The whole space between Planet
B43 and its moon was a huge graveyard. Pieces of different sizes and different
materials, floated all around, doing some sort of dance between the planet and
the satellite. Some pieces did fall into one of the celestial bodies but no
damages were done to intelligent life, as there was none in that section of
space. The whole system had been deprived of that for a millennia and it was
considered to be a sacred zone, not one to venture into lightly.
The battle that had taken place
only a few months back had been a consequence of miscalculations and a clear
disrespect for anything that reeked to the past. Somehow, all the peoples in
the galaxy had absolutely forgotten their roots, their common ancestry and
history. That planet, which was now classified as empty, with only a letter and
two numbers, had been one of the largest hubs in the past, gathering every kind
of creature in its heart, making every single one of them feel welcome.
The temples that were still
scattered all over the surface of both celestial bodies were now covered in
plants and moss. They had been the key to achieving peace a thousand or more
years ago. It was a time when battles didn’t existed, no skirmishes were ever
registered, and people tried to live without any kind of conflict. They talked.
When they had differences, they agreed on meeting on the planet, which they
called Takrut, and solve it there, with the help of other parties.
There was something similar to a
sense of community, even when civilizations would be separated by million of
kilometers, of light years and planets and stars. Even with that inconvenience,
all of these different creatures had the knowledge to gather and just share
what they had all been given. Commerce was key during those times, and it was
fair and it made senses to everyone involved in the transaction. No one felt
they were taken advantage of or that were loosing somehow.
The debris that now fell to the
planet, sometimes fairly close to the ruins of those temples, was the proof
that whole galaxy had fallen away from all that it had once held dear. The
battle, which had begun in another sector, had burst into the system with fire
and blood and screams, breaking the silence that for so much time had befallen
those ancient tombs and sacred places. Respect had died a long time ago and
there was no way to get it back, at least not with the current factions
fighting each other over beliefs that were up for interpretation, nothing
really factual.
A scout ship called Valiant was send to the cloud of ruins in order to
try and rescue a piece of one of the ships that they needed in order to
continue their fighting elsewhere in the galaxy. It was a piece of a memory
bank that the pirates and smugglers would probably find to be of no importance.
That’s why coming back after so long was not really a problem. Besides, not
running into unwanted company was important, in order to maintain the mission a
secret from everyone outside of their own group.
The Valiant passed by the cloud
but realized soon they wouldn’t be able to penetrate it. Even being a small
ship, the Valiant could easily be hit by the large chunks of debris and that
would leave them stranded on that sector for who knows how long and they
certainly had no intention to do so. B23 was a country shrouded in rumors and
tales of monsters and dark wizards. Not many people talked about worlds like
those, except for mothers when trying to scare their children from doing
something wrong.
The crew of the Valiant decided
it was wiser to send an AI unit to do the work. They were always very eager to
help and they had no need to breath, so they were the perfect candidates to
take a walk in space. A special rope was attached to their charging port to get
them back after they had found the object they were looking for. The first unit
was sent shortly after arrival but it was soon lost to a large chunk of metal
that destroyed it. Its arms and legs floated away, as the rope was pulled in to
use on another droid.
The next one was able to locate
the piece they were looking for but was then pierced through the chest by a bar
made of different alloys. It had been travelling at top speed, so it was just
like being stabbed with a spear or something. They also used other kinds of
droids, less humanoid in aspect but faster and better responsible to the
commands coming from the ship. It was one of those, a little droid called IC2,
who was able to finally get the part they needed to get back to their command
center.
The droid was being pulled into the
ship when another piece of wreckage cut its rope, leaving it only a few meters
away from the Valiant. The ship tried to indicate the droid how to get into the
ship by itself but a surprise visit by a group of pirate ships was enough to
make the crew of the Valiant realize they needed to get to safety first and
then try to rescue the droid. Before jumping out of the system, the scout ship
ordered the little droid to hide among the debris and stay there until another
ship came to pick him up. He understood his command and floated, waiting.
He waited for a week and then for
another week but no one would come. As small as he was, his artificial
intelligence chip was very well developed, so much so that he could even do
things that larger droids couldn’t. The fact that he didn’t really have arms
and legs but tiny wheels and some hooks, made him the last resource for any
mission, and he knew that very well. But after waiting for so long, he decided
something had to be done in order to get the information back to the command
center.
As a droid, his priority was to serve, so that’s what he was going to
do. However, debris was very difficult to avoid, even for a small droid that
was able to avoid being hit with relative ease. One single piece, the size of a
little ball, was enough for him to lose his stability and hurl down into B23.
Luckily, they had made him with metals that resisted entry through different
kinds of atmospheres in the case of an emergency. It certainly came in handy as
he fell from the sky towards the jungle.
The small droid landed in a patch
of jungle that seemed to have no trees or plants. The place was rather circular
and, in a glimpse, he knew that was not a normal occurrence in the universe.
Geometrical shapes rarely happened like that, so randomly and it such vast
proportions. He decided to walk away from there and head toward some sort of
building he could see peeking through the tallest trees of the jungle that was
before him. Those were ancient ruins, something he already knew from his scanners.
He crossed the jungle rolling
through it; trying to avoid any puddles of water and paying close attention to
the sounds of various creatures that were probably looking at him, wondering
what it was that they were looking at. When the IC2 arrived at the building, he
noticed it was a pyramid and that it had an entrance on the base, a rather
large one. He decided it was the best place to wait for his owners, so he
rolled into the building as fast as he could, not realizing a shadow had moved
inside the cavernous entrance.
When he realized that there was a
creature there, it was too late for the little droid. A weapon, similar to an
arrow, traverse the droid through what one would call its eye. The creature, which was humanoid, bent down
and grabbed the piece of memory bank the droid was holding.
The human looked at the piece for
a while and then decided to keep it for himself, putting it on a pocket beneath
his cloak. He gave one final look to the destroyed droid and whispered
something to him, in a language that hadn’t been heard in ages. After that, he
disappeared into the shadows.
