"LUNAR: Tales From Crystal Tokyo"
LUNAR:
The Lost Episodes
By
Andy Beale
Volume
Eighteen: Episode 2-14.12 "If you go down to the woods today..."
Rated:
PG-13
Glossary
of additional terms
Booster
- One of the safer Psi enhancement drugs.< Boosts
activity in brains of psionic creatures and encourages greater production and
uptake of neural transmitters.
Burg
& Heck shield generator
- Based on Burg and Heck method of manipullating zero-point energy fields.
The shield generator produces an absorbing null energy field around an
object; the stronger the energy, the stronger the absorption.
Has little or no effect on physical matter.
G-shear
generators
- Shortened name for Gravimetric shear gennerator.
Force field generator producing a localized shell of a high gravity field
around an object. This field either
defects or tears apart matter by inducing tidal forces in an object coming into
contact with it. Has little or no
effect on energy.
Spacesider
- The common language for the Federation; started as a mixture of English,
Japanese, Russian, and French, when Terrans started working in greater numbers
in space; now has been extended to include bits from other races languages.
And
now, the story...
Outpost
Archird Beta, Central Continent, Archird-2, Archird system, 6 February 2738
Jellic's exultation was cut off by the sharp staccato crack of bullets
breaking the sound barrier. The
creature came to a halt with a grunt, as three wounds opened up on its chest and
thorax; blue blood and flesh leaked out of the wounds, and the creature looked
confused, and, if possible, with its largely immobile face, surprised.
To Jellic's right was Susan, holding in her hand what was before the war
her favorite weapon, the Hunt LS17 Accelerator Handgun.
The creature, with a snarl, began coming forward again, and again the
staccato sound of a burst of bullets came from the gun, followed instantly by
the sound of them hitting flesh. Another
two further wounds opened up on its chest, another removing the lower right side
of its face; the final high explosive round separated the right upper arm from
the body and spun it away. Both arm
and body hit the ground at the same time.
"Take cover!" exclaimed Jellessa, dropping down behind one of
the raised beds, the others rapidly following suit.
"Damn, damn, damn!" muttered Jellic, pulling his backpack off.
"If you have anything else apart from energy weapons around, now is
the time to dig them out."
"The hostiles have stopped their advance," came Susaumen over
the radio. "I imagine they're surprised that you have weapons that can hurt
them. I have commanded Tim to join
you; he can use his jump pack for the first 10 Km but when he leaves broadcast
power range, he's going to have to run to save battery power.
ETA is 21 minutes. Ram is on his way to broadcast power range cut off.
He can be there in 31 minutes."
"Can we retreat?" asked Susan, pulling some clips out of her
belt pouch.
"Not safely," said Jellic, staring at the small screen on his
wrist comm. "Our friends out there have too much cover from the trees.
We are in a clearing here with cover, and clear lines of fire."
"Ship can lift in 25 minutes," came on Anternain.
"Mechtechs are pulling in the lines now, and the purification plant
has nearly finished the final tank full."
"Okay, then, I take it the strategy is to wait here until Tim and
his chaingun gets here or we get pulled out," Jellessa said.
"Got it one, sis. Moving
around in there with that lot around is close to suicidal."
Jellic paused for a moment, his face scrunching up in thought.
"Just next time we get into a first contact situation, remind me to
throw away the manual. Next time we
do this shit, we are coming equipped for anything!"
"Not your fault, brother of mine," she said, pulling bits out
of her backpack. "We all have
become so used to pulling an energy weapon first in the past couple of years. If wasn't for the fact that the Jebrn had man- portable
G-shear generators, we would have been the old mix and match we were a few years
ago. By the way, Sue, what made you
pick up your '17' anyway?"
Susan frowned. "I don't
know," she said, scratching the back of her head, underneath her helmet.
"Just felt like a change."
"Lucky for us... Again!"
commented Jon.
"Let's not get too dependent on it," Jellic muttered.
The
FSS ShadowDancer
Meanwhile, Susaumen was watching the sensor readings with some
trepidation.
