Hey there. I feel I need to explain some stuff real quick.
Shortly after I started posting this story, some stuff has been going on IRL that has been really draining, hence why the chapters have been more inconsistent. This Chapter in particular required a rewrite – nothing major, but enough that I just didn’t have the mental capability to get it ready to post until now.
So yeah, I really didn’t mean to leave it on such a mean cliffhanger for so long. I’m going to try and push myself to post the rest in the next couple of days, because there is still some big stuff left to get to.
Chapter 9
Kopaka stared down at Pohatu, lying crooked in the remains of one of the machines. If the metal rods sticking through his torso didn’t make it clear enough, the darkened heartlight sealed the deal – the Toa Nuva of Stone was dead.
Kopaka’s mind raced. Could the Star still save him, bring him back? Would he want that, after seeing what had happened to some of the other inhabitants?
Ivohku slammed his fist into the wall of the Red Star. He couldn’t help feeling responsible. Maybe if he’d been able to hold the six-armed monster, Pohatu wouldn’t have over-exerted his powers. Maybe if he’d been able to stop Delara, the Star wouldn’t have crashed. Maybe if he hadn’t led the Toa in a foolish revolution against the Kestora, none of this would have happened. Everything he’d done since he died had been a complete failure.
“This… this can’t be,” Takanuva said. “We can save him, right?” Kopaka didn’t respond.
“Well, we have to try!” Quilha’s voice cut in. “He wouldn’t give up on us. Come on, let’s at least get him out of there. Mavrah, Ruhko, help me here.”
The two other Matoran were staring shell-shocked at the sight of the dead Toa, but at Quilha’s demanding tone, they moved into action. Kopaka watched as the three Matoran managed to wrestle the Stone Toa free from the machinery, and lowered him to the floor.
“I guess we bring him to the revival rooms and… see what we can do?” Ruhko said.
“Quiet,” Hydraxon said. “Someone’s coming.”
The group fell into silence, listening. Indeed, footsteps were rapidly approaching, coming from the opposite direction the group had came – it wasn’t someone from Fierah’s group. Grimly, Kopaka prepared for another fight.
But the person who came around the corner was the last being he expected to see…
The minutes before the Star’s crash…
Sytem reboot. A mind that had been dormant for centuries came back online. The mind of the Star – but also the mind of the Fe-Matoran inside it.
Years ago, when the Star first broke, the Kestora had brought one of the recently deceased Nynrah ghosts to fix it. the Fe-Matoran Nynrah Ghost had figured out how to connect his mind to the “mind” of the Star, but before he could figure out what was wrong, the Kestora had become paranoid that he was trying to sabotage the Star. They’d shut him down, and after that they prevented anyone who wasn’t a Kestora from inspecting the machines that controlled the Star. Until Ruhko, ironically once one of the Fe-Matoran’s friends, rebooted the system in an effort to get it to work.
The Nynrah Ghost didn’t know about all that. For him, it felt like only moments ago that he’d been linked into the Star, when the one known as Makuta walked in and flipped the switch that shut him down. As soon as he awoke again, he was bombarded with information. Someone was messing with the send-back systems, trying to get them operational – that was nothing new.
Error signals started appearing, ringing in his “ears”. The scanners were trying to reconnect, but for some reason the Robot wasn’t responding. He boosted the signal – maybe the Robot was out of reach for some reason? He found a small signal from the surface of a nearby planet. Too small to be the Robot, but maybe – wait, through the signal, he picked up a group of Toa. If there were Toa there, maybe that meant the Robot was nearby? Moments after he picked up the Toa’s presence, he felt one of them die. Fortunately, he’d been just in time to get a scan; the Star would be able to bring him back.
Before he could do anything else, he “felt” the Star beginning to move. Someone had activated the engines manually, driving the Star down to the surface of the planet below. It was closer to the signal he’d detected, so maybe that would mean it was closer to the Robot? But then, suddenly, more alarms went off. Something had been wrecked, and now the Star had no engine controls.
No manual controls, anyway. Stuck in the computer, the Fe-Matoran worked frantically to shut off the engines… and succeeded! He felt a moment of triumph – before realizing the Star hadn’t stopped. It had been caught in the gravity of the planet, and was plunging towards the surface. Quickly, he tried to get the engines back on, but it was too late: there was a crash, and everything went dark…
No! Somehow, he held on to consciousness. Well, awareness, considering he was in the mind of a machine. He began scanning the damage. Lights – offline. Engines – offline. Scanners – offli-- online? It seemed to be flickering, like the machinery was dying but still clinging to a spark of life. An alert had been sent, but none of the Kestora seemed to be responding; probably stunned or killed by the crash.
Teleporters – operational. The Fe-Matoran forced them to skip the typical wait period and retrieve the Toa who’d died on-planet. The way things were going, the Star might not be operational much longer, and he wanted to save as many people as he could. There was some sort of safeguard that prevented the teleport from being immediate, but the wait period could be turned down. Half an hour. That would have to do
Send-back – still inoperational. Something had been jammed into the machines by the impact, a body. A quick check of the scanners told him it was a Toa of Stone, and that he was alive – but not for long. Then the scanner went offline, and this time it didn’t come back. Had it gotten enough to revive him? He had to hope… that it… was…
This time, when he went black, he didn’t awaken again.
The “mind” of the Red Star – offline.
When the Toa came around the corner, Kopaka thought for sure he must be losing it. Because the person running toward them looked exactly like the body behind him. “Pohatu?”
The Toa Nuva of Stone met his gaze. The look in his friend’s eyes sent chills through the Toa Nuva of Ice as he replied.
“What’s a Pohatu?”