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Orlonel

Utr Zarya

I once told myself that I'd love to travel and enjoy space if I had travelling companions. I had many of them that my ship had started to become crowded, especially with another one joining us.

After I declared George fit for travel, the rest decided to start traveling again. To help Arcturus's father in his own pursuit, I let him stay in contact with the Arkari colony's leaders. I convinced the leaders that Andrates was not delusional and was telling the truth, though I knew that a sudden declaration of taking Vyrn back was rather radical. Still, I'd like to see what things that Andrates and his small group could do, though I might withdraw my support if their works started to destroy Vyrnians as I knew it. Luckily, that was not the case.

Despite Arcturus's intentions to try and help with reclaiming Vyrn, Andrates had no leads or information to open a way into the planet. The force field controls had no backup and could only be deactivated from within the planet. So, since they had no ways to infiltrate the planet, the only way in was to enter it by force through a possible weak point. The problem? It had been 500 years since the Exodus. The Vyrnians who potentially knew about it had long since dead, unless there's another miracle like another cryosleep hideout.

While I could return to Arkari and resume my healer's post, I simply decided to help this small group and suggested Amurlun, a small scientific colony known to research an ancient colony dating back to Arcturus's time, which could potentially have the information the cryo Vyrnians needed.

The colony of Amurlun was known to me even before I met Arcturus and George, as I had traveled there a couple of times due to the high variety of healing herbs growing naturally on the planet. Unlike Arkari, Amurlun was a planet we once called 'mostly water', but to make things easier to describe, Amurlun was 'Earth-like'.

Like Earth, Amurlun had more water than land, with rainy weather and docile wildlife that could be exploited. However, there was a reason why the founders of this colony called it Amurlun.

Amurlun is the Vyrnian word of 'Lush', and is part of the word Virdil Amurlun, which is translated to 'Lush Green'. It was obvious why this planet was called the 'Lush Green Planet'; it was a rainforest planet. From orbit, most of the land mass of the planet was covered with green, though development of several major colonies had clearly made a mark on the planet, though not severe enough to cause major environmental problems. The colony of Amurlun was established long before the Exodus as an archaeological research colony that also supported other research related to the rainforest and the life within it. It became a more conventional colony planet after the Exodus. The scientists that used the planet for research urged the newcomers to build around the rainforest and had repeatedly warned them to not turn the planet into a desert planet or they'd be forcibly kicked out. While a desert planet was how we usually lived, all the new colonists agreed to this term, and had found a way to incorporate the rainforest for a rather unique living condition.

Vyrnians could live in practically any type of climates except in the extremes of temperatures, though we preferred dry climate. Amurlun had more humidity than it was comfortable for desert raised Vyrnian like me, but that did not stop me from visiting this planet ever so often. The high variety of herbs used for healing grew well on that planet, and as a healer it was an obligation. The herbs growing on Amurlun could be easily engineered into functional medicines.

As I waited for the permission to land, I turned towards the main ship area to check on the rest of the group. Sel did not seem to be doing anything other than relaxing, but George seemed rather set in teaching Kilkaja many things. George persuaded me to take Kilkaja along so that he could see the planet since George felt a sense of sympathy to the former slave. Well, I was driven by that sense, too, to let him do what he wanted. It felt strange to see a pre-space alien teaching a space-faring alien what space was, but I once asked the young Nuoevan of his knowledge of space, and he had practically none.

"I...wasn't allowed to see the stars," he said to me once back on Lekan. "They don't want me to have that thought of escape."

Nuoevans were as cruel as their powers, but I never thought they'd be that cruel to someone of their own kind. I really wanted to try and change them, but it wasn't my place to do this. It must be done by the Nuoevans themselves. Still, Kilkaja was in good hands, and it showed in George patiently teaching him many things.

"They look like brothers, don't they?" commented Arcturus. He had been my co-pilot and navigator ever since the start of our travel together. Despite of being an ancient Vyrnian, he learned much faster than I initially thought, possibly because for us, 'ancient' meant more technologically advanced.

"Yeah, they do," I said. "They're like brothers from different mothers."

