Starship Magic 3: Abducted

by Mark Brandon Powell

  Mark says, “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to talk about getting that coin of yours. We’re just in kind of a hurry if you haven’t noticed.”

  Mark walks up the ramp and introduces himself to Knox, who then takes him in the direction of the engine. Kat takes the opportunity to set up the blaster cannon that Knox was nice enough to bring out. She had no way of knowing how long it was going to take to get airborne or when the rest of the Foremid would show up.

  Jinx walks up to Kat as she’s readying the rocket launcher and says, “So you really were listening when he told you how to do that.”

  Kat says, “Yes, I was.”

  “You know that if we leave.”

  “I know. The safety of everyone is more important. I know that’s what he would say, because they’re family. And I have to protect the family. Right?”

  Jinx nods.

  The grass on the ground around the ship starts to move like a heavy breeze is pushing it over. Kat looks to Jinx and she runs off toward the Armory and Kat readies herself behind the rocket launcher. She starts to watch the grass around the landing closely. There is a ripple in the grass a few feet away from the ramp. Her gut was telling her something was off and that wasn’t just the grass moving.

  She fires a rocket.

  It connects before it hits the ground. An invisible cloak burns away in sparks of blue and orange with the largest warrior she has ever seen beneath it. She hops over to the blaster cannon pulling the trigger. It takes a moment to spin up before it can fire. With each passing second the warrior takes a step up the ramp.

  The cannon fires hitting it mark dead center. Three lightning bolts come from behind it and grab the blast, ripping it apart. Kat flips the switch on the cannon from full shot to automatic laying into the warrior.

  Each shot meets with its own set of defenses. It stops walking and reaches for something on it’s back. It’s left arm moves across it’s chest with a spiral shield appearing from it’s armor. The right pulls out a thick rectangle with a hilt and handle. As it comes into view, it turns into a huge blade almost the same size as the warrior.

  Kat gets a bad feeling. The blaster cannon starts to hit the shield, which seems to do nothing. She tries to aim it at the warriors legs but the invisible shield is extending out of the spiral one.

  The Warrior stands in front of the blaster raising its sword high. It says something in Foremid and chuckles. She couldn’t tell if it was an insult or a complement, but she knew what he was about to do.

  It comes down meeting blaster fire from behind Kat. The sword gets knocked back, and the warrior looks up from Kat. Jinx jumps over her head and connects a kick with the spiral shield, sliding the warrior down the ramp.

  Jack and Hanna come up as well and start to fire off their improved blasters at the warrior. The shield cracks into multiple pieces falling to the ground. The warrior pulls it sword to start blocking the blasts, until it crumbles.

  Jack says, “Alright we did it.” Giving Hanna a high five.

  The ship’s engines start up and everyone looks relieved.

  Jinx says, “There is a ship right above us, we’ll need to take care of it before we can leave.”

  Kat says, “Jinx is right, Jack can you get to the bridge and take care of that?”

  Jack nods, and takes off running toward the bridge.

  Jinx says, “There should be more coming. We need to be ready.”

  Six more warriors drop down out of the sky, and another six after that.

  Kat says, “I hate it when you’re right.”

  Jinx says, “Kat hurry and get Whisper and Fury. We could use the extra firepower from those special Wrath bullets.”

  “Are you sure just the two of you can handle this?”

  Mark and Knox emerge from the engine hallway. Knox takes the blaster cannon from Kat, and Mark begins to modify it.

  Mark says, “We got this, go.”

  Kat runs down the hallway. Turning the corner she sees Gale setup with a huge sniper rifle pointed down the hallway. She looks out from behind the scope and give her a smile and wave.

  Kat says, “Gale aren’t you going to find somewhere to hide?”

  She replies, “No dear. There are things about me you don’t know. I’ll be fine. Just go do what you were doing and don’t fret about me. This is just another day in the trenches for me.”

