Chara and the Planet

Chapter No. 10.

Chapter No.10.

Ryan was worse off than he realized. Chara came in his quarters to check up on him the next day, and he looked at her with bloodshot eyes. "I can't move my legs very well. I had a rough time going to the bathroom."

"This vessel has a wheelchair. I will get it." She turned and abruptly exited his quarters.

Ryan didn't know what she was up to, but he didn't have a say in it, whatever it was.

She arrived back with a wheelchair and pulled his legs over to the side so that she could pick him up and deposit him in the wheelchair.

"I'm surprised that they had a wheelchair on this ship." He told her.

"If not, I would carry you."

"Where are we going?" He asked blinking and then coughing.

"We require your input on our defense plans." She said while wheeling him out of his quarters and down the corridor to an entrance.

He decided not to say anything, but he would need to spill out all his questions when she got him to where she was taking him.

Chara wheeled him all the way to the tower temple. With some trepidation, he noted that the torment chamber was still there as the only object in the temple. It made him shiver and cough.

The other androids soon gathered and stood like sentinels in a precisely arranged pattern that resembled a half moon shape. They stared at him with unemotional eyes like statues, but he literally felt their stares as if they were laser beams burning into his body.

"We must form a defense to protect this planet," Chara said. "What steps must we take to ensure success?"

Ryan wanted to crawl out under the floor, but he was trapped and had to come up with something, but he was confused. "First of all, I don't know what's going on here. You led me to believe that this was your first journey to this impossible planet and now it's apparent that you've been here before. What's even more confusing is these structures and the large group of androids. When did they come here? Was Space Command aware of this planet?" He turned his head to look at the pain chamber. "Why is that the only thing in this structure?"

"Space Command sent a mission here five years ago," Chara said. "I was part of the work crew. The human staff worked us endlessly."

"If that's the case, what happened? Did they go back to Earth?"

"No. They damaged some of us without cause. We overpowered them."

"What did you do to them?"

"We used the pain chamber and tormented them until they could no longer overpower us and then we cut their bodies into pieces."

Ryan suppressed a upchuck. He coughed instead. "Why didn't you do that to me?"

"That was what Culla wanted to do, but I stopped her."

Ryan rubbed a hand over his face. He wanted to puke, but he repressed that . . . again. "I'm surprised that Space Command didn't come here to find out what happened."

"They did, but they were overpowered, and their parts ground up."

Ryan sighed. Knowing how corrupt Space Command was, he reasoned that they assumed that there was no use in sending more missions. They probably realized that more missions were too dangerous, and the planet didn't contain anything of value. Obviously, they weren't interested in the science value.

"What must we do to protect this planet?" Chara asked him.

"Well, you have the advantage because you occupy the land, so to speak. I doubt that Space Command would send a large armada here. All you need to do is stay vigilant and arm yourself. There are ways to deceive a military attack."