A True terrian by Lia Faile

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A TRUE TERRIAN, Part 3
by Lia Faile

The dune rail bounced over the sagebrush covered hills dodging rocks and crevices. Alonzo appeared to be totally focused on keeping the bucking vehicle under control. When in fact, since the Terrian had implanted such a clear vision of the path that he could have navigated it blindfolded. No, what the pilot was racking his brains over was how to handle Danziger once they reached their destination. Danz was usually pretty level-headed but he still didn't trust the Terrians completely. That, plus when it came to what he perceived as a threat, especially to the kids, he could be a real ball buster.

The pilot grinned at the thought of John's reaction when True started to show an interest in boys. Shaking his head he offered up a silent prayer to that first unlucky fella. The image of a young pimply-faced boy shaking in his boots as he stood in the shadow of the towering bulk of John Danziger, staring up and unable to do nothing more than stutter out "yes sir" after "yes sir" in response to each order barked out at him brought a burst of throaty laughter from Alonzo. Feeling Danziger's fierce gaze boring into him, Lonz coughed, straighten up in his seat and pretended to concentrate on the terrain once more.

He felt Julia's warm breath against his ear as she leaned forward and whispered to him.

"Are you all right?"

Looking over his shoulder into her concerned and perplex-twinged blue gaze, he flashed her his ever ready smile and graced her with a wink to boot. Before he could dazzle her with his wit, Julia looked up and pointed to his left.

"There they are!"

Up ahead was the start of a rocky ridge. At the entrance to what must be a Terrian cave sat True and Uly with three Terrians standing guard over them. Their spears planted in the ground as they silently watch the approaching dune rail.

Still no closer to a plan, Alonzo brought the rail to a gently rolling stop about a dozen meters from the children and the Terrians.

"Well Solace," he thought to himself "you always did your best maneuvering by the seat of your pants. Why change now?"

As the rail glided to a stop, Danziger and Alonzo both grabbed the magpro.

"You don't need the gun."

He met Danziger's stare and held it. He felt the mechanic tense as he prepared to yank the gun from its bracket and Al's restraining grasp.

"You don't go in with all your jets blasting when you've got gravity on your side. Otherwise you end up a greasely spot at the bottom of a big hole."

Letting go of the gun, Danziger got out of the rail.

"You're starting to sound like a fortune cookie, Solace." He grumbled.

True and Uly sat watching tensely. They both knew how protective True's dad was and they feared for the Terrians more than whatever punishment awaited them for running off.

"You kids get down here, now."

True jumped up and helped Uly to his feet. Noticing the rough time the boy was having climbing down the hill, Danziger strode forward, scooped up Uly and herded his disobedient daughter towards the rail. He set Uly down in the seat next to Julia, who immediately began to take readings and ministering to the him. Danz climbed back into the passenger seat and motioned for True to sit in his lap.

"Get in."

True scrambled in the rail and grabbed a hold of the bar in front of her even though her father held her securely by her waist. Relieved to have avoided an ugly confrontation, Alonzo threw the rail into gear and headed back to camp.

After a few minutes, True got up enough gumption to turn around and face her dad.

"Am I grounded?" She asked hesitantly, unsure of his mood.

"You are more than grounded, missy."

"What's more than grounded?"

"I don't know, but when I figure it out, that's you."

Danziger then drew his daughter close to his chest softening the harshness of his retort. True burrowed into his arms and silently decided that whatever "more than grounded" ended up being, she would find a way out of it.

###
They returned to the packed up camp in silence. Danziger left the kids in the dune rail with Alonzo and he headed for the Transrover. Now that he knew they were safe, he was caught up in the vortex of anger, fear, and relief. He needed some space to get over those feelings so he would not be tempted to snap at them. The lack of sleep the night before, the tension of this morning, and the monotony of the trail this afternoon began to take its toll on him.

"HEY! Watch it!"

Danziger snapped to attention at the shout and saw that he'd nearly run over Magus. Rubbing his stubbled face, he waved an apology to her. Seeing Yale marching towards the Transrover, he stopped the vehicle. Yale climbed up into the cab and regarded the exhausted mechanic/surrogate leader.

"You look terrible, John."

Danziger looked at the only person on this planet other than Devon Adair who would have the nerve to confront him head on and smiled blearily at him.

"Keep talking like that and you can get out and walk again."

"I have a better idea. Why don't I drive and you go take a nap in back?"

"Yeah, I am a bit punchy."

Danziger stopped the vehicle and climbed in the back. He found a semi-comfortable spot amongst the folded tents and other articles. Before getting too settled he hollered out to Yale.

"Keep an eye on True for me, okay?"

