//------------------------------// // Chapter IX // Story: The Nautilus Protocol // by Knight Breeze //------------------------------// Chapter IX Jaleth walked with purpose and determination down the long and winding corridor. Every so often she would pass by a sealed blast door, but paid them little or no attention. After all, she was already in the portion of the science facility that she needed to be in, and she didn't really want to open this part of the base to the security personal. Luckily for her, all of the guards on the station had already abandoned this portion of the base when the pony had first escaped, and the only remaining personal in this section were all engineers. Dead engineers. A few quick commands had flooded the area with a potent nerve gas, ensuring that she would be able to get through this area unmolested. She was sure that she should feel guilty for what she had done, but she couldn't help but remember each and every innocent that these monsters had butchered over the course of her stay. In fact, she would have gassed the rest of the station as well, but two things stayed her hand: One, the bridge did not have any nerve gas attached to its ventilation ducts. Not to mention the fact that if lock-down was initiated, the bridge was hard-coded to seal itself against any attack and to switch to its own private air supply. Two, she couldn't gas the rest of the station for fear that she might hit the escaping prisoners. While it was true that they probably wouldn't be able to escape the facility, she just couldn't bring herself to end their lives. She vowed to give them every opportunity to escape if she could. She quickly ran to the entrance of the engineering bay and opened the door. She knew that she was running out of time; she had monitored all communications in and out of the station since she had discovered that Hivanti was coming, and she knew that Hivanti was double timing it through the system to the station. Because of creepy Qualda's big fat mouth, Hivanti will be here within four hours! I have to work fast if I want to be able to keep my timetable... She thought to herself as she stepped over a dead engineer. She stopped for a second as she adjusted the duffel bag on her shoulder, taking a moment to look around. As she did so, she couldn't help but marvel at just how large the main reactor of the base was. The thing was freaking huge! “That's not really that big of a surprise though.” she gurgled to herself out loud. “The power requirements for creating Psystones is enormous. I'm actually surprised that it isn't bigger than this.” The whole room was probably the size of one of those rugby fields from back home, with the center of the room being dominated by the main antimatter reactor. The antimatter reactor was a huge beast of a thing; she could see huge turbines, pistons, cables, tanks, and catwalks that surrounded the whole thing. At the center though, was the heart of the monster: The antimatter chamber. The antimatter chamber looked like a huge glass tube filled with a weird, blue, viscous liquid. Randomly a brighter, lighter shaded ring of light would streak down from the top of the tube towards the reactor. While she wasn't too sure on the exact physics of the stuff, she didn't really care. All she really cared about is what would happen if she were to blow it up. From what she had heard, it was simultaneously one of the most awe inspiring and fear inducing sights anyone could ever behold. If Jalath still had lips, she would have grinned at that thought. * * * Captain Hale finished his story, then looked down at the horrified expression on the small unicorn. “They are able to control other people?” she asked him, horrified at the thought. “That is the long and the short of it,” he answered her. “ They seem to have a range limit, but we've learned that their ships each have some sort of amplifier built in that allows them to overcome this limitation. These amplifiers also seem to allow them to control more people than they are normally able to,” he said as he shifted himself into a more comfortable position. “we're just lucky that this place doesn't seem to have one around, otherwise we would have already been re-captured and under a dissection table by now.” Twilight shivered at the thought. Memories of the vivisection lab that she escaped from were still very clear in her head. Captain Hale looked down at his hands, suddenly looking very old. Twilight couldn't help but wonder how long he had been fighting this war. "I can't even imagine what you and your people have been going through, fighting an enemy that can turn your friends... against..." Twilight started to say, but trailed off as the thought hit her. "I'm prepared to be defeated ladies, fire when ready." She knew exactly how Captain Hale felt because she had fought the same battle not even six months ago. Hale gave the troubled unicorn an odd look, as if waiting for her to finish what she had started to say. When nothing happened, he waved his hand in front of her face, jolting her back to this world. "You gonna finish that sentence anytime soon?" he asked her. “Well...” she started to say, but was interrupted as Donny walked up to the two of them. Without a word, he reached out, grabbed the Captain's arm, and gave it a sharp twist at a point just above the elbow. With a an audible click the arm came free; much to Twilight's amazement and Hale's apparent annoyance. Donny then walked back to where he was working, arm slung over his shoulder while pointedly ignoring Hale's sudden protests and Twilight's gasp of shock. Hale grumbled at the Peli in disgust, then turned back to Twilight. “I'm sorry you had... to...” he started to say, but trailed off when he noticed that the pony was examining the stump of his right arm. The slight glow coming from her horn and his arm was a bit disconcerting, as was the faintly electric feeling he was experiencing from that. “How does it do that?” she asked after a few seconds, awe apparent in her voice. “Well, I lost some limbs over the course of my career, and I needed some replacement ones,” he told her in a slightly amused tone of voice. “Thats not what I asked. How are you able to move these artificial limbs without magic?” she asked in complete wonder. Magic? Is that what her kind calls what she is able to do? Is my translator even processing that correctly? he shook his head ruefully at the thought. “Well, I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you. I'm a pilot, not a mechanic. If you need to know, I would suggest you speak with Donny over there,” he said, jerking his remaining thumb in the direction of the busy engineer. Twilight got up to do just that, but stopped herself as a thought struck her. She sat back down next to Captain Hale with a slightly sad look on her face. “What's wrong?” Hale asked her. She seemed to hesitate for a second, then told him. “I don't think your friend has one of those translators inside his head. Even if he did, though, he doesn't really have the time to spend explaining otherworldly technologies to me,” she said in a forlorn tone of voice. Captain Hale couldn't help