Chapter 3
Rykar
The heat hit me the moment I stepped out of my transport.
Even through the barrier of my void suit, I could feel the pulse of energy that seemed to reach into my bones and vibrate there.
The crystalline formations towered above me.
Their surfaces were no longer the dull gray stone I saw from space but brilliant, living light that shifted and grew in patterns too complex for my eyes to follow.
And at the center of it all, someone was in pain.
I didn’t need my ship’s sensors to tell me that.
I could see a figure lying between two massive pillars of this…
living stone. The pull I’d felt in my ship had intensified, dragging me forward with an urgency that overrode every instinct telling me to run.
Something still whispered at the edges of my consciousness—fragments of meaning that felt ancient and desperate—but I pushed it away, focusing on the very real, very human crisis ahead of me.
I stumbled forward, emergency kit clutched in my hand, toward the human lying at the heart of the crystal formation.
The human—female, clearly female—wore the practical space suit of a scientist. Her helmet was scratched, but I could see her through her face shield.
Her skin was ashen. Black hair was plastered to her sweaty forehead and her eyes were closed, even as her face was taut with pain.
Sparks flew from the scanning devices scattered around her.
Their screens were mostly dead, but one flickered between incomprehensible data streams and static.
It was the crystals themselves, though, that made my breath catch.
They were growing. Even as I watched, new formations sprouted from the existing structures, reaching upward like grasping fingers.
Where they touched her equipment, the metal and crystal seemed to fuse, creating hybrid structures that pulsed with organic light.
There was a fuzzy-sounding voice saying things I couldn’t understand, but it was urgent, insistent.
I pushed that away, too, and dropped to my knees beside the unconscious human female.
My hands hovered over her form, then drew away as she convulsed once.
I didn’t know what was running through this female’s body.
If it was electricity, touching her while she was still connected to whatever was happening could kill us both.
But whatever was happening to her, she was running out of time.
“Fuck it,” I muttered, and reached for her shoulders.
The moment my skin made contact with hers, the world exploded.
Images crashed through my mind—flashes of vast spaces, ancient loneliness, something immense and alien pressing against my consciousness.
Voices that weren’t voices whispered in languages I didn’t understand, carrying emotional weight that threatened to crush me.
I felt the desperate need of something that had waited too long, wanted too much, reached for me with a hunger that made my skin crawl.
I tried to pull back, but my hands were locked on the female’s shoulders. Energy coursed between us, through us, binding us together in a circuit that included the crystalline formations, the fused equipment, and something infinitely larger that pressed against the edges of my awareness.
Choose… Lord… Chosen…
The fragments of meaning broke through the static. My mind recoiled from them. I clamped my jaw shut and focused on the female beneath my hands. Whatever was trying to communicate with me could wait—she was dying.
“I’m not—” I tried to say, but the words dissolved as another wave of alien emotion crashed over me.
Flashes of my own memories flickered past—my siblings, the crashed vehicle, moments of protection and failure all tangled together.
But the perspective was wrong, distorted by something that didn’t understand Destran experience.
I shook my head violently, rejecting the intrusion. “Get out of my head.”
The female on the ground gasped. Her back arched as a fresh wave of energy pulsed through the connection. Her eyes snapped open—brown, I noted distantly, wide with terror and confusion.
“What—” she started, then groaned as another surge of energy crashed through both our consciousnesses. Her gloved hands flew to her head and squeezed her helmet. “Make it stop! There’s too much, I can’t—”
Through our connection, I felt the edges of her mind fracturing under an assault of alien thoughts and memories. Something vast was trying to force its way into my mind—and hers, apparently—desperate and overwhelming in its need to connect.
“Easy,” I said aloud, though I wasn’t sure if I was talking to the female or the presence I could feel pressing against both our minds.
Without thinking, I reached deeper into whatever connection existed between us, using instincts I didn’t know I possessed, to place myself between her and the worst of the psychic pressure.