They're being encircled, she thought, and no way do they have
the firepower to hold them off if they're rushed.
If I had worked out those sensor readings correctly in the first place,
none of this would have happened. This
is my fault, only, if... At
that point her eyes widened, as a thought stuck her.
She came around in her seat and looked at the human-looking ship's
avatar.
"Jona, could you keep an eye on the hostiles' movement for me,
please, while I go to sickbay? I
need some more painkillers for my leg."
"Would you like me to go and get them for you?" she asked
politely.
"Not unless you can go to head for me as well," Susaumen said.
"Understood, madam; I will keep them updated," the ship's avatar
replied.
Grabbing her crutch, Susaumen headed out of the door.
The
Outpost
Jellic and Jellessa had pulled from their backpacks a two small Kegok
pistols, each with about 40 rounds of ammunition, in four clips; presents, if
Susan remembered correctly, from her father.
Jon had a general-purpose dispenser pistol with a tranq gas round, and
two flares. Everyone glared at him
when he pulled back the heels of his boots and dropped out two detonator
grenades. Susan found her old
single shot stein gun, and in pulling it out from the bottom of the bag pulled
out a sliver cylinder bearing the red and blue warning marking of an offensive
nano.
"Where did you get this from?" was Jon's comment, while picking
the cylinder up.
"I think it was in an ammo store we raided back on Jebrn
prime," she said, struggling to remember.
Nano weapons were not popular, expensive, and had several comparatively
cheap countermeasures, but at the moment it was good news.
"Two Flane shells; a case of these would be better, but I'll take
what I can get my hands on!" said Jon, loading the first shell.
Jellic and Jellessa laid down the large knives from their backpacks on
the wooden sides of the raised beds. They
were ready.
"18 minutes!" whispered Jellessa.
The
FSS ShadowDancer
Anternain jogged back onto the Shadowdancer's bridge.
"Where's Susaumen?" he asked Jona.
"I think the human phrase is 'powdering her nose,'" the avatar
said.
Anternain smiled. "Pain
killers always got her like that." He
looked at the displays. "How
long?"
"Sixteen minutes, 20 seconds," Jona replied.
"Too long," he commented, and began pre-flight checks.
Down in sickbay, Susaumen slipped into an injector a bead of angry
orange-colored fluid, and then pressed the injector into her neck.
Putting it down, she leaned heavily on the counter, her eyelids
fluttering. Resolutely, she pushed
off and walked out the door, down the corridor and though a door marked
"Ship's Locker."
The
Outpost
Tim came past cylinder 19 at full stretch, its two legs
extended to their full 5-meter length, its genejacked brain having only two
priorities: get to your masters as fast as you can, defend your masters when you
get there.
A low level processor on the passive senor array noted that the sensor
cluster on the array was active and flashed a message to a higher-level command
processor. The overriding directive
of the main kernel suspended further action on such information, so the
information was placed into a low priority sensor log download file due for
transmission in 57 seconds time.
Deep inside the single dome of the complex, a single lidless eye watched
a static monitor image. It did not
recognize the vehicle that had passed by; it did not fit any thing it knew about
GM. But its form and intent was
clear. It mentally reached into the
telepathic realm and whispered, "destroy them, NOW!" before returning
to its own tasks.
The attack started with a scream of rage as 26 monsters came running out
the fog, and straight into a hail of weapon fire.
Warned of the attack seconds earlier by Jellic and Jellessa, who sensed
their movement before they came visible in the enshrouding fog,
Jon's first shell caught the lead creature; it was splattered with a gray
paste, and it attempted to clear its eyes and then discovered something quite
bad: the paste was dissolving its
flesh. Moments later, it went
blind, and then the pain started.
Jellic and Jellessa concentrated fire on the leading individuals.
The much less powerful slug ammo of the Kegok pistols took more time and
more rounds than Susan's LS-17 to bring them down.
Susan emptied the remaining 22 rounds in a burst attempting to at least
wound all those approaching her, and then jabbed in another magazine as the
spent case auto-ejected. Jon caught
another dead on with the other flane shell, and it joined its comrade on the
ground, screaming, as the nano started to dissolve it.
