He was Almost Absorbed by the System

Chapter Ninety - Lost

There were currently three major factions ruling the Helixia galaxy during the seventeenth era; The Helixian Empire, The League of Advanced Planets and the Alliance of Worlds. The borders between these three factions fluctuated from time to time when conflicts arose due to planets and moons along the border and there were several areas that could be considered no man's land, where the solar systems remained primitive or simply refused to be swept into the politics of the factions. In one such region of space, considered no man's land as it simply had no value to anyone, three world's circled a dying star.

The world furthest from the red sun was simply known as RS3. As with its sister worlds, archaeologists had found signs that the world's had once been inhabited by a star faring race. In fact, due to the advancement of the race's technology and as proven by age detecting techniques, it seemed the race was already advanced when they lived upon RS1. And when this world was no longer inhabitable, they moved to RS2, then RS3 respectively. Archaeologists concluded that their original world had circled the sun when it was yellow and thriving, but this was probably consumed when the sun reached the stage where it had burned up all it's hydrogen reserves and expanded as it began to feed upon the helium gas waste. In a desperate attempt to survive, they reasoned, the race moved to planets further away from the sun, only to fall in the end. This last was concluded as they had not found any signs of the race or their technology anywhere else in the galaxy and the oldest claimed race reached the stars only five thousand years ago and were from the other side of it.

Archaeologists occasionally revisited RS3 as there was still much undiscovered, but as there seemed no real benefits to disturbing this system's last grave, their visits were short and infrequent due to lack of funds. Guran Vi Du was an intern on the latest expedition, but he did not want to be. In view of filial duty, he had followed his mother to the site and studied archaeology and ancient history in university, but in actual fact, his dream was to be landscape artist! His mother snapped him from his musing, asking him to pass her a fine scalpel laser. He obliged and peered over her shoulder to see what she had found. It appeared to be a piece of metal cut in the shape of a kite and no bigger than his big toe. It really didn't look that interesting to him, but he did notice that it seemed to have escaped the wear of time, with not a speck of rust on it's dull surface.

Just as he thought this, it suddenly twitched. He blinked to see if he wasn't seeing things, but his mother dropped it, startled and backed away. The metal shape suddenly developed tiny legs and scuttled towards them causing them to quickly retreat. Suddenly there was a scream to their left, grabbing their attention. Millions of small things poured out of the cracks in the dry earth and began to swarm down on the archaeologists. Their protective suits were as waste paper, unable to provide any safety from the swarm. Some fled to the ships, but were horrified to see those ships crumble before their eyes as if eaten by the metal creatures.

His mother suddenly shrieked, waving her arm about as the one she had found had crawled up her body while she was distracted, but she was unable to fling it off. Guran attempted to swipe it away for her, but a sharp piercing pain upon his neck somehow took away his ability to move. His bright eyes began to dull as he fell to the ground. He did not witness the creatures swarm him.

*****

The Alliance had lost communications with the small archaeology team almost a week ago, but they were not too concerned as such cheap digs took the barest minimal comforts and communication technology tended to be on its last legs. If it were not for the reputable university that sponsored the team kicking up a stink, the authorities likely would have left the situation alone for another week. They had more important things on their plate that rescuing one small group of archaeologists! Their current clean up of Pirates was not going well and a sun in the fifth quadrant had gone super nova and they were busy rehoming the survivors.