“A little busy here!”
She was still on her own, and fresh out of options while she drifted down to the surface of Kur.
“Do I have to start executing your friends now?” Sarpanit said. “Distract the Nereid so her powers can fail? Subdue the android? Break the helmets of those that need air? Take your pick, Jasmine.”
71 Foster
Kur
Hallowed Nebula Core
July 30, 2119, 09:46 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster’s wrist terminal beeped with never-ending warnings of rising radiation levels, as did her personal shield that was draining quickly because of it. She imagined the notifications Penelope, Miles, Odelea, and Tolukei had were just as bad if their worried faces were of any indication.
They pushed on regardless, following the holographic map of Kur. The holo map floated ahead of them, with the flashing navigational point over a chamber, the last known location of Saressea before her vitals vanished.
“This must be the hot zone she talked about,” Foster said. “Tolukei?”
According to Saressea, Byikanea used a psionic dome barrier, protecting them from the radiation. Tolukei did the same, forcing everyone to walk in a tight group close to him while the mesmerizing lavender colors of the barrier shimmered, deflecting all the radiation, and taking the pressure off everyone’s personal shields, and ears. The blaring radiation alarms were annoying and loud.
Foster spoke into her wrist terminal. “Chevallier, what’s your status?”
“Mopping up the last fighters now,” Chevallier’s voice said as echoing gunfire, psionic powers, and explosions discharged.
“Have LeBoeuf save her power, you’ll need a barrier from her to cross this radiation,” Foster said.
“Understood, we’ll link up with you soon.”
Technically shields could protect them, but it would only drain them faster. Like overshields it was better to let psionic protection soak up what it could before resorting to your shields. If they got into a firefight with partially drained shields due to radiation that would be bad. That, and only Miles had robust shields since the batteries from his exosuit provided them. Foster, Odelea, and Penelope all used the personal shield packs which used smaller less powerful batteries to make them lightweight.
Foster whistled when the group approached the reactor of Kur, looking up at the dented section spraying out the radiation. There were computer stations around it, all of them dormant, until Foster touched them just like Alisha did. The screens flickered on, and a crawl of text appeared that looked like scratches in the dirt a drunken chicken would make.
“Odelea?” Foster asked her. “Any of this makes sense to you?”
Odelea moved forward, her vertically irised eyes shifted about, scanning the text. With a flick of her wrists, she made an HNI screen appear and then ran her slim EVA-gloved finger around it and the words that appeared.
“It’s the Draconian language, well some kind of variation of it,” Odelea said, and read more. “Fascinating, I’d say this is probably an older form of it, it uses a lot more verbs, it’s very poetic in some way, even though it’s just a—”
“That’s interesting and all,” Foster cut in. She hated poetry, and hearing about dragon poetry was the last thing she wanted right now. “Can you shut this down?”
Odelea scrolled through the text translating its words internally. “I can’t . . .”
“I can,” Penelope said as she created holo screens of her own. “There’s a wireless connection I can gain access to. I just haven’t the foggiest idea of how to read their language.”
“Odelea, tell her what means what,” Foster said.
Odelea and Penelope worked together, Odelea translated, and Penelope took that knowledge and hacked her way into the computers, uploading computer code, deleting files, and all the other stuff hackers do. If their situation wasn’t so dire, Foster would take a photo of the two. Two girls, an Aryile and Hashmedai were working together, putting aside thousands of years of genocidal bloodshed for a common cause, saving the galaxy.
“Heads-up!” Miles yelled, while his rifle rose and aimed back down the corridor the group had passed through. “Draconians comin’ at us.”
The exosuit that covered Miles’ body whizzed as he charged to the edge of the psionic dome barrier. Foster couldn’t see anything but trusted his judgment. Miles was a UNE Marine and was probably using military grade HNI, custom made and full of apps to assist Marines in combat, like being able to detect enemies creeping up from a corridor you passed.
Foster joined him at the barrier’s edge, and her tachyon rifle came out to search for unwanted half-dragon commandos. The barrier flashed and rippled with various colors as white tachyon beams collided with it. Miles was right, the Draconians were following, a group must have slipped past Chevallier, either that or came from another corridor, Kur was a maze of them.
