Plait the Prison Planet
Issue #8
by Tom Zjaba

Chapter Eight
Mind over Matter

    Over the next few days, the Grey Ranger does allot of meditating. Not having any actual machinery to practice on, he is forced to just sit and mentally prepare himself. The first of his powers is the power of awareness. He concentrates and slowly sends his mind out further and further. As his mind probes the area, it finds and identifies any machinery. The first machines he finds are the floating eyes. He focuses on it and he can see what it is seeing. He watches as it slowly floats over the crowds of Bugtown, looking for anyone who is carrying any guns or other illegal contraband. He then follows it as it slowly works its way around Bugtown and eventually heads back to the fortress. He watches as it enters the fortress and flies into a building, where it goes down to a larger terminal and docks up to a giant computer. The giant computer then downloads the information from the probe and then sends it back out.

    Breaking out of his trance, the Grey Ranger thinks for a moment and wonders if he could make the eye go where he wanted it to. He wonders if they would realize what is happening. Would they know someone is controlling it or would they think it was a malfunction. Do they even know about his race? No one else here seems to know anything about him. He decides to do an experiment and see. He concentrates on a floating eye that is heading over Zolnar's fortress. He concentrates on it until he feels one with it. Once he feels that he can control it, he makes it go straight up in the air. Like magic, the eye obeys him. He then looks through its lenses at the overhead view of Bugtown. He turns back and forth, getting an idea at how big it truly is. It is so hard to get a feel for its size when you are walking inside the town. But up here, he can see how massive it is. The town spreads out for miles in each direction. He sees the giant fortress in the distance and marvels at its size. He also sees the gates are ready to open as new convicts are arriving. He decides to fly the eye over and watch the action.

    As the gates open, there is a crowd of bugs waiting outside the walls. What is different from his experience with a fortress is that no one is rushing to get into the fortress. They are waiting outside for the new inmates to come in. The Grey Ranger is impressed at how more intelligent these insects are over the other humanoids who try a suicide mission by rushing the robots. Inside the fortress, a group of humanoids and insects are waiting to leave the fortress. The insects show no signs of fear, but the humanoids hesitate as they do not want to leave the safety of the fortress. But the guards and especially the giant robots convince them to leave. As they are pushed into the crowd of insects, the doors of the fortress quickly close. Once they are completely closed, the insects descend upon the humanoids. The Colonants are the most plentiful, followed by the Clicks with a smattering of Pedes. They rush in and begin attacking the humanoids. The frightened humanoids scatter to find shelter, but most are quickly overcome by the insects. Men rush down the streets, only to have a Pede jump on their back and bite into their necks. Other humanoids are grabbed and ripped apart by the Colonants, who then devour them. The scene is violent and chaotic, but only lasts a few minutes before almost all the humanoids are killed and devoured.

    What the Grey Ranger does not realize is that Bugtown is the only safe place on this planet for Insectoids. While some live outside Bugtown, they are protected by a warlord or some gang. Most humanoids hate Insectoids and will kill them on site. So the Insectoids slaughter all new humanoids to keep the balance of power in Bugtown. They will tolerate humanoids who come from other fortresses, only so long as they are allies of one of the town's warlords. They will not attack them at first and wait and see what their business is in town. After they learn the reason for their being in Bugtown, it is determined whether or not to kill them.

    After watching this, he releases control of the eye, which quickly returns to its assigned mission. As it returns, an error message is sent to the fortress. One of the technicians reads the report and notices that the eye did not follow its assigned path. He wonders what was the reason and he quickly pulls up the video that it shot. As he views it moving erratically and then going to the fortress and watching the carnage, he wonders what could cause that. He files a report and sends it up to the spaceship that is circling above the planet.

    Inside the giant starship that is one of many that is in orbit of the planet, the error transmission is sent up. As the men who monitor the machines looks at it, they find it odd that this eye acted on its own. Not sure what would cause it, they send down a transmission to retire the eye and have it sent up to their ship. They want to do a closer examination to insure it does not have any faulty circuits or possible viruses.

