Transmissions || Dustin Bates

Point Of No Return

Day three of no team, I was in the compound alone. Brock was out with his girlfriend, so I had nothing to do. I was just lifting weights in the gym when I heard footsteps.

"Hello?" I called, setting the weighted metal down. I received no response. "Brock?" I started walking over, going slow. I could feel my heart rate accelerating, pounding loudly in my ears. As I went to round the corner, someone beat me to it. I yelled, falling backward onto my ass.

"Doctor Bates! Didn't mean to startle you! I was simply looking for Captain Diaz. Do you know where she is?" It was Senator Jefferson. I raised an eyebrow, standing up.

"What do you mean? You sent them off-world..." I pointed out, crossing my arms.

"I did no such thing. The Senate did not send them off-world, or even on a mission for that matter. Shaylee Diaz is to report to us on a bi-monthly basis. Yesterday, she was to report to us. She did not come to us. That is in violation. Where is Cadet DeChant? He is next in line if she forgoes these meetings."

"Not here. Cadet Richards and I are the only two on Alexi, and even then, he's out on personal business." Senator Jefferson growled.

"Then you are the next in line. They all forfeited your life in place their own. " He pressed his finger to his ear. "They're gone. Doctor Bates is the last one. I shall bring him in." His words started to sink in. They forfeited my life for theirs. They left me to die. I was too stunned to stop him from grabbing my arm, pulling me out of the building and into the car with him that waited out front. I was cuffed as soon as I was sat in the caravan.

My spirit was completely broken in two. I had no will to fight against them as they strapped me to a metal table in the bottom of the Senate Base in Columbus. I didn't even know this level of the base existed.

"So, Dr. Bates, what do you think we are here for today? Come on, tell me what you know." The Senator stood over me, close to my face, staring at me with those beady little eyes.

"I don't know. I don't care. They left me behind. Outside looking in," I sighed, closing my eyes.

"Tell me about Shaylee. I could hear your pulse increase when you were around her. You felt something around her. Was it fear?"

"Me? Fearing Shay? What reason do I have to fear her? I felt the opposite about her." He chuckled at my response, moving away from me.

"That is very amusing, Dr. Bates. You loved her. You loved our Carnivore." My eyes flew open as my brain started working. Their Carnivore. They. The F.E.C. Fuck. The Senate was the F.E.C.

The monsters who created Carnivores, ripped information from Engineers, ruined planets, and held an iron fist over sections of the galaxy was the ruling body over my home planet. I had grown up under the rule of the F.E.C, fearing the tales I heard, but trusting in the Senate that they had our people's best interest in mind. They were all so cynical and cold, we assumed it was good to have unbiased leadership, however, now I saw the truth.

They were in for their own personal agenda's. Protect the planet from war- kill all the enemies. This is war, yes. War against who? It was ourselves. Our own race on our own planet. We had been lied to by authority for the existence of our planet. Evil at the core of our planet, thriving by way of the technologies created by our Engineers, enforced by our Astro-fighters.

Shaylee and the guys. They had to have known. Shaylee was a Carnivore herself, they created her. She had to know. They knew and they left me here at their mercy. I thought that I had found family in them. I thought that I had found trust in them. I thought that after they gave me Thomson's notebooks that I was one of them. I wasn't apart of that team. I wasn't family to them. I was just a replacement.