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Prologue: Whirlwind
The sleek, silver hulled ship pulled out its landing gear as its mighty turbines blew sand, rock and grass leaves in great clouds around it. A cloud of avian creatures flew up suddenly from one of the nearby forests.
With a soft thud, all five gears groaned under the weight of the vehicle and with a hiss of the engines, the turbines died down.
As the clouds of dust and dirt settled down, a small airlock door opened and a young female face looked about in awe.
Her purple eyes looked to and fro, as one of her hands swept back her long blonde hair. She had been so excited to see the place with her own two eyes instead of using the visor sensors.
"This place is really beautiful!" her wide eyes tried to catch every single detail, each little aspect of the scenery in front of her, outside the ship.
The ship had landed on top of a mountainous plateau, bordered by a sea of green jungle, stretching for various miles, suddenly dropping into an azure, crystal-clear sea. The island had high hilltops dotting its landscape, and hundreds of blue rivers coursing like snakes lazily dancing into the ocean.
Tyria stood there, taking the whole scenery as in rapture, until a very disgusted coughing man behind her made her turn around.
"Could we do this sometime this century, miss?" said a middle-aged man, grey haired and scruffy, in a pilot uniform that seemed to have never visited any other place but the ship hangar of the Pioneer 2.
Completely mottled in oil stains, the man quickly pushed her aside with one hand and with the other, throwing a ladder down.
Tyria frowned at the man. She wasn't used to the job of being a support operator for Hunters. She had recently gotten that position after the military had decided to implement a new system for supervising the Hunter's Guild without making it look like they were trying to control them.
She was assigned for one of the first drops in the paradise island of Gal Da Val, with a pilot not too happy about coming to the 'dangerous' planet Ragol seemed to be.
Well, Tyria thought, this doesn't look dangerous at all. It's the perfect place to start our civilization's new life.
She took out her comlink, put it over her ear and turned her arm-computer on. Looking back, she saw the only other occupant in the ship besides her and Captain Moses.
The young man sitting alone in the passenger bay was clutching his hands repeatedly, looking over the window at the sea. His long blonde hair was loose, and he fidgeted with his gloves once more before taking a deep breath.
Tyria smiled at him, trying to lift his spirits. The human hunter just gave back a half-hearted grin at her and stood up, grabbing a couple of weapons he was carrying in a bag on the seat next to him.
"You seem very nervous, Prefe... are you sure you want to go right now?" asked the girl with concern.
Prefe nodded and biting his lip, grabbed a saber hilt and a small handgun. He put the gun in the holster, but kept the saber in his hand.
"Ye-yeah... better do this reconaissance now than to stay more time and..." he looked at the window again with apprehension.
"Come on... nothing's wrong with this incredible place!" Tyria sounded honestly cheerful.
Prefe could not bring himself to deflate Tyria with the rumours of what had happened just a couple of weeks ago... about a giant, evil and almost divine, entity that had laid dormant in the ancient ruins, near where the Pioneer 1 had set itself down. He knew also that such creature had been defeated and laid in ruin, but he still kept some reservations about just dropping off onto this strange, devious place his people had decided to immigrate to.
"Yeah, I guess you're right Tyria" he lied. He was a hunter from the Guild, and even if he was a little suspicious from this new idea from the military to join up an operator with a hunter, the pay was good.
"Shall we get ready? Is your position tracker ok?" the girl asked as she examined the shoulder pad on Prefe's armor suit.
"I guess so... it tends to sometimes block my voice over the comm link, but as long as you know where I am, I guess it's all right, no?" he said, shrugging.
"Well then, I'll tell Captain Moses you're ready!"
Prefe climbed down the ladder and put his two feet on the ground. He quickly turned his Buster-class saber on and looking around, he placed his hand over his left shoulder. Pushing a small button, he spoke to his shoulder as he surveyed the forest before him.
"Everything fine..." he said.
"Of course you are dummy! You just got out of the ship! Don't be so nervous! Don't call me just to tell me about the last ten steps went without problems... everything will be fine!" said a voice over the commlink next to his ear.
