Rising Warrior-Rising Threat Page 4
“Do it then,” Cade replied. Gokhead started into the ship’s command and control weave, threading his way into the electrical grid and the control system regulating regulated power flow. Within a pulse, the autocook sizzled and fried on the screen in front of them. The hostage takers turned and ran over in horror as their last lifeline melted down.
Rage behind her bloodshot eyes, Heclin looked up at them through the comm station. “Cade, our autocook just burnt out, what did you do to it?”
“We didn’t do anything,” Cade responded. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
Heclin grabbed a hostage and dug the muzzle of her pistol into his temple. The man cowered in fear. “We were just about to eat, send us some food, or this thing dies,” she demanded, a table full of food beside her.
A set of ready lights flashed at the edge of Blazer’s vision from the micomm as the breaching teams signaled their readiness to move in. Blazer immediately sent the ready hold command, instructing them to stand ready, but hold their positions.
“Okay Heclin, no need for violence,” Cade began as Marda held up a hand written sign.
They’ll be prone to suggestion. She scribbled another quick note. Tell them something that will calm them down.
Cade nodded. “We have an Anulian medic aboard. She’ll bring you some food, water, and medical gear. I want to see how Quid is doing,” Cade said.
Heclin squeezed the hostage tighter, eliciting a squeak of terror from him. “Where did she come from?”
“I don’t ask those questions. She arrived on the ship you saw earlier, she brought food and medical equipment for you. She’ll show you that we aren’t your enemy, that this is all just a misunderstanding.”
“No funny stuff. If you’re lying, or the medic tries anything, we’ll kill her on the spot.”
“Fine, we’re sending her now,” Cade replied turning off the mic before turning to Marda as she unbuckled her armor. “Is there anything that can accelerate the process of getting the Kefid out of their systems?”
Marda shook her head as Gokhead stripped her armored plating off of her strength-enhancing body glove. “Just fluids. We need them to pass this through their system. Anything I put in the water to hurry that along in one species may kill another. We just have to be patient. I’ll need an autocook or water cycler, something confed standard.”
I don’t like this, Blazer thought as he looked at Marda. Even without the armor plates the bodyglove was a dead giveaway. They didn’t have time to have her change her whole outfit. “Gokhead, go with Marda. Marda, good luck, and see if you can find some scrubs or a lab coat to throw on over that.”
With that Marda took one last look at the monitor as the Cthoid walked past the camera. She took a calming breath and with a nod to Blazer ran for the dining hall.
“It’s all up to her now,” Cade commented.
Arion turned to Blazer. “Blazer, isn’t she…”
Blazer cut him off. “She’s a soldier. She knows what she’s doing. She’ll be fine.” Looking past, Blazer turned to the screen as well when the Cthoid marched past again. If she can get over her fear of Cthoids.
Main Dining Hall, CPV-Lady of the Stars
Marda recognized the look on Heclin’s face the moment she walked into the room. She’d seen it enough times in hospitals over the annura. The vacant, desperate eyes of a drug fiend coming off a long trip.
Heclin’s eyes spoke volumes about her condition. Sunken and bloodshot, she was failing fast. Heclin even drooled a little, with spittle coating the underside of her snout now. Her Drashig metabolism was flushing the drug from her system that much faster. Her eyes were filled with suspicion as she eyed Marda, but they revealed that she saw Marda as an Anulian, the suggestion had worked.
Marda took a deep breath, remembering her drama classes in school and walked towards Heclin as two of her men slammed the doors closed behind her. The team had managed to find a set of medical scrubs and a lab coat for Marda to wear over her body glove. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but at least the batteries powering her suit weren’t as bulbous as on a male suit. Just don’t look too close or ask me to strip.
Heclin leveled her pistol on Marda when she got within ten metra of her. “That’s close enough, what’s in the cases?”
Marda didn’t like this, her training had taught her a dozen ways to get that gun, but she had to remain calm. She set the cases down and opened them, forcing her hands to shake. Look scared girl, you’re not a soldier right now, you’re a scared civilian nurse. Putting a false tremor into her voice and actions, she revealed the contents. “Just food, a water cycler, and medical supplies. Thank God you’re all right.”
Heclin waved one of her men, an Anulian, forward. “Check her.”
Marda stood as the man approached and detected a hint of lust in his eyes. At least Cade’s line worked, they all see me as Anulian. He set his weapon aside and patted her down. He spent far too much time feeling up her ass and breasts, and in the process passed her thighs and arms where her powerpacks bulged the most. Marda resisted the urge to knock the man flat, and instead jumped in mock shock. Just bear with it for now.
He nodded to Heclin when he finished and hurried back to his post.
Marda breathed a momentary sigh of relief. Then she felt the deck quiver and found the massive Cthoid, Jek, racing towards her. She took an instinctive step back from the creature as it approached, fearful for the first time in a long time. Marda began to shake as Jek slowed and knelt down next to her to paw through the cases. It was no act, she was genuinely shaking. His slimy tendrils contaminated everything he touched, even her sterilized instruments.
