Chapter One-Hundred-Fifty-Four: Juta - Part Two

  Galactic Quadrant: Darna Quadrant

  Ruling Government: Talum Merchant Federation

  Solar System: D-447

  Location: Near Orarak City

  ***

  Three Hours before present time.

  ***

  “We are here,” Solara says, frowning with worry, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I am.”

  The loading bay door of the small ship opens, wind gusts towards me. Outside I see shining metal that was collected with the sweat and blood of my people, organized in panels, forming a massive structure. Orarak city, the floating capital of planet Ora, home to countless millions of higher class people, not all are Alverian, I have seen that much myself. We move closer to it, a door coming into view. The entrance to the maintenance shaft she spoke of. A disposal chute of some kind is next to it. Deep black stains tell me nothing good came from it.

  “Remember what I said. If you need me, just contact me on your holopad, I will do whatever I can,” she says, her voice carrying over the frigid wind.

  I do not reply, she has made herself clear, this is the third time she has repeated it. I am sure I have grabbed everything I will need. Walking out onto the edge of the ship’s loading bay door, facing the city of the masters where my people are chained, the wind brushes against me, pushing my hair into its grasp. There is something strange as I walk past the gravity actuators and feel the natural gravity of my home world, it is lighter than I remember. Even after the fourth boundary, it was not this light. Is it because of the runes I am shaping? Perhaps training with Solara has made me stronger too, she showed me many things I did not know. Things that made me realize having a master to train you may not be a bad thing. When I reunite with Luna, I should ask Kotina to train me. I feel somewhat saddened that Solara cannot come, she is a good teacher and her patience would have rivaled the Sage’s.

  I feel darkness crawling at the edges of my mind, it will not be long until I can’t press it back easily, time is growing shorter. I must focus myself.

  “Be careful, and please come back in one piece. I’ll keep the ship ready.”

  “I will,” I say, turning my head to look at her.

  She looks at me, I can feel the hesitation in her. Part of her screams to stop me where I stand, but the other part, the part which she listens to says something else. It tells her to let me choose my own path. Besides, we both know there is little choice. Dargo has what I need to keep Krotha and the call of the Cursed Edict at bay.

  “Thank you, Sola, for everything.”

  Her eyes widen at me saying her shortened name for the first time. A pact of sorts to tell her, we are friends now, even by my standards. A smile flitters across her mouth.

  I turn to move off the ramp, but her hand grabs me delicately, soft as a whisper that I can barely hear, “Is it wrong of me to wish you’d met me first?”

  My head turns slowly to meet her gaze. Her eyes speak to me of the sadness that looms in her heart. I feel it stirring in mine. I realize it was a mistake to look upon her after she said this. I should have leapt, instead of lingering.

  “Do not dwell on what will not be. You will find someone better than me, of this I am sure.”

  She looks down, but she doesn’t seem as upset as before. Almost like she is finally accepting the dynamic cannot change.

  Turning from her, I close my eyes, drawing air into my lungs, slowly exhaling until all that remains is focus. The resolve soon follows behind it. Leaping now from the edge of the platform with the breaching laser in hand, I begin carving the thick metal door.

  By the time I have opened it, the ship has departed. It is better this way, now the only way is forward.

  The molten metal rolls to the floor as I kick the cut door from the frame, it surprises me how far it falls back. My body has indeed grown stronger. Is this because I have been training with Etherium? Vek. So many questions.

  As I begin the long climb up towards the fifteenth floor, I cannot help but think on the past. How many times have I climbed metal to strip scraps from ships to survive? Now I climb upon the metal that those scraps built. Life is strange… fickle like people.

  ***

  When I finally reach the fifteenth floor, it takes me another few minutes to cut the next door. My body is not even weary from the climb, I have done it my whole life, usually much further. As the door falls, I see it leads to a room filled with tools lining the walls. Some kind of maintenance cache. There is nothing here that I will need, so I move to the next door. To my surprise it opens. The holopad Solara gave me chimes. I had almost forgotten she made me wear it, probably to track and monitor me. I do not mind, she has proven very helpful.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Be careful, my master has not replied in some time. My contact came through with an updated real time map. Check your map interface.

  On the holopad, I see a patrol of two soldiers roaming the halls near the back entrance of a massive room near me, the largest on this floor. Solara’s contact must have given me some kind of admin access to see their movements. With this contact, perhaps more of my people may be able to escape from here somehow, perhaps Solara would be willing to help more. Hope is rising in my chest, despite my tempered nature.

  I push the thought from my mind, the two on patrol will cross my path soon, focus is required. Taking to the corner now in their blind spot, I wait for them to move past. I do not wish to test out the new plasma blades Solara gave me unless I must.

  “Why are we stuck doing patrol duty when the Hunt’s about to start,” one of them says, drawing closer.

  “LT said there was a breach in the lower floors, something about the feeds going down too. Dunno, bullshit duty either way,” the other says with an audible sigh through their metal helmet.

  “What’s that?” the first asks.

  “Shouldn’t be open, weird, you don’t think…”

  There is silence, as though they are communicating with hand signals. The thud of their boots tells me they are approaching.