  Kat wanted to argue but there really wasn’t time for it. Then there was the extra idea that if they did get this far into the ship everyone else would be dead anyway. So if Gale knew how to fire that thing and knew what she was doing, might as well trust that.

  She goes past Gale and toward the bridge. Jack is inside at his chair getting the Felicity’s weapons online. Jack is talking to Fury about the weapon systems, and the calibrations are almost done.

  Kat says, “Everything going ok in here?”

  Jack says, “Ok only if you mean we’re surrounded.”

  “How bad?”

  Whisper says, “There are six ships surrounding us. As far as I can tell no weapon locks, but there aren’t even any coms that I can try to hack into. That plus the entire ship is trying to reboot. Something called Jarvis is loading from the black boxes around the ship, but I have it paused temporarily. Not to mention all of the systems that are damaged or not working. I’m going to be surprised to see if the ship is space worthy.”

  Kat says, “So you can’t come with me right now?”

  “No.”

  “Hey Fury do you think you can fire off Wrath shells without being Wrath?”

  Fury answers, “I think so. I just can’t make new ones. I need combine with Whisper to do that.”

  “Great, can you come with me right now?”

  “Sure. The ships weapons were the least damaged and are already calibrated. Jack can take it from here.”

  Kat takes Fury out of the console and runs back down the hallway. Telling Jack and Whisper to be safe and lets all get out of this alive. She passes Gale on her way to the Armory, telling her to be safe and she loves her.

  The blaster fire is close by, but she can’t see whats going on just yet. The Armory is already open so she goes inside and opens her locker. She grabs her holster and slings it around her waist. One of the bullets she hadn’t used yet was the Divinity, and loads that in third from the extra shells. The first shot being the Gravity shell followed by a Flare shell. The other three rounds were the same as the first.

  She leaves the Armory with a fully loaded Fury and holster, hoping twelve shots would be enough. The ramp comes into view with the group firing down it. Mark is hurling one giant ghost fists below. Jack and Hanna are on either side of the door taking partial cover while firing down. Knox is behind the now improved blaster cannon, with Jinx right beside him holding the rocket launcher with the last rocket in it.

  Kat comes up beside Knox, with Fury drawn. A group of three warriors are clumped tightly together with their shields overlapping the other. They aren’t on the ramp yet, but they are close. She aims Fury and fires off the Gravity shell.

  It hits the phalanx and starts it magic. A black and purple sphere starts to pulsate and begins pulling everything near it into itself. As the warriors get pulled into the sphere everyone can hear their screams.

  She aims the next shot near another group. They spread out when she fires the shot. As it touches the ground it splatters in every direction but only gets two of the six in the group. They look at each other and regroup when nothing happens. That’s when the spell goes off, fire erupting in every direction.

  The ships cannons go off followed by an explosion. The remaining twelve warriors spread out and make a new focused march for the ramp. Something crashes into the ground, shaking everything followed by another explosion.

  The next shell is the divinity Shell. Kat didn’t know what it was about to do, but she was almost excited. Everything that Wrath had made up to that point was awesome, and not just normal way that she
used that word. It was awe inspiring.

  She aims at the middle of the group and pulls the trigger. The click of Fury’s hammer hitting the bullet is all she hears. Keeping the gun pointed at her target she wonders if its delayed like the Flare shells. Fury begins to vibrate in her hand as his cylinder spins to high speeds.

  A small white sphere appears at the barrel end and a small black sphere appears near the hammer. Black tentacles shoot out of the black sphere, connecting to Kat’s heart.

  She hears a soft angelic voice inside her head, What is your prayer?

  Kat replies, “To take care of all of my enemies so that we might all escape alive.”

  Your prayer is granted.

  Kat feels a warmth around her as a light shines from behind her. She looks over her shoulder to find a pair of angelic wings shining with what she would consider a heavenly glow. They rise up into the air as the white sphere grows larger. White tentacles spread out from the sphere piercing every warrior through their shields and armor. A few tentacles wrap around the sides of the ship and out of view, and a few more fly off into the woods.

