FREEING DARKNESSAn original story by Patrick MulnixAs the fire dissipated into the gloom, Terry ended her roll by flopping over onto her back, arms and legs sticking out in whatever way they'd landed, fresh sweat popping up on her forehead and rolling back into her already damp red hair. After a few minutes of restive panting, Terry lifted her head and let her last pant turn into a single forced laugh. "Takes more than an exploding fusion reactor to kill me," she said to herself as she slowly got to her feet. "Didn't even scorch the jacket. For once, thankfully." Leaning momentarily against the wall, the mercenary took a moment stretch a little and chase away the aches already trying to settle in. Then, turning, she looked at the room around her. To Terry, it was just another dull blue-gray alien room, in a long abandoned installation full of them. She was back in the lab area, that much she knew, but had no need or desire to figure out anything more specific. The place was a wreck, science wasn't her thing, and besides, thanks to the whole exploding secondary reactor debacle, she wouldn't be surprised if the whole installation was about to blow. That would just about make the day complete. So, leaving would be a good thing at this point. First things first, though. She had to figure out just how much leaving capability she had. Reaching down to her belt, she grabbed the comm unit clipped there and thumbed it on. "Attention inferior lifeforms," she said into it. "This is the great and powerful Terry MacGregor speaking. Will all those not currently busy being vaporized or incinerated please speak up?" "Damn, I guess you survived, Terry," returned a garbled voice over the comm unit. "Yeah, must be your lucky day, Conrad," she replied. "Better make this short, I think the explosion's screwing up the signal. Who else you got with you?" "Cam's here. I don't know where Lee or Max went, but I'd hate to think after all we've been through that a piddling little nuclear explosion wiped `em out." "I hear you," Terry said. "Myself, I plan to go under the claws of a rabid sheep." Ignoring the remark, Conrad's voice came back, "Where are you? We're down by the hangar complex. The place is coming apart pretty bad over here, I think we're going to see some more fireworks very shortly and I want to be a nice safe distance to watch." "I'm stuck in the middle of the labs somewhere. I'll see if I can work my way back towards you. Make sure to have the engine warm when I get there." "Can do, Conrad out." Terry flicked the comm unit off and absently tucked it away. Now to figure out where she was. Grabbing the penlight off her belt, she flicked it on and shone it around the room. It was musty, dusty, and dirty, and part of the ceiling had caved in , but she quickly found a gapping hole where she assumed a door used to be and walked through it. Finding herself in a much larger and longer room, she gave it quick once over, noting that a power surge had blown out the last of the equipment. Gee, wonder what could've caused that? Heading off down the elongated room in the direction of the hangar complex, Terry noted banks of glass cylinders along each wall, most of which were long since broken and drained of whatever had been in them. But as she continued further into the room, her boots sloshed through an expanding puddle of some kind of sticky fluid. Looking at the dull green puddle in disgust, she followed it back across the debris covered floor with her eyes and her flashlight to it's tank of origin, one that looked like it had just now blown out due to the power surge. And lying in the puddle of goo and glass was a limp gray form. Terry looked up and down the room suspiciously, then shrugged and walked toward the long-dead corpse cautiously. The green goo that was currently busy discoloring the soles of her boots must've been some kind of preservation agent, she realized. That's the only way the body could've survived the centuries of abandonment without turning to dust or ending up as the major meat component of green goo stew. She tapped the body gently with her foot, got no response, then flipped it over onto it's back. It was female, that must she could tell immediately, and it was also about as human as Cam was, though in mostly the opposite way. Most of it's body was covered in body armor, like a giant humanoid bug, except it's face and it's hands, which were mostly human, but gray in color. It's eyes, wide open as if in surprise or terror - Terry couldn't tell which - were completely and totally black. On each wrist were long retractable blades, the same kind Cam and the Norsans were equipped with. What was this place, Terry wondered, waving her penlight around. She had assumed it was another Norsan cloning bank, like they'd seen earlier, but now that she thought about it, there were way too few tanks for it to be very efficient. So if it's purpose wasn't