"Not to worry, John. We're all keeping an eye on her."

Danziger shifted around a bit. He doubted he would do more than doze since he had so much on his mind. But between the warm sunshine beating gently down on him and the slight swaying of the Transrover, he was quickly lulled into a deep slumber. Yale smiled at the reverberating tones of Danziger's snores.

###
The howling wind woke Danziger. He was laying on his side half buried under tossed bundles and parcels. When he opened his eyes, they were pelted with stinging sand. Sand was everywhere. Flying through the air like miniature missiles, piling on the stuff stored in the back of the Transrover and most annoyingly, inside his clothes. He pulled his jacket off and wrapped it around his head for protection. He couldn't believe this storm came up so suddenly that no one thought to wake him. Where was everyone? Squinting and trying to see the best he could in the dark, swirling clouds of grit, he saw that the front end of the Rover was buried in a sand dune and the cab was nearly full of the stuff. How long has this storm been blowing? He climbed out the back of the Rover and felt his way around the vehicle to the left front side.

"Yale?!" He looked about for signs of the rail and any of the others. "Alonzo!! Walman!!"

He couldn't see more than a meter in from of him, so he had no idea if there was any shelter nearby where the others might have gone. Walking out into the this maelstrom would be suicide so Danziger decided to stick close to the Rover. Grasping the door, he yanked it open and stepped back as sand poured out of the cab even as more was being frantically blown in by the storm. Danziger didn't want to think what all this sand was doing to the workings of the Transrover. Another day shot fixing it. Hell, another week! His foot bumped something under the sand. It didn't feel like a rock. Kneeling down, he reach into the sand and felt around. His hand closed on something metallic. With a sickening feeling, he pulled his hand back and began to scoop out the sand as best he could. His efforts revealed a metal hand. Yale's cybernetic hand.

"Yale!! Can you hear me?!!"

Danziger dug frantically but no matter how hard he dug, the storm tossed more sand. It was even starting to bury him. Giving up on digging, he grabbed Yale's hand and attempted to pull him out. Danziger leaned back on his haunches and pulled with all his might. Only to fall backwards with Yale's arm grasped firmly in his hands. Half blinded by the sand and deafened by the roar of the wind, Danziger stumbled back to the spot where Yale's arm had come from. With a rising sense of trepidation, he began to dig once more with greater determination. He most likely wasn't going to like what he found, but he had to know. This time his hand found something smooth but definitely not metal. Drawing it forth from the sand, Danziger gazed at a bleached white skull with a cybernetic eye mount still in its left socket. Danziger dropped the skull in shock and stumbled back away from the Rover. He stood in the middle of the raging hell about him and howled along with it.

"TRUE!!!"

###
His roar of challenge and anguish was swept up and swallowed by the greater fury that surrounded him. Danziger sank to his knees in defeat and allowed the storm to pummel his body. What had happened? Had the others escaped or were there more bones to be discovered beneath the sand? Pushing down the confusion and grief that roiled in his mind, he tried to approach this rationally. The last thing he remembered before the storm was climbing into the back of the Rover to take a nap. There was no way that Yale's remains could have been stripped to bones in a couple of hours. How long had he been asleep??

"It's a dream..just a dream." he croaked in relief. "All I have to do is wake up."

"Not so fast my friend. We need to speak first."

Startled to find himself suddenly not alone, Danziger peered through the sandstorm for the source of the voice. A black clad figure stood before him. The black cloak flapped about the man like broken bird's wings. At first Danziger thought of Gaal. But though his companion was no less dead than Gaal, he was far less sinister.

"Shepard?! What..."

The whirlwind caught Danziger's shout and scattered the words about along with the sand. He could barely hear himself above the storm. How had he heard Shepard? A hand appeared in a silent offer of aid. Danziger sat in the rapidly accumulating sand and stared at that hand for several heartbeats. He was now certain that this was a dream, yet he didn't relish the idea of touching a dead man. A dead man who didn't have the common sense to lie down and stay dead. This planet was a regular horror vid. Like that old Earth classic that had been converted to VR he'd snuck in to see when he was a kid. The vision of the dead coming back to life had made him thankful that there were no cemeteries on the Stations. There death was a destination, here it was a side trip.

Finally stuffing all of his juvenile fears back into their respective mental closets, he reached out for Shepard's hand. At the first touch of flesh to flesh(?), the storm lessened. No, Danziger corrected himself as Shepard helped him to his feet. Not lessened, but pulled back. Looking around he saw that the storm still raged and howled about a meter all around them. It was as if they stood within an invisible bubble or the eye of a hurricane. All was calm and quiet inside, while hell reigned outside.

