by Fox, Chris
Usir's mouth worked for a moment, the first time I'd seen even a minor dent in his composure. He glanced at Summers, then back at me.
"I'll explain at length when we're safe, but the short answer is that I'm not getting younger. I'm getting stronger," he said, eyeing me coldly. "When the sun fully changes, I'll appear about your age, but I'm older than you can possibly imagine."
"David," Kali urged, peering up the hallway. The gunfire was louder and there was more than one cry of pain. "We need to go."
"All right, Usir. Promise me you'll give us the full story when this is all over," I met the frost in his gaze with some of my own.
"Done," he said, extending a hand. I shook it, then initiated the teleport.
As the energy built, I realized it was far more abundant than before. It wasn't much of a stretch to guess that because the ship was directly above us I'd somehow tapped into its power supply. Was that why Usir had seemed so unfazed by the alien attack? He'd not only expected it, but needed it for the plan to work.
Power gathered around me, and I extended the burst of energy, allowing the teleport to encompass not just the soldiers in the room, but those manning the barricades on the other side. There was a bright flash, and we teleported to the mothership.
Chapter 27- Docking Bay
I dropped to my knees as the light faded. Jillian clutched my arm, preventing a complete face-plant. My ears rang and my eyes refused to focus.
"David, are you all right?" Her voice sounded muffled and distant. I shook my head to clear it.
"I'm okay," I said, clearing my throat. I stood shakily, and surveyed the cavernous room where we'd landed.
Four smaller ships were docked inside the mothership, one in each corner of the room. We must have teleported into the launch bay. A dizzying forest of obelisks filled the space between the ships. Most were uniform in size, but a few were taller than the rest. They blocked our sight; anything could be out there and we'd never know it. Platforms revolved above us, each about twenty feet across. They orbited around a central point, each at different altitudes. I had no idea what purpose they might serve.
The guards I'd transferred over with us took cover behind obelisks like professional soldiers. Unlike us. I scanned their ranks for Marcus, but didn't see him. My heart sank.
"Now what?" I said, turning to Usir. I felt a bit steadier, but grateful for Jillian's arm around me.
Usir pursed his lips, gazing out at the obelisk forest. Then he squared his shoulders, turning back to me, his bearing regal--a king dispensing orders to his subjects. "Now we find their control center." He started down the platform.
A wave of green shot out of the obelisk forest and hit one of the guards in the chest, vaporizing him. One second, a man; the next, a pile of gooey uniform atop the shiny black floor. The other guards raised their weapons, but there was no apparent target. They scanned the obelisks, waiting.
"Take cover," I yelled, grabbing Jillian's hand and sprinting for the obelisks. We dove behind one as more flashes of green erupted from the forest.
A grey man materialized not ten feet from us, shimmering into visibility the same way Jillian did. It raised a four-fingered hand as a bright blade of crackling energy surged into existence. I began to shout a warning, but it was too late. The grey man plunged the blade into a guard's back.
Kali dove behind an obelisk, and Summers faded from sight.
"Steady," Usir called, peering around his obelisk. He held his cane loosely in both hands, more like a spear than a crutch.
There was a rush of bright white light from within the obelisks, followed by a flash of heat. A chittering shriek that could not have originated from a human throat ripped through the room, and I covered my ears as I grunted in pain.
A moment later Summers came sprinting back out of the forest. She dove behind an obelisk and pulled herself into a tight ball. "At least two more out there. They're fast. Really fast."
Summers went rigid and her eyes became glassy. She stood mechanically, turning towards a cluster of four guards. Her arm rose, and a gout of white-hot flame lanced into them. They screamed, but only briefly. The torrent of fire continued until the stench of charred flesh filled the docking bay.
"She's under their control," Usir roared, turning to Kali. "Kill her. Do it now or we're all dead."
"Screw that," I yelled back, aiming my splayed fingers at Summers. An arc of electricity took her in the temple, and she flopped like a fish until she lay still, unconscious but alive. I saw a flash of grey as one of the aliens darted between obelisks. "They're flanking us. To the north."
