It was raining o the Tesraki home world, great drops fell from the sky mingling together in the gutters and byways of thousands upon thousands of levels, eventually trickling downward to the bottom most streets, dark and dingy, held together by scrap metal and stuttering Neon lights. The poorest of the poor lived here hiding in great droves under cobbled together street signs, surviving off the great heaps of trash that were dumped down into their homes without a second thought.
Sunny had never visited a more hopeless and depressing place. Everywhere she looked sad dark eyes glittered at her from under runnels of trickling water, blinking from the darkness. The owners of those eyes didn't tend to show their faces, though when they did the bodies that contained the eyes were almost as sad as the eyes themselves, bony with wet matted fur sick with mange.
The Tesraki homeworld had one of the largest populations of any known planet, and it was increasing by the day. No one was sure exactly how many Tesraki considering that the census never went lower than the upper street levels, so it was estimated that there could be a hundred million missing in the census. Based on the amount of eyes she saw glittering at her from the dark, Sunny was more than willing to believe it.
Exanimar was voted the most lifeless planet of 4020 in earths Interstellar Life magazine, but that wasn't because no one lived here. It was home to thousands upon thousands of Tesraki. The vote came from he fact that Exanimar had no trace of its original ecosystem left. Over thousands of years the Tesraki had run its natural industries into the ground until the planet was left completely without natural resources. The entire planet was one massive city linked by thousands and thousands of streets and pipes and sewers, etc etc.
In fact, the Tesraki had originally left their home planet for fear that they would not longer be able to live there in the next thousand years.
They might have been right if it wasn't for the life support systems that kept the planet habitable.
Water and oxygen was generated into the atmosphere on a regular basis allowing it to maintain a weather system. Technologies had been made to clean up the air so the sun could shine through though there was at one point where the Tesraki said the sky had not been visible for hundreds of years.
The thought made her shutter.
Even the humans had managed to keep their planet somewhat clean, and they were only second in line to the Tesraki when it came to wasting natural resources. To think that the Tesraki had no idea what their planet had originally looked like made her cringe. Down here under miles and miles of metal and concrete, she felt trapped and suffocated by the weight of the city.
Growing up on Anin with a sparce population and wide open spaces, it tended to make one forget how good they had it.
Even Adam seemed out of place walking next to her. He had his jacket pulled up over his head, and ith the way his mechanical eye glowed in the light of the rain, it seemed as if he had walked right out of one of those sci fi dystopian movies that he loved so much.
Water splashed up around their feet as they cut through the darkness.
A gentle welling of steam rose up from the ground at their feet, heated by thousands upon thousands of miles of pipe.
"Any luck?" Sunny asked as Adam paused below a street sign. It seemed to be the one dry pocket in this part of the under streets that had not been taken over by the destitute.
"No, nothing."
"I thought we had dealt with the drug trade." She grumbled pulling her cloak up around her shoulders.
He snorted, "You don't DEAL with a drug problem, you can only hope to control it. Besides with the Celzex acting as strange as they are, I am not sure how far this investigation is going to get."
That was true enough, the Celzex had suddenly become avid critics of the intergalactic war on drugs, though their reasons remained their own as of now.
Lord Celex had not been seen in months and Adam was beginning to worry.
There were rumors going around that some of the manufacturing plants were being built in the understreets of the Tesraki home world and were being staffed by the destitute homeless that lived there, paid pittance for their work, though they were desperate enough to take it. A culture of drug use had sprouted up, mostly to give the workers the kind of energy they needed to work ll night without resting, though the extra money they made was soon burned away with the purchase of drugs rather than going to the families.
It was a disgusting practice, which Thomas had uncovered in his investigation.
He was looking into getting out of the marines after his five year contract and spearhead the war against drugs. It was a fight he wasn't likely to win but both Sunny and Adam saw honor in that fight.
The took anther turn.
The implant on Sunny's wrist blinked.
She glanced down through the rain and shook some water off her wrist.
