Eve grabs both of her daughters’ hands and begins communicating with them about the instructions for her plan. They stand there holding hands and their eyes glowing blue to focus their powers.
On the battleship, a different scene is developing.
“Sir, all of our fighters have been eliminated. It looks like they will try to make a run for it, mostly like using their starboard side facing us as it is the least damaged. They will probably jump if they can make it around us,” Bean says with confidence.
“35 fighters! Okay, I am not playing around anymore: open fire with everything we got including missiles,” Gen. Hurt commands with a forceful attitude.
“Here they come, firing missiles,” Bean says as he presses a button.
Second Officer Ham, “Sir, we are getting a massive energy feedback in our main generator….” The power flutters on the bridge and lights go off and on. “Shields just went offline, Sir…and now the weapon systems.”
“What?” the General screams. “Get the backups going now!” he yells.
“Bridge, this is security. We have fighting breaking out on all decks. The crewmen are fighting against each other,” the chief of security reported.
“What is the hell is going on? Don’t just stand there looking at me, get back to work!” Gen. Hurt roars at the station officers as the lights and panels blink off and on.
Ship-wide intercom is activated on the battleship.
Eve begins to speak,” Looks like you have a discipline problem, General…You know that is usually is a sign of poor leadership. I understand that it is hard to find good help these days,” She laughs an evil laughter that echoes throughout the ship.
“Mind you, Witch, I going to kill you with my own hands if it is the last thing I do. I am going to hunt you down like the garbage you are. Your mind tricks don’t work on me.”
“Maybe not, but they do on your officers.” Half of the bridge officers point their weapons and begin firing randomly at people.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha!” Eve chuckles aloud. “Councilman, don’t think I have forgotten about you and your murdering band of sorcerers. I am going to enjoying watching my daughters suck the life out of each of you.”
On the bridge of the Evella, missiles from the battleship coming raining down on the starboard side. Several of them hit, causing more explosions.
Rulu says, “Boss, jump engines hit, and sub-light engines offline.”
“On the bright side, we have matching craters on both sides now,” Gartooth cleverly inserts.
“Boss, I just lost helm control and we are spinning like a Frisbee. We going to hit that battleship in 90 seconds or so,” Helma says with alarm.
“Geez, I got to pee so bad now,” Gartooth added.
“Remove command module clamps and begin bridge separation. We are going to detach from the ship and then get as far away as we can,” Eve sputters out. She activates ship-wide intercom, “This is the captain. All remaining crewmembers abandon ship, abandon ship!”
“Detaching complete,” Rulu says. “Activating Command Module engine and helm control.”
“Helm control up. I am steering us away, but this has a small engine’s sub-light speed that is lame,” Helma says with regret.
Pura says, “Boss, we are are not going to make it out of the blast area in time. The Evella will slam into their reactor core hard because their shields are down.”
“Now I really gotta pee,” Gartooth squeaks.
Nelma frowns at him and barks, “Seriously?”
“Sorry, I usually just have gas when I am about to die, but I think I drank too much water earlier.”
On the battleship, collision alarms are going off.
“Sir, that ship is going to hit us in the reactor core. We need to abandon ship—not that that it will help much.”
“Turn the ship some, so we at least have a chance to escape in the pods, you idiot.”
“Yes, General.”
The General presses a button and abandon ship messages thunder out, as he runs down the corridor heading to the fighter bays. He makes it into the hanger bay of his personal fighter just as a tremendous explosion reverberates throughout the ship. He activates his fighter and begins launching just as a chain of explosions marches down the ship in his direction. He jettisons out of the bay into space and heads full throttle away from the battleship. The battleship begins to break up as a monumental explosion completes the devastation. Large quantities of debris go in all directions, destroying everything in their path.
Both Eve’s command module, as well as the General’s fighter, are hurled into open space in opposite directions. The electrical systems in both ships flicker off and on. Both are floating in space.
“Wow! That was a heck of an explosion,” Rulu says.