Something moved behind me and I whirled around. A grey man raised his hand and I felt a tight pressure in the back of my neck. I felt more than saw the signal it broadcast: an order to slaughter my companions. Thanks to Ka's intervention, the command was ignored. I balled my hand into a fist and punched the alien in the face. It staggered backwards. Jillian appeared behind it and grabbed its bulbous head. If it was surprised, the flat eyes didn't express it. She twisted the head hard and fast. A sharp crack sounded, the body went limp, and Jillian dropped it to the shiny floor.
"Guess they have vertebrae," she said, looking more than a little ill.
"Thanks, that's another one I owe you," I said, scanning the obelisks around us. There was at least one more grey man out there, but it hadn't made an appearance since Summers had gone down.
"David, behind us," Usir roared. I turned to see where he was pointing and my heart nearly burst from my chest. Six supers and at least a dozen grey men had appeared on the transporter pad. Marcus stood at the front of the pack, eyes glassy as he took a step toward us.
It was blindingly obvious, at least in hindsight. Usir had left the soldiers where they were for a reason, knowing they'd be killed. The idea was to buy us time. In taking most of them with us, I'd removed the distraction, and the grey men had arrived that much faster.
Boomerangs began to fire and guards melted all around me. At least five died in the first volley, and there were only a handful remaining. Jesus.
I dove to the far side of the obelisk. How the hell was I going to get out of this? An ear-piercing tone echoed through the bay. I collapsed and wrapped my arms around my head, but they did nothing to block the sound.
Something loomed over me; I was in too much pain to see what. A familiar wave of green enveloped my body, and then there was nothing.
Chapter 28- Escape
I awoke suspended above the ground, slowly rotating in a ring of tightly packed obelisks. They were like the bars of a cell. In fact, as I reached out mentally I realized that's exactly what they were. I could feel the energy field around me, redirecting kinetic force, ready to rebound it back at me if I somehow managed to slip through the bars.
I spent the next rotation scanning the room to see what I could learn. Some of the obelisks outside my cage were familiar, and I realized I could sense them. One was the controls to my cell, another a communications device. Some sort of amplifier so everyone in the ship could hear them. A psychic intercom? The rest were as alien as the ship, just a series of obelisks that seemed to function as batteries.
In the distance I heard a sharp, feminine scream, which was abruptly cut off. I winced inwardly, praying that it wasn't Jillian or Kali. I'd made many such screams myself, when I'd been taken. At least I knew one other person was alive.
A grey man walked up, chest leaning too far forward with each step. It stopped next to the cell, and I could feel it touching the control obelisk with its mind. The bars flowed down into the floor, disappearing into the dark stone. I was left rotating in the field, but the barrier was gone.
I noticed something new about the grey man this time. They didn't wear clothes, but there was a golden bracelet around this one's right wrist. I probed the device, eyes widening in understanding. It was one of the boomerangs, but the grey man had willed the device to change shape. Doing so took energy, but there was energy all around us. I also realized something intriguing
. The boomerang could be used to create the psi-blade I'd seen earlier. Apparently the grey men had only a single weapon, but that weapon could be modified to fit whatever form the wielder desired.
The beginnings of a plan formed as I completed another rotation. It was risky, but I had a feeling things were about to get very bad unless I did something.
I suddenly dropped to my feet, the levitation field gone. The grey man broadcast a signal at the sliver in the back of my neck, willing me to walk forward. So I pretended to obey, taking one stiff step after another as we made our way towards another clearing in the obelisk forest. I was a horrible actor, but the grey man seemed oblivious. It made sense. They saw us as lesser life forms, so the idea that I might be able to resist probably hadn't occurred to it.
It ordered me to stop just inside the next ring of obelisks, so I did. The creature moved to the center of the clearing and gestured at the floor. My eyes widened as I watched the grey man shape the stone at the center, changing it into a chair to hold me, a set of tools to probe me, and a set of restraints to prevent me from moving during experiments.
