Queen's Move (Lilith's Shadow Book 3)
Page 16
Seven savages were in the area beyond, working on something there. Okris suspected that they were working on the engine it had come to take, but it wasn’t certain. If it were simply that they were there, it wouldn’t have cared, but there was something about one of their minds… a younger male, it thought, that was stronger than it should be. A latent mutant, Okris suspected, and that was dangerous. While it could try to subdue the savage, there was always the chance that its powers would awaken, and that could be dangerous.
No, the best approach was to eliminate the threat immediately, Okris decided. It would be difficult to do through the fields between them, but if it killed the savage before revealing itself, it wouldn’t have time to awaken its powers, and that would leave Okris with all the time it needed to acquire the technology it was here for.
Its decision made, Okris put its scanner away and opened the door into the labs, only to be met by an instant thrumming vibration that shook the floor and its very bones. That was… irritating, and Okris had to resist the urge to step right back out of the room. However, it looked around curiously, its eyes narrowing as it examined the halls, then pinpointed the room it was looking for, mostly due to the brighter lights within.
It quickly stepped toward the room, listening closely as it did so since it could hear voices beyond the door.
“Well, that didn’t work. I thought we were getting somewhere, and then… poof,” a man said, sounding rather disgruntled. “If we didn’t have the circuit breakers in there, we’d be starting over from scratch.”
“That is why we put them in there,” a woman replied, sounding rather amused. “We’ve just got to figure out why it isn’t working.”
Okris looked through the window set into the door to see a group of savages, mostly gathered around a table with an elaborate pair of devices behind them. The two devices didn’t have a cowling or the like to protect their interiors, but even so Okris recognized the primitive space-folding engines. The locals thinking they could teleport objects between them was laughable, but it wasn’t going to object to them making its work easier.
Steaming mugs of liquid were on the table as the savages spoke, the two which it had heard obviously the leaders of the project, what the savages called ‘professors’, while the others were their assistants and students. One young woman with red hair was tinkering with an engine, while a dark-skinned man was pouring more of the liquid into his cup. It was the latter who had the stronger mind, Okris realized, and it hesitated only a moment before focusing its thoughts on the savage.
Okris’s powers and thoughts focused into a needle-like point, taking aim carefully as it prepared its strike. Causing damage to a living creature was far more difficult than damaging objects, and it didn’t have the support of the pod anymore, which limited Okris. It also didn’t have a perfect grasp of the savage brains, but it knew enough to pick out a fatal point, and as the male set the big container back in its holder and turned away, that needle-point lanced into his mind, then burst.
The male gasped, stumbling as his eyes went wide, and his mug fell from nerveless fingers to shatter on the floor, spilling steaming brown liquid across the tiles, then he fell to the ground, trying and failing to breathe.
“What—Russ? Russel, are you alright?” the female professor asked, quickly standing up, almost knocking over her chair in her haste.
“Quick, support his head, he’s not breathing!” a young man said, moving toward the fallen savage, and Okris took advantage of their distraction.
Refocusing its thoughts to knock them all unconscious was relatively easy since that didn’t cause physical damage. It unleashed a rippling wave of blue energy through the room, and the wave struck one of the savages after another, sending them to the floor as their eyes rolled back in their heads.
Okris stepped into the room, then stopped suddenly as it saw the young woman who’d been working on the device was still upright, though the savage was swaying in place, a hand against her forehead as she looked at the room with wide eyes, then her gaze settled on Okris as she inhaled sharply.
“This… no, what are you?” the woman asked, staring at Okris, terror pervading her thoughts.
It decided to put off the decision a moment later, though, instead pulling out its own equipment and opening the case it’d brought with it. Within was a dizzying number of tools, as well as all the supplies that Okris might need for a year, and even the tools needed to fabricate materials in order to leave a planet if it were uninhabited. More importantly, its gaze settled on an octagonal metal device, one with a glowing blue stone at its heart.
The Multitude didn’t have a full grasp of dimensional technology, not enough to apply it to large spaces like ships, but it did have enough that it built large survival kits, and the psychic beacons that could be used to transport large pieces of equipment short distances a few times. It took an excessive amount of psychic energy, though, which was why Okris had charged the beacon over the last few days. It was about to attach the beacon to the drive system when it paused and looked at the drive, realizing that it needed to disconnect it before the beacon would work.
Okris quickly got to work, though it took a little fumbling to realize that some of the connections were held in place by screws, of all the primitive methods. The number of scanning devices that the savages had set up to watch their equipment startled Okris and made it admit that even if they were ignorant, they at least tried to make up for that ignorance with effort. That was what made them so dangerous, in the end.
But soon enough it had safely disconnected one of the engines, and Okris grabbed the beacon and attached it to the center of the object’s mass.
Thump.
The sound from behind Okris gave it pause, as it hadn’t sensed anything else approaching. Then there was another dull thump that reverberated through the room, and it turned around.
Nothing had changed behind it, really, aside from the liquid having mostly stopped steaming. All of the savages were unconscious on the ground still, and a trickle of blood was coming out of the nose of the one Okris had killed, so its confusion grew stronger.
