Hybrid 3, Chapter 2: Awakening

Chapter 2:
Awakening

January 25th, 2361

    A Spacer gate orbits around Trifia, now a barren wasteland. Its oceans were green with toxic chemicals from the space stations and cities that got destroyed thousands of years ago. The land was nearly covered with a desert of rusty sand. Clouds of radiated vapor swirled around the globe.

    The gate opens a vortex and out came three Helbot ships. Two of them were black disk-shaped with two long wings sticking out on both sides. The third larger one was a dreadnought that resembled a navy carrier with giant wings of a nighthawk. Three of those ships had green lights circuiting around them. These ships scanned the planet’s surface to see if there was anyone still alive. They searched for building structures that may have them hiding.

    On the bridge, a Helbot that looked like a woman in a metallic kimono stares down at the surface of the planet through the front window. Her wired hair was being combed by a floating insect machine with surgical tools as limbs. She sat on her thorny throne as she was bored. This was their general, Ursula.

    “Lug Nut, did you find anything yet?” Ursula asked one of her Helbots that looked like a samurai analyzing the surface on the computer.

    “Nothing yet General,” Lug Nut said with a rusty voice.

    “Lord Seiton said they must be on this planet,” she said.

    “The atmosphere is 50% vaporized uranium, 30% carbon dioxide, and 20% sulfur dioxide,” said Lug Nut. “Too toxic of the Spacers’ primitives to be living on its surface.”

    “No colonies are on or below the surface,” said another Helbot next to him. “This planet doesn’t have any stations or ships in orbit.”

    It only took five minutes for the scanner to detect a structure on Mount Keila. The scanner analyzed the whole mountain and its holographic image appeared at the center of the bridge. The entrance resembled an entrance of an underground mine. This bunker had a height of five stories below the peak. The whole structure was basically an underground skyscraper.

    “This is a Titan bunker,” said Lug Nut. “The Titans must be inside.”

    “The Spacers have used that bunker to hide from Seiton’s destruction,” said Ursula. “We are landing on that mountain and secure their pods.”

    “Yes General,” Lug Nut and other Helbots saluted.

    The ships flew through the dark uranium clouds. Lightning scattered across the sky and rain poured down as if someone left the hose on high. Toxic seawater crashes violently against the cliffs of the steep shoreline.

    The Helbots landed the two ships at the base of the mountain. These machines marched out and headed up the slope. As they walked, there were millions of Spacer bodies lying around charred to the bone. Many showed what their expression was as they met their fate. Some held close to their families. Others pounded to the ground praying for the destruction to stop. They have been frozen for almost three thousand years. Some Helbots got the opportunity to jump on the bodies as happy children jumping on leaves and hay. Others continue to head up the mountain’s peak.

    They made it to the top and found the entrance to be buried with the Spacers’ ashes. Brutes, Helbots that looked like gorillas with long arms dug it out as dogs digging out a bone. Spacer probes hovered over the machines and scanned the door to find a way to open it. A little Helbot rode on one of the probes on its back. He jumped off and pressed his finger on the left side of the door.

    “Seeker, what is taking so long?” Ursula asked the little Helbot feeling impatient.

    “This is a Titan bunker,” said Seeker in a high pitch voice. “Just give me a chance to analyze the security systems!”

    Then Seeker exposed a holographic keyboard on the door. The code was uploaded into his chip. He puts his hand on the keyboard like it wanted a handprint. This overrides the security system and the door opens.

    Helbots in ripped black cloaks stood behind Ursula. She pointed those Helbots to the entrance to get them inside. They crept inside aiming their long sniper rifles at every angle. The bunker was dark and they walked around each cyrostasis pod.

    B4958 hovered towards the cloaked Helbots and said, “You have breached the security system. Only the Spacers’ primitives have access to this bunker. I require that you leave this place at once.”

    Those Helbots shot the robot and Seeker laughed, “That is the funniest thing I have ever heard!”

    They searched around the first floor and shouted, “First floor clear!”

    Other Helbots and Spacer probes came into the bunker. The cloaked Helbots continued down into the second floor. So far, there weren’t any more A.I.s patrolling there. More Helbots came down to secure the pods. Eventually, they secured the entire bunker and the probes began to analyze the pods.

    A probe hovered towards Seeker and uploaded the data into his finger. He said, “Ursula, each pod has a Spacer inside.”

    “So a hundred Spacers in a five story bunker have survived the extinction,” said Ursula finding it intriguing.