Marda stared at the scene with fear and revulsion. She hated to admit it, but she was afraid of Cthoid. It was a childish fear she knew; the Cthoid weren’t monsters, but her first experience with one had scarred her for life. Four annura old at the time, one of the slime-covered horrors had knocked her over as it ran from authorities. The moment had given her duwn terrors for annura afterwards. Don’t focus on it, think of the mission.
Marda glanced over at Heclin and saw that she was more concerned with the case of the food.
She didn’t like what her husband and squad leader had implied and glanced towards the comm panel.
Marda almost jumped when the horror that haunted her dreams as a child stood after inspecting the case. Long tendrils of ooze still connected him to the medical supplies. “No weapons,” he reported and continued to stare at her. He reached out a tentacled hand towards her, and Marda stumbled back. One tiny finger tendril lanced out to swipe the hair away from her ears, slapping wet across her cheeks in the process.
He’s looking for comms, did he detect the micomm signal?
Jek gave her one more long look then seized the case of food and water and ran it over to a table where several more of the crew waited, famished and thirsty.
Jek shuddered to a halt and looked back towards Marda. She remained frozen but with her camera side hand flashed C C, Cut Communication. He can detect the micomm link, Shreg!
As slow as she dared, Marda made her way to the unconscious Quid, pushing the case of medical supplies along with her foot. When she reached him she pulled out a slime-covered medical scanner to examine the Lodran. The feel of it made her sick, and one of the hostage takers, the one holding a gun on her, snickered.
For three hects Marda made a show of examining Quid. His dehydration was severe and her first priority had been to insert an infuser. The nano-assemblers within extracted the saline solution out of the air before pumping it into his body. Positioned where it was, it was a slow process, but color returned to
Quid’s face and his breathing eased with each passing hect.
The crew took turns watching over Marda. To her displeasure, the Cthoid sat with every watch but the first one. She could almost feel his eyes touching her. The thick mucus he’d spread across her instruments filled her with revulsion every time she reached for her case. It was no act that every time she made eye-contact with that cosmic horror she shuddered.
Marda glanced at the ceiling for a moment. A glint at one of the vents told her that Rudjick waited within. She didn’t dare use the micomm again knowing that the Cthoid would be able to sense the signal. Feigning fear, she tapped the metal edge of the medical gurney Quid lay on, spelling out a message in the Coretherian language that Bichard had taught them all. “Plan working. All but C are coming down off the K. The C shows no signs, slow M. May be a problem.”
As she finished the message, Jek erupted from his seat and bounded across the hall towards her. His massive bulk reverberated through the deck with each thunderous tentacle slap to the plating. “What are you doing?”
Marda stumbled back into one of the hostages, shaking, and felt for the injector of sedative she’d slipped into her sleeve. “I’m sorry, I’m just scared,” she managed, trying to keep her composure. Blazer please tell me that you have the breaching teams ready.
They both turned as Heclin stumbled towards a chair, her gun falling out of her hands. “I don’t feel well,” she announced, in a shaky, weakened voice. Heclin slumped down into the chair, unable to stand.
“What was in that food?!” Jek roared.
Genuine fear washed over Marda as Jek’s face tendrils flared towards her, revealing the mass of gnarled teeth behind them. The ooze dripping off the fleshy appendages splashed against her face as she fought back her revulsion and terror.
“Nothing, it was just ration bars, standard issue ration bars,” she quavered in fear, not just the fear of her childhood, but the fear that she would let her team down, the fear that this beast might kill her. She wouldn’t let her fear overpower her, and digging down deep, she found the courage to stand against this terror. She reared up to Jek, sliding the injector of sedative into her hand.
An elfin HoTak jumped to his feet, recognition dawning in his drug-addled eyes. “Where did all these people come from?”
Jek raised his massive tentacle paw to slap down Marda, his body exuding rage pheromones that threatened to overpower her. “You drugged them!”
The room exploded into activity in that instant. The wooden doors exploded open. The hostages started screaming and the Hostage Takers stumbled away, confused by the sudden activity. The breaching teams rushed the chamber.
The vent above Marda fell away and Rudjick dropped from it, a stun rod in his hand. He landed on the Cthoid’s fleshy, slimy back, and dug the stun rod into the corpulent tendrils at the base of Jek’s neck before triggering it.
The rest of the team swept through the room, firing stun blasts into the confused explorers. A few hostages tried to run in the confusion, but even they met the floor in a twitching heap as the team stunned anyone who moved.
Marda rushed forward to help Rudjick. Careful to avoid Jek’s flailing limbs and tentacles as he bucked and twisted to dislodge the far smaller elf, she readied the injector. As a fat tentacle came her way, Marda grabbed hold and jammed the injector into it. A powerful Cthoid sedative raced into his flesh, the nanobots infused within secreting it into his blood.
Jek roared back at Marda, slapping her aside. The blow knocked the breath out of her and sent her skidding across the deck. He took a lumbering step towards her and with his next step, faltered and crashed onto the floor at her feet. The slime coating his body splashed out, splattering her and anyone else within ten metra.
Rudjick and Marda sprang into action. Unsure what state Jek would wake up in, the pair bound his tentacled hands together. Each touch turned Marda’s stomach. She’d been elbows deep inside the bodies of other beings before and had never been so repulsed.
