Equilibrium of Terror: Part 2

by Eddie R. Hicks

  Hannah looked behind and saw the reason, Eicelea and Vynei. They slipped through the wormhole during the commotion and dislodged all three gems from the disk. The source of Hannah’s enhanced gifts, the wonderful aether and psionic gifts were cut off. Hannah’s hands began to twitch from the rage and hatred that formed inside her. She looked away from her hands and toward Phylarlie who stood above a wraith that was slowly reverting back to its human form.

  “Hannah, you used to be such a sweet human girl,” Phylarlie said.

  The gifts gone! That means . . . Both Jazz and Ella broke away from their trance the moment those thoughts had crossed her mind. She was trapped and there wasn’t much the goddesses could have done. Ella and Jazz were no longer hosts to their respective goddess, there was no way to control their next actions.

  Trapped, trapped, trapped no, no, no! Hannah’s hands pulled onto her long raven black hair as she panicked. Her panicking caused the wraith wandering the halls of the structure and outside to rush to her aid. Yes, there was still that. The wraiths were a hive mind and programmed to be loyal to one central queen like figure. Hannah was that figure. Human wraith began to teleport inside one by one, non-human ones had to manually run in. If they were outside, then they were stuck as the structure continued to float high in the skies.

  New wraith emerged into the box-shaped room from multiple directions. It was enough to spark fear in the minds of Hannah’s enemies and in the case of Ella in possession of Avearan’s body, drive her mad with pain as her chip implant began to react to the psionic force of the structure. Ella began to scream and cry out, her hands scoured the floor in a dire search for . . . the gem. Eicelea and Vynei began to panic and to flee back to the wormhole as they dragged Ella along with them. Ella was determined to find the correct gem, the gem that would allow her to switch her body back.

  She found it.

  She touched it.

  Sadly contact wasn’t long enough for the goddess to transfer back and take her as a host as per Hannah’s hopes. Avearan was in control of her body once again, Hannah could sense the shift in her mind as Eicelea and Vynei dragged her back through the wormhole. They were scared, they wouldn’t dare challenge her again.

  Jazz and Phylarlie, they were the only ones left to deal with.

  Scathing Hand, near Oyuri, Barnard’s Star system

  Ella flailed her arms about as her thoughts returned to her human self. She was aboard a Hashmedai vessel, surrounded by Hashmedai personnel. None seemed to mind that she was manning a station meant for shipboard psionics. She browsed through her memories, memories that Avearan had left behind during the time she was in control. A lot had happened, too much to waste time trying to remember.

  “Oh bugger,” she said.

  There was a battle going on, and from what she was able to gather Avearan had offered to be this ship’s main psionic.

  “Is there a problem?” T’esih asked her.

  “Just don’t ask me to fly this thing and we’ll be good!”

  Lucky for Ella the battle before her was drawing to a close as the Pelican the sole remaining Celestial Order controlled ship burst into flames.

  Slums district, Rasi, Barnard’s Star system

  “Sir, over here!” Petropoulos yelled over the sound of Miles’ plasma missile launcher as it fired another shot toward Celestial Order psionics.

  He turned around and saw her point toward a boarded-up establishment. The same one from the recording Major Vaughan provided. It was where the human survivors were found. Miles instructed the marines to enter, take cover, and search for the human survivors. Miles and Petropoulos laid down heavy covering fire as the last group of marines entered.

  Their heavy and regular sized exosuit respectively allowed their bodies to run at high speeds inside the establishment where they saw the humans in question. They were injured, roughed up and starving, but otherwise alive. Several Radiance races stood above them, they were all armed and looked as if they were protecting them. The leader of the group, a Linl male psionic approached Miles and Petropoulos.

  “Hold on, you don’t look mutated or from the order,” the psionic said.

  “Speak English, eh?” Miles said.

  “I’m Heurol, I presume you’re humans?”

  “What gave it away?”

  “Your complete lack of disregard for my bar as you push in here and provide the backup we didn’t request. Not that I’m complaining.”

