These abductors of theirs might have gotten lucky. Marc doubted that they could have selected and put them all together on purpose.
Could they? What kind of access to information and processing models would that even need? Marc wondered.
He was still very interested in getting to them, their abductors, and was still idly trying to find options to do that.
Meriam broke into his thoughts.
“Got it. Most of the pipes are empty. Some have steam and warm currents or water. Others have some idle chemicals, as in, they aren’t moving at all or are being pumped. The chemicals are dangerous to us, corrosive, flammable, or explosive. I’ve marked them on my scans so Marc can integrate them with the map.”
“Okay, great,” Connor said. “Four of them in the corridor ahead. Seems like they are off guard. Ready?”
Meriam nodded.
Marc unlocked the door, and Connor started through as soon as it had slid open.
The two of them headed in, with streaks from energy bolts whizzing past them or striking against their singlesuit fields in shimmers. A few of the energized bolts also hit Marc, which troubled him, but his display showed no damage and no reason to be concerned.
He raised the hand weapon that he had, and targeting graphics popped up in his display behind the outlines of scans and software he was running. It was getting quite cluttered, his vision mostly obscured. But the display had this neat way of fading out of focus when he tried to see past it, which helped, just not for targeting, which was in his display.
Marc didn’t entirely trust himself to fire without the aid of the software, so he just kept his weapon up in case there was a wide opening.
Connor and Meriam seemed to have everything well in hand, though. Surging up the corridor, their weapons fired stun bolts. Meriam had already hit one of the opponents, who was down with a shimmer over his skin.
The other three were clustered at the far end of the corridor where it formed a T with a cross-corridor. The door they wanted, which the aliens were protecting, was to the left a short distance down. From that direction, four more of the aliens were arriving, and one of them had something big.
“Uh, guys. That one gun they have packs a serious punch,” Marc said on the private com while he marked the weapon as a highlight on their maps.
“We need to get it before they start firing at us. The corridor is too narrow to avoid it, and it will probably hit all three of us,” Connor said to them over the com while he fired some more stun rounds up the corridor.
“I’ll do it,” Meriam said, already moving and breaking into a run that carried her several feet before Connor could begin to voice his objection. Marc watched as her lithe body was limned in violet light, the outline a stark contrast to the drab metal walls but sent into a blur as she picked up speed.
That’s amazing! Marc thought.
The sensors he had were showing “Gravitonics Detected” again, just like when Connor had pulled up the protective field and flipped that metal tank. Meriam was now hurtling up the other end of the corridor, a wake of violet particles coming off her like a comet.
She moved like a dangerous feline, how Marc imagined a puma or a jaguar in the wilds of Earth would look. She was a fierce fighter, and no quarter was given to the three aliens, who were very surprised to find her right among them.
She threw an elbow to the chest of the first, slamming the Lanillan against the wall with enough force to make its yellow skin go the color of slightly off milk.
The singlesuit and equipment must have been reinforcing her blows.
As skilled as she was and with her training and keeping fit even before the new bodies, she was not that strong. Marc watched in awe as a single palm strike to the chest of the second Lanillan lifted him from his feet and up against the wall, where he swore the alien left a dent.
The third struck at Meriam’s midsection as she turned, but the blow impacted harmlessly against the violet glow that had sprung up around her.
Without a second thought, she simply shot him with a stun round. The glow swept across the Lanillan’s skin and had him sinking to his knees before Meriam pointed her weapon to her left and shot the other conscious Lanillan.
The third shot curved.
Marc could scarcely believe what he was seeing, but Meriam put the handgun over her shoulder and shot behind herself at the Lanillan who was prone on the floor after having been slammed into the wall.
The stun shot was wreathed in a brief flare of violet light and bent a curve through the air to plop down onto the Lanillan, rendering his struggling form into a relaxed puddle of limbs.
The approaching aliens saw all of this happen in the space of only a few seconds. Lanillan hearts beat out slower than humans, but these Lanillans could only have been intimidated by the sheer prowess that Meriam had exhibited.
Coupled with the unexplainable effect she had had while fighting and shooting, they decided not to take any chances.
The heavy weapon the one alien carried was identified by Marc’s software as a variant on a plasma emulsion carbine. The military reasons for a shorter, more mobile firearm that had a cut-off barrel probably meant more to Lekiso or Ormond.
To Marc, it was enough to know that the weapon was extremely dangerous.
The alien didn’t hesitate to fire it at Meriam and the collapsing minions that were in its sights. Marc didn’t have time to wonder at their loyalties, if the members of the Lopokin family were willing to kill each other, because the weapons discharge was as wide as it was destructive.
With the energy cells available from Domum technology and superconductive wiring, the facilities to develop plasma had a solid foundation. Plasma was the ionized or highly energized result of a liquid or gas being exposed to a massive volume of energy and forming a new roiling mass of particles.
It was the fourth state of matter, along with solid, liquid, and gas.
Plasma.