“Captain . . .” Tolukei groaned amidst the repeated shots his barrier was taking.
“Can’t hold it, eh?” Miles asked Tolukei.
“We will need to dispatch them soon,” Tolukei said. “If not, my mind will tire, and this barrier will shatter.”
“And the radiation plus the Draconians will fix us good,” Foster said.
Penelope and Odelea were still working on the reactor. Even if they did stop the radiation leak there was still going to be the issue of the radiation that already escaped lingering around. Tolukei’s barrier had to hold out, no matter what.
“Miles, how long can your shields last in this radiation?” Foster asked.
“About thirty minutes, assuming nobody shoots me, then it’s less.”
“That means mine is . . .”
“You’ll have less time, Captain,” Miles said. “Maybe five, ten minutes.”
Foster looked ahead now that the Draconian soldiers were visible. They didn’t use shields, she wondered if they had high resistance to radiation, or their armor that looked like it was made with dragon scales was really good at keeping it out.
“I count ten of them,” Foster said. “That means you and me need to drop one soldier a minute.”
“Not bloody likely from this position!”
She sighed. “I know.” Foster was an inch away from the edge of the psionic dome when she said. “Let’s go!”
She stepped out and heard the ringing of high radiation warnings from her wrist terminal and EVA suit. Miles cursed and joined her, and the two ran into the fray, shooting. She quickly glanced at her wrist terminal, noting the level of her shields. Tachyon beams soared, and she dove and rolled across the floor for cover behind a pillar. Miles did the same at a second pillar ahead of her. His rifle blazed next, the speed of his exosuit made him peek out of cover, take aim, shoot then retreat. Foster, on the other hand, had to use extreme caution when she returned fire. Sometimes she had to aim around the pillar and shoot blindly.
The plan was working. The Draconians were more interested in the two humans outside the barrier. They spent more time trying to shoot at the two when they peeked from cover than Tolukei’s barrier. Foster really hoped she and Miles weren’t laying the groundwork for a heroic sacrifice for the team because it was starting to look like it.
“How much longer, Penelope and Odelea?” Foster yelled into her wrist terminal.
“Almost in,” Penelope transmitted back.
Miles pulled back into his cover with a grin spreading within his ginger beard. “Got three, you?”
“Two,” Foster said, then peeked around with her rifle when the rate of Draconian weapons fire diminished. She took aim quickly and pulled the trigger. “Correction, three.”
“Five,” Miles gloated next. “I have taken the lead!”
Foster pulled back into cover after watching a soldier’s armored body turn to slag, embers, and vapor. “Four!”
“Oh, this is gonna be close!”
She glanced at her wrist terminal’s screen display the status of her shield pack.
32 perc
ent.
“Tell me about it!”
She saw Miles peek out and shifted his rifle to the left. Foster did the same, taking in the sight of a lone Draconian soldier. The half-dragon snapped frozen, with ice crystallizing its body from the back going to its front. Its movement slowed to a halt, becoming an unmoving sculpture of ice.
Before Foster and Miles pulled the trigger, the frozen Draconian shattered, raining the icy chunks of its remains onto the floor. Exiting from the corridor behind it was Maxwell, Karklosea, and Chevallier while LeBoeuf stood in the center using her powers, like Tolukei, to maintain a psionic dome shield. LeBoeuf’s holographic bracelets twirled around her wrists, glowing with psionic energy.
Foster and Miles lowered their weapons facing each other. “Guess that makes me the winner, eh?”
“Naw, rules were all ten had to be dropped! Interference ruined the match.”
“We never set up a rule!”
“We did just now!”
The two passed through the irising psionic barrier, regrouping with Penelope, Odelea, and Tolukei whose mind could relax a little. The two women stepped away from the computers, and Penelope made a motion of her hands like she was dusting them off.
“Got it,” Penelope said. “The place is still irradiated, but I have the vents pumping most of it out.”
Foster nodded to the two. “Nice work, you two.”
“Oh wait, there’s more,” Penelope said. “I’ve installed a virus into the reactor’s computers.”
“What for?”
