by Kip Hartzell
“John knelt down. “I’m sorry V’Rella.” John then caught a signal from the Centaur that stood head and shoulders above the crowd.
He gave an understanding nod. “V’Rella, prepare yourself,” John said, before he stood to face the madman.
Aztek-Alon jumped down into the arena with grace and ease. He looked at his half dozen overly large Cousins standing by him. They began to mutate. Their bodies twisted with the sound of bones snapping and skin stretching. Their faces warped in pain as the snout grew longer, and their hair turned to fur. It took only a short time for the Cousins to metamorphosize into the werewolves Aztek-Alon had spoken of earlier. They snarled, gnashed their teeth and drooled, while they moved toward John. One moved as a biped in wandering circles, while the others walked as a quadruped.
“John, I’m so sorry for your loss. Now! Tell me what I want to know, or I shall release my werewolves on your friends.”
“The only thing I want to tell you is-go to hell. Now Subriasa!”
A high-pitched squeal pierced everyone’s ears; even Allerisu could be seen to flinch. Aztek-Alon put his free hand up to his head, while the wolves danced around and howled. John brought his pistol out to take aim, at the same moment, Aztek-Alon saw what John was doing. With his superior strength and reflexes brought the staff up and threw it at John like a spear. He fired his laser cutting pistol, and severed Aztek-Alon’s arm, again, just as the spear impacted the right side of John’s chest. It sent him to the ground without his pistol.
The scene went dark, as Jay imagined himself standing up and wondering the dark. “What?” A dim spinning light appeared. Jay could hear scuffling. He focused on Xen as he came into view, firing his pistol. The creature was hanging on to the fold out steps. Xen fought the centrifugal force of the shuttle spin, trying to get to the hatch control panel near the hatch opening. He scooted along the wall face-first, until he got there. He reached for the close button, when suddenly, a claw came from the doorway, grabbing his arm and digging into the flesh. Xen screamed, the creature’s head and teeth replaced the claw, as they sank into his shoulder. The pain was excruciating, while he flailed for the close button. Just as he thought he was going to pass out, a loud piercing squeal came from his comm pin.
The wolf creature let go of his bite, and howled at the night sky. It held one paw up to its head and the other on the doorframe. Xen pushed away from the doorway, and gave the thing a hard kick to the abdomen. It let go of the door facing and slipped down to the steps. Xen went back to the hatch control panel and jettisoned the door hatch. The wolf man rode the door a thousand feet to the ground. With the last of his strength, Xen struggled into the flight deck and set the shuttle straight. He grabbed for the medical kit with his good arm, pulling out the plastifoam, he sprayed it on the wound without taking off his suit. He injected himself with a painkiller, and sat back. The proximity sensors beeped again.
“What!” he said in confusion. “Impossible, another one. Alright then, let’s see if you can handle this.”
Xen set the shuttle straight up. The memory metal in his suit liquefied and covered his head to form a helmet. The shuttle was almost in orbit before the sensors stopped beeping. He leaned back, sighing a deep breath, and tried to contact the insurgent party. He set the shuttle to hover near the pyramid site. Jay’s vision of the inside of the flight deck faded to black.
Jay/John opened his eyes to a lot of commotion and noise. Aztek-Alon stood over him with his foot on his chest, and his one remaining arm on the staff that stuck out of him. He pulled it out without regard to the pain it caused. John winced, and put his hand over the wound, and spit up blood from the collapsed lung. He looked sideways toward his team only to see large scale fighting by them, and the guards. During the scuffle the crowd parted to temporarily reveal a temporary answer to his problem. His eyes started to focus, and he calmed himself, while his nemesis licked the bloody end of the staff, showing signs of pleasure.
John focused his telekinetic ability, willing the pistol into his outstretched hand, but Aztek-Alon saw this too, and stepped on his arm near the wrist, pinning it to the ground, with the pistol in hand.
“John, John. Give up, and tell me what I want to know.”
“I can tell you one thing; I don’t give up.” John turned his head and adjusted his aim. He fired the pistol, watching, as the laser-cutting beam shot across the cavern and struck a stone container of petroleum.
