by Power, P. S.
"Closer to three millennia ago, but there was a time that was true. The same for almost everyone else that's possibly involved. If the right version, a copy of the correct time in history, is put forth, then even people you think of as friend now might be against us. So, in the main kill them, if you can. They'll be trying to do that to you." He pointed to the map again, and then the weapons arrayed next to it.
"This is our only real edge. We have enough firepower here, and good enough shielding, that almost no one can stand against us. They could set a Remy against us, or detonate nukes, but short of something on that level, we have a very good chance of being successful, and they probably know it. That means the most likely course of action will either be infiltration, by substitution or surrender, or killing Julie before we can remove her, out of spite."
Tiera nodded, her bland expression looking almost sweet and innocent. Meditative.
"So this is probably part of a plan to kill us, isn't it? We should get to her as fast as possible and escape, before they can destroy us. That or kill them all ourselves. We could drop something on them from space? It would sacrifice Julie." She didn't seem to be bothered by the idea, but Kolb tilted his head and nodded.
"We could do that. It's probably the smartest idea even. Take out some of the enemy forces without cost to ourselves."
That led to a real problem, Timon understood instantly. Kolb didn't want to let Julie die, but would, since it was the best tactical move. Tiera was normally much more emotionally driven than she seemed at the moment and would have insisted they save her aunt, if possible. That left Timon, and while he did vaguely want to have sex with the woman, since she was designed to make everyone want her, all the time, he also didn't have a real stake in her survival, even if she was called Aunt Julie. She wasn't related to him after all.
Then, was family only made up of blood relations? He kind of thought he might be rationalizing, to try and allow them to take the easy way out. The safe way.
"It's a good plan, really, but not the right one. We should focus on getting more information as well. Could we drive down the hallways in Fast Craft? These are what," he pointed at the map tracing the lines with his index finger. "Four feet across? I think we can do that. Some of the walls might be dinged up a bit, but that gives us the ability to move faster than most people can, and an extra layer of protection. Not that it will help us if they use nuclear weapons."
That got Count Lairdgren to call out, his face blank, but otherwise looking an awful lot like Tor. Probably shorter now, being only about five-nine or so.
"Are you certain of that? If you run fast enough, it should be survivable."
"I don't know, but I think the craft was in real trouble earlier, the shaking we felt, that had to be something like space itself warping. If it's stronger, closer to the blast itself, it might kill everyone on board, even if the ship is left safe and sound, after. We had broken bones and bruises even being most of a hundred miles away when it went off."
"I see. Perhaps the children shouldn't go?" The man looked at Kolb, not Orange, but the bald man with his scared face shook his head.
"No. We can't protect them now. This is dangerous, but we have a decent chance of success. They're nearly as good with their modern weapons as anyone in the world right now, and neither freezes under pressure as far as I've seen. I get your thinking, and the desire to protect them isn't wrong, Burks, but these are the right people for this job. Besides our only other real options are killing the person we're going to try and save, or risking you and Alice. If we fail, or die doing this but succeed, we need people that actually have a chance of fixing the overall problem left. No offense kids, but I'd rather not have the fate of the planet rest in the hands of people as young as you are. If we can help it."
Timon nearly let himself be offended anyway, then didn't bother. There was sense to it and while he wasn't keen on the whole dying part of things, that was something they might be able to avoid, if they were careful.
"Right, so we hit fast and hard and run away directly from the cell?"
That got a nod, and more talking at least. The plan was initially simple enough, but it was pointed out by everyone except Tiera that it wouldn't hold together on the ground.
What actually happened was a lot more impressive than what Timon thought it sounded like. Alice had them get ready in a hold on the underside of the vast ship. The space provided wasn't as large as the landing area, but he wouldn't need that really, since the craft itself was made very small. The others were with him, but sat directly behind him, in a single row. Kolb's knees were pressed against the back of his seat. It was a bit annoying, but the idea was to move from the larger ship directly into the building.
That would be done by going through an outside wall, not a door. They still had to get it right, or they could cause a collapse, but Timon had the positions they needed memorized. At least he hoped so.
Alice piloted them down, at speeds that would baffle the minds of most people, ending up right over the building. Then she made the floor disappear under them, and Tim slapped the control hand piece down. It was covered in sweat already, his nerves betraying him just a bit, but they were at ground level half a second later, the color of the vehicle being made to match the area around them as well as he could manage.
Which wasn't too bad, he hoped.
It took a lot of focus for him to manage it, matching the area around him as well as he could manage on all sides. It wasn't perfect either, but seemed to confuse the first few people they ran into. They were all different at least, which meant they weren't all clones of a single person, which could be oppressive. Of the seven he ran over in the hallway, traveling a few hundred miles per hour before he plowed through the second wall, none of them looked all that familiar either. Not to him.
Kolb on the other hand inhaled sharply.
"That says a lot. Most of those are people that didn't last the first thousand years. I-" If he had some idea what that meant, he didn't speak about it, since the others found them then and were busily attacking them. Most of these people had strange weapons that acted at a distance, but a few held magical ones that were decently familiar in size and shape. Noram style things. Nothing all that good though.
