Wren heard the familiar growling of the disintegrator beams firing but power in the Command Center shut down. Emergency lights instantly lit the room as a dense, light brown smoke began to fill the cabin.
Static garbled reports rumbled from the overhead speakers, "Af . . engi . . destr . . Lif . . sup . . des. ."
A few seconds later, "Forwa . . comm. . destro."
As if things couldn't get worse, the deck disappeared. One moment, the deck was under Wren's feet as she sat in the Captain's chair and the next, the deck wasn't there. Lt. Cardinal had been standing hunched over the navigation panel when the deck vanished. Wren watched wide-eyed as Cardinal dropped into open space and a white beam filled with sparkles that winked on and off and flowed in dazzling swirls cut her in half.
Abruptly a clear nanoglass bubble snapped into place over Wren's head. Looking about, she saw Ramona Crow's suit bubble snap into place. There was no doubt the Winged Death had been gravely wounded. Wren realized the only viable way she was going to survive was to hide and wait on the arrival of Rock Smasher for rescue.
"Ramona, is your armor intact?"
Crow responded with a silent nod.
"Let's find cover. I don't think the Chrysallamans are going to leave until they've either captured or killed us. We may be able to hold out until Rock Smasher gets here in a few hours."
All Ramona did in response was nod her head again. Her eyes showed white all the way around her irises. Not a good sign. Wren was beginning to think her Science Officer was suffering from shell shock.
Launching herself across the empty space between her command chair and the science panel, Wren grabbed Crow by the arm. Activating her suit impellers, she dropped them down into the huge open space that had once been the center of her ship. Movement caught Wren's eye, and she saw the Chrysallaman saucer swing into view in the huge hole drilled through the forward communications array.
As a powerful spotlight from the saucer illuminated them, Wren drew her disintegrator pistol and fired. She was surprised when Crow did likewise. Both beams reflected away from the craft and burrowed into the ruined structure of Winged Death just a few feet from where Wren and Crow floated. Wren activated her impellers and pushed Crow and herself behind some of the structural wreckage.
"Did you see our disintegrator beams reflect off the saucer as if they struck a mirror?" Crow asked in wonder. "Incredible! Our first shot of ten merged beams must have reflected back the same way. Winged Death destroyed herself."
"All I know right now is we have to survive long enough for Rock Smasher to rescue us. It's our sworn duty to report all we know. Princess Peregrine must be warned!"
"Why haven't they killed us?]Their weapons are capable of hollowing out the center of a battleship. They could burn us into our constituent atoms, and yet they hesitate."
Wren replied as her eyes roved around searching for a better location to defend, "My guess is they want to capture us and torture information from us about our weapons, power systems, ship deployments and future plans."
Focusing on Crow with deadly intent, Wren declared, "I'll kill as many of them as possible. If capture is eminent, I'll terminate you and kill myself to prevent any possibility we could divulge information harmful to our people."
Nodding her head in understanding, Crow tightened her grip on her pistol and began looking around for signs of assault on their position. A shadow moved across her field of vision, and she looked up to find a black ball gliding at her.
Screaming shrilly, Crow said, "Captain! Behind us!"
Hannah Wren spun and fired her pistol at the ball, but the red beam deflected away. The black ball appeared to be dragging something, and Wren realized it was tethered to a second black ball by some kind of netting. Acting in tandem, the two balls swept around Wren and Crow in ever constricting circles, trapping them in a mesh blanket. Unable to move their arms or legs, Wren and Crow felt movement and watched in horror as they were carried toward the Chrysallaman saucer and into an airlock. The outer hatch slid shut behind them with a muffled thump.
***
As soon as the outer hatch closed and the chamber pressurized, the inner hatch slid aside, and a Chrysallaman wearing a long green coat and broad brimmed hat walked into the cabin. He was the first Chrysallaman either Wren or Crow had come in close contact with who wasn't shackled.
Moving with purpose, the lizard removed the disintegrator pistols from the trapped hands of the captives. When Wren resisted his attempt, the Chrysallaman broke two of her fingers and wrested it from her weakened grip. Patting down their bodies for any other weapons they might be hiding and finding none, the lizard walked out of the airlock. Wren and Crow, still embraced by the netting, floated after him down a wide, brightly lit passageway to a hatch painted in alternating black and yellow chevrons. Pressing his palm against a glass plate in the wall, the Chrysallaman opened the hatch and stepped aside. Reversing the spins that had wrapped them within the netting, the black balls pushed Wren and Crow inside the cabin, and the hatch closed with a solid thunk.
The first thing Wren and Crow noticed when they were shoved into the bare ten foot square cabin was another Asiddian sitting in a corner with her ankles and arms crossed. She was 6 feet 5 inches tall, although it was difficult to tell because of her posture. Her eyes were deep black and her hair auburn with dark brown highlights. Her long nose was gashed with a deep cut on its left side. It was quite obvious she'd been a captive for some time because her white body armor was marred with stains of blood and dirt. As Wren and Crow were shoved into the cabin, a look of despair ghosted across the woman's face.