    Back in the town around the first fortress that the Grey Ranger encountered, the man who sent him on the caravan sits in a pub, surrounded by his henchmen. His name is Caelius and he is the head warlord of this area. While there are two main gangs that battle for supremacy of this quadrant, his gang is the stronger of the two. At least they are for the time being. The balance of power can change quickly. A new influx of prisoners can easily sway the balance. That is why he wanted the Grey Ranger so bad. He figured it would give him a decided edge over his rival. While the plan on sending him on the caravan was sound at the time, he now wonders the logic of it. The caravan is a week late and is nowhere in sight.

    As Caelius and his men drink, one of the Lythians comes in to talk to him. "Sir, still no sign of the caravan." He looks around at his men, who all are thinking the same thing he is. "But I have some people who wants to speak with you." Caelius glares at the Lythian and says "What do they want?" The Lythian takes a step back, fearful of the steely glare that he is getting. "They says that he knows what happened to the caravan. But they have a price for the information." Caelius grabs his drink and slams it on the table. "Send them in and I will see if their information is worth the price." He leaves the pub and within seconds, he returns with four Takken Warriors. The birdmen are uneasy as they follow the Lythian. They do not often venture into towns. Outside of their monthly visit for rations, they avoid towns like the plague. A good reason is that they are notorious for attacking caravans and pretty much hated across the planet. That is also the reason that when they do come into a town, they come in a group. While only four enter the pub, there are a dozen more waiting outside. As he sees them enter, Caelius stands and says "What news do you have about my caravan? Did you raid it again?" The Takken Warriors hesitate as he speaks. They are not sure if they are walking into a trap or not. The lead warrior speaks up "We did not attack your caravan, at least not successfully. But we know who did and its fate." Caelius admires their honesty. He knew they attempted to attack his caravan, they always do. He lost some cargo to them, but he figured the Grey Ranger would stop that. "What price do you have on this information?" The main birdman looks back at the others and they all nod in agreement. He then turns back to Caelius and says "We want guns." This makes Caelius break out laughing. "You have to be joking. Guns are illegal on Plait, you know that. Even if I did have them, why would I give them to you? To use to rob my caravans?" The birdmen are not amused by the response. "Then we have wasted our time here." He then motions for the men to turn and leave. Caelius motions for his men to stand up and quickly they rush to block the door. "We are not done discussing this." he says as his men rush to the door and stand in front of it. The birdmen quickly pull out their bows and aim them. Realizing a situation is about to begin, Caelius steps between them and says "Let us come to an agreement. I cannot give you guns, but I have a rapid fire bow that you may be interested in. The birdman turns and looks at him and says "A rapid fire bow? Let me see." Caelius motions for one of his men to bring one.

    After a few minutes of tense waiting, a man enters the room with what looks like a futuristic crossbow. On the bottom is a long canister that holds the arrows as they are loaded into the chamber that works like a gun. He gives it to Caelius, who then shows it to the Takken Warriors. "This my friend is a rapid fire bow." He then aims it at the wall of the pub and shoots. One after another, three arrows are shot in succession. Each one hits the wall with force and sticks into the wall. While the arrows are shorter than a normal arrow, they are thicker and stronger. They are approximately eight inches in length and a quarter inch in thickness. Unlike the Takken arrows, these are made from steel. The birdmen go over and examine the arrows that are stuck in the wall, while the leader looks at the bow. "We are very interested in this." Caelius hands it to him and says "Try it out." He then aims it at the wall, very close to where Cealius shot and shoots off three rounds. A smile comes over his beaked face as he says "Let us work deal." Caelius motions for him to keep it and says "So tell me what you know and we can make sure you have more of these before you leave." The birdman looks over the crossbow and smiles. "And we need more arrows. We do not have steel making capability like you." Caelius smiles and says "Of course, we will give you a few hundred arrows and a total of four bows." The birdman nods in agreement. He then says "Your caravan made it to Bugtown. But on the way back, it was attacked by antmen. They swarmed down the mountain and destroyed the caravan and everything aboard." Hearing this infuriates him as he knows that Putnar is most likely behind it. But why would he would attack the caravan? He decides to ask more questions "Did they take the cargo?" The birdman nods his head no. "Everything but the beasts were destroyed. This makes no sense to him. Why bother destroying the cargo, unless he never sent any cargo back. It could be a way for him to get rations and weapons and not send anything back for them. He then asks "Were there any survivors?" Again, the birdman shakes his head no. "Everyone was killed, saved the beasts that pull the caravan." Now he is really upset. That means the Grey Ranger is dead. That was his trump card. But if word spread that he lost him as well as Azrael. This definitely weakens him and could give his enemies reason to launch an attack. He also needs to make an example of Putnar, before he grows any stronger.

