Jia gasped suddenly.
Baeven has finally sensed my presence. He’s coming to meet us at that section of wall over there.
They floated over to the spot she indicated. Naero examined it.
I don’t see anything, Jia.
He’s here, Naero. He’s trapped within the walls themselves, partially merged with their basic structure and the strange energy fields permeating this place–they are based on Darkforce energy. It’s very difficult and exhausting for him to try to move around or emerge.
Before their eyes, transparent fingertips and then a transparent portion of Baeven’s face struggled to push out from the wall, like a tormented phantom. He looked to be in pretty bad shape.
Bae! My beloved, Bae. Stay strong–reserve your strength. We’ll find a way to separate you again.
The urgency in Jia’s thoughts struck Naero with how deeply Jia cared for Baeven.
Meanwhile, Om focused all of his powers on trying to analyze the walls themselves. These walls are incredibly strange, Naero. They were fused with advanced, nano-vibronic particles that maintain an interior energized field at the particle level. This tainted field resists phazed, near-astral projected entities, and any object or person that is cloaked. It is specifically designed to block the passage of any such unknown particles or entities.
The enemy has done their homework, Om. They were among the first to attempt to use phaze suits and phaze armor. They know that Spacer Intel captured and has been experimenting with such tek on their own for a long while. Some psyonic abilities can even phaze through normal barriers and materials. And Spacer Mystics or other psyonic users in astral form can penetrate any physical structure to spy on things visually. Baeven managed to do so for years. But at last, the enemy has developed a counter-barrier that resists such efforts, and even sets up a feedback trap for any such users. They’ll get stuck inside and slowly perish.
What do you think, Om? It seems like we’ve come across something similar to this before, haven’t we?
Yes, when we attempted to learn the secrets of The Darkstar’s ion cannons. The walls came to life with tentacles similar to those of the Darkforce generators. They tried to draw us into the walls an absorb us physically. Many of the energy signatures and components are very similar. But this defense is more advanced in every way–passive, active, and subtle–in order to protect the enemy secrets here. And the personnel. They couldn’t be under constant attack by the very walls themselves.
The enemy knows there’s someone like Baeven around. I bet they fashioned this defense and this trap with him in mind. They know he’s out there searching for them.
He is unique, Jia said. There are no others like him, as all shall see one day.
Copy that. Yet our current problem remains, Naero told them. How do we extract Baeven–alive–once he has been merged with such hi-tek materials as these?
Naero and Om used teknomancy to study the wall. Nothing.
Jia was just as stumped. He will eventually perish if we don’t find a way to extract him. In fact, he cannot survive in there for much longer–were talking hours–a day or two at most.
Om quickly noted. And we’re under the gun in other ways, as Spacers say. A full scale biological war is about to be launched against all of humanity. It may only take several weeks or months to transport these dispersal drones from this site, and get them all into optimal position.
Perhaps even less, Om. What if the enemy uses their wormhole tek to gate them all into position? That would get them into place even faster.
But before they could tackle the coming biowar, they had to spring Baeven free from his current prison.
A sudden possibility occurred to her.
Om. What if we look at this like a replication problem?
Naero touched the walls and tested something.
I’m right. I know it. These walls aren’t just tek–they’re alive–living machines on a very basic level of raw cunning, bordering on sentience, yet still slaves to the will of their dark masters. Just like the Darkforce generators.
Jia and Om started following her train of thought.
Om hadn’t experienced or explored such replication and absorbing methods as deeply as she had. She pieced together her concepts from several ranges of experience, including fighting the actual Darkforce generators. More from Om, Alala, and even Jia, herself. Insights of combined biomancy and teknomancy origin flashed into her mind from all of her past experimentation.
And somehow, she was even pulling concepts out of the KDM.
Teknomancy concepts flowed into her mind faster than even she could follow, to the point of being painful.
See? The principles and theories are all parallel, if not completely transferable. I think we can do this. Follow my lead. I want to try something.
Naero fed them entire races of data even as she prepared herself.
I’m going to treat Baeven as replicant matter and energy, emerging from these vibronically energized walls. Jia, your link with him is the strongest. I’m going to use your intimate knowledge of him to draw him out and separate him from these living machine wall particles that are holding him.
And they’re not just trapping him.
They’re slowly absorbing an devouring him. That’s just one of the reasons why he can’t get out on his own.
Link with him, Jia. No matter what happens. Keep the link with him open, strong, and focused. You are his lifeline.
I will perish before I break it.
Naero felt the incredible force of Jia’s mighty will. Who was Jia? What was she?
They began.
Naero placed her hands on the wall. Through Jia’s intense link, she could sense precisely what was Baeven, and what wasn’t.
And with that knowledge, she could separate them.
Speaking of intense. This was the first time she had a chance to really see Baeven for what he was. The readings…the energies on, around, and within him were all off any scale imaginable. If Jia was amazing–Baeven was beyond scary. Not just a monster–a behemoth! Baeven was a force of the Universe itself–a living, breathing, walking Power that could not be denied.
Naero felt the glacier-like chill crackle up her spine.
