The raw concept of the device and its functions terrified her.
It used Hashi like a Cosmic battery, sucking her dry. Torturing her and feeding off her every instant.
Hashiko was indeed its power source. It’s host.
But once she was free of it, the device could only feed upon itself and began to implode. She and Danjen watched as it dissolved away right before their eyes.
Just like Om predicted.
At least the damn things had weaknesses that they could exploit.
Hashiko came to screaming and thrashing, as if out of a deep, traumatic nightmare.
Naero and Danjen attempted to hold her still.
“It’s all right,” Naero tried to tell her. “You’re free of it. We got you out. You’re safe!”
Hashiko broke down and wept, for the first time since Naero had known her.
Then she glared up at Naero and snarled like one gone insane.
“You fool. None of us are safe now. They want all of us!”
Naero quickly teknomanced some togs for Hashiko to wear.
Then to their horror, the other two machines nailed Gaviok repeatedly with several desperate shock charges as he tried to rip them apart.
The tough mantid finally collapsed, smoking to one side, struggling to get back up.
The two heavily damaged machines scuttled off, dragging themselves away from the powerful mantid instinctively.
Even they had had enough of him, and now sought only to escape and survive at this point.
But the opportunistic machines caught up Shalaen where she still lay unconscious, and crawled toward the exit, dragging her with them. Feeding off her and attempting to regenerate at they did.
“No!” Naero said, trying to crawl after them.
Danjen looked around weakly, swaying, barely able to stand. “I…I don’t see or smell any more explosives.”
“We can’t let them take her. Use anything you have to cut her free. They’ll use her power against us!”
“I can’t,” Danjen said. “No strength left. I’m going back…try to help revive Gaviok.”
Naero also neared the point of collapse. None of them had any strength left.
She had to try something.
She couldn’t let them take Shalaen.
Not when she was this close to saving her.
Naero understood now.
The enemy would put Shalaen…put all of them, inside one of those damn things.
Then she felt hands struggling, barely able to lift her up.
Hashiko.
Both of them were too weak still. They collapsed against one another and fell back down to one side.
Naero came to moments later.
Shalaen. Get Shalaen.
Hashiko rested on her side nearby, out cold.
“Wake up.” Naero insisted. “Get up. Do something, dammit. Heal me. I know you know how better than me. We have to go after them.”
She flipped Hashiko over and slapped her, as hard as she could.
“Get up, damn you!”
Hashiko’s eyes flashed open with anger.
“I’m trying to regenerate, you idiot! Do you know what they did to me?”
Naero shook her head.
“Don’t care. We can’t…let them get away. They’ve got Shalaen.”
“We’re lucky to be alive. We can’t fight them in our condition.”
“They have Shalaen. They’ll feed off her and heal themselves. They’ll put her in one of those things, just like they did you. We have to save her.”
Hashiko shook her head. “No way. You’re insane.”
“I know you can do it. You’ve been biomancing much longer that I have. Heal us…as best you can, and then let’s go finish those things off. We can’t let them use her powers against us!”
Hashiko shoved her away. “Get the hell off me.”
She panted, catching her breath. “Give me a moment…and I’ll do what I can. It will work better if I charge you up first, and then you do the same for me. We’ll both get more out of it.”
After several long moments, they stood back up, holding onto each other. Hands locked on their forearms.
Both of them felt regenerating energy coursing back and forth through them again and again. They healed and recharged each other.
It shocked Naero that it could be that fast. But every second still counted.
She pulled away from Hashiko.
She even summoned a Chaos katana.
“Let’s go get those things…and save Shalaen.”
Hashiko doubled over, gasping as she dropped to one knee.
“Damn it, give me a sec, Maeris. Gotta…catch my breath. I don’t have the same bottomless reserves you do–deep inside. This surge won’t last long for either of us. Maybe one fight at best.”
“That’s all we need, Hashi. Let’s make this work.”
Hashiko steeled herself. Then she nodded.
44
The two of them raced down the tunnel after the two scuttling alien generators.
Charging back out the breaching tunnel the Dakkur had made.
Up ahead, beyond the lighted opening into the surrounding mountains, Naero swore she heard the sounds of strange starship engines.
Signatures unlike any ship engines she had even heard before.
One of the alien vessels perhaps?
The battle between the Ejjai and the Marines still raged all around them nearby, drawing ever closer.
Naero felt confident that the invaders could not hold Walker’s elite marine forces back much longer.
They emerged beneath the bright, blinding sky. Naero pulled Hashiko to one side behind some boulders while their eyes adjusted.
The alien gray octagonal ship had indeed landed nearby.
Naero squinted and matched the sounds of its engines to it in her head. She would remember them from this point on. No other drives sounded like that.
As her vision cleared more, she peered over some rocks and spotted the two damaged machines scuttling toward an extended loading ramp. Still dragging Shalaen’s unconscious form.
A full company of Ejjai stood ready to defend the alien ship and made way for the machines. Dozens of Dakkur. But it looked as if the warship was getting ready to take off.
