Galactic Calendar 259872/ 2000 [ Sol Year 4387/ Day 155 of 365. Sol standard year]

  Days after of Crash landing/ 4

  Uninhabited Island / Clearing of Escape Capsule # 405

  Galactic Standard Time / After 1400

  Duncan

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  Duncan sighed as he looked at Tatrina, the woman looking from the captured natives to Rosh. As she turned towards him, he held up his hands. “Now just stay calm. There is a perfect explanation to all of this.”

  “Really!?” Tatrina exclaimed, her eyes wide as she looked at him, a wild look on her face. “Because it looks to me like you’re holding people hostage in some kind of anti-gravity field! Something that is one step away from being a dictator!”

  “There are reasons Tatrina,” Duncan began only for her to interrupt.

  “Reasons?! What kind of reason could there be? There are laws about this man!” Tatrina said as she messaged her forehead.

  Duncan only nodded and looked at her with a hard edge to his eyes. “Yes, but this whole planet is beyond most of the laws. Look, I’ve kept a lot of things from the passengers.”

  “I figured that out once I saw those two! And why is he up there!?” Tatrina demanded as she pointed at Rosh.

  Duncan eyed Rosh in the distance and tried to keep his scowl off his face. “It leads back to what I didn’t tell civilians. Now we were attacked a few days ago. But I never said that the thing that attacked us could paralyze people if it screamed at them!”

  Tatrina looked at him, blinked, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, it could do what!?”

  “Yes, please explain that better chief?” Dalila’s voice from behind caused both Duncan and Tatrina to look up to see her walking over. There was a length of cables over her shoulder, and she looked down the slope.

  “It screamed and people couldn’t move. Even after it stopped, they were like statues. If Jinn and the others hadn’t made it back to save them all!” Duncan said and looked at the two women with anger in his eyes.

  “How bad could it have been?” Tatrina asked.

  Duncan only looked at them before he sighed. “Let me say this. We have no idea if it could have paralyzed the people inside the capsule through the walls.”

  “Oh. That powerful?” Tatrina said, her eyes widening in horror.

  “Yes, and that leads to Rosh over there…..” Duncan began.

  “Wait, Roch Dacount? As in the famed Dacount family!?” Tatrina exclaimed in shock.

  Duncan only looked at her, a strange feeling going through him. He hadn’t even heard of the Dacount family before Bradford told him about them. The fact that Tatrina knew about them was something that he hadn’t expected. And he had no idea if that was good or bad for him.

  “Yes, that family. He’s like the creature, he has a Power,” Duncan said, a hard edge in his voice.

  Her mouth opened in shock as she turned her head to stare at Rosh. Tatrina turned back and looked at Duncan, her mouth dropped open in shock.

  “Humans can get other abilities? Like the Ancients!?” Tatrina asked, her voice soft and her face pale.

  Duncan looked at her and nodded once. Tatrina took a step back, her eyes wide. Duncan let her take that in before he continued. “I was shocked too. But it’s real. And that’s bad for us with what he can do.”

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  Tatrina

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  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Tatrina only looked at Duncan, her mind going dark places. During the last war, she had seen the result of when some of the Ancients had been pushed too far. They were strange people, they had some code. But when some of them attacked with all they had, the horrors those could do. She had seen one of them throwing around energy bolts that destroyed tanks with one hit! One that could pick up that same tank with one hand and throw it! Those Ancients were terrors on the battlefields, and most people were scared of them all.

  The idea that they had access to another power source organically was one of the theories. The other was that they had technology that was beyond anything the Federation could even dream of. She was in the middle of those theories, thinking that a blend of both was what made them so strong. But to hear that a beast was able to paralyze people with a roar? And that a person who had crashed with them was able to gain the Power in the last few days!

  But then she felt the ground seem to fall away as she thought about Rosh Dacount. She thought about all the rumors that she had heard about him when she first learned his name. The idea of someone like that with the same abilities as those Ancients was beyond terror.

  “What can he do?” She found herself whispering with fear as she looked at Duncan.

  Duncan seemed to age twenty years for a few seconds. His eyes held so much anger and rage that Tatrina took a step back in fright. Then the storm passed and Duncan was back to normal.

  “He can control people, well I think maybe brainwash is a better term from what I’ve been able to figure out. Influence others to believe what he says at the very least. And he turned his escape capsule into a cult before the monsters out there ate them,” Duncan said bluntly.

  “He can do what?! That’s possible for a person to do with no tech?” She stammered horror and fear in her voice. Tatrina thought her eyes would fall out of her face with how wide they felt. That was a nightmare scenario as far as she was concerned. Someone who was able to control people with just a touch? “That is all kinds of wrong!”

  Duncan only shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, I thought the same way. But as long as he can’t touch you, you’re okay. He can’t control you. And we put him up there because of that and what Bradford told us about him.”

