Whitmore Day Read online

  She moved the few lingering pieces in front of the now visible door to the side with her Lachka as she took a closer look behind with her Essence sight. She could see the glowing markers of people beyond, some of which were very bright, indicating Essence skills.

  Morgan had never seen minions with Essence abilities. Not infantry anyway.

  Now the gaggle outside the door made sense if they were guarding something inside. Perhaps some higher ranking minions they hadn’t seen before, or even some scientists? Whatever it was, she was getting in there, and Morgan ignited and sank her right death saber into the door frame…only to have it not penetrate more than a scratch.

  She applied more pressure, getting it to move a tiny bit, but at this rate it would take forever to cut through the door.

  Morgan moved down the hallway a bit and tried on the wall, finding the same resistance.

  “Damn. I sure want to know what you guys build with,” she said, extinguishing the blade and instead peeling back the armor over her right palm to expose the slit in her hand that had not gone away with her transformation into a Furyan. Instead the baby Bra’hem inside had gotten an upgrade, but she knew it wouldn’t do a lot more than her blade, so she used an Essence technique the Archons had developed some time ago and recently modified for what they now called a Bra’stem. The energy produced was now more than twice as powerful thanks to their genetic upgrade, and the medtechs still hadn’t figured out why yet.

  But Morgan didn’t need to know to use it, and opened her slit ever so slightly to produce a very fine beam the height of her thumb and a quarter inch wide. The now red beam burned into the door as she returned to it and chose the middle, pulling a Qui-gon and carving out her own person-sized opening.

  Her cutting did make it through, slowly, but didn’t hit anything on the other side, for her Essence technique stopped the beam a few inches beyond her hand and redirected it backward, bouncing it over and over and conserving the energy expended when it made it all the way through. Morgan moved her hand around, creating a crude circle slightly taller than her over the course of a few minutes, then just before she finished coming back to the top and severing the last strand, she gripped the door plug with her Lachka to hold it steady as she finished.

  The Archon pushed it in and tipped it forward, laying it down on the ground with the rim of it and the door glowing a sickly green from the heat still lingering in them as the few molten beads had already hardened into now glowing globs.

  And beyond the opening Morgan saw other people, not Hadarak, