by Stone,Kord
The anti-gravity feature worked for the most part, it did slow his descent but he still impacted the floor hard. Looking down he noted where his feet made contact with the ground. There were now six-inch depressions where he landed. Jerren called out, “I’m clear of the room.”
“Alright, we have transported everything from the level above us,” Eneria announced a moment later.
Jerren stepped up from the depressions he had made in the ground, and a moment later he was hit from behind. Losing hold of the bomb and vial they fell to the ground as Jerren went flying across the cavern.
Skidding to a halt, Jerren made his way to his feet and looked back to see what had hit him. Anubisis was crouched over the bomb trying to pick it up to no avail. Jerren drew his weapon and once out of sight he called out to Eneria, “Anubisis is out here, we need to get the bomb and dark matter vial on the ship ASAP. I’ll distract him.”
Eneria shouted over the communications, “Justin and I are on our way, Anubisis has too much training, do not engage him.”
Eneria’s last words were said a little too late as Jerren approached him, Anubisis must have been able to sense his approach, because just as Jerren dropped his cloak and the moment before his punch would have made contact with Anubisis’s head, Anubisis leapt out of the way with a roll. Knowing his weapons would have no effect on Anubisis’s armor, Jerren took another approach, he took aim at the ground two feet in front of him and fired a concussive wave which gouged the ground and threw Anubisis headlong into the nearby Battleship.
A second later Jerren heard Justin and Eneria from behind him.
“I will take care of Anubisis. Get the bomb and dark matter vial onto the ship.” Eneria said.
“But I —” Jerren began.
Eneria cut him off, “No! Leave him to me.”
Justin had already picked up the bomb and despite not wishing to leave Eneria with Anubisis, Jerren grabbed the dark matter vial, “Are you sure?” he asked.
“Yes, Hurry,” Eneria shouted.
Jerren got the vial on the ship just as Jason returned, “Here take this, I’m going to help Eneria.” Jerren said as he handed the dark matter off and turned for the hatch.
Anubisis had been shaking his head apparently from the impact he just endured, and Eneria stepped back into her defensive battle stance as Anubisis made his way to his feet. Anubisis looked stunned a moment, and then he taunted, “That old fool taught you? I didn’t think he accepted miniature runts as students.”
Eneria was getting sick of Anubisis, and stated, “You are an idiot.”
Anubisis laughed, “I never thought I would—”
“Yes! Yes! Have the chance to kill another of his students. And you will cherish this one for many thousands of years. Blah… Blah, you have no originality you know that?”
Anubisis’s attempt to taunt her had failed. Eneria was focused on what was to come. He stepped into her with a whirlwind kick followed by double cross faced blows, each deflected with ease once again. She almost wanted to laugh, Anubisis was a creature of habit and he proceeded with the exact same tactics as he attacked her with in the prior timeline.
Eneria stepped back and reset. Anubisis thrust with the same volley of kicks and fists finally landing the same one as before, and it had a similar effect on him. Upon striking her, his armor which had been patched together split apart when the bindings it was encased in failed to hold up to the impact, as it did in the other timeline.
Jerren had handed off the last of the dark matter to Jason then made it out to Eneria and heard a commotion from the far side of the battleship, the reinforcements had arrived from above.
Jerren drew his weapon and looked from the oncoming horde to Eneria and Anubisis, Jerren saw Eneria had Anubisis under control for the moment and decided to keep it that way. Jerren took aim at the fifteen to twenty soldiers making their way toward them. One stunning blast after the other, soldiers crumpled to the floor. At one point when there were only five of them left they opened fire in random directions in a vain attempt to hit their unseen assailant.
Jerren finished off stunning the last of the advancing soldiers and turned just in time to see Eneria perform a whirlwind kick to Anubisis’ back, sending him flying. This time, there was no soft wall to cushion his impact. Anubisis flew headlong past him and into the Imortum battleships. Anubisis’s armor shattered apart with the impact, and he fell to the ground a couple of feet from Jerren out cold.
