The Neran Story

[Seqan]

I've decided to go into more detail about the events on Neran leading up to our exodus into Sirius. Enjoy!

809 A.S.

I drew out my sword and turned to face my opponent. He stood there with his lance in hand, ready to fight. A psychic, I could feel him digging around in my mind. I did my best to block him, but he was one of the best. I knew that the only way to win was to be better than him, which was not the case, or to not know what the hell I was doing myself.

He struck with a quick lunge for my lower heart. I jumped straight into the air and landed behind him, drawing upon the power I had saved for this duel. He saw it coming. The lightning I had summoned struck millimeters from where Denjin's left foot had been seconds before. A telekinetically empowered punch found its way past my sword and sent me flying backwards. Landing on my back was not part of the plan. Time for a new one.

I jumped back onto my feet, and whirled to face him. He lunged with his lance, I sidestepped, and brought my hand-and-a-half sword down the middle of the lance. He discarded the shaft faster than I could see and pulled the broken point to himself. "Cheap," I said.

He grinned. "What you talking about?"

I sensed it coming a half a second soon enough, and ducked. The shaft he had discarded came flying straight through the air at the same level where my head had been a half second before. Denjin, unprepared for me to read his mind, took the shaft to the face.

I knew I had about a second and a half before he recovered, so I reacted. I charged him, disarmed him, then took his legs out from underneath him. The duel was over, and I put the tip of my weapon at his throat.

A series of claps came from the small crowd surrounding us. Knorlan and Dracnor detached themselves from the crowd and walked over to me and Denjin.

"Very impressive, both of you," Knorlan said. "However, I would like to know how Seqan saw that log coming his way."

I helped Denjin to his feet then stood up straight. "I felt the kinetic energy of the stick and just ducked," I told him.

Dracnor smiled. There were very few Nerainians who could do something like that. Most people with his power could only manipulate the energy they were in direct contact with. "That's impressive, Seqan. I'll have to help you develop that ability of yo-"

Knorlan suddenly dropped into a kneeling position, with both his hands at his temples. Denjin yelled and his hands flew to his head as well. "PAIN!" he shouted, broadcasting pain into everyone's minds who were nearby.

"What is it?" Dracnor demanded, holding his own hand to his head.

**********

NERAN ORBIT

Space. The place where Murphy plays.

This was brought to a shocking reality as the space above Neran began to bend and fold on itself. It continued to fold, and fold, then it began to tear. A scream echoed from the tear. Not one any creature could actually hear, but it was a telepathic scream. It was the scream of the Slomon K'Hara.

***...Mindshare 'gone' help...***

***...PAIN...***

***...Human 'pests'...***

The Slomon K'Hara, or Nomads, were in complete disarray. The activation of the hypergate had completely destroyed or disabled most of their ships and had broken the Mindshare. The Mindshare was the Nomad hierarchy. Without it, the Nomads were lost.

So they screamed. Searching for some semblance of thought. Something that could lead. The only thing that was keeping the Nomads from killing each other was the Guardian that was with them. This mighty creature did all it could to keep its, until recently, underlings in check, and it was working very hard with its Purifiers to regain the connection of the Mindshare. But until it succeeded, they screamed.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Seqan]

NERAN ORBIT

***...SILENCE...*** the Nomad Guardian demanded.

Immediately, there was silence. The Nomads screamed no more.

***...status...***

All Nomad ships reported that they were damaged, disabled, or dead, and that they were caught in a massive gravity well.

***...prepare...***

***********

THE VILLAGE OF RARK

Denjin and Knorlan staggered into the village, still stunned by the wave of telepathy that had washed over Neran. There were also several other psychics in the village who had received the same thing.

Dracnor, the leader of our village, marched straight for the town square without talking to anyone. I, as his apprentice, followed. So did Knorlan.

The people began to flock to the square, following Dracnor.

Dracnor raised his hand when he got to the village center. Silence fell immediately. Then he motioned for Knorlan to speak.

"Something has happened. I'm sure you all heard the scream. I'm sorry about that, all of us are. We could not keep it from reverberating," he began.

The village mumbled assent. Whenever the psychics were hit with a powerful thought, it often was rebroadcasted to everyone in the vicinity.

"All we know is that the scream came from the sky. The King has already ordered an investigation. The Council has assembled a team to find out what is happening. As we speak, they are..." he trailed off. Both his eyes and Knorlan's unfocused, then refocused a couple seconds later. "We know what that scream was."

Silence continued.

"Something has appeared over our planet. Creatures of some kind that can travel through space. King Nervan wants one of these creatures down here. Our psychics have already determined that they are hostile."

"How do we know?" someone in the crowd asked.

"Because their sole purpose for existing is to keep the universe 'clean' or some such nonsense. We have been looking to get into space for quite some time, and now it would seem we have a way. The Generals will work with their apprentices to get one of these smaller creatures down. They can't stay in orbit for long with Neran's gravity well." With that, Knorlan turned and marched off. Dracnor followed, and so did Denjin and I.