As soon as the enemy loaded up its new prize.
A very large Dakkur emerged from the ship. Dark green with bright yellow undersides. Twice the size of the soldier drones. A leader or champion perhaps?
Then Naero remembered.
She thought the drones had looked smaller to her. It was a larger Dakkur like this one that had murdered Gallan.
Maybe it was even this creature.
The leader waved a clawed hand, and drew Darkforce energy from the two generators limping up the ramp.
He formed a wormhole in the very air next him.
“Bring the Yattai bitch forward. I wish to examine and implant her myself.”
One of the drones spoke up nervously close beside him. “Master, our foes are nearly upon us. We must depart.”
The leader slashed the drone in two with the barest flick of his tail, without even a glance, smearing the underling against the side of the ship. Bloody, glowing Dakkur dust exploded violently from the corpse.
“There is still time,” the leader said calmly. “I’m activating a new generator device. Awakening its hungry core. Let it receive its new power source and serve our will. Bring the Yattai to me!”
Dakkur teks quickly brought forth what looked to be a new generator device out of the wormhole, suspended on gravlifters. Another dormant machine, just like the other two activated ones that remained heavily damaged.
The teks opened the loading panel. The two damaged devices dragged Shalaen toward it.
The glistening black tentacles of the new devices began to twitch and come to life, awakening its will to feed.
Naero stared at the two damaged devices and had a sudden terrible thought.
Who was inside of them
?
What if one of them had Jan in it?
“Now!” Hashiko screamed.
She rained orbs of exploding Chaos energy down on their assembled foes.
Naero leaped in, cutting down all of the Ejjai near Shalaen with her twin katanas.
The enemy took heavy fire suddenly from the sky.
Tarim and gravwing marines in stealth combat armor uncloaked and dropped right in on top of the enemy.
A fierce fire fight erupted all around the alien ship.
Naero cut Shalaen free and transported them off the bloody ramp. Out of sight among the rocks. But not for long.
Naero tried to lay her down in a safe place so that she could turn at bay and fight.
Tarim came down with a heavy weapons team to help defend them.
The enemy forces tried to rush their position.
The marines opened up, cutting most of the foe down close up.
Tarim stood over Shalaen, gunning down any leapers and stragglers, blasting their heads off with clean, precise shots from his advanced pistols.
Hashiko attacked the leader, lashing at him with her Chaos whip.
The whip cut deep into his heavy head and neck, but he only smiled back at her.
“How did you break free, little one? No matter. Once we have you back, you shall never escape us again.”
Hashiko snarled. “I will die before you take me again!”
She didn’t see the two damaged machines lashing out at her with their tentacles from behind.
“Hashi. Look out!”
Naero had to see who was inside of them.
Hashiko dodged one of the machines. But the other zapped her full force with shock charges.
She arched up on her toes, screaming in pain. Transfixed by Darkforce lightning.
Hashi dropped down to her hands and knees, gasping.
The machines scuttled toward her. Hungry.
Naero raced in to help, severing tentacles from the other two machines trying to capture them both.
The leader turned to glare at her, while he snatched up Hashiko and tried to stuff her into the waiting empty device that stood ready for Shalaen.
“I know you. I ate your big friend. You’re just another prize. Soon you’ll join your kin in our collections. And just like them, your powers will serve our path to triumph.”
So they did have Jan and Dan. That confirmed it.
Naero spoke two words.
“You are so dead.”
She rammed her Chaos katana at the leader’s throat.
But he was even faster than the drones, and withdrew.
Naero impaled her sword up through the front of his thick jaw, and ripped the blade through his mouth and front teeth.
He grunted in pain, but the grim wound was not mortal.
With the back stroke of one leg he sent Naero flying.
Then he struggled to finish stuffing Hashiko into the yawning maw of the new generator.
The two damaged generators rose up in full retreat and floated through the wormhole.
“No!” Naero screamed.
The leader laughed at Hashiko, dragging them both back through the wormhole as she fought and resisted. Her strength failing.
“No matter. I’ll gather these others some other time. But we have you once again, little one. You will return with us.”
Hashiko thrashed, fighting and screaming to break free.
“I’ll take you down with me, but you are never putting me in one of those things again!”
Hashiko’s head glowed red. Her entire body.
A blazing red third eye formed in the center of Hashiko’s forehead.
First she nailed the leader with her sonic attack, driving him back. Then she set herself and screamed.
“Eye of Annihilation!”
The blazing red ray punched out of her third eye, slicing through the leaders claw that he held it up defensively.
The beam severed the limb from his thrashing body easily.
Not only that, but the claw and the stump both pulsed and glowed with devouring scarlet energy and began to dissolve, eating away at him slowly and relentlessly.
The leader clutched his wounded arm shrieking, keeping it stretched out away from him, pulling his body back through the wormhole. Dragging the empty generator back through with his tail.
