The docking procedure goes by so fast, Fienak finds it surreal. The invasive and demeaning decontamination procedure they are put through takes longer than the tractor and docking procedures combined. Then the entire team is deposited onto a hovering platform, everyone naked except for the standard issue overalls they’re stuffed into.
“Well, this-”
“Shut it,” snaps Solan at the comment coming from the surprisingly short Sergeant Third Class Kee. “This is the CHCS Purgatory. Not a word.”
No one even dares to breathe loudly as the platform takes them into the bowels of the massive vessel. They fly through what seems to be a central transportation channel, smoothly dodging other transportation platforms carrying personnel and materials. Shuttles fly past them here and there, the ship big enough to let other ships fly inside it.
Their trip is fast and short, and within half an hour, they touch down at a central plaza. A green line lights up on the floor, and the entire group follows after a short moment of looking at each other. A neatly clad sapient is waiting for them at the door they are led to. It explains that all the Ancheevi personnel will be debriefed before they are to be returned to their employer. Sighs of relief sound all around before all six mercenaries are escorted to another door. Solan looks at Fienak briefly before motioning for her to follow, and they step through the door.
A short hallway brings them into a command centre, the likes of which she has never seen. Reminiscent of a massive hall of hearing, with thousands of people arrayed in concentric rings. In the middle hangs a platform that houses a small cadre of sapients tapping away of screens. In their midst is the biggest man Fienak has ever seen, his charisma palpable from all the way where she is standing. Marching behind Solan, she tries not to gape at her surroundings as they step onto yet another platform. This one isn’t as blazingly fast, and they approach the massive man at a sedate pace.
“Solan! You really look different. You finally succumbing to the rigors of old age?”
“No, Grandmaster. Not precisely.”
“No matter, it's good you are alive still.”
“The rumors of my death are-”
“-greatly exaggerated, indeed!” More booming laughter follows as the muscled, bearded man slaps Solan’s fat shoulder. “And this one?”
“Eflec, no one,” Solan dismisses while rubbing his shoulder.
“No one, indeed. Want to regale me?”
“No. I want you to kill Douglas.”
“What?” Even as baffled as the large man looks to be, Fienak still finds him attractive on too many levels.
“I don’t know if he is a plant, a precursor to invasion, or what. I just know that he wields…” looking around, Solan is the picture perfect example of someone not good at keeping a secret. “…he wields it.”
“It, hmm?”
“He’s a non-tech skeleton,” Solan states flatly. With that single comment, he seems to have captured the Grandmaster’s attention. What follows is a discussion that Fienak can barely keep up with. All she really understands is that a bad thing is happening, something that they’re on the lookout for, and that Douglas is its nexus. Grandmaster apparently came himself because he felt that something was wrong with this system. He seems to imply that there’s more than one reason, but he doesn't expound enough for Fienak to grasp why. She is honestly totally unsure why she is even here and gets the feeling that she is constantly hearing stuff that she has no business knowing about.
“When were you going to tell me that you’re a source, though?” Then the tone shifts as the Grandmaster looks down on Solan, slowly rubbing his beard with a perfectly neutral expression on his charismatic face.
Solan freezes. “This is not it.”
“No? Then the waves of power rolling from your frame aren’t what I suspect? Even that lass over there is saturated with the stuff. Only that net on her skull prevents her from becoming yet another source, you know.”
Fienak can't help but touch the cold and clammy warp-net still clamped across her skull. The large man smirks as her briefly, and Fienak feels like she can die happily as she receives his attention.
“I AM NOT IT! My life cannot be digitized by OUTSIDE MEANS!” Fienak takes a step back. The madness Solan has been displaying all this time comes rolling to the surface again. “I AM NOT A SOURCE! I AM NOT THE ENEMY” he screams, once again clawing deep trenches in his face.
