She could hear a yelp from the thin air. She had hit her mark.
»You’re gonna regret this, Ivanova!« the twin said, trying to catch her breath.
Suddenly, the room began to vibrate, slight tremors went across the floor.
»What are you doing, you bastard!« the twin yelled into the room, addressing Conceptor Crux who wasn’t around, not even as a holo.
The air in the room crackled. Maya Ivanova felt her hair begin to rise as if inside a static electric field. Five meters away from her position, the air began to flicker and scintillate.
The twin’s disguise field collapsed.
»Well, well, well, what have we here?«
Maya jumped toward the replication and rammed her shoulder into her side. The jolt was enough to throw her twin from her feet. Maya looked down on her.
»It seems as if Conceptor Crux has launched defensive measures. This means that the Dark Brotherhood attack has begun. Tell me, my dear sister, how did Morgotradon create you? You’re not just a simple clone, am I right?«
Her twin suddenly swiped Maya off her feet, followed by a strike from her fist. Then she had to quickly roll out of Maya Ivanova’s reach.
»How could you reject him? How could you be so foolish? His warm touch, the pleasures he gives, the tingles …«
Maya countered a kick and managed to hold her twin in a head lock forcefully bending her arm behind her back.
The twin screamed in pain.
Maya smiled and said, »I think you don’t understand, Siss!«
With a quick twist of her upper body, Morgotradon’s playgirl freed herself from Maya’s grip.
»He’s always with me, even now! You’re right, the attack has begun. The Crux Heart will be reduced to ashes in a short while. Everybody on board the station will evaporate!«
»Your stupidity knows no bounds!« Maya shouted and thwarted off another attack. »Self-control is not your strong suit either. You fit this Morgotradon type like a glove!«
The twin held her temples, then her eyes changed. A queer look that shook Maya to her core.
»What’s going on with you, Siss?«
»He wants me to take you prisoner and bring you to him,« the twin said with a hissing voice.
»Where is that bastard?« Maya wanted to know.
Both women were standing up, facing each other. Neither of them wanted to make the next move, waiting for the other one to make a mistake. They were trapped in a Mexican standoff.
»He’s right here, with me. In me,« the twin revealed. »He’s always with me and he will save me. But alas, I will choke that pretty neck of yours until all the life is sucked from your lungs.«
»Ha! My friends will be here any minute to end your career as a Dark Brotherhood agent,« Maya teased, keeping a keen eye on her. »If you come to your senses I will still help you.«
The twin suddenly jumped at Maya Ivanova. The women wrestled, surrounded by a mind boggling display of thousands of Jamal-Combs. The twins attacks became more severe but also erratic.
Maya Ivanova sensed that her twin wanted to finish this fight quickly. Maya stumbled over an object on the floor and fell. The twin took the advantage and threw her fist against Maya’s head. The hit was so powerful that Maya almost lost consciousness. Her vision became blurred. She saw the hateful face of her opponent.
»Thank you, dear!« the twin said. »You clumsy bitch, you just stumbled over the pedestal of the real Jamal-Comb!«
Maya Ivanova groaned as her twin kneeled on her chest, pinning her to the floor, grabbing her by the throat. She could hardly talk and wheezed, »Do what you need to do, Siss.«
The twin raised her arm for the final blow, but she hesitated, her eyes became distant. She seemed to look through Maya then focused on her eyes. Maya saw deep fear for death in these eyes. It was like looking through a window into her twin’s soul.
»Maybe we would be a great team after all,« the twin said softly.
The twin looked at her as if in a daze, then her eyes became hard again and she grimaced.
»I’m not a simple reproduction! I’ll prove it to him by killing you and taking the Jamal-Comb! He’ll forget about you because he has me.«
Maya’s hands were trembling; the pressure on her neck became unbearable.
I’m going to faint!
Suddenly, the pressure briefly increased and then subsided as her twin fell forward, face down. Instinctively, Maya raised her arms and quickly rolled to the side. She looked into her twin’s eyes. They stared through her own, lifeless.
