by Aer-ki Jyr
“Yesterday morning.”
“Where’s it right now?”
“Sitting next to a battleship around Arn’nat.”
“Why not deploy the troops there?”
“They said the ground situation is improving and it’s time to push harder into other areas before the Nestafar get reinforced.”
“They’ll get reinforced if we don’t catch the rest of their jumpships,” Morgan said, stopping at an intersection that led over to the sanctum. So far the others that had escaped their initial ambush had been scattered across the system, staying well away from any of the planets. The Optimus Prime and O’Neill had been sent out to try and intercept them after the Kvash had provided tracking data on their locations, but given their jumping capability Morgan knew it was going to be difficult to catch and surround them…which was why she was also interested in seeing how Captain Morai had pulled off the capture.
“I’d prefer to go hunting smaller groupings of the enemy’s starships than another massed assault,” Wilkinson added. “Trim down their numbers as much as we can before we leave.”
“I take it none have come sniffing close enough to get a good shot at?”
“Unfortunately no. And we didn’t bring along enough smaller ships to do much chasing…and those that can are currently aiding ground ops.”
“What’s our fuel situation?”
“We’ve got a week, maybe two before we have to start skimping.”
“Recommendations?”
“Pick a major target and knock it flat on our way out the door.”
“Like their command ship?”
“I wish, but they’ve got enough escorts around it that we’re not going to touch it…at least, not without losing a significant portion of our fleet.”
“Not an option there.”
“Are you going back down again?”
“Still have a waiting list?”
“A continually growing one.”
“I would, but I’m out of armor replacements. I can use the standard models, but they don’t fit as well…and I don’t want to burn up all the ranger armor in case I need to use it again before we head back home.”
Wilkinson glanced at her pot marked chest. “I assume that’s not repairable?”
“Use and lose…and last I checked Jason hadn’t got the shielded version out of prototype stage.”
“I can see how that would be a major advantage.”
Morgan shook her head. “It’s too bulky, not to mention heavy. Until we trim the tech down it’s not worth the loss of agility. Better to stick with portable shield units for tactical ops.”
“Do we have any of those onboard?”
“A few, but I haven’t had a need for them.”
Wilkinson held up a hand, then pointed to his ear as he received a transmission over his comm. Morgan waited through the long pause, then began to wonder what was up when the Captain wasn’t speaking back.
“Copy that,” he acknowledged, then looked at Morgan. “A Hycre jumpship has just arrived in orbit, carrying a small warfleet. They have intelligence suggesting the Nestafar are doubling down and sending a large portion of their neighboring forces to this system. The Alliance wants a meeting between all races involved, in person, on Sri’ka as soon as representatives can arrive, which the Kvash say will take them at least a day to organize. They want to know how soon we can attend?”
Morgan frowned. “Why in person?”
“I don’t know.”
The Archon sighed. “If the Kvash can make it in a day so can I, but if I’m going to be standing around and talking for the majority of a day I’m going to get a full workout plus in before I go down there. Make the arrangements…and let me know if the Hycre have any data packages for us,” she said as an afterthought. Their ships had the habit of carrying Star Force messages, as well as those of the other races, with them due to their superior jump speed.
Wilkinson nodded and they split, him going to the bridge and Morgan heading over to the sanctum doors. When she got there she had a choice of options for entry, but hesitated before issuing the verbal code that would give her access. She hadn’t been back to her personal quarters in more than two weeks and made the snap decision to head over there, leaving the locked doors as they were and heading towards the nearest stairwell, feeling like walking rather than taking a lift.
A lot of things played through her mind on the way…the recent fighting at a Calavari factory that produced Valeries that the Nestafar had been keen on capturing, the changing players in the seemingly never-ending game for control of the system, her full bladder that needed emptying soon, a burn spot on her right inner elbow where her armor had been breached, and thoughts of how Jason and the others were doing establishing their foothold against the lizards.
This was a common routine now post-mission. The way she’d been fighting the Nestafar was run and gun, don’t stop to blink let alone think…and now her mind was catching up on events as she stumbled her way into a walking coma moving through the Red Ranger’s decks.
By the time she got back to her quarters and entered the keypad entry code she was working on an idea for a new agility training challenge when one of the unarmored Knights walked by, staring down at her battle-scarred armor.
“You know,” he said casually as he paused behind her, “we’re more than eager to take the fight to the enemy rather than sitting around on the ship all day. If you brought a couple of us along next time you might not end up with so much armor damage.”
Morgan stopped halfway in and glanced back at him. “I assume you’re still training while ‘sitting around?’”
The Knight frowned. “Of course.”
“And how are you rated for fighting an enemy out of arms’ reach? The Nestafar mostly fly high and fire down on you, avoiding melee.”
“My point was, a few of us could cover for you while you mowed them down. Archons have a habit of hiding behind Knight shields quite well.”
“Not this one. You guys are too slow to keep up with me, and I shake off far more shots through agility than I’d gain from your mobile cover.”