it. They were deep in enemy territory, with the very real possibility that they could be mind-raped at any moment, and she was disappointed that she couldn't find out how something ticks? “What? What did I do?” she asked as the Captain fell over on his side, laughing his head off. “Oh, you are just adorkable! You remind me of my little brother, Sparks, I think you two would get along just fine...” he said as he ruffled her mane with his remaining hand, tears freely streaming from his eyes. She grumbled at him as she batted away the unwanted mussing, which only served to broaden the smile on the chuckling human. They were interrupted from their thoughts, however, by a loud shout from Donny. The strange blue alien was busy... well, she wasn't really sure what he was doing. It looked like some sort of odd dance. He would stand there with his hands on his flanks while he sung some sort of weird tune, gyrating his hips to the beat. Then, seemingly at random, he started jumping in circles while twirling an arm in the air. He repeated this strange act three times before Captain Hale's shouting was finally able to bring him back to reality. Twilight watched in bewilderment as the two conversed for a moment, only to be shocked when Donny started to dance again. While this wasn't too surprising, what really threw her for a loop was the fact that Captain Hale didn't stop him... * * * “Your eminence, we will be leaving Hyperspace in two minutes, and will be able to dock with Research Station Genome in four. Shall we hail them on the subspace radio?” the helmsman asked the Psywarrior. His tone was respectful, just bordering on fearful, with a slight undertone of awe thrown into the mix. As it should be, Hivanti thought to himself with a smirk. “Go ahead and hail them, I don't want any surprises once we land.” “Yes sir!” the communications officer said as she imputed the commands into the console. “Research Station Genome, this is The Dominator. We will be arriving at your station within a few minutes and order you to prepare your docking bay for our arrival.” The only response they received was static. They waited for almost a whole minute before the communications officer tried again. The unease was palpable in the air, more so for Hivanti. He could sense his crew's unease and fear, and while that usually was a good thing, it was less than ideal for this situation. “I'm not taking any chances. All hands to battle-stations!” Hivanti ordered through his Psytransceiver. With an almost neglectful thought, he took control of the tactical officer and had him start the shakedown of the Psionic Amplifier. Releasing the dreg, he then popped open a compartment on his armrest. "I just hope there's someone left alive in there..." he thought grimly as he reflected on what he had learned from Qualda's mind. From this compartment, Hivanti extracted a silver headband with three glowing blue stones set in the circlet. He carefully read the instruments on the band, adjusted a few things on it, then placed it on his head. He was always careful with this device, since the slightest mis-calibration could... Best not think about what COULD happen... he thought to himself. Memories of the last poor soul that had misused one of these things still haunted his nightmares. After making sure that the device was functioning properly, he carefully nestled the circlet on his head. Instantly, every mind within a five hundred kilometer radius from him became open to him, appearing as brightly glowing dots on the mindscape whose color represented their emotional stability and allegiance towards the Empire. While that description wasn't entirely accurate to the experience of detecting the minds around him, it was how Hivanti visualized the experience; and since the interface was constructed from the mind of the user, it was accurate for him. Most of the minds on his ship were green, with a slight tinge of yellow. That signified to him that they were not hostile towards him, yet they were slightly afraid. Probably of him. He ignored those minds and allowed his consciousness to cycle those out of his range of perception. The only minds left on the ship were bright blue; This color represented those souls on his ship that harbored some sort of affection towards him. Whether it was awe, worship, or desire, it didn't matter. Those too he let cycle from his consciousness. With that done, his mindscape was now very quite. "As it should be," he thought with a hiss. “Sir, we will be exiting Hyperspace in three... two... one,” the helmsman told Hivanti. On cue, the ship rocked and shook as it returned to Normal Space. Instantly Hivanti dialed up the Psionic Amplifier's range, doubling his observation distance, but making it impossible to control anything. At this distance, he could feel every mind within a one thousand kilometers, easily allowing him to “see” every mind on the station that appeared on the view screen in front of him. There were currently sixty-one minds operating on board the station. This was a bit disconcerting, seeing that the crew complement of the station was eighty, with an average of twenty-five alien individuals kept on board at any one time (usually less, given Dr. Qualda's predisposition to dissect things). He could feel the aliens that were still being restrained, in his mindscape, they appeared as barely glowing grey dots. These he filtered out with contempt, barely sparing a thought towards them. He then concentrated on the rest of them. there were currently eleven non-Dridune on the move inside the station. He could have easily stopped them all right then and there, but he stayed his hand for a moment longer. He first needed to contact the remaining Dridune aboard and figure out what had happened during the few short hours since he had last checked in. He was pleased to see that the bridge was still under Dridune control. He spent about a minute listening in on their conversations, thoughts and memories to try and get a picture of the situation. He was not happy about what he learned. “Get us within control distance,” he ordered grimly. “It seems that there is a spy on board, and I fully intend to teach him the meaning of pain.” * * * “Almost, and... there! We are in business!” Jaleth gurgled out loud to herself. She was fairly impressed with how quickly everything had fallen together! Now all she needed to do was to remove all of those explosive she just planted. Yes, that was what she needed to do. Then she needed to implement the codes to remove the lock-down, and return control of the station to Qualda. After all, he had done such a good job dissecting the inferior species, he should be allowed to continue. Also, she needed to work quickly in order to be there when Hivanti stepped off his ship. She couldn't be late to greet her master! Deep underneath the implanted personality however, Jaleth screamed her terror at having her mind and body hijacked. She felt helpless, completely at the mercy of an alien intelligence. Deep down, she knew that the Dridune had purposely left this spark of herself underneath. That thought wasn't comforting in the slightest. She had failed.