    “Should we begin detonation?” Lug Nut asked.

    “No!” she snapped. “Seiton wants them alive! Helbots, remove all the pods from the bunker carefully. Load them onto the ships and connect their life support into the engines.”

    “Yes General!” the Helbots saluted.

    The Spacer probes opened the ceiling above the pods with their laser saws. They pulled the wires from the pods. The pods have twenty-four hours until they needed to be plugged back in. The Spacer probes sawed the bottom of the pods off the floor. With the first pods disconnected from the bunker’s power grid, the Helbots began carrying them out. They held the sides of the pods as if they were having a funeral.

    “Remember, load them gently into the ship,” Ursula warned them.

    The Helbots carried the pods down the slope of the mountain. The ships’ hangars were opened with a ramp to walk on. They moved their fighter ships, tanks, and gunships aside to make room for the pods. As they got the pods in the hangars, they lined them up and hook-like power cables merged out of the floor. These cables held firmly on the tops of the pods, restoring power in the Spacers’ life support. Once they successfully secured the first twenty pods, they returned to the mountain to get eighty more.

    “General, all the pods are secured,” said Lug Nut.

    “Excellent,” said Ursula. “Time to depart to Hadean!”

    The Helbots flew back into orbit and Lug Nug activated the gate. A vortex was formed again and they flew right into it. A few seconds later, they made it back to the Spacers’ former homeworld, Pandora now called Hadean. This planet was like Earth, but the whole surface was covered with cities and surround by millions of ships.

    The dreadnought flew towards the capital tower and Ursula and Seeker depart from the ship. They walked the hallway and other Helbots stopped to salute their general. Ursula and Seeker got to an elevator and headed down into Seiton’s den. When they got to his den, both of them stepped onto the platform and a giant holographic image of the Titan appeared. He had a scaly blue body rippled with muscles and horns of a goat on his head. He wore light pants with a leadership belt containing a lightning bolt. Energy and computer codes swirled around him.

    Seiton’s arms were crossed, “Ursula and Seeker, what do you have for me?”

    Ursula bowed, “We have found a hundred Spacers that sealed themselves in one of the Titan’s bunkers.”

    Their A.I. leader smiled, “I knew I could count on you!”

    “Thank you my lord,” she smiled.

    “Where are they now?” he asked.

    “We have them secured on the Beast and the Demolisher,” she said. “These ships are hovering over the tower with my men waiting for further instructions.”

    “Very well,” said Seiton. “Escort the pods into the command station. There you will upload their memories into the databank. Then I can alter them so that they would be serving me.”

    “A brilliant plan my lord!” Seeker cheered.

    “Now who is the leader of this group of Spacers?” Seiton asked.

    Seeker inserted his finger into a look black rod where his recent data was transferred to Seiton’s. The little Helbot said, “I collected every data about each Spacer from every pod as we were getting them out.”

    Seiton looked over Seeker’s data and rested his chin on his fist, “This is very interesting! Apparently, their leader is Cahan, King Fabocusa’s Chief of Security as well as his former friend. Cahan knew that Fabocusa rescued Helen from slavery thousands of years ago. He tried to keep it a secret from the general public causing him to hate him. As I was killing the Spacers, Fabocusa had Helen go through the time portal and gave birth to Alexander, the human/Spacer hybrid. Fabocusa also went through that portal and gave him his starsuit. Since Cahan is still alive, I can make him hate them even more.”

    “If Alexander confronts them, then this would be a great chance to defeat him!” Ursula beamed.

    “Now hurry, get them into the command station!” Seiton ordered them.

    Ursula got the Beast and the Demolisher docked onto the command station. This space station was a giant dome with ships docked around it. A long antenna with a pitch fork points down to the planet’s surface. The Helbots moved the pods out of the ships and carried them down the hallway. Up the floor, they took the pods into a laboratory filled with Spacer probes.

    Ursula instructed the probes to place a pod into a machine. It resembled a MRI only there was a very large needle-like device used from uploading memories and controlling their personalities. They didn’t take the Spacers out of their pods yet because they had to be asleep for the procedure. Cahan’s pod was placed in front of the machine and drilled the needle into his brain. The Spacer probes scanned his brain continuously as the needle went down into his temporal lobe. Once in the lobe, his memories were transferred into the databank.