TO BE CONTINUED....

[Seqan]

Nerainian Plains

The plains. The place of the old wars, now a place where aspiring apprentices came to practice their power. I had come here many times with Denjin. The scars of our duels scattered the land. I recognized one where Denjin had beat me because an experiment of mine had failed. I had tried to make a charge of solid light energy, and it had exploded in my face. The memory brought a smile to my face. Denjin must have been reading my mind because a broad smirk was on his face.

All the villages on Neran were situated with the plains in the center. There were 12 villages with roughly 4200 Nerainians. If there were more of our kind on our planet, we knew not where they were.

In the distance, I could see the Generals of the other villages coming to meet us. Five minutes later, we were there. All the Generals had grim expressions while their apprentices had carefully guarded expressions. The King himself was there, too.

"Knorlan, what do we know?" King Nervan asked.

"No more than we did earlier, except that there doesn't seem to be more than one of them in terms of a mind. There are several lifeforms, however."

"Creatures who can travel through space..." General Vemar said quietly. "Fascinating."

Nervan thought for several minutes, his mind completely sealed. No surface thoughts strayed to the rest of us. "Can we bring one down here?" he asked.

"I meant to ask about that," I said.

The King looked at me, smiled, then said, "What is it, Seqan?"

"Why do we want to bring a hostile alien threat down to the surface? We know nothing about them."

"Actually, that's not so," Denjin said, speaking up. I was shocked. Denjin never spoke at these meetings. He looked at Knorlan, who nodded. "They call themselves the Slomon K'Hara. They have one purpose: destroy any sufficiently evolved race. They operate on something called a mindshare. One mind, controlled by a strong thought, something called a Marduk, and the rest follow the commands of the mindshare. I believe that if they discover we are here, we can expect orbital bombardment."

"Orbital what now?" Apprentice Belshin said.

"They have weapons, powerful weapons, that can fire massive amounts of energy from space," Knorlan said.

Dracnor scoffed, conjured up some lightning for effect, then said, "Let them try."

"Put it away, Drac," General Rendal said. "You and I both know if you don't know the energy, it'll fry you before you can figure out what to do with it."

This shut Dracnor up.

"This does not answer my question," King Nervan said. "Can we bring one down here?"

I thought. I could feel the psychics present doing the same thing. "Yes," I said after a minute's thought.

"How?"

"Simple! Well, not really. If Dracnor, myself, and other ones with our power could create or focus the current gravity well to pull a ship down. With the help of the psychics, we could focus that power and combine it with Moving and pull one straight down."

"Do it."

"What, now?" Dracnor said increduously.

"Now. I'll help all of you focus. Knorlan, you and the other psychics help them," King Nervan told us.

Denjin and I exchanged significant glances. Shit, I thought.

Denjin's face said "You idiot..." He was right, too. Nothing like this had ever been done before. I had wanted to practice it first. The King was very powerful, though. Maybe he could help us do it.

I felt Denjin poke me mentally. He wanted me to open my mind. I did, and his power flooded through me. We were one mind now. The touch extended to the rest of the psychics and Dracnor. King Nervan connected himself, and focused us. The psychics assembled in a circle around me and Dracnor. Let me lead, came a thought. I nodded assent.

I felt Dracnor begin to draw energy from the air. I did the same thing. Neran had massive amounts of surface radiation and the atmosphere was around 60 degrees Celsius at this time of day. Power was no problem.

Then Dracnor began to probe the earth, looking for the source of the gravity. He found it quickly. Before he would start, though, he had the psychics find the target. Clearly, I could see the space above us flooded with light, the mind of the Slomon K'Hara, and several different colored lights, individual creatures. Dracnor selected a medium sized one, and the psychics reached and began to pull. The pull was very small at that distance, even with 6 elite psychics pulling, but it was just the guidance Dracnor needed. He sent a massive pull coming from the earth straight through the psychic's pull. The creature lurched, but did not fall. I added my own power to the equation. The creature began to sink.

Here, Seqan! a thought came. Denjin's voice. I opened my eyes without altering the flow of energy. The earth had began to heave and crack. General Rendal and Apprentice Shathor went to work quickly, trying to seal the earth, but Dracnor and I were doing something unnatural and the earth did not like it.

Nothing to do, Dracnor thought. Not much longer...

"Hurry!" General Rendal shouted, falling into a newly formed chasm before flying upwards and sealing it. The entire plains were heaving now.

Then it happened, something on the creature buckled, and it began to fall. Very quickly.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Seqan]

As I came up with this story a few years ago and my ability to create, write, and adapt stories has increased dramatically, I am hereby declaring null and void this RP background. Until I create a new one, this may remain on the forums for the time being or it may be deleted at admin's leisure.

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