Chapter VI
“...And you're sure that you can't find anything on the thermal scans?” Jaleth asked the tech officer slowly, incredulity clearly showing in her thoughts.
“Yes ma'am. The moment you told me that it had shown up in the laundry room, I checked the scan logs. Ma'am, the logs show that it teleported there as we suspected, and that it probably spent close to fifteen minutes in that room. However, she just up and disappeared. I pulled the video logs, and I think you will want to see this,” Gelzok said nervously.
He punched a few keys on his console, then leaned back to let Jalath and Qualda have a better view of what was going on.
The screen went black, then turned back on to reveal a top down view of the laundry room. There seemed to be two Dridune guards near a set of laundry machines, folding the base's laundry and arguing about how boring their job was.
“I can't believe we're on laundry duty again!” one thought to the other.
“At least down here we can actually talk to each other,” the other one responded. “If we were on guard duty, we would have to stand there in total silence for hours, waiting for-”
He never got to finish his thought, however, because at that precise moment, the alarm went off, and Jaleth's thoughts came through the Psytranceivers, interrupting them both.
“Attention! All hands to battle-stations! One of the test subjects have escaped, and we have reason to believe that an enemy assault on the station is imminent. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill. Report to your battle commanders immediately and secure all remaining test subjects in their respective wards.”
The two guards just stared at each other for a few seconds. Finally, one threw up his arms in frustration. “What?” he thought in irritation.
“Weren't you just saying how boring it was around here? I took this position to be as far away from the front-lines as possible!” the other one thought in exasperation as he stomped out of the room.
The other one followed him out “you can't pin the blame on me! I had-” he started to say, but his thought was cut off by the closing door as the two left the room.
As soon as the door closed, Jaleth caught a small flicker of movement near the edge of the screen. She immediately focused her attention on the area just as a small purple head popped out of the laundry basket.
She then said something in that oddly musical language of hers. Jaleth couldn't make out what was said, but the tone was unmistakable.
It was a thoughtful tone of voice. The scientists and tacticians back home would often use that exact tone of voice when trying to overcome a problem.
The pony tried to get out of the basket, but seemed to have trouble finding sure footing in the large clothes hamper. Honestly, Jaleth thought it looked adorable, but she kept her thoughts to herself. After about a minute of this, the equine became frustrated at her lack of progress and simply teleported herself.
Jaleth heard Qualda hiss in irritation at the physics defying equine, but Jaleth just ignored him and continued to watch the screen. They watched carefully as the equine slowly cantered up to the door. She didn't get close enough to open it, however, apparently content to just stare at the door for a while. “Hmmm...” she said, clearly deep in thought.
After about a minute of this, the equine seemed to reach a decision. She quickly trotted back to the laundry basket, then levitated a pair of trousers and a shirt out of the container.
What happened next completely blew Jaleth's mind.
The light from the unicorn's horn grew brighter and brighter with every passing second. Jaleth noticed that, as the glow around the unicorn's horn grew, so did the aura that surrounded the clothing she was levitating. Then, without any warning whatsoever, the pants turned into a clipboard!
Jaleth blinked. Rubbed her eyes for a bit, then looked again. Yup, the clipboard was still there, and it seemed that the unicorn turned the shirt into writing materials as well.
“How is that even possible?” Qualda mentally shouted in confusion. For the first time since meeting the creepy scientist, Jaleth found herself agreeing with him. Such a thing defied all logic and reasoning. Not only that, but the unicorn did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world!
“How does that even...” she thought out loud, her thoughts becoming incoherent as she watched the universe-breaking unicorn calmly scribe a list on her impossible clipboard with her impossible quill.
She thought she had seen everything now, but was proven wrong when after about ten minutes of this when the unicorn got up, and transmuted some more clothes into what appeared to be a set of saddle bags. She then set the bags on her back, placed the clipboard inside, then made her way over to the laundry room door.
Jaleth felt like she had to pick her jaw up from off the ground though, because as the unicorn made her way towards the door she slowly became more and more transparent. Eventually, she disappeared from view entirely.
“Did she- did she teleport again?” Qualda asked uncertainly.
“No sir, the scanners did not pick up any teleportation signal. It seems like she had managed to turn herself invisible,” the confused technician said.
“How can you be sure?” Jaleth asked him slowly.
However, before he was able to answer that question, the video answered it for him. There was a bright flash of purple light near the door, just like the one that happened in vivisection lab three when the pony had first escaped by teleportation.
“What just happened?” she asked.
“Well, according to the scan logs, there was a teleportation signature that passed through the laundry room door that coincided with that flash. If I was to hazard a guess, I'd say that it turned invisible, then teleported through the door when it couldn't figure out how to open it without becoming visible again,” the technician said.