He threw a detonator at the greenhouse, which three of the attacking
monsters were using as cover. The
explosion blew the greenhouse glass into thousands of flying fragments, causing
the monsters to scream as they were peppered with it.
It was a well-planned defense, making the best use of the materials they
had at hand, a credit to Jellic's tactical planning; but Jellic's estimates were
that they would kill or incapacitate 10 and wound a further 12, and that still
left 4 uninjured to make hand-to-hand range.
At which point the odds became a whole lot worse.
5% chance of all surviving; 20% chance of both Hardarens surviving but
at the sacrifice of their human friends; which in Jellic's eyes was not
acceptable!
The
FSS ShadowDancer
In the ship's locker, Susaumen sat, face white and dripping with sweat,
looking at the items she had assembled. She
heard the cry in her mind as her nest brother called to her.
They're attacking! he cried mentally.
She looked up at the monitor feed from the Recon-drone, and reached
inside her mind, pushing aside the fear caused by the damage she had suffered
the last time she had called upon her abilities.
She reached in, ignoring the doubt and the fear, and pulled on the
threads of reality; with a pop, the items disappeared.
She fought off the pain and blackness long enough for her to see them
arrive at their destination on the monitor.
The
Outpost
Jellic and Jellessa felt the arrival first, and a quick visual check
revealed the arrival of four mark 22b AEC rifles and a box of ammunition. They accelerated, now moving three times faster than a human
could; they threw the long knives straight into the chests of the closest
oncoming monsters, and discarded their hand guns as they dropped, rolled and
grabbed a rifle each. They then
rose, and the clicks of the biosensors recognized them as valid users.
The odds had just swung dramatically in their favor.
Full automatic fire empties the 50 round magazine in 3 seconds on the
Mark 22b, and unlike Susan's accelerator pistol, it is not quiet.
But as Jellic reflected later, boy, is it effective.
The converging front rank was stopped dead, literally and figuratively.
As the back stubs ejected from Jellic and Jellessa's guns, Jon and Susan
had rolled in, snatched up the other two, and were now proceeding to open fire
on the remaining creatures. Jellic
and Jellessa swept up reloads from the box, and inserted them; as they came up,
there were two upright creatures, and they were running away. Jellic and Jellessa took a bead on one each, and cut them
down with a final six round burst.
As the sound of weapons fire died in the stillness of the fog, the four
surveyed a scene of carnage; blue blood soaked the ground, as well as the
semi-complete remains if the 26 creatures.
At this point Susan bent over and lost her dinner into one of the raised
beds. Jon joined her moments later.
"You would think they would be used to it by now," commented
Jellic.
"It's probably the best reaction most sane people would have at this
point, and it's a lot better if they DON'T get use to it," answered
Jellessa.
Susan looked up, pasty faced, and looked at Jellic.
She whispered one word. "Susaumen."
Jellic and Jellessa's eyes widened, as the impact of Susan's word hit
them. Susaumen had been told NOT to
use her teleportation abilities until such time as she was able to undergo a
complete psionic-screening program back on Earth.
Some centers of her brain had suffered damage during the war, and now she
had done one of the more difficult feats that natural teleporters could do.
"Susaumen, come in," called Jellic down the link back to the
ship.
It was Jona who replied. "Mr.
Anternain reports he is taking Ms. Susaumen to sickbay; he says he will speak
with you shortly."
Jona also reported that the three remaining hostiles had retreated back
towards the main dome. They elected
to wait until Tim arrived, giving Sue and Jon time to recover their stomachs and
to wait for further news. It was
just after Tim had arrived when Anternain came on.
"She's all right," were his first words; there was an audible
sigh of relief. "The Auto-Doc
reports no damage, apart from depilation of some neural-transmitters. She's
sleeping off a dose of booster, but she should be up and about in about 12 to 14
hours."
"How much booster did she take?" Susan asked worriedly.
"30mg," answered Anternain.
