Galactic
Unity 2
By: Mark J. Hadley
* * *
The tunnel continued for several hundred more feet, taking a few small turns, before the shuttle passed what looked like a makeshift barricade. A few Centraxians stood guard at the sides of the barrier, which had been fused together by broken pieces of debris, and had already opened it up to allow the shuttle to pass. Both of them clutched stun rifles like the one Jiexela was using, although they looked obviously uncomfortable with carrying any sort of weapon at all.
Everything was a little more orderly inside. The sides of the large chamber were covered with arrays of computers, the various terminals manned by Centraxians. Several doors and another large tunnel lead out of the area; the tunnel was barricaded similarly to the one they had entered through. The shuttle moved over to a row of similar shuttles off against one wall and set down next to them. As it did, Buttercup asked, “Where are we?”
“This was a network relay station,” Jiexela said, disengaging the shuttle engines and powering it down. “Much of the grid is down, but we can still get some information from here, and contact other relay stations as well. Others across the planet thought the same as we did, that these stations would be safe places to hide.”
They climbed out of the shuttle, and Silver indicated the others, “I forgot to introduce us… my name’s Silver, and that’s Professor Utonium…”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Jiexela said. She looked at the girls and said, “I already know who you three are… you must be the Powerpuff Girls, correct?”
“That’s right! How’d you know?” Bubbles asked.
“You were part of a large celebration recently, how could I not know you?” Jiexela added, “We received your message about Xianea… we’re sorry to hear what happened.”
Buttercup nodded, letting her eyes drop. “We miss her a lot.”
The professor finished getting out of the shuttle and remarked, “It’s a good thing you came by. I don’t think we would have lasted long up there…”
“Yeah,” Bubbles nodded, then remembered what Jiexela was saying on the way in. “What happened with the ones the Invaders got? The infection?”
“I wish I could give a clear answer,” Jiexela said, “but until we have the chance to study it, we only have theories.” As they walked by a table with equipment, she set her rifle down and continued, “The best theory we have is that the Invader infection wasn’t meant for something as complex as organics.”
Silver blinked, “But we’re mechanical…”
Nodding, Jixela replied, “At the cellular level, yes. However, each of our individual cells still function like organics from that point on. They’re still arranged in tissues and organs. The Invaders may have been able to control our cells, but they didn’t have the level of control necessary to have the cells perform the correct operations to control the entire organism.”
“I think I see what you mean,” the professor said. “So if they can’t control them, why are they acting so violent?”
“It’s likely a side effect of the lack of control,” Jiexela answered. “With so many conflicting instructions from individual cells trying to control it, it’s causing a strong level of dementia in the complete being. And without the cellular programming to guide it, it’s causing them to become aggressive and uncontrollable. But as I said, it turned out to be a good thing, in a manner of speaking, because as they started to change, they lashed out and attacked everything, including the Invaders themselves.”
“Nice,” Buttercup grinned. “Bet they weren’t expecting that.”
Jiexela shook her head, “Apparently not. The infected Centraxians ripped through their defenses in waves shortly after it spread to the populace. That’s when we discovered something else: as resilient as they are to physical damage, our claws could hurt them.”
“They can hurt them?” Silver echoed, extending his own claws from his fingertips and studying them. Before Jiexela could answer, he said, “I see… it’s the energy field that surrounds our claws, isn’t it?”
“We think so, too,” Jiexela nodded.
“Back at Paradise Fringe,” Blossom told her, “our punches didn’t do anything to them, but our eyebeams were deadly. So energy is their weakness?”
“I wouldn’t call it a weakness, just a vulnerability,” Jiexela said. “Their resistance to physical damage doesn’t extend to energy-based sources. At least it helps us narrow down what weapons we can’t use.”
The professor nodded, then said, “Now that we’ve been filled in on everything, we have another important task ahead of now. We need to find a cure for this infection, or at least some way to protect against it.”
“Agreed,” Jiexela said. “Hopefully, a cure is being found as we speak.”
“Why hopefully?” Bubbles said.
Jiexela frowned, “Well, we dispatched a ship not long ago carrying some infected Centraxians that we captured, hoping they could be studied, but we lost contact with…”
“Wait, a ship?” Buttercup interrupted. “Oh man, I hope it’s not the one we ran into…” Jiexela looked confused, and Buttercup explained, “There was this ship we found on the way here…”
“Hey, you’re right…” Blossom said, cringing. “It was a Centraxian ship, too… and that one in the capsule that went crazy on us…” She looked over sadly at Jiexela and said, “We… didn’t find any survivors on board…”
The Centraxian lowered her eyes and said, “Then the attempt was a failure. We’ll need to try again. It’s important that we get a sample of the infected Centraxian cells to the Repository as soon as possible.”
