hunter again even if he hates it."
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