by Ronan Frost
The four Hartrias security patrol guards saw them immediately.
Defenceless and weaponless Shaun stumbled backwards, but it was already too late. Cursing his haste Shaun tripped over and fell, his eyes never leaving the advancing armour wall of the marching guards.
Shaun paused, brows furrowing. The guards were moving with not-quite right synchronisation as they trooped forward. Normally Hartrias sec-pat guards moved like an interconnected machine controlled by the one mind - but this time they seemed to be slightly out of step.
Black armour glistened in the fluorescent light as wide bored rifles stared Shaun down the throat, the visors on the guards' helmets reflecting impassion and cold inhumanity. They wore medium level battle armour - vacuum proof, entirely self sufficient and armoured with the arsenal of a tank. One guard held the leash of a Lectar as the exoskeletoned beast snarled and clawed.
Shaun splaying his hands, showing he was defenceless, knowing that any form of resistance would bring four beams of molecular dissipaters arcing through his body. The foremost of the guards moved forward, rifle still held steady and level.
"Shaun!" Myshia shrieked as the guard caught her by her tunic and wrenched it sharply.
"Hey!" Leaping, Shaun caught the sec-pat guard in a flying tackle. His sweaty hands slipped from the nearly frictionless black armour, face ploughing unceremoniously into the solid surface. Before he had time to recover he felt both arms pulled sharply behind him back and heard the distinctive clink of a pair of cuffs closing.
He was jerked to his feet, wrists bound together by the tight links of the cuffs. Still dazed he saw that Myshia too was cuffed and helpless. The sec-pat guards looked at each other, exchanging gestures. Shaun watched with growing confusion; Hartrias guards were never like this. Communication between men was kept to an absolute minimum and never before had Shaun seen guards look as if they were arguing! It did not take much to interpret the argument; one of the guards obviously wanted to keep Shaun and his companion alive, but one of the others kept motioning offensively with his rifle. Holding his breath, Shaun found himself praying that the guard in favour of their being kept alive won.
Then Shaun knew. All the pieces suddenly fell into place; the warbot, the security systems, the argument between the sec-pat. There could be only one answer.
Avatar had shut down.
In his excitement Shaun momentarily forgot the guards. "Capac and Ashian - they did it! Yeee-har! No wonder you guys are pis-"
A savage wrenching reminded Shaun what the guards thought of his conversation. Shaun fell silent, but Myshia's eyes now glowed with private satisfaction. So Ashian is still alive, she thought.
The guards reached their decision and Shaun was dragged in tow by the scruff of his helicasuit. Caught in an unbreakable steel grasp Myshia too was hauled along as the sec-pat guards trooped down the length of the narrow corridor. Shaun considered reaching out and clawing his fingers into the wall or grabbing the grating of the floor, but gave it up; the guards would shoot without a moments hesitation. It seemed they only refrained from shooting them because of the attempts of the other guard. His eyes moved left and right, looking for escape, but no opportunity presented itself. The guard holding the straining leash of the Lectar walked directly behind them, the beast keeping a close and bloodthirsty eye upon the prisoners. Shaun would just have to go where the sec-pat were taking them.
The brief respite allowed Shaun a moment of recuperation where he could slot together the confused events that had befallen them. He was still incredulous that Capac, the often over-confident Eloprin hunter, had managed to pull the plug on a piece of machinery belittling his own intelligence. He thought too of Ashian, wondering if the quick witted but sometimes morbid Currach had survived in the midst of a species several stages up the evolutionary ladder. And of course there was Myshia, who had experienced a brief period of telepathy and was able to heal wounds with a simple touch. There were so many questions but Shaun knew one thing; the natives were more than what met the eye.
She felt the sharp edges of the grating graze against her lower back, unable to move with her hands firmly secured behind her back. In her mind Myshia was calm, forcing her breathing to become slow and controlled. The strange sensations seemed to be coming with increased frequency now, beating at the inside of her skull as if it were a drum. It seemed as if her mind had opened, the edges bordering her existence for all the years of her childhood breaking down like a cracking dam wall.