“You wanted to blow this place to kingdom come? Well, this is it. Just say the word and I’ll make the virus disable all reactor cooling. The explosion should take this place out and any ships too close.”
Foster’s team pushed on ahead without waiting for Chevallier’s team to catch up. Waiting for Chevallier’s team to catch up, or better yet, push ahead and make sure the path was clear made sense. Covering lost ground as quickly as possible made better sense. If Saressea and Lisette were dying and bleeding, then every second counted. Waiting would only bring the two closer to death.
A massive sliding door blocked their path. There was a carving of a naked woman with wings and lose hanging jewels and cloth hanging off her body. Beyond the door, according to the map, and the navigational point, plus the last images Saressea’s HNI transmitted, was her last known location.
The door wouldn’t open, not even when Penelope tried to hack it after Odelea gave her some translations. Of course not, Foster had the key. Foster touched the door and her tattoos glowed brightly. It slid open.
Rushing in turned out to be a mistake when Penelope, Odelea, and Miles fell to their knees, holding their heads screaming with pain, then passed out.
Foster and Tolukei were unaffected.
“Oh, hell,” Foster said, eying the battle Alisha and Jainuzei were engaged in. And the two targets she hadn’t seen in ages.
“The Dragon Knight and Maiden,” Tolukei said.
Foster hid behind a statue of a dragon, speaking into her wrist terminal. “Chevallier, the Dragon Knights are here!”
“You shouldn’t have told me that,” Chevallier’s voice replied with a hint of vengeance.
“Get your team to stay back, their HNI disruption covers this room!”
“We’re holding position,” Chevallier said. “Me? I’m coming in whether you like it or not!”
Like Foster and Tolukei, Chevallier didn’t have HNI. Neither did Alisha and Jainuzei. The Dragon Knight and Maiden had the ability to scramble HNIs, taking the user’s brains along for the ride and it showed. She noticed Byikanea, Lisette, Saressea, and robed SOM fighters, all laid out across the transparent floor of the chamber, with Miles, Odelea, and Penelope’s bodies adding to the pile.
It was hard to guess who was alive and dead.
The Dragon Knight and Maiden duo flashed about with their psionic jump porting abilities. Jainuzei stood with a two-handed Hashmedai plasma sword swinging and lunging, hitting the air. Alisha remained behind him with an ePistol shooting at a target that was quick to teleport away. Foster wasn’t sure if it was a miracle that kept the two alive or a curse. They were the bad guys, after all.
With both parties distracted, Foster and Tolukei moved in silently, moving their bodies to the direction of Lisette and Saressea. Tolukei jump ported to Lisette first and went to collect her body. He was knocked back when the Dragon Knight appeared behind with a hard whack of its orange glowing Voelika staff. Tolukei floated in the air using his abilities, and rolled his hands into a fist, making them glow orange. He hurled purple balls of plasma at the Dragon Knight, and soon afterward the two went at it.
Their cover was blown at that point, Jainuzei, and Alisha spinning to face Foster, looking at the idle body of Lisette. Alisha’s bullets forced Foster to run for cover, firing with her tachyon rifle, there wasn’t much left to her personal shields. Jainuzei swung his blade, deflecting the staff attacks of the Dragon Maiden, who prevented him from recovering Lisette. The chamber turned into a three-way cluster fuck, and it only grew more complex when Chevallier ran in screaming at the Dragon Maiden. A fury of unfocused bullets left her assault rifle.
Foster slid like a baseball player, narrowly avoiding the bullets from Alisha’s pistol and the reckless firing of Chevallier’s assault rifle. Once behind the dragon statue, she looked into the battle and noted the floating presence of two disk-shaped objects near the end of the chamber. The Eyes of Tiamat, the artifacts that were supposed to be buried under Baghdad, if the report from Eicelea, Rivera, and Penelope were correct, though Foster had no means of confirming.
The three-way battle became less of a concern while Foster tried to figure out, on the spot, the importance of Kur, Eyes of Tiamat, and what existed under Baghdad. Alisha’s bullets grazed Foster’s arm. It made her consider that perhaps the battle was more important than the floating glowing artifacts.