Thump.
This time the thump was much louder, and the fallen savage jerked at the same time, his mouth opening slightly as Okris looked on in shock, then reached out toward it mentally, only to recoil suddenly. The savage’s thoughts weren’t gone, and instead they were a raging tornado which Okris couldn’t reach into, tearing its thoughts to shreds.
Foreboding rippled through Okris and it instinctively activated the beacon, quickly flipping shut its survival case. It needed to evacuate quickly, before—
Two things happened simultaneously. A ripple of bright blue energy pulsed outward from the beacon, surrounding the engine, then the air imploded with a crack as the air filled the void when it vanished.
The savage’s eyes snapped open, and instead of the bloodshot brown eyes, they were orbs of seething red and white energy. Okris didn’t even have time to dodge before the man’s mouth opened and a torrent of energy ripped out of the savage, directly at it.
A psychic shield blunted the force of the incredible blast, but the shrieking sound of metal tearing and an explosion rocked the air as a tremendous impact hammered into Okris, dazing it for an instant.
Alarms began to ring, and Okris shook off its daze, then realized it was now outdoors, and it was looking down a scorched, sizzling tunnel into the laboratory as the man began floating upward, wisps of white and red surrounding him. Then water began raining throughout the building as its fire suppression system activated.
Chapter 21
Monday, April 29th, 2031
Destructio
n Corps Reaper, Paragon City Outskirts
“Status change! Target is at PSU, explosion detected!” the pilot said, his voice clear through their suit intercoms. “Changing course now. Is the mission change approved?”
“Yes,” Corporal Punishment said, grunting as the Reaper changed course suddenly, the g-forces just enough for her to feel them. The Legionnaires seemed to take it far worse than her, though, and she gave the nearest of them a nasty grin, wishing she could see the man’s face.
Since she couldn’t, Corporal Punishment instead hit a button to bring up the intelligence feed, and her eyes narrowed as she saw that she only had a vague satellite image and what looked like the terrible feed from local security cameras. What she could see was an orange figure in midair, flashes of blue light, and another figure in a t-shirt and jeans, surrounded by blazing red and white energy that was rushing after the first figure.
“Melzi, why the shitty imagery?” Corporal Punishment asked bluntly, looking at it in irritation. “I can’t make out a damn thing.”
“We have no drones in line of sight, and cloud cover makes direct orbital observation impossible. A news helicopter is currently scrambling, but you will likely be on-site before they get there,” Melzi replied calmly. “However, I can determine some aspects of both individuals at present.”
“Then determine,” Corporal Punishment growled, annoyed that the AI didn’t just tell her what she wanted to know.
“I believe that the orange creature is the alien, based on the movement of its signature across the city. A recent pulse on the psionic detectors indicates that it may be a psychic foe as well, so ensure that your psychic dampeners are active,” Melzi said, “The other individual is not in my database, but readings indicate that they are wielding an unusual form of plasma as well as flight. The chaotic nature of the energy flow, accompanied by the power surge just before the explosion, indicates to me that the user spontaneously awakened, and may be overdrawing their power reserves. Proceed carefully.”
Corporal Punishment let her breath hiss out at the information, which she considered utterly useless, and made certain her mic was off before she muttered, “Useless pile of circuits. Whatever.”
Then she looked at the bay full of Legionnaires and realized that it might be some use, considering how few of them she’d trust to defend themselves properly, so she straightened and bellowed.
“Listen up! We’re going into the middle of a fight with a psychic alien and a new super! Make sure that your psychic dampener is set to on. If it isn’t, you deserve to become a mental puppet, and I’ll enjoy inflicting enough agony to snap you out of it!” Corporal Punishment said, grinning as the Legionnaires shifted in their seats nervously. “The new super uses plasma, so you’d better damned well dodge. First person who gets taken out and who makes it back to base gets to be my sparring partner for a week. So don’t do it, if you want to avoid a world of pain.”
“Yes, sir!” the Legionnaires all chorused, and Corporal Punishment grinned, then settled back in her seat.
She hoped that it was a fun fight, and that the alien turned out to be a bit of a challenge.
Circe snapped to full attention as she caught a stray signal from Eden Manor’s sensor array. She knew the encryption of Destruction Corps very well, and catching even a fragment put her on high alert. She quickly began accessing additional data, just as the first reports of an incident at Paragon State University began coming in over the police network.
Even the vague descriptions of what was going on was more than enough to tell Circe that the alien had come out of hiding at last, since she’d seen the corpses of its compatriots… but the information about it wasn’t something she could share with Lilith, which was stifling. She briefly considered waking Lilith and her lovers, but decided against it after several nanoseconds of thought.
Assuming Decarin’s equipment was half as good as Circe thought it was, he would likely be giving them a call soon enough, and they needed what sleep they could get. Instead, Circe busied herself preparing their armor for launch.
She could do that much without angering Amber, at least.