Being highly energized, plasma could be conducted through electromagnetics in specific directions or along channels and conduits. The high heat and energy output of plasma gave it a number of useful applications.
One of the more destructive applications was in weapons.
This firearm had a gas canister, a liquid canister, and an energy cell. It combined the two materials under high pressure and sub-second interaction with the battery to form the highly energized and super-hot projectile that it fired.
The projectile, however, was only cohesive within the electromagnetic “shell” created around it while it was fired along the short barrel. A few feet away from the barrel, the “shell” would disintegrate, and the plasma was released in a shockwave.
The only reason the wielder of the carbine was protected was due to the magnetic field that pushed the expanding cloud of plasma forward and away from them.
The weapon operated as advertised: the projectile of blue sparking energy lost cohesion about two feet away from Meriam, and the plasma cloud exploded outwards and over her and the three other aliens.
Like a nebula blooming in space, the plasma first sucked the oxygen out of the air as the core ignited every gas within the temperature range of the plasma itself, which was very high.
In less than a second, the corridor was wreathed in green fire.
Like napalm, the plasma stuck to every available surface whether organic or inorganic. The walls caught alight, first glowing red hot and then seeping like melted wax. The ignition of the air lit the corridor up in a flash, fire rushing down the corridor to envelop Marc and Connor, whose protective fields went to full power in response.
The plasma reaction consumed itself within the next two seconds. Oxygen, nitrogen, helium, anything caught as fuel for the reaction was burnt out from the high requirement for continued fuel and fell off dramatically.
The plasma burnt out of the air to leave a vacuum, three disintegrating corpses now turned to almost monomolecular ash, and Meriam.
She was completely untouched, wrapped in
a glowing violet field from head to toe.
Her hair didn’t even move in the inrush of wind created by air filling up the vacuum from the blast. The walls were glowing a cherry red, and around her feet, the floor had pooled slightly where her feet made a depression in the newly malleable material.
Metal clicked as it cooled, filling the space with a drumbeat of sound.
Marc and Connor were both breathing heavily from the sudden scare of being almost immolated and from worry for Meriam. Their protective fields had held, almost going critical but still within safety margins, their displays assured them, and holding.
If they had been caught in that blast, it would have been over for them.
How Meriam had survived was beyond Marc, but he suspected the Gravitonics had a lot to do with it. The power described in his implanted memories would easily be able to ward off the plasma effect.
Meriam raised her arm to sight down at the three aliens staring incredulously at her, unable to reconcile what they saw with the destructive energy they had unleashed.
The plasma carbine was preparing its next shot, a cycle of five more seconds, usually more than enough time to find another area to target for destruction, after all. The manufacturer hadn’t expected that anyone on the receiving end would survive and so had considered the reload more than adequate.
The three aliens were not in agreement as Meriam stunned them all into unconsciousness.
“Wow, these guys are playing rough,” Connor said as he walked up the corridor. Its glow was now down to a dull orange, and it had stopped melting.
Meriam put her hand weapon back on her hip, where it clicked onto the magnetic holster. Then she looked back at Marc, who was still standing in the glowing corridor.
“Hey, Marc, you alright?” she asked.
“Uh, yeah, thanks. Just surprised. I thought we were done for.”
Somewhere inside him, he knew he should be shaking uncontrollably.
“Yeah, I thought so too,” Connor said.
He looked down at the aliens who had failed in their attack.
“These guys didn’t stand a chance.”
Marc realized his display was listing various drugs it had applied to his body to help him stay calm. How clever, he thought. Not only do we get pushed into serious situations, but the equipment can help us deal with it.
He knew he should be more upset, but he was wrapped in an irrational calm.
“Uh, well, better them than us, hey?”
Meriam and Connor just looked at him, their singlesuits doctoring them with calming drugs of their own.
Automated log update.
Instrumentation-based deception has proven effective.
Results are recorded in file 205-H for further analysis.
Integration of Gravitonics understanding in hind-brain processes and correct falsehood supplied as capability provided by seemingly superior technology provided the subjects with the degree of unconscious confidence necessary to activate abilities.
Psychological prompting was utilized in one instance within provided parameters for the sequence of events and level of gravitonic output. Prompt successfully led to thirteen percent Gravitonic output in subject Connor Baglet.
Readings recorded to append on file 205-I.
Other subjects have shown heightened sensitivity to gravitonic output, while subject Meriam Cleese has displayed various forms of output. As the first active subject, this is expected and within mission variables.
The situation threat level has been degraded based on the evidence of subjects’ capabilities.
Local Domum authorities are also engaged in the response dictated by protocol. All variables in line with mission parameters and indicate a resolution to the current scenario within a short period of time.
Ongoing usage of Gravitonics will be recorded, subversion of the Puzzle Box network for the refinery complex is complete, and relevant data to support the outcome will be provided.
Mission parameters are expanding slightly ahead of predicted baseline.
Monitoring continues.
* *
Floating in the cold vacuum of space, the giant hoop surrounding the magnetic loops connected to the refinery went through a rearrangement.