Ivanova heard steps. Then the sound of voices. Voit Masgur was the first she recognized through the daze. He looked at her and helped her to her feet, but she collapsed again.
»I’m sorry, but I had no other choice. I had to implode her aura or she would’ve killed you!« he explained.
Maya Ivanova was kneeling beside her replicated twin and ran her hand through the twin’s sweaty hair. »She’s not at fault. Morgotradon made her what she was. The bastard is still alive! He made a copy of me. He toyed with her emotions, got her dependent, sent her into insanity. All for the sake of his own ego and plans.«
The orgy of light stopped. Conceptor Crux had ended the game of deception and deactivated the holo projectors. Maya looked at the real Jamal-Comb, which her twin was still clasping with her hand. Cautiously, she opened the lifeless hand of her opponent and took the Jamal-Comb.
Almost weightless …, she thought surprised.
»She mentioned that Morgotradon is in possession of another Jamal Comb,« Ivanova said.
»Everything is okay, Maya,« Arkroid said with a calm in his voice. »The situation is under control.«
Conceptor Crux had chosen Maya to stop the Dark Brotherhood agent. He had hoped to end this conflict peacefully. Well … that didn’t work out, Arkroid thought a bit disappointed.
A glimmer of hope
The Krolakan fleet maintained its position around the Crux Heart. The Goovan and Chiropter Conceptors where sharing the task of protecting the Crux Heart and completing the dimensional mirror.
The worm hole was stable for four hours before it collapsed. In the meantime, another carrier had tried to bridge the dimensions, but disintegrated in the same way the first carrier did. Shortly after the worm hole had disappeared, Conceptor Crux deactivated the Dimensional Mirror. Hours later, the dwarf sun began to recover and grew back to its normal size.
Arkroid said, »The Dimensional Mirror probably saved all our lives and prevented an invasion.«
»We’re now in possession of three Jamal-Combs and know where we can find the fourth one,« Maya Ivanova said. »I swear, Morgotradon will pay for creating a copy of me!«
»I wonder, why did Morgotradon try to get his hands on another Jamal-Comb?« Vasina said. »Why is he so interested in another key? Shouldn’t it be one of the first things these dark forces would go after, as the keys could prevent them from entering our dimension, let alone preventing the emersion of the parasite galaxy?«
Vasina wasn’t the only one pondering over these questions.
»I agree,« Arkroid nodded. »The destruction of the key would’ve sufficed. He could’ve ended the myth. Five keys are necessary to work in concert, whatever that means and whatever the outcome is. He’s got a plan that much is clear.«
Arkroid turned toward the Goovan Conceptor.
»I need to ask you a big favor, Mokhoorn,« he began. »It is vital for us to understand how much time we have left until the Great Tremor will occur. Would you be so kind and ask the Caravan Scouts for a meeting.«
»The Caravan Scouts are living in the Magellanic Cloud. They’re very reserved; however, I’ll try to kick off a dialogue between you and them,« Mokhoorn replied from his holo, located beside Crux’s holo, overlooking the room.
Toiber Arkroid nodded and looked at the red star outside the station. He felt strongly that the Dark Brotherhood invasion could be prevented, even without a large Protector fleet.
We need a better plan ... I
need a better plan.
Arkroid looked at the Jamal-Comb.
Suddenly, the two other Jamal-Combs appeared out of nowhere. Vasina took the two combs and placed them beside the third one. As soon as the combs sensed each other’s presence, they began glowing even stronger than before.
24 - Save Humanity!
Written by Thomas Rabenstein
Greenland
The storm had been forming above the Frigonan landing site for days, steadily increasing in strength. At first, the meteorologists had assumed it to be an ordinary winter storm, but then the funnel clouds were becoming denser and gaining momentum. Bright lightning bolts flashed from the edges of the atmosphere, feeding the storm. These discharges were even seen in the night skies over Southern Europe and seemed to the naked eye like Northern Lights.
The men and women of the ground forces deployed along the Greenland coastline were cursing at the ice rain. It made their lives miserable to say the least. The forces had used thermal charges to melt the ice for their heavy guns and listening posts. So far, they had not been hindered by the Frigonans to supply their units via airlift capabilities. Not only Humans felt the force of nature but also the animals, which were trying to flee the regions most affected by the storm.
The reports about technological failures and malfunctions were numerous. Lightning bolts were discharging into the radio-comm masts and antenna arrays and disrupted the communication channels.
Tiller Hosch was checking the satellite weather data for the third time in the last ten minutes.
»The bad weather front is increasing steadily,« he grumbled. »The ground temperature is rapidly decreasing. The storm is behaving like a hurricane, but it’s much bigger and sucks the cold air from the upper atmosphere down to the ground. The storm is already reaching Scandinavia and Labrador. It will soon be felt in New York City. It won’t take long then it’ll stretch across the entire northern hemisphere! The North Atlantic is already partially frozen. The core of the storm seems stationary and is rotating like the eye of a cyclone centered on Greenland. We never had weather like this. It won’t take much longer then the people of New York City can walk across the ice to the Statue of Liberty. This climate change is way too fast for my taste!«
Hosch had just finished his sentence as a strong wind gust blew across the terrain, toppling some of the pressurized tents.
»Don’t try to tell me that you don’t know who’s responsible for this mess,« Montas Bondifar replied with a painfully distorted face, observing with burning eyes how the tents were flying away – their makeshift quarters. He braved the storm by ducking deeper. The Merinian wasn’t a meteorologist. He looked at the weather data on his pad and put one and one together.
»The Frigonans are charging the storm from outer space with their spaceships by pumping more and more energy into it. Don’t ask me how they’re doing that. Since your stinger penguins manipulated the Earth’s magnetic field, I think they can do anything they want.«
»Frigonans …,« a raspy voice joined the conversation, »… they pitched their tents, here on our world!«
Sawyer Main pulled his thermal jacket tighter and stepped closer to his colleagues. He had to yell to overpower the storm. He signaled Hosch and Bondifar to use the comm-connections. They watched the troops moving their equipment, protecting them from the harsh winds.
»There’s an interactive energy relationship between the spindles inside the landing zone and the Circle ship. The Frigonans are tampering with the climate and changing it to their liking,« Sawyer Main said.
»What’s that supposed to mean?« Bondifar said, activating the heating element of his thermal suit. Icicles had formed at the tips of his black hair, making him look like a yeti. The temperature had fallen by ten degrees Centigrade within the last twenty minutes.
»Well … think!« Hosch said with a mysterious voice and arranged his snow glasses. »They want to turn our paradise into a snow and ice desert … I can’t wait!«
»If it’s true that they are creating a new ice-age, then the Union Government has to act,« Sawyer Main commented. »If the snow and ice chaos is becoming a permanent condition in the northern hemisphere, then the Frigonans won’t leave us much of a choice but to fight them.«
Hosch cleared his throat and added with a scolding undertone, »Didn’t I say from the beginning that we should’ve kicked these stinger penguins in their prickly asses? We didn’t invite them here, did we? They can go to Hell or to Venus! There, they can lower the temperature as much as they want.«
»Frigonans!« Main cursed. »They didn’t ask us …«
Main was disgruntled. He looked up as if he wanted to look out for the Circle ship, but all he could see was a dark swirling cloud formation.
»We can’t crack the Blosphor. Our weapons are not powerful enough to even impress this battle ship. The Union government is slowly running out of options. We need to prevent the Frigonans from completing their icy Circle Fortress, because when they’re finished, the climate on Earth will have changed forever!«
»Are they still expanding their fortress?«
»They’ve increased their efforts, Bondi!« Main shouted. »They landed more robots and began constructing a super-igloo. The high end brass is currently debating if it would be feasible to launch a preemptive strike against the construction site. So far they haven’t found an answer to the thread coming from the Circle ship in orbit. I don’t want to imagine what these Frigonans might do to the planet.«
Tiller Hosch shuddered and directed his comrades to a better wind protected location.
»After all our experiences, who would be so stupid and voluntarily go back to the landing zone to fight these stinger penguins?« he shouted then swallowed hard as he saw Sawyer Main’s face. »No way … I can’t believe it! I thought that we go for holidays after our last mission, remember … the South Sea island we were talking about … the white beaches …?«
»Uh … and these brown skinned beauties,« Bondifar said, grinning, earning a supportive nod from Hosch.
»Forget it,« Main replied. »If the invaders are continuing their plans then your South Sea island will be covered with a layer of ice in a couple of weeks or even days!«
Main snorted and spit in the snow, then wiped the snow off his suit.
»We volunteered a couple of minutes ago, in case there’s another mission,« he informed them non-charlantly.
»What do you mean by we?«
»Do you have seaweed in your ears, Montas?« Hosch grinned. »Certainly us, who else? Do you think that I’m gonna quietly sit around and watch these bastard penguins screw up my planet?«
The Merinian sighed and looked up to the sky where the clouds were getting darker and thicker. Not a single ray of sunshine penetrated the whirling clouds.
»Well … I think you’re right, if these Frigonans keep manipulating the weather then we need to bring sled dogs to island in the South Sea.«
Main nodded.
»The global climate is a fragile building. The Frigonans could topple it and cause significant cooling of the atmosphere. They seem to possess the technology.«
Bondifar suddenly looked resolute.
»We won’t let this happen. That’s where the buck stops!«
Hosch nodded at Main.
»We’ll fix that, but after that,« Main placed his hand on Hosch’s shoulder, »after we cleaned up this mess then you can go to any island of your choice, promise.«
»What exactly are the gentlemen of the Admiralty thinking?« Bondifar asked. »Do we have a plan yet?«
Sawyer Main took a deep breath of ice-cold air and said, »I think the time for negotiations or reconnaissance is over. The brass will probably employ more drastic measures this time.«
Bondifar paled.
»Do they want us to walk over there and deploy a bomb?« he said with a trembling voice.
Main shrugged and only said, »I have no idea, Montas. All I know is that they really mean it this time. A new battle cry was issued
to the Fleet and the troops …« Main paused before he continued, looking each team member in the eyes, »… it’s called: Save Humanity!«
Triton Base
»It’s unbelievable how fast the Circle battle ship is constructing the space fortress,« Nok whispered. »If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it!«
After the Moxantans had left the base, the technical equipment had been repaired and improved. Technicians and engineers had worked feverishly repairing the damages the Moxantans had caused. The aliens had vandalized and rummaged through the entire base, fortunately, the tachyon radio equipment had not been affected. Which was good considering no one on the base or even in the solar system could repair it. Although, the normal communication channels were still available, the comm-operators and command crew had grown fond of the faster-than-light tachyon connection.
Most of the airlocks, separating the command central from other important command sections and server rooms, were open and heavily frequented by groups of technicians and other technical personnel.
This is like an anthill!
Nok smiled as she looked around.
The red painted main airlock, leading toward the central corridor was closed. Only authorized personnel were allowed to enter the command central according to their biometric profiles. The numerous control and command consoles were arranged in a circular fashion around the center of the command central, whereas command functions were bundled with the main command console, located in front of the central control display and the recessed holographic projector. The commander seat was mounted a couple of meters off to the right on an elevated platform and employed several keypads through which Nok Daralamai could interface into the command structure and the computers. The main holographic projector could be extended from the floor or retracted underneath the floor panels if not needed. A direct data link connected the holo-projector with the neuronal computer main frame. Within seconds, pertinent data and high resolution graphics as well as real-time pictures, could be transferred from the space surveillance console. Depending on their priority, these depictions where assigned large display areas, co-existing with other elements inside the same holo. Base or sector threats had the highest priority! Nok’s command stand was positioned off center to prevent her from literally sitting in the middle of the expandable ten meters high holo. The holo’s shape was variable and could assume a circular, spherical or rectangular form. Currently, several spherical sub-holos were generated within the main holo, showing the pyramid-like battle ship of Circle General Fortressmaster, converting the expanding debris of the former moon Despina into building materials for his new fortress.
NEBULAR Collection 5 - Panic in the Galaxy: Episodes 22 - 26 Page 12