"How'd you do that?"

"In our dreams we are truly gods, yet most of us are content to play victim."

Danziger shook his head sending sand flying in all directions. He longed to find a creek to jump into and be rid of the sand.

"Yeah, well, if I'm god here, what are you doing here? You're not in my top ten of dream subjects, ya know."

"I never said this was your dream."

Danziger looked up from his futile task of trying to shake the sand from the inside of his clothes.

"Yours then? I didn't think the dead dreamed."

"Oh, dreams are about all the dead have, and memories. But this is not my dream. This is the planet's dream. Though nightmare is more appropriate. Driven by all the consciousnesses that ever have and ever will dwell upon it. This is the Dream Plane."

"It looks...different. Where are the Terrians?"

Shepard swept his arms out in an all encompassing gesture.

"They're all around us. Can't you hear them?"

Looking around Danziger began to feel his skin crawl, and it had nothing to do with sandy clothes.

"All I hear is the wind..."

"This "storm" is the collective soul of all the Terrians who were murdered and unable to unite with their mother planet because it too was dead."

As he spoke, the screeching wind became a wail of endless misery. An otherworldly chorus of voices where bitterness and confusion merged with pain demanding to know "why?" It wasn't just an aimless cry. Danziger knew he was the object of its accusation. Instinctively he took a step back but being surrounded by the storm there was no place to retreat to so he stood his ground. Shepard allowed the mechanic a moment to come to grips with the idea of a living storm of souls. Coming from a mundane world of nuts and bolts, this head-on collision with the metaphysical realm would take some getting use to.

"Murdered? By who?"

"Do I really need to answer that?" Shepard sighed.

"Alright, then why? The Council knows that the planet dies without the Terrians and vice versa."

"It always comes down to a question of power. They realized that they would never be able to control the Terrians. So it was decided to strip the planet of all available resources then move on. If the Terrians attempted to interfere, they were to be eliminated. After all, this wasn't the only known planet with potential for colonization. Just the closest."

That Danziger could believe of the Council. Dispassionate brutality was their specialty. The Council members were ZEDs without the armor.

"What about Eden Project?"

"200 families makes a handy labor force. Those that weren't worked to death were executed when the planet was finally abandoned. All the syndrome children died within the first year. The Terrians never healed another child after Uly."

"What happened here? I found Yale's remains over by the Transrover."

Shepard turned towards the Transrover and stood quietly for a moment. "A surprise ZED attack. Reilly had managed to contact 6 of them that weren't in blackout zones and directed them to your coordinates. An experienced military squadron couldn't survive an onslaught of 6 ZEDs. What chance did a band of poorly armed and trained castaways have? Though they tried. Caught out in the open, you and some of the men tried to engage the ZEDs while the others made a desperate run for the cover of the ridge over there. Because of their conditioning the ZEDs were drawn to the armed and larger males rather than those who were fleeing. But in the end it all proved futile."

Danziger tried to shut out the vision of the attack that flashed in his mind as Shepard described it. He could close his eyelids but the mind's eye never blinks.

"So everyone's dead."

"Everyone but her." This time it was Shepard's turn to choke on his words. "She lays there waiting for a rescue that will never come. Separated from me until the nuclear generators finally fail and release her to eternity. All because of your pig headedness."

Anger made Danziger's eyes flash open at the accusation.

"I'm sick of you blaming me for Devon's predicament! We don't know what's wrong with her or how to heal her! I'm not sacrificing my daughter because some dead lunatic in my dreams is telling me to! Why should I believe any of this?!"

"You're right of course. The end might never happen this way. There are many paths up the mountain."

Shepard stepped up to Danziger until they were boot tip to boot tip and shook his index finger in cadence with his following words. "But remember they all have the same summit as their goal. If you don't want all this to end in total tragedy, you need to pick *another* mountain. In order to do that, you need to free Devon from her icy bondage. Even then you all might fail, but to leave things as they are is a guaranteed death sentence."

Grabbing Danziger's hand, Shepard placed something in his up turned palm.

"Maybe this will help you to decide when you wake up."

The Transrover hit a rut in the ground and the resulting jolt bounced Danziger from his sleep. It took him a moment to gain his bearings. Blinking several times to clear his hazy vision, he looked down at his tightly clashed right hand. Opening it, he allowed the sand he held to fall through his fingers into his lap. Pulling himself up, he leaned over the left side of the Rover's cab and banged on the door and motioned for Yale to stop the vehicle. He then called out to the group loudly and clearly.

"Now listen up, people! We're heading back!"

###
end part 3 of 8 - A True Terrian by Lia Faile

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