Play Testers Wanted

Play Testers Wanted: Pt. 17

Update: I got some items confused between Marvel Princesses and Star Wars. I have corrected them in this chapter. Sorry for the confusion. Someone requested a list of characters to help keep things straight, so here they are. Thank you again for your patience and kind words they mean the world to me. LB

Booker-Katria Forgemaster Je'Daii Master

Kyanna-Syn'Kar-Mirialan Jedi guardian

Aoki- Kalla-To the Master Slayer-Twi'lek Gunslinger

HK-47: Assassin Droid

Whisper -- Darth Talon Clone

Left -- Claims to be an ancient Hyperborean Wizard

Rakata Primer [Part 2]

We set off with what little daylight we had left. As we raced across the surface of Lehon, the first of its two moons broke across the horizon. I had a sudden flashback to Tython and its twin moons. My HUD gave us a countdown to reaching the atoll where the Republic ship had landed, and the coordinates given from the Star Forge coincided.

"This is not a coincidence. Something wants us there." I muttered over our communication channel. The speeders slid a meter over the top of one of Lehon's many oceans. The engines created a curved wake, similar to a fighter jet skimming the ocean's surface back in the real world. The exhilaration overwhelmed me as moonlight painted the rising water, and we picked up speed and pushed the jetbikes to their limit. After I redlined the bike, I cursed at the fact that I had not yet found a way of hiding the effect it made on the landscape beneath it. My hunger combined with frustration made me cranky and irritable. "Fuck," I cursed as my thoughts threatened to split my attention between piloting the bike and trying to solve the problem with the disturbance the engine created. "Later," I told myself. I put my complete concentration upon riding and enjoying the moment.

I glanced at my HUD, and Traci placed a rotating icon in my field of vision to mark the other ship's location. If I estimated correctly, we would reach the Republic landing site in two hours. I called out the time using the Rakatan satellite. I found a spot for us to park the bikes and go in on foot. The only thing left to do was get there undetected and in one piece. I relaxed and relished the ride, let my mind slip into that near meditative mode, and savored the view. The silver-hued water gleamed beneath and around me. Moisture and light merged as the bike shot forward. I absorbed the moment and held onto it the best I could. I could feel the planet and tasted the spirit that was Lehon as I skimmed across its surface.

"This is amazing," Aoki cried out as her bike shot past mine. "Woohoo!"

"You did a hell of a job designing these guys," Kyanna called out.

"Yeah, she did," Aoki praised the handiwork that went into the speeder. "She placed the controls perfectly and even tweaked them better than I hoped. Watch this." She cried out as she banked away at full velocity, sending a crescent-shaped wave cascading off and launching massive ripples along the relatively still surface of the ocean. She cut it again, the bike leaning precariously to one side as she corrected her course and joined up with us again.

"Beast! She is a fucking beast!" Aoki roared. "Look how the moons light up the ocean. Thank you for letting me join you on this one."

"Same here," Kyanna added as we lined up and raced for the spot I had marked on their HUDs.

So much for meditating. I leaned forward and, for a bit, settled into the zone until we drew close to our landing site. HK-47, who had called in the shuttle remotely for his transportation, offered to guard the bikes as we shut them down and prepped for a stealthy entrance.

"Statement. It would be my honor to defend Master's prized mounts. Addendum, I will take great pleasure terminating anyone that even thinks about stealing them."

"I know I can count on you," I said, and his photoreceptors glowed a scintillating gold. "Alright, you guys full stealth mode. Follow my lead, and let us see what these guys are doing here."

I manifested Force cloak and slid into the shadows with little effort. The others followed, and we crossed the last hundred yards unseen, unheard, and unfelt. The ship stood away from the main staging area. There were six of my M Class droids hovering around the perimeter. However, they bore various camera lenses, lights, and audio pickups instead of having weapons mounted on them. They were shooting a holonet production.

"Ruatha, darling, your tits are practically spilling out of your armor." The Ithorian director was not pleased. "We want the 'big' reveal in the second act of this little melodrama. Be a dear and wear your striking scarlet number, please."

"Anything for you, Jha," the busty Togruta purred as she swapped out the 'power girl' looking chest piece for a sleek red Mandalorian cuirass. She winked at her costars, two muscular Zabrak. They were eight inches taller and wore obscenely revealing codpieces that made me think they were likely filming a porno instead of your typical adventure vid you saw all over the holonet.

