OK, lets post some writing
The creature eyes the vehicle curiously.
It watches as a uniformed HCES soldier swings a leg over and drops to the ground.
The soldier scans his head slowly around the area once, touches his helmet, and transmits his arrival checkpoint. He rummages in the side compartment for a moment, and carefully sets a few things on the crafts fuselage. Shutting the door, he double checks the supplies list, basic HCES configuration:
-1 Stun Setting Battery Pack
-3 Nerve-Gas Paralysis Canisters
-1 Weighted Carbon Resistance Net
-1 AR-14 Laser Scope
-1 pair of ATN “Viper” Thermal and Night Vision Goggles
-1 8” Steel Lightweight Survival Knife
After securing the devices to his armor, he takes a deep breath and pauses.
He’s ready.
He begins the long trek through the forest.
_
Meanwhile, the creature’s curiosity has gotten the better of him. It moves closer to inspect the craft. Finally it drops down gracefully onto the ground near the vehicle.
It has a strange smell, like it was not alive.
It hisses at the metal craft.
Nothing.
It growls loudly.
Still nothing.
The uniformed soldier has left footprints. The creature decides it will follow him.
His smell isn’t difficult to follow, even with all that armor.
_
Private Kyle Richard Maliniak has been walking for about an hour when he spots something. Clicking its way through the forest, the creature is about 4 feet tall and jet black. It almost resembles a giant, lanky, beetle. The soldier scans it and checks his data log.
[Kaverzwart]
“Extremely territorial, actually threatening other species survival. Best eliminated to prevent extinction of native creatures.”
“native creatures”?
But wasn’t it a native to this planet anyway?
Kyle decides to think about this later, after all, he has a job to do.
Dropping to one knee, he carefully takes aim.
The beetle-thing looks up curiously through his crosshairs, and he fires.
It falls to the ground, and Kyle starts toward the corpse.
Taking a syringe from a pocket, he squats down and takes a sample of the creature’s blood for analysis.
Well… It wasn’t really blood, was it?
Juice? What do beetles have instead?
Kyle doesn’t know.
The glass tube fills with a light purple liquid and Kyle considers the data log. The creature hadn’t necessarily seemed that dangerous. When it spotted him, all it did was tilt its head some. Yet the log had warned that it was so territorial it was threatening other species.
…
Weird.
_
Meanwhile, the creature sits high up in the canopy of a tree, watching him. Finally, the soldier stands, and moves on. The creature waits until he is about 100 feet off, then nimbly hops its way down to the ground. Quickly running over to the dead Kaverzwart, it sits down and stays very still. After a few moments, its eyes turn a blue-ish color, and the Kaverzwart suddenly stands up. The creature looks into the eyes of the Kaverzwart and concentrates. In the Kaverzwart’s head, even though it had no way of knowing what happened, somehow it knows. The creature explains everything that happened to it. The Kaverzwart shakes its head once or twice, forces out a shaky breath, and continues with whatever it had been doing.
_
Kyle is through with about 5 creatures and has mixed feelings now. None of the creature’s descriptions match up with their behavior. He is confused. Why would HCEF order the death of creatures that weren’t actually threatening? HCEF just needed a new planet to colonize for business, why destroy its inhabitants? He felt very uneasy. He turned around and started to run for his vehicle.
_
An HCEF ship commander has been examining the brainwaves of Private Maliniak, and is disappointed. Kyle was a very instinctive soldier. Not necessarily smart, but bright in his own way. A way that made him a brilliant fighter that didn’t ask questions. That was why he had been chosen for this mission. And now he knows too much.
The commander sighed.
What a shame, he thought.
He touches a few dials, and steers the ship down into the atmosphere.
_
Kyle finally gets back to the vehicle, exhausted. The sun has gone down, and now it is dark. Kyle looks up to see navy clouds mingle with the new stars. -and then something that was neither sky nor star.
A soft glow framing a massive figure...
It's a ship approaching.
A landing craft jettisons, and a few moments later Kyle is arguing with an officer.
“I’m terribly sorry about the circumstances, private”
“But sir, I don’t understand, what have I done?”
“That’s just the thing. If we told you, your brain wouldn’t be able to comprehend the information. You would shut down. You would become a hazard to HCEF and everything it stands for.”
“But-”
The officer fires once, and Kyle slumps to the ground.
He holsters the weapon and pauses.
The officer says a prayer, crosses himself, and boards the landing craft.
_
“That was close”
“You’re telling me”
“You know the potential damage he could’ve done, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, why else would I have ordered his termination?”
“Why have you ordered the termination of these creatures?”
“Don’t you turn on me too”
“He never did turn on you”
“Are you picking a fight with me, Officer Nelson?”
“…Apologies sir. It won’t happen again”
“See that it doesn’t”
_
The creature slowly moves towards the still body of Private Maliniak and pauses. It no longer regards the vehicle as a creature, or Kyle as a threat. It has seen his mind.
Its eyes turn blue again, and suddenly Kyle is sitting bolt upright, eyes wide, breathing hard.
“What happened?” he asks no one.
“You were shot.” replies no one.
Kyle frantically scrambles to his feet, looking around for the source of the voice. He remembers the goggles, and switches them on.
“What the…”
Kyle cannot believe what he sees.
“Telepathy”, the creature explains. “I brought you back to life.”
“You mean-”
“Yes. They had you shot. Your brainwaves didn’t register to their likings.”
“How do you know all this?”
Unbelievable.
“The same way I know that you don’t trust the corporation you work for. I read minds. And if you don’t want them to shoot you a second time, I suggest you remove and destroy the helmet. It transmits your brainwaves every 5 minutes.”
Kyle hastily takes off his helmet. He straps a grenade to the inside of it, and lobs it as far as he can throw. The grenade goes off, and Kyle breathes a sigh of relief.
He sits down, “Indian-style”.
How racist, he thinks
There’s a long silence and he asks:
“What happens now?”
“You want revenge, don’t you?”
“Of course”
“Well you’ve still got a ship, weapons, and a months worth of food. So I suggest we build a fire. Because this is going to take quite some time to plan, and this planet gets pretty cold at night.”
END