Interlocking mechanisms holding one of the magnetic loops in the configuration released, allowing the circle itself to float free on the magnetic tracks that shifted the mechanisms subtly within the outer hoop.
This loop then connected with the management software and was moved through magnetic attraction and repulsion to float crosswise to the hoop so that it left the confinement of the outer structure.
Once a sufficient safety margin was reached, the loop moved sideways, even as magnetic carriages were zipping past soundlessly through other loops.
This circle drifted across and upwards, towards the refinery docking platform, coming to a slow stop about halfway between the main hoop and the refinery’s open bay. The loop was ready to catch the armored magnetic carriage that swiftly flew along at an angle from the previous hoop in line.
The slightly larger-than-normal carriage was caught by the powerful magnetic fields in the loop, passing its full length through the ring device as it slowed down to a stop just on the other side from the direction of its momentum.
The magnetic fields were then adjusted, and the carriage rose up into the refinery, the system overriding the need for the docking bay to catch and hold the carriage at all.
For the Jascalian who had rendered the magnetic suspension system of the refinery platform inert, it was a complete surprise to find this carriage rising up into place at the edge. It and the other three Jascalians were accompanied by four Lanillans, all armed and ready in case the strange, silver-covered pale creatures somehow escaped and returned.
None of them had expected any carriage, let alone the armored one that slid to a stop and opened up its doors to let out Domum security by the dozens. The massive, blue-skinned humanoids were in full confrontation gear, their large, muscled frames covered in pitch-black encounter armor.
A Domum in full gear was an impressive and intimidating sight.
Their technology had developed to the point where superconductors and energy cells could provide for a lot of output or field generation. So, the Domums had gone all out in equipping the members of Manor Vax for a host of dangerous eventualities.
Each Domum looked like he had strapped on the carapace of massive beetles to his back, arms, and legs. The rounded “shell” on their backs was a long ellipse, almost like half a sphere, which extended up above their heads and down to virtually behind their knees.
The upper arms had oversized ellipses of their own, while the forearms were enveloped completely, looking to a human as if the Domum was in a bulky suit blown up like a balloon.
The sides of the thighs mirrored the upper arms, while the calves had the smaller set as a complete elongated sphere of matte-black metal. These large pieces all held technology and energy cells with different degrees of application, from protective fields that could vary in size and intensity to the energy weapons in the arm modules.
Each Domum was armed to the teeth and weighed in at about twice his bodyweight from the armor alone. But with their magnified strength, they moved smoothly onto the platform to dominate the impromptu welcome directed at them by the criminals.
Ionized bolts of lethal energy splashed against protective energy fields that dipped in strength from the impacts. Plasma was equally ineffective, while the return fire from the Domum security lanced out of their forearm equipment in quick, green bursts.
Although non-lethal, the weapons were not as sophisticated as the ones employed by the humans; neither were the bulky armor’s shields comparable to the singlesuits.
Each alien struck by the single narrow beams had its nervous system overloaded with bioelectric current, sending sharp pulses of pain along every nerve ending to jumble the brain and drive it unconscious without any hope of resistance.
The Dom
ums did have milder means of subduing opponents, but in this case, they stuck with the most effective.
These were all criminals, and Manor Vax did not allow their activity. Now that they had sufficient proof in being attacked, it was well within the operational procedure to engage with maximum neutralization techniques.
* *
Organized along specific lines of pipes into large, hollow tanks, the refinery processing hall had three main processing streams supported by pipes feeding in chemicals and gases and those for extraction.
The layout looked like some kind of geometric drawing when seen from Ormond’s position on a stairwell near the very top of the ceiling and looking down over the open expanse.
He gave the situation a tactical once-over: the various alien opponents were swarming among the pipes, while the Lanillan with the sample they wanted was weaving among the multiple sets of machinery below them. More than a dozen of the aliens were also on the gantries that connected to where he and Lekiso were now, high above the complex layout on the floor below.
“Hey, Connor?” he asked on the private channel.
“I hear you,” came the reply.
“Do you see this mess?”
“Yeah, I see it. Got any advice? We want the guy carrying the Devourer to keep heading towards us. We’re going to be coming into that room in about two seconds.”
“Okay, great, you keep coming. I’m going to drop down and make some noise, keep Wonovar Lopokin headed your way. Lekiso can take the walkways up above, deal with anyone trying to potshot us.” He looked at Lekiso, who nodded in agreement.
“Sounds good. We’ll stick together and cut off that Lanillan.” Connor sounded a bit distracted, but then, that was probably a given.
“On it, mate.”
With another glance at Lekiso, who turned and brought up her weapon to advance along the walkway, Ormond did a quick, practiced jump over the railing. Thirty five feet up, and he was relying on the equipment to do its work; it had so far, after all.
He watched the floor rushing up at him, and then he had a flash of violet light surround him and fall away “above” in an expanding ring, which ultimately killed his momentum.
Abductees Page 21