Alisha dove for cover of her own, and continued shooting at Foster, she returned the favor. Tolukei and the Dragon Knight’s body flashed in and out of existence like battling cybernetic wizards. Jainuzei swung his sword into the Voelika of the Dragon Maiden, who did an impressive job jump porting back and forth between him and Chevallier, whose continuing reckless bullets aimed at the Dragon Maiden, made it nearly impossible to leave cover.
Jainuzei changed his tactics, swapping his sword for a plasma polearm, being the walking weapons rack he and his heavy combat armor were. The extra reach allowed him to strike the Dragon Maiden down before she had the chance to jump port. Foster didn’t see what happened next, she had to retreat behind cover when Alisha started shooting at her again and then went to shoot back at the dragon statue she was behind.
The Dragon Knight looked like he was in a panic, and by the time Foster moved to the other end of her cover, he jump ported to his fallen comrade. Tolukei took advantage and blasted him with two pairs of psionic plasma, shattering the Dragon Knight’s barrier, and melting his armor to his flesh. He screamed, and Chevallier laughed with pleasure and then aimed her rifle to finish the job.
The wounded Dragon Maiden smashed the butt of her Voelika on the floor, cracking the glass it was made of, sending a shock wave that threw everyone back, even the idle bodies on the floor, and those in cover like Foster and Alisha. Foster saw a surge of blue light, and then the Dragon Knight and Maiden were out of sight. They never reappeared.
That was one battle over.
The next one began.
Like zombies rising from the dead, the scattered and displaced bodies of those that fell to the Dragon Knight and Maiden came to their feet. Everyone lost their weapons, even Foster had no idea where her tachyon rifle spun to. Only Jainuzei was armed, he may have lost his polearm, but had plenty of Hashmedai blades and Radiance guns to brandish.
He chose a magnetic rifle. Foster chose to place her hands up in surrender when it pointed at her face.
“Now, Jainuzei, you’re a man of honor and all that,” Foster said. “Is this the w
ay you thank someone for savin’ yer hide?”
“You are indeed a worthy adversary, Foster,” Jainuzei said. “It’s a shame we’re not on the same side, we could have used your skill set—”
Byikanea got to her feet speaking to him in the Radiance language. He replied, then she did, they didn’t sound like they were friends anymore. Byikanea tapped her head and a hologram appeared. It was the video files Foster provided Penelope to send Saressea. Byikanea saw it, she knew what was up, as did the robed men and women of the SOM who watched Alisha, in the projection, reveal the truth. The video switched to the death of Armuzei, who as Foster recalled was an important factor in the resurrection of Marduk. The SOM journey to Kur was a waste after Armuzei died, and they had the lies spat by Jainuzei and Alisha to thank for that.
Jainuzei growled fiercely and backed away to Alisha. Byikanea had the remaining SOM fighters gather with her, arming themselves with whatever weapons they found scattered across the glass floor of the room. Foster winced when she saw the cracks grow.
During the split among the SOM, Saressea, like a ninja, found Lisette’s weakened body and went to drag her back. This was it, they were almost out of the mess and Foster too tried to back away, back to the exit hoping the arguing amongst the SOM personnel would last.
Sadly, it didn’t.
Before Saressea, holding Lisette, had the chance to get clear of the group, Byikanea faced her. Tolukei tried to intervene, jump porting before them and deflecting Byikanea’s psionic wrath. The fighters in the SOM reacted, pointing their weapons at Tolukei and his barrier, those that couldn’t find any guns ran at them.
Foster was powerless. Something had to be done, and Chevallier knew it. Like Foster, Chevallier lost her rifle during the knockback. She did, however, have her new arm. Chevallier ran into the fray smashing her fist into the cracking glass floor like a superheroine. The floor shattered sending all SOM fighters into the white glowing river below.
Had Chevallier used a little less strength, she wouldn’t have destroyed the floor to 70 percent of the chamber. The shattering of the glass floor was a like a sinkhole forming, first, the hole Chevallier punched formed, then it spread growing larger, sending thousands of shards down below, and the unlucky people that stood on it. Foster was one of those.
Hallowed Nebula Page 52