The Sealed Planet

Chapter 16: Survivor's Hope

Domel Arcturus

"It's close," I said. "We're close to the colony. Kilkaja and George are also there."

"How about Sel?"

"I don't know. Her pathfinder device stopped working a couple of hours ago. I hope she's safe."

I tried my best not to assume the worst, but we were in the worst situation that could possibly happened to us. We were still inside the forest with the lights going out faster than we thought, and we still had problems with the Saukauri patrol that started opening fire the moment they saw us. For them, we were easy targets. Vyrnian were taller than Saukaurs and bigger, which made maneuvering the forest hard. We tried to talk them out of this and told them that we were on the planet by mistake. But then, when we told them that we were going to the colony, they immediately assumed that we were with their enemy and opened fire. We got away after Zarya intensified her healing wave light to blind them.

After George told us to run, I immediately grabbed Zarya and ran to a different direction. In the confusion and panic, I forgot to check my pathfinder device. But, in my defense, you would not pull out your device when you are in the middle of a crossfire. Our shield generators had depleted their charges two hours ago. We were able to hide ourselves in the darkness due to my own black scales, though Zarya's scales were of bright champagne color and light reflecting. The forest's darkness did not hide her well enough.

I told Zarya to try and not use her healing wave, knowing that the bright light effect of her ability would alert the enemies. While her healing wave was far more effective in healing our wounds than the first aid kit she was carrying around, it's still dangerous and we would lose our cover of darkness.

Our trek through the darkness was full of worry and fear of being shot. I must admit, this was one of the most frightening moment in my life. Here I was, trying to find our friends, with no shield, low power reserve, and trying our best to stay out of sight of forest patrols in darkness, with only the low lighting of the pathfinder device being our only illumination.

It really was a stupid decision to just run blindly in the middle of the forest. We could've reached our ship by now and be safe behind its shield. I bet even the soldiers would not even dare to attack us on the ship. It was literally the best place to defend ourselves until morning came. However, things had happened, and we gotta try and survive from it. And besides, we were on the planet for a reason. I was not that stubborn to try and complete our goal here, but we got a chance and I would use it, especially since we were much closer to the colony after the ambush.

I remembered what Sel said about them. Saukaurs. They were known as space hunters even before the Exodus, but they were not warmongers. Things had changed too much. Even I wondered how I could keep up, even though in my case it also felt like I went back in time (which I actually did). The Vyrnians lost a lot of their old technological advances in the past 500 years, our planet was sealed from whatever's going out of the Eye, and now I found out that our enemy, the Trikelians, were already influencing our lives long before I was even born. We need a way to counter them, and that information was found on Aurelis Three. It was the last intelligence before Exodus, and it could have something to do with the Trikelians.

The peace did not stay long. We accidentally stumbled upon a patrol and our eyes reflected their lights. I acted quickly by zapping them with electricity, but they were not the only patrol in the area. It was wrong to use my electricity against them, because it's bright and it clearly alerted everyone nearby. Cursing to myself for panicking, I took Zarya's hand and run towards the direction of the colony's coordinates.