Chapter XX
With a noiseless explosion, The Purpose warped back into local space, the runes that covered its hull pulsing with energy as the ship powered down.
“How are we doing?” Akitesh asked as she pressed the button for the intercom.
“We’re running pretty smoothly, but I’m going to take the Qu-tai runes off line for now; they were making a rather disturbing sound, and I’d rather figure out why before we try that again. Also, it looks like the dimensional distorters and engines can’t handle that kind of power for extended periods of time,” Alizar responded.
“What makes you say that?” Jedon asked as he shared a questioning look with his priestess.
“Well, the runes that guide those particular systems have started to degrade. They’ll still work, but I’d rather repair the system before we even think about making another jump like that again.”
Akitesh nodded at that, her face twisted in concentration. “Noted. Mentor Vira, is the planet in range?”
“Yes, My Priestess. We appeared a bit too close to the planet’s moon, but I’ve already made a course correction to ensure that we don’t run into it,” the helmsman answered.
“Thank you, Mentor. Deacon Giralt, do you sense anything?”
The deacon at the sensor interface turned to look at Akitesh. “I do, My Priestess. There appears to be two Krin satellites in orbit around the planet. Based on their position, as well as past experience with the Krin, I would extrapolate that they either have a third satellite, or a ship, in orbit on the far side of the planet.”
“Have they detected us yet?” Akitesh asked.
“They have, yet we have received no communications as of yet.”
“Open a channel,” Akitesh said as she rose from her seat. “Attention, unknown Krin force! I am Priestess Akitesh of The Purpose. Please identify yourselves!”
The Quzin on the bridge waited for a full minute of uncomfortable silence, until finally Jedon got up to stand next to his priestess. “Maybe it is only a satellite network left by the downed craft?” he asked hesitantly.
Akitesh shook her head at that. “No, there is more to this, I can feel it. Mentor, take us around the planet, I want to see this third object.”
“Of course, Priestess.”
“Warlord Carr, raise the shields,” Jedon ordered
“I hear and obey,” the warlord at tactical said as he adjusted a few things at his console.
They didn’t have to wait very long before a Krin destroyer came into view. Akitesh was immediately put on edge by this sight, as she not only recognized the ship from her vision, but also saw that the ship’s wings were already unfolded, it’s weapons glowing with power as it waited for The Purpose to come into range.
“All hands! Battlestations!” Jedon shouted just before the Krin ship opened fire.
Right as the bridge shook slightly from the impact of the Krin missiles and plasma fire, the lights dimmed, and the bridge’s Tel-mar rune came online; a rune that not only enhanced the concentration of everyone caught in its soothing light, but also allowed them to process information much faster.
“The enemy is moving at mark four, and is trying to strafe us. Powering up our disintegrator cannons now-” Warlord Carr announced.
“No, instead deploy countermeasures, as well as our energy siphon drones,” Akitesh ordered. “I also want a line of disruption torpedoes to light up her nose.”
“I beg your pardon, Priestess, but this is clearly an act of war. We must-”
“Did I stutter, Warlord?” Akitesh asked, not even bothering to turn towards her tactical officer. “I want them alive, please do not make me repeat myself.”
“Firing now. Apologies, Priestess, I spoke out of turn,” Carr said as he relayed orders to Tactical through his console.
“I understand your hesitation, but please, trust me on this. We want them alive, and their ship undamaged, if possible,” Akitesh answered him. She then turned to her helmsman, her two left eyes closing as she thought about what to do next. “Vira, I want you to make evasive movement towards the planet’s sun. Keep the star at our back, and power up our Star Harness.”
“Priestess, you can’t possibly be thinking of throwing the star at them. Not only do we need a whole fleet for that, but it would kill them even faster than our disintegrator cannons would!” Jedon said in disbelief.
