The Genesis Saga

The team made it to the rendezvous point for the handoff. To their relief, there was already another team waiting for them there. Six figures dressed in familiar black body armour stood at the ready. Seeing Jyn and the others approach, one of the figures stepped forward to greet them.

“Is this it?” asked the smaller woman as she inspected her new charge. Her assessing gaze took in the details on the gru’ul brought to them, from its cracked chitin to its antenna shorter than the other. Jyn assumed her to be the leader of the other squad and addressed her as such.

“Yes,” Jyn answered. “It’s the only one we’ve found that hasn’t immediately killed itself. It took off its badge, so there’s no danger of that happening. We found it doing something to their data terminals. We’re going back to investigate further.”

“We’ll take it from here and deliver it to the Commander for safekeeping,” the other leader replied with a nod. “Good job capturing it. All the others we’ve found have killed themselves so far. Be careful in there and let us know if you find any others.”

“Will do,” Jyn nodded. He ordered his team to back away from the alien and watched as the other team surrounded it in a similar fashion before moving out.

“I’m going to help bring them back to the entrance of the facility,” Tassie’s disembodied voice rang out. “You’ll have to continue without me for a little bit. It shouldn’t take too long. If you need anything, let me know and I’ll help out.”

“Got it, Tassie. You make sure they get back to the main ship safely. I want to know everything that little bugger has inside of its head, no matter the cost.”

“Jyn, is everything ok?” Tassie asked. “This is very unlike you. Even before, threatening it like that was also very out of character.”

“I’m fine,” Jyn snapped. “Now go do your job properly for once and stop questioning me.”

“Understood,” Tassie said coldly before going silent.

“Jyn, that was uncalled for,” Rann admonished, her arms crossed. “She was just checking in on you. I don’t know what your beef is with Tassie, but you really need to work things out. You can’t just go off on her during a mission. I thought you were over this.”

“All she needs to do is listen. Questioning me isn’t her job. Now, let’s go,” Jyn replied harshly.

“We’re not done talking about this, Jyn,” Rann warned, a dangerous edge in her voice. Jyn ignored her and went back through the hole in the wall.

Under his instructions, the team returned to the room they found the gru’ul in. The twisting, winding, nearly identical grey corridors would have been difficult to navigate without Tassie’s map. They searched around but found that the few screens that were working were now blank. A stark change to the data displayed before. The DNA strands that slowly rotated in the centre of the room flickered, trying desperately to remain in existence.

“This room looks different than all the others,” Beor said as they examined it. “It’s got way too many data terminals, for one. Plus, there’s that giant thing in the centre. The other rooms didn’t have something like that.”

“It’s a DNA strand, babe,” Rann said absentmindedly while she searched the room. “Most of these terminals are broken,” she pointed out. “They look like they were smashed with something dull and hard.” Rann continued searching the room. “Ah!” she exclaimed. Turning the corner around the row of terminals she was walking through, Rann came face with multiple gru’ul bodies littering the ground, each with white foam frothing from their mouths.

“What is it?” Jyn asked hurriedly, turning around to assist Rann.

“It’s a bunch of bodies,” Rann said, looking at the pile in disgust. Just one of the gru’ul was ugly enough, but a whole pile of them was downright disturbing. “It’s almost as if they gathered in this section of the room and all killed themselves together.”

“What, like a suicide cult?” Beor asked.

“Almost. Their mouths are still frothing, which means they died recently. Probably right before we found that other one.”

“I’d say good riddance, but that just means we have less of them to question,” Jyn said.

“Seriously, Jyn, what is your problem?” Rann asked, exasperated. “You’ve been acting strange ever since we captured that gru’ul.”

“What do you mean? These are the things that hurt Reya. How could you not hate them for what they did?”

“We don’t know if it was these specific ones. You can’t just hate all of them over the act of a handful.”

“As far as I’m concerned, none of the researchers in this facility are innocent. They must have known about Reya when they captured her,” Jyn said, his voice tinged with fury. “I doubt they kept her a secret.”

“I don’t like them either for what they did, but I’m not the one wishing death upon all of them,” Rann pointed out.

“Let’s just focus on the mission,” Jyn said, deflecting the accusation.

“It’s kind of hard when that chip on your shoulder keeps coming up,” Rann continued, refusing to let Jyn off the hook. “First Tassie – again – and now this. Get your act together Jyn, you’re supposed to be the leader.”