  “Confirmed, sir,” Private Jyun shouted to Miles from the rear of the establishment. “These are the refugees they were talking about.”

  “Alright let’s get these people ready for evac,” Miles said.

  “Not so fast, your heroics alerted every Celestial Order member and wraith in the city, and probably led them right to us,” Heurol said.

  “Didn’t have a choice,” Petropoulos said.

  “He’s right, it’s gonna be a wee bit of a run back,” Miles said, then addressed the marines awaiting new orders. “Ball up everyone. We hold this spot ‘til further notice.”

  Miles had two missiles left in his launcher. The other marines that donned heavy exosuits were in a similar position as they pressed on and held their ground against the advancing Celestial Order rangers, psionics and their wraith minions. Whisper members from inside the establishment came up from a rear elevator and joined in the battle. The human survivors hid behind the deployable cover Miles and the rest of the heavy exosuit laid down.

  Miles held onto his rifle and aimed it toward an order ranger whose shields had just shattered. He was seconds away from pulling the trigger to put the enemy combatant down when someone did it for him.

  Someone with a plasma rifle.

  Multiple blue flashes of light lit the AO up, psionics were teleporting in, some were Radiance others were Hashmedai and most puzzling part of all, they all had teams of marines with them. The battle Miles was engaged in became confusing to follow. Humans, Radiance and Hashmedai working together to help the Whisper fight off the wraith and Celestial Order?

  I don’t get paid enough to think this hard!

  “Hold your fire, hold your fire!” a marine shouted toward him as he took aim at a Hashmedai warrior.

  “You got Hashmedai behind you!” Miles said to the marine.

  “They’re on our side, sir.”

  “I can see that, now the question is are you on our side?”

  The answer to Mile’s question came, but not with words, rather actions. The Celestial Order’s forces withdrew quickly as the unholy alliance between the three sides overwhelmed them. The AO was confirmed to be secured after a quick search from all sides. The human refugees were hastily prepped for evacuation to safety afterward.

  This is gonna be one helluva report to write, he thought as he saw a marine exchange fist bumps with a Hashmedai guardian and Radiance ranger.

  Lyonria Structure, Oyuri, Barnard’s Star system

  Phylarlie reappeared from her jump port on one of the lower floors of the structure, or so she thought. Her knowledge of the place all came from the story Odelea told her in regard to what they were doing prior to leaping through the wormhole. It was a massive and largely unexplored Lyonria fortress of some sort. She moved through the hallways quickly ignoring all the details of its unique design and hoped that her past experience with the wraith held up true, in which they sense her presence and follow her. If so, the stroll she took should buy Jazz enough time to escape.

  She entered a room full of strange devices and moving joints, it looked like a reactor of some sort, or perhaps a power disruption junction. She saw ripples of purled bolts of energy streak across it while tiny beams of light from a wide spectrum of colors radiated from the sides. It was something important in regard to the operation of this place. If important things got damaged, bad things usually came next.

  Phylarlie filled her hands with her gravity well disks and looked back up at the reactor like device. She held off for the longest time on using these disks due to their theoret
ically destructive power of creating micro singularities that would pull all matter toward it and force it to orbit it. She placed several of the powerful disks across the apparatus inside the room, if her theory was right, triggering these disks would usher in the destruction of this place as it imploded from the inside out. Even if she was wrong, the damage done to the equipment meant it would not survive and might trigger a chain reaction of explosions and system failures throughout the structure.

  There was no way she could save all the people who were converted to wraith, not in her current position she figured. It was best to take this place out, then deal with the outbreak afterward. She placed the last disk on the wall officially completing the work she lay out on for her trap. She sat and waited for the wraith to find and swarm her and wondered how fast she could make it out of before she got caught in the gravity well.

  “Run all you want, Jazzy, you can’t win!” Hannah taunted him.