They were mainly smart, fast and good enough fighters to realize that getting in the way of a thing that flew through walls wasn't going to help a lot. For the most part Timon went a lot slower and just ignored them. The craft was holding pretty well, and nothing got through to them, at first. Until a small, very light colored man took something out of his pocket and threw it at them. It made a smoke of some kind that glowed faintly pink in the air and tried to move toward the air intake vents.
Kolb touched the seat in front of him hard enough that it moved and the air flow stopped, even as they kept moving.
"That will cut our air. We have about seven minutes to get this done. The stair access..." Was right in front of them, but guarded by something so strange that Timon's mind refused to make sense of it at first. It was like a man, in that it had two arms and legs, but was all blue and had a slight sheen to it. Metal. He thought.
Kolb whistled in appreciation.
"Impressive. That's a powered armor suit. I don't know if it can stop us, but we might not have time to find out. Let's use the emergency entrance. Backwards about forty feet."
That plan wasn't optimal, since it could make the floor collapse in on White, so they had to move away from where they figured her cell was. Then just move through the steel and stone. It was two levels down, which meant the building was going to be in danger of falling down, by the time they were done.
The place filled with smoke, since something had caught on fire it looked like. He hadn't noticed an open flame, but there it was, all around them. When they got to the door, he didn't know what to do. It had been covered, but so far things had been a bit different than he'd thought they would be. That was... Strange, since they'd covered the plans really well. The armor was a bit different, but it was alm
ost certainly going to be something, wasn't it? If not that then some other kind of trick or trap they weren't ready for.
Tiera sounded relaxed still, if a bit more lively than before.
"I'm going out. We can't risk using the craft to breach the cell door. Kolb you're on guard for this?" It was the plan, but she was clearly trying to make it sound like she wasn't bossing the man around. That was kind of a big deal, in her world, since she was always a bit bossy. Almost always at least.
"Yes. I'll cover the left side. You free Julie and get her on board."
Timon was staying in the craft, but made it larger. That was for two reasons the first was so Julie would have a place to sit. The second was so that when they left, they'd leave a bigger hole. It would serve to distract people. Maybe at least.
The others moved fast, and then the world became a mess of images for him. He didn't hear it all, but Kolb started to scream almost instantly, while not giving up his position at all. It was that glowing pink mist in the air, which wasn't being stopped by their shields at all. At the same time he was fighting the blue armored form, and winning, even while bellowing in agony.
On the other side of the craft Tiera was busily cutting through the door and kicking it out of the way. It was thick and seemed to be made of metal, but it didn't take long. She didn't have a weapon in her hand, using the ones embedded inside her for the task instead. It was a really neat trick and made it look like she was using direct effect, waving at the metal with her fist, and causing it to form a line of separation wherever she did.
After a few seconds she darted in, coming back with a white form in her arms. Holding the larger woman like a child. Tim made the door in the back larger and turned his focus to the fight off to the other side. Julie would live or die, but Kolb was in trouble, since he was losing his fight now it seemed. Part of that was the mist. Actually that seemed to mainly be it. If it were nano based, it should have been stopped by his shield, so it was different than that, but it was making his skin bubble and flake off, whatever it was.
Timon had to think for a second before working out what to do, given that the mobile armor was right there too. Trying to attack with loud explosions that made a small jet of fire come from the back of its hands.
He let the ship rise and then settled it over Kolb leaving a hole that was just big enough to allow for his shielded form to enter the craft. Then he made the floor come back and took off his healing amulet and tossed it to him. He missed the catch, but managed to pick it up while screaming still and get it into place. Behind him, sitting with Julie on her lap, Tiera pressed her side against the woman. He could feel what she was doing, the healing amulet inside of her working away already, healing both of them. Tim blinked, as understanding came then.
Tiera and White had both been exposed to the mist too. Tiera just hadn't screamed, so he hadn't noticed it as easily as with Kolb. They all had blisters on their skin and were, thankfully, healing already. So it wasn't permanent, no matter what it was.
"Hang on." They didn't have to do it physically, but Timon wasn't planning to be nice about what came next, given the use of that kind of thing. It wasn't affecting the remainder of the people either, so they were immune to it, or something. Hopefully that meant it was their trap, instead of a nuke or strike from space.
The craft expanded to the largest size he could make it, which was nearly the footprint of the building they were in, that pretty much caused the upper floors to fall in. The tricky part was that he took time to wrap the mobile armored suit in the shield material, locking it in place with no air. If it didn't have its own inside, the person there was going to be pretty uncomfortable a few minutes later. The rest of it was done as soon as he rose up, at about a thousand miles per hour. Maybe a little more. He had to stop after about ten seconds so they wouldn't end up going too high.
Then he let the forced air system start to work again, and just sat there, hovering for a few seconds, and took off, headed for Noram, not having any better plan.