Susan winced. "I knew I
should have disposed of all those psi-enhancing drugs when I had the
chance." Jon put his hand on
her shoulder.
"She probably saved our lives with her actions," he said.
"Yes at great possible risk to her.
I don't want..." Susan began.
"Susan," interrupted Jellic, "how many times since we met
each other have we all put our lives and liberty on the line for one
another?"
Susan glanced down, and saw the slight scaring around the bottom of her
left ring finger, and smiled ruefully.
"I take your point." She
smiled more broadly. "Commander."
"I told you stop calling me that," groaned Jellic.
She put her hands on her hips. "And
what you going to do about it, take me over your knee and spank me?"
She twitched her eyebrow up. "I
might enjoy that, though!"
Jellic reached up and started rubbing his eyes.
"Humans. They're all
sex mad!" he started mumbling to himself.
The following laughter from Jon and Susan even managed to raise a small
smile on Jellessa's normally still face.
"Anything?" Jellessa asked.
Jellic continued scanning the quiet scene of the cluster of buildings
ahead of him. "Nothing. Susan? Jon?"
The two terrans stood behind trees at the very edge of the woodland,
studying their handheld sensor units intently. Jellic
and Jellessa lay on their stomachs, looking out over the area, and Tim had
squatted down as far as it could. Even
so, it still was over two meters high in places.
"If you mean life signs," said Susan, "nothing new. We still have three life signs in the main dome; the
remaining three blade-bugs have taken up residence in the woods behind this
building. I imagine they're hoping
we come around so they can ambush us."
"We have tied our scanners into Tim's sensor systems so we can give
you some better information on what we have in front of us," said Jon,
following on from Susan's comments. "The
domes at each corner are exit portals for what appears to be large proton based
particle accelerators, and from their size we can estimate they could easily
have a firing range to geosynchronous, if not further. They are currently cold, and I would estimate it would take a
few minutes for them to become ready to fire.
The other buildings have power running to them, but show little
consumption; one seems to have an active cryogen storage facility in it, another
seems to have a large refrigeration unit, and the others show lighting and
heating activity only."
"The main dome?" asked Jellessa.
"Three levels, actively heated and lit; atmosphere to terran normal,
we would estimate there's enough rooms and facilities for 40 to 50 people,"
Susan replied.
"Where are they, then?" was Jellic's question.
"Don't know," said Susan.
"But I am reading more biomass signatures around what appears to be
the main entrance, and more inside the dome itself."
"Can we move around to the main entrance using the woods as cover,
without running into one of our friends?" Jellic wondered.
"No problem," Jon shrugged.
The lights in the entrance way revealed a battle site.
Nineteen human bodies lay on the ground, as well as five further
blade-bug bodies; the name Jon had tagged them with as he studied the remains of
one back at the first encounter. Susan
had wanted to call them Slashers, but Jellic had ruled that Jon had come up with
his name first.
"They did not go down without a fight," said Jellic, bending
over and closing one of the guard's eyes. He
snapped the thumbs of his right hand and offered his traditional offering to the
soul of the departed.
"Been dead about three days," was Susan's comment, "and
the relative lack of decomposition is due to the lack of mammalian tissue
decomposing bacteria and fungus in the biosphere.
Obviously the people who terraformed this environment didn't think they
were necessary."
"Useless, absolutely useless," commented Jon.
"What yah found?" asked Jellic, looking across to where he was.
"These rifles," he said lifting one up from the floor. "The nearest equivalent technology is the Kjanin disruptor
technology... though these are considerably more advanced energy weaponry,
morseo than even our own. Problem is, the blade-bugs would
have been nearly immune to even the strongest setting on these things."
"Kjanin disruptors, I remember my father talking about them
once," said Susan, looking up from the blade-bug body she was studying.
"Great idea, he said once, but there were so many technical difficulties in
producing the ultra pure crystals required, that they abandoned the idea of mass
producing them."
"That, and they have no effect on the new range of partly collapsed
materials we use these days," added in Anterinan over the radio.
"Susan, collect some samples from the blade-bugs we have killed. When we get the time, I want you and Susaumen to do some
tests. I have a hunch that they are
jack's tailored to target the humans here.
