~DOMINION LOST~
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The first rays of sun reached out from around the mountains and hit the frozen
land. Heated, the ice began to melt. At first slowly a river began to flow. From high in the
mountains it started growing strong and wide as it passed further into the deep snow
covered valley. Wind bellowed through crevasses and revines creating hollows under the
snow and ice, uncovering the bare earth. As the sun ignited the elements, the first signs of
life began to spring forth. Green vegetation spread over the soil and stone where only
moments ago there had been deep snow. Forests lush with thick foliage erupted from the
ground, and as the last of the snow and ice crawled back into the earth the first tiny insects
came out of their subterranean homes. Buzzing and crawling over their fresh new
biosphere. The winter was over and spring gave birth to another summer in a matter of days. First the flying creatures, then the animal that walk came out from their cavernous retreats, while still others staggered up out of the mud of the seas and lakes to be greeted by the warmth of the sun. And like that life on the surface began again. It wasn't until much later that the scientists would risk coming down from the saftey their mountaintop strongholds. First they would gather information about all the life that had changed since the last summer. They did so by sending robots, simple in form and function, out into the world to interact with and gather details about each species of life form. This process was easy enough until one of these robots encountered problems it couldn't cope with; they break down, they get stuck, ect..At which point a pair of scientists would have to go out and help the little lost robot, it wasnt an uncommon practice. It happened at least twice durring each solar year. That is, the span of time between winters. These winters were unique in that they lasted three times as long as the summers. This was brought about the extremely eccliptical orbit of the planetiod. During which time the denizens of this urth had developed an equally unique trait of survival. Instead of dying as they surely would if they were to suffer the extreems of the winter on the surface, nearly all of the life forms would migrate into the vast cavern system that existed within the planet core. Here close to the heat and in the darkness they underwent massive evolutionary steps, brought on by living so long underground. Many caverns were cavities that bore directly through extremely mutatious minerals. Minerals that would normaly never come into direct contact with the life of the planet. But under the circumstaces it would. And in the contact was born a sort of hyper evolution. Generations would die and reproduce at an astounding rate, thanks to the mutaion factor new species would appear at random, many would die off before the ever seeing sun light, some would remain unchanged. And still fewer would step out into the light of the nearing sun as new children of this archaic system. And then those who were chosen by forces unseen to delve into the light would face all new challeges eisting on the surface. It was as if a great, exotic planetary gestation took place between each solar year. Which is why the scientist were there. In each observatory, or stronghold, there were about 20 scientist\technitions. The Strongholds know as SS1, SS2, ect for science stronghold. were scattered throughout the highest mountains on surface of the planet, that is of the parts that ever saw the sun. There were areas of the surface that saw as little light as the deepest caves, but that will be explained later. Each of the men and women who worked and lived had their own specific job and title, despite the fact that everyone at one time or another had done everyone else's job at least once or twice.This system worked well as each person over the years became an expert in all or most fields of the general sciences. There were robotics technitions who would be the ones to go outside early, before complete data had been collected, to retieve fallen or lost robots. But since everone there had a good understanding of the androids it was allowed for other to go in the specified technitions stead. This time it was Sam Henton and Alex Nura's turn to go out and find the robots that needed attention; there weren't any yet, but there always were a few. Sam Henton was a botanist who was also good with robotics, so it wasn't so bad in his mind, that he had to go out into the harsh, untamed environment even before the robots finished identifying what was what. Even though some of the other scientists (Alex Nura included) were rather opposed to the idea every time it was one of their turns. Always afraid they would be eaten by some nightmare monster. There were plenty of monsters here, but all were animals created under the same laws that govern life through the universe, as differently as they may have evoloved. And all were creatures of habit,and so one could observe and not make contact if one were wary. Sam knew about most of the life forms anyway. Though a great deal of animals evolved somewhat in their years of times between summers, spent underground. Sam knew nothing often changed too much. New life forms altered from their predecessors variably, sometimes alot but usually not. None of this changed Alex Nura's mind. When the first robot had sent up its distress signal Sam wanted to go immediately but Alex wanted to wait until there were more robots that ran into problems, " we'll get a couple of 'em at once" he had said. But Sam told him he wouldnt have to go the next time. That Sam would take another person next time, therefor Alex would only have to go out once and to get only one robot, Alex liked the idea. So did Sam because he actually enjoyed going outside. Sam and Alex slipped into their detox suits, pulled their helmets on, put the back packs on their backs and embarked through the air lock into the outside world. Once they were out Alex checked the air with one of the gadgets out of his pack. It said the air was clean and free of toxins so they removed their helmets. The mountain air was cool and crisp and dry. But Alex was often a victim of allergies so his helmet wasn't off to long. The mountain top was almost bare of vegetation, but as they continued down plant life grew more and more abundant. As they descended Alex was rambling, mostly to himself, about how he hoped this wouldn't take too long and Sam was too busy observing the plant life to interrupt. When they reached the bottom of the mountain, It was nearly night fall so they set up camp in the usual spot. Tents went up and fire crackled its way through damp logs as they prepared food and got ready for sleep. Here at the base of the mountain was the entrance to the forest. The air was different from that of the mountain top, warmer and wetter. This was an impressive forest they slept at the mouth of; darkness poured in from between four foot wide trees thick with foliage. The woods echoed with sounds of nocturnal life once the moons came up: chirps, hoots, howls, whistles, scratching, screaming, and bumping. It wasn't long before morning came and after some