“He is warp-mad, sir. He is not Solan,” Fienak speaks up, the amount of courage needed for those few words immediately making it the bravest thing she has ever done. Luckily for her, the slave-soldier persona did the actual thing. She is completely sure that she herself doesn’t have anywhere near the amount of control and mental fortitude to keep standing still in this situation. Her half broken slave soldier self knows very well that the Grandmaster is of a higher rank than Solan, though.
“And when were you planning on telling me that, Solan?”
“I AM NOT MAD! Katarenin chewed on my... You know. Scattered my very being to void, not even deeming my loose shards worth eating! THOSE BLUE SCREENS HAVE NO HOLD OVER ME!”
Fienak takes another step back. The tension has been rising for a couple of minutes now, and she fears that making any sudden moves will make everything explode. Then something does explode, and Fienak wonders why she doesn’t get a heart attack right then and there. Peeking at the main screen, she sees warning messages flash red.
“Massive vector, Master!”
“We’ve got a hardened unit, Master!”
“New type Histaff detected, Master!”
“Alert level seven, Master!”
All kinds of shouts come from the many people that were previously tapping away silently.
“Energy levels of several thousand, Master,” chimes in one latecomer. The Grandmaster levels his gaze at the sapient who shakily announced the energy levels. The attention of the entire room shifts from the large man’s frame to the sapient that just spoke up.
“Main.”
“Y-Yes, Master.”
The projection of Evengi Prime blows up, half of the large circular space suddenly occupied by a detailed recreation of the red planet. Bright red splotches - obviously indicating Histaff signatures - light up parts of the ochre patchwork. The view zooms in, bursting through the few shreds of clouds, rushing towards the planet’s surface. A faint blue glow is visible within one of the large concentrations of red, both shades covering a large dust cloud. Then a small sphere shoots out of the chaotically swirling clouds of brown dirt.
“And what might this be?” asks the Grandmaster. Fienak feels a brief flash of intense sorrow that she can’t answer his question.
“GalaxSec reading, sir!” reports one of the many people sitting at their stations.
“No, there’s nothing here except for a dropped base. They must be faking their IFF. Blast it.”
“We can’t, sir! Nothing wants to lock on, sir!” replies another.
The entire room falls silent for a while as the large crown of sapients watches the impossible. The elongated teardrop of dark metal leaves massive clouds of fire and dust in its wake as it rises. The blue glow covering the entire image slowly grows, painting the entire control room in an azure light as it drowns out all the red. Then the shaking object stills as it breaches the atmosphere. Fienak spots small messages running across the bottom of the screen. She reads a continuous stream of alerts claiming that it’s illegal to lock weapons onto GalaxSec property.
“And, Tertiary Marcel Circle!” comes Solan’s mad squeak. “ALL WEAPONS FIRE ON THAT SKELETON NOOOOOOOOW!”
“Solan, what are-”
Fienak realizes two things. Firstly, the fat man just used the same override code that had forced her to protect him. He had used those same words to force her to kill Haknu. Secondly, the rising circle had become big enough for her to spot a small metallic figure plastered across its front.
Then the silence grows thicker as not a single weapon fires. The string of warnings abo
ut firing upon GalaxSec assets being illegal goes by ten times as fast.
“Solan…”
“Oh, shut if you sanctimonious prick! You always told us to stay away from it, to fight The Enemy, but what is it that keeps you alive? How are you so powerful and long-lived? Might it be ma-”
The massive man then punches Solan in the face. Blood spurts from his nose at the same time as the slowly approaching GalaxSec base moves. One of the three lances of fire shooting from the base’s underside winks out, causing it to turn and bank hard. It then shoots off the screen within a second. The single thing that remains front and centre, hanging above the red surface of the planet, is a single metal clad skeleton. The blue glow coming from the small figure grows brighter slightly. A small stream of warning labels about a GalaxSec Constable being in the line of fire appears before that also winks out.