The container exploded, throwing fiery liquid in all directions. This caused everyone to hesitate for a second. The flames began to spread rapidly through the wood timbers that held the place together.
“What have you done?” Aztek-Alon bellowed. He reared back for a killing blow, when suddenly Aidan dove at him head first, goring him in the side, almost knocking him down. Aztek-Alon screamed with fury. He grabbed Aidan, and threw him into the battling crowd, knocking his own soldiers down.
It was then, John heard it, a huge explosion that rocked the cavern, bringing down chunks of ceiling near where they must have kept the jamming device. ‘Better late than never’, John thought as he rolled to his side. He saw Aztek-Alon battling one of his own werewolf protectors. The explosion must have knocked out the collar transmitter too; it appears he can’t control them mentally. John watched as his enemy shoved his staff through the wolf and then slung it into a nearby fire. He looked confused to see people running and screaming to get out, instead of putting out the fire. The flames grew higher, setting fire to the other containers causing sporadic explosions. He watched from the ground as Aztek-Alon ran to Allerisu, who held the skull. He was regaining control of his extremities, as the madman hit him hard with the staff, rocking him backward and dropping the skull. Aztek-Alon scooped it up and tucked it under his only arm, and with his staff in hand, disappeared into a tunnel.
Allerisu quickly regained his senses, as a wolf jumped for his throat. He caught it in midflight by its neck, and then grabbed its backside, while bringing his knee up, snapping its back. He then tossed it into a nearby blaze. No sooner than the wolf disappeared into the flames, two more took its place.
John’s heart sank, but as he struggled to get up he felt something watching him. He looked up to see another werewolf approaching him snarling, and ready for supper. ‘This is it, I finally ran out of luck, damn, I was so close.’ John was thinking when the werewolf attempted to jump on him, when a sword blade protruded out of its mouth. It fell dead immediately. ‘What weapon could kill a monster so quickly?’ he was thinking, as Maya pulled the blade out of the back of its head. Her pale features, black hair, fangs, and red-black eyes starred at him for only a second, then she reached down and helped him up.
“Guards retreat!” she yelled, as they noticed they were the only ones left fighting in a burning house. They were all too eager to break and run. Maya looked back at John. “That tunnel over there,” she said, pointing at a tunnel twenty feet up from the flaming cave floor. “Is the quickest way out.” She, and her entourage, quickly disappeared into the smoke.
Subriasa kicked people aside, and reached John first. She helped him stay standing. “Captain! Are you alright?”
“No, but we need to get out of here anyway,” came his dry response.
The battered and bleeding group stood there watching the epidemic of fire engulfing the cavern.
“The oxygen from some of these tunnels is feeding the fire. Soon, it’ll be too hot for even our environmental suits, that’s if the ceiling doesn’t cave in on us first!” Rhe-A yelled over the roar of the fire and crashing timbers.
Manatock was supporting Aidan as they reached the group. “This way,” Aidan said, ushering them in the direction a tunnel.
“That tunnel,” John countered. “I got it from a good source.”
They bypassed rivers of flame, and made it to the base of a wall. The tunnel opening was twenty feet above them. Subriasa held onto John, while Rhe-A made short work of the obstacle. She squatted on her knees while looking over the edge and clea
ring her mind.
Allerisu had thrown another wolf into the fire, and spotted the team move to the wall below the tunnel. He turned, and growled at the last wolf, which then shrieked back. It looked around to see that it was alone, and then quickly retreated out of sight. Allerisu moved quickly to rejoin the others.
John began to rise slowly with no physical assistance. Subriasa caught on, and boosted him as far she could reach. Rhe-A set him gently on the ledge. The flames were almost upon them by the time everyone made it up on the ledge, except Allerisu and Subriasa, who stayed behind to help the others up.
“It’s too late, proceed to the exit,” Subriasa yelled up at them.
“Not a chance,” John said, laying there, slightly hanging over the edge. “I’m not losing any more people today.”