You don't naturally evolve resistance to a certain type of energy weapon
fire."
"Okay, then, what killed those?" Jellessa asked, and pointed to the five downed blade-bugs.
Susan reached over, grabbed one of the arms of the creature, and pulled;
most of the arm came away in her hands and the smell of burnt meat wafted out.
"Three of them were cooked, how I don't know.
The other two were hit multiple times with some sort of sharp
projectiles, but there's no sign of the projectiles," Susan explained.
Jellic blinked.
"They must have other weapons inside," commented Jon.
Jellic looked towards the open doors both hanging off their hinges.
"Then let's go inside and find out.
I'll take point; Sue you're with me, Sis, Jon, take the rear. I think the policy is now to shoot first, and ask questions
later. Anterinan, get Tim to patrol
the perimeter, will you?" Jellic ordered.
Damage to the entranceway was light, apart from ripped off doors and some
fire damage that appeared to have burnt in a narrow strip around the room.
Everyone was at a loss to explain how that had happened, without the fire
damaging the rest of the room.
The entranceway forked out into two corridors, both of which had the
remains of hastily erected barricades and another 11 bodies.
"Uniforms on these guys are different," was Jellessa's only
comment. The people outside had red
details on their base black suits; these were a mixture of green, brown, and
orange.
"Quickest route to remaining life signs?" asked Jellic.
Jon consulted his TES. "Stairwell
25 meters further around, turn left, another 30 meters, stairwell to top
floor."
As they moved thoughout the dome, they encountered a further two human
bodies, and a dead blade-bug; again suffering from multiple puncture wounds.
At the bottom of the last set of stairs a quiet conference was held. The
top floor consisted of three rooms and a corridor; the life signs were
concentrated in the largest room to the left.
That room showed considerable amounts of power consumption, as well as
active EM transmissions. One side
of the room had large quantities of biomass.
"Control room?" asked Jellic.
Jon just shrugged his shoulders.
"As good as any," was his comment.
A quick plan was assembled, and the foursome began quietly ascending the
stairs. About halfway up, Jellic
signaled in battle-tac "bad smell," which progressively got worse the
closer they approached the door. Jon
signaled that the set of double doors leading to their target was locked.
He quietly attached his last detonator into the door over the cracks with
a bit of tack, and signaled the others to hide in a room opposite, which turned
out to be a small, untouched, lounge area.
The count down was done with fingers.
3.
2.
1.
"BOOM!"
Pause for 2 seconds, and then rush the room, covering the people in
there; that was the plan, like they had done many times before, in both training and
real life. Jellic and Jellessa
moved first, the slower moving humans following behind.
The detonator had done its job well; both doors were off and on the
floor. Jellic came forward though
the door, Jellessa broke right to cover the unmoving life signs.
Jellic confronted a figure dressed in black that was pushing itself off
from the wall it had been thrown into by the blast. Susan joined him, moments later, on his right.
"FREEZE!" Jellic shouted, counting on the inclination and tone
to carry his message even if the words were not understood.
The figure seemed to understand, and stopped.
For a moment the room was still, as the smoke and dust cleared.
Jellic snatched a quick look around the room.
To his right Jellessa and Jon were covering an opaque globe of shimmering
multicolored light about 3 meters across and the same high.
Just looking at its brightness caused his lower eyelids to come over his
eyes, protecting them from the glare. Then
Jellic caught Susan's eyes, which were looking to his left, her mouth open and
with a look of utter shock in her face.
Bodies. Lots of bodies and
lots of bits of bodies lay in that side of the room.
A liberal head count numbered at least 14 people, male and female. The floor was covered in dried blood. The smell that had been tempered by the explosion now hit
them full force, as did the full truth; the signs were all there.
They had entered a torture chamber; these Terrans had spent there last
few hours of life being tortured to death.
Susan took a step forward.
"I ought to..." she growled.
"Hajkowski! Stand
down!" came Jellic's voice, with a crack of command.