"Murad... Shurad, how are my favorite boys doing? Well rested, I hope." Jha's voice practically oozed jealousy. But being the consummate professional, he continued without hesitation. "Good. We are right on top of the coordinates we received in orbit. Let us see what we can find, and after the haul, we celebrate and not before." He growled. "I will not have a repeat of the fiasco like Nar Shaddah. Do you understand?"

Aoki had her wrist inverted and was tapping into her personal data retrieval device. I saw her mouth the words Jha and Nar Shaddah. Her mouth fell open, and we leaned in to see the tiny display. The two Zabrak had the Togruta sandwiched between themselves with the red-skinned one laying atop a bar, the Togruta impaled on him, and the yellow-skinned alien with his thick fleshy spike buried deep in her ass. Kyanna whispered in my ear.

"Lucky gurl." She said in her best Bronx accent.

We know why they were here, but we still did not know how their ship arrived at Lehon. I gestured for them to stay and keep guard. I drew on Force lightning and sent a single bolt to the unoccupied middle of their camp, and using lightning teleportation, made a flashy entrance. Jha let out a shriek of surprise, and then without missing a beat, he pointed at me and said.

"Now that bitch knows how to make an entrance! Tell me you got that on film." He addressed the droids. "Good, we can use it later."

"Holy shit... it is her... it is Katria Forgemaster." The Togruta exclaimed. "You are not stealing my spot."

"I am here on my own business," I assured her. "Though after seeing what you did on the Smuggler's Moon, I'm not sure I could match your natural expressiveness."

"What did she mean by that?" Ruatha asked guardedly.

"She means," Shurad said.

"No one takes two cocks the way you do," Murad finished.

"Your facial expressions are top-notch," I added.

"If you aren't here to fuck why are you here?" Ruatha asked, her eyes narrowing.

"I managed to slice the security protocols of a Rakatan satellite in orbit." I lied.

"Whoa, she sliced a satellite. How cool is that?" Murad said, revealing a hint at the intelligence behind those sweet baby blues.

"What is a Rakatan?" Shurad asked, and it took everything I had not to pinch the bridge of my nose and groan.

"She means," Jha faltered and then screamed. "We are on Rakata Prime! We are on the same planet that Revan and Malak and Bane and Katria have made infamous. Oh, this is going to be epic! Don't you three ever read? Rakata Prime is in the star system with the Star Forge well had the Star Forge in it. Lehon is the homeworld of the Infinite Empire! Please let us join you, please!"

"I will have to ask my friends," I said, signaling the others to appear. It was like watching a Hollywood action flick come to life. Kyanna appeared in her full Jedi Battle master robes with the hood up and her stride long and graceful. Aoki's walk was sex personified as she sashayed into view with her Krayt Dragon Pearl handled blasters on display. Her smile was devastating and disarming at the same time. Whisper, the Darth Talon clone, strolled in with her double-bladed lightsaber across her shoulder and those bright orange eyes of hers alight and glinting in the moonlight. "They want us to join them. What do you say?"

"I think I speak for the others," Kyanna purred. "We will join you for the adventure and maybe even the after-party if we all survive." All our HUDs sang out as the combined event began.

"Deep Revelations. Ooh, I like the sounds of that." The Togruta giggled.

"We need to find the cave or entrance below us," I suggested. "What do you think, Jha?"

"Great idea," the hammer-headed alien replied as he gave the camera droids their orders. They flanked us, and I did my best to ignore them. I do not know if the ever-present droids were hovering so close or the lackadaisical newcomers to the group, but we failed to find the entrance. I ordered a break and the Ithorian declared he would edit out the dead air. I walked off, and when one of the cameras followed, I snapped and heard the creak as its armored casing bent slightly under my assault.

"Sorry, I am not used to failure," I said, narrating to my unseen audience. "Quit moving and give me a little space." I moved a few meters away and stopped. I calmed myself and found my center point. Once I removed the distraction, I was able to reach out to find the entrance. "Space, there is tons of space below us, tunnels, worming their way deep into the dark below Lehon. This way," I said and walked as I felt one of the tunnels rising upward. "It is close now... Uhh!" I stumbled backward and opened my eyes. I touched my nose and laughed for walking full tilt into the outcropping. It might have been a statue or shrine once, but the eons of weathering, time, and the elements had taken their toll. There was a hint of eyes, mouths, and limbs or fingers, or even tentacles.