“Yeh,” Pura agrees.
“Report,” Eve requests.
“I need to change my shorts,” Gartooth says hesitantly. Helma slaps him on the back of the head.
“I should have everything running in an hour,” Rulu assures.
“Until then we will be free flying through space with no controls into the Elemental Empire,” Nelma states.
“How far to the nearest Reptilian planet?” Eve questions.
“About 100,000 years without lightspeed, but we will run out of food and water in a week or so, so that is irrelevant,” Nelma guesses.”The only planet in range is about 10 days, but it is in Elemental Space.”
“Set a course for there, as we don’t really have an option,” Eve says.
“Okay, will do as soon as Rulu finishes repairs. I will assist. Just hope we don’t have any hostiles pop up because we don’t have weapons or shields in this thing.”
A few hours pass and they make repairs and head off to the nearest planet.
Chapter Five
After traveling into Elemental Space for seven days, the crew is out of food, and very little water is left. Long-range sensors start beeping.
42 says, “Contact bearing 90 degrees starboard. They just dropped out of warp, probably because they detected us. We are not in commercial shipping lanes. What you want to do, Boss?”
“What type of ship is it?”
“Looks like a small Elemental Transport ship, not commercial. The ship’s ID indicates a governmental transport of some kind, with about 30 people.”
“Okay. Lets play dead; maybe they will try to board us.”
“Just life support barely on…well, that actually isn’t false, ha-ha,” Helma laughs.
“Pass out the weapons.”
“Roger that, Boss.” Gartooth starts handing the weapons.
“They are heading this way,” Pura says. A few minutes pass and they hear the other ship trying to attach to the airlock.
“They will come up to the bridge first, so lets wait in the storage space downstairs that is near the airlock. When they come in, they will go down the other hall and up the stairs to the bridge. We will slip onto their ship, de-attach the airlock connector, and trap them here. Then we’ll take over their ship. They will probably send over most of their security since it is a small vessel, and we can trap them on our ship.”
They run down to the storage space and wait. After a few minutes, they finally see seven people who look like security guards and a couple of leader types. Eve senses magic, so one of the leaders must be a sorcerer. She can feel the overwhelming urges of her daughters, as they smell food come through the doorway.
“Patience, my pretties. Not that one, but there is probably one on the ship that you can eat so just wait,” Eve assures her daughters. She sees the intruders go down the other hall.
“Let’s go,” Eve whispers. They pile into the airlock and go across. When they emerge on the other side, there is a human male about 25 years old standing in robes and guarding the door. The young sorcerer, probably an apprentice, is caught off guard, but before he can react the daughters have plunged their claw hands into his chest and back. They began to suck his life force out of him in a frenzy.
His face and body shrivel up like a dried prune as the girls snap him into two pieces in the same fashion as dogs fighting over food. The others freak out over what they just witnessed. They back away from them in fear. Eve feels the satisfaction her daughters felt.
“It’s okay guys. They only eat sorcerers and undead, so relax. They are just as hungry as we are, and they just eat different food. Let us move,” Eve states as she de-attaches the airlock bridge. She then destroys the controls so they cannot be activated again.
“Here is an access panel. I am plugging into the computer, getting the maps for the ship, and um…this is a prison ship: 16 prisoners and 14 crew. Seven are on the other vessel, and four flight crew and two others are still here, considering we just killed one,” 42 says.
“Let’s go up to the bridge first and get control before they figure out they have been duped.”
They head up to the bridge. Upon entering the bridge, the flight crew figures out something is wrong but it is too late. Eve grabs all five of them using telekinesis.
“Bind them. Gartooth, Pura, and Doc, find the last one. 42, figure out how to fly this thing. Helma and Nelma, take navigation and helm stations,” Eve commands quickly.
“I am linked with the ship computers. Fortunately, they did not have time to lock us out. I am changing all the command codes to ones that only we know. We have complete control of the ship now.”