“And now who’s the one bringing it up? My act,” he emphasised, “is perfectly fine, thank you very much. Now let’s move on.”

“Fine,” Rann said begrudgingly, letting the matter drop. “I think that this might have been a control room of some kind,” she said, changing the subject. “Just look at how many terminals there are. They must have needed a lot of bodies to operate all of them.” She looked over towards the haphazard pile in front of her. “Which they clearly had.”

“You might be right, but what are we going to do with it? All of their keyboards are written in their language,” Eimir said. He inspected one of the strange looking keyboards that wasn’t smashed to pieces, not recognizing a single symbol on it. It had four sections to it, spread around a dull glass orb. He sighed in frustration when nothing happened as he tried typing on one.

“Hey guys, there’s a control panel over here, I think. There’s even a big button in the middle. Should I push it?” Beor called out from across the room. “I want to push it.”

“No!” Rann, Eimir and Jyn all called out at the same time.

“Babe, don’t push the strange button,” Rann said quickly.

“Fine.” Beor pouted. “But if we choose to push it later, I’m the one doing it.” The others breathed a sigh of relief.

“Alright, I think we’ve explored this room long enough. Let’s mark it on the map and move on,” Jyn said.

The team stepped back out into the corridors and began exploring. As they ventured deeper into the facility, the warning symbol became more and more prominent, until finally, Eimir commented on it. “Is it just me, or are there more of these symbols now then there were before?”

“You’re right,” Jyn said. “We should be more careful. Whatever’s down here, we’re getting close.”

An intersection that was absolutely littered with symbols opened up before them. Turning to the left, the team saw a large, shimmering blue force field at the end of the hall. They couldn’t see what lay beyond. “I think we found it,” Beor said, stating the obvious.

Rann rolled her eyes. Looking over at the force field, she had the strong desire to test how good it actually was. Her fingers itched on the trigger of her gun, begging for the chance to shoot at it. She willed her gloved hands to steady themselves, not wanting to cause any trouble.

“The question is, what’s inside that warrants such a barrier?” Eimir said with worry in his voice, oblivious to Rann’s urges. He stood slightly behind the others, heeding the warning the symbols were telling him.

“I don’t know, and I’m not sure I want to find out,” Beor said. While he had a penchant for always wanting there to be more action, he knew that this was neither the time nor the place to be rowdy. He silently felt that they were getting in over their heads and that they should call for backup first.

“Nonsense,” Rann interjected. “I want to know what’s so important that they have to keep it behind such an elaborate containment field.” Fearlessly, she approached the door.

“Rann, hold on,” Jyn ordered. Rann stopped moving and turned back around to face him.

“What?”

“I don’t think we should approach it just yet.”

“What’s it going to do, escape?” she exclaimed. “There’s a force field around the entire wall!”

“We don’t know how strong that field is.”

“That’s a chance I’m willing to take.” She continued marching towards the blue barrier. Reluctantly, the others followed, their guns aimed at it. Along the side walls were different runic symbols in addition to the warning signs that had been so prominent on their way there. The runes were mostly above each doorway, above the glowing lines that denoted them. One of them even had a symbol printed directly on the door itself, baffling Rann.

“These doors literally disappear. Why would they put a symbol on it? Isn’t that pointless?” she asked out loud, stopping in front of it.

“It must be important if they did,” Jyn said. “I say we look inside.” Beor approached with the key and the wall melted away, revealing another room.

There were no data terminals present, which immediately stood out. A single, large machine thrummed with energy in the centre of the room. It was black and conical, with glowing blue blubs that resembled mushrooms sprouting from it. The team stared at the machine in confusion, unable to discern its purpose.

“What’s it do?” Beor asked. “Tassie, any ideas?”

“Nope, not a single one. Maybe it’s related to the force field on the wall back outside the room? If so, then be careful with it.”

Rann spotted the body of one of the gru’ul in front of the machine. She approached, carefully ensuring that it was dead and opened its mouth. “Eww, this is so gross,” she said in disgust while doing her best to avoid the sharp teeth as they scraped her combat suit. She searched around in its mouth and found the badge. Withdrawing it, she watched the mixture of froth and saliva drip down off of it. “Yuck.”

Beor called out from around the machine. “I’ve found another control panel. It looks identical to the one I saw back in the other room. Same button and all.” He took the time to inspect the panel more closely and noticed that there were two indicator lights that were currently unlit. He thought for a moment. “What if we need to push both buttons at the same time for something to happen,” he said, explaining what he’d found to the others.

