Space Shift Stories: McGuffin 46

Doing It For A Documentary

Sima Gaia, is a planet just like Earth, but unlike Earth this planet is older than it. They have about 10 continents yet they have no cultural division, basically the same language and everything. The weather here is the same throughout the planet. Also technology-wise this planet has a deep history with technology, that's why scavenging here is a pain.

Luckily my partner was employed by a hot journalist that just had the right amount of papers for us to be allowed to search this planet for a good treasure. Under one condition, we do the entire process in film. And that part of the deal made me and my partner, including the reporter lady to wear body cams and be followed by a drone every time. Although it sucked but hey what is a little invasion of privacy to a loot?

Anyways long story short we got permits, we get to scavenge. And that's why I am deep in the Planet's forest. There is a path in the entire forest, it helps me navigate through the thick shrubbery. As I came closer to the heart of the forest I saw ruins, they were a mixture of trees and stones. I looked for the entrance, I moved around the ruins, I saw one at the back. It was a door that was already destroyed by time. The drone hovered to it and looked at me.

"I guess I'm contractually obliged to narrate what I'm doing am I?" I said directly looking at the camera. The drone hovered idly by. "Alright, I'll give you some grade A narration. See that door over there?"

I pointed, the drone followed to where I point. "That is what we heard to be an ancient worship temple by the inhabitants here billions of years ago. It was reported that they have something that is called a codex, the details are a bit sketchy but basically it said to be the bases for modern birthing and cloning chambers."

I peeked inside and due to the place being a ruins, the place is well lit. I inspected a little while and saw a sort of a pedestal, there was something resembling a stone tablet on the pedestal.

"Right, now see that pedestal over there? They said that it was… Or according to old text, that is where they house the map to where you can find the codex." The drone zooms in the pedestal. "Basically getting that is the green light to our little adventure"

Alright I haven't said this to the drone but most amateur scavengers would just walk in blindly, but not me. I took out a light orb out of my pocket. I rolled it inside the door, it rolled freely until it hit the foot of the pedestal. I waited for awhile. Just a little more. Boom, stone spikes protruded at the ground hitting the pedestal at about 45 degrees. My mind imagined what I looked like impaled by those spikes. I shivered in disgust. The drone capture my expression.

"Almost forgot, they rigged the thing with traps to prevent it falling into the wrong hands… but hey if you came here with a partner and they decided to go first. Well you can pry off their corpse…" I laughed a little, it was a bad joke but I expect that the reporter will paint in a subjectively good manner. I walked closer to the pedestal, the drone followed. There before me is a stone tablet, it had a few cracks but overall it's intact. I picked up the tablet and brushed off the dust, I grinned.

"Now that we have this slab of stone, our real adventure commence" the drone looked at me then into the tablet. I walked out of the ruins holding the tablet, feeling happy about myself. Then as if my luck would have it, I heard the sounds of gun cocking and charging up.

"Human, it'll be nice if you could hand that tablet over" A 3 foot tall alien holding a beam gun said. I don't know the specifics of his species but he was well built, leathery skin. His head resembled ET but with four eyes. He had two main arms and two little arms.

He was wearing a leather uniform, on his left arm there was a 3 stripe patch. This guy is high ranking, I looked around and saw about ten more like him. They were wearing a little more ruffled clothes and without stripes. I peeked behind and saw that the drone hid in a corner.

"Come on boy, hand me over the tablet" He pointed the gun at me with aggression.

"Is 'please' not a thing in your planet or it's just you?" I replied sharply while counting the number of enemies. There's about ten, my clip charge is only seven, multiplied by two is fourteen. Basically I can only miss four times.

The alien shot near my foot. He growled lightly, I grinned. "I consider this as self defense" I said as I looked at the cowering drone and back at the aliens.

Before they can react, bang. A charged shot flew hitting the alien that stood behind the leader, my shot trigger an exchange fire. I shot back mostly grazing them. Damn they're fast. I keep firing and so do they. I fired and luckily hit two more, unfortunately it was my second clip and I have three charge left. I think I might have miscalculated because out of ten I only killed three, missing the other seven.

My cover was almost destroyed. It's only a matter of time before they overwhelm me. My mind raced in ways not to defeat them, but escape. As dust flew everywhere I was forced to duck down and look away from my assailants, I was running out of options. I don't want to die here and the cause of death is ambushed by three foot tall aliens.

My mind raced, and so did my heart. But as if on some miracle, I saw my light orb still intact. The next thing I did was to look for the drone, it was about a meter besides me.

"I know what you're thinking are we going to die? Probably. But don't worry, this scenarios are common place to space scavengers… In fact watch this" I told the drone. I aimed my gun and shot at the light orb.

The thing about light orbs is that they serve two purpose; one, to be used as an illumination device and two, be shot and become an emergency flash grenade. As my charge hit the light orb, I closed my eyes and grabbed the drone whilst making a break for dear life. My enemies were both blinded and stunned by what I did that they forgot about me.

I continued making a brake for dear life. I tapped my ear "Strife! Prepare the ship". There was no response. I kept running until the tree next to me got shot, it stopped me on my tracks. My eyes widen to see the aliens. I ran faster than before. "Strife, I need the ship on my location dammit!" I shout but there was no response. I tapped my holo watch to give me a map to where the ship was parked, it gave me the fastest route which I took.

After a few minutes of running I was near to where my holowatch showed the ship at. I continued running never looking at the road, which you should always check. Because I inadvertently fell off a cliff. I was scared for a moment until I hit the ship's sunroof.

My partner Strife, along with the reporter was chilling drinking tea. They were startled to see me.

"What the hell guys?!" I shouted.