Wren pushed a button on her left sleeve that retracted her nanoglass helmet. It was obvious the air in the cabin was breathable since the captive had retracted her helmet.
"Who are you?" Wren demanded.
The captive looked around the cabin as if she was trying to find a hidden camera and said loudly, "You can stop the mind tricks. I'm not going to play. Leave me alone."
Astounded by the response, Wren marched over to the woman and slapped her knee.
"Don't ignore me! I asked you a question."
For a moment, the captive looked scared. Sweat dripped off her forehead, and her eyes were fixated as if she was putting enormous effort into concentrating. With a sigh of relief, she got to her feet and wrapped her arms around Wren as if she was a long lost relative. Releasing the hug after about three seconds, the captive strode over to Crow and hugged her. Tears of joy mingled with the sweat on her brow dripped down her face as she turned again toward Wren. The fixated stare continued.
"I thought I was the only survivor!"
"What do you mean?" Wren asked. "Who are you? Name your ship and your crew assignment."
"I'm Lydia Dove. I was a maintenance worker on the Flying Dragon."
"Only command personnel wear body armor, not maintenance workers. You're lying," Wren snarled.
"No. No. Our ship was destroyed by the Chrysallaman devils! Lt. Swan was our Engineering officer. A structural member fell and killed her. I managed to pull her body from the wreckage after the artificial gravity shut down. I stripped the armor off her. It's the only reason I was able to survive. I was captured five days ago. They've tortured me every day, but I haven't broken."
Clutching Wren's arms, Lydia's eyes grew wider and she shrilled, "They have some kind of white ray that chews through Absorbisteel like it was paper! Our disintegrator rays were useless; blocked by some kind of deflector screen."
The terrified pleading look in her eyes made her story ring true. Wren softened her approach and asked, "Where was the Flying Dragon assigned to patrol?"
"The Ponndomer system," Lydia said with nervous nods of her head. "We were just completing our tour of duty when the accursed Chrysallaman scout saucer appeared."
"Dove," Crow said. "Get hold of yourself. The Ponndomer system is seven light years from the Cuddlur system. At light speed your ship couldn't have been destroyed five days ago and you be in the Cud
dlur system now."
"What are you talking about?" Dove exclaimed. "I agree with you. We can't be in the Cuddlur system."
A look of suspicion clouded the woman's face, and she moved away from Wren. Holding her hands over her ears, she shouted, "Stop trying to get information from me with your mind tricks!"
Wren and Crow looked at each other with dumbfounded stares. Neither of them had ever encountered an Asiddian soldier who was so freaked out.
Crow decided on a different tact. Walking over to the quivering Lydia Dove, she placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder and said, "Don't be afraid. The Rock Smasher will arrive within the hour and destroy our enemies. Asiddians won't be defeated by these Chrysallaman devils."
Behind them the hatch slid aside and the oddly dressed Chrysallaman walked toward them with a drawn cutter ray pistol. Both Wren and Crow growled, and their fright wigs blossomed from their scalps as they backed away from the threatening lizard. Brushing them aside, the Chrysallaman grabbed Dove’s arm and led her toward the hatch. Fighting feebly against the overwhelming strength of the Chrysallaman, Dove lost her footing, stumbled and was dragged screaming through the hatch which closed behind them.
Crow looked at Wren and breathed, "What in the universe have we gotten ourselves into?"
Out in the passageway, the air shimmered around Lydia Dove and the familiar face and body of Becky Chang appeared as her illusion faded.
Wiping at the sweat dripping off her forehead, Becky said, "Whew! Glad that's over. Maintaining my illusion through their lead lined heads was grueling. The only way I could wiggle into their consciousness was through their optic nerves and ear canals."
Jumping to her feet, Becky slapped Whatsit's upper arm and said, "You can be pretty intimidating when you want to be."
Shrugging his shoulders and cocking his head to the side, Whatsit replied, "Nothing like watching reruns of Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th to hone your scare factor."
***
"We need to leave this system now," Becky announced as she entered the master control room with Whatsit. “Another Asiddian battleship named Rock Smasher is going to be here within the hour."
"Crap," Doug said as he pushed the intercom button. "Miguel, have you found any computer data we can tap into? We've got to leave."
"Bad luck. When we blasted the center out of the ship, we destroyed the main computer banks. They were on the deck just below the command center. I've been able to salvage the cache from the navigation and weapons peripheral systems on the Command Deck. Nothing else."
"Understood," Doug sighed.
"Thought you might like to hear I retrieved some of the physical wreckage from the Asiddian ship," Miguel continued. "Before I removed the netting from the Bowlers, I used them to acquire samples of the hull structural material and the emitter end of a spine."
"Great work, Miguel," Jenson said as he pushed the button for ship-to-ship FLR.
"Colonel Yuri-Milost, I'm slaving your GPC with mine. We're jumping to the Chrysalis system."
"All my systems are optimal and at your command," Yuri-Milost answered.
"I'd say the Asiddians onboard the Rock Smasher are in for quite a surprise when they arrive," Becky deadpanned.
"What were you able to get from the Asiddians?" Doug asked.