Jaleth looked at Qualda. The creepy scientist seemed to have mixed feelings about all of this. “Can you track where the specimen went after it became invisible?” he asked uncertainly.
The technichian shook his head ruefully. “Unfortunately, no. The thermal signature disappeared as soon as the alien did. I was about to scan the logs for any more of those teleportation signals when you came in for a status report.” Gelzok said helpfully.
“Good, let me know the moment you find anything,” Qualda said. He turned to leave, but stopped when something seemed to occur to him. “Why weren't the logs being monitored in the first place?” he asked Jaleth pointedly.
Jaleth just rolled her eyes at this. “The site-to-site teleport logs are not considered key to station security, seeing as how the only ones who use that system are security personal, and lazy scientists who think walking is 'beneath someone of their stature,'” Jaleth snarked back at him, annoyance registering clearly in her thoughts.
Qualda didn't even dignify that with a response, however, and instead stormed off, clearly annoyed at the disguised Peli.
“You're playing a dangerous game there, Ma'am,” Gelzok said cautiously.
“You worry too much. Just tell me when you have something,” she said to the worried Dridune.
As she walked away she could only pray that Gelzok wouldn't be able to find the pony before she did.
However, she didn't get very far before Gelzok's thoughts interrupted her reverie.
“Uhh... Ma'am, I think I just found something,” he said nervously.
Figures... I just had to jinx myself, didn't I? she thought to herself. “What do you have?”
“Well, I was quickly running a routine check on all the specimen collars, and I found something... odd...” he said in a confused tone of thought.
“What's wrong Gelzok?”
“Well, all the collars in cell 3 seem to be working fine, except they aren't responding to any signal that I'm sending them. Just let me bring up the video feed for that room so we can see what's happening... and... oh crap...” he said nervously.
Jaleth stared at the screen in disbelief. It hasn't even been two hours since her escape, and the equine was already freeing the other prisoners! Dang that pony works fast! She went straight for the room with Captain Hale, too, She thought to herself.
“Alert Doctor Qualda of this development, and alert the rest of the station as well,” she told the nervous technician.
If the Dridune weren't so busy thinking that she was some sort of alien monster who was going to suck out their organs and lay her eggs in them, they might have thought that allies would have been the pony's first move. Well, luck seems to be playing in your favor today little pony, she thought to herself.
“Ma'am, might I ask what you will be doing while I alert the crew?” Gelzok asked.
She looked at him thoughtfully. "I think I might have a way of solving this whole messy business, but it's going to take me a little bit of time to get it ready. Think you can cover for me until I get back?” she lied.
As soon as she saw him nod his assent, she bolted for her room. If she was going to blow this station when Hivanti arrived, she needed to make sure that the charges were in place.
* * *
“I'll try explaining this again. You've always wanted to fly, right?” Jevik asked in an exasperated tone.
Galvis had to think about this one for a second. “Well... yeah...” he answered.
“And birds are an inferior species, correct?” Jevik continued, pressing his advantage.
“well, yeah...” Galvis agreed reluctantly.
“Well, if one of these beast's genes gave you the ability to fly,” Jevik said, jerking his head towards the bunk that they were guarding. “Wouldn't you jump at the chance to take it?”
“Okay, okay, I see your point. Just because we're superior doesn't mean we have everything,” he agreed grudgingly.
“And THAT'S the point of this whole operation. To make it so that we DO have everything,” Jevik said smugly.
“Yes, but what about the human? As far as I can tell, they don't posses any traits that we as the Dridune would want in our gene pool,” Galvis asked stubbornly.
“I was wondering that myself, asked around a little, and do you want to know what I found out?” Jevik asked thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Well, as it turns out, humans are quick learners. In fact, by the time it takes you to finish basic training, a human is already a highly effective killer, and probably several ranks above you,” Jevik said pointedly. “If we can add that potential to our gene pool, what do you think that would do for our Psywarriors? It would cut the training time in half, that's what it would do.”
“Yeah, but... what abo-HCKKK!!”
Galvis never got a chance to finish his statement. At that precise moment, the door to the bunk that the two guards were stationed at opened. Before either even registered what had happened, both guards were grabbed, pulled into the room behind the door, and subsequently given a not-so-inferior beating into unconsciousness.
* * *
“Grab their weapons, tie them up and leave them here.” Captain Hale ordered as he smashed open the guards Psytranceivers.