Jerren got to Anubisis’ side, reached down and after checking for a pulse, he took a firm hold of the rubberized under suit at Anubisis’s neck and Jerren dragged him toward TDS 4. Looking to Eneria Jerren was surprised to see that she wasn’t even winded from the exchange. “Are you alright?”
Eneria chuckled and only said, “Yes.”
Jerren could hear more reinforcements arriving, and as soon as Eneria, Anubisis and he were on the ship Jerren put his hand to the wall and was just about to close the hatch, when it sealed on its own, “Terrah, transport this guy to medical and put him in stasis,” Jerren called down the corridor. A moment later Anubisis vanished and Jerren let out a sigh. Turning to Eneria he pulled her into a tight embrace and kissed her soundly.
Thinking to go back out and retrieve General Green really fast, Jerren placed his hand on the wall and attempted to call for the hatch, but it wouldn’t work. So he called out, “Terrah could you open the hatch a moment, it won’t work for me.”
Terrah responded a moment later saying, “Something’s wrong, I can’t open it either.”
Disgruntled at not bringing Green aboard earlier, or at least asking one of his brothers to do it, Jerren took Eneria’s hand figuring he would just have Terrah transport him aboard and they made their way through the clutter to the control room.
Jerren saw that Terrah, Jason and Justin had cleared the control room enough to access the console, but the room was still a serious mess. He would have thought Terrah would have been able to clear the ship of the debris by now and asked, “Can’t you reset the ship yet?”
Terrah shook her head, “No, the ship is almost fully restarted, but it will still won’t work.”
Jerren looked around and cringed at the mess he saw.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Eneria and Jerren had just made it into the control room and Terrah asked, “How are we supposed to get this ship out of here? We don’t have control of the bay door.”
Eneria made her way to Terrah’s side, “Bring up the navigation console.” A second later Eneria let out a disappointed grumble saying, “you have enough energy to perform a single phased jump about one hundred and thirty-seven thousand kilometers, that will put this ship almost half way between Earth and the moons orbit.”
Terrah had a concerned look on her face as she asked, “Won’t we crash into the structures above us?”
Eneria placed her hand on Terrah’s shoulder and said, “No, when you phase, you will pass through the other matter.” She looked around, “Is your AI online yet?”
Terrah closed her eyes and seemed to concentrate a moment then said, “Not yet, is that normal?”
Eneria hesitated a moment and said, “It could take a little longer,” Eneria had concern mounting. TDS 4 had been powered down a very long time. In her recollection, her program had always been activated by the time the ship had made it to this point in the restart cycle. That along with the fact that Terrah was unable to reset the ship for the new commander made her fearful that the ship had been damaged a lot more than she could see.
Looking down at the console Eneria noticed something strange and a second later she heard Inola say, “Move that ship!” Eneria looked again and gasped then shouted, “Jerren! Get to the master control room and move our ship now! That Battleship is powering up!” Hoping the ships malfunctions didn’t extend to the propulsion she began instructing Terrah on the launch procedure.
Jerren jumped when Eneria shouted and took off at once for the master control room, and he heard Eneria call out
that she would help Terrah launch the ship just before passing through the archway to the master control room. As soon as Jerren entered he moved the ship to their predesignated safety location and entering his ship Jerren called to Alise and Calia, “Did you hear that?”
Alise replied, “Yes we were monitoring everything over the life monitors. We are setting up an overwatch, we are triangulating on TDS 4’s phase jump location. I just sent you your coordinates.”
Jerren focused on the coordinates and moved the ship into the location indicated, “Okay, I’m in position. What’s the battle plan?”
“If the battleship engages TDS 4, fire everything we have at it,” Alise responded.