  Jazz made his exit from the chamber and back across the long bridge he was forced to walk across with Torval. Hannah was insane, a hundred percent and it enraged him to know that there was not a damn thing he could do to revert things back to the way they were. She was gone and replaced with a tool to be used by aliens for their whack ass plans.

  Jazz noticed the wraith disperse after Phylarlie jump ported away; it gave him a bit of breathing room in regard to the situation. Though, he was curious as to why Phylarlie was here in the first place. Last time Jazz checked he and Veloshira passed on their assignment of killing Avearan onto her. Oh right, he thought as he put everything together. Phylarlie’s mission probably led her here.

  Chloe appeared out from the teleportation alcove and started to haul ass across the bridge over to where Hannah remained. Jazz was an index finger away from removing his cloaking field when he saw Jainuzei and Alisha appear from the same alcove. If Jazz had revealed himself to Chloe it would have given his presence away to Jainuzei as well. He had to keep silent. He had to use this chance to get the drop on Jainuzei and kill his ass once and for all.

  Jainuzei saw Chloe and began to charge toward her with his rifle drawn. Now or never Jake, drop this motherfucker now!

  “Major Vaughan!” Jainuzei shouted toward her. “Stop, this will be your final warning!”

  Chloe stopped her movement only to face Jainuzei with her weapon aimed toward him. Behind Chloe was Hannah inside the boxed shaped room, she was on her hands and knees gathering the gems off the floor. Chloe was close enough to delay her, but she wasn’t going in knowing that Jainuzei could shoot at her from across the bridge. She needed exactly what Jazz needed five minutes ago, backup. Reassurance that attacking Hannah would not be met with unexpected results because nobody watched your back.

  Jazz threw two stasis mines on the bridge, one for Jainuzei and one for Alisha. The two walked closer toward Chloe, who kept them in the sights of her scope.

  “Get away from my daughter!” Alisha yelled at Chloe.

  The two of them triggered his mines and became frozen in time. Jazz terminated his cloak and gave Chloe thumbs up for her to intervene. She returned the gesture and charged forward toward the box-shaped room.

  According to Veloshira, Jainuzei broke free from his stasis mine quickly. It was probably due to the advanced cybernetics inside his combat armor, or perhaps it was all the weight he was packing. He did carry all his weapons with him. As predicted, Jainuzei was free moments later, and was treated to the sight of Jazz wielding his plasma katana.

  “I should have known you would be lurking,” Jainuzei said.

  “Turn around and save yourself from forcing Alisha to grieve the death of someone else.”

  Jainuzei smirked and reached for his plasma polearm. “You challenge me then?”

  “I ain’t moving motherfucker.”

  “Then I shall move you myself!”

  Jainuzei’s weapon activated and emitted green burning light as did Jazz’s katana. Both men sized each other up like ancient Japanese warriors bracing themselves for a fight to the death.

  “Planning to push me off? Or throwing me off? Last time I checked you didn’t have much luck offing me like that.”

  “Very well, human, let us see what lies between your legs.” Jainuzei aimed the tip of his polearm forward as he took on an elegant combat stance. “As they say on your world, en garde.”

  Jazz wrapped both of his hands around the hilt of his blade and snickered. “I’ll let you try my wu-tang style.”

  The two fought and swung their weapons with ferocity, grunting and roaring with each cleave, thrust, and lunge. Jazz could feel Jainuzei’s technique was of an Earthly origin, it reminded him of the days he and Alisha practiced naginata versus kendo techniques. Alisha, she must have given him pointers on how to use this weapon. Shit!

  Jazz leapt backward and narrowly avoided a thrust aimed toward his chest. He quickly looked back and made sure she wasn’t too near the ledge as the bridge they fought on had no railings. One bad step backward and it was over.

  My fucking ears! Phylarlie thought as she recovered from the loud shrieking noises the wraith made.