“I am aware of that. I do not want to use the Star Harness’s primary function. Rather, I believe we may need to make use of its secondary function: a solar flare,” Akitesh answered. “Do not use the Star Harness until I give the word, however: We do not want to reveal our power too early.”
“Reveal to whom, Priestess?” Jedon asked as they started to move towards the star, barely avoiding another round of plasma with their movement.
“I… cannot say. Just keep pressure on them, and inform me the instant their shields are down,” Akitesh said as she sat back down in her seat, her tail coiling up in front of her chair as she did so.
“I beg your pardon, Priestess, but without our disintegrator cannons, the enemy will be able to breach our shields before we’re able to breach theirs,” Carr interjected.
“I am aware of that. I also do not think we’ll be fighting this battle alone,” she answered cryptically.
Jedon and Carr both gave her a questioning look at that, but otherwise held their peace. “Carr, how does the Star Harness look?” Jedon asked as the ship reached its position.
Carr didn’t answer at first, his face clouding over with a look of pure confusion. “...That can’t be right…” he said after a few moments.
“What is it?” Jedon asked.
“Sir… readings indicate that the star is already harnessed to something on the planet. The aura harnessing it is strange, shifting, almost as if it were alive. I cannot synchronize with it,” Carr answered.
“That can’t be good…” Jedon said, gritting his fangs in frustration.
“It can’t be helped,” Akitesh told him with a dismissive wave. The Star Harness was merely a preventative measure anyway, in case the cowards were lying in wait as they did in my vision, she thought to herself. “Anyway, redirect all power being used for the Star Harness to the ship's shields, but keep the star at our backs for now.”
“Yes-” Carr started to say, but stopped when the Krin ship in front of them suddenly stopped firing. “Uh… The enemy has stopped. In fact, they’ve completely shut down: weapons, shields, engines. They’re dead in the water, My Priestess.”
At this, Akitesh stood up again, her face breaking out in a grin. “There we go. I want a boarding team ready in five minutes. Ensure that a medical team goes with them.”
“Y-Yes, Priestess,” Carr said after a few seconds, still clearly trying to comprehend what he had just seen.
“However, they must take a shuttle. Keep our ship at a distance, and only drop our shields when the shuttle is ready to launch,” Akitesh said as she moved towards the viewscreen. “Lower the threat level of the ship, but the crew is to remain on high alert.”
“Yes, Priestess,” Jedon said as the Tel-mar runes powered down, returning the bridge to its normal level of illumination.
* * *
Sergeant Casianon looked up blearily at the hissing, sparking noise coming from the airlock. He was faintly aware of the fact that he should be doing something about that, but between the blown off legs and the drugs he had taken to take the edge off the pain, he really couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Let the freaking captain take care of it, just let me enjoy the pink zargins in peace,” he grunted as he let himself slump down to his side. In truth, the drug he had taken wasn’t a hallucinogen, so he wouldn’t be experiencing anything of the sort anytime soon. It did, however, make him a lot more relaxed, as well as give him a bit of a high. So it wasn’t too far of a stretch for him to be cracking such a joke.
That, and the fact that he felt he needed some humor to take the edge off of the whole dying thing he was experiencing.
He looked up blearily, watching with morbid fascination as the airlock was casually cut open from the other side, the huge steel door falling forward, crushing one of Casianon’s dead team members underneath its weight. As soon as the door opened, four lith forms slithered out of the hole it left behind. “Move! Secure the… by the Maker, what happened here?” A voice said in High Quzin as all four stopped to take stock of the scene in front of them.
The hallway was covered in grey Krin blood, its owners strewn about the hallway, laying haphazardly where they had died. From the walls and ceilings of the corridor they could see a number of point defense weapons, all broken or burnt, or missing entirely, leaving nothing but smoldering stubs where they once rested.
“The… The ship’s computer…” Casianon grunted as he pulled himself into a reclining position. He heard some shuffling, slithering sounds, as well as someone shouting ‘Don’t move!’, but that hardly mattered to him at that point.