  As they turn the corner, the first lets out a surprised shriek, fumbling for their rifle’s safety. I am upon them swiftly, about to stab one in the chest and the other in the throat. My hands betray me as they change directions to wound and not kill. Thoughts of Luna weighing on my heart rising to the surface. Sekat, she has dulled my blades.

  Frustration rises in me as I cut the tendons in their legs. Destroying their rifles with the edge of the blade. They howl inside their suits in pain as the molten metal burns their flesh. Clenching my jaw, I slash the holopads on their wrist and leave them to crawl upon the ground.

  Moving towards the large room’s back entrance. As I pass through the doors which open, I assume Solara’s contact opened them, I take in the room. There is a pile of boxes filled with nutritional rations, the wrappings look fresh like the ones they feed hunters. There are only our bitter and bland rations here, a shame they do not let them have the good ones, the savory ones are quite good. Depositing some into my cloak, in case my body requires it. An Ulima must always be prepared, though I do not think I will need it, I feel the darkness creeping in the edges of my mind. The tempo is increasing.

  Shaking my head at the whispers of darkness, regaining my focus again, curiosity bids me to keep moving forward, as does the map Solara put on the holopad. It is the fastest way to the location I need to get in order to reach Dargo’s chambers. If I do not cross it, I will have to walk the winding paths. I do not wish to linger here for longer than I need to.

  I think on what Solara said, that Leora must want me to come to Orarak city. Why does she want me to come here? There is a strange feeling in me as I begin to smell an odor on the air. I move further into the expansive room, towards large plastic sheets that hang from the ceiling. It is a smell I know too well.

  Death.

  I hear the pounding of machines on the other side.

  As I cut the plastic, moving into the next section behind it, I find the start of a snaking line of machines that take up hundreds of paces in every direction. Horror fills my eyes as I see around me the bodies of my people in various stages of decomposition, hung by hooks on a slowly moving track towards a large machine. Their bodies ooze foul liquids onto the ground, causing my stomach to churn. Each of their chests is scorched from an energy weapon that burned their hearts to ensure they will never become Shulka.

  Loud smashing noises exude from the largest of the machines as it crushes the bodies into mush at the end of the conveyer of hooks. I follow along the trail of it and see a large vat of bubbling acid where the mush is taken. Massive pipes slowly drip thick and foul liquids from somewhere else that smells vile into the mush before it goes into the vat. My eyes do not want to follow further, but I must know, why do they defile the dead, what purpose is there in this? Is it to humiliate my people one last time, not even allowing them peace in death?

  There is sickness in my veins as I see the slurry of slop that the acid leaves being fed to a conveyer belt, and separated out into large tins, then put under heated panels that arc light into the mush, pressing it until the liquid is gone and it is solid, sending it through another series of machines that combine more things from other places. My stomach begins to churn into a storm as my mind catches up to the depravity that my eyes behold.

  I am suddenly reminded of something the Sage once told me…

  No one invented cruelty, it has always been there. Over the years, people have become more creative at using it.

  Near the end of the line, a bladed machine cuts the larger blocks of grey abomination into smaller ones. Ones that I recognize. It is the nutrition blocks that they feed the hunters, my eyes grow wide, there is buzzing in my ears, beads of sweat roll down my brow as I begin to vomit uncontrollably on the ground.

  My legs buckle under the weight of everything my eyes have seen, slamming me to my knees. My eyes hollow as I parse this cruel reality. My heart hardens and grows dark as I remember they made us fight in their Colosseum to get these rations. I have seen scores die honorable deaths, only to be turned into something grotesque.

  I can’t even move for a time… I don’t believe what my eyes see… then it comes in waves, past the nausea, past everything…

  Anger.

  I yell and scream, overcome with raw emotions, knocking over the smaller machines, throwing metal into the gears of the larger ones. My eyes glow brightly as the bioluminescence swirls. There is a heat in me, like fire bleeding from the pain of my soul as I see the wickedness people are capable of. Darkness fills me.

  “I curse all of you false gods.”

  My fists slam into the controls of the machines until it breaks under them.

  “I curse your children and their children’s children.”

  I use the plasma blades to cut the conveyer’s tracks until it stops.

  “May you all walk upon fields of broken glass until my blade finds you.”

  These people and their gods are sick, beyond sick. Every last one of them is deserving of the blade. All of them. My blade begins to sing a tune I have never heard before, striking the first chord. It takes me a moment, but I realize it is not just my blade singing, but the blade of my people’s will. My mind spins, the darkness whispers louder, my focus to push it back now gone.

  The blade that sings in me, it will only become sharper, and I will hunt these false gods in the afterlife, becoming the thing of their nightmares. The thing they think of when they peer into the darkness and fear grips their cold hearts. They will not know peace, this I swear upon my soul… upon my very existence. I am that which will be their end. I feel the darkness swelling more inside of me, pressing into my soul, filling it with the strength to rise up and slash at the false light of the masters and their gods.

  It is here at my weakest, when I do not fight her presence that I feel Krotha move into my perception. Her words grate against me.

  You begin to see the truth

  The false gods do not deserve worship

  They deserve only ruination

  Give it to them, my blade

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