Chapter 55: Chapter 55 Royal Pain In The Ass
"This planet is by far the largest we have ever been to, and still have life on it," said Olivia, looking over the planet before them.
"I'm finding some pretty incredible lifeforms down below," said Granny, typing in a couple things, and the forward screen lit up, showing what looked like a normal village of pre-space age aliens.
"What's so incredible about them?" asked Kitteral, squinting at the screen in confusion.
"The tiny figures that kind of look like bugs along the edges of the walls? Those are the Uz'En," said Granny.
They zoomed in, and sure enough, a group of people were scrambling along the walls like rats, pausing to hide from the giants before scrambling to a crack in the wall.
"How?" asked Olivia, scratching her head.
"It doesn't matter," said Dustin, changing the screen over to the planet again. "The planet has a unique atmosphere, that erodes metals. I could try and redesign the nanobots to prevent their damage, but that's a lot of effort. I've scanned the planet, and there's only the one group of Uz'En on the whole planet. There looks to be a crash site, not far from the village, where the ship they were on must have landed."
"If we could just fly down there, we could grab them and get back up in one go," said Granny. "Assuming we could protect the ship from the atmosphere?"
"The ship can be protected by using its shields, but the frequency needed will suck a lot of juice from the reserves, so I think I'll go down to round everyone up, while you guys bring the ship in fast to load and leave as quickly as possible."
"It's getting to be dark, so the giants might settle down for the night. If we can go in and get out before dawn, we shouldn't have to deal with them," said Kitteral.
Olivia sighed. "You are always going alone. I want to come with you. I don't want to have to sit up here waiting for you to get back. What if you have to fight some giant rat or something? Giant cockroaches are something we've already had to fight before."
"Alright, let's go," he said, standing up and heading for the air lock.
Olivia hesitated in surprise before jumping up in delight and darting after him.
"Be careful you two!" called Granny.
"They'll be fine. Let them have some fun together," said Kitteral with a yawn.
"But the shields haven't been calibrated!" she complained, turning back to her console.
"Then calibrate them. I'm taking a nap."
"You're really lazy, you know that?"
"Darling, I haven't changed much from the first time you met me," he said with a laugh.
"You used to care more," she said softly, not looking at him.
Kitteral paused at the door. "My wife died. I find it difficult to care about much without her. I can't seem to allow myself to die knowing I have a son still alive, but there are moments…"
"It's been two hundred years without your wife, and you didn't know your son was still alive, so that's a pretty sorry excuse."
"Oh, I knew. I could feel him. The same way you know that your mom is still alive, there's a feeling of knowing."
"I know my mom is alive because I have a damn belly crystal that glows when she wants me to do a chore. You don't have that excuse."
Kitteral looked at the floor, refusing to turn and look at her. "Did you know that there are certain abilities that some of us develop? I think Dustin mentioned the chrono skimming?"
"I recall him mentioning it, but what of it?"
"I can feel the life force of every Uz'En that's alive. I learned after my wife died, that I could turn that feeling off. However, every since I've rejoined society, so to speak, the only way to turn it off, is by sleeping more often. I can only handle feeling their deaths so much, before I…" Shaking his head, he left the room, and Granny let him go.
The man still blamed himself for her death so long ago, but Granny had no idea he could physically feel the deaths of his people. Sometimes being of the royal line sucked.
XxxxX
Dustin laughed as Olivia and he swept past each other, in an aerial dance. They were racing towards the village, keeping an eye out for other flying creatures, but really just having fun. He couldn't remember the last time he had this much fun with her. They had either been children, unaware of the struggles of life, or fighting for their lives to survive. Even when they had Kit, and things were calm before she left, he had thrown himself into his role as king. They hadn't had any time to play like this.
Grinning as he darted through the branches of an enormous tree, he settled on a lower branch to look over the area ahead of them. Olivia settled next to him.
The village below was quiet and dark. The huts were built with wood from the trees. Shifting his weight, he spied some of the survivors in the garden. With a nod from Olivia, they dived down together, landing far enough away to change before approaching them.
"Who's there?" came a soft call, as they got closer.
"We're rescuers. I'm Dustin, and this is Olivia. We came to get you guys off this planet."
"Slavers!" the guy cried and they all scattered.
"What was that all about?" asked Olivia.
Dustin shrugged and they looked around as the garden settled back into silence. They couldn't see any predators or giants, so what was wrong with them? There weren't any slavers around.
Making their way over to where they had been, they were surprised to see that they had abandoned most of their tools they were using to harvest some of the large plants.
"Could they have been scared of us?" asked Olivia.
"Maybe? There wasn't much of the ship left for me to scan. Maybe it was a slave ship?"
"That would explain why they ran. They thought we were slavers to take them back into custody."