“Please, warrior, put down your weapon. Unless, of course, you’re suggesting that this crippled Krin could possibly be a threat?” Casianon heard someone ask. He blearily looked up, getting his first, real look at a Quzin without battlearmor.
The Quzin were long, but rather short when they stood up. From the tips of their tails to the top of their heads they measured in at around ten feet in length, bending in half near the middle so that they could stand upright when they slithered around. Their upper halves were highly reminiscent of a hominid’s, having two sets of arms arms, all of which ended in hand-like claws. Their scales were a dark gray, and seemed to almost glisten in the dim emergency lights that illuminated this part of the ship.
Despite so many similarities to reptilian bioforms, however, the Quzin possessed heads that were only vaguely serpentine. They had almost no snout to speak of, their faces being far flatter, with only a slightly protruding nose that sat in the center. They also had an additional set of slitted eyes, positioned just a few centimeters above their first set. All of this added up to create a face that was far more expressive than a Krin’s, allowing for a much more common range of expressions than the Krin’s twitching antennae would allow.
The Quzin in front of Casianon was dressed in a green suit, with the image of a large, red, flying reptile of some kind splashed on the front. In his right hand, he carried a green case with a similar emblem splashed on its side, while in his left he carried some kind of rod-like device that was pointed squarely at Casianon’s chest. “What’s your name, warrior?” the Quzin asked softly in Casianon’s native tongue.
“I-I’m Sergeant Casianon. W-We surrender. Captain told us to surrender, we surrender…” Casianon said faintly as a soft, soothing light washed over him.
“Shhh… It’s okay, I understand. Sleep for now,” he hushed softly as he slithered closer, the grey blood staining his otherwise pristine green lower garment. “Warrior, call The Purpose, I have the distinct feeling that we’re going to need a lot more healers. See if the Priestess will also spare a mage or two, since we'll probably be needing them before too long as well…” Casianon heard right before he slipped into unconsciousness.
* * *
“How are you holding up, Chief?” Yvtil asked as she applied another bandage to the reclining technician.
“I’ll live…” he grunted as he leaned forward to allow the commander to reach his back. “Can’t say the same for whoever did this to my boys and my baby.”
“I know. We’ll get her up and running again in no time, you’ll see,” Yvtil said with a twitch of her remaining antennae.
“I don’t care about that. My baby’s a thing, we can always get her working again with enough effort. My boys, on the other hand,” he said, gesturing towards the carnage laid out before him. “Those are lives we’ll never get back.”
“I know what you meant, Chief. I was trying to keep you occupied with other things, rather than dwell on your subordinates,” Yvtil said as she sat down heavily next to the wounded technician, her three remaining legs folding up underneath her. “Why did the computer do that, though? A hack? A saboteur?”
“No, at least, not like that it wasn’t. They wouldn’t have been able to gain administrative privileges like that, at least, not so quickly. We also would have spotted a stowaway on board by now,” he answered, adjusting himself a little.
At that, however, Yvtil gasped as something occurred to her. “Chief, we do have a stowaway on board.”
He looked at her at that, his antennae twitching in confusion, at least until it dawned on him what she meant. “No, we purged that traitor’s clearance from the system!”
“Yes, but he had administrative privileges before he was found out, since he was Special Operations and everything. In fact, up until he was relieved of duty, he was the highest ranking officer aboard the ship!” Yvtil pointed out.
Chief Alz pondered that for a few seconds. “It’s possible that Ilisk could have planted a virus, but-” he started to say, but stopped when he heard a faint hum coming from the door in front of them. He straightened up a bit at that, giving his commander a death glare. “So help me, if they harm my baby any more than she already has, I’m going to rip their throats out.”
Before Yvtil could answer, however, the doors to the reactor room started to glow a faint green, then were forcefully pulled apart, revealing four serpentine Quzin. Only one was armed, however, which immediately put the two injured Krin at ease.
