"Hunters Blade" -From within The Serpent

The Last of them

As he became aware of the darkness,  He tried to open his eyes. Rather than a blissful night's rest, he was abruptly only sure about one thing: The air had become air stale within his sleep chamber. 

Jonah gradually awoke from his sleep cycle. Coughing and gagging, he began to push on the door of the cylinder.  Struggling now, he found the keypad and frantically typed his id number.

The door hissed and cycled open. Spitting his limp body onto the floor. As his body shifted his legs braces for the hard metallic surface. It was At this moment; he could feel the decay in his muscles. He knew even before his feet touched the cold floor platting; he wasn't strong enough to stand on his own.

He was right. His body crumbled like a long length of rope. He noticed he had lost some weight, as the mechanical engineer uniform he wore was about 2 full sizes too big. He groaned as he felt his own body weight pinning himself to the ground. Opening his mouth, he tried to speak.

"That's A-atrophy." He stammered in a whisper.  He laid there for a few moments in the low lights. It became obvious if he wasn't able to get off the ground; he would die in the exact same spot. The idea of dying of starvation on the floor was quite unpleasant.

He gritted his teeth and struggled to move one limb at a time. He mentally tried to do the math of cellular decay versus the years needed in these cases. He mentally came to the conclusion he had been in suspended animation for roughly 100 years. 

His body, weakened by the length of his sleep in the chamber; angrily racked his muscles in pain and weakness. Finding himself now free of the sleep chamber he tried to find his way to a wall. He knew the ship well, it should have been nearby. 

Finding the wall was an objective he completed quickly. With a slight smile, He felt a section of what appeared to be a wall and sat next to it. The sweat had formed on his forehead and flowed into his eyes. He gasped for air as his body shook violently.

As he wobbled on shaky legs and knees he felt rapidly around the wall for a control panel. The rough wall yielded one smooth square-like surface. Pressing his palm into it, he lost his balance and fell to his side. The control panel chimed and gradually lights began to return to full brightness. As they did so, he began to realize how bad the situation was. 

His stasis pod had been moved into a smaller storage area. He was alone and appeared to have been forgotten about. A handful of small collar-like devices had fallen off of a neat stack of similar devices. They had collected dust, much like his stasis pod.

These collar-like devices were biological armor devices.  The device was designed to literally reprogram parts of the users genetic codes.  The designer had named the device "The Aegis Platform."  The name was evidently stolen from ancient history.  

The armor was like no other. No seams, no holes. Like a skin of a reptile or serpent, it completely engulfed its user. It also boasted healing and increased strength. Hesitant, he grabbed one and slipped it over his neck. The benefits outweighed the risks. He breathed heavily as he had never seen if these devices actually worked. 

These were only the prototypes. He remembered all the test subjects and the way they had died. Those that had survived wished they hadn't.  He blinked hard and hoped that they have fixed the issues with it.  He gently let it slip over his hands and admired its look. Mentally buying time and desire to commit to the process.

He placed it under his clothing and pressed it to his skin. As a few stressful seconds passed, he waited. he shook hard as the adrenalin passed over him. He would need a secord or two to try again. He breathed heavily as he laid on his back, trying to figure out the malfunction. That's when the locked door opened.

Framing a medium-sized man in armor, he gasped as he flailed helplessly on the ground. The eyes of the armored figure were only narrow slits in his iridescent armor. He had an emblem on his right shoulder and a crest over his left collar bone. It raised its weapon at him and spoke.

"Tay nac Par sac po-coo." He didn't understand. And again it asked in a digitally enhanced voice.
"Po-coo! Tay nac par sac!!" It powered its weapon. The high pitch hum drew Jonah's eyes to the assault rifle-like design. Trying to gain traction with his weakened body, he grabbed at the floor.

Seeing the armored man's finger hovering on the trigger, he started blurting, "I can't move! Atrophy! I can't! P-Please!" He pleaded. The helmet of the armed man emitted a bright blue light. It passed over his body and back up to his head.

"Fitna Damina- co poo." The man spoke at a normal tone.
Raising an eyebrow Jonah frowned;

"Why do I feel like you are insulting me still." He panted as adrenaline began to pass from his body.
"Because Co-Poo, I am.-" The man said in English.
"You don't speak Jäger obviously." He continued looking at the man on the floor.
Shaking his head from side to side Jonah responded. Continuing, the armored man looked him over again. Jager is spoken by nearly 99% of every Space fairing civilization races; Which made Jonah an odd find.

"That's fine- like I said before: who are you?" He slightly lowered the assault rifle.

"Jonah. Mechanical engineer first class." Nodding the other man only responded with "huh." Jonah wasn't sure what that meant either.

"You just woke up here?" Jonah nodded.
"You have no idea what I am?" Shaking his head Jonah remained quiet.
"Lucky you." The other man said. He lowered his weapon and reached for his helmet.

The helmet peeled back and revealed a man with a brush-cut styled hair. His eyes were very bright blue and his eyes smiled when he smiled. "I'm not your enemy. But OUR enemy is close." He smiled and reached towards Jonah.

Jonah tried to reach for the mans hand but he noticed; the mans hand moved towards the device around his neck. Frowning slightly, he became afraid. The device clicked into place and powered up.

Jonah arched his back as the device performed its task. He let out a loud scream and reached for help from the other man. Energy ripples down his body's frame. He stopped screaming as his body went limp.

The other man returned his helmet to his head. Looking back over his shoulder he turned and panned around with his weapon.

Slowly behind him, Jonah stood to his feet. Their armor was nearly exactly the same. The hunter however had a small half robe over his left shoulder. He also carried a sword tucked in behind his head. It was somehow key and part of his armor.

"The armor you have is the basic platform that many space fairing races use as their uniform." The hunter spoke without looking at Jonah. "You now can do a lot of things you couldn't before... like walking." He looked at Jonah and nodded.
"You look good... you look good for someone over a thousand years old." Jonah froze. "You have been adrift in this nebula for nearly a thousand years. You're the last of your civilization. In fact it's likely you are the last of the last."

Jonah was confused yet again. "The last of what??"

Turning the hunter smiled behind his helmet, "The last of the unaltered humans. Your genetic code is very rare." Looking back the man smiled and nodded in approval of his last sentence. "Yeah, you are one of the last of them."