“It’s worth a try,” Rann said. “You can go to the command room, and I’ll stay here. Leaving won’t be an issue now that I’ve got this.” She brandished her badge. “It should let me get out of the room no problem. Jyn, what do you think?”

Jyn took a deep breath that was audible over their comms, coming to a decision. “I’m not sure I want to face whatever’s behind that door, but I need to know. For Reya.” He tried his best to sound confident, but the others could hear him waver as he spoke. Nevertheless, he’d made the call. “Beor, go back to the command room. Let’s see if your theory is correct.” Beor turned and left the room.

Several minutes passed.

“Babe, what’s taking so long?” Rann asked over their comms. She worried that something might have happened to him while he was separated from the group.

“Took a wrong turn,” Beor replied. “All these damn hallways look the same. Tassie, can you give me a hand?”

Another minute passed while Beor located the room thanks to Tassie’s directions. “Are we ready?” came his voice once he was in position.

“I’m ready,” Rann said in front of her button. Jyn and Eimir took a defensive position in the hall, ready to face what was behind the force field. They confirmed that they were ready to go as well, giving the green light for the operation.

Beor counted down from three and both he and Rann pushed on their respective button at the same time. Both indicator lights above Rann’s button turned on, bright yellow in colour. They blinked repeatedly several times in unison before changing to a solid, bright blue.

The barrier that covered the wall dropped, causing Jyn and Eimir to shout in alarm. Rann dashed out of the room and spotted the cause of their distress. With the barrier gone, they could finally see the lone door that lay behind it. The wall around it was plastered in symbols they couldn’t identify, and a single, large warning rune was imprinted in the middle of the doorway.

“What’s going on?” Beor asked in alarm. Being in a different part of the facility, he had no way of knowing what had transpired.

“The barrier dropped. Come back now, Beor. We need you here,” Jyn responded. “Tassie, can you identify these other symbols?”

“Let me check,” she responded.

In the meantime, Beor came running to the others, taking in the newly revealed doorway. “Wow,” he whistled. “They’re really not messing around with whatever’s behind that thing. It even took two people just to turn off the barrier.”

“I’ve taken a look,” Tassie said, interrupting Rann just as she was about to speak. “The only ones I can identify are the ones for biohazard and extreme caution.”

“How is extreme caution any different from the warning rune imprinted on the door?” Eimir asked.

“One means you should be very careful; the other means you’re probably going to die.”

“And you can’t figure out what the other ones mean?”

“Not anytime soon,” Tassie replied. “These appear to be symbols that we haven’t seen before. I’m logging them for future reference, along with an image of each one. Maybe we’ll be able to ask the gru’ul we captured to translate them so we can add them to our vocabulary.”

The door stood ominously at the end of the hall. Its presence loomed over them as they gazed upon it. “What do we do?” Eimir asked.

“I don’t want anybody getting near the door until we know what’s behind it,” Jyn said.

“We won’t know what’s behind it without actually opening it,” Rann pointed out.

“I can throw my badge from here,” Beor offered. “Maybe it’ll open when it gets close enough. That way, none of us need to approach it.”

“That’s . . . a surprisingly good idea,” Jyn said.

“I do have them on occasion,” Beor sniffed. “Are we all ready to go?” The rest of the team trained their guns on the door, prepared to fire the moment anything dangerous came out. They gave the affirmative and Beor moved forward several steps.

He tossed his badge towards the door and quickly backed up, raising his gun alongside the others. It sailed through the air, landing right in front of the door with a clink. After a moment, the door melted away with a bubbling hiss, exposing what lay beyond. The low light from the hall penetrated into the pitch-black room, allowing them to see near the entrance, but not further in. They waited with bated breath for something, anything, to come out.

Their wish was granted several seconds later when a limb left the shadows and stretched into the open light. Startled by the suddenness of its appearance, all four of them readied their guns, their fingers on the trigger. The rest of the figure soon followed.

In front of them stood a man wearing torn, bloodied clothes with long, waist-length limp hair and a big, unkempt beard. Those weren’t the details that distracted the crew. No, what stole their attention was the tan skin and brown hair of the figure, something they had never seen before. They stared, trying to understand what was in front of them.

The figure stood there, casting a wary glance at the group while eyeing their weapons. It made no move to approach them, instead studying them much the same way they were studying him. It cocked its head to the side inquisitively, before slowly nodding to itself. Opening its mouth, the figure spoke.

“Hello,” Adrian said.