Now, in the hands of the towering Sunlords, that power seemed to have deserted her. It was a frustrating sensation; as soon as she caught a glimpse of the power it was snatched away. Deep inside she knew she was going to die at the hands of the Sunlords, creatures armoured like rock pillars able to withstand every ravage nature could produce. She reached out with her mind, knowing it was useless, calling for Ashian. But even the thin line of thought which had connected her mind to the currach's had fallen into that darkness. Gone was the link, the feelings of telepathy and the tingling in her fingers when she had dispelled her power into Shaun's injured shoulder. She did not know if that power would rebuild its reserves in time. It would be too late, anyhow, to save them. She forced an image of the Elder into her mind, but the picture was ghostly and indistinct as her memory failed to correctly picture the deceased leader.
It was with conscious effort that she forced the emotions away, determined to remain iron faced and proud before her death. That was the proper way to dignify her race and all that she had stood for.
Death seemed easier now that they had succeeded in their quest to save their forest and home. Eyes closed, breathing so deeply it was almost hyperventilating, death seemed to be the quickest way for Myshia to obtain rest and oblivion.
Sparks of life caught her unexpected in the cushiony fabric of her brain. The motion of light was like beacons seen by a ship far at sea - small and fragile yet reassuring in that vast blackness of a clouded night sky.
Myshia's eyes snapped open.
The signal was growing stronger, a thread blowing towards her through the abyss. Wherever it was the Sunlords were taking them, it was closer to Ashian.
* * *
A gloved hand rubbed across the touch pad mounted flush in the wall and the door of the skidship hissed open. The security-patrol guard stepped inside, multi-barrelled rifle across his chest at the ready. Khanyc cursed as he squinted through the shaded visor, aware that the dead internal microphones and computer assisted targeting link to his retinal implants now hindered his vision. Ever since the deactivation of Avatar it seemed Khanyc's eyes and ears had been disconnected. He had been part of the escort that had led the tech squad down to the main databanks and had seen himself the destruction that the meltdown had created before the emergency fire control systems had extinguished the flame. Repair now deemed impossible, all personnel of the Urisa were scrambling to escape craft, a wailing klaxon siren in the command room warning all of the imminent danger.
The sec-pat guard had teamed with several others of his colleagues, determined not to relent the ship to destruction. Without Avatar the comm-systems were all disconnected and the command bridge was nothing more than a collection of motherboards and powerless banks of monitors. Part of the team volunteering to search for the Admiral, who had disappeared three hours ago, Khanyc and his comrades had been heading for the comm-lab when they had stumbled upon the two strange intruders.
Taken off guard Khanyc had come within a hair's breadth of pulling the trigger and stripping the molecules from the intruders that very second. Unconsciously Khanyc cast a suspicious look from the corner of his eye at Moarn, the sec-pat guard who had insisted they keep the intruders alive. Khanyc could not understand Moarn's sudden change in temperament, and had argued strongly that they could not spare the time to worry about prisoners. But Moarn had insisted, providing reasons which now seemed more than a little flawed.
Scorning to himself Khanyc shook away any doubts. These were confused times without Avatar to c
o-ordinate their movements and until the Rplore could take over they would have to stay alive. Khanyc stepped aside as the three other sec-pat guards stepped into the cabin of the skidship, closing the door as soon as they had stepped inside. The control panel had fallen back into manual mode, but Khanyc was able to program the small computer with their destination. He was glad the skidships had remained on-line for it saved the exhausted sec-pat guards the long walk back to the control centre. The skidships were used aboard the Urisa for transport and were shaped not unlike a subway train; the bullet-nosed vehicles rushed through narrow tunnels along a pair of skids, levitated slightly above them by electromagnetic force, propelled up to speeds of 250 kph. The tubes in which the skidships travelled were in vacuum, considerably lessening drag forces but creating the need for the docking platforms to be entirely airtight.