He held out his hand, and Subriasa began to levitate, but after a couple of feet just hung there suspended. Allerisu reached down under her belly, and lifted her as far as he could. Rhe-A was exhausted, but joined in as horse-woman rose to the ledge. She set foot on the ledge and the group let out a gasp of relief. They were all on the ragged edge of exhaustion from the day’s events.
“Maybe you should eat lighter food,” Manatock remarked.
“Are you saying I am fat,” Subriasa’s dirt smudged face uncharacteristically contorted.
“Ah, no. Not for a horse anyway. We need to get going,” Manatock said, to redirect the subject, and then scampered down the tunnel with Aidan.
Allerisu could be seen trying to climb up the wall, but the dirt kept giving way to his weight. While he struggled, the collar ropes kept getting tangled up and constricting him. He grabbed the collar furiously and tore it from his neck. He was about to throw it down, when he looked up, and then slung the end of it to the top of the ledge. The remaining group grabbed hold and pulled, while Rhe-A and John concentrated on the last of their telekinetic energy. His massive hands reached the top of the ledge as everyone who could, pulled on the ropes. He pulled himself up, and sat on the ledge to catch some smoke-filled air. The flames licked at his feet, while he stood up.
“This has been fun, but can we go now,” Allerisu joked.
Rhe-A and V’Rella struggled to pick up John. Subriasa told them to put him on her back. They did so, and moved as fast as they could up the smoke-filled tunnel. The wind was picking up almost to the point of blowing out the torches on the walls. Aidan ran back to the group to tell them which branch to take, and to inform them that Xen was triangulating their position. He would be waiting when they got out. Some used their environmental suit helmets to help them breath, and see through the smoke.
Aidan led the way for quite a while until his full spectrum helmet showed an opening ahead. “It was a good thing I was using it,” he muttered, as he reached the exit, only to find a small ledge overhanging a cliff. In the darkness, he would’ve ran off the edge and down a few thousand feet to the bottom of the valley. The visor showed the trail that led to the tunnel entrance had slid hundreds of feet down the mountainside. He looked back over his shoulder to see the pyramid towering high into the smoke-filled sky. The smoke was getting very thick, as Xen maneuvered the shuttle in to pick them up. Aidan hesitated for a moment at the sight of claw damage done to the shuttle. He waived him in closer, as Xen watched through the non-existent hatch.
Aidan hopped in, “What happened to the hatch?”
“I gave it away,” was Xen’s only answer, while struggling to keep the shuttle steady, with one hand, and tremendous heated updrafts.
Aidan helped everyone in one by one, until Subriasa was last, he held out his hand and a smile. She took it with a rare smile and jumped in. Aidan looked down the smoky tunnel, and saw a very bright yellow light in the darkness. His black eyes became large as he yelled, “Go! Go! Go!”
Xen punched it, and the shuttle slipped away just as balls of flame blasted out of the tunnel spraying flaming rocks to the river valley below. Aidan watched the burning pyramid of dirt and wood from the doorway. It lit up the dusky countryside. He could see people of all shapes and sizes running for their lives in all directions. When the fire was a glow in the distance, he ducked back into the shuttle. Rhe-A had an emergency medical kit out and was treating John. Manatock noticed John looked as pale as the vampires, but at least he was conscious.
Xen had already called ahead for an emergency medical team to be standing by. He put the shuttle on autopilot, leaned back, and passed out.
The beat-up shuttle, and crew, slid into its parking spot in the cavern as dozens of people began taking the injured to the infirmary. Athene-A, and Pandor-A looked worried as John was brought out on a stretcher, and hustled to the med-lab.
“Rhe-A?” Athene-A said to her, as John was whisked by them. “How bad?”
“I’ve got two dead. John’s bleeding is under control, and he’s stable. A few days in the cellular regeneration tube and he’ll be fine. I have to go, something is happening to Xen that I can’t identify. I’ll brief you later.” Rhe-A’s matted hair, and dirty face took off after Xen’s stretcher.
“What the hell happened out there?” Athene-A said to Manatock, surveying the damage to the shuttle.
Jay let out a loud breath as if he had just gotten off of a roller coaster. A sense of a few days later, he watched John sit at a large round table, acknowledging all his core crew and Council members. Since he had come out of the induced healing coma, only hours before, he had been gathering information from everyone involved. “Start at the top of the list and fill me in,” he said to Rhe-A, who looked much better than the last time he saw her.