mass production, maybe it was designed to let the Ceitians work with each specimen individually. Terry couldn't help but to shudder. This was where next year's model was being developed. Except, apparently, society came to an end before anything was finalized. Then another thought occurred to Terry. Was Cam next year's model? No, she decided, compared to the Norsans, Cam was a step backwards, in fierceness, at least. A reject, then? Maybe. Not that it really mattered at the moment. She'd bring it up later when they weren't busy getting blown up. As she continued across the room, she found another fresh corpse, this one also female, but it's face was a long parabolic dish, like the Norsans', and it wasn't as armored as the previous find. Before Terry went on her way, she glanced down at the ancient corpse again and briefly wondered why the Ceitians were suddenly interesting in growing warrior women. Finally reaching the end of the long room, Terry found one last freshly broken tube, this one almost occupying an elevated showcase position along the short wall of the room. It was up on a little stage, with doors set into the wall on either side of it. But while the tank's goo was quickly running across the floor, Terry didn't see any dead Frankenstiens lying around. Giving it a quicker look, Terry noticed that the computer console monitoring the tank looked like it was still in good shape, with multicolored lights still flickering across it's surface. She gave the tank a good looking at, but still could find no sign of a body. She wondered if this was where the final prototype would've been grown and studied once the Ceitian scientists had been happy with its genetic soup. Terry shrugged to herself. Obviously, they hadn't gotten that far. Turning her attention to look at the two doors, she found that the one on the left was open. Must've gotten stuck that way once the power was off, she decided. Which she was fairly happy about, since, by the look of the large, thick doors, she didn't think she could've opened them without resorting to structurally damaging grenades. There seemed to be a corridor beyond it, which Terry was glad to see, since Ceitian architecture was mostly the same, and she thought, once she picked up the pattern she was in the middle of, she could find her way out of the labs pretty quickly. As she went through the open doorway, though, something else caught her attention. Part of the door's lock was hanging off the door frame where it would usually only be if the door was closed. Giving the broken lock a puzzled look, she stepped back and looked at the door more carefully. It looked like there were large punctures dug into the metal, stressed as if they'd been the leverage for dragging it open. And now that she looked at it, the dust was almost non-existent along the door track. Terry glanced back at the broken tank to her right. Uh oh. Immediately drawing her sidearm, Terry poked her head into the corridor, and shone her penlight down it. Unfortunately, it was too long to reach all the way into the inky blackness, and if there was some kinda deadly next-year's model Norsan skulking around, it would know right where to find her. Oh well, no helping it now, she thought. Might was well get out there and see what pops up to eviscerate her. All her senses at full alertness, Terry made her way down the corridor carefully, using the penlight to try and probe all the deepest shadows of the crumbling corridor. A little ways down, she came to a fresh cave in, where half the floor and ceiling had given way, and disappeared into some lower floor. Shining her light through the hole in the wall, she recognized the room across the way as the large scale growing chamber she and the others had toured earlier. Despite the large, convenient hole in the wall, though, the distinct lack of a floor would make it a little hard to get into that familiar territory. So, instead, Terry opted to continue down the corridor and hope she could find a door or something that joined up with the growing chamber. Except, not 5 meters further down, the corridor suddenly dead ended due to a very old and very solid wall of collapsed roof. Terry kicked at the blockade angrily, but only managed to dislodge a few pebbles. She could try grenades, she thought, except this area didn't seem to be prone to stability. Too much more seismic activity and the whole area could come crashing... A sudden rustling sound behind her pulled the breaker on the cognitive portion of Terry's brain, sending her into full instinct mode. Spinning around, she shoved her pistol forward towards the source of the sound, then swept the light across the area once, quickly, looking for depth variation. She found the source of the sound rather quickly, and it made her mind's cognitive portion switch back on. Terry stared at the newcomer, while the she stared at Terry. "Nice wings." The newcomer was, Terry