  “What did he say…… I’ll ask him later. What about them?” Tatrina asked as she looked at the two together. Now that she was looking at them, she had to blink. She took in their forms before slowly turning to look right at Duncan. “Tell me those two aren’t natives?”

  “Natives that attacked us. And finally, about your last question, I don’t know what that thing down there is. That’s why I sent a team to it. But two types of robots attacked us in return,” Duncan told her.

  Before Tatrina could say anything, the other woman coughed.

  The woman smiled a bit and sighed. “I tried to hack it and nothing. When we were repairing the shield console we had trouble getting it connected. We figured out something was trying to hack into us! So I figured out it was something down below. But after all attempts to talk to it, we sent out a team. And my name is Dalila.”

  Ta4 looked from one face to the other and tried to think up anything to say, but nothing came out.

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  Qiana

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  Qiana looked at the machine as it hummed as it worked, and tried not to cry in joy. The code activated the process to defrost whoever was within. She looked at Leonator as he kept an eye on the sky, and she scowled slightly. These robots that were attacking them, stopped for a moment. She could feel that they were going to come again soon, and she had to protect this person.

  “Everything going okay there?” Leonator asked.

  “Yeah, it’s working just right. Guess the idea that the code was a ‘kill’ command was wrong. This should take a bit, then they’ll be up. Thanks for talking me through it,” Qiana said, smiling at him.

  Leonator looked back and then he turned away, coughing a little. “Hey, you were the one who had the guts to move on this. I’ll go and talk to Duncan. If we can keep those things down there, this one will wake up safely.”

  Qiana only looked at him and nodded, a strange feeling going through her. She felt that strange heat once before, but here it was again. She nodded as she looked at him and then took a deep breath. “Yeah, good idea. Go tell the chief what I did. Say, I’m sorry for going with getting his okay, but the attack forced my hand.”

  Leonator only nodded and gave her a small smile. “The Chief will see that too. This was the best thing that we could do. So be proud that you put that person’s life ahead of anything else!”

  Qiana did feel a bit of pride, but as she watched Leonator walk away. She knew that she had made the right call, but to hear others say it. She was a person that had lived in the back, and that was good. But the first true crisis she had been able to do something, and she made a call she would stick with. All they needed to do now, was handle this as best they could.

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  Leonator

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  Leonator looked over his shoulder at Qiana he walked away. The old lesson that strength was hiding in everyone had never been so clear to him. All in all, he thought that this problem was going to be manageable after all. With the robot's attack, the others had to come back. Once those people all got together and found a way to close the door, they would have to post another guard there. And hope that whatever it was didn’t have another opening those bots could attack from. Still, he was sure that they had taken everything they needed to do that already. Something had to have set off the attack after all.

  He finally reached Duncan and saw him talking with Vivian, Dalila, and someone new. For a moment he looked at her and frowned. He was sure that he had seen her among the passengers back on the Spirit of Adventure. Sometimes when he was at one of the restaurants, he was sure of it. But why was she out here and why was she in a deckhand’s jumpsuit?”

  He shook his head, she had to be here for a reason! And he had to trust that Bounty Hunters would know how to vet someone. There there was no reason then for him to be worried about the unknown. Time to talk to the chief. But he had to wonder where Jessie and Terra were, he couldn’t see them.

  “……. So because of what we found, we need to direct more power to keep the bots from breaking through. It’ll take up more energy, but I think we’ll be okay. This setting the shield is under has the side effect of absorbing all energy thrown at us plus sunlight. So there’s that,” Dalila said as she looked right at Duncan.

  “But the side effect was we couldn’t see anything out there right?” Duncan said dryly. As Dalila nodded Duncan blew out a breath he had been holding in. He waved her off as she was opening her mouth. “I know, we have the watch towers. Stull is something to think about. Is there any chance of the batteries exploding?”

  “None! We can even set things off to handle the bleed based on the supplies! Just give me an hour and they are set up. But I don’t know. We don’t know what they can throw at the shield,” Dalila said as she looked down.

  Leonator listened in and something told him this problem would be a lot bigger than he thought. And something told him that this was worse than he had hoped. And he was going to bring more trouble for the Chief? He didn’t have a choice, and he knew that they had made the right call. “Chief? I hate to bring in more trouble, but well.”

  Duncan looked up as everyone turned to him. Leonator stayed still and kept his eyes looking right at Duncan who only sighed.

  “Wait, let me guess. Qiana started to defrost our sleeper? Good, one more thing that I don’t need to worry about. Don’t get me wrong, it was smart of her. But really, now?” Duncan said, shaking his head.

  Leonator looked at Duncan and swallowed. The chief wasn’t taking the news well. He gazed around, hoping to find someone to speak up, another person to help. But the more he looked, the more his feeling of unease grew. Where were Jessie and Terra?