The skidship jolted forward, accelerating smoothly to gain momentum. Khanyc braced himself against the stabilisation bars as the carriage reached peak speed, the walls flashing past the windows, lights blurring with speed. He watched numerous flickering of yellow as they sped through cross-roads, aware that they were other skidships. In his five years as a sec-pat guard he had never seen the system so active, and now that the computer no longer directed traffic it was only by chance an accident didn't occur. Upon reflecting, Khanyc was glad that most of the crew were planetside constructing the skycannons, else this system would be total chaos.
His heart missed a beat as a terrible feeling of unreality washed over him. Dropping from the ceiling his feet arced downward towards the Sunlord's helmeted head. That instant seemed frozen in time and Ashian was aware of every single detail; the way Shaun spun, mouth dropping open in surprise. In that instant Ashian suddenly wasn't so sure if this was the right thing to do as the confidence he had felt earlier dissipated as incoming fear clouded his senses. He hadn't known what impulse had made him step into the skid-ship in the first place, but deep inside he had a feeling - as if something of a higher intelligence were directing his motions. He had persuaded Capac to take cover with him in the roof supports of the skidship, taking cover from what Ashian didn't know and waiting for something that was only a gut instinct.
Capac was about to give up, insisting they head away back to the docks, when the doors had slid open and the armoured Sunlords had stepped inside. It caught Ashian completely by surprise when he saw Shaun pulled unceremoniously behind, followed closely by Myshia.
Then Ashian knew what that guiding instinct had been all along - Myshia.
They had little time to plan. Ashian had looked across at Capac, who nodded affirmative. Breathing deeply three times, Ashian had let go and plummeted down upon his friends' captors.
With a crunch and jolt the instant snapped into splinters and events happened faster than the eye could see. Ashian rolled as he hit the ground, aware that his fall had brought the unprepared Sunlord stumbling to his knees. The wall caught him, arresting his roll as he slammed into a corner. Scrambling to his feet Ashian saw a flash of movement as Capac struck out, his blow catching a Sunlord across the visor. The blow recoiled harmlessly and Capac fell away, the Sunlord recovering and swinging the end of his rifle around.
Ashian bawled and leapt again, clinging to the end of the rifle with both arms, aware of but not caring that the armoured arm could turn and crush the life from his lungs. A blast of rippling molecular stripper fire smote the floor, Ashian pushing the Sunlord's aim a metre to the right, saving Capac's life.
Shaun's eyes widened as he struggled futilely to free himself against the cuffs. "No!" he screamed as Ashian was flung against the wall, helpless. Shaun stumbled to his feet but could knew he could not reach the Sunlord in time. Already the sec-pat guard was re-cocking his lethal weapon, scowling with anger and Hartrias fury.
Screaming useless defiance Shaun made a last ditch effort at diving towards the sec-pat guard, cursing the foolhardy currach. Why had Ashian attacked like this? They should have stayed in hiding - they didn't stand a chance against enemies such as these.
Then Shaun fell face first, hands cuffed behind his back. He rolled, knowing that he had leapt short of the mark and was still out of reach of the sec-pat guard. He could only watch as the guard turned his wide bored weapon upon the crumpled native...
Then suddenly the sec-pat guard's head disintegrated like a melon. The decapitated corpse remained standing a moment longer before the body fell, twisting limply through the air. The green ray of fire ceased as the dead guard fell to the floor as if in slow motion. His heart in his throat, frozen with disbelief, Shaun turned his gaze around to where the ray of fire had come.
Moarn turned his stripper gun around upon a stunned fellow. The sec-pat guard pulled the trigger and the other's chest disappeared into a flow of jelly. In almost the same motion the gun swooped down in a low arc, knocking the leaping Lectar from mid-flight. Lightning quick, Moarn snapped his left elbow backwards, seeing from the corner of his eye the final sec-pat guard take the blow in the head. Another blow from his fist as he brought his arm back around, Moarn spun and raised the stripper gun. There was another dazzling blast of green and the lifeless armoured suit smashed back into the wall.
It was all over in a few seconds.