While the grey man was creating its tools, I crept up behind it. I tried to duplicate the move I'd seen Jillian use earlier, seizing the alien by the head and wrenching its neck as hard as I could. It gave a shriek of pain, and thrashed wildly.
We tumbled to the ground, but I managed to stay on top. I twisted hard, yanking its head to the left and then the right, while its long black claws dug furrows into my arms. The creature struggled to break free, but I held tight. I wrenched its neck again, triggering a chittering shriek of pain. I had the advantage of weight, and was at least a little stronger.
On my third try, the neck finally snapped and the thing fell limp. I was left panting atop it, and it took a moment to get to my feet. Maybe the oxygen was different here, but I grew winded very easily. I felt queasy, and took a moment to breathe as I studied the corpse before me. I definitely understood what Jillian must have felt when she'd killed one. Snuffing out a life wasn't easy, even a grey man's life.
I stumbled to my feet, then my eyes landed on its wrist. I concentrated on the boomerang, willing it to flow towards me. The weapon obliged, moving across the stone and up my leg far more quickly than I would have expected. It pooled in my hand, returning to the shape I'd seen when it was used against me.
I probed the weapon, gaining an understanding of how it worked. It could channel power from me directly, or from the surrounding obelisks. That energy was transmitted into a highly corrosive form of radiation, a sort of light-based acid. It was a nasty weapon, and I'd bet anything it worked just as well on grey men as it did on us. I briefly considered using it as a psi-blade, but while it might look cool it simply wasn't practical. I didn't have any skill with a blade, but I could sure aim a gun.
Now that I was armed, I needed a plan. They'd kept me alive, but what about the others? There had been that yell earlier, and it was unlikely that had been the only survivor. But how could I find them? I spun around, observing the obelisks around me. Damn. None of them was anything like an uplink to their main system. There had to be one somewhere.
There were two paths that branched off the ring of obelisks. One went back the way I came, so I started up the other one. I crept, but quickly. There was no telling how long it would be before they realized I was gone, or found the body of the grey man I'd killed. Surprise was on my side, at least for now.
I finally rounded a bend and came to another clearing. Three grey men stood in a neat triangle around a giant floating blue crystal. A grin spread across my face as I studied it, examining the myriad signals it gave off. Given the flurry of data, it could only be one thing: the equivalent of the central computer, and I doubted that kind of dense gemstone could be found anywhere on Earth.
I snuck to within about fifteen feet, then silently raised the boomerang. One of the trio must have heard something, because it spun to face me. Its too-wide eyes got even wider.
"Too late, you soul-less bastard," I said, unleashing a blast of dark green energy. The closest grey man was caught in the blast, melting instantly. The shot continued on, catching a second grey man's leg.
It collapsed, shrieking, while the third one dodged behind the crystal. I could feel him willing his bracelet to become a boomerang again, so I darted forward and dropped prone where the crystal was thinnest. I had a clear shot at the thing's legs and I fired. Green energy dissolved the creature's lower body, and the rest spilled into a pile that finally made me heave my lunch onto the dark stone.
I wiped my mouth, gagging on bile as I rose to my feet. The wounded grey man had an outstretched hand, and I could sense it trying to issue orders to my sliver. They really did underestimate us. I stepped forward and used the boomerang to put the thing out of its misery.
A quick scan of the clearing around the crystal revealed no other grey men. I glanced up and realized that I was probably standing in the exact center of the craft. The ceiling vaulted high above me, easily a football field away. A few black stone islands floated above, slowly rotating around an invisible central point.
"Well, since I have the place to myself," I said, stretching out a hand and touching the crystal.
Data and thought flooded through me. It was like drinking the entire internet through a watermelon sized fire-hose. I recoiled from the enormity of it, almost breaking contact with the stone. No. I needed answers, and this was the only place to get them. I dove back into the flow, fighting the tide of information as I attempted to locate my friends.