“High Deacon, I’ve got two more down in engineering. We’ll need two more healers, as well as more mages. It looks like their power core has been heavily damaged,” the one in the lead said in High Quzin.
“Yeah, that would be our fault,” Yvtil piped up in their language.
“Smart thinking, but what if we had been trying to kill you?” one of the Quzin said as she slithered up to the two Krin, a glowing metal rod in her hand.
“We would have died anyway, whether or not our ship still had power,” Yvtil said as she groaned in relief. “Thanks for not killing us by the way. Do you know how many of my people survived?”
“I take it you’re the captain of this ship then?” the green-clad Quzin asked, her eyebrow ridge rising.
“No, you want Captain Hazalk. He’s still stuck on the bridge, the last time I checked,” Yvtil said with another groan. “I’m his second in command, Commander Yvtil, and this is our Chief Technician, Alz.”
“And you better not touch anything over there, you two!” the chief said, shaking his only remaining limb at the two, blue garbed Quzin that were inspecting the broken power core. “She may be a broken piece of junk, but she’s my broken piece of junk!”
“Apologies, archmage,” the closest of the two Quzin said with a bow. “We mean no disrespect, and will not touch anything without your guidance.”
The other one, however, did not stop his inspection of the powercore for an instant. “How in all of creation were you able to inflict this kind of damage without destroying your whole ship? It should have overloaded and destroyed you all!” he gasped in amazement.
“Trade secret. And I’m no… wizard, or whatever you call it…” Alz said as the green robed Quzin in front of him attached some kind of device to his head.
“You are the Chief Technician, yes?” the healer asked with a raise of an eyebrow ridge. “We call all those that practice any form of applied science, or have a high degree of technical skill, mages. As you are the leader of the mages aboard this ship, that makes you the Archmage.”
“Well, thanks for the respect, but I’m not exactly an archmage anymore,” Alz said, sweeping his remaining arm towards the dead bodies that littered the room.
“My apologies,” the healer said as she activated the two devices that she had placed on both Krin’s heads. “But you are still the Archmage, even if your colleagues have already passed beyond the Wall of Tears.”
Neither of the two Krin heard her, however, as they had already been rendered unconscious by the devices that she had placed on them. “Warrior, inform the Priestess that it does seem that the ship turned upon her crew. Also, inform her that, with the addition of the commander and archmage, that brings the survivor count up to thirteen.
“Actually, the count is thirty-three. Charel and her team just broke into medical, and say that most of the healers there survived, due mainly to the ship’s lockdown procedures,” the large Quzin corrected.
“That’s still not a lot. The crew compliment of this ship is three-hundred fifty. That’s a lot of dead or unaccounted-for Krin,” the healer said as she started to levitate the two broken Krin onto stretchers.
“It’s still better than our initial estimates, all things considered,” the warrior said as he turned to leave the room.
* * *
“Don’t worry kid, you’ll be fine,” Sergeant Verilo said as she sprayed the private’s wounds with biosealer. “This may hurt like the infernal pit, but at least you won’t bleed out.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t think the turret was going to throw a bouncer right then. I actually thought it had run out by that point,” the private said with a grimace.
“Sixth rule of a firefight, kid. Never assume that the enemy has run out of anything. Even if they’re dead, they might have rigged a deadman’s switch to go off right after you nail ‘em,” Verilo said as she finished wrapping the private up.
“Yes, ma’am,” the private answered weakly.
“Ma’am, we’ve ripped out the computer, and we’re installing a new one now. Corporel Swaz also reports that he can hear strange sounds coming from the other side of the exit door,” Verilo heard one of her privates say behind her.
“Good, it’s probably the Quzin. I’ve already received word from medical that they’ll be on their way,” Verilo said as she stood up. “Keep helping Jor with that spare, I’ll go see what the snakes have to say. I just hope they don’t take too long to get the door open.”
