A cluster of Draconian soldiers was broken up when Karklosea charged them with her redeemer swinging high and low when she saw the chance for a kill. She retreated behind her shield when the Draconians thought they could get a kill. Arms floated away when cut, she had to shove one to the side when it blocked her view. A headless soldier’s body simply stood still, with his magnetic boots still holding him in place, and the lack of gravity making his body stay upright. A ball of boiling blood pooled up where its head would be.
The soldiers that dispersed were gunned down by Chevallier. Those that got close to her ate her newfound arm in the face, cracking a hole in their helmets, making their air hiss away into the vacuum. The modified suit Rivera made for Chevallier was a worthwhile investment.
New soldiers crawled their way out from the second wave of flesh pods. At that point, LeBoeuf and Maxwell were concerned with the diving wyverns coming from above, spraying them with cryonic rounds that turned anything they touched into solid ice. Floating frozen wyverns turned out to be an excellent roadblock to slow their movement.
With fewer targets shooting at her, Karklosea was free to use her other psionic abilities. She flicked her wrists, focusing her mind to grip onto the bodies of the newly arrived soldiers in an attempt to make them float away with telekinesis. It wasn’t working, when they floated away from Kur, they turned and faced it, firing grappling hooks to pull themselves back down.
Lifting them up and then following up with a heavy push did the trick, as the sudden kinetic thrust against their body made them tumble away, and out of range for their hooks. Chevallier put their tumbling bodies, lost to space, out of their misery.
One newly arrived soldier was out of range for telekinesis, he wasn’t for a jump port. She turned into blue light that streaked over to the soldier, and she appeared behind it. Three rapid stabs released large orbs of boiling dragon blood from the soldier. A wyvern that got missed by the psionic duo swooped down, breathing its plasma at her. A jump port carried her back, and a shot of her redeemer in its rifle mode vaporized its face.
When the path was clear, the EDF team placed plasma charges on the airlock hatch, and then cleared from the blast when it detonated. The four stood looking down into the darkened circular hole with its edges glowing red. Motion sensors detected movement. The three humans aimed their rifles into it and fired. Karklosea’s redeemer joined them, just to make sure.
No further movement from within the airlock tunnel was detected.
Karklosea entered first, shutting off the power to her magnetic boots, floated above the darkened entrance, and used her psionic mind to push her body in with telekinesis. Chevallier and her team followed behind. The tunnel she entered from the airlock was dark and long, her helmet activated its lights to illuminate the way. Two minutes into the trek and her HUD reported gravity, not much, just enough for her to slowly fall like she had leaped from a cliff on a small moon and fell like a feather.
She came to land inside a corridor and felt her body increase in weight the second she crossed the threshold from tunnel to corridor. Her HUD updated with holographic overlays, reporting gravity equal to one G. Chevallier and her EDF team floated down from the ceiling one by one afterward.
They made it inside and scoped out their surroundings within the ancient corridors, built by an intelligence that couldn’t have been the three Gods. No, this place was constructed by demons as far as Karklosea was concerned.
Breathable atmosphere graced the exterior of their armor and helmets. What was keeping it from escaping up into the tunnels they passed through was unknown, not even her HNI scans were able to provide those clues.
The helmets of the four came off, no need to waste their limited air supply. They fanned out, pushing deeper into the silent corridors with their weapons drawn, expecting an ambush. Chevallier and her team exchanged words back and forth in the human language. Karklosea continued to keep her mind focused and calm, ignoring the primitive instincts that told her she entered the nest of a predator and the tingling sensation at the back of her neck, the deeper they went.
“This feels somewhat familiar,” Chevallier said. “The layout of the halls . . . it’s just like the inside of that wyrm.”
“Wyrm?” Karklosea asked. She wasn’t familiar with that term.
Chevallier told her a story of the Draconians attack on Earth when they first arrived. A dragon called a wyrm, the size of a ship, appeared, and she and her team found a way inside it, discovering it wasn’t just a living breathing creature but had cybernetics and corridors built inside it with a crew of humanoid dragons.