My head began to throb, but I kept looking. I couldn't make sense of most of it, but eventually I found a map of holding cells. I tried to hold onto it, but it went swirling away. Thankfully I'd seen enough to trace a path from my location. There were at least two people being held there, and once they were free the three of us could try to find everyone else.
Chapter 29- Round Up
I padded quietly down the dark stone. Odd sounds echoed through the craft: the occasional ping of metal, and something that sounded like grinding gears. I had no idea what either was, and right then I didn't care. The only sounds I strained to hear were footsteps or the grey men's odd chittering language. Fortunately I didn't hear either as I made my way farther from the control crystal. Sooner or later they'd figure out I was loose. They had four bodies to stumble across, after all. I quickened my pace, hurrying in what I hoped was the right direction.
I heard the steady drip of water as I finally rounded another bend, and found the cells I'd seen in the control crystal. The first held an unconscious Jillian, slowly rotating with her head lolling on one shoulder. The other held a very awake, very irritated-looking Summers. Frosty blue eyes glared at me as she rotated around.
I was about to take a step into the clearing when a pair of grey men entered from another direction. One of them wiped a hand across its mouth, smearing away something red and sticky. It didn't look like blood; it was too bright for that. Maybe it was whatever passed for food to them.
I ducked between a pair of obelisks as they approached. They chittered back and forth, one holding a golden boomerang in one hand. It used the device to scan Summers, then moved towards Jillian. As it passed my hiding spot, I aimed my boomerang. I concentrated on making the beam wider and stronger, and the grey man simply ceased to exist. The scanning device clattered to the ground, drawing the attention of the other grey man.
I darted from my hiding place, firing another blast. The grey man's boomerang was still pooling in its palm when the shot hit. The creature had enough time to give a brief cry as it too disintegrated.
A quick scan of the clearing revealed the cells' control obelisk, and I reached out with my senses to access it. A moment later the bars surrounding both cages melted back into the floor. I moved to Jillian, catching her as the field deactivated. She was breathing, and I couldn't find any obvious injury. I had exactly zero medical training though, and I didn't have any clue how to wake her.
"A little hel
p, please," came Summers' irritated voice.
I gestured towards the control obelisk again, releasing Summers from the levitation field. My attention stayed on Jillian. That was probably why I missed the grey man coming up behind me.
"David, move!" Summers shouted.
I started to spin, but it was too late. The grey man had a boomerang raised, and it unleashed a wave of green energy that caught me full in the chest. I was flung backwards. Every muscle in my body was on fire. My shirt and the skin on my chest had been burned away, exposing bloody muscle and a few ribs. I could do nothing but stare at the hideous injury. My breathing came in rapid, shallow gasps, and I was dimly aware of Summers gliding forward. She scooped up one of the fallen boomerangs and fired a trio of pulses at the newly arrived grey man. It had time to give a shriek, then its smoking body tumbled to the floor at Summers' feet.
She stalked over to me like a tiger, kneeling next to me to study the wound. "Walk it off, princess. You'll be fine."
A surge of rage rushed through me. I could see my frigging ribs. I was not going to be fine. Unfortunately, I was in too much pain to speak, or even to glare.
"I know it hurts," Summers said, giving me a wicked smile. "And yes, I may be enjoying this a little too much. Remember that you killed four of my friends. Consider this payback. Besides, like I said, you'll be fine. Look."
I glanced down at my chest. The bleeding had stopped, and the wound was beginning to scab over.
"See? Quit your pouting. Most supers have different powers, but there are some commonalities. Regeneration is one of them," Summers explained. She stood and started gathering boomerangs and scanning devices. "Usir thinks it's a prerequisite to surviving the testing. Anyone who doesn't manifest regeneration dies from the intense radiation. If you survive, you have the ability to heal most wounds, though don't expect to grow back a limb or anything. You're not a starfish."