"And worlds," said Arcturus. "Which is a quality that I like from George. He's a kind, open-minded person who ironically came from a pre-space world. I am glad to have met someone like him in my exile. Otherwise, things might be hard for me."

"Or you might not even be awake."

"I guess so. Still, as kind as he is, he can be the cunning one, so be careful if he asks you for anything in the future, alright?"

I did not understand what Arcturus meant then, but I was later told that it was because of George asking Arcturus to be his partner in return of being a guide, which was something that Arcturus did not know given that he was from another world. While it was not a malicious intent, the fact that George helped for a favor showed that even a kind person could be cunning, and that made things interesting. For me, at least.

I heard that characteristic 'ping' sound indicating that I got permission to land on the colony, so I proceeded to execute the landing program and let the on-board ship computer to do the rest. All I had to do was supervise the procedure. It was made easier by the landing guidance system installed on Amurlun, which for me was an indication that this was not a frontier planet.

We landed on a relatively less forested area of the planet, near a colony called 'Orlonel', which was a Vyrnian word for 'Origin'. The name was fitting, given that this was the site of the original Vyrnian colony on Amurlun. We parked the ship on the outskirts of the colony and walked towards the main area, where we quickly found ourselves in a relatively modest center platform area of the colony.

It felt so weird seeing three small-sized aliens walking around in a Vyrnian colony, given that unlike Arkari, this place was no trade center. I wanted to ask them to stay near or around the ship, but they refused and decided to walk around the colony, claiming they knew their way back to the ship. Still, I did not want them to act like tourists here, so I asked them, especially George and Sel, to help find anything relevant in the colony's public library, more specifically anything with relation to the events leading to the sealing of planet Vyrn. Meanwhile, Arcturus and I would negotiate with the colony, as per our (well, more specifically, Arcturus's) attempt to help gain support for his father's efforts.

I had thought that it would be hard to convince the colonists of Orlonel, most of which were second-generation Okthaipans, to join Andrates's cause. They had known Amurlun as their birth planet, and thus would not even consider a desert planet like Vyrn to be a home planet. The worse part of me even thought that they'd dismiss Vyrn as a relic from the past, which would surely offend Arcturus if that was the case.

It turned out not to be the case, as the colonists of Orlonel were in fact intrigued by our proposal. They could not readily accept that fact, of course, knowing that Andrates and many of the names we gave them were declared dead thousands of years ago. However, they knew we were not trying to scam them, especially after Arcturus showed them a holo-drive recording with details about Vyrn, an information he specifically pulled from the archives in case he needed a bargaining chip.

In my opinion, this was the hardest job we had ever done, given that I was not from Amurlun and Arcturus was as ancient as his knowledge of Vyrn would be. However, we did get a little help from one of influential colonists.

Her name was Eshder Xilna, the project leader of the Orlonel archaeology team, who was in charge of excavating and studying the site near the colony. She was rather young for a project leader, maybe around the age of 60 or 70 (if we're talking human age length, she was around 30 years old). She scales were of a vibrant emerald color, matching the color of the leaves native to planet Amurlun, with parts of it colored brighter along with some brown-colored stripes on her arms. Her wings were pretty much cream-colored and covered by sleeves. From the look of it, she had used her wings rather frequently despite of the planet's tall rainforest trees, as evidenced from the rips on parts of the wings I could see. Those were indications of damage due to collisions, not age like most Vyrnians. Our wings would slowly degrade by age even without damage because it was nothing more than a thin leathery membrane and a part of our arm's extension.

She was the first to greet us after hearing the recording Arcturus provided, and readily talked to us about the purpose of the Orlonel project and the presence of the ancient colony.

"The colony had been on this planet for approximately 2300 years, but was made fully automatic around 2000 years ago," she said. "However, we cannot enter the facility due to the sealed entrance, which is strange since this facility had been neglected for years. The last effort of maintenance was around 1500 years ago and that's it. With the tropical climate around this part, the deterioration of the exterior should have given us access, but we could not."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" said Arcturus.