Every single weapon present on the entire purge fleet fires at Douglas. The screen dims to perfect blackness a split second before bright lances of pure energy, blazing gouts of warping flame, and disintegration rays hit the small figure. The sheer lack of sound that accompanies the sight only makes the one-sided struggle between the Grandmaster and Solan louder. Wet slaps and blubbering grunts make for a very unfitting soundtrack as an enormous amount of weapons fire is levelled at the small skeleton. Fienak glances at the large man holding Solan down briefly, and when she looks at the screen again, Douglas is gone.
Then a fireball springs into being above Solan's outstretched palm. Randomly flickering blue lines and runes form a rough circle around the impossible feat that Solan is performing. Squealing splutters come from his mouth, which Grandmaster is still holding close.
“No,” the large man orders, and the only thing that moves in the following moment is his large hand twisting Solan’s head. The fat neck holds on for a moment before it snaps with a loud crack. The fireball dissolves into water and mist.
“One mana user is more than enough. One traitor to The Enemy is all that is needed. I’m sorry, old friend.” The bearded man sighs deeply before kicking Solan’s body over the edge of his command platform. The fat body smacks onto the ground with a meaty thud. Grandmaster than takes another deep breath. Then power radiates from the charismatic man. “You will all forget everything!”
And her slave soldier is gone. The broken fragment of her psyche that she was hiding behind just vanishes from her mind. Her own natural self immediately panics. Fienak herself has no frame of reference, not a single experience truly her own that would even come close to being able to react to this situation. All the sapients then around her look equally stunned and paralyzed, though. Then she starts falling, her mind not willing to cope with a large portion of her psyche being torn away. Every single sapient on the bridge falls unconscious, and Fienak just thanks her lucky stars that she manages to drape herself over a nearby console. Speaking of stars, she hits her head, and pinpricks of lights are swimming in front of her heavy eyes.
“Bring in bridge crew three. Get this lot back to processing. And get the mercs back to Acheevi. No need to piss off another Slice now that Peezes is basically done for.”
“Yes, sir!” sounds a metallic voice.
Then, Fienak no longer sees stars, and she faints.
Chapter Twenty-Nine – Alternate Avenues
Douglas sees stars. Then those stars explode into light, and to his horror, his bones start melting.
[ Planar ingress point in critical danger ]
[ Please choose a relevant action: Cancel, Sideload, Offload ]
[ Cancel; N/A ]
[ Sideload; alternate ingress points not suitable ]
[ Offload; alternate ingress points not suitable ]
[ Threat of planar efficiency drop by 99%; searching for alternate action ]
[ Three minimally suitable individuals found. One low suitable individual found; out of range ]
[ Warning; Evot Gilihezal incapable of handling mental strain, cancelling ]
[ Warning; Shmee candidate’s Race UNKNOWN; cancelling ]
The small trickle of mana he had been saving as he was being kept plastered to the GalaxSec base due to its insane acceleration vanishes as he is bathed in light some more. Most of the metal plating is gone now, the runes only offering brief respite against the deluge of destructive power.
[ Critical planar ingress point extremely critical ]
[ Assessing viability ]
[ Planar DEITY of Death installed; semi-functional. N/A ]
[ Planar DEITY of Life not installed. N/A ]
[ Assessing additional options ]
Then his bones start crumbling and disappearing. The few seconds that it takes for all his carefully planned defences to be stripped clean are going rather slow and yet too fast.
[ Bonus stat points remaining; N/A ]
[ Potential class change; N/A ]
[ Potential Race change; N/A ]
[ Potential skill gain; exploring resistances ]
His skull is also starting to go, the mana crystal filling his empty head already disintegrated back into loose mana.
[ Resistance skill gain N/A ]
[ Assessing additional options ]
[ Racial Skill gain; 1 point left ]
[ Assessing Racial Skill potential ]
Douglas doesn’t notice, but his skull is spinning rapidly now. The sheer volume of superheated plasma and exotic radiation acts like a faucet, blasting him back and forth. His atlas bone vanishes, and his bone armor heats up rapidly. Then some energy threshold in the cee-steel plating is reached, and it just sloughs off his skull.