The wormhole closed, severing the leader’s extended arm arm stump before the destroying red energy could spread further up his body. The other bit of Dakkur arm fell to the ground, wriggled, and dissolved.
After the leader fled, the enormous hatch to the alien ship snapped shut, cutting several drones in half as they scrambled to slip inside.
The alien gray ship immediately blasted off, as the battle in the forests subsided.
Victorious Spacer Marines marched in and mopped up.
Dead Dakkur already melted away into stink.
Naero knelt beside Hashiko. Helpless as the destroying red energy of the prime adept’s own desperate attack continued to spread over her body.
Hashiko kept the enemy from taking her prisoner again.
But in doing so, she also doomed herself.
Hashiko resisted it, but even she could not control the annihilation energy of such a high level Chaos attack, once unleashed.
The Eye of Annihilation destroyed everything the beam touched up close. The lethal risk of unleashing the most powerful Chaos attack known to the Mystics–and the most unstable.
Hashi no longer had the strength to keep the spreading power from destroying her. It fed on her, like a destructive aura.
Naero knelt down at Hashiko’s side.
She instinctively reached out to take her comrade’s hand.
“Idiot,” Hashiko said with a weak snarl. “Don’t touch me. The red death destroys all living matter that it touches.”
Naero pulled her hand back. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”
“Stop blubbering. I made my choice. Better to go on to the next journey than be trapped in one of those Darkforce torture devices again. Trust me. Don’t ever let them put you in one of those things.”
Naero sniffed. “I won’t.”
“Yeah, if they get control of all the power hiding deep within you, everyone’s in trouble. Do something right for a change, Maeris.”
Hashiko’s feet and then her legs began to dissolve. She was slowly being destroyed.
“I still wish we could have been friends somehow, Hashi. I respected you at least.”
“Shut up and listen to me, Maeris. You have to stop them. Listen to me. The enemy crippled me. They stole secrets from my mind. I’m not sure what they learned. My death doesn’t matter. None of our lives will matter if these enemies defeat us.”
Only Hashiko’s chest and face remained.
“Warn our people, Maeris. Our leaders. These bastards will destroy everyone. They’re coming for us all, but they’re really after the–”
She dissolved away before she could finish speaking.
At least her comrade was consistent.
To the end, Hashi never liked her.
Prime Adept Mitsubishi Hashiko was no more.
45
On the third day after the Battle of Celonia-4, the Spacers and the miners held a wake in honor of everyone who perished during the attack.
Including Prime Adept Mitsubishi Hashiko.
Spacer Marine General Big Jim Walker and Bravo Command organized all of the military aspects of the wake. Ceremonies. Military salutes.
Speeches for the dead.
Naero even came forward to say a few good words about her comrade, Hashiko.
Despite the animosity between them. Naero owed her big. All of them did.
Without Hashiko, by now all of them might very well be trapped in those infernal alien generators. Tormented, tortured, and giving their mysterious new foes huge supplies of tainted, Darkforce energy to do who knows what with.
All of them owed Hashiko a great deal.
At lea
st now they had a much better idea of what they were up against. What these new aliens were after. And what they were capable of.
Yet losing a Spacer Mystic as well-trained as Hashi was remained a severe and bitter loss.
Tarim stayed by Shalaen’s side at her medbed, armed to the teeth. He refused to leave. He barely slept on the floor beside her.
And of course, High Master Vane demanded an immediate direct transmission with Naero, once he learned about valiant Hashiko’s fate.
She could only imagine what was coming, and took the secure link onboard The Flying Dagger, in her private quarters.
She listened to him rant, and blame her, wishing over and over again that she had died in Hashiko’s place.
Vane possessed few emotions besides manic glee at the expense of others, anger, or full-blown rage.
She guessed that this fit was his only response. His only way of mourning Hashi’s loss, according to his own limitations.
Blaming someone else was the only apparent option.
Naero finally had to interrupt him.
“Look. We found her, we freed her. She went down fighting beside us, against our foes during the course of an intense battle. How is any of that anyone’s fault? In fact, Hashi more or less killed herself rather than be taken by the enemy again. She made that choice very clear.”
Vane screamed at her.
“I’M MAKING IT YOUR FAULT!”
Naero let him cool down a few seconds.
“Fine. So be it. But look at the facts. We still beat the enemy, against all odds. Yes, at great costs. But we still manage to beat them. They did not defeat us.
“And, in the process, we discovered where they are getting their enormous supplies of Darkforce energy from. How they are using these Darkforce generators to do some of the amazing things they’re capable of doing. We brought the Corps’ alien allies into the light of day for all to see. We actually know who and what some of them are now. We can continue to study them, their tek, and learn their weaknesses.”
Vane shook his head and snarled. “There’s always a silver-lining for you, isn’t there Maeris?”
“I’m a realist, not a Chaos master. I take my victories where I can and keep fighting. Hashiko would do the same. She hated my guts, but she at least she was a fighter–to the very end.”
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 30