"We want to try and access the interior to check if there's anything's left in there," said Xilna. "The database on Lekan could give us the key necessary."

"We can start with that," I said. "We can make a call and let them help."

"Thanks. So, tell me something. You claimed to be a part of a group trying to get Vyrn back to Vyrnians. We are also thinking about solving the mystery of the sealed planet and how to access it, but at the present, we are trying to solve the mystery of this planet's ecosystem."

"This planet's...ecosystem?" I asked. I never heard anyone talked about this topic before, so I asked about it.

"I suppose you weren't paying attention before," said Xilna. "It is a relatively new discovery from the Vyrnians in the forest. They recently discovered that the life on this planet wasn't giant-sized because of millions of years of evolution. Something induced the growth."

"Like a terraforming project?" I said.

"And you surmised that the Vyrnians who came before were involved in a terraforming project that has gone wrong, causing them to abandon the planet?" said Arcturus. "And for some reason, due to Vyrn being sealed, all information about it was lost?"

"It did not make sense that nothing remained of any projects conducted on this planet," she said. "This colony has been around long before the Exodus, but we have made a very slow progress in dealing with this mystery...at least until you mentioned Lekan."

"Now, I wonder," said Arcturus as he turned to Xilna. "Why hasn't anyone been trying to take back Lekan? Ever since the Exodus? There's no way everyone thinks that the whole database station is dead, right?"

"That's...a good question," said Xilna, pondering. "It's a curious notion."

"Either everyone thinks that the station was dead or...or it's a deliberate attempt," I said.

"If that's the case, then our old enemy is still out there, lurking in the shadows," said Arcturus. "Waiting for the perfect moment to strike."

It sounded like Arcturus was being paranoid, but he got a point. His father and his allies did not actively try to make his efforts out of nothing. Arcturus was the victim of an unjust revolution that caused the slow regression of the Vyrnian Empire to the point where our planet was no longer our own and sealed from the rest of the universe. There was no reason not to believe that there was no enemy left. While time could be the best weapon to end your enemies, it isn't absolute.

Later on, we'd find out that three thousand years was not enough time to win against something that had been bidding its time far longer than that.

Even then, we decided that the ancient sealed colony of Amurlun was a key point and decided to relay this information to Andrates. Thanking Xilna, we walked towards the central platform of the colony and meet with Sel, George, and Kilkaja, who had been working on some books they borrowed from the library. They had been borrowing and downloading a couple of books about the colony's history and even the pre and post-Exodus histories of the Vyrnians, which could potentially had a big amount of volume and a whole more lot of translating for the three of them, something the tablet I borrowed would take a lot of time processing.

"Don't you think it's time for you to buy the current model?" I said. "I borrowed that old tablet since you need to understand how things work out here. There's no way that tablet will be translating the amount of volume for a human, a Felinian, and a Nuoevan to read."

"We might," said Sel. "But we'll just borrow your ship's AI. That way, we'll save money."

I was impressed. Given that Sel had lived in poverty, she would've known how to save some credits. Guess being a pirate did not mean quick credits, after all, huh? I even found myself smiling.

"The ship can handle translation better," I said. "Do whatever you want."

Sel smiled and nodded. The three of them then walked back into the ship. That left me and Arcturus in contacting Andrates with a nearby comm hub. Once there, I said, "Should Arkari be worried?"

"About what?"

"About your enemy. It's not the only colony on the planet, I know, but Arkari is an open colony. Vyrnians from all over the galaxy visit the place. Still, I am more worried that the people I have known since child will end up becoming my enemy, so I am worried for Arkari. I am worried for my home colony."

I knew Arcturus had no answer to that. Even he was a victim. The one with all the answers would be Andrates, though I doubted that the old Vyrnian even knew the state of things given that he went to sleep before the Exodus. Still, he had fought his enemies longer than all of us, so it wasn't going to hurt asking.

"I remembered hearing about that ancient colony back when I first woke up from cryo," said Andrates after we explained what we found here. "Whatever's in there could prove useful in our efforts but be wary of traps. There is a reason why it was sealed."