She had just received the implant recently, and was still finding the connection of technology to her body to be very strange.
Sunny reached out a hand and stopped Adam in his tracks as he went to take a step forward. He paused and looked over at her. She saw his mechanical eye darting this way and that searching for a threat that did not exist.
"What is it."
She held up her wrist.
It was blinking, as if she had received some sort of message, though there was nothing listed.
Adam frowned and took her arm, "That's strange."
"Could it be malfunctioning?"
"Perhaps."
He tapped at her arm and opened up a few of the applications, but all of them worked just fine. The blinking continued..
"Keep that hidden, we best head back up to the ship just in case it turns out to be something.... Else."
She nodded in agreement and followed after him as he pulled his jacket closer around his shoulders and made his way to one of the many rickety sets of steel stairs that ran up and through the city snaking like a spiderweb up and through the dark.
Their feet clattered against metal the higher they went.
Sunny glanced down into her cloak where the blinking was still happening and frowned.
What could it be.
They made it up a few stories whose streets grew cleaner and brighter the higher they went. Patches of sky became visible at odd intervals and the rain grew heavier. Neon lights still continued to glow from the darkness.
They were just cutting under a vacant underpass listening to the vehicles rumble overhead when Sunny sensed something. She paused in place reaching for her spear, and as she did Adam did the same. He tilted his head this way and that his movements slow and uneasy as he scanned the darkness.
"We have company." He whispered.
Sunny couldn't see anything but she trusted him, and so turned her back to his drawing out her spear as she looked into the darkness.
There was a soft shuffling somewhere I the distance, and she watched in surprise as a group of six Drev or more descended from where they had been hidden on the ceiling above. They wore black cloaks and black painted armor, and when they moved, they moved in near silence. She took a step back in surprise bumping into Adam who held his ground.
It may not have seemed so odd to him, but it certainly did to her.
Drev were not stealthy.
Ever.
The older generations considered stealth to be a sign of weakness and or trickery, so it was highly discouraged in the day to day lives of Drev, but these, these seemed to be well versed in the tactics if not professional.
There was a slight pause, and then one of the figures stepped forward to face her. Adam tilted his head to the side still keeping one eye on the surrounding Drev as he watched.
Sunny readied herself for a fight
And then the figure bowed low.
She stared in shock rather nonplussed as the Drev knelt to the ground and bowed it's head, the others followed suit and Sunny slowly withdrew her spear cautious but not entirely nervous about what was going on. The figure slowly reached up and withdrew the hood covering its head. When it fell down around her shoulders the distant neon lights glowed off her carapace, which at first Sunny thought was white, but, as she moved it became clear it was almost a pearly color leaning towards pink or purple in some places.
When she lifted her head her eyes glowed gold.
Sunny tightened her hand around her spear.
There was something familiar about those eyes.
"Greetings, Saint of the Sun." She bowed her head again, "We apologize for our intrusion, but we needed to speak with you." Her voice was, unusually high for a Drev approaching the tones more common in humans than in Drev. It was the kind of voice that Sunny had never heard before because if she had she would have remembered it.
Sunny looked down and watched as the light on her implant stopped blinking.
Had they tracked her?
But no that was impossible, these things were supposed to be near impossible to hack like that.
"Who are you."
"I am..... sentinel or something similar.... of the Forsaken ones."
Sunny frowned, "I've never heard of you."
She laughed, "You wouldn't have." And then something in her voice grew sad and distant.
"May we be graced with your presence for a moment. Somewhere dryer.'
Sunny glanced over to look at Adam, and he nodded once.
"Very well, but if anyone tries anything."
"Oh I am sure we would be no match for you." She said seeming almost amused. She lifted herself up from off the ground and Sunny was shocked for a second time upon realizing that. This Drev was shorter than she was. In fact, she was barely as tall as Adam was. She was, in fact the smallest Drev that Sunny had ever met, no larger than most children. Sunny was generally the size of an early teenager, but this Drev still looked like a Drevling.