Susan growled from the back of her throat, and her hands turned white on
the grips of the rifle. Jon and
Jellessa took flanking positions.
"Now what?" asked Jellessa.
The black-robed figure moved; finally standing fully up right, it turned
slowly, holding its arms out to the side. It
stood about 180 cm high, its hairless head covered in a bluish gray skin,
elongated and cone-like. It had no
ears; just simple holes were they would be on a human.
Where its upper lip and nose should have been were five tentacles,
dangling down to its upper chest. It looked out at them from a single, large,
black eye, which covered most of its face.
A large black tongue emerged from under the tentacles, and wiped itself
over the eye, making it shine wetly.
Now what? came a voice in Jellic's mind, as his mental training
began throwing up defenses to the intrusion.
You die!
From the eye a cone of utter darkness emerged, as if to encompass them
all; only at the seemingly last moment did it suddenly collapse and feed itself
into Susan, disappearing from sight.
The creature had a moment to look shocked before four guns thundered into
life, and its so-called life was ended in a hail of armor-piecing and high
explosive rounds.
"It had all the properties of a disintegrator field," came
Anternain's calm analysis over the radio.
"Huh?" was Susan's first comment.
"Never known or heard about ANY psions being able to produce
disintegrator fields."
"Well, that one could!" came the comment back.
Jon came in, carrying some more of the metal foil blankets from the
next-door sick bay, and commented as he went past.
"You cannot generate a focused disintegrator either; all the ones I
can recall seeing are field generators, so everything in a radius not protected
by a Burg & Heck shield generator flies apart as the strong and weak nuclear
forces are negated." He handed
the blankets to Jellic and Jellessa, who were covering the bodies in the corner
of the room.
"Thanks for the science lesson!" was Susan's sarcastic comment
as she glared at the rather messy blue blood-soaked body slumped against one of
the control panels.
"Best you're going to get out of that thing is its DNA,"
commented Anternain. "You guys
really did a number on it."
Jellic came over from the now covered bodies, wiping his hands on one the
large antiseptic wipes from Sue's medi-kit.
"Forget that thing for now," was his comment.
"We have other problems. Firstly,
what the frell is that thing there?" He
was pointing to the brightly shimmering globe.
"And can we make sense of what the hell was happening here?"
He paused for a moment. "And yet again I think we owe you one."
"What for?" asked Susan.
"For saving our collective asses yet again," came back Jon.
Susan flushed slightly. "Oh,
that!"
Jon's left eyebrow shot up, as he looked at Sue.
"Yes, that, you psionic lighting rod, you!"
"Your next Masala is on me," said Jellic with what approximated
to a wink for a Hardaren. "Lets
see if we can find some answers here."
Everyone pulled out sensor systems or padds out of pockets, and began to
study bits of the control room, whilst pulling up their filter masks to damp
down the smell. The recon drone
hovered in the middle of the room. It
was Jellessa who finally broke the concentration.
"Got something on the computer system here.
From what I can tell, the whole thing has been locked out.
Come over here." Everyone
gathered around one of the larger monitors.
"This label, roughly translated, means 'Master situation monitor';
this large jumble of text displayed seems to be related to an engineering
operation of some kind."
Jon stood on his toes, and looked over at Jellessa's PADD, and read the
translation there. "Looks like
some sort of FTL transition formulas for communication systems."
"You understand this rubbish? Never
mind, of course you do," commented Jellessa.
"Nah, I just bullshit to industry standards," grinned Jon.
There was group rolling of eyes after that comment.
"Anyhow, the box over the top is the important thing; it says
'Command controls - Command level lockout -Argon Blue'.
This message is repeated on all the screens here."
Jellic jabbed a couple of random buttons on the console; it beeped
depressingly at each hit. He looked
thoughtful for a moment.
"Okay, so all command functions are locked out; so all the systems
are performing the last programmed actions."
He turned around and leaned on the console. "So the place is
invaded, by blade-bugs and our one-eyed friend there, who reminds me of
something."
"I know what you mean," said Susan. "That archaeological
dig on Spica II, colony world for that extinct race... now what did that bloke
call them... Alkons?"