He crossed his bulky arms, each the thickness of her neck, over his chest, frowning. “There has to be some way we can be of use to you…aside from guarding dropships.”
“Until we get back with the rest of the fleet I don’t see how…besides, I’m out of fresh armor, so I’m not going back out, but if you’d like a field trip I can take an escort to an Alliance summit meeting in a day or so.”
“I’ll take you up on that. How many do you want?”
“Just you will do.”
“Armor or casual?”
Morgan chewed on her lower lip as she considered. “I’m not sure where it is, and I’d hate to be caught off guard without armor, so full gear unless I tell you otherwise.”
The Knight nodded and walked on. “I’ll be ready when you call.”
Morgan let him get a step past then moved inside her quarters and shut the door, then she began peeling off her armor piece by piece and dropping it on the floor on her way to the restroom. Another chance encounter with a mirror freaked her out, again, at seeing her unnatural eyes, and she eventually found her way over to the computer terminal and sat down, pulling off her casual shoes and socks that she’d been wearing underneath her armor for the past 2 days. On impulse she smelled one of the socks, wrinkling her nose and tossing it aside as she crossed her ankles underneath the chair and flexed her little toes a few times, glad to let her feet breathe.
Morgan ignored the faint scent of perspiration coming from her white with green stripe Archon uniform that had been sweated in and dried so many times that it now felt like a second, smelly skin while she accessed the external sensors to see what the Hycre had brought to the party. Having them here made her feel better, given how they were much more navally dominant than Star Force and she was having mixed feelings about leaving the system, and Sri’ka in particular, after having pried the enemy loose from orbit.
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When the image of their jumpship came onscreen she felt an immediate sense of pride at having them for allies. The Carrier-class jumpship was larger than any Star Force had even dreamed of building, resembling a hollowed out whale some 52 kilometers in length with a fat midsection. Inside it was a multitude of empty racks, now that the warships it had carried were spread out in a defensive halo around the precious starship.
She noted from the attached analysis logs that several groups of two and three ships each had already departed for other planets in the system to assist with operations there…and hopefully to hunt down stray Nestafar warships, given that the Hycre were especially good at hunter/killer deployments…far better than her fleet was, anyway.
Still, as she took into account all the various groups and added them to the defensive halo she found Wilkinson’s remark about a ‘small’ warfleet to have been accurate. There was less than a third of the number of ships the massive carrier was capable of carrying…a testimony to the ongoing war and the lack of available warships to meet every threat. Which was probably why the Hycre had asked her to dispatch some of her ships to the system. The fact that they’d scrapped together a fleet to bring here after the fact was not a good sign as for things to come from the Nestafar.
Morgan knew the system was important, but if there was an even larger confrontation coming this way she’d prefer to be on the outskirts of it, picking at the enemy’s weak flank than squarely in the middle…which Sri’ka was likely to become.
The Hycre obviously figured they had a few days at least, so Morgan knew their presence nearby would prevent anything other than a suicidal assault by the Nestafar coming into low orbit and she could put the puzzle of the Brokal System aside for the moment, so she got up out of the chair and pulled off her stinky uniform, tossing it alongside her busted up armor and weapons as she headed for the shower tube.
Sinking into the perpetually prepared warm, soapy water she felt the burn on her right arm sting, eliciting a reflexive jerk of her elbow that sent her entire arm tingling with energy.
The next thing she knew a blast of water shot up into her face, as well as out the still open shower top and into her quarters. She froze up, blinking away the water in her eyes as she tried to mentally track down where that had come from.
“What the hell?” she asked, leaning back against the curved glass and feeling a wad of hair smash behind her head. She reached back and pulled out the ponytail tie she’d forgotten and tossed it up and out of the shower tube distractedly as she was staring down at her right arm, trying to playback in mind’s eye what had just happened.
“The phantom tingle strikes again,” she said, looking at the water rivulets running down the side of the clear window and into the shoulder-height waterline. “That’s a hell of a lot more powerful…and definitely not airbending.”
Morgan tried to summon up the sensation again, but couldn’t get more than a few goose bumps that wouldn’t discharge…making her wonder if they were actually just goose bumps this time.
“That’s gotta be some type of concussive discharge,” she speculated before bending her knees and slowly dunking her head underneath the water. She stayed submerged and reached up to the shower controls, activating the jet-like scrubbers and relishing the mild massaging sensations running up and down her body, including her face, peeling off layers of sweat and sticky grime.
As the seconds ticked by, with Morgan holding her breath and staying submerged, the jets and the air bubbles they produced worked their way up the Archon’s nude form, tickling her skin and summoning up a light cascade of the tingles in multiple spots, tickling her almost into twitchiness, but she forced herself to hold still and relax, letting the sensation build so she could have another chance to probe it. Feeling like a magical, fizzy fountain inside of her that was flowing outward through her various extremities, some of which was bordering on erotic, Morgan gently nudged the sensation forward, letting it soak into her body.