Jerren had a feeling of doom course through his body as a plan popped into his head and he shouted, “No! It won’t work… Position the ships like we did to restart TDS 4 and activate the Ion pulse generators on their Phase jump location… Eneria can you hear me?”
“Yes, what is your plan?”
“As soon as you phase jump, shut down all ancillary systems. We have the Ion pulse generators set to charge that ship, and we will be just out of phase. When you have enough energy you need to activate the phase, but only enough to maintain it with the trickle charge we can provide you.”
“Got it, we will phase Jump in five seconds,” Eneria called out.
Jerren thought that five seconds felt more like twenty, and once TDS 4 was in position, each of the other TDS ships made minor corrections to ensure their beams were providing the most benefit.
Thirty seconds later Jerren heard Eneria call out, “We are getting a lot more energy than before with the unobstructed beams, the ship will be able to maintain a point two five phase in another thirty seconds.”
Jerren was kicking himself because in all of the excitement, he failed to tell Terrah to transport General Green aboard.
Calia called out, “The battleship is launching right now, and whatever was blocking our signals is gone. There are ninety-six lifeforms down on that base, when that ship busts through they will not survive it. Do we transport them up?”
Jerren replied, “Yes, I will take a third of them,” Jerren felt he was handed a gift now, and targeted the General first, and after getting him safely aboard the vessel he targeted more soldiers and was a little surprised at his readings. He hesitated a moment, then made a quick modification to his Decon room then sent a group of soldiers to the second-floor meeting room, another ten to decon, and one more to Join the General in medical stasis, he hesitated another second debating on making another transport, then deciding against it Jerren said, “I have mine.”
A second later Alise said, “Alright, I have mine as well.”
“Okay, I have the rest,” Calia announced. There was silence a moment then Calia continued, “The battle ship is breaking through the surface, it will be in weapons range of TDS 4 in ten seconds… five, four, three. ENGAGE PHASE!”
The battleship fired several energy blasts at TDS 4’s location then took off at high speed. A few seconds later Eneria’s voice sounded.
“We were hit, but we are okay, we can explain it in our meeting. This ship should have enough energy to travel at minimal speed in about one hour. If Terrah keeps TDS 4 out of phase like this, and we travel in our current formation, then TDS 4 can remain out of phase until we make it to Daregon.” Eneria stated.
Jerren’s heart slowed down from the frantic beat it was pounding and he replied, “That sounds good, let us know when you’re ready. Where do we want to transport our guests?”
Eneria replied a few seconds later saying, “Terrah wants to know if you rescued General Green.”
Jerren knew the general said he was his sister’s guardian, but he had not passed that information along yet. He evaluated the general’s condition and replied, “Yes, I have him in the medical unit of this ship, I had to stun him down on the surface, but he’s doing well. Why?” Jerren asked.
“Terrah said she needed to speak with him,” Eneria replied.
Jerren chuckled and asked, “Anyone else we’d like to talk to before we drop them off?”
Eneria’s laughter filled the communications, “Jason said something about a CIA spook, but I do not think there would be much talking going on.”
Calia said, “I just transported my group to a safe location outside of Area 51,” and a moment later Alise announced that she followed suit.
Jerren considered where he was going to place his ‘Guests’. He wanted to question the ten he had in decon before deciding what to do with them, but the eighteen he had on the second level he knew exactly what he was going to do with. Jerren laughed and said, “Okay, I’m transporting some of my group into The Pentagon, some to the Whitehouse and the rest into NORAD. Everyone meet On TDS 1 in twenty minutes.”
Jerren completed the transport, and was about to scan the medical condition of the aliens he had in decon, but a moment later the room was empty. He checked his transporter log to make sure he didn’t transport them to Earth by accident, but he hadn’t done it. Figuring Inola was responsible Jerren sighed and called out. “Jason, can you and Justin collect Anubisis and we will question him on your ship. Make sure to extend the duration of his stasis for transport, we don’t want him waking up prematurely.”