supposed, similar in style to the other corpses Terry had run across, only this one was still alive. Tall, and fairly muscular, the creature was based on a human female, but definitely had endured some genetic fiddling. Beyond her knees and elbows, her arms and legs abruptly lost their flesh and instead become monstrous armored forelimbs of death. As seemed standard with Ceitian handiwork, Terry could see the retracted stubs of forearm blades, but this particular specimen also had the Norsan's signature wrist spikes running along the edge of the forearm. Most of her torso was human aside from the gray skin, except for the bony neck area and the long, ridged tail that snaked around behind her. Finally, her face was unreadable, with large, entirely black eyes, and long hair that was black except for a white streak that ran through her mane starting at the temples. Oh yeah, and she had wings, too. "You are human," the woman said quietly. That caught Terry a little off guard. Cam never, ever spoke, and most of the Norsans didn't seem to be individually bright enough to put together simple sentences, even if they had mouths. Why had the Ceitians decides to revoke that policy with this particular design? "Yep," Terry replied after a moment's tense silence. "What exactly are you?" "I am myself," the woman responded. "A new creation, a kind of... chimaera, if you will, of the best aspects of dozens of species." "Well, uh, that's nice, Chimaera," Terry said, fidgeting slightly. "I have to say, too, that your Terran is pretty good for two hundred years of floating in a over grown fish tank." A wicked smile crossed Chimaera's lips. "While my creators are gone, some of their equipment still worked. Luckily, your people insist on broadcasting nonstop from Brendan Prime. So while the first hundred years were rather dull, the more recent century has been very enlightening. I have to thank your people for keeping me up to date on current events." Terry's aim never wavered, but her attention was starting to. "Yeah, home schooling's a riot, isn't it? So what're you going to do now that you're free of your lava lamp? Aside from digging up some clothes, I hope." "Well, first I'm going to kill you," Chimaera said thoughtfully. "And then I'll probably kill your companions and take your ship. After that, I'll most likely scout around the galaxy until I can find the right power structure to exploit, and then I'll see what I can do about taking over this miserable galaxy." Terry let loose a yawn. "Is that all? Cliched megalomania aside, I was kinda hoping we could be friends." Tightening her grip on the trigger, Terry let loose a triple barrage of shots, each bright bolt leaping free of her weapon and throwing itself at Chimaera. But, almost lazily, the warrior women batted away each bolt with her bulbous forearm, sending them ricocheting back at Terry. Not moving, Terry waited until the shots energy had dissipated. "That's a new one on me," she said at last, unable to entirely mask the surprise in her voice. "Localized kinetic force shields," Chimaera explained without interest. "More flexible than the standard warrior's full body shield. Still, it requires a certain precognition to use with any success." "Yeah, I'll bet it..." Terry broke off as the words sank in. "Precognition?" "What's the next thing I'm going to say." Chimaera interjecting calmly. "Yeah, right," Terry said, ignoring her. "Precognition my ass. If you can see into the future, what's the next thing... I'm... I'm going to say. Quit that." "Curiosity satisfied, pirate?" Chimaera responded, as her wrist blades snapped into place. "And ready to embrace your death?" "Well, as a matter of fact," Terry began to say. Without warning, Chimaera lunged forward, her wings giving her one good flap to sustain her altitude as she cocked her arms to strike. Yelping in surprise, Terry ducked and rolled forward, spinning on beneath Chimaera as she flew overhead. Ending her roll on her knees, Terry turned half around and snapped off another trio of shots, her opponent landing gingerly on one foot, then spinning around to swat the laser bolts out of the air with one sweep of her arm. As the mercenary jumped to her feet, Chimaera continued her spin, sending her bladed tail lashing out at Terry's waist. Jumping back to the very edge of the hole in the floor an instant too late, Terry's sidearm was torn out of her hand as the blade hooked the trigger guard, sending it flipping forward into Chimaera's waiting hand. "Flaming fudge monkeys," Terry scowled as Chimaera grinned wickedly, pointing the gun at her. "So much for freak control?" Chimaera said as she aimed the weapon carefully at her. Terry continued scowling. "Took the words right out of my mouth." A second before Chimaera fired, Terry suddenly jumped backwards into the hole, catching the warrior off guard. Reaching out, Terry grabbed the edge of the next floor