As it turned out, Verilo didn’t have to wait long at all, as they had already begun to rip it out using their strange, unnatural abilities as she entered the computer core’s main hall. “Hello? I heard that you have wounded down here?” Verilo heard someone say in Krin as soon as the door came loose.
Verilo sunk into a semi-bow as three green-clothed Quzin, followed closely by two blue clad ones as well as a soldier, entered the room. “Yes, we do. They’re all in the back, near the computer core offices. Luckily, none of my team died, though we did lose most of our computer techs before we were able to rescue them.”
“Are any of them still conscious? We need to get the life support systems back online as soon as possible, and we cannot do that without a computer,” one of the blue clad ones quickly piped in.
“We have only one, but she is also one of our best. She’s already working on getting the backup up and running, but it may take her some time. My soldiers aren’t exactly trained to help in this kind of situation…” Verilo said, but trailed off when the blues quickly slithered past her.
“Not to worry, we’ll aid your mage in getting your computer running again!” one of them said in a rush as they left the hallway. They weren’t the only ones to leave, either, as they were quickly followed by the green clad Quzin as well, leaving Verilo with the soldier that had accompanied them.
“Wow, I’m impressed,” she said as the remaining snake person slithered closer.
“By what, warrior?” the soldier asked through his helmet.
“I was expecting you to be angry with us, to start shooting before we were able to surrender. It’s only been twenty minutes since we lost power, though, and you already have techs and medics over here?” Verilo asked wearily.
“We work fast. Though, to be honest, the blood-covered hallways were a convincing enough argument to let us know that this skirmish was not your fault,” the armored Quzin said as he shouldered his weapon.
“How many did we lose?” Verilo asked, shutting her eyes. Her antennae would have been wriggling in agitation at that point, had she not lost them completely to a random energy blast from one of the point defense weapons.
“We… we still don’t know. Last I was informed, we had found roughly one hundred and fifty dead, as well as fifty-six wounded, yourself included. In fact, with the exception of the people in medical, you’re the least wounded we’ve found so far,” he said softly.
“So that’s…”
“Seventy-six that have survived so far, with the exception of the bridge. I am afraid I am unfamiliar with the inner workings of your ship, and have no idea how many staff-”
“Eighty, then. It’s usually the captain, the commander, the communications officer, and the helmsman,” Verilo said.
“What about your tactical officer?”
“That would be the commander,” Verilo answered, her voice oddly dead.
“Are… are you going to be alright?” the yet unnamed Quzin asked carefully.
“No, not until that traitor has been forcefully shoved out an airlock,” Verilo spat out as she stomped angrily out of the hall.
* * *
Hazalk sighed with relief as the lights came back on in the bridge, lifting the lockdown that it had been placed under. “Thank goodness, we were starting to run out of air. I need a status report, now!”
“The computer reports a breach in our hull in sector seven, though we’re not venting atmosphere,” Talian quickly said.
“That’s probably the Quzin boarding party. What else?”
“The secondary computer is up and running perfectly, and obeys all our commands. We should still run a diagnostic on it later though, just in case,” Wendalaz said. “In addition, I’m not getting any readings from our power core; it is likely that the Quzin boarding party has hooked up a spare, rather than repair ours. I’m unsure how good it’s output will be though, so I would only suggest the basics for now.”
“Noted. Put us back into synchronous orbit, and-”
“Uh… sir? We have a problem,” Talian interrupted, her antennae flattening behind her head in fear.
“What is it?”
“There’s a tactical drop pod missing, and Agent Ilisk isn’t in his cell. In fact, he’s not on board at all,” Talian said shakily.
The silence that followed this statement was oppressive, punctured only by the faint ringing from Talian’s console, letting them know that they were being hailed.
“...Open a channel,” Hazalk finally said after he had had a chance to calm himself down a bit. This was going to be rather difficult to explain, but he hoped that the commander of the Quzin vessel was in an understanding mood.