Zithe rushed over as they fought with his slime-covered flesh. Vigilant for the corpulent being to awaken, he kept his weapon trained on the horrid bloated body. When they’d finished, they slid down off his massive bulk, both of them coated in his secretions. Just burn my skin off, please.
Zithe smirked at them as they stood before him, his armor still spotless. “Are you two okay?”
Marda fixed Zithe with a hateful glare and flicking her wrist, splashed some of the film onto Zithe’s armored shin. “Fine, but we need to get him into a secure medical bay as soon as we can.”
Zithe scraped the film off with his boot—a disgusted look on his face.
Marda turned towards the medical staff and waved them over. “Get Quid back to the medical bay and start an immediate fluid infusion, full push.”
The medical staff nodded, and set to work.
“Let them through. Chris make sure that they arrive safely.”
Chris nodded and ran up to the medical staff. She motioned everyone out of the way with her gun as they rushed the gurney out of the room.
Blazer stood up as he checked the identification of one of the stunned cruise goers to ensure that he wasn’t a HoTak.. “All HoTaks are accounted for. We’ve got three stunned civvies too.” The team had no choice in that: they’d had to consider anyone running around to be dangerous during the assault. A stun blast wouldn’t cause any permanent harm. “Are you okay?” Blazer asked Marda as he approached.
Marda wiped her hand down one arm, sloshing more of the Cthoid’s mucus onto the deck with a nauseating splash. “I’m fine. Looks like a clean sweep.”
“Fine work by all involved,” Cade commented over the comm screen on the wall. “Next time I need another breaching team I’ll know who to call.”
With a mischievous grin, Rudjick turned to Zithe. “Hear that big guy? We’re a hostage rescue team now. Give me a hug.”
Zithe’s eyes filled with horror as he looked at his mucus-covered friend. “You wouldn’t dare!”
Before Zithe could move to protest, Rudjick leapt and wrapped his arms around his old friend. “Oh yes I would!”
UCSB DATE: 1002.283
The Ring, UCSBA-13, System: Classified
When cadets had disputes that they couldn’t work out, or if they simply needed to work out their aggression, they went to The Ring. The Ring wasn’t officially sanctioned by the academy, and its location wasn’t fixed either. The bottom of construction pits where civil engineering and military architecture students practiced real world excavation techniques would act as the arena. If no pits were available, The Ring’s location would be even more uncertain. The cadets who used would treat the ground of the fighting ring to provide better footing and would also erect simple rope barriers to keep spectators from coming into contact with the combatants. Cadets would then sign up on a local stitch to fight.
Arion had found himself a regular at the ring.
Most of the team ignored Arion’s visits to the pugilistic bouts. Several had even joined him there as combatants on rare occasions. For Arion it was not just about the fighting—many times it had served as an exercise in negotiations. The combatants would talk out their problems during the fight, ending them in a draw.
The crowds hated when he did that, but Arion would still put on a show for them by showing his physical prowess in some other way. It served as a way of relieving stress, and he liked the psychological aspect of the ring. Finding out why people fought, how they dealt with their frustrations and anger, made for a better learning experience than some of his classes.
This cycle Arion discovered that an anonymous cadet had picked him for a bout. Arion didn’t mind, as he had some frustrations to work out after their rescue mission aboard the Lady of the Stars. With his classes ended for the cycle, Arion headed to The Ring. The mysterious challenger had piqued his interest.
I wonder who it is and what his grief with me is? Probably one of Chertsin’s Cronies. Hostilities with Chertsin’s squadron had increased
ever since the break. Though Chertsin would never issue a direct challenge, he might send one of his men.
Arion surveyed the ring upon arrival. It wasn’t much of a crowd, but then he hadn’t expected one. The cafeteria was half-empty as well, as so were many of his classes. When he checked the statistics, he saw that the numbers were now down to 956 from their original 2000 in their academic annura. It was a sobering number. Three of his psychology classmates hadn’t returned from the last break.
People cheered as Arion approached. They’re looking forward to this. My opponent must be a real piece of work.
Arion strode through the crowd. A man he’d seen a few times before eyed him from across the ring. His icy gaze screamed hatred at Arion. Arion recognized the bold, almost iridescent yellow of the man’s flight jacket. He was in the annura behind Arion, one of the Yellow Jacket squadron. So what’s his problem? I don’t think I’ve even spoken to him or anyone on his team.
Arion continued around the ring towards the man as the current fighters went at it. A nimble Drashig skidded about as he tried to take down a much larger centaur-like Boerieken. As Arion approached the man, he broke away from his friends and turned to face him. “Are you my challenger?”
“You bet your ass I am, and don’t think you can talk your way out of it either big man.”
Arion just smiled at the man. He was fine with that. If you want to volunteer to be my punching bag, go right ahead, I have the energy to burn. “All right, just try and last long enough for me to work up a sweat.” He walked back around the ring. Cadets were beginning to take bets on his fight, only a sucker would bet against me.
A gasp from the crowd drew his attention back to the ring. The noseless Borekian body slammed his Drashig opponent, ending the fight. Shaking hands, the two fighters limped out of the ring.