“Are there any casualties?” Archon asked, flicking her wing in annoyance, then again, much harder this time to throw off the blanket that’d gotten wrapped around it. She wished she could give her wings to some of the people who envied her and see how they liked them.
“Not that have been reported, but I suspect so. The security team reported that they had people running experiments in the building, which I suspect was part of what set this all off,” Decarin said, his tone sharp. “Plus I’m not seeing either of them in the database.”
Archon started pulling on her armor, worry rushing through her at the thought of two new villains, or a hero and a villain, duking it out in the middle of the university. There were enough dormitories in the area that it was too likely for their fight to cause casualties. They needed to stop it, quickly.
“Doesn’t mean they aren’t there, though,” Spark said, her voice cross. “I wish that these jerks would give us a break!”
“That would be nice, but I’m afraid that isn’t happening,” Archon said, adjusting her breastplate as she strapped in place. “I’m almost ready, and—”
“No,” Shade interrupted, his tone flat, which caused Archon to pause in surprise. It wasn’t that his voice modulator was a reasonable volume now, either.
“What?” Archon demanded, her eyes narrowing.
“You can’t go, Archon. Your mind hasn’t recovered from Dreamer’s assault,” Shade said, and just as Archon inhaled he continued, prompting her to stop. “I detect powerful psychic fluctuations, ones that are at least half as powerful as Shadowmind, if not stronger. If you were at full strength I’d agree, but we can’t risk you right now.”
Archon opened her mouth to speak, but stopped, unable to figure out what she should say under the circumstances. She hated to be seen as weak, and there was a part of her that desperately wanted to rush out of the building and prove Shade wrong, and yet… she knew that he had a point. He’d mentioned Shadowmind for a reason, and she shivered at the thought of what the villain could’ve done to her if they encountered one another at less than their best.
“Oh, damn it all, this just gets better and better!” Spark spat. “What’re we supposed to do, Shade? These aren’t weaklings, from what I’ve heard!”
“They’re probably not immune to electricity this time, though. That said…” Shade paused, and when he spoke, his tone was reluctant. “I think we should call Morgan and Warden. Just to be safe.”
That was enough to make Archon’s jaw drop, since she couldn’t think of the last time that Shade had admitted they might need help dealing with an incident. The man was usually too focused on getting credit for stopping the villains to admit they might be in over their heads.
“Um, are you alright, Shade? Did you hit your head or something?” Spark asked cautiously, but added, “I’m about to leave, though. Hopefully we can deal with these two before they destroy the entire university.”
“I’m fine!” Shade snapped, “I just—”
“Crap, no time! DC Reaper is inbound on the university!” Decarin yelped. “Activating shields and calling for backup! Spark, get moving!”
“Oh, damn it!” Archon growled, then spoke. “You’d better tell me the moment the psychic is off the field, so I can get out there! This is ridiculous.”
“Believe me, I’ll be letting you know the second I have a chance,” Shade replied, his voice taut. “I’m leaving now.”
“See you there!” Spark replied, sounding far more cheerful than she had any right to.
Then Archon was left pacing and fuming to herself, wishing she wasn’t being sidelined in the middle of a massive fight.
Damn Dreamer, anyway.
Eden Manor, Glendale
The buzz and chirp woke Lilith up, and for a half-second she thought it was their alarm, which made no sense, as it was still dark outside. She started
fumbling for the alarm in that half-second, and accidentally bumped someone in the head as she did so. Of course, Rachel was already moving, and on the other side of her Gina stirred as well.
“Hm?” Gina asked sleepily, then hissed as the lamp on Rachel’s side of the bed turned on, covering her eyes.
“I don’t know,” Lilith whispered, and Rachel grumbled, then hit a button on the alarm.
“Yes?” Rachel asked, sounding slightly cross as well, probably since they’d been up rather late the night before, and Lilith restrained the urge to yawn. That was much easier once Decarin spoke, though.
“We have two supers throwing down at PSU, one a psychic, and at least one DC Reaper inbound!” Decarin said frantically. “We could use some help, since Archon can’t go near a psychic right now.”
“Oh, crappity crap. Yeah, we’re on our way, as quick as we can,” Rachel said, her eyes widening and her sleepiness vanishing with astounding speed, in Lilith’s opinion. Next to Lilith, Gina blinked, then rolled out of bed, kicking off the covers quickly.
“Yup, we’re on our way!” Gina agreed, then paused, blushing a deep blue.
Lilith followed Gina out of the bed as well, heading for the closet and her undersuit, wishing she had time for a shower.
“Thanks! I’ll be in contact, but I need to get a couple of drones out there,” Decarin said, and the line clicked, then went silent.
“Great, and I pretty much told him that we were in bed together,” Gina muttered, running a hand over her face, then she extended an arm, and there was an odd popping sound as her nightclothes dropped on the bed, and her undersuit appeared on her body.
A second later there was another popping sound as Rachel followed suit, and Lilith glanced at the pair of them in the tiniest bit of annoyance. “I didn’t say anything, at least. I wish I could suit up as fast as you two.”