There were many parallels between herself and Baeven, as well.
Was this what people were afraid of when they looked deep into her?
Clearly, any other normal person or Spacer would have been slain and absorbed by these walls long ago–in a matter of minutes or hours. Baeven had withstood them and held them off–for weeks.
She used teknomancy to separate the wall particles and spread them back–like peeling off the layers of an onion–and biomancy to draw Baeven back out.
His hands emerged first.
Naero knitted her fingers with his and pulled.
His face emerged again, silently screaming in agony. It took all of her strength to keep him from pulverizing her hands.
We’re hurting him terribly.
He can take it, Jia. And so can I.
Pain is better than death, Om added.
Naero kept pulling, using her abilities to separate his body from being fused within the wall.
But the process taxed her as well, nor did she possess unlimited flows of Cosmic energy. And she could not keep going and startap again at the same time. If she stopped, they would need to start all over.
Before Naero blacked out, she focused all of her strength and heaved backward, dizzy and drained.
He toppled out from the wall, his huge form flattening Naero’s small weakened frame to the ground. Baeven was a huge guy, dense like duranadium. With him unconscious, his overwhelming, dead weight crushed her to the floor.
32
Naero could feel Jia become so overwhelmed with emotion that she instinctively took charge of Naero’s body in its exhausted stupor, and dragged her out from underneath Baeven’s bulk.
Jia rolled him over onto his back, and was about to cover his face with kisses.
&n
bsp; Naero just barely recovered enough strength to restrain her.
Uh, control to Jia. I get how you’re feeling and all. I’m glad to see him too, but he’s still kind of…my uncle. It is going to get beyond creepy if you starting swooching him, and slip him the old mouth serpent–especially using my mouth. Please don’t.
Jia laughed and pulled back, relinquishing control.
Of course. I’m sorry, Naero. You’re so funny at times.
Yeah. That’s me, all right. A laugh riot each and every minute.
Actually, Jia, she’s not all that much fun sometimes.
Stuff a sock in it, Om. I’m on a roll here.
What in the world is a sock, N? And where would I stuff it if I had one?
I’ll tell you exactly where, Om.
Oh, I see now. But I do not have either an oral or anal cavity.
That’s been a problem all along, Om.
Baeven began to stir.
Then Naero took notice. Jia was healing him, using Naero’s fading energies to replace and mend some of the cumulative damage and trauma Baeven had endured while being trapped in his merge with the machine particle walls.
Naero still felt woozy, and Jia’s efforts weren’t helping.
Naero. You must both startap and intake biomechanical fuel and lix.
She was already way ahead of him on the startapping front. After that, she tore open some concentrated food bars out of her belt pouches, and sucked on her armor’s lix tube. The nutrient rich rations and fluids rushed into her as she choked them down, as quickly as she could.
Over several minutes, she wolfed down nearly three days worth of rations and lix. All the while, Jia kept siphoning energies from her and transferring them directly to Baeven’s body and blood stream through biomancy.
This direct healing transfer is the only way, Naero. Even on a medbed, Baeven would not be able to eat for a day or two at best. This way, we can regenerate and revitalize his systems, and boost his own amazing abilities. But I think we just barely caught him in time. Even Baeven could not have regenerated himself on his own, in such a weakened state as this.
Now he can, Jia?
Naero had to study that, and learn his advanced techniques, if possible.
Yes. Just another of his amazing abilities. There, his own powers are kicking in now. He should be able to recover enough to complete the healing process, given time.
Baeven regained consciousness a few moments later.
“Naero? You came here alone? How did you figure out a way to get me out? I sure couldn’t.”
Naero rested a hand on his arm as he sat up, still staring and shaking his head. “It wasn’t easy, Baeven. But I’m not alone. Jia’s soul is in me, too; I borrowed her from your ship at her insistence. I couldn’t have located you or done any of this without her help. Come on, we have to get you out of here.”
“No, you don’t understand. There’s no time. Uh…still so weak. Just let me sit here for a while. I’m starving. Anything to eat or drink?”
Naero gave him the last few days of her combat rations.
“Maybe you should take these slow.”
“I’ll have a stomach ache, but I can keep them down.” Baeven inhaled them. She gave him all of her lix.
He doubled over with cramps suddenly and groaned, but he did not throw up. In fact, he seemed to grow stronger by the minute. Baeven was tougher than and recovered faster than anyone she had ever known.
He nodded at the drones assembled for launch all around them.
“I take it you’ve figured out what’s going on here?”
Naero nodded.
“We have. Bio-weapons and lots of them. Enough to take out all of the tens of thousands of Gigacorps worlds–or at least their populations.”
Baeven sagged and let out a long ragged breath.
“And Spacers too. The enemy fast action, biotoxin plagues have been specifically designed to be incredibly lethal and virulent, Naero. To Spacers, humans, most near humans, and all of the known species–everyone except the Ejjai, of course.”
“All in one.” Naero sneered. “Bastards.”
“I agree. We can’t let them get away with this, Naero.”
“Don’t worry, Baeven. They won’t.”