    Putnar comes up to the Grey Ranger who is still in a trance and looks at him. "Not causing any trouble are you?" he asks as he wonders what he is up to. With the sound of his voice, the Grey Ranger breaks from his trance and looks up. "I was testing my powers." A smile comes over Putnar's face as he asks "And were you successful?" The Grey Ranger nods yes as he replies "I was able to take control of one of the eyes and use it to watch Bugtown." Putnar smiles as he asks "Did you see anything interesting?" The Grey Ranger looks right at him and says "I witnessed the slaughter of the new arrivals." Putnar laughs as he thinks about it. "Yeah, I remember the first time I saw that. Pretty disturbing stuff. These bugs are dangerous if you don't keep them in line." The Grey Ranger keeps staring right at him and asks "And do you have them in line?" Putnar laughs as he says "Yes I do. If I did not, they would have killed me a long time ago."

    As Putnar leaves the room again, the Grey Ranger goes back into a trance. Once again, he takes control of one of the floating eyes and begins exploring Bugtown. He uses it to view the layout of the town and to get a good idea how to leave the city, if he needs to. While he has a deal with Putnar, he cannot help but feel things will not be as easy as they seem. A sense of dread comes over him as he feels something bad is going to happen. Only he does not know what it is and that disturbs him.

    A man sits in an office, sorting papers. He wears a military outfit and has a stern look on his face. He is the warden of Plait and the person who has the last word on any decision on the planet. A man walks in and hands him a tiny disc. "Another eye was hijacked, sir." he says as hands it to him. He takes the disc and loads it into the machine in front of him. Images of the eye appear on the screen. He watches what it is watching. "Is this the same eye or a different one?" The man hands a paper to him and says "A different one. Here are the serial numbers of both eyes." He looks at the paper and says "What is causing this?" The man shrugs as he says "We really don't have an answer. We thought it was a malfunctioning unit, until it happened to a different unit." He looks over the footage while the man continues to explain his theories. "It could be a malfunction in the main terminal, but that would not explain why the others are not affected. It could be some kind of device that someone has on Plait." The warden looks up from the video and says "You can tell from the footage that someone is using it to spy. My only questions are how are they doing it and how soon can we stop them?" The man looks at him as he gets nervous and says "We did a scan for different frequencies that could be controlling it and found none. We have no idea who is doing it and how. The only thing we know is both incidents happened at the same fortress." He then hands the man a paper with the name of the fortress and information about the area. "The surrounding area is called Bugtown." The warden makes a strange face as he asks "Bugtown? Is that where the Insectoids are sent?" The man responds "Yes sir." The warden looks back at the tape and watches as the insectoids kill the humanoids that arrive. "Brutal stuff. Do we know of any insectoids that could control machinery like this? They do talk with telepathy." The warden hands him the paper about the fortress. As he takes it, he answers "As far as I know, none of the insectoids possess that ability. But they have been known to adapt to their surroundings and even learn or create new abilities when needed." The warden looks up and asks "But doesn't something like that take generations. We are talking about evolution here, correct?" The man looks right at the warden and says "Not with Insectoids. They have been known to create the ability to breathe underwater if they land on a water planet." The warden puts his hands together and wrings them. "So you are telling me that we have a planet full of bugs that can be mutating at this very moment." The man nods his head yes. "That is what I am telling you. And they may be developing the power of controlling machines, which would make it easy for them to leave the planet." The warden really starts wringing his hands as he is obviously very frustrated. "And we cannot just blow them up because our hands are tied by federation. I told them it was a goddamn mistake letting those bugs on the planet." The man tries to console the warden "Sir, it is just a theory. We should not jump to any conclusions." The warden looks at him and says "I want you to go to the science team and have them figure out if those damn bugs are doing this or not. If I can prove it to the federation, then I may get the OK to exterminate them once and for all." The man nods his head in agreement as he leaves the room. The warden then puts his head in his hands and mumbles "I hate them goddamn bugs. I have always hated bugs."

 Plait the Prison Planet 2007-2008 © Tom Zjaba

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