The last statement took everyone by surprise. Silver exclaimed, “The Repository wasn’t lost? When we saw it missing above, we thought the Invaders took it…”
“They didn’t have the chance,” Jiexela said, with a slight smile. “We knew they were coming for it, so we initiated an emergency protocol to save it. It was initially constructed for interplanetary transport in case it was in danger.”
“You mean, you just launched it and flew it to another planet?” the professor asked. “That’s… crazy, but brilliant at the same time…”
“It’s just temporary, until it’s safe to bring it back,” Jiexela explained. Glancing around, she said, “Well, we’re secure here for now… once things quiet down, we can get you back to your ship safely. There are places to sleep if you need it, but I’m afraid we don’t have any food for organics…”
“It’s all right, we’ll manage,” Blossom said.
Nodding, Jiexela said, “We’ll prepare for you to leave tomorrow, then.” She pointed towards one of the doors and said, “You’ll find everything that way. If you don’t mind, I need to check with the grid to see if any of the other relay stations have captured an infected Centraxian for us to send.”
“Thanks so much,” Bubbles smiled, and the group headed for the door, while Jiexela started towards the computer terminals. Silver hesitated, though, and headed over in the same direction as the Centraxian instead.
Noticing this, Jiexela said, “Is something wrong, Silver?”
“No, it’s fine, I just…” Silver said, hesitating. “I’ve never been around other Centraxians before. I have… so many questions to ask…”
“I’m a bit surprised to hear that,” Jiexela remarked. “Where did you grow up?”
“On Earth, with the girls. I hatched there recently…” Silver told her.
Jiexela blinked, “In less than a month’s time?”
“Yeah, why?” Silver asked.
Jiexela looked uncomfortable for a moment, which made Silver suspicious that something was wrong. She finally said, “All right… I’ll tell you, but please, try not to take this the wrong way…”
* * *
A set of offices in the back had been converted into sleeping chambers recently, each outfitted with a few beds. The girls found an empty one that was big enough to accommodate them all, and hovered inside. “At least the Repository’s safe,” Blossom said. “That’s some good news, anyway.”
“Do y’think it’ll still know what to do?” Bubbles asked, landing on the edge of one of the beds and looking over at the rest of them. “Even if we get to it?”
Leaning up against the wall, Buttercup shrugged, “I dunno. It doesn’t know everything, does it?”
“No,” Blossom said, shaking her head, “and it’ll probably need a sample of the infection anyway, like Jiexela said. If that science ship had made it…”
The professor came into the room and found a seat on one of the other beds, “Well, we have our own ship. We could always offer to bring a sample ourselves, but it’s awfully dangerous. And I don’t just mean transporting… I mean trying to capture one, as well.”
“Nah, catching one’ll be a piece of cake,” Buttercup said with a grin. “But yeah, holding it on the whole trip? That might be tough.”
“We have to,” Blossom said. “If it’s the only way to stop all this, then we’ll do it.” She looked over at the professor and said, “I say we do it. We’ll let Jiexela know tomorrow that we’re willing to help. Is everyone okay with that?”
Before anyone else could answer, Silver entered the room, slowly crossing the room and sitting down in a seat on the other end. He looked a little depressed for some reason, staring at the ground… Buttercup noticed this, and asked, “Hey, bro, what’s wrong?”
“I’m…” Silver started, then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I had a talk with Jiexela… Girls, I’m…” He hesitated again.
“What?” Blossom said. “What did she say?”
Silver opened his eyes again, but continued to stare down at the ground. “I’m not a… a normal Centraxian. I’m… what they call an Ephemeral…”
“What’s that? It’s… it’s not bad, is it?” Bubbles asked, worried.
“I’m afraid it is,” Silver nodded. “Jiexela explained everything to me… it’s… well, it’s due to a condition. My mother, Xianea, must have had it, and never told anyone… it’s a condition where a Centraxian’s cellular programming is accessed incorrectly, and causes a very mild and practically undetectable corruption…”
“Why would anyone access their programming like that?” the professor asked.
“Because of how an imprint of our knowledge is stored in it,” Silver explained. “The same knowledge that gets passed to their children. Normally, the technology in the Repository is the only safe way to scan it, but apparently, other species have come up with… less efficient methods, ones that have side effects. Centraxians that have been scanned this way can develop this condition, and I can only guess that it happened to Xianea at some point.”