"What the hell are you?" I asked as the droid continued to film me. I walked around the ten-meter-high sculpture, and it was a nightmare from any side. I walked closer and ran my fingers along its surface. It was surprisingly chilly, given the tropical nature of the planet. "I am open to suggestions. Unfortunately, I cannot find any mechanisms."

"Let me," Aoki called out as she raced for the statue. At the last moment, she leaped straight up, flipped her body to an inverted position with her arms out and down, fingers grasping. Aoki landed lightly in a handstand position. "Hey, there is a symbol up here. I will take a pic and send it to you. Maybe one of you knows what this is." She effortlessly shifted into a single-arm handstand. Aoki used her free hand and touched the side of her circlet. A soft whirring sound echoed from above as a targeting visor appeared and slid over her eyes. The corners of the yellow glass device flashed as it took a holo of the top of the statue. The statue reacted to the intense pulse of light. More symbols appeared over its entire surface and just as quickly faded from view. "Woohoo!" She cried out triumphantly as she backflipped off the top of the statue and landed lightly on her feet.

"Nicely done," I praised her. She displayed the holo, and we looked at it from different angles, but none of us had seen it's like nor the others that had briefly appeared.

"Well, what do you think?" I asked and gave Aoki the attention she deserved.

"Perhaps we try various types and intensities of light." She suggested. "Can we reprogram the droids to emit different wavelengths, and... oh hell, I don't know, that is your department."

"I agree," I told her. "Jha, darling, can I borrow your droids until I can recall my own?"

"Yes, it will make a great montage. Do it." He agreed excitedly. I kept one droid active while I worked on the others. I slaved them to a virtual keyboard, and after two hours of labor-intensive tinkering, I had working prototypes. The droids would orbit the statue, emitting pulses of light at different speeds and intensities. Because of potential seizure triggering effects, I had Traci monitor the progress and record the experiment while everyone stayed clear. Due to the potential danger, I created a secure hologram of my plan.

"Here is the statue," I began as everyone stood or sat nearby. "These spheres are the droids. They will approach the base of the statue, and when they are close enough, they will begin sending out pulses of light, each producing a different wavelength of illumination. The first one spits out light in our visual range, the second covering the infrared portion, the third the ultraviolet, and so on. My AI helper will be monitoring the experiment with a full spectrum device to see what, if anything, shows up. Any questions?"

"Why are you going through with this?" Shurad the Zabrak asked.

"Excellent question," I replied and explained to anyone that might not grasp the concept. "When Kalla-To the Master Slayer," I began by using Aoki's full name and title, "took those images it revealed our way into the underground. It is just another puzzle to solve."

"Kalla-To... you are that gunslinger I keep hearing about," Murad stated with a sly grin. "You have quite the reputation. Then you are Syn'Kar. You two are practically inseparable." He paused and looked at the hologram. "So, the droids spiral up and around the statue, and hopefully, we can see those designs. Can we decipher them?"

"I do not know." I was honest. "We won't know until we see them. Worst case, we blast the shit out of it and get in that way. That is the last resort, though, and most locks tend to do unexpected things when you force them," I stated, as the first real-time images began streaming. I used the keyboard to tweak the angle and speed of the droids. Traci crunched the numbers and focused on the areas where the runic images began to form. Despite my best efforts, the symbols were incomplete. I tried changing the order of the droids with little effect. "Shit, we are missing something. I have the full electromagnetic spectrum represented, and still, there are gaps."

"Sounds complex," the Togruta muttered.

"It is," I replied and stared at the statue, and as the ideas flowed, my fingers danced across the keyboard. "Let's see if I just stop the droids and bombard the thing with a full spectrum blast." I parked the droids, angled their lights, and set them to project a continuous illumination. "Unless there are supposed to look like that, we are screwed."

"Pity we aren't doing rubbings," Ruatha muttered, her lekku showing her annoyance. "I collect rubbings from ruins and tombstones as a hobby. When I get an incomplete one, I um never mind, I am just stupid."

"You are not stupid," Murad chastised her.

"No, you aren't," I urged her to continue.