The others were doing better at least, though Julie wasn't awake yet. If it was her at all. She looked right, but had her eyes closed still. There was breathing, a mesmerizing rise and fall that he had to force himself to look away from as soon as he realized what he was doing, which was looking at her, instead of piloting the craft they were in. The one moving at thousands of miles per hour. It was part of how she'd been created. She was lovely, perhaps the most captivating person to have ever lived, or at least one of them. Her skin, now that some of her natural tone was returning, was like the surface of a pearl, and her hair wasn't just pure white, but glistened a bit.
That plus the fact that she was spraying chemicals out that caused her to be addictively attractive would explain his lack of discipline well enough. That was through his shield too, which he'd never turned off. Making himself focus, he didn't speak, just doing his part, which was to keep moving and evade capture, if there was pursuit. Nothing seemed to be following them, but he couldn't see behind the vehicle, so had to circle in order to get a good look. It was that or make the rest of the craft see through, which might just be a problem for the others at the moment.
Kolb rallied first, but didn't speak until he was back to normal, more or less.
"We need to do something slightly unexpected. Head for Austra. It isn't ideal, but we'll have to make do. There are only so many places we can go to regroup right now, and Noram is too obvious by far. I'd try Vagus, but..." He paused for a long time. "Head there instead. I was being prejudiced, because of their low technological level, but we don't need tech right now, we need a place to work from that no one else would be thinking about overly."
"Right." Timon made the needed corrections, not bothering to look at a map. It was his job to know that sort of thing. Literally. He had the whole globe memorized as well as most of the biggest cities. Even the ones in Tellerand. Just in case it ever came up.
No one spoke for a while longer, Tiera so clearly holding her mind in check that it radiated from her. It was nice. A peaceful thing that Timon wasn't sure he could have managed at all. It was White that started the conversation, making a strange noise that sounded happy enough, if odd.
"Oh, good. I was wondering if anyone would notice. They said they replaced me with a clone?"
Timon had heard that one too, so nodded from the front.
"Yes. Tiera and Orange worked it out. Sorry about the delay getting to you. I don't want to be rude, but could you take your clothes off?" He half expected someone to call him on it, but even White just stood up, stretched and stripped. He didn't get to watch, which would have been fun, since she was pretty, but he had to keep his eyes front in order to steer properly. At least that's what he told himself. It might have also been due to the damage his mind had taken, making all women seem a bit untrustworthy. One or the other, he was sure.
It was Tiera that questioned him, with a single word.
"Tim?"
"We need to check her for weapons. We can't prove that she's really her and not another clone, but we can check for anything that might be used against us. At least that's on the outside of her body."
Julie cleared her throat, as Kolb looked at her, his interest more than a bit academic, it seemed.
"You can check inside too, if you need. I was... kept in isolation. To torture me. Gray, I'm sure. She never did like me all that well, though I tried to be her friend. I..." There was a bit of a gasp from her, but it didn't seem displeased. Tiera it seemed was actually using her fingers to make certain there were no hidden weapons inside her either. Then she had the woman open her mouth and actually looked inside.
"That doesn't cover surgically implanted things, or ones swallowed, or her natural abilities. She doesn't have a hidden force lance however. Not one she can get to easily."
Timon nodded and tried not to look back.
Watching his sister finger his Aunt wasn't something he really wanted to dwell on, even if it had been his idea in the first place. Thankfully s
he did put clothing on, when Tiera handed her an amulet for it, instead of her white clothing that she'd been in for weeks. It took a bit for that to work and she ended up in a white version of the same clothing Timon was in, but it worked and covered her, which was a relief.
He nodded and changed the topic.
"Kolb, does that mobile armor have air reserves?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Oh, I just took the person that was attacking you and sort of locked them into place on the bottom of the craft. They might still be alive then, I guess. It wasn't a perfect idea, but maybe they have information and will be willing to share? Or not. In that case we can just steal their armor as a trophy. Put it in a museum or whatever." It was a stupid idea, all the way around, but no one called him a moron for doing it. Far from it.
Julie clapped.
"Oh, you caught Monroe? Perfect. I haven't had a chance to speak with him personally yet. He was always rather fond of me. I bet his clone will be too." There was a lot more certainty there than seemed warranted, but Kolb didn't disagree with her.
"Are you certain it's Monroe? I wouldn't have thought that anyone would bother to bring him back. I mean, nice guy, but a bit easily led... Which answers that question, doesn't it?"
"Indeed. As to your question Timon, I think that such things tend to have about two to three hours of internal air time, and then the operator has to leave the confines of the suit or recharge. If we were to land over the water and dangle him in it, he'll eventually have to come out, if he doesn't want to suffocate. Then we can ask him questions at our leisure." She looked around, then moved to sit on Tiera's lap again. She didn't explain why, but put her arms around her, as if to simply be closer. "We're headed to Vagus?"
That got the bald man to nod.
"Directly. It will take longer than two hours. At least in this boat. The new ones can do it inside twenty minutes."
White inhaled, and managed to do it in a way that sounded skeptical.
"You already have craft that can travel that fast?"