“As you know, we lost Sorlak and V’Rassa. Our onsite crews report the area is still burning and it may take months before we can attempt to recover bodies and technology.” She gave John a commanding stare. “You’ll be fine if you just take it easy for a couple of days. The rest of the team will recover, except...I’m not sure about Xen. The mutant Cousins were so out of control, Aztek-Alon had to control them by using the collars. These ‘Defenders’ would die to protect their masters, as long as they were controlled. So, their numbers were depleted quickly. In order to quickly replenish the supply, their DNA had a built-in contagion. The diseases are carried in their saliva. If a human survives an attack after a bit, if they are not treated immediately, the disease will rearrange their DNA. From my tests on viable samples, I’ll venture to guess it only affects Atlanteans and Cousins, the other species it will most likely kill. I’m afraid I was too late for Xen.”
“Can you overwrite the DNA rewrite?” John asked, hoping against hope.
“In order to do this, I have to wipe the DNA, RNA, and some chromosomes clean, and then re-sequence from old samples. It’s tricky, and there are side effects, most notably, it could kill him. The other is he may not come out of it as the Xen we know. Right now, he’s still unconscious with a mild sedative.”
“The metamorphosis seems to take place when the adrenal system is activated, meaning if he was to be in a fight or flight situation, he could lose control.”
“It seems appropriate that we let him decide his own fate, and help him in any way we can. Any sign of the key?” John asked, turning to Athene-A.
“Negative, no sign of Aztek-Alon, the key, or any of his followers. As soon as the place stops burning we’ll move in and clean up. The shuttle is almost repaired and Drof says the second shuttle will be complete in another week. We’ve had to resort to alternative energy sources because of the absence of Agoam crystals, you know, the old sub-atomic particle fission reactor, and several other older technologies are working at maximum efficiency. In a couple of months, we’ll have enough energy to maintain this facility indefinitely.”
“Well, at least some good news,” John said, with reservation.
“What’s wrong, John?” Athene-A softly asked.
John straightened in his chair. “It was right there, within by grasp and I failed. I could have ended all the suffering.”
“We’re not really suffering, we are
just human again, and you didn’t fail, you took an impossible situation and made survival possible. Not many people have that talent, but you seem to have an abundance of it. You succeed because you care,” Athene-A said from her heart.
“Okay, no more pity, please. I’m better now. Thank you.” John half smiled. “Continue with the report.”
Rhe-A spoke up again. “Maya’s experiments keep getting more elaborate every time we meet. The Vampire Syndrome she created is so extensive it’ll take me years to figure it out. What I do know is, it can be considered a disease. Also, it takes much more exposure to become infected than the Wolfen Syndrome, but if the victim survives the near draining of their original blood, and that blood is replaced with some of the vampire’s blood, and they don’t die, then they will become irreversibly contaminated. I need to do more research.”
“Even though Maya saved my life, she’s still a criminal. I want to know what it takes to incapacitate their kind. I’m also curious to find out what Maya’s sword was made of in order to kill a werewolf so fast.”
“We’re working on it. We’re also working on an antidote, or a vaccine, for the Wolfen Syndrome, the Vampire Syndrome, and the Mutant Medusan poison.”
“Good work, everyone. It looks like we have enough to keep busy for a while. Let’s get to it,” John said, as he slowly got up and made his way out of the briefing room.
Jay wasn’t sure about the reality until John took the headband off of him. “Wow, what happened afterwards? I want to know more.”
“It’s alright, Jay. I think we’re supposed to take it slow. It’s not that your brain doesn’t have the capacity to function at a high level, it’s that you’re not trained or accustomed to this kind of activity. Come here, we’ll use a little more conventional data transfer.” John sat at his central console, and pulled up a 3-D likeness of himself. “I recorded my thoughts, after the fact, as much as I could.” Looking at the hovering image, he said,” The computer beeped for attention. “Just say, play log. I think I need something to drink after reliving that.” He quietly left the room.