Alik and Donny nodded and began working on making sure the two guards stay would be as uncomfortable as possible. While they were busy with that, Hale bent down and picked up the power cells from the wrecked Psytranceivers. He quickly popped open the compartment at his wrist, and plugged the batteries into his power converter.
He knew they wouldn't have too much power inside, but it would be enough to at least get a halfway decent translation matrix going. Almost instantly he saw his battery monitor fill. It didn't ever get to 33% capacity though, before it stopped. Oh well, that will have to do for now.
With a quick mental exercise, he brought up the Linguistics Analyzer and immediately put it to work analyzing the ample language sample that he had recorded from the purple unicorn. It hadn't been as hard as he thought it would be to get it, either, since the unicorn seemed to like to talk to herself a lot when thinking. That had been all that he needed to figure out which language she used. Hopefully her tongue was in his database, otherwise he would have little to no luck in translating anything she said.
While the Linguistics Analyzer was busy doing its thing, he started up his species identification software and activated his Translation Matrix. With any luck, he'd be able to get the civilians to understand him and, hopefully, get them all out of this evil place.
All of this took a matter of seconds. However, it still gave him a bit of a headache whenever he used this particular technology. It also didn't help that this particular tech also had a tendency to make him zone out the moment he activated it.
So he wasn't too surprised when he came to to find the purple unicorn suddenly holding his arm in her hooves, raptly examining the still revealed robotics in his arm. Annoyed, but not surprised.
“Quit it!” he said, jerking his arm away from the curious equine.
She shied away nervously and started to babble: “azlati, manis feri alt concerta! Malis just so fascinating! I haven't seen any thing like it before where I come from, and I was curious to know whether you were a golem, or part golem, and I really didn't mean to offend you! I just-”
Wow, I didn't think her language would be in the database. Hale thought to himself as the translator decoded what the unicorn was saying.
Although he was a bit fuzzy on the specifics of the translators, he knew the basics of how they worked. A long time ago, some scientists had noticed that when certain parts of the brain became damaged, the speech of the victims become garbled. Often victims would replace the b sound with a q sound, but think that what they had said was correct. What the translator basically did was mimic that brain damage in a controlled fashion.
Its database would translate the words others spoke into the user's spoken language. Once that task was complete, it stimulated the part of the brain responsible for speech and changed what the user said and heard. The user might think that he was speaking and hearing his native language, but in reality he was speaking and hearing in a different language. It made communication much easier, but the user had to remember to turn it off or make it switch languages if he wanted to talk with anyone else.
Not to mention that using the tech too much usually gave the user terrible migraines.
“-it's just that, this is so frustrating! First friendly contact with a species not from Equis, and you can't even understand a word I'm saying!” she said, slightly exasperated with herself at rambling on and on to someone who couldn't even understand her.
At least, until recently that is.
“Actually, I can understand you,” he told her.
He grinned at her when she did a double take. Honestly, that never got old.
“Then why didn't you say anything before now?” she asked, a bit exasperated at having to go through all of that.
“I have a device that translates for me,” he explained. “I couldn't use it before because I was low on power.”
She looked like she was about to ask him further about it, but Hale cut her off with a quick gesture. “We really don't have time for a Q&A, I just need to know a few things,” he said seriously.
She looked like she was going to say something else, but quickly thought better of it. “First off, I need to know what you know about the Dridune,” he said seriously.
“The what?” she asked, clearly confused about what he just said.
The human couldn't help but sigh in relief. If she didn't know the name that those arrogant squid-folk introduced themselves as to every race they met, then she probably didn't work for them. The name literally meant “your masters” in the ancient tongue of the Chimeras, firmly establishing how they felt towards every other race with a simple introduction.
“They're those squid-like monsters that have us captive. Anything you might know about them would be useful,” he said, a bit more gently this time.
“Oh! Well, I really don't know anything other than some simple biology that I've been able to gather from remote observation. However, the fact that you know their name implies that you already know more than I do,” she said, understanding dawning on her face.
Huh, got a smart one here, Captain Hale thought to himself as he started to walk away from her.
“Dridune though,” she said thoughtfully, rubbing her chin with her hoof. “That name is a combination of words in Old Equish. It literally means 'your masters' in that ancient tongue,” she said thoughtfully.
Captain Hale did a double take when she had said this. That was most definitely something he had not expected to hear out of the mouth of the purple unicorn.
“I think we need to talk...” Hale said slowly.
Their conversation was going to have to wait though, because at that exact moment an alarm started to sound throughout the base.
Captain Hale quickly switched his Translation Matrix off, just in time to hear Donny shout: “Uh... Sir? Ah don't mean to interrupt, but Ah think those nice gentlemen down the hall there might be want'n a word with you sir,” as he leveled his stolen pistol and opened fire.