The relief was immediate. The female’s writhing stopped, though she continued to tremble.
Fragments of approval drifted through my awareness, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to understand whatever was trying to communicate with me. I just wanted to keep the female alive and get out of there.
The sound of approaching ships cut through the crystalline humming that filled the air.
I looked up to see multiple transports converging on our location.
Their hulls reflected the wild aurora that painted the sky above the formation.
I recognized the sleek lines of Destran lords’ vehicles—Zurian’s bulky transport, Scaron’s matte black fighter, the elegant curves of what had to be Savair’s ship.
The cavalry had arrived. Whether that was good or bad remained to be seen.
The first to reach us was Scaron, the red-eyed lord moving with the predatory grace of a born warrior.
His tactical transport landed very close, and he emerged in a sleek void suit, with his curved blades already in hand, scanning for threats with the efficiency of someone who’d spent centuries protecting his people.
“Status report,” he commanded, his gaze taking in the unconscious female, the fused equipment, and my hands still locked on her shoulders. “What have you done?”
“I haven’t done anything,” I said through gritted teeth. Another pulse of energy surged through the connection, and I had to fight to keep the female from being overwhelmed again. “I found her like this. Something’s wrong with the crystals.”
Zurian’s transport touched down next, followed quickly by another ship that I didn’t recognize.
This wasn’t a Destran vessel. It was small and had the utilitarian design of Earth’s science ships, all function over form.
Its ramp lowered and two women in the same type of suit the female on the ground wore, sprinted toward us.
“Maya!” The shorter one, a petite woman with close-cropped hair, dropped to her knees beside us. Her hands moved with professional competence as she began pulling medical scanners from a pack on her belt. “What happened? The energy readings went completely insane about twenty minutes ago.”
The second woman—tall, blond, with a strong build that spoke of physical conditioning—stared at the crystalline formations with a mixture of awe and calculation.
“These structures weren’t like this yesterday,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else as she, too, held instruments and gazed at the readings.
“The geological composition here is completely different. It’s like something triggered a massive phase change in the mineral matrix. ”
“Zara, focus,” the first woman snapped. “We need to get Maya stabilized before we worry about rock formations.”
Zara—the blonde—whirled around, eyes wide with excitement despite the obvious crisis.
“Cleo, you don’t understand. These aren’t just rocks anymore.
The energy signatures I’m getting are completely unprecedented.
Whatever’s happening here, it’s not geological—it’s biological. These crystals are alive.”
I could have told them that. Last I checked, rocks didn’t speak to people.
Lord Zurian approached with the measured steps of a scholar, his staff glowing with soft blue light. Unlike Scaron’s immediate assumption of combat readiness, Zurian’s attention was focused entirely on the energy patterns swirling around us.
“An awakening,” he said quietly, recognition dawning in his serious eyes. “But how is this possible? There are no recorded instances of Solas spontaneously emerging from dormancy.”
Tell them. The voice was clearer. It broke through my mind like a blade through thick clay. I have chosen my lord. I have chosen you.
“I’m not your lord,” I said aloud, through my teeth, then realized how that must sound to the others. Scaron’s grip on his blades shifted slightly—not threatening, but ready.
“Who are you speaking to?” the red-eyed lord demanded.
Before I could answer, Maya convulsed again. This time, though, I was ready. I pushed back against the voice in my mind, creating a barrier between it and Maya’s fragile human mind.
The effort left me dizzy, but Maya’s breathing steadied. She blinked up at me, confusion replacing the earlier terror in her brown eyes.
“You’re not one of my team,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Who are you? What happened to my equipment?”
“I’m called Rykar,” I replied, then had to clear my throat when my name came out as a croak.
“Transport pilot. Your equipment is…” I glanced at the fused metal and crystal formations around us.
“Fucked.” That was a human term I’d adopted.
I rather liked it, and it perfectly summed up the state of her devices.