  She feels her heart beating in an odd rhythm making it hard to breath. A pain in her chest brings her to the floor, and she can’t feel her body anymore. The voice says to her while her eyes are getting heavy.

  It is now time to rest child, your work is done, and your father is calling you home.

  25

  The light is blinding as Kat opens her eyes. Thats when she realizes she’s needs to get up, they were in the middle of an attack and have to get out of there. Jerking forward a gentle hand gets placed on her chest.

  Graven says, “Hey they Kitty Kat, settle down, we’re all ok.”

  Kat eyes take a moment to focus in, but she didn’t need to see to know that it was his voice. Something she was afraid that she might never hear again. Questions started swirling around, to many to ask all at once.

  She asks, “How? The ritual, we weren’t able to finish it.”

  “I’m still,” he pauses for a moment, “We, are still one. I’m still trying to sort it all out myself. Jinx’s memories don’t have anything like this ever happening. There was never an instance recorded where an Eydulan didn’t leave the host body.”

  More questions than answers piled on. What happened to Jinx, can they go back one day and try again or was that it? Did Graven go through something similar to what she went through with King? She didn’t want to drill him just yet, she did just get him back and for the moment everything seems safe.

  She simply asks, “Are you ok?”

  “I don’t know, I do know I’m still me, but now I have all of these memories and knowledge I didn’t have before. Jinx’s voice is in my head like a voice in my subconscious.” Graven takes a breath letting it out slowly and continues, “That’s enough about me. Just sit back and rest. Mark had to preform surgery on you, giving you a new heart. You’ve been unconscious for almost a week.”

  “What? Where did you get a new heart?”

  “He made one with the spare parts that were around. I wouldn’t let him do it until he gave you his coin though. It’s in your hand.”

  Kat squeezes her hands and finds the coin in her right. The silver coin was about the size of a can lid, and absent of any markings. Turning the coin reveals an opalescent coating. Beyond that it was a flawless silver coin that looked newly made. She knew that it was something precious to Foremid’s but outside of it looking expensive, she couldn’t place it.

  She says, “So I’m even more of a cyborg now than I was.”

  Graven chuckles, “You could always say you’re part android.”

  She glares at him playfully. There wasn’t much she could do about it now.

  Graven says, “We’re heading to Illusion right now to see Gizmo. She’s the only one we can trust with the repairs. And there’s a lot of them. Just rest, I’ll go tell everyone that you’re up.”

  Kat watches Graven leave the room. There was something different in his eyes the whole time he was talking to her. She couldn’t put her finger on it but made a mental note for later. Whisper and Fury talk to her right after Graven leaves the room. Fury was fine, just a little rattled. Graven had to do some maintenance on him and tighten some screws but nothing permanent. Whisper jokes with her about being one step closer to her being a robot, and needing to be plugged in at night instead of sleeping.

  The next couple of hours are filled with everyone else coming in to check on her. Hanna was in tears the whole time. She didn’t have many girl friends, and she was getting along so well with Kat and didn’t want her to go yet. They spend some time talking about their experience within the Eydulan core’s. Hanna lost her memory just like Kat did but didn’t have a log cabin. She was in the middle of an open savanna with a large mansion. Her Eydulan was named Lumiere. They talk about how it felt like years and how disorienting it was when they came too. Jack’s was not anywhere near as pleasant as Kat or Hanna’s experience. He was in the middle of a desert that was never ending and the sun never went down. The heat never let up but he never felt like it was overbearing. It was two days before he found the first hole he could climb into and another two after that to find his Eydulan Chandra. She was a spitfire. He never lost his memory like Kat or Hanna did, which Chandra said was an old way of doing things she never understood. After his retelling he grabbed her hand, fighting back a tear. Asked if she was ok, and then leaves telling her if she needed anything to ask.