“Good. Back us away from the other ship, and blow our ship up using their weapons.”
“Roger that,” 42 says.
Helma moves the ship away and fires all weapons at the other ship. The ship is destroyed.
“Plot a course back to Reptilian space and let us get out of here.”
Nelma says, “Plotted.”
Rulu says, “Jumping to light speed now. Should be home in 14 days.”
Downstairs on the cell levels, Gartooth’s party sees some cells with prisoners in them and then spots a human guard who bolts down some stairs at the other end of the hallway. They begin to chase after him. They go down a couple of flights of stairs to the bottom level and then an alert begins blaring.
“Danger! Prisoner escape! Isolation cell red!” The message continues to cycle over and over again.
Gartooth goes down the corridor with the others following behind him. They come down to two doors at a ‘T’ intersection. One door is red and one yellow.
“Special cells that look like they are magical. And that peckerwood we are chasing decided to let something out,” Gartooth presses his com badge and says, “Boss, the dude we were chasing let something mean and nasty out of a special cell down on the bottom level.”
42 replies, “Looking it up on the prisoner roster. Says ‘Classified, level one clearance needed to access.’ Sorry, can’t help you.”
“Bah.”
“Um, I think I know what was in that cell,” Doc says peeking down the other hall. The others come and look as well.
“Yeh…I am pretty sure it is an arachnid.”
“You think?” Gartooth stares down a hall filled with huge spider webs. “I hate arachnids. Haha, looks like we don’t worry about that human.” As he knocks on the humanoid cocoon in the center of the webs, he also notices that a corpse has been sucked dry.
“Yeh, the webs harden when contact is made—a silicon-based material. Keeps the food fresh until the arachnid is hungry,” Doc says.
“I could have gone all day without picturing that in my head,” Pura says with a queasy stomach.
“There are two types of arachnids: sorcerers and warriors. Sorcerers cast webs to catch food, and warriors can go invisible at will and enchant weapons like swords and then track down and kill their prey. It appears this one is a sorcerer, I will inform the Captain,” Doc states. She presses her com badge.
“It appears we have a sorcerer arachnid running loose down here, Captain.”
“Okay. I am on my way, so wait there.” Minutes later, Eve appears at Gartooth’s location.
“The ship’s diagram shows a cargo area down this corridor and to the left. Let us proceed with caution.” They to go down the hall and turn to the left and creep through the door that leads into a large cargo chamber. It is filled with huge webs that cover the entire cargo bay. The party is standing there in astonishment at the size and density of these webs.
“I sense something, but it is not magical, not a sorcerer. It is a familiar presence telepathic in nature. Not picking anything up on sensors with these hand-held devices, but I feel it,” Eve whispers quietly. She goes into the cargo bay slowly and cautiously.
“I know you’re in here, as I feel you. I sense your fear. I am not here to harm you. I feel your pain,” she says transmitting a telepathic message. She receives images of an arachnid in a laboratory being tortured and experimented on in a horrific manner.
“42, recall that lab data from your memory banks and do a search for arachnid experiments,” Eve says.
“Yes, Boss,” he says using his com badge. “Yes, it appears they captured a young female arachnid warrior and did many experiments on it. They made it undead and used its physiology as a baseline for the disease that was created to destroy the undead. They also injected PSI enzymes from your DNA sample to see what would happen to a non-telepath. The creature is immune to the undead disease but is still a carrier. The PSI injections had some unusual effects on the arachnid, such as being able cast webs like a sorcerer arachnid. The eyes were altered as well. The subject has the ability the fire energy beams from its eyes that cause catastrophic damage as well as area-of-effect knockback to things that are close to the target. Her eye beams are similar to the main cannon on a battleship. An eye device was created to modulate and control this effect and placed on the creature. I would advise proceeding with caution as this ship was not designed to take hits from a battleship cannon.”
“Understood,” Eve, acknowledges.