Then something happened too fast for her to remember. The next thing she knew the glass cracked and the water she was suspended in dragged her out with it, topping her over on her right side and landing on the floor of her quarters…with several shards of glass in between her and the carpet cutting through her skin in an instant.
“Ah!” she screamed reflexively, as much from surprise as the pain. She lifted her head up and looked down at her long, naked body from shoulders to feet that led back to the base of the broken shower tube as the last bits of water flowed out, leaving a few inches in the base where the glass rim remained.
The trailblazer blinked twice, breathing heavily from the shock, as well as feeling a massive wave of fatigue rush over her…as if she’d just run an insanely hard 10k, uphill against Jace. She was so unnerved and vexed that a few tears broke loose, with the detached part of her mind almost laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation.
She gave herself a few seconds to look around and calm down, then she winced as she rolled up onto her side and got her hand underneath her. Morgan raised her body up, balancing on hand and two feet, feeling the glass sticking to her skin…as well as several blood droplets forming. She spider-walked over to a clear spot of the carpeted floor, leaving a trail of dark red liquid behind her, then she stood up and began brushing off the sticky glass, having to pry out a few pieces that had gouged her fairly deep.
When she got it all out she just stood there, looking down at her arms and small breasts, down past her flat abs and thin, but muscular legs as bloody tendrils snaked their way down and around her ankles, mixing with the water ones streaming parallel from her long, drenched hair.
She didn’t say anything, still too shocked for even a pithy retort, and just stood there, bleeding, wondering what in the freaking galaxy was going on.
6
Morgan laid face down on the medical table, completely nude and not caring while the clothes she’d hastily thrown on for the walk down to the med bay lay in a bloody mess at the foot of the table as the medics applied more than a dozen healing patches to the lacerations covering her from shoulder blades down to a nasty one on her right achilles tendon.
“I’m sorry,” one of the medics apologized, “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“Neither do I,” Morgan countered dryly as she stared down into the aqua-colored padding that doubled as a pillow. “I want a full body scan, anything and everything you’ve got and look for anomalous readings.”
“You said something about an energy discharge? Wouldn’t that be a technical issue?”
“I blew up the freaking shower from the inside out! It’s biological, not tech.”
“Any clue what precipitated the…incident?”
“Yes. Now scan me for anomalies.”
“Start with a blood sample,” one of the two medics patching her up suggested, given that she was still leaking the deep red fluid from a number of cuts that they hadn’t gotten to covering yet.
“Alright,” the other relented, still thoroughly confused but willing to humor the Archon. He walked out of the patient room, leaving Morgan to wait impatiently as the others kept applying octagonal bandages coated with a thin layer of regeneration fluid that would spur on her skin’s regrowth as well as keep the affected areas sealed from the air. To Morgan it felt like they were decorating her with stickers.
“How’s your head feeling?” the female medic asked.
“Tolerable,” Morgan answered as one of them started working on the cuts on her butt.
“You’ve probably lost a lot of blood on the way over here…are you close to blacking out?” she asked, knowing that Archons were well experienced with such things.
“No, just a little wonky,” she said as one of the medics’ hands slipped between her legs and pried them apart a bit to get the edge of one of the patches sealed tight over a long cut. The medic’s fingers tickled her unexpectedly and the goose bumps returned at the spot, then spread up her spine before discharging even as Morgan tried t
o hold them in.
Half the healing patches on her torso and upper legs flew off, with the others loosening and hanging on by the edge.
“What the hell?!” the female medic said in surprise.
“That’s what happened in the shower, only bigger,” Morgan said, twisting her legs off the bed and sitting up, abandoning the idea of treatment until she got some answers as to what this was.
“Whatever it was,” the male medic said, rubbing his hand, “I felt it. Like static electricity.”
Seeing that they were no longer patching her up, a fourth medic walked up with a stack of fresh clothes but Morgan waved him off, not wanting to ruin another set. “Later…just get me under a scanner. I need some idea of what’s going on.”
“Where do we start?” the female medtech asked.
“Nervous system,” Morgan said without hesitation as the other medic came back in with his hands full of three different scanners and a myriad of other equipment. He passed them off to the others then stepped up to Morgan and reached past her to the display panel above the head of the bed and synched the scanner to it.
“Lie down please.”
Morgan laid down face up and tried to relax, but inside she was frantic. She did not like her body malfunctioning like this.
The medic took the long wand and ran it down her body, following an inch or so above her smooth skin methodically like he was painting a canvas.
“Spread your arms and legs.”
Morgan did as instructed and he moved up and down each one twice, continually adding data to the scan forming in 3D on the screen.
“Flip over.”
Frustrated but wanting to get some answers Morgan obliged and the medic repeated the scan, taking his time and letting the equipment’s narrow range get as much data as possible. He finished off by taking the rod vertical and sweeping it up and down her arms and legs, then very slowly moving it around her head and neck, ‘painting’ her tissue there multiple times.
“Alright, you can sit up,” he told the Archon, who as typical of their kind didn’t seem to blink an eye at being fully naked in front of three men.