The Draconians used the larger dragons as vehicles and it was suspected their bio-ships, at one point, were born as dragons, that they altered genetically and technologically to become the warships they know today.
“Only, this ain’t organic,” Chevallier added. “This is a Draconian ship that isn’t a bio-ship.”
“Whoever built this must have come from a region of space not far from the Draconians and had similar tech.”
Foster’s team followed behind the four, once the all-clear was given for them to enter. Penelope sent everyone a small holo screen displaying the map of Kur and the pulsing yellow dots that indicated the estimated location of the HNIs she found on their approach. Following the signals, the two teams came to a stop at a door, a locked one. Chevallier’s fist surprisingly wasn’t able to force it open.
Foster, on the other hand, got it to open with a simple touch that forced an aura of blue light out from the neck of her EVA suit.
The two teams entered a chamber with three walls, shaped like a triangle. At one wall was the entrance to the corridor they passed through, in the middle of the two remaining walls were other doors. They arrived at a fork. The ceiling of the triangle-shaped chamber was high, like five stories high. A strange apparatus was mounted to the ceiling, and it hummed with soft noise and glowed yellow, then orange, then white, then back to yellow.
The center of the room had cylinder-shaped consoles with holograms floating above, she assumed they were computers. Odelea did as well and scampered over, attempting to translate them. Gunshots echoed, and Odelea’s body dropped.
Panic ensued.
Out from one of the doors stood men and woman from the SOM, directing their followers to storm into the chamber with their rifles blazing.
Karklosea drew their fire. It gave Chevallier and her team the chance to rush forward to where Odelea had fallen, using the cylinder-shaped computers as cover. Once they arrived, she joined them, strafing and shooting psionic plasma with her redeemer.
“Don’t go charging in,” Chevallier said to her.
Karklosea peeked at their enemies beyond her cover. “Wasn’t thinking about it,” Karklosea said, lowering herself as a barrage of bullets flew over her head. “There’s clearly a few HNI users that hacker didn’t detect.”
Odelea groaned and trembled. Karklosea saw no visible damage done to Odelea’s EVA suit, the personal shield emitter attached to it probably saved her life.
Maxwell and LeBoeuf stood up at random times and returned fire, or used their psionic thrusts, pushing enemies to the floor that failed to stay mobile in the face of a psionic. Chevallier joined them after, shouting to Foster and her team. Karklosea’s redeemer added a third psionically powered weapon into the exchange.
“Foster’s team is going to slip through there,” Chevallier said, pointing at the third door in the room. “This is the part where we make lots of noise and get them to focus on us.”
Odelea got to her feet, joining Foster’s team as they retreated to a door behind. It opened like the last with a touch of Foster’s hand. Alisha had to be close Karklosea guessed, how else would the SOM fighters have opened the door they stood at for their ambush?
The battle was going surprisingly well, considering it was just the four. Whatever material the computers they hunkered down behind was made of was tough. The high-velocity rounds of magnetic rifles only made tiny dents in i
t. The walls were tough too, missed shots from Karklosea’s redeemer only left small burn marks, rather than vaporized holes, the same could be said about Maxwell’s fiery bursts of psionically charged shots or the ripples of lightning LeBoeuf was able to shoot.
“Shit!”
The rage in Chevallier’s cursing made Karklosea’s chest tighten. She saw the human woman shift her rifle’s sights back to the corridor they had used to enter the chamber. Karklosea’s eyes followed. Draconian soldiers had gathered. One of their leaders waved his arms to direct more of his men through.
The battle in the chambers turned into a three-way one like the space battle outside. The safest place for the four was where they hid, running to Foster’s team now meant getting shot by either SOM magnetic rifles or Draconian tachyon rifles. Even with full shields and psionic barriers they wouldn’t survive the trek if the flashes of light created by weapons discharge were of any indication.
“What now?” Karklosea asked, gritting her teeth.
