Project Prometheus Ch. 77 - Teaser (Patreon)

The ground outside the Darkstrider’s loading ramp was quiet, the air heavy with the metallic tang of Avyke’s twilight winds. Shazza sat alone on the edge of a cargo crate, her silhouette framed by the dying light. The horizon was painted in molten gold and violet, but she didn’t see it, as her gaze was turned inward. Her hands were clasped so tightly that the leather of her gloves creaked.

Images from the ruins still haunted her mind; the broken stasis pods, the malformed Xuul’khani bodies, all of them twisted beyond recognition. The Aeldamari glyphs labeled each as a ‘Subject’. Even now, she could smell the sterilized air of the chamber, the burnt ozone of ancient equipment, and the lingering echo of horror. She had faced monsters before, all flesh and blood things that could be killed. But what she saw there… those were her people, once.

Footsteps broke her reverie—light, measured, and confident. Qadira’s voice followed, calm as ever, as she walked into Shazza’s field of view.

“Mind if I sit?”

Shazza didn’t answer right away. She just shifted slightly, leaving enough room on the crate beside her. Qadira took it as permission and sat down. The silence that followed was long and taut, filled only by the hum of the ship’s power core and the whisper of the wind sliding through the trees.

“You’ve been staring at nothing for an hour. That usually means something’s eating at you,” Qadira ventured, her tone quiet but probing.

“You could say that,” Shazza replied, her jaw tight as she paused, eyes fixed on the horizon. “I thought the Aeldamari were better than that.”

“Better than what?” Qadira asked, tilting her head. Shazza turned toward her then, eyes gleaming faintly in the dim light.

“Than that,” she said, spitting the word as she gestured in the general direction of the hidden ruins. “The things we saw in those pods… the experiments and the torture they endured. You said your people were the keepers of knowledge, that you built wonders, lifted worlds. But that… was barbarism dressed up as science.”

Qadira didn’t flinch, though her expression softened with something that might have been shame. She took a beat and breathed, centering herself as she came to grips with what she… no, her people, had been subtly accused of.

“You’re not wrong, and I wish I could tell you it was a lie. That those were forged records, or some darker race pretending to be us. But they weren’t,” Qadira replied as she clasped her hands in her lap. “The Aeldamari did many noble things… and many unforgivable ones.”

“They were your own people, once… your blood,” Shazza growled, her voice low, but trembling with restrained fury. “The Xuul’khani didn’t come from some alien lab… they were your kin before they were ever enemies. How could anyone justify that?”