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 0500

  Jessie

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  Jessie blinked as he felt someone shake him awake. Opening his eyes as he fought down old instants, he looked up at Terra looking down at him.

  “You should know not to wake me like that girl!” Jessie muttered as he got up and stretched.

  “Sorry, but something happened. Something you need to see,” Terra said as she looked beyond Jessie.

  He scowled and then turned his head. He looked out and blinked, then he closed his eyes and opened them again. What he saw was still there, and it was gathering a crowd. “These are not my eyeballs.”

  “Yeah, they are. Those things are real!” Terra said a strange note in her voice.

  Jessie could only stare in awe. There, just beyond the shield were what looked like Unicorns! They were large horse-like creatures with legs over five feet long. They had bodies that were a solid green, with horns of a crystal material. The horns were a slanted hexagon with an opening at the end. There were ten adults with five children, and larger than the adults by three feet. This one wasn’t eating, it was looking right at them with its horn down. The other were eating the remains of the bear things outside the shield and some of the grass. All in all, they seemed to be feeding with their elder watching the biggest threat. But something was telling him that wasn’t it.

  “Predator Unicorns, now I’ve seen everything!” One of the deckhands said in wonder.

  Jessie kept calm and looked at the beasts, something was bothering him about those horns. There was just something about them that reminded him of something. He couldn’t place it, but he had seen something like them before. But where or more importantly, when?

  Jessie blinked and then looked around for his team. He saw Zevortro standing there and walked over to him. Zevortro was looking beyond the shield and didn’t react until Jessie put a hand on his shoulder.

  “What!? Oh, Jessie. Yeah, it’s time to go to work isn’t it?” Zevortro said, a note of wonder in his voice.

  “Yeah, now. We need to get everyone ready to work. Those things are just another possible threat we’re hiding from. Remember that!” Jessie said sternly.

  “Yeah, I know. But Unicorns? Those are something every human child has wondered about, right?” Zevortro said with a grin only for that to fall when Jessie looked at him.

  “Not me,’ Jessie said as he turned to look at the beasts. “And those things are probably one the biggest threats we’re going to see.”

  “What? How can you tell that?” Zevortro asked horror and shock in his voice.

  “Just a feeling. So move!” Jessie said as he looked around, he saw Dalila and Bryke by the crater and pushed Zevortro towards them. “Go and get them moving! After that, get the others moving. We’ll need someone to go get breakfast for everyone.”

  As Zevortro moved on, Jessie kept looking at the beast. As they ate the flesh of the dead, Jessie had to wonder about their diet. Were they predators or scavengers? And if they were predators, then how did they kill their prey? The more he looked at the horn, the more he knew, knew, that he had seen something like it before.

  “I wonder what they normally eat?” A deckhand asked in awe.

  “Should we bring the passengers up here?” Another asked.

  Jessie felt his rage spike and then he found Terra. He stalked over to her and he barely kept from screaming. It was time that fun time was over, time to get back to normal!

  “The other deckhands are starting to wonder if they should bring the passengers up here. With all our prisoners!” Jessie said sternly.

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  He saw Terra keep her eyes on the beasts and she nodded.

  “That sounds great! We should let the shields down too! Bring those beautiful things inside!” Terra said drunkenly.

  Jessie looked at her and then around, his eyes widening as he took in what the others were doing. They had all kept staring at the shield, and they seemed to be walking towards the beasts. The more he took in what they were doing, the more worried he got. Finally, he felt something that he had felt before. It felt like. “The Trainer!”

  Without a single waited moment, Jessie ran towards the nearest console. Without stopping to think, he knew exactly what he had to do. As he ran, he looked towards the two native captives. They were both floating there, their eyes locked on the beasts. But unlike the others, he thought that they were staring in anger. That was enough, that meant that they had run into those things before. And if he was right, that was bad.

  Finally making it to the console station, he let his fingers move to the setting he needed. Looking at it, he wondered if this was the right move.

  “Awe….! Why can’t we touch the horses?” One of the deckhands at the shield called out drunkenly.

  Then he looked up and saw some of the deckhands moving towards the other consoles and this one.

  “We gotta bring them down here! I’ll do it!” One of the other deckhands called out with a drunken grin on their face.

  That was it, he had one chance to stop them, and he had to do it!

  With one click, the shield suddenly became opaque. As the clearing was covered in darkness, the light shot back on. And as the lights came on, he smiled. Every deckhand had fallen to the ground, each of them having lost their balance.

  “I knew it!” Jessie said with a hard edge to his voice.

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  Recor

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  “Blorspi, did you see that?” Recor asked in awe. Those Terror Horns were standing there, their Lure looking right at the strangers. Then some of them walked towards something, then they saw the Awakner reach one first. Then the barrier suddenly became dark and their captors all fell, breaking free of the Lure. He couldn't believe that he had seen Terror Horns and lived! The last time those things had attacked the tribe, they almost called half of the tribe to them. If Blorspi hadn’t killed the Caller, then the tribe would have died!