    Seiton went over Cahan’s recent memory involving with Fabocusa, Helen, as well as himself. He deleted Cahan’s memory of the Spacers’ destruction and other events where his name was mentioned. He even deleted the memory of learning about the Titans’ exile. Once he altered the Spacer’s memory, he transferred it back into the brain. The needle was removed and the Helbots moved Cahan’s pod out of the lab into the hangar. Seiton then continued to do the same procedure on ninety-nine other Spacers.

    Six hours after the alteration, Seiton aloud the Helbots to open the Spacers’ cyrostasis pods. They pressed the codes on the side and the pods were open. Cold vapor spewed out filling the lower level of the hangar. They left the hangar as Cahan woke up. Cahan gets up shivering from the intense cold of his pod. He fell out and lay motionless. A couple of minutes later, he got up with his legs still shaking. He had been in that pod for almost three thousand years.

    He looked around as he was terrified that he and his Spacers were not in the bunker. Then he wondered who found them. He shouted, “Hello! Where am I?! Who are you?!”

    Seiton appeared before him, but not in his original form. He disguised himself as one of the Spacer Elders, Ogan. Cahan’s eyes widen to see his king’s watcher now an A.I.

    “Ogan, is that really you?!” Cahan shouted.

    “Yes, it is me,” said Seiton.

    “What happened to you?!” Cahan shouted again and acted like he was hyperventilating.

    Seiton explained, “Three thousand years ago, the primitives got a hold of our technology. They took over our ships and immediately invaded our worlds. As they took over the worlds, they got a hold of our network turned our technology against us. With my last effort, I the only Elder left turned myself into an A.I. to create an army to hold off the primitives.”

    Cahan fell to his knees as he couldn’t believe that the primitives they raised to civilization turned against them to near extinction. Ursula snickers as Cahan was a foolish Spacer.

    “When exactly did this happen?” Cahan asked.

    “The year that King Fabocusa’s child, Alexander was born,” said Seiton. “Shamefully, this child was a human/Spacer hybrid. Fabocusa married a human and his interaction with other primitives caused them to attack us.”

    That name made his blood boiled. He knew that there would be consequences when Fabocusa rescued and married that human Helen. That king was his best friend who he now hated. The memories of their friendship faded as the darkness turned against.

    He turned to Seiton and asked, “What should we do?”

    Seiton said, “I have already built an army to hold off the now powerful primitives. I need you to lead your men and the Helbots across the galaxy. You have to fight all them until they are no more.”

    “Show me your army,” said Cahan.

    The Helbots entered the hangar and saluted to Cahan and his awakening Spacers. Seiton showed them the ships and various Helbots he created. His Spacers followed him as they try to get adjusted to their new home. Every Helbot except one salutes and bows to them as they see him as their only hope to stop the primitives. Ursula hid behind a column and continued to watch them becoming part of Seiton’s empire.

    She laughed, “The Spacers have no clue it was him!”

    They made it back to the hangar and Cahan stated to Seiton, “Ogan, Fabocusa was a traitor! His marriage caused our race to fall! I must find him and kill him!”

    “It is not Fabocusa you have to worry about,” said Seiton. “His son Alexander had grown up to be a power warrior leading the primitives to their victory. That hybrid had been the abomination from the very beginning of his birth. Alexander is your primary target. Kill him and then Fabocusa. With both of them dead, the primitives will fall and we will rise again.”

    “Where is Alexander?” Cahan asked as he now had a great desire to kill him.

    “Alexander with fighting my machines with the humans,” said Seiton. “He served as commander for Colonel Chan’s Spark team. The ship he’s on is called the World Republic Starship, Columbia. It is part of one of the humans’ fleet, the Odyssey. That fleet is at a globular cluster that they call Palomar 1. I need you to travel to the cluster and destroy it!”

    Cahan asked, “Once that fleet is destroyed, Alexander would be dead?”

    “Yes,” said Seiton. “And then you can hunt down Fabocusa.”

    “With pleasure,” Cahan smiled. “Now I need a few ships.”

    “I have the original Spacer ships already docked on this station awaiting you and your comrades,” said Seiton as he waved his hand towards the hall to the ships.

    The Spacers’ ships were a set of three large blue glass spheres connected by a gold rail on each side with a wing. Those were the only ships that had not been altered by Seiton. The Spacers depart them off the command station and the Helbots accompanied them as they traveled towards Palomar 1 to hunt down Alexander.

    As they flew into the Spacer’s gate, Seiton changed back into his original and laughed as he never laughed before. His eyes glowed red and smiled, “Alexander, now you will die by your own kind!”