Only four shots had been fired - three blasting a neat hole through the heavy Hartrias armour and the final frying the carcass of the Lectar. Shaun let out his breath, eyes never leaving the sole standing figure that had saved them. He started to his feet not sure whether to back away.
The floor suddenly shifted as the skidship ground to a halt and the door hissed open. The sec-pat guard motioned for Shaun to exit.
Shaun stood, but would not step out of the skidship. "Who are you?"
A heavily gloved hand pushed him in the small of his back. "Move!" growled the guard in Hartrias tongue.
Shaun had no time to think further as he found himself stumbling out into the corridor. Using a manoeuvre often practiced and refined, Shaun jumped and brought both knees close to his chest at the same time as flicking his cuffed hands below. He landed squarely a moment later, his hands now before him as he turned to face the sec-pat guard.
He only caught a brief glimpse of black armour as the guard unceremoniously pushed the natives from the skidship. As a seeming afterthought the sec-pat guard cast a compact minigun sliding along the polished floor in lazy pirouettes towards them. Barely a moment later the skidship door slid shut and the craft powered up and shot away.
Ashian stood simply gasping for air, backed against the wall for support. "...friend of yours?"
The window of the docking door showed blackness: the skidship was far away by now. Shaun turned to his companions, his mind still in a daze and his system shaking with adrenalin.
The name embedded into the computer banks had been Jyrohn T. Moarn, but now it was time to abandon that identity. It had been a long time but now finally the moment had come for him to act. Making sure the vacuum seal was connected and the flow of air was steady inside the protective embrace of the sec-pat guard warsuit, the hardened warrior then turned his attention to the interior of the skidship.
The bodies of the other guards lay as they had fallen, twisted in the ugly spasm of death, headless and mutilated. Moarn did not spare the bodies a second glance; he had known his companions distantly as voices over a two-way in those two years he had served on the Hartrias Warship Rplore.
He raised the thin stripper rifle, pausing momentarily to check fluid levels were above critical. Then, flicking off the safety, Moarn squeezed the trigger.
A blast of green viscous light fell upon the wall of the skidship just as the craft pulled to a halt. Drifting his fire, waiting for the exact millisecond, Moarn punctured through the outer skin of the skidship just as the docking doors hissed open at the station stop. The safety doors under Avatar's control which would have saved the ship remained motionless. The vacuum from the interior of the skidship tunnel was met with the atmosphere of the station bay and the small crater Moarn had bl
asted suddenly ripped wider like tissue paper.
Relying of the full power of the warsuit Moarn clung to the railing as atmosphere roared out into the vacuum. Long painful moments later, breathing heavily with exertion, the raging roar subsided.
Moarn regained his footing, the regulated breathing echoing as a steady rasping hiss inside his helmet as he walked forward. The corridor was in complete airlessness.
Turning the corner Moarn nodded silent satisfaction as he saw two choked corpses on the floor, their eyes wide and bulging, hands about their necks in fatal asphyxiation. Moarn stepped over the burly Hartrias bodies, the only sounds that of his breathing, his footsteps silent in the vacuum. The entire sector was still and motionless.
Reaching to the holster strapped to his right side Moarn pulled the scanner instrument to the front of his visor. Flicking up the resolution the small screen darkened, a mapped display of the level appearing with a bright spot in the far corner. Satisfied the bug planted on the human escapee's was sending out a clear signal Moarn replaced the scanner in its belt.
Moarn then turned his attention to the silent corridor, pausing momentarily as he pondered a battle-plan. He knew that emergency doors bordering sectors had activated, sealing the rest of the ship from vacuum. Striding with unstoppable determination Moarn stalked forward to destroy these doors.
There was an explosive ringing noise and Shaun's manacles fell apart.
Shaun opened his eyes and brought his hands back down, the cuffs still enclosed his wrists but the adjoining chain had broken cleanly. Capac handed over the minigun which he had used at point blank range to blast Shaun free of his bonding.
Shaun took the minigun without comment; pulling back the catch and checking the ammunition levels and giving the weapon a quick visual check as he hefted it in one hand.