“Oh great, this is just perfect...” Hale said sarcastically as he rushed over to where Donny and Alik were firing at the incoming hoards.
He heard screaming from behind him, but ignored it, trusting that Hexomer would be able to find a way to calm the scared civilians. While he wasn't one hundred percent sure that she had translation software in her head, he did know that she worked as part of a diplomatic staff. As such, he felt reasonably sure that she had the best skill-set to deal with the panicking civilians.
...Okay, maybe he was trusting her a little too much with that task, but he had to go where he was needed the most, and that was between the enemy and the innocent.
“Okay! What do we got so far?” he barked to his men.
“It would seem that our playmates have flanked this room and are trying to suppress us with stun fire,” Alik rumbled. “They seem to want to capture us rather than kill us, but I would think that that situation will change if we prove too unruly.”
“Yeah, and they're wearing armor too. These stun-guns ain't gonna do crap to them unless we can get some heavier gear. Maybe slow 'em down, but not by much.”
“Hmm... what's their numbers like right now?” Captain Hale asked quickly.
“There are six coming from this direction, War-Leader,” Alik shouted as he turned the corner to fire again.
“And I gots me four... no five comin in from this direction Sir,” Donny shouted as he ducked for cover. “I reckon that we don't have much time before the rest of the station swoops down on us. If we can break through their line and find a console, I could probably hack their system and screw their scanners over. Otherwise, we won't have a chance, and I'd hate to meet Baznalt this early. I ain't even found meself a wife yet!” he quipped as he turned to fire again.
Hmm... I could send Alik out to take out one of the groups, but the other group would switch their weapons once they realize that stun weapons don't work on Lionels. I need a way to neutralize both groups, and unfortunately, my weapon systems only have enough juice to take maybe one armored foe. Donny is right too, we really don't have time to waste here, Hale thought, trying desperately to figure out a way out of this.
Hale was interrupted from his musings when he felt a tug on the sleeve of his jumpsuit...
* * *
“Sir, I think all they have are a couple of stun-pistols at their disposal,” Halvok whispered to his superior.
“That's perfect. Start moving, dogs! I want this by the book, no casualties on either side if you can help it. You can rough them up if you want, but I don't want any of them dead!” Balvalt whispered to his men.
The Dridune in the front quickly gave a signal, and the five of them burst from cover and charged the prison cell, hissing in rage as they moved forward.
They probably only made it halfway down the hall, though, before they all crashed into a solid purple barrier that seemed to form out of thin air.
“What in the name of-” Balvalt exclaimed in shock.
“How did-”
“A force field? But how?"
Their astonishment quickly turned to terror when the largest Lionel they had ever seen burst out of cover, charging down the hall on all fours towards the other group on the far side of the corridor.
He was fast. Too fast. They could only watch in horror as the Lionel took stun-blast after stun-blast as if they were nothing more than insects. A couple tried to switch weapons, but were too late to stop the primal force that is a charging Lionel.
“Quickly! Switch weapons and punch down this field! We can't let that monster tear through our troops!” Balvalt shouted to his soldiers.
The four under his command quickly moved to obey. Drawing their beam rifles, they turned the weapons on the offending force field and opened fire.
The field held, but Balvalt could see cracks start to appear on the surface of the field. That's odd, Forcefields don't crack. They flash, they weaken, and they fall, but they most certainly do not crack, he thought to himself.
They continued their frantic barrage, but Balvalt could only watch in horror as the Lionel laid waste to the troops on the other side of the hall. Through the field he saw the beast punch, claw, bite and throw his men like they were rag dolls, and he could do nothing to help them.
A few seconds after the monster had reached his troops, he saw at least seven other beasts swarm out of their hiding place and make their way to where the Lionel was decimating his troops.
“Shoot faster you maggots!” he screamed at his soldiers. "There wont be anything left of the other contingent if we don't-”
The thought died in his mind, however, when he saw the alien monsters reach the end of the hall, pick up fallen beam rifles, then turn to face him.
“Back, BACK! RUN YOU FOOLS!!”
The pale biped, Human, he thought was its species name, shouted something in a language that he couldn't understand, then opened fire.
Right at that moment, the purple forcefield fell as well.
Beams of energy tore through Balvalt as he turned to run back towards the safety of cover. He saw a few of his men manage to get off a shot or two, but for the most part they all turned and ran back the way they came. Before darkness took him, Balvalt could just make out the lithe form of Halvok as he reach the bend in the hallway and escape.
He smiled at his last conscious thought; “At... at least my son made it to safety...”
Then he knew no more.