Chevallier ducked back behind her cover, swapping out the drained battery pack of her rifle for a new one.
Slapping the fresh battery pack in, she yelled. “Hold the line!”
69 Saressea
Kur
Hallowed Nebula Core
July 30, 2119, 09:24 SST (Sol Standard Time)
“I hear shooting.”
“Foster’s here.”
Saressea looked behind the group noting there were fewer SOM fighters among them. Alisha had jogged back, having left suddenly and without warning. Whatever it was she did, Saressea couldn’t figure it out, let alone secretly transmit it back to the Prometheus via HNI.
Though, the news of Foster making it to Kur was satisfying to hear. They spent way too many hours meandering through the interior of Kur, evading patrolling Draconian soldiers that managed to board. Help was on its way. Soon Saressea could drop the act that she was a believer of the cult’s goals. She could also start sending HNI data to a member of Foster’s team that had them. They needed the intel more than the Whisper at this point.
“Is everything okay?” Jainuzei asked Alisha.
“The Kepler’s here and sent their crew behind us,” Alisha said. “I sent some of our fighters to deal with them, but I don’t know how long they’ll last, the Draconians’ numbers have gotten bigger.”
“We need to move faster, come on!” Byikanea yelled. “We’re close to the center, we cannot lose this race!”
Like a kid that didn’t want to go to school, Saressea dragged her feet moving with the group, shooting fake smiles, and muttering words of encouragement to play her role. Lisette too, more so than her, as she was dragged by force. It was a shame Lisette was still a psionic in training, her powers could have helped them get free if she was strong enough. The best Lisette had was mild telekinetic powers, and telepathy with a limited range. She made three attempts to break away using her powers. She got as far as a meter before getting recaptured. They didn’t even bother slapping a slave collar on, she wasn’t a threat.
Saressea hated every second of her acting like she was friends with the group and cool with the treatment of Lisette. But it was clear the Whisper had taken an interest in her. She wondered if this was how they got new recruits, grab someone they like and toss them to the wolves. If they live, they’re in.
Being in with the Whisper wasn’t what she was gunning for in life, however. But when factoring in she was found guilty and Rivera was back on the Kepler, it wasn’t a door she was going to shut and walk away from. As it stood, her life on the Kepler wasn’t coming back once this was over let alone working with the Radiance Navy. A secret agent life might be the next thing to add on her resume.
The SOM group, led by Alisha, Jainuzei, and Byikanea, stopped in a room where a sphere-shaped device floated above the floor. It glowed with indigo light, released a cloud of mist, and made soft humming sounds. It was encircled with computer terminals, none of them worked until Alisha waved her hand around them, forcing their screens to populate with alien numbers and text.
“What is this?” Jainuzei asked.
“I think it’s the reactor,” Alisha said. “At least one of them.”
Byikanea moved forward like she was following the flow of an invisible force. “Oh, yes,” she said, “I think this is it; I can sense the power being distributed throughout Kur from here.”
Byikanea shut her eyes, putting herself in a psionic trance. After a minute, she pointed at the top left section of the spherical reactor, and then snapped her fingers. A loud thump sounded, and a dent that looked like someone took a sledgehammer to the side of the device impacted. The reactor shuddered violently, releasing a discharge of energy that forced everyone except Byikanea to brace themselves, expecting the worst.
Nothing happened, which made Saressea exhale with relief. Until her HNI flashed with an emergency warning.
“It’s leaking radiation,” Saressea said, looking up at the source of the radiation, the damaged section of the reactor.”
“I know,” Byikanea said with a smirk then snapped her fingers. A protective psionic energy dome flashed around the group. The radiation warnings ceased once the lavender psionic barrier was formed. “The radiation should deter Foster from following.”
Humans were more vulnerable to the harmful effects of radiation compared to those from Radiance. If the reactor was leaking enough radiation to kill Radiance races, Saressea didn’t want to know what would happen if a human had direct exposure.
