Ruins of the Prime Ones (Sentinels Book 1) by James David Victor

Author:James David Victor [Victor, James David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fairfield Publishing
Published: 2023-06-05T16:00:00+00:00

6

Her sudden loud voice was so alarming, it made him take a step back. His brows pinched tight together as he looked down at her. “Leave? What do you mean? What did you—”

“Holy hell...” he heard Aaron say. The cook was farther down the way, and he shouldn’t have been able to hear him, but he had said it through the comms. Mel wasn’t certain if that had been on purpose. Aaron stood at the open archway of a gate that led to the main mining complex, the old one. Metal walls ringed it, enclosing it and the Prime Ones spire.

Melias activated his comm, his eyes burrowing into his cook’s back. “Aaron, what did you find? More survivors?”

“Un-uncertain, Captain,” he replied with none of his wit or quips or usual joviality. Not a good sign. Uncertain. Well, that is almost never good. Mel doubted it would be now.

“Moving to your position. Stay put.”

“Roger.”

He nodded toward where Aaron stood. “Form up.” They did as he told them. Red too, not protesting. Her warning shot through his mind on repeat. She wasn’t trying to stop him, but the warning remained. He commed the Goose and gave them a brief update, then moved into position beside Aaron.

The wall surrounding the old complex was worn and rusted, with dents and blaster scorching, some old and some fresh. Beyond, the hulking machines stood tall, imposing, and groaning, a death wail to echo through time.

Aaron stood by the gate, which Mel could tell once had array shields, long since turned off. His cook stood motionless, gaze fixed ahead. Melias couldn’t tell what he was looking at until he was right upon him.

It made Mel seize up just the same.

Beyond a corridor of machines and twisted metal debris was the base of the spire, but that wasn’t what Aaron was looking at. No, it was the people.

A mass of people, at least two dozen but probably over thirty of them, all Cerelean, all wearing torn and dirty worker uniforms. And bloodied. They were on the ground, prostrated in some sort of worship, arranged in a semicircle around the base of the spire. They spoke in the same language as the Octopoids, which sounded strange to hear aloud. Whatever the people were saying, their collective, monotone voices sounded ominous.

“I wish Arke were here,” he said. “She could tell us what their words mean.”

“I don’t know if she has ever actually heard someone speak them aloud,” Niath said in a low and worried voice. “No one has aside from scholars reading what they think it sounds like.”

His finger itched as it sat on the trigger, but he kept the barrel down. These were just workers, not the enemy. The child had said that they all started to kill one another, though, so were these the ones who survived or the ones who did the killing? And regardless of which, where were the bodies?

“What’s our move, Captain?” Nummer asked. He’d be less enthusiastic than all of them about killing a bunch of Cereleans, but if they were attacked, they’d have little choice.

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