[ Scanning direct environment ]
[ Single item found; GalaxSec Constable Badge UNKNOWN UNKNOWN ]
[ Item contains UNKNOWN marker; rejected ]
[ Assessing additional options ]
Then Douglas gets introspective for a brief moment. Only a single thought passes through his head. He should have eaten more.
[ Critical planar ingress point termination imminent ]
[ UNKNOWN marker disqualifier disabled ]
[ Anchor Shift racial skill selected ]
[ Anchor Shift to GalaxSec Constable Badge UNKNOWN UNKNOWN ]
Then Douglas’s skull vanishes, and the massive collection of ships light-seconds away stops firing. The blue sheen in the void has grown thicker, but only imperceptibly so. The planet far below is now a roiling mess, the entire ecosystem ruined due to the massive amounts of energy dumped into the atmosphere and crust. The GalaxSec base's previous resting place is scoured clean, the ruins of the planetary capital city reduced to dust and loose atoms.
The GalaxSec base itself is long gone, the overpowered engines managing to brute force launch it into an uncontrolled orbit. Everyone on board had a scare as everything shook and rumbled, the integrated dampeners barely able to withstand the g-forces generated by the magically enhanced engines. Then a stillness pervades the base as something seems to snap. Every single person there then falls unconscious. The blue dots on their foreheads that previously glowed dimly shine brightly, before fading completely. The only three sapients not immediately knocked unconscious are Evot and the two Schmee’s. Evot does fall on her face, though. She is still in the reception room, and falls slumped over one of the people she was trying to help. She barely notices that her limbs slowly unfurl into loose sheets of paper as her consciousness barely holds on.
Below, in the core room, the two Shmees are rapidly moving through blue screens.
“This is bad.”
“Yes, this is not good,” replies Ungud. None of the previous levity or awkwardness that the two grey beings had displayed is present, their speech clipped and professional.
“We can’t support them?”
“It’s hard for something to understand itself or something of a similar complexity as itself.”
“So a lack of higher beings will do us in?”
“Crudely put, yes,” Ungud spits on the floor out of three mucus flaps simultaneous. His girlfriend looks at the po
ols of phlegm for a brief second before resuming their discussion.
“Douglas was the main ingress point, then. And him no longer channeling…”
“Yes,” replies Ungud, tapping the slowly dimming crystal at their feet. “This is how long we have left. We don't yet make enough mana to maintain ourselves. Still too much to understand, optimize, and fix.”
“Well, darling. I just want to say I’d do it all again.”
“Well, that is obvious. We are not ones to make suboptimal choices.”
“Waiting this long was suboptimal, though.”
“That I can, unfortunately, agree on. May I?”
“Yes, please.”
And the two Shmees bump uglies, the mana reserve inside the stone that is keeping them alive slowly emptying.
Meanwhile, light-seconds away, a fat corpse with a broken neck is carted off towards long term storage. Once securely placed inside one of the many lockers, a small scale stasis field springs into being, locking both body and soul in stillness.
A still rather confused orphan, a victim of kidnapping and digital brainwashing, tries to puzzle out what to do as she and her team are interrogated. They are relentlessly hounded on what exactly went down on Evengi Prime. Somehow, there is not a single mention of supernatural, magical, or mana-fueled during the debriefings.
The Grandmaster of the Order stands on his command deck, his third bridge crew happily tapping away at their screens. The CHCS Purgatory resumes its unfolding process, the multi-segmented ship scouring and disintegrating every single speck of Histaff they come across. Asteroids are mined, and resources are taken as they clean up. The Evengi system will be left clean, if not immensely impoverished, once the Grandmaster’s efficient operation is complete. He just has a single rat to worry about, though. He rubs his left thigh, swearing to himself that he will find that rogue bitch of a mana user.
GalaxSec: A Sci-Fi LitRPG (Skeleton in Space Book 2) Page 36