“Geez, you gotta to be kidding me—freaking laser beam eyes?” Gartooth says with concern as he and the rest of the party back out of the room in fear. Eve has the same concerns but stands there in the middle of the cargo bay in the midst of all the webbing. She switches her sensor scanner to translator mode and a setting for reptilian-arachnid.
“I know that you are hurt and scared. We have captured this ship, and the people who did this to you have been captured or destroyed. The laboratory that you were in was also destroyed. We are here to help you, not to harm you. Please trust me. I can remove the control collar around your neck, but I cannot do it unless I can see you,” Eve reassures. “The sorcerer with the controller for your collar has been destroyed as well.”
A bluish-purple arachnid appears, hanging from the ceiling webs. She has a human female’s torso with black spider legs and a large red hourglass on her stomach. She is wearing a visor over her eyes and has a control collar around the neck. She also has short bright orange hair on her head with matching orange lips with protruding fangs.
“There you are…you are so pretty,” Eve says as she unlocks the collar, and lets it fall to the ground. “Come down here and let me get a look at you.” The spider slowly comes down the webs and moves toward Eve. Eve gestures with her hands to come forward. She could still feel the fear coming from this poorly treated creature. Eve walks up to the arachnid.
“You are truly beautiful. What is your name?” Eve asks.
“Gothica,” she replies.
“That is a good name for an arachnid. I like your hair,” Eve says, running her fingers through the short orange hair. Eve could feel the fear dissipating somewhat from Gothica.
“I want you to meet some friends of mine. They are little scared of you, but it is okay.” Eve gestures for the rest of the group to come inside. The doctor comes inside and the others follow shortly at a slower pace—not too thrilled about meeting in arachnid.
“My name is Doctor Farshe Mezeenabark, but calling me ‘Doc’ is okay. Pleased to meet you, Gothica. I never actually met one of your race. Are you hurt in any way?�
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Gothica hears the word doctor and suddenly fear takes over.
“Gothica, Doc is not like those people in that laboratory. She is not going to harm you. She actually keeps me and the crew from getting sick or hurt. She just wants to make sure you are okay. This is Gartooth and Pura.”
“Um, high. Can I go to the bridge and check on the prisoners?” Gartooth says, just looking for any reason to leave.
“Sure,” Eve frowns at Gartooth.
“Hi, there, I think you’re an adorable spider-person,” Pura says with a wink. She notices Gothica looking at her jewelry. “Oh, you must like jewelry? Here, take this necklace as it matches your hair.” She offers her the necklace. Gothica hesitantly accepts the gift. Pura helps her put it on.
“Pura, stay with Gothica for a bit, if you don’t mind. I need to get back up to the bridge,” Eve says. “Doc, come on.”
“Sure, I think we will get along just fine, cat and spider—we are both predators, ha-ha. Besides, I want to paint her nails orange to match her hair. I wish I had four arms—that is so cool,” Pura says, getting out her nail kit. “I never leave home without it,” she giggles. Gothica feeling a lot more comfortable and begins laughing with Pura as she begins painting the nails of one of her four hands.
As Eve and the Doc walk up to the bridge, Eve says, “Just remember that she was in a laboratory being experimented on so lay off the poking and prodding if all possible. I know you are curious just like all doctors are, but around her you are probably going to have to explain everything that you do, including touching her or poking or whatever. The poor creature has been tortured enough.”
“I know. I’m just exciting about having an arachnid on board, even though she is undead. I do not think she really understands what being undead means. Everyone is going to hate her. Being an arachnid is hard enough. What about your two daughters? They are worried about being around an undead, are they? A word of caution, this particular undead is not one that your daughters would want to feed off of as it will probably kill them. Just make sure they understand that. This is a mutant undead. Also, I noticed she still has many injuries; she will need to feed on live subjects to heal all of the damage that was done to her. She is probably not susceptible to ultraviolet light like the regular undead are.”
Galaxy of Empires- Merchant Wars Episode #1 Page 5