Chapter 40 - Enemy Territory
In this enemy territory, Tymos and Kryslie expected to meet aliens. They drew on their power, enhanced all their senses and were ready to defend themselves, or to freeze into a semblance of invisibility when they warped the air around them. Though they would need to use the latter skill sparingly as it took personal energy to maintain the ‘invisibility’ and within the alien ship, they could not draw on the natural aura of the planet.
“Sensor ahead – roof level,” Tymos warned as they trotted along the passage. A second later, an alarm began, but they were no longer near that sensor.
“Door to the right,” Kryslie noted a microsecond after her twin’s warning. “Maintenance hatch.”
They stopped abruptly and Tymos jerked on the opening handle and twisted it. As soon as the door opened, they both slipped in. Kryslie closed the door and jammed it shut.
They were in darkness, but their eyes adjusted quickly, and they determined that they were in a small cul-de-sac at the junction of two passageways – one going left and right and another going up and down. In that place the alarm sound was muted by the walls, but they could feel the vibration from running feet in the passage they had left, and voices echoing in the maintenance passages.
Instinctively, they pushed back into the small alcove opposite the hatch and drew power around themselves. Someone tried to open the hatch from the other side. Kryslie listened mentally to the nearby aliens as Tymos studied their surroundings.
“They are sending someone to check that door,” Kryslie warned. “They are checking all the doors.”
“This area has sensors, currently inactive,” Tymos thought in return.
When the lighting began to cycle up, both Tymos and Kryslie stood perfectly still.
“Krys, the lighting is part of some kind of sensor field. I can feel the energy on my face, like it was sunlight.”
Even before Tymos spoke the words in his mind, Kryslie had the thought, “We can use this power.” They both drew on it, like breathing it in.
“Was there a field like this in the other passageway?” Krys asked her twin. She hadn’t noticed anything.
“No, I don’t think so, or the alarm would have started sooner.”
The voices drew closer. Two men stopped at the jammed door and forced it open. Four guards in black coveralls, black tabards and close fitting black beanie hats pushed into the tunnel, and shoved the brown clad workers aside.
“Any sign of the intruders?”
“No, Sir.”
“What was wrong with the door?”
“Jammed. Some fool shut it wrong. Took us both to open it. Your intruder couldn’t have got through.”
Kryslie and Tymos understood the conversation through the mind of the squad leader. They then heard him thinking, “Damned rodents. Warlord Kellex won’t be convinced that is all that triggered the alarm unless he sees the carcass.”
Aloud he said, “Move on. Keep checking. Probably was only a rodent since it was only this area that was set off. But we have to be thorough.”
They sensed the group moving away, and the workers reclosing the hatch.
“That squad leader has a trace of power,” Kryslie told her brother mentally. “I am glad he did not find us because he would have taken us to his superior and enjoyed seeing us suffer. I wonder how many more of the crew have a trace of power.”
“If every squad has one of them, we will be able to avoid them,” Tymos suggested. “But we need to get moving and find out about this ship and discover a way to stop it leaving.”
“And get our bio-monitors and transmitters back,” Kryslie added. “Some of these aliens just might be able to get them to work. I still can’t sense Keleb either, and I have the fear that he was caught too. I hope Jonko can find him.”
By mutual agreement, they decided to climb up a level. As they moved, they maintained a steady draw on the ambient energy of the sensor web. They noticed that the lights dimmed in their location, but brightened again when they were past. No more alarms went off.
On the next level, they emerged into a corridor nearly identical to the one below. The difference lay in the colour of the symbols on the doors and walls. Now they were red, not black. The sensor web was still in evidence.
“People coming,” Kryslie warned. She turned slowly, trying to locate the presences she sensed. “From the right!”
She pushed aside the realisation that she had seen the people as hazy outlines through the wall.
Tymos ran forward and held himself against the right wall, immediately next to the next cross passage. Kryslie crouched low, opposite him; both cloaked themselves with power.
A squad of four guards came into view; all looked each way at the intersection, saw nothing and began to stride on.
Two to one odds were no problem to Tymos or Kryslie. With their instinctive awareness of each other, the guards had no warning of their two pronged attack, and no chance to send an alarm.
Tymos quickly frisked their four victims, found that each had an odd-looking disc around their neck and took them.
He pocketed two of the weapons and passed two to Kryslie before she moved further down the passage. She found a door, and tried to open it using the keypad.
“Try Jon’s transmitter,” Tymos thought at her, as he began to drag to of the men that way.
Kryslie accepted the suggestion and was relieved when the unit charged. She disappeared from Tymos’s view, but reappeared when the locked door opened. She took over dragging the first two men as Tymos went back for the other two. The room was some kind of storage cubicle.
“I disabled the sensor,” Kryslie told her brother.
“Good. We should strip two of these and put their uniforms over our clothes,” Tymos suggested. He didn’t need to think that they would be less conspicuous than maintaining their current garb. Kryslie was relieved to hide the green of the stolen trousers, and to push most of her hair under the hat. She took two of the odd discs from Tymos.
“These guards move on groups of four,” Kryslie noted. “Two of us by ourselves would be suspicious.”
She checked the weapons taken from the guards and identified their means of operation.
“Stealth foremost,” Tymos agreed with his sisters meaning. “We need to get access to the computer system.”
They did not have time to keep creeping around the maintenance areas, so they strode purposefully along passages, letting instinct guide them towards the more inhabited sections of the ship. Tymos maintained a watch with physical senses and Kryslie used mind senses. She became adept at locating approaching aliens, guards and others, and once warned, they both sent the message, ‘there is no one here’, or “we belong here – nothing is strange’ or similar mind commands. The passing aliens either did not see them, or did not find their presence odd.
Occasionally, Tymos checked with Jonko.
“There is a tightly guarded section on that lower level,” he told Kryslie. “Jon’s trying to find a way in.”
Kryslie acknowledged briefly, and told her twin, “All these doors are empty.”
Tymos tried to open one and commented. “Needs a handprint to open the lock.”
“Good thing we don’t need one. There is a crowd of presences coming this way - two guards at least judging from the thoughts in their minds.”
“Transmit into this room,” Tymos suggested. He pulled Kryslie close and took them both in.
“Personal sleeping cabin,” Tymos thought, and then realised Kryslie wasn’t heeding him. “What?”
“I want to look out,” Kryslie thought at him as she began to move back to the door. Tymos grabbed her arm.
“What for?”
“I think some of those approaching are Tymoreans – probably prisoners. I can sense – faintly – power like ours. But most of the minds seem to be in a walking stupor.”
“Krys…No!” Tymos spoke sharply, and then switched back to mind speech. “We can’t rescue them now. We need t
o find Kel and stay free ourselves.”
Two emotions warred in Kryslie’s mind, and she knew Tymos shared them, but his decision was right. The people she sensed were in no condition to fight, and would need a lot of help to get away. If she were seen and identified, these aliens would be after her. Harsh truth, but they would have to help in other ways. Tymos released her, knowing her decision.
“This cabin has a computer. Keep alert while I try to bring up a schematic of the ship and try to find a way to ground it.”
The Tymorean Trust Book 1 - Power Rising Page 42