food, camp was quickly packed up. Lead by a counter on Sams wrist console, they followed the troubled robots signal into the forest. The day light was obscured by a thick fog reducing visibility to were the two scientists could only see within around ten or eleven feet of were they stood. The fern covered earth was soft and spongy, and crawling with life. All around them insects buzzed and birds called and toads croaked. Here, deeper in the forest, the trees were twice the size of those at the woods entrance. From six feet down to the base of each tree their thick tangled roots looked to anchor each plant to the earth and join one tree to the next. Creating the same effect a coral reef does at the bottom of the ocean; an uncountable number of creatures lived there. And at the canopy a completely different unseen managerie dwelt. Each level of the forest creating a different food web. As the scientist walked through the foggy primordial jungle the animals scurried and flew out of their path, hiding in the thicket of roots below or the branches above. Before long Alex had go to the bathroom, so up a ridge and behind a tree he went. Sam was watching a colony of ant like creatures disassemble a small mammal. The tiny creatures worked meticuliously, the rodent had wandered into the path of the insects and they toke little time to devour it. He almost diddnt notice when he heard Alex call for his attention. "Hey come here!" shouted Alex. " Thats O.K. I dont want to see your shit Alex but thanks anyway!" " Come on Im serious!" Sam walked up the slight hill and back down the other side to were he heard Alex Shout. The fog was still thick and at first Sam could not see Alex crouched down looking at something beside a little brook. "What is it?" "Look at these foot prints, Sam. It looks like a primates." " The only primates live at entrances of caverns." But Sam could see these were the foot prints of an almost humanoid nature only twice the size. Four long toes, three pointing out straight and one inward; not unlike a humans hand, spare the pinkie. "Id say we've gotten ourselves a new species here, our first big bipedal too!" "Lets not jump to conclusions Alex, this could just be a mutant primate who wasn't accepted by its group at some nearby caverns." "Think so?" Alex pointed across the water were similar prints of varying size and depth covered the bank of the little brook. To the caverns entrance the tracks and the signal led. When they reached the caves it was mid-day and the sun had burned up the fog that wasn't under the cover of trees. Scattered in the clearing lay thirty plus mangled bodies of what was at one point considered the most advanced wild life species that world had yet known. Their blood dried on the warm rocks covering the ground. "I dont like this Sam, This is not normal." Sam moved into the clearing and began to inspect one of the primate bodies, the sun was warm and refreshing after being in the shadow of the trees for so long. "Sam, these animals had no predators outside of the big cats and big cats dont work like this at all." "I dont think any predator did this. I'll bet our new species did this." "but those were primate footprints, at no point have any of these primate species exhibited the violence factor that would be needed to wreak this, especially towards a related species; Thats quite a radical evolutionary step." "If it is a related species, and if they've evolved as much psycologicaly as they have physiologically.... If their brains have grown as much as their bodies...." "To devastate these primates, like this, they would have had to be incredibly strong, I mean just look at them they were ripped apart" "They used Andura tusks." "What??" "If they evolved enough to shift competition from 'who can out-eat who' to 'we'll kill you so you dont out eat us', then why not assume they were using these Andura tusks as weapons? why else would they be here?" The ground was toiled with arm length elephant like tusks, many of which covered in blood and a few actually protruding from several corpses. "Jesus, I didn't even notice them. Lets get out of here Sam." Neither of them noticed the slender figure standing just inside the cave until it moved into the sunlight. Its body seemed to be mostly covered in dark shiny olive colored exoskeleton, between the segments of chitin its flesh was a dull black. Its limbs were long and thin, and though it wasn't standing fully erect its total hight must have been nearly eight feet. In one hand it held a tusk with dried blood stains all over it. It moved lithefuly out of the cave and began to circle them keeping its distance. Two more appeared in the cave, one held a crude spear. The creatures began producing rattling sounds and occasional chirps. "what do we do?!" "just be still." The other two creatures began moving out after the first. "Oh god Sam there circling around us!" While shouting, Alex ran up and grabbled a tusk from the ground and raised it up in pure panic. With adept speed one of the creatures with a spear hurled its weapon . The spear flew straight and fast, right into and through Alex's chest. Alex stood there with the tusk above his head and the spear half sticking out of his chest and half sticking out of his back. Without moving his head he turned his terror stricken eyes to Sam. He opened his mouth but no words came out, just a contorted whimper carrying a mist of crimson. he fell to his knees, eyes and mouth still wide open. The first being threw its tusk which hit Alex squarely in the forehead, splitting helmet and face open and knocking him onto his back. Sam was running before Alex hit the ground, hurdling roots and fallen trees, he ran fast and hard and he did not know what direction he was running in. He ran for his life. From behind he heard a high pitched scream, almost a whistling, which was soon responded to with a dozen calls of the same pitch, thankfully, all from behind him and growing distant. When he finally stopped, he had no idea how long he had been running, maybe half an hour, maybe two hours. He dropped to the ground and pulled his canteen out from his pack. After drinking deeply he noticed his clothes were torn up from running through the underbrush of the forest. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes but all he could see was that look of complete terror on Alex's broken face. It was foggy again and getting dark. He tried to calculate his position, and made his best guess at which direction the observatory was in. "Was it the same animal that made the footprint?" "I cant be sure. But whatever it was I dont think it came about by natural means..." " Lets not jump to conclusions sam, we really dont know anything at this point." "They already decimated an entire primate group, I think they may try for another soon, we cant just..." "Did you see this happen?" "no, but I saw.." "We know what you saw, and although we can speculate we still dont really know exactly what happened." "But they killed Alex,... savagely." "From what you said it sounded like Alex attacked them." "..." "Well none the less Dr. Henton you've still got a priority before you take your leave." "What??" "Why Sam, you have to go out there and retrieve that robot." |