down and used her momentum to swing inside, then rolled as she hit the ground, grabbed at the backup blaster under her coat, and twisted to a stop, pointing the gun back the way she'd come. As soon as her head stopped swimming, she got to her feet and grabbed a grenade from her belt, twisted the explosion radius down to it's lowest setting, then tossed it down the corridor, where it rolled to a stop right next to the precipice. Just then, the building rocked beneath her feet. Her scowl returned. The main reactor must be spasming, she thought. Not much time left. Inside her jacket pocket, her comm unit buzzed for attention. "Great timing, Conrad," she mumbled as she retrieved it. Flicking it on, she held it up to her mouth. "What? I'm a little busy at the moment." Lee Ford's voice came back, the transmission more garbled than Conrad's had been. "You're gonna *** blowing up real *** your *** to the *** now," came the staticy reply. "I have no idea what you just said, Lee," she responded. "But I intend to get there ASAP anyway, so you're wasting your breath." "No, *** secondary *** up *** five minutes." Suddenly, a shadow filled the entrance to the corridor. "You're not making me a happy super being," Chimaera announced, her voice seething. Terry could see that she'd abandoned projectile weaponry for clean and pure hand-to-hand spine-ripping. "Who the *** that?" Lee voice demanded. "Tell you later," Terry responded. "Hugs and kisses, yadda yadda, see you in five." She shut the comm unit off and threw it at Chimaera. "You're not exactly inducing euphoria either," Terry shouted back at her. "Do me a favor and get dead." Quickly, Terry snapped off her usual trio of shots, all of which were duly blocked by the pissed-off warrior. The fourth shot, however wasn't. But that's because it was aimed at the grenade at Chimaera's feet. The explosion lit up the corridor, rocking the decrepit floor. When the smoke cleared, though, Chimaera was nowhere to be seen. Terry's whoop of victory turned to a yelp of surprise, however, when the tunnel floor started collapsing. Turning, the merc sprinted away, but too slowly, as the floor collapsed beneath her feet. At the last moment, she took a deep breath and leapt upwards, her hands grabbing hold of the pipe running across the ceiling. Below her, the floor dropped away, and dropped away, and dropped away, and in the darkness, she couldn't be sure how far down the fall went. Taking a deep breath, Terry went hand over hand along the pipe until she was well over solid floor again, then dropped down. Breathing a sigh of relief, she stood and took off down the corridor, as the spasming reactor shook the ground beneath her. After she had run around in circles for far too long, Terry found a stairwell and a new idea occurred to her. If she could get to the roof, she could get the others to come and pick her up... No, that won't work, dammit, she thought. I tossed my comm away. Still... It was something, at least. Maybe she could make her way across the rooftop more easily than inside these damn corridors. If not, at least she'd be fit when the main reactor went critical. Jogging up the stairs, she was unhappy to find that they didn't go all the way to the roof. What they did, do, though, was reach the very top floor, a floor which had quite a few balconies. Terry ran out on the first balcony she came to, and looked around. She seemed to be on a high part of the building, but there were other, lower sections that spread out around her. Still, there was enough space for their ship to come along side and pick her up. If only she had her comm unit, or some signal flares... "Wait," Terry murmured, grabbing another grenade. "Yeah, this should do, if they're paying attention." Cranking the blast radius way down and setting it to a 2 second fuse, she cocked her arm back, and flung it as far and as high as she could. She watched it arc through the air for a moment... then it exploded brilliantly, flinging it's shrapnel in every direction. "Come on guys," she said impatiently. "You had to have seen that." She was just thinking about tossing out another grenade when the beat-up military dropship they'd been using suddenly popped up over the far edge of the building, then angled in toward her. Terry breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She'd get out of this yet. On the near side of the ship, the boarding ramp lowered, and Conrad appeared, coming halfway down and waving. Terry waved back and motioned for them to come on in. Then he yelled something she didn't catch, so she shrugged and put her hand to her ears. "Need a lift?" he yelled again over the roar of the engines. "Nah!" she yelled back. "I wanna see what kinda tan I can get outta this!" "Fine, then, we'll just... " Suddenly, his eyes widened. "What the Hell?" Instinctively, Terry ducked, already guessing what the hell "What the Hell" referred to, and right above her something breezed past with enough force to send her head bouncing down to the roof below. Holding onto the crouch's momentum as long as she could, Terry swept her leg out behind her, but when it contacted, it stopped dead as if it had hit a solid concrete pillar. "I doubt you have enough strength to budge me, MacGregor," Chimaera taunted. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Terry answered as she snapped her throbbing leg back under her, grabbed her combat knife from it's boot sheath, and swung it over her head and into Chimaera's bare stomach. "Shut up already." She heard the other woman gag in surprise, then abruptly twisted the knife and yanked it out. Chimaera staggered back, one hand holding the tear in her stomach, and Terry used the momentary time out to leap up, grab the edge of the roof, and scramble on top of it. Already, Lee was piloting the ship in a slow circle to come around and pick her up. A thump from behind, however, told Terry that Chimaera was still right behind. "Terry!" Conrad shouted from ahead, a pistol in his hand. "Duck!" It was advice that Terry usually found to be in her best interest, so she flung herself to the rooftop as Conrad opened fire. She didn't have to watch to know what happened next. Behind her was the familiar sounds of laser fire ricocheting off a Ceitian blast shield, and an instant later, two bolts zipped back over her head, striking the dropship's hull next to Conrad. Throwing a look over her shoulder, Terry was caught off guard to find that Chimaera was right there on top of her. She rolled out of the way as a wrist blade rammed a hole into the rooftop, then rolled back the other way as Chimaera leapt up, intent on smashing Terry's head with her massive clawed foot. "This is getting a little old, isn't it?" Terry managed as she started to push herself to her feet. Chimaera merely snarled in response, and Terry could tell the other woman wasn't enjoying herself anymore. Spreading her wings wide, she opened her taloned hands menacingly and started forward, intent on snatching Terry off the rooftop by her throat and doing painful things to her. Instead, a blur of motion zipped through the air, and a sudden flash of light upside Chimaera's head sent her staggering sideways. A hand on Terry's shoulder alerted her to Conrad's presence, and he helped her to her feet. "Are you all right?" "I ain't dead yet," she responded. "So that's something at least." "That's not gonna last long if we don't get outta here sometime in the vicinity of five minutes ago." As he helped her stagger towards the hovering dropship, she glanced back to find Max, pint-sized dragon that he was, standing defiantly between them and Chimaera, his disruptor staff held out defensively. "Guess Max ain't dead yet either." "Apparently not," Conrad returned. "First I've seen him since all this started, though." Behind then, Chimaera recovered from Max's neural disruption faster than any human could, and stared at the three foot dragon in fury. For his part, Max started backing towards the dropship, his staff, and its glowing white stunbeam, still hanging between the two winged warriors. Grinding the lit cigar in his beak, he nodded to Chimaera. "Nice wings." As Terry and Conrad's feet hit the ship's ramp, Conrad let Terry drop and grabbed his headset. "Straight up, Lee. We have a winged wonder to avoid." As the pilot acknowledged the suggestion, Terry rolled over to look at the confrontation that was steadily moving across the roof towards them. "Better get your tail in gear, Max," she yelled. "We're about ready to blow this rock. Hopefully before it blows us." Max gave her a half nod, then leapt straight up, his wings giving him one good beat as he jumped into the already ascending ship's open hatch. Behind him, Chimaera also flung herself into the sky, but the ship was already rising too quickly for her to reach the hatch. Instead, she latched on to the edge of the ramp with her taloned hands and started trying to drag herself up. Still sitting on the ramp, Terry looked down at Chimaera as she dragged her face over the lip of the ramp. "Sorry," she told her the other as she kicked her in the face. "No hitchhikers." Then, without so much as a wail of defeat, Chimaera was gone. Max and Conrad helped Terry inside and sealed the ramp. Up in the cockpit, Lee and Cam sat, the former concentrating as he threw the dropship upwards through the atmosphere, the latter watching with relief as the trio staggered inside. "Not much time," Lee told them. "Then how about we cut the orbital crap and just rift our way out of here now?" Terry suggested, looking to Cam. The girl nodded, closed her eyes in concentration, and after a second a crackling blue Ceitian rift swirled open ahead of them. A second later, they were on the other side of the galaxy. On the world they left behind, however, the reactor mysteriously failed to explode. |