"We'll try," said Arcturus. "Do you happen to know a keycode for the colony's door?"

He turned away from the comm's camera to talk with someone off-screen, before he returned and said, "We'll get it for you as soon as we get the specific colony. I suggest you ask anyone in charge of the place to reduce civilians."

"Isn't that a bit excessive?" I asked.

"Like I said. Be careful of anything in there. Nothing good comes from a sealed place. Keep vigilant."

"We'll talk to Xilna about it," I said.

"Alright. I know that you won't try to be reckless. Here's the most recent keycode we've found. Use it, but only after you're sure that you are prepared."

I really wished that Andrates was just exaggerating, but unfortunately it wasn't the case.

We proceeded to tell Xilna about it. She seemed rather glad that her research went somewhere. Still, we knew what Andrates said and told her to make the colony safe first. Knowing her, she would agree that safety must always be considered.

"I agree," she said. "We'll relocate non-essential personnel and keep the security."

"Also, we can't risk everyone rushing into the colony," said Arcturus. "A small exploration group is enough to minimize risks."

Xilna once again nodded.

Our involvement in this event seemed to disrupt the colony's normal workings a bit, but from what I gathered, everyone who was in Orlonel was involved with the ancient colony, anyway, so they wanted to see what's behind the sealed place. Was it worth studying? Anything important that could be salvaged? Or maybe the colony was sealed simply because it was made into a time capsule. I really hoped the last part was not the case. It would be very underwhelming.

It took at least 2 hours to get the non-essentials to safety, leaving only a handful of scientists, anthropologists, and security guard waiting for the door to be opened. I gulped. What if Andrates did not exaggerate? What's inside could kill all of us and we would not even have time to call for help. I did not want to die. I was scared and was rather visible about it. To my comfort, Arcturus grabbed my shivering and whispered, "I'm scared, too, Zarya. But I know things are easier if we are together."

I wanted to say something about that remark. I had a feeling that he was trying to tell me something, but I could not think of anything other than trying to calm myself while holding Arcturus's hand. I turned to him and see his face. He looked so calm even after he confessed his state of mind.

Then someone said, "Done" and I turned towards the door. There was a series of click, each of which made my heart jumped a little. I wanted to stay strong. I wanted to see this through.

As the final lock clicked open, the ancient door started to creak open, letting out a sound that indicated its age. The loud groaning sound did not help the tension, but it was only for a moment. The ancient door had been opened, and it's time to start exploring.

Of course, that would happen later, because I felt a sense of dread. It was as if a dangerous evil had been sealed inside the colony, and we just opened it for everyone to be exposed to.

However, despite that feeling of dread, I could hear Kilkaja's voice, with George asking him what's wrong.

"There's something in there," he said, looking towards the dark space beyond the door. "It's coming."

From within, a figure, vaguely Vyrnian, walked forward into the light. It was covered in dark, coated in something organic, but not really. It was gooey and rather viscous, like a slightly heated gel.

Everyone quickly became alert and backed away from the figure. It looked around, assessing the situation. Part of what was the Vyrnian's wing-arm had become a tentacled appendage that flailed around it.

Then without warning, it attacked. We had anticipated this, but we did not expect it to suddenly use the tentacle as a weapon. The trained security officers ducked at the right moment, but the tentacle hit one of them, stabbing and impaling him like a stake. He was being raised on top of everyone's head as he was thrown to the ground near a group of the Vyrnians. I quickly rushed towards him to check his condition, but I was doing this without assessing the condition. I almost got myself attacked by the tentacle if it wasn't for George blasting the tentacle off with his sword's energy gun.

I checked the Vyrnian's condition. He was in critical condition, but that tentacle attack left a massive wound that effectively destroyed his abdomen. It was a fatal wound. Of course, I tried my best to minimize his suffering as he died. It was my duty as a healer, after all.

He was, however, not the only casualty. Several other Vyrnians were either killed or injured by this monster, and we were quickly overwhelmed. Even Arcturus's energy conversion ability could not hold the monster's attack.

We really got ourselves in quite a pickle here.