"Alright, fine, I scan my rubbings to save for later so I can post them and talk about the designs. Well, anyway, when I am rubbing, and there are gaps like here, if it were me, I would invert it and look for where the parts connect. The gaps aren't that big. You are missing just a little, and" I cried out what a genius Ruatha was and attacked it using her strategy. "Did I do something good?" The twins hugged her, and I saw the other side of their relationship. It was not just sexual, and I found that heartwarming. On the other hand, I would have been tapping that for all it was worth after I solved the puzzle, but that is just me.

"I am a bad person," I chuckled as I isolated the outlines of the symbols to make it easier for Traci to do her thing. There was a uniformity to the dimensions of the characters, at least. I set the parameters for Traci and hit the enter key. "Let's see what happens."

"Why are you a bad person?" Ruatha asked, sitting close. "I know that look. It is okay. It happens all the time."

"I... eh... here I am stammering when called out on my baser instincts," I admitted as the first potential symbols appeared. "Interesting."

"Stop hold on!" Ruatha cried out, and Traci halted. She attacked the holographic display and pointed out that some of the images had edges or exteriors that were incomplete. The other's interiors were reversed and missing. Ruatha went at it with a confidence that I hate to admit surprised me. She came off as flighty and a bit dim. The truth was more complex. The Togruta fell silent as she focused on the task at hand. Her hands moved slowly at first, and then as she made more and more connections, she soon had over a hundred potential candidates for possible characters. She slowed as she ran out of patterns to form. "Sorry. I cannot find anymore."

"Sorry? For what?" I chuckled. "Traci, see if there are any dupes in there or see if she missed any?"

"Following her parameters, which were amazing, by the way, let's see." The AI mused. Each symbol flashed as she examined it, and she placed them in groups. Each of the characters received a numeric value as well. "Light, both in and out of the visible spectrum, seems a critical element to their language. It is more efficient than vocal by far. But, while I can isolate and categorize them, I have no idea what they mean."

"One thing at a time," I said, equally clueless. Pity I had to destroy DP-69 earlier. She might have been able to use her language protocols to translate this. I looked at each symbol and tried to see anything that triggered a memory and failed miserably. I will give the devs this. They outdid themselves this time. There was a pattern, and I wondered if they hired a linguistics expert to create a whole new language.

"They look so much alike," Kyanna noticed, and I displayed all of them in a floating square. "Yeah, you are right." My hands moved, and I began trying to sort them. "There is almost a sequence here. Traci?"

"Scanning. There is a definite series of patterns, a circular one see." She said, and the symbols formed a ring now. "It is possible that the code requires one of them to be transmitted first and then the rest of the sequence after that. Or it could be that we need to send a single pulse containing all the symbols. The first means we need to pick one to send first, and the question is which one."

"We'll have to pick one to send first. The creators put way too much effort into this," I stated and waited for the others to make their suggestions.

"I agree," Aoki said after a moment of deep thought. "Is there a zero value? I mean, if they are logical, wouldn't they begin with that?"

"Brilliant," Ruatha exclaimed. "I was thinking along those lines." I looked at Traci's hologram, and she winked. The symbols fluttered as she analyzed them.

"There are two that stand out," Traci stated, and they were opposite the other along the ring. "This one," she expanded the top symbol. "Contains all the spectra, and the other has elements that show the transition from one portion of the spectrum to the next. I think the second is closest to the concept of zero as any."

"Good," I said, and then I realized we had another problem. "Which direction do we go? Display symbols via complexity." The circle rearranged itself, and to my surprise, the symbol for zero was now next to its former opposite. "Okay, let's try something else."

"Can the symbols connect in some way?" One of the Zabrak asked from behind me.

"Ooh, good idea," I exclaimed and asked Traci to examine the edges of the symbols to see if there were any similarities. A new shape formed out of the characters, and the statue rumbled to life. Then, the undulating form began transmitting on its own. "Booyah! We did it. Great job, everyone."

The once weathered and barely recognizable lump of rock transformed and regained all its former glory. Were these the people that awaited us below? Hell, were they even still alive? In form, they were an aquatic race with a blend of jellyfish, octopus, and other less savory elements that worked on an unconscious level. My mind tried to compare them to the Elder Things but failed. This species was a whole new level of alien and disturbing. I gave the devs an A+ when it came to originality. The stone became fluid, and the statue swam off, revealing the tunnels' entrance and caverns below.