Prefe sighed, and shaking his head, began to walk to the woods. His apprehension still high, he caught sight of some small red birds flying away into the jungles below. He relaxed a bit and strode much more confidently.
Dark clouds billowed from the east. And slowly the sun began to fall into the horizon.
"It's almost seven hours and no word from Prefe!" said Tyria looking at the monitors, watching as the long windy trail that her hunter partner had plotted during his walk into the island.
The position tracker made a long line from their landing zone, through a large forest, across a series of canyons, bending around a long beach and finally, going straight to a swamp near some cliffs.
"The kid knows how to take care of himself girl," said Moses suddenly, as he got up, poured some hot coffee on his mug and sit down again at the ship's controls, then he continued "he'll call if there's trouble around..."
"But I didn't mean for him to stay silent such a long time! Oh... I should have checked his tracking systems a little further..." she looked at the monitors, half-expecting for them to call back.
The captain looked over the controls and saw a stroke of lightning fall down onto the darkened sea.
Looking a little up, he noticed the clouds were blotting out the stars above.
"And it's getting late... what will the chief say about this? Oooh..." Tyria moaned and put one hand on her chin, biting her nail absentmindedly.
Captain Moses rose from his seat, looking out at the skies, as if trying to make out something in the dark.
"Huh? What's the problem, captain, sir?" Tyria looked away from the monitors when she noticed the grizzled fellow rise from his seat and look out into the cockpit's window.
At that moment, rain began to hit the entire island along with a strong breeze. The droplets made a droning sound as they showered the entire ship.
The drizzle began to gain strength, and the breeze soon became a howling wind.
Moses still kept a watchful eye under the ever-strenghtening storm.
A flash of lightning made Tyria jump from her seat a bit. She thought she had heard a small crackle in the comm link.
"... k... ral... tow..." crackled a feeble voice from the speakers.
"Prefe?!?" Tyria looked at the tiny dot that had stopped near Grid Alfa. Looking the online maps systems in the computer, she knew that her charge was probably near the Central Control Tower.
"Prefe! Can you read me? What's your status?" she cried over the microphone.
"... systems... gate access... can't proceed..." the voice came a little clearer this time.
"Can you repeat what you said Prefe?" she stared at the small dot in the monitor with anxiety.
"... m... p... he..." the voice broke off again into a combination of static and loose vocal sounds.
Moses gazed at the forest. In a flash of lightning he thought he had seen a shape in the trees. But looking with intent, he only saw the woods swaying with the wind. Some fog had crept up and made the ground barely visible, as huge drops of water splashed around and made huge puddles on the ground.
He turned around and took a swig of his coffee.
His paranoia was getting the better of him, he thought... the info from the Pioneer 2's satellites were accurate... only small creatures inhabited the island, so they were actually in little danger.
He then gazed to the small napkin where his coffee mug rested on when he realized something.
Tyria tried making one more try at the microphone, but since nothing but static answered, she sighed and turned around at the captain. She saw behind him the rain pouring onto the windshield and the dark clouds atop of them.
As she looked at the grey haired man, she looked into his eyes as he wheeled about in shock, dropping his mug on the floor. She hardly had time to yell when lightning crashed behind, illuminating a huge silhouette of something huge, vaguely humanoid, outside the ship, and at this very moment, lifting what seemed to be a large arm over its horned head.
The puddles, Moses realized, the puddles were actually the beast's footprints.
Looking up at the windshield, knowing he couldn't raise the ships' deflector systems, he grimaced at the monster, as its fist crashed through transparasteel, alloy and hull.
Prefe felt a chill up his spine. It wasn't the cold rain banging his spirits and hair down. It was... something else.
Looking over at the cliff the defective warp had sent him to, he shuddered at the white crested waves crashing upon the rocks below.
He hadn't heard anything from the ship until some moments ago, when his operator tried to call him back, but his microphone wouldn't work since most of the suit's power was being rerouted to the tracking system.
Being no expert at electronics, he decided he would ask Tyria to fix it.