Blossom started at that, and exclaimed, “It did! I remember her saying something about that… it was after we rescued her from the Gyahembu. During the trip back to Centraxia, we were up in the cockpit, and I was asking her if she was hurt at all while she was captured, and…” She frowned, and continued, “…and she told me they did something like that. Scanned her for information. But she was also embarrassed about it for some reason… and told me not to tell anyone…”
“So they messed up her programming?” Buttercup said, angrily. “Those jerks!”
“It wasn’t anything serious,” Silver told her. “But I guess it gave her the condition. It doesn’t affect her in any way, just her children. So the glitch passed on to me, and made me an Ephemeral…”
The professor looked concerned, “What does this mean for you, then?”
Silver closed his eyes again, and said, “Due to the glitch, Ephemerals have extremely accelerated growth, and age much faster than normal Centraxians. It speeds the time it takes for me to grow to adulthood, but it also… drastically reduces my lifespan…” Everyone else looked shocked as he continued, “Normally, a Centraxian can live for about three hundred or so years, as it’s measured on Earth. I’ll be lucky if I live for one.”
“No!” Bubbles said, flying over and clutching one of his arms, hugging it tightly.
“Oh man…” Buttercup said, looking sadly at him. “Can’t they do anything to fix it?” Silver just shook his head silently, and Buttercup’s eyes fell. The professor also looked sad, and he got up, walking over and taking a seat next to Silver, putting an arm around him in comfort. Blossom and Buttercup joined in the quiet embrace, as Silver’s eyes remained closed…
* * *
The halls of the relay station were empty now, as everyone had retired to their beds for sleep. Except for a few small lights, and the soft hum of the computer systems, it was dark and mostly quiet. The only ones still awake were a pair of Centraxians, standing guard at the barricade. Irixe, the first guard, was resting up against the barricade and reading some information on a small data pad. The other guard, Xaela, kept her stun rifle trained on the darkness of the tunnel. Not lifting his eyes from the data pad, Irixe said, “Try to relax a little. You’ll wear yourself out from tension alone.”
“I’m fine,” Xaela told him. “It’s better to be prepared.”
“I guess you’re right,” Irixe nodded, and continued his reading.
Xaela glanced over at him briefly and asked, “That’s from the Hkratth library, isn’t it? Is it any good?”
“It’s fascinating,” Irixe replied. “Their history is filled with conflict… they have to be the most war-ridden species in existence.”
Xaela didn’t look convinced, “I don’t know. You know those Earthlings who came in here earlier? I’m told that their history has had its fair share of wars as well.”
“Not like this,” Irixe said, shaking his head. “One of the Hkrrath civil wars lasted nearly to a thousand years. It was a stalemate, but neither side would admit—” He broke off from what he was saying as he hear what sounded like metal scraping from down the tunnel. Dropping the data pad, he slung his rifle into a ready position, and Xaela, having heard it as well, tightened her grip on her own rifle.
Everything was quiet again, but they didn’t budge from their positions. Xaela whispered, “You see anything, you fire, all right?” Irixe nodded, reaching onto his belt to unhook a small palm light, and activated it, shining it into the darkness ahead. He moved the light from side to side, but the tunnel looked vacant. Probably just some debris shifting, he thought. As he glanced up towards the roof of the tunnel, though, he froze for a moment as he saw something there, a pair of red eyes…
“Up th—…” he started to shout, but then the infected Centraxian on the ceiling flung a chunk of metal debris at him, nailing him in the side of the head and knocking him off his feet, causing him to drop his rifle in the process. Xaela glanced over in alarm, then quickly swung her rifle up towards the ceiling. The Centraxian glided down at her with a screech, and she fired the stun rifle point-blank at it, giving out her own cry in the process.
Irixe clutched the side of his head, and looked over to see the infected Centraxian slam into the ground, electricity arcing across its body. “He’s down!” he said. “Xaela, you all right?”
Xaela was clutching her side, marred by a set of black claw marks. She just stared at the wound in disbelief, then cringed… the black around the edge of the claw marks started to spread outward, and she dropped her rifle as it did, clutching the sides her head with both hands and clenching her eyes shut. In only a few seconds, her entire body had changed to black, and when her eyes reopened, a deep red had replaced their normal blue glow. Irixe reached for his fallen rifle as quickly as he could, but by then, Xaela had already turned towards him and pounced, attacking with a swipe of her claws and an animalistic shriek…