The group’s journey continued, this time with Byikanea standing within the center of the psionic dome she created, protecting those within it from the rising levels of radiation flooding the halls of the city-sized ship. And what a ship it was.
They walked across a bridge when their destination neared. Saressea looked down, but couldn’t see the bottom, only darkness, lights, and several other bridges hanging above it, all connecting to various doors on the walls leading to other parts of the ship. She couldn’t figure out why the designer of Kur had to make it so large. Imperial command ships were big because they had to fit a fleet worth of capital ships inside it. Kur, from what Saressea was able to see, didn’t have ships, or fighters inside.
It was like it was made big for the sake of being big. Nobody would be that stupid to design something like that given the number of materials that would have been required to build and power it. Like the command ships, there was a reason for it, it just couldn’t be found within the short stroll the group made.
“Exactly how long is this going to take?” Saressea asked after they finished crossing the bridge into the next area of Kur.
“Don’t know, not like anyone has ever resurrected a dead God,” Byikanea said.
“I only ask because we’re about to irradiate most of the ship at this rate,” Saressea said. “I doubt you’ll be able to keep this barrier up the whole time.”
“I did an ESP scan earlier; the next area should be shielded.”
Saressea winced. “Should be . . .”
“We will be fine,” Byikanea said. “Marduk’s lingering will made us get this far.” With a smile full of lust, Byikanea looked at Jainuzei. “Don’t you agree?”
Jainuzei grunted, keeping his eyes forward. “Yes . . .”
And Alisha? She couldn’t hide her body’s uncomfortable body language within her EVA suit or the distraught look that grew across her face. Saressea wasn’t sure if it was because of all the affection Byikanea was showing Jainuzei, stroking his large armored arm, or the fact he said yes. After all, he and Alisha weren’t really here to resurrect Marduk, like Saressea they were playing their roles like an actor and actress duo.
The walk to the next chamber was long and gave Saressea more than enough time to complete a new data package to be secretly transmitted via HNI back to anyone in Foster’s group that had it. Later, she received a message from a Maraschino hacker Foster brought, her name was Penelope.
Penelope sent Saressea a video file recording from what l
ooked like Foster’s wrist terminal. It was a shaky video like Foster and Alisha had been fighting. Partway into it, Alisha had mentioned her and Jainuzei’s true plans, and that the SOM and their Terran Legion allies were just tools.
Another video showed LeBoeuf and Maxwell kill Armuzei, meaning Alisha lied that he was going to follow behind, meaning Marduk had nobody to be resurrected into. Saressea had to suppress the smile that tried to force its way onto her face, the videos were going to make Byikanea and their SOM escort lose their shit once they saw it.
Saressea just needed to wait for the right time to get everyone squawking, ideally, when they were in the shielded room Byikanea spoke of, away from the radiation and possible Draconians. By the time they arrived, Saressea prepared the video files and waited for the right moment to hit play.
The group stood at the wide decorative door with a picture of a woman standing in her natural form, covered with elaborate cloth hanging off her wrists, and gold chains dangling around her neck. She had wings on her back, small horns peeking up from her long dark hair, claws for fingers and toes.
Is this Tiamat, she thought? Nobody had the answer.
Alisha placed both her palms upon the door, and her tattoos glowed. The image of the Goddess that decorated the door, split in half as the door opened, the left side pulling to the left, and the right side moving to the right.
Beyond the door was the final chamber, a large room full of white gleaming orbs lined up perfectly along the walls. The floor was transparent, made of glass by the looks and had several dragon statues lined up on top of it. As they walked across, Saressea could see a single footbridge under them, and below that a river made of a white liquid. Her scans weren’t able to identify what it was made of.
Like the previous chambers, this one was nearly three-stories tall. At the end of the chamber was a decorative altar, it was huge and comprised of three sections. The bottom, a statue of the woman on the front door stood, behind the statue was a staircase that led to the upper levels of the altar that had a disk-shaped platform, surrounded by more of the glowing white orbs.
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