Robert slowly pushed himself up off the floor. His head still felt slightly numb from the buzzing noise that had erupted in it only a short time ago. Standing, he shook his head, trying to shake the cobwebs from his mind. Looking over at the girl, who was still smiling, trying to reassure him that everything was okay, he opened his mouth to speak. His throat was still sore, and extremely dry but he managed to squeak out, “W-what’d you just do to me? Why can I understand you now?”
The girl grabbed his arm gently and motioned him to move over to the cockpit chair and sit down. Robert didn’t want to sit, he felt better standing but his body felt weak so he moved over to the chair and sat down, feeling the black material that resembled a type of leather conform to his body. He looked up at her as she moved her body over to the console in front of him. Leaning her body against it she started to speak in a voice that was sweet and quiet, but also had an air of confidence to it. “Do not be afraid. I have not done anything to you that will harm you in any way. What I did to you, I have also done to myself as well.” She moved her hand over to a green button that shined dully on her console. She pressed it lightly with one of her thin fingers and Robert watched as it sank into the console and then came back up quickly, revealing a clear tube filled with the little black bullets.
The girl pulled the tube out and held it in front of him. “These are called nanocores. In this solid state they are little more than compressed nanoparticles, unable to move or interact with the other nanocores they are stored with. But when they come in contact with skin, they melt down into a liquid state and become active, as you saw. Once they crawl inside your brain they attach themselves to your receptors and translate any coding or language that comes into your head into something that you’ll understand. I assure you, they are completely harmless.”
Robert unconsciously scratched his ear where the nanocore entered into his brain. He wasn’t a scientist in anyway, but he was aware of what nanotechnology was. He still wasn’t sure if he liked the idea of having microscopic particles crawling around inside of his brain, but if he could actually understand and talk to this strange girl, he’d tolerate it.
He watched as she placed the tube back in its base and as she turned back to him he spoke again in his deep, gruff voice “Outside, when those creatures were about ready to jump on me you came back and saved my life. Thank you. I would have been a goner for sure if it wasn’t for you.”
The girl turned her head towards him and smiled, “You could have killed me many times, but you didn’t. You saved my life when you gave me food and shelter, so now we’re even.”
Robert stared at her a moment longer, studying her face and then asked the question he had been meaning to ask ever since this girl came into his life, “W-who are you?”
Moving away from the console and over to a box in the corner she knelt down and flipped a couple of switches. Robert heard a soft humming sound come from above his head and suddenly felt cool air poor over him. She stood up again and looked over at him, “My name is Toshi’ko, that is who I am.”
“Toshi’ko..” Robert let the name hang on his tongue for a second, savoring the sound of it. “My name is Robert, Robert Grist.”
“Hello Robert Grist.”
“Yeah, hi.”. Robert found her way of talking sort of strange, almost too direct and to the point. It seemed rigid, as if she hadn’t spoken to someone other than herself in ages. In fact, he wondered if he sounded the same way. It had been a long time since he had spoken to anyone as well. “So tell me Toshi’ko. Have you ever heard of a thing called coffee, because I could really go for a cup of it right now.”
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Sitting at the ships console, Toshi’ko gave the red, blinking lights in front of her a quick glance and then went back to tapping away frantically on the keypad in her lap. Chewing nervously at her lip, she struggled to diagnose what was wrong with her ship and how in the hell she was going to fix it.
Robert stood next to her now, a steaming cup of what could have passed for a very weak brew of coffee gripped tightly in his hand. He stared at the girl from the corner of his eye, watching as beads of sweat formed on her brow from the intensity of concentration. He looked down at the console in front of her. There were blinking red lights flashing all across the board. He knew that couldn’t be good.
Strange characters and marks written in a language he had never seen before were etched neatly next to each light. To him, they meant nothing but he still asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
The girl stopped typing for a brief moment, looked up at him with those calm, violet eyes and spoke to him in that smooth, musical voice, “Thank you Robert, but there is nothing you can do.” She ran a slender hand across her brow, moving an errant strand of black hair behind her ear. “I’m running a program through the ships systems to detect where the most critical damage occurred. “
“And..?”
“And to say the very least, the bottom part of my ship is destroyed.” As she said that, Robert saw her shoulders slump a little, her body giving way to weariness. She had been going at this for three hours now and there was still more work to be done.