  Terra comes into the Med-Bay with a smile on her face. She never believed that because she helped her in the cafeteria she would traipse across a couple of galaxies for her. Kat told her about how it was more than that, but her act of kindness was all it took. Once Terra did that, she was in Kat’s circle, and Kat would help anyone in her circle. Terra hugs her, and Kat realizes right then just how sore she is.

  Kat asks Terra how she is, in all of their trying to get off the planet she was filled with over twenty Eydulan cores. Terra just smiles again, the corners of her mouth genuinely reaching for he ears, and says ‘we are one.’ She asks Terra about the memories, and she waives it off. ‘We are one’ she says again, and explains how there was so much going on right there at the end. When she woke up out of the pod, every Eydulan tried to take control at once. Not out of greed, but out of necessity. They had as much choice about trying to take control as she did in the surgeries it took to get them inside her. Terra tries to calm Kat’s worries by telling her that she is still her, just more. How the extra memories aren’t a burden and she’s sifting though them just like Graven is probably shifting though his and Jinx’s.

  Knox and Gale come in together shortly after Terra, and act just like she thinks parents should act when a child has gone through a major surgery. Comforting, reassuring, and lots of sympathy and empathy. Gale brought a special soup mixture of her own design. It was supposed to aid the body in healing wounds. It was the first dish that Kat almost couldn’t eat. It tasted horrible, but not having eaten anything in a week overrode her tastebuds. Knox laughs and tells her about how he was the guinea pig for the recipe, and it was much worse.

  The last person in to see her was Mark. He walks into the room and has a different demeanor than the last time she saw him. There was something different but nothing stood out. He wasn’t wearing his glasses and his black eyes and orange iris’ remind her about what he really is.

  Mark asks, “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m ok. Thanks for the new heart. I would have died without it from what Graven tells me.”

  “Yes. Well, you’re welcome.”

  “How about you, everything ok?”

  “In my society, someone of my abilities doesn’t normally give their coin away to anyone. There have been times where individuals would trade coins as a mutual showing of affection. I just, didn’t expect it to feel this way.”

  Kat didn’t like the sound of that. “In what way are you talking about?”

  “You humans call it love. That coin is
like an eternal bond. As long as you are willing to hold it, is how long I will be - and want to be - by your side. It was the reason I was hesitant about it, although looking back now I don’t know why I was. This feeling is exhilarating.

  Yup, Kat didn’t like that at all. She was already married, and now accidentally went through another. Graven might have been the one to tell him to hand it over, but she would have done the same if she was conscious.

  She redirects the conversation, “I’ve heard you’ve been fixing up the ship.”

  “I have, but there is a lot that can’t be fixed. I had no idea that overloading the secondary power that it would do this much damage. Sure I was expecting some, but I thought this was a guild ship on entrance.”

  “That explains the hostel attitude.”

  “Yes, but now you have me. I am part of the Masters, what we call our ruling class. I didn’t agree with what our race had planned on doing to humanity, so I chose to leave. I thought that if I spent some time amongst you humans, I could take the experience back and change their minds.”

  “What are they planning that would make you want to leave your people?”

  “Humans are very close to Foremid biologically speaking. Which means every place the humans are, Foremid can be. We’ve been traveling space for a very long time and our working class is starting to dissipate.” Mark pauses and looks like he is trying to find the right words. He continues, “We needed replacements for them and raw materials.”

  With the pause Kat gets the implied meaning, but wants to him to say it. “By working class you mean slaves.”

  Marks eyes look away from her, “Yes.”

  “So your people are coming here to make humans slaves and take every planet they have to use as your own.”

  “Yes. I do understand the need for our people to have resources but there are plenty of planets in the surrounding galaxies that are uninhabited. Our working class…”

  Kat interrupts, “Your slaves.”

  “Yes, our slaves, are the conquered. They fought us and lost. I just don’t think we need to treat them the way we do, and there is a small faction within the Foremid that think the way that I do. My parents are among them.”