“Uh, I don’t think that will be a problem…” the laughter in Jason’s voice could be heard clearly.
“What’s that about?” Jerren asked.
“We’ll explain it in a minute, but for now Anubisis is safe.” Jason ended with a chuckle.
Wanting to see what they were eluding to, Jerren headed to the master control room to accompany the others to TDS 1.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jerren had only been in the master control room a minute before Jason and Justin appeared carrying Anubisis draped between them. Jerren’s eyes swept from the unconscious Anubisis to his brothers, “What happened to you two? Your faces are all bloodied,” Jerren asked of Jason.
Shaking his head, Jason replied, “After we phase jumped out of the cavern we shut down all ancillary systems like you said. We didn’t think about it, but it took him,” Jason nodded to the unconscious man and continued, “out of stasis. Justin and I entered medical thinking he was still out and we were ambushed. Before we could raise the armor, he had already hit me more times than I can recall. We were kicked to the side, and if not for this armor I do believe he would have killed us.”
Jerren felt worried as he asked, “What about Eneria? Is she okay?”
Justin chuckled and drew Jerren’s attention, “Eneria is fine. She heard the ruckus and came to our aid. All I can say is don’t judge a book… This idiot turned on her and she proceeded to clean the floor with him.”
Jason chimed in, “Well not really, there was a bit more of a mess after that actually. Anubisis attempted to hit Eneria and after that it was a blur of fists and feet. Anubisis never did make contact with her, but she sure did with him. He was knocked unconscious in a matter of twenty seconds and you called over a few seconds afterward. Eneria is tough as nails, if she’s willing I think we should all get some training from her.”
Jerren laughed nervously as he realized that if Anubisis had harmed Eneria at all, it would have been pointless to attempt to question Anubisis, because he would have been dead. Regaining his composure Jerren assisted his brothers by picking up Anubisis’ feet so he was being carried by all three of them, “you guys might want to get cleaned up a bit once we have him locked down in stasis. It looks like you both have broken noses.”
Jason chuckled, “They were. The first blow to each of us was a face shot. We set each other’s noses, and healed them the best we could, but the blood stains will have to be washed away though,” Jason looked at Justin then back to Jerren.
“Is my face as bloodied as his?” Jason asked.
Jerren smirked and said, “A little more so. If the girls see you two like this, this idiot may not survive long enough to be questioned. Did Eneria say when she would be over?”
<
br /> “She’s helping Terrah and will be over in a few minutes, they’re still trying to resolve some issues with the ship.” Justin said.
Jerren nodded and the three of them along with the unconscious Anubisis proceeded into TDS 1.
*****
Jason had placed Anubisis in stasis, and then turned to him and Justin saying, “Now that he’s taken care of I’ll get cleaned up. If you want to wait here, we can interrogate him when everyone arrives.”
Justin said he would be right back and headed to his ship to get cleaned up as well, which left Jerren standing and looking at Anubisis. When Jerren was in orbit of Abydos, and had placed a hand on the injured girls head, he could have sworn he could sense her thoughts, so he decided to give it a try with the unconscious Anubisis.
Jerren approached Anubisis and placing a hand on his forehead, he focused as hard as he could. It was difficult at first, but after he got the hang of it he fought past the revulsion and was soon sifting through Anubisis’s memories, most of which were downright disturbing.
Jerren focused on TDS 2 and the ship they built around it. Anubisis and his brother Horuisis created the craft over the past hundred and thirty thousand nonlinear years using Imortum technology they had been scavenging from other pyramids generators throughout the galaxy. It had been built with a TDS ship in mind, and once their consortium managed to disable TDS 2, Horuisis and Anubisis attached it to the vessel, and the ships vulnerabilities were few.
Jerren saw some of the experiments that were performed on TDS 4 by DARPA and it didn’t look good. Jerren dug deeper and found how and what Anubisis and Horuisis constructed the large ship from and he saw a glimmer of a hope.