Om, the Kexx must have had some knowledge of this kind of advanced biological warfare back in their day. Come up with some way to counter this.
They did. I’ve been searching all this time for counter-agents and neutralizers.
Jia added her information through Naero’s voice, so that Baeven could hear.
“The Drians fought this madness as well. While we freed Bae, our crews have analyzed the toxin samples we sent back to our ships with the spyfixers. Your friend Zhentisa is quite the genius when it comes to bio-medical and bio-warfare research.”
Zhen had gained lots of firsthand experience during the Annexation War, with the enemy’s Cosmicide devices. She had been directly involved in countering several similar agents–yet nothing as advanced as this.
Naero, Jia, and Om discussed the situation internally, and then informed Baeven about their preliminary plan, after he had rested for a short while. It could not be avoided.
“We think we have the beginning of counter strategy,” Naero said. “We’ll leave a nebula of our spyfixers behind us, modified specifically to biomed mode. They’ll replicate as needed and adjust or neutralize the toxins to our specifications–even the units that haven’t been constructed or filled yet. They’ll fuse themselves with every launcher and begin the counter-modification process.”
“What do you mean by modification?” Baeven asked.
“Thanks to Zhen, we’ll modify the toxins on a level that won’t be able to be detected. We’ll attempt to reverse the process, given enough time. If the fixers succeed, these agents will only take out Ejjai clones, but they won’t harm humans, Spacers, or any of the other sentient or near sentient races.”
“But what’s to stop these goons or anyone else who gets their hands on this tek, from changing that back around, or sending out a totally new batch of whatever against our people, Naero?”
She shook her head, and Jia spoke through her. “We can’t foresee or prevent every attack or threat, Bae. One thing at a time. But we should be able to use this opportunity to inoculate our populations and our worlds against these known agents, and any variations. and through that–any future Ejjai invasions at the same time. Once modified to our specs, these toxins will take out the Ejjai in seconds, if they ever come around again.”
“Exactly,” Naero added. “And now, thanks to the KDM, anyone who wants to try to counter us would have to be on the same level as the Kexx, to defeat all the safeguards and little tricks and traps that we’re going to put in place with the modification. And there aren’t too many advanced intellects like them floating around any more.”
“Okay, you’ve convinced me. I like it.” Baeven struggled back up to his feet.
Naero frowned. Haisha. Why was everybody besides her so fricking tall? Even her own blood!
“When do we start?” Baeven said.
“Already in motion,” Naero told him.
Right, Om? We are going forward as planned, correct?
Affirmative. As planned.
“Like I said, our modified spyfixers are implementing our counter-strategy even as we speak. All they need is time. Let’s get you out of here.”
Baeven smiled. “Excellent. Now that I’m free and feeling better, as long as we’re here, why don’t we just peek in on the enemy leaders, and scoop some more intel? Perhaps we can figure out where they’re coming from, or where the Dakkur and G’lothc ships are based?”
Naero fingered the shiny blue bracelet on her right wrist. Perhaps not the best time to awaken her little friend, Womi. The little guy could sleep for days.
“All right,” Naero said. “I’m game. Just don’t try to phaze through any more walls, uncle. I don’t know if we could extract you again.”
Baeven grinned. �
��Don’t worry. If you haven’t noticed, in my line of work, I very seldom make the same mistake twice.”
They passed through several security checkpoints like ghosts, following after, or floating past, or over Ejjai and Dakkur.
The command post was deep within the facility’s bowels. Surprisingly enough, the facility leader was neither an Ejjai or Dakkur–he was human or near human, disguised in some kind of armor, from head-to-foot.
Who was this mystery man…or woman? A renegade Triaxian high official? A Hevangian overlord? Someone from one of the other Corps?
“I am weary,” he complained to his aides and guards. “I will retire to my private quarters for a short repose. Do not disturb me.”
The other foes bowed obediently, and filed out quickly, even the Dakkur Champion.
Naero and Baeven shuffled out of the way as they did so.
After lying down on his large, pop-up nanobed, the mystery man somehow deftly phazed his hand into his chest and pulled out a small black pulsating cube–ten millimeters square–and pressed one glowing side.
“Unless I’m either mistaken or completely insane, that is an advanced G’lothc primary emulator,” Baeven said, obviously very intrigued. “In fact, it appears to be a meta-frequency, interdimensional emulator–based partially on stolen fragments of Drian and even Kexxian tek–an end product of the ancient war.”
“I take it Intel doesn’t have one of those?” Naero said.
“Nobody has one of those. Not even me. Jia and I have only heard tell about them…in theory, and in legend.”
Om chimed in.
Both the Kexx and the Drians understood such advanced tek and made considerable use of very similar devices toward the end of their Great War.
“So, what? Now this jerk is going to sleep? That device must not do much if he’s only using it to take a nap.”
“Naero, I think he’s doing far more than that.”
Both of them could sense something going on.
Om. Use biomancy and teknomancy to modulate the parameters of our senses to operate on these strange dimensional wavelengths. Then we can really see what is happening.
Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury Page 29