  She looked around and saw between two and four dozen wraiths slowly enter the room and surround her. They were close enough for her trap. She psionically activated the disks, and they exploded forming a black and purple sphere like rift in the space time continuum. Nearby wraith were pulled toward it and circled it, unable to move from its gravitational force. The walls in the room began to crumble to tiny pieces, those too got pulled into the rifts. Eventually the machines started to fail and their mechanized joints were pulled apart a bit at a time and joined the orbiting clusters of junk and spiraling wraith. The machinery that came apart as Phylarlie predicted, created a chain reaction of explosions as the reactor’s core ruptured.

  Of course Phylarlie was long gone when that occurred. She used multiple jump ports to escape the gravity well and went to the far hallways of the Lyonria structure, a structure that was on its way to its end. She took a deep breath before she made another multiple round of jump ports back up to the box-shaped room. Jazz needed to be not inside the structure in the next ten minutes or so.

  Torval stumbled several times as he sprinted toward his transport. The structure began to shudder a lot within the last minute. He officially owed Hannah nothing and wanted to keep it that way. Hannah’s power, the goddesses, it wasn’t what he signed up for, he thought he was merely doing what the gods wanted of everyone. Now he only wanted to escape and disappear, there were no gods, at least they wouldn’t be any once Hannah and the goddess were finished with them.

  His transport was in sight as he stepped out onto the platform where it was parked. The Silver Raven was still there as well and oddly enough, there was another transport next to it. It was human in design, he wondered if humans had made it through the wormhole as well. If so, this was another sign there were no gods, they wouldn’t have allowed that to happen.

  He was almost there, he could see freedom waiting for him. He just needed to get inside the transport and escape to safety.

  Five meters away.

  Four meters.

  Veloshira appeared in front of him and plunged her twin daggers through his chest. He fell over screaming as his hands held his burning chest. His breathing became tough, at least one of those daggers had burned a hole through his lung. He looked up at the sky and saw the moon eclipse the red dwarf star, then Veloshira’s face eclipse it. It was the last thing Torval saw before he lost his head.

  Jazz fell over backward, he smashed against the hard surface of the bridge, and the impact caused Jazz to lose grip on his katana. Jainuzei had snuck in a slick leg sweep with the end of his polearm. Jazz tried to get back up, Jainuzei’s boot had other plans it slammed onto his chest and forced him to stay down. Jazz looked at the hilt of his katana, he tried to stretch his hands out to grab it. He only felt the warm air in his hands as the katana was too far out of his reach.

  Jainuzei made matters worse as he used the
tip of his weapon to flick the blade further across the bridge. Jazz reached inside his coats pocket to grab his plasma pistol, Jainuzei’s other boot kicked it away tumbling off the bridge and into the abyss below the two of them. Jainuzei pushed the tip of his plasma polearm closer to Jazz’s face. The heat from the tip of the weapon began to singe the flesh on Jazz’s forehead as he felt the painkillers and medical systems of his suit began to activate to counter.

  Jazz stared up to look at Jainuzei’s face the best he could given the amount of light the weapon that was in front of his face was generating. Jainuzei hadn’t finished him off, Jazz figured he was giving him a chance to say some last words, and so he said. “Do it.”

  “Was the shaft of my pole too much for you?”

  “Finish me, I ain’t got all day.”

  Jazz waited for his end to come. It didn’t.

  “You’re a coward,” Jazz said, taunting him. “You don’t have it in you, eh?”

  Jainuzei looked at Jazz’s katana then back at Jazz. “I will not slay an unarmed man.” Jainuzei stepped away from Jazz and quickly moved to get Jazz’s plasma katana and add it to his collection of arms like the weapons master he was.

  Jazz got back to his feet, his forehead still singed from the heat. He wanted to continue the fight, but couldn’t as he was unarmed. That and Jainuzei made it crystal clear he was ready to stand by what he said as he aimed the blade that was once Jazz’s toward him.

  “You are weak. An unworthy adversary. One who is no hero to Earth,” Jainuzei added as he looked at Alisha’s still frozen body then back toward the room where Hannah and Chloe were.