"Nothing," Becky frowned. "It's like they have a brain encased in lead or something that blocks direct telepathic communication. I was able to read their thoughts and impose my illusion by focusing through their eyes or ears where there are small openings in the skull, but I'll have to practice. The effort of concentration it took to maintain my illusion made me sweat buckets. The only information I could get from them was what they volunteered when they were convinced I was one of them."
"I guess you're on the right track," Doug said. "The Asiddians would've been defeated by the Chrysallamans if they didn't have some kind of natural defense to mind control. It may very well be they have no comprehension of telepathy since they have natural biological shielding."
Yuri-Milost cut in and said, "Sensors just picked up an incoming battleship 15 light minutes away. Punch us out of here!"
Responding with action rather than words, Doug reached over and touched the GO icon on the GPC and both scout saucers FLITed to the Chrysalis system.
Chapter 14 - Capture
GooYee hustled to the master control room from Engineering and began searching for the familiar constellations visible from the Chrysalis coordinates he'd entered in the GPC. The computer controlling the HiDef view screen displayed variously colored markers and visual aids as it identified known star systems and confirmed their galactic position. The scout saucers were precisely one light year distant from Chrysalis.
Looking at GooYee with an understanding smile, Doug said, "Now that I understand your reasoning for the coordinates you selected for Ponndomer and Cuddlur, I'm pleased you kept us a light year away from the planet."
"Yes," GooYee acknowledged. "I postulated the Asiddians wouldn't post guard ships at remote locations. A light year is meaningless to our FLIT drives but would be a crippling distance for Asiddian ship-to-ship communications and tactical coordination."
"My sensors don't detect any nearby spacecraft or power sources," Yuri-Milost announced.
"Likewise," Becky said as she swiveled toward Doug. "What's our move now?"
Instead of answering her, Doug hit the intercom button and asked, "Miguel, what is the effective operating range of your Bowlers?"
"I'm glad you said effective," Miguel replied. "This is the first mission we've used a Bowler for anything beyond experimental trials. The Bowler is controlled by an FLR so range is not the problem. Human reaction time is. Have you ever played with a drone on Earth?"
When Doug said he hadn't, Miguel continued, "The Bowler has unidirectional vision. It can't see out the back of its head. The next model iteration will have built-in 360 degree spatial sensors, but the current one is limited. When I control the device, it's as if I was floating in open space wearing a motorcycle helmet. I've always got a blindside. The Bowler's advantage is its size. It's small and doesn't emit a power signature their instruments are capable of sensing. Movement within the sensor area is how they detected the Salterr in the Cuddlur system. I believe the Bowler is small enough to give the impression it's nothing more than a tiny meteorite and can be ignored."
"Then we'll use the Bowlers to scope out the system," Doug decided.
Flipping the ship-to-ship communicator, Doug said, "Colonel Yuri-Milost, I want you to return to Earth and download all your data for General Blunt and Dr. Heinbaum. I'm sending the sample materials Dr. Roemer retrieved in the Cuddlur system over to you via Bowler transport. Old Heinbaum should be delighted about having new tech to study. Return to these coordinates after delivery. Understood?"
"Crystal clear. I'll return as soon as possible."
***
Yuri-Milost fumed as Jenson broke radio contact.
"Dear God," she prayed. "Give me the patience and wisdom necessary to exact your divine retribution on the killer of my family. My body and soul are yours to command as the vessel delivering your holy vengeance."
"Talking to yourself again?" Stoneman asked as he walked into the Verbinna's control room.
Smooth as ever, Yuri-Milost replied, "Colonel Jenson just ordered us to return to Earth with our data. He wants General Blunt and Dr. Heinbaum to get a jump on the analysis. I was just praying for everyone's safety."
"Good for you," Jason said as he plopped down in the co-pilot's couch and studied the star location grid displayed on the view screen.
Yuri-Milost rose from the pilot's couch and wandered toward the hatchway leading to the main passageway. Turning to stare at the back of Jason's head, she fantasized about how easy it would be to break his neck. She knew the killing would disrupt her plans, but it would feel so satisfying. She was counting the number of physical movements necessary to accomplish the murder when her aide Quentin DeLoth walked up.
>
Waiting for Yuri-Milost to acknowledge his presence, DeLoth noticed the look in her eyes. He'd seen the hollow stare before and knew what she was considering. The situation was becoming worse as the seconds wound off the clock. A tiny rivulet of spittle leaked from the corner of her mouth, and Yuri-Milost wiped absently at it with her sleeve.
Realizing he had to change her thought patterns to avoid a calamity, DeLoth said, "The Bowlers just delivered our cargo of Asiddian gear. We can FLIT any time you're ready."
At the sound of DeLoth's voice, the murderous cloud seemed to lift off Yuri-Milost, and she turned her attention to him. A momentary look of annoyance was replaced by lust.
Without taking her eyes off DeLoth, Yuri-Milost said, "Stoneman, please program the GPC for the return to Earth. I'm going to the Engineering deck to inspect the new alien tech and make sure it's stowed safely. I'll be back in around 15 minutes. Keep my seat warm."
Dawn of Chrysalis (The Origin of F.O.R.C.E. Book 2) Page 17