  “Yeah, I did kid. I mean by the Old ones! I thought they were all dead!” Blorspi said, anger and awe in his voice.

  Recor looked at his elder and felt anger. “What’s wrong? If they had died to those things the Terror Horne youngsters would have killed us! How was this any worse for us?!”

  “Because one of them was able to resist. That means they have an Elder amongst them!” Blorspi said bitterly.

  Recor looked at Blorspi and felt faint. That meant that their hope to Awaken to escape was doomed to failure with an enemy Elder here! Recor felt a little faint. But then a strange and hopeful thought came into his head.

  “Maybe not! I mean he might just be a mentally focused Awakened! That’s possible, right?” Recor asked hope and sheer will in his voice.

  Blorspi only chuckled and nodded. “Yeah kid, keep trying to awaken. Once you do that, I’ll teach you how to ‘jump’. We can get out of here and then we can escape!”

  “SIR, you’ve Awakened?” Recor asked in awe. That was the only way that anyone could teach others Powers. But if he could, then why didn’t he escape?

  Blorspi only closed his eyes and chuckled. When he opened his eyes, Recor could see a bit of anger in it. Blorspi looked at Recor for a few moments before speaking. “No, my father was one of them remember? He talked about how he felt to use his Power. That was one that I hoped to learn to do the most.”

  “Oh,” Recor said as he looked down at the strange beings. He had to admit, that made more sense. If his elder could do anything like the other Awakened, then the two of them wouldn’t be here now. And the way that the Awakener of the enemy reacted, was amazing. He somehow used something as a medium to block off all sight! The size of this alone showed that he was a monster! But something bothered him, the old stories. Was there a chance that this was the ancient knowledge that the Tribe lost? “What do you think they’ll do next? What were they doing in that hole last night?”

  Blorspi only looked down, staying silent. For a moment, Recor thought that his elder wouldn’t say anything.

  Then Blorspi breathed and shook his head. “Nothing that we can do anything about. We just need to keep ourselves aware. Oh, breakfast!”

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  Terra

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  As she moaned into the ground, Terra felt her head throb as she lay there. All around her, she could hear the sounds of others as they reacted to what had happened. As hard as she tried to think of what had happened, all she could remember was something foggy. The more she tried to figure it out the more it slipped away from her. As she shook herself, she finally remembered that she had seen something. She couldn't remember what it was, but she had seen something that couldn’t have been there.

  “What was that!? Why am I on the ground!?” A voice called out in shock.

  “I slept on the other side of the clearing! Why am I over here!?” Another voice called out.

  Terra felt that her mind was breaking, no way could explain this at all! Just what had happened to them all.

  She finally mustered enough energy to move her head up. The first thing she saw was Jessie moving amongst the others, helping people to sit up. As she watched, he caught her eyes.

  Talking to the deckhand he was talking to, Jessie nodded and moved towards her.

  “Good to see you recovered!” Jessie said with a grin.

  “What happened?” Terra moaned out and Jessie reached down to help her up.

  “Best I can figure some kind of mental attack. There were things outside. Things that looked like a creature of earth myths,” Jessie said slowly.

  Terra glared at him as she sat down cross-legged and others cried out in shock.

  “What kind of creature? What could have done this to all of us through the shield!?” Terra asked anger and rage in her voice.

  She saw Jessie sigh and then he looked at her. “A herd of unicorns. And they had these crystal horns. Everyone that was looking at them, you all became drunk.”

  “What?” Terra asked, her mouth dropping open. She couldn’t believe what she heard, and that mean that this planet had stumped her.

  “Yeah. And given how everyone was acting, I think it was the leader,” Jessie said, a scowl on his face.

  “Wait, leader? What do you mean?” Terra asked as her mind started to clear. This was something that she had to figure out, and fast. If something that had done this to them was out there, then Jinn’s team could be dead! If that happened, then they and whatever other escape capsules landed here were dead. They might even have to send another party out there!

  Jessie only looked at her and scowled. “One of those things. Bigger. And all the others were eating the corpses out there.”

  Terra looked at him and then felt her mind slowly connect the dots. And the picture that revealed, it was terrible. She swallowed and looked at him. “That thing was doing something to drag us to it. Make us easier to kill.”

  “That’s what I figured out quick. And people were walking towards the control consoles before I blocked the light. This is bad,” Jessie said with a hard edge to his voice.

  Terra looked at him, and then away. “Jinn.”

  “Yeah. And those people down there can’t learn of this. The moral alone!” Jessie said with a scowl.

  Terra looked at him and nodded, her mind going the same route his had. This was a threat that Duncan had to know about now! Forget about going down into the structure, they had to talk to the Chief about the shield now!