A sudden stroke of lightning lit up the dark skies. He felt something inside of him tremble. Looking around, he didn't see any other way to get to the Central Control Tower except flying to it.
It stood upon a tall cliff, overlooking the sea as some giant lighthouse, but its overlaping darkness gave Prefe an ominous feeling.
"I'd better get back... it's getting more dangerous over here" he walked slowly, as the water had collected in small, slick puddles in the bare rock he was standing.
Another stroke of lightning shook the cliff, and Prefe felt a powerful gust of wind lift a great deal of fine mist and pebbles.
He turned around and to his surprise, he saw something that iced the blood in his veins.
There were two bright yellow, feral eyes studying him from a rock outcropping above the churning sea, some three hundred yards from where he stood. The eyes belonged to some sort of huge beast, perhaps some twenty or thirty feet tall, and very powerfully muscled.
Prefe thought it looked like a predatory cat, but there was something weird about it. It seemed it had some kind of horns or tusks, flanking its head.
He slowly inched his way to the teleporter, but before he took a third step, the beast suddenly rose on its hind legs and let out a mighty roar!
Lightning struck again, and Prefe's eyes widened in terror.
The monster, as it reared to roar, had unfurled mighty feathered wings that probably spanned some 80 feet from tip to tip!
Turning away fully, he made a crazed dash towards the warp... he didn't care where the systems would leave him... any place would be definitely safer than here!
The monster had launched itself into the air and swooped down at Prefe. Flying low, it tried to catch him with his powerful steel beak.
At the very last moment, Prefe had dropped to the ground and stood prone for a second, as the mighty creature flew past him.
As mist settled down, Prefe got up and tried to look for the monster.
His eyes darted about, one hand on his gun and the other keeping his hair off his face. Mud and water ran down his face, his wild gaze trying to search for the monster.
It seemed it had vanished into thin air.
He looked at the skies above him but only rain and faraway lightning greeted his gaze.
He then looked in front of him.
Some twenty feet away, lay the warp systems.
If he was going to get away, we should do so now!
"Please please please!!!" he muttered as he made a quick dash for the teleporter.
He was almost 5 feet away from the warp when the beast suddenly appeared from over the cliff's edge.
Fear paralyzed him and as he tried to lift his gun to aim at the thing's head, the monster suddenly vomited forth a ball of air to him.
Letting two shoots of his gun off, Prefe didn't react quickly enough to dodge the airblast. He felt his whole body being lifted off the ground and for a moment, he felt weightless.
Suddenly, everything seemed to spin out of control and rising ever higher off the ground, the airblast had turned into a whirlwind.
He tried to focus and make a grab for his shoulder button, to contact for help, but the only thing his senses registered was being turned in the air as some sort of spinning top and suddenly, falling.
He was still spinning in the air, and lost consciousness before he hit the angry ocean below.
His saber had laid still on the rock floor. Just a couple of inches away from the warp platform.
The beast hovered in place just a second more, and seeing no more of the puny creature, flew off into the roiling skies.
The huge monster beat the ship two more times, and grabbing it from one side, effortlessly tossed it over the plateau's cliff and onto the beach below.
There, with a huge explosion, it quickly drowned out in black smoke.
The creature felt relief, and turning its huge muscled back, it slowly crept back to the woods, where it could take a rest from the beating it had dealt to the shiny, strange creature that had disturbed him, like so many other small shiny things it had seen in the sky.
It was infuriating enough that the shiny birds flew over his head mockingly, but moreover so, that one big shiny bird had decided to nest in its ground.
At least, that was taken care of, and now it would return to its lair for some food and rest.
Down in the debris below, electrical sparks flew in random directions in some of the hardware that had not blow up when the impact of the fall had shattered the ship.
A faint crackle came from the broken speaker.
"... com... er... is... eer..."
And with the fires being put out by the still-strong rain, the voice died out from the speakers in the wrecked ship.
To be continued...
 Tsunami K · Wed Sep 13, 2006 @ 09:31pm · 0 Comments |
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