Robert took a sip from the cup in his hand and ran a rough hand across his stubbled face. “So what is it we need to do to fix this damn thing?”
“Well the ship itself is self-sustaining and self-repairing, but the underbelly is buried so deep in the ground that the fiber web work is unable to complete the heal. So unless we can get the ship raised above the ground there's no way the ship can ever fully repair itself.”
“Okay..So what’s the problem? Let’s get this thing off the ground so it can, uhh, heal itself.”
“Easier said than done Robert. If I had landed in a more convenient spot where I could work freely I would have been out of here by now. But look, out there...” She pointed a finger towards a small cluster of pine trees in the distance.
Robert followed the route of her finger, he saw the trees, but other than that there was nothing. He saw a small, black bird float through the air in search of prey. It flew down closer to the cluster of trees, its keen eyes detecting movement in the branches. Robert watched, “The bird, is that what you’re seeing? I don’t-”
“Watch!”
When the bird was within five feet of the trees a giant black figure suddenly emerged from the shadows and leapt through the air. The bird barely had time to change directions before the long, razor blade mouth clamped down on it. A burst of feathers exploded in the air and in less than a second both the bird, and the black creature disappeared back into the shadows. Invisible, once more.
Toshi’ko sighed warily. “So you see Robert, that is why we cannot go outside to raise the ship.”
Robert slowly nodded his head. He realized now that it would be nearly impossible to go outside, let alone raise the ship above the ground without being attacked by those creatures.
Placing the empty cup on a shelf to his right, he crossed his arms and stared out the window at the world in front of him. It was peaceful, quiet. The snow covered landscape shined brightly from the blazing sun over head. It was very tempting to believe in his mind that there was nothing to fear out there. That he could go outside into that brilliant white as he had done for many, many years and do as he pleased. But in reality, the world that he once knew had been changed forever as soon as that black rock fell from the sky. They were out there waiting.
Those vicious, murderous creatures. And as soon as he left the ship they would be on him.
“Well then.” Robert said, breaking the silence that hung in the air. “We have to do something. We can’t just sit here and stare out this window for the rest of our lives. What are these things Toshi’ko? Where do they come from??”
Toshi’ko continued to stare out the window, silent. Her brow was relaxed, as was the rest of her face. But there was a look in her eyes, a lost, dreamlike stare that seemed to carry her very far away from the ship she was sitting in.
Robert, noticing this change in the girl, took a step closer and placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “Toshi’ko? What is it?”
Slowly turning her head to look at him, tears building in her eyes, Toshi’ko spoke with a voice that seemed very distant and very quiet, “To look upon me you may not believe what I am about to tell you. But it is the truth, I assure you of that. And I have carried it with me for more than five hundred and thirty five years.”
Robert was shocked, five hundred and thirty five years? He looked down at the fragile, delicate girl that was sitting next to him. She looked so young, her skin was soft, smooth. He couldn’t see a single wrinkle or any sign that this girl was any older than twenty, let alone five hundred. He couldn’t believe it. “Toshi’ko, w-what are you talking about? What do you mean? What truth?”
Toshi’ko turned her head back to the window once more. She began to speak again in the same distant, dreamlike voice, “I have been trailing these creatures for more than five centuries, waiting for them to land on a new planet. I thought it would never happen, that I would die in this ship before I ever got a chance to...”
“To what Toshi’ko? Tell me, what are these things?”
Toshi’ko leaned forward, a look of anger starting to grow on her face. “They are known as the Ghor, the planet eaters. They travel from one planet flourishing with life to the next in their indestructible pods devouring everything in their path. They are locusts, parasites, whatever you want to call them. And this planet here is just one in a line of many. There will be nothing left when the Ghor are finished. They will eat everything and then they will leave. Just like that. They do not care about love or life, they only care about feeding. And that, Robert, is what they are.”
When she finished speaking Robert saw a look of burning anger shining in her eyes. He knew now why she was after these things without even asking. They had done the same thing to her planet as they were doing to this one. She wanted revenge and she wanted it badly.
“And you want to kill them all for what they did, don’t you?”
She turned her head to look at him, her violet eyes were tinted with crimson. “I have not come this far to fail.”
“Well then, you’re in luck.” Robert said, turning to grab his jacket and pants. “The spot where you landed may not have been so inconvenient after all. You met me, and killing is what I do best.”