Jellic produced a double finger snap with his hand.
"Yes, that was it. Anyway,
so in they come, your weapons are having little or no effect, being overrun
seems inevitable, and so what do you do?"
"Deny the invader his objective," commented Jon.
"Right. Personally, I
would have blown the place sky high, but who ever did this had different ideas,
or less options," Jellic nodded.
"That would explain what happened here," commented Susan,
waving her hand towards the now-covered bodies.
"These people were tortured in an attempt to gain the information on
how to unlock the system." Her face twisted into a frown. "But how
does that help us at the moment?"
Jellic smiled ruefully. "It
doesn't; it just allows us to come up with a theory of what happened here and
allows us to give a good explanation of what we are doing here, if the owners of
this place turn up and want to know what happened.
Assuming they're not the kind to shoot first and ask questions
later."
"Hopefully not prophetic words, Jellic," came Anterinan over
the radio. "Just a quick update.
Ram
reported that it has just killed the last surviving blade-bug.
We are, in theory, the only mobile higher level creatures left on this
planet."
"Apart from the two people in that!" pointed out Susan, jerking
her head towards the glowing globe.
They all turned and looked.
"And what is it?" was Jellessa's question.
"It is a radiated energy field of unknown type and nature to us.
Capable of absorbing or reflecting both matter and energy, the only thing
it emits is a faint bio signature of two Terrans.
I can see no external generators and cannot detect any large power
consumption from external sources in this room.
My conclusion is that there is a generator inside the field with its own
power supply," was Jon's assessment.
"How do we get in?" asked Susan.
"Straight answer, we don't; they have to come out.
I assume our one-eyed friend there tried to force its way in, and failed.
I cannot see us having any better luck," Jon said.
"So the only two people who know what happened and could possibly
help us are in there and too scared to come out," said Susan.
"Yep!" agreed Jon.
Silence fell; after perhaps half a minute Susan finally spoke up. "Well, that sucks!"
She flipped her left leg out to kick the force field, in disgust.
The force globe flared up, folded up, and spiraled into Susan's
out-stretched foot.
"NO FUCKING WAY!" screamed a shocked Jon. "A fucking
psionic force field; no way!"
Everyone else blinked as two figures came into sight.
The first was a male human, his facial features indicating his descent
from the Asian sub-continent of Terra. He
was sitting, unshaven, and staring in the direction of the bodies. He wore a uniform not unlike those on the bodies they had
found outside, except for the white shoulder and wrist details, and a
four-pointed star emblem at his neck. The
uniform showed signs of heavy use, and was ripped in one place with a slight
trail of dried blood. His right
hand rested on an open white box containing vials.
Just in front of this was what appeared to be a pistol of some sort.
His left hand rested on top of a second person.
She was lying on her side facing towards him, the short black skirt with
blue trimming hanging loosely from what appeared to be white body suit; a rather
battered black bow sat in the small of her back, and she wore a pair of calf
length black boots with blue trim. A
small gray-blue utility pouch sat forgotten, just in front of the back of her
knees. The skin of her legs appeared sickly white, which was in contrast to the
dark smudges of dried blood that covered them, and to an extent, the floor in
front of her.
Before anyone else could stop her, Susan dropped to her knees in front of
them, pulling out her medical scanner and demanding loudly in English,
Spacesider, and Polish, if they were all right.
The female made no response; the man dribbled slightly.
Jellic came over and stood by Susan; he casually kicked the pistol to the
other side of the room. This
provoked no response. Susan waved
her hand in front of the man's eyes, and yet again this did nothing.
"What's the matter with them?" came Jon's question.
Susan frantically poked at the scanner. "His brain waves are all
over the place, some sort of catatonia."
She turned slightly to the other Terran and her eyes widened as the
scanner started a slow warning beep; she turned to Jellic, her eyes wide open.
"The only thing holding her guts in her body at the moment is a
plastic bag and large roll of bandage; we need to get her to ship’s Auto-Doc
NOW!"
To
be continued...