Chapter 2
Kopaka and his group weren’t the only ones heading toward the Star. To the east, a very different group marched through the forest toward the crash site. Unlike Kopaka’s crew, however, none of them knew what they might find there.
Well, one of them had an idea. The Great Being known as Fierah clearly knew more than she let on, but she wasn’t the most willing to share what she knew, much to the annoyance of the rest.
Behind her trod three Toa – Chiara, Orde, and Zaria, who had initially been tasked with finding the Great Beings – and two Glatorian, Strakk and Gelu, who had gotten involved even though neither of them wanted to be. In Strakk’s arms, he held the limp body of a Toa of Air, the whole reason they were going to the Star in the first place. None of the group had spoken since they set out toward the Star – save for Strakk complaining about having to carry the dead body.
The Star was so big, it completely blocked out the sun, which was approaching the horizon somewhere to the west. Gelu had brought one of the torches from Fierah’s hideout, allowing the crew to see. Behind him, Zaria was using his elemental power to craft new weapons for the crew, since all of them but Strakk had had their weapons stolen by the Vorox earlier. He couldn’t match the colors perfectly, but he could get the basic shapes. He’d even crafted a new Ice Slicer for Gelu, though he was unable to match the properties of the Exsidian coating due to lacking familiarity with the alloy. It wasn’t a perfect replica, but it would suffice.
Orde, for his part, kept trying to probe Fierah’s mind. But the Great Being knew how to block him out, to his frustration. He also periodically scanned the area for any minds nearby, to make sure the group wasn’t about to be ambushed. With Zaria using his powers to forge weapons, the group would be able to tell if their powers were shut off again.
Suddenly, there was a cry from Strakk. The group turned to see him looking down at his hands – his empty hands, no sign of the body he’d been carrying.
“What happened?” Chiara cried.
Strakk raised his hands defensively. “Don’t look at me!” he said. “The guy was there one moment, gone the next!”
“That’s–” Fierah started to say, but then stopped.
Orde glared at her. “That’s what?”
“I was going to say that’s impossible,” she said. “That sounds like the Star took him. But we aren’t inside either of the Robots, so it shouldn’t have been able to detect his death.” She frowned. “Unless… if the Star’s systems were rebooted somehow after the Robot’s fall, and it was scanning the surface instead…”
“Okay, back up a bit,” Orde said. “I’m tired of vague and confusing. Tell it to us straight, Fierah: what is this Star, and where is Lesovikk?”
“You mean… you don’t know about the Star’s revival functionality?” Fierah said.
“Enlighten us,” Orde said.
“The Star was supposed to act as a back-up if anyone died in the Mata Nui robot,” Fierah said. “Special scanners placed throughout the Robot would pick up the moment of their death, and then their body would be brought to the Star where they could be repaired, or if necessary, a new body created,” Fierah said.
“Well, that clearly didn’t happen,” Zaria said. “I’ve seen many people die. Never heard of a single one coming back.”
“Wait,” Gelu said. “If I’m understanding this correctly, you have to die inside the Robot to be brought back. Correct?”
Fierah nodded. “As I said, special scanners would detect the moment of your death, and a scan would be made so that a revival was possible.”
“So let me get this straight,” Orde said. “Even if we brought Lesovikk’s body to the Star, we wouldn’t have been able to bring him back?”
“Well, there was always a chance,” Fierah said. “If the damage from the venom wasn’t too extensive, we might be able to retrieve his mind and forcibly transplant it to another body.”
“But now we don’t even have his body,” Strakk pointed out.
“If it’s been taken to the Star, then that means it somehow scanned him before death – maybe bouncing a signal through some of the tech in my bunker, seeing as he died right outside of it. That means all we need to do is get to the Star and make sure the revival goes smoothly.”
“And who’s to say that the revival tech works?” Chiara pointed out. “None of us have seen someone come back from the Star, so clearly something went wrong with it.”
“I have,” Orde said. The rest of the group turned to him. “Since I never heard of anything like it again, I thought it was just a legend… a team of Toa who were slain in battle, but came back to conquer their foes. But that was over 80,000 years ago…”
“Okay, so we know it might have worked at some point,” Chiara said. “That still doesn’t help us now.”
“If the death scanners are still working, then there’s only two other things that could be broken,” Fierah said. “One, the revival tech isn’t working. Two, the send-back function isn’t working. If it’s option two, that would leave all the revived people stuck on the Star.”
“Yikes,” Gelu said.
“So, it’s quite possible that we’re heading to a Star full of revived dead people who have been stuck on there for up to 80,000 years?” Strakk said.
“That’s a distinct possibility,” Fierah said.
“Oh, wonderful,” Strakk said. “Remind me, how much were you planning on paying me?”