"Let's go find them and explain the truth," said Dustin, grabbing some of the food they had left and following the tracks they had left in the soft dirt. This was a royal pain in the ass.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
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Chapter 56: Chapter 56 A Giant Seized
Dustin inched along the path, his senses heightened to make sure he didn't stumble upon any predators or traps. Ahead, just under the floorboards of the giant's house, he could see them huddled together. His ears could just barely make out a whispered argument, and then they all turned as one, to look up, as a crash sounded through the night.
Rushing forward, Dustin arrived where they had been, as they scrambled away, and the giant board above his head lifted, to show one of the giants looking down at him. Dropping the food, he had brought along with him, he jumped up at the face, growing his claws longer, and lacing his personal venom along them. Slashing at the cheek, he twisted in the air, and managed to push off from the hand that swung up to grab him. Landing in a crouch, back in the hole, the board above him slammed down, throwing dust and dirt into the air, and making a loud whoomph noise, that threatened to burst his eardrums.
Knowing that the venom worked quickly, he shouted at the Uz'En survivors to follow him, before darting away from the house. He glanced back, worried that they wouldn't follow, and saw them grabbing the food he had dropped and the other belongings they had already gathered together before darting after him. No sooner had they left the underfloor, then there was a huge crash, where the giant fell, breaking through the floor, then started spasming as it had a seizure.
Only a few paused to glance back, most of them continued running, following him as he left the giant garden and made his way towards the crash site.
"How are we going to get them on board the ship?" asked Olivia, joining him as they left the garden area.
"The ship can come into the atmosphere if it keeps the shields up, but not for long. We'll just have to hope that they see we've got everyone, and come down to us."
"If you're not slavers," panted one of the women following them, "Then who are you?"
"I'm honestly here to rescue you guys. I don't know how you came to be here, only that you are here."
"But why do you care?" asked another guy, catching up to them.
Dustin stopped running, so the others could catch up too. Looking over them, he saw that they were in peak physical condition, and were all around the same age.
"You are all Uz'En. It is my job to collect all of the Uz'En from around the galaxy, and take them to our new home world, so we can all live in safety. My scans picked up your presence, so here I am," Dustin explained. He really couldn't wait until he was done with all of this, so that he didn't have to keep trying to explain himself.
"That makes way more sense, then what we were thinking. So, you really don't know anything about the slavers?"
"I know that a lot of us were used as slaves, and some were even bred in slave breeding programs, while others were used as experiments. I'm just trying to get all of you back to our home world."
They looked at each other, seeming to have a conversation with just their eyes, and then they nodded and turned back to him.
"We are very grateful and are willing to come along with you. The threat of the slavers coming back for us, after we crashed last year, has almost been too much."
"They probably did come back for you, only the atmosphere here causes metal to be eaten away, so it's really not safe for any ships."
"Then how about yours?" asked the first woman, confused.
"We have a shield that protects our ship for very short periods of time. As soon as the ship lands, you are all going to have to board as fast as you can."
They nodded, as one pointed out the approaching ship. Behind them, they heard the giants yelling and carrying on. Dustin hoped the ship arrived before the giants did. He didn't want to see what they did to murderers.
The ship landed right in front of them, and Dustin urged everyone inside. He jumped in last, as the shields flashed back up, and watched as a group of the giants rushed at them.
"Hold on!" he cried, as the door shut and the ship flew sideways.
People went flying in every direction, trying to grab ahold of anything they could. The ship flew the other way, then down, then back up, and Dustin wondered who was in charge of flying. Making his way to the bridge, just as the ship settled itself and flew normally, he saw that Granny was controlling the ship alone.
"This would be easier if that lazy father of yours were in here helping," she grumbled.
Dustin sighed and threw himself into his seat.
"We got everyone, so as soon as we're in orbit we can send them on their way and head to the last planet. I'm tired of all of this. I think when we're finally done, I'm going to take a nap!"
Granny chuckled as Olivia made her way to her seat. "But you don't need to sleep," Olivia said.
"So? After all this crap? I think I deserve a rest."
"Oh, let him dream. We both know that as soon as we're done with the last planet, he's going to come up with something else he wants to do."
Olivia nodded in agreement and they were soon in space, looking down at the strange planet below them.
"Let's just fly these guys back, instead of using nanobots, and check up on Kit," suggested Olivia before Dustin could command the nanobots to do anything.
He thought about it for a moment, then decided there wasn't any reason not to. There wasn't really enough materials to make extra nanobots anyway.
"So, we overthrew the ship and escaped," finished one of the men that they had just saved as he stepped onto the bridge with Kitteral.
"Wow, sounds like you guys had that all figured out," he said, sitting in his seat.
"Well, everything except crash landing on that planet. We really hadn't planned for that."
"I don't imagine anyone plans for a crash landing," said Granny, not looking at him as she typed something into her console. Dustin thought she might be playing some word game, but he wasn't sure.
"We'll be home in just a few minutes," said Olivia, as they left warp and the planet appeared before them.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
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Sorry, I've been sick, but here's the chapter, and I have a chapter for tomorrow, so no worries there.
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