And when she walked.
When she walked she walked with a pronounced limp. Sunny looked a bit closer at the leg as she walked closer, only to see that her joints.... Seemed slightly off. Her knee on that side was twisted inward as was her ankle. On one side of her body her lower arm seemed to be caught in a rictus and did not uncurl from her body.
Sunny had to stop herself from recoiling as years of cultural conditioning told her that this Drev was some kind of blight.
She had to remember that people had thought that of her at one point.
She had brought the new doctrine, and based on that this Drev was just like any other.
Still able to hold a spear.
She looked up at Sunny with her familiar golden eyes and took her by the hand, "Quickly, with us."
Sunny reached back and grabbed Adam by the hand not missing the look that the Drev shot her which was one of.... Disappointment... annoyance.
"We were hoping to speak with you privately" She said
Sunny felt herself lock up almost immediately and she dug in her heels, "I'm not going anywhere with you without my backup. Anything you say he can hear as Sentinel of the wandering tribe"
There was a pause and the Drev gave in thought it was clear she wasn't pleased about it. Quietly she led the two of them through the nearest alley and through the rain. The other Drev followed behind silent and near invisible in the darkness. It was hard to make them out, but looking, sunny could sense that something.... Something was off about them.
Adam prodded her I the side and she leaned over to listen to him whisper, "They're all crippled."
That was both shocking and confusing to Sunny, but taking a closer look at them she could se that Adam was indeed right. One of the Drev moving at her side move with a slight limp a s well, and other appeared to be hunched forward rather unnaturally.
The Sentinel reached out a hand and opened the nearest door letting Sunny in but hesitating as Adam followed her. Sunny tightened her grip around Adam's wrist making it clear that she was not going to part with him.
The Drev gave up and allowed the door to be held open by someone else as they walked inside.
It was some sort of abandoned warehouse, or had been at one point. There was evidence that someone had been squatting here, though they weren't present now.
Adam reached into his pocket and withdrew a small ball, which he clicked once.
The room was suddenly filled with glowing blue light.
The Drev held up their hands to shield their eyes, and in the light she was able to get a good look at them.
The one on her right, she was shocked to find, was missing one of his arms completely. One of them was indeed hunched forward with a pronounced hump on his back, while another had both arms caught into a permanent twist.
The last Drev to enter appeared fine all things considered until he closed the door and held up his hands in a strange sign.
One of the others made the signs back to him and he dropped his hands looking pleased.
Adam leaned in, "Sign language?"
It hadn't occurred to her, she had never meat a Drev that was Deaf or blind before, but as she watched him the truth of it seemed clear. Every time he approached someone he used new hand signals that never seemed to repeat. It was quite shocking.
She had never assumed that drev would create something like that.
Or even have the need.
She assumed that all such Drev would have been cast into he fire a long time ago, but based on how old some of them were, older than she was by far, many of them had survived for an unusual amount of time. She wondered if their injuries had been caused by battle, but looking at them she become certain that that was not the case.
The Sentinel of the Drev pulled off her cloak and handed it to one of the waiting soldiers, revealing her body in more detail as she did.
She was indeed very, very short, and her left leg was twisted at odd angles at the joints. When she moved it became clear that those weren't the only joints affected, though it wasn't nearly as pronounced.
She turned to look at them pleased with sunny but less pleased with Adam who she tried to ignore.
"Who are you people." Sunny asked again.
"The Forsaken ones, I said that earlier didn't I?"
"yes, I know but....."
"But it is not so often that you see someone deformed or crippled."
"I wasn't going to say that." Sunny insisted.
The Drev was speaking in their native tongue though she was using a rather odd dialect.
A dialect Sunny knew was hard on the translation equipment.
She glanced over at Adam who was frowning, though she knew he spoke Drev better than any other human she knew.
He would understand enough.
Though it didn't sit well with Sunny that This Drev was doing her very best to keep him out of the conversation .
She turned to look at her.
"Continue to disrespect my friend, and we will not be talking very long."
There was a pause and the Drev's eyes tightened, "This is a conversation better left to those of our kind."
"He IS our kind."
In response Adam shifted to pull up his pant leg and reveal the Chitin prosthetic which he always wore, glittering blue with her own carapace.
"If that does not satisfy you than we have nothing else do discuss. Also as one of us he understands you perfectly fine and fighting more will only make a fool of you."
She still didn't seem pleased but she dropped the dialect and continued forward.
"We have come to speak with you."
"Than speak, who are you really, and none of that the Forsaken ones. I understand that, but how..... how are you all.... Alive."
It was a harsh thing to say but it had to be said.
There was a quiet laugh from around the room, and the sentinel raised her hands ordering the group of them to sit . They did so, ranging themselves in a wide circle with their hands resting on their laps. It was a strange thing to see. They did have a mild accent when they spoke, and some of their mannerisms didn't make sense for the Drev she knew.
"You would be surprised how many of the forsaken exist around Anin."
Sunny took a seat, and Adam knelt next to her his spear resting over his knees. Though one hand hovered over the pistil at his hip.
He liked to keep his options open.
"So there are more of you?"
"Yes, likely thousands hidden away in private dark places.... That is until you changed the doctrine."
"Wait.... Go back. Thousands of you, hidden away, how could we not know this."
The sentinel shrugged, "It would have been a very poor idea on our part to let ourselves be known. If others were to know that we existed we would be ridiculed and hunted and slaughtered, though with the changing of the doctrine maybe, things can change."
"Explain this all to me." Sunny demanded still unsure of what she was seeing.
The sentinel blinked at her, "Do you really believe that all Drev mothers are so heartless that they could throw their Kits in to the volcanoes without second guessing Do you really thing that General Kazna warrior of the four towers would be the only Drev mother to be unable to toss her kits to the fire/ She was one of the most heartless of our species and yet even she could not bare to commit infanticide."
She had a point.
"There are many others much weaker in their resolve than she. In the south of the fertile belt, along the mountain range there, there is a place known as the weeping valley. It is called that because many a Drev mother has taken to abandoning their deformed Kits in leu of throwing them into the fire. Leaving them and walking away is much easier than committing outright murder. Every year hundreds of these Kits are brought to this valley and left behind to die of exposure, and Every year hundreds are saved."
Sunny and Adam exchanged a look of awe.
"Rumors have spread since then, as no remains are ever found in the valley. Some mothers has even sought the help of us, to take in their little ones when they do not wish to end their lives. Our group has existed for hundreds of years, since the doctrines were put int place. We live on the outskirts always looking in, hidden in caves and in gullies, taking in those we can save. Including those injured in battle."
Sunny shook her head in awe, it did make sense of course, but it had never occurred to her that there would be some sort of what? Secret society living on the edges of Anin, surviving and even thriving.
"Each and every one of us was born or given some injury that would have us removed from society as a whole. Deaf, blind, twisted, all of these things that other Drev would shun us for, until you came along.
"And you?" Sunny said out of curiosity, unable to stop the tie of questions and curiosity this was building up in her.
The Drev tilted her head in amusement, "I am Dzara."
She glanced over at Adam who had made a face.
It was an.... Odd name.
Not many people went around naming their child Pain, but she supposes It was to be expected from a group like this.
"As you can see I was born with a short stature and partially twisted joints. Speaking with alien doctors, I have learned that it is a relatively common genetic disorder among Drev called Austioanthrodysmorphia. And as genetic disorders go it tends to run in families specifically in Drev families where the gene is present in both parents. Just like how it was present in both our mother and our father."
Sunny opened her mouth to speak and then paused .
Adam stared at her looking between the two of them.
"I think you probably have the same condition if not minor in comparison. It does run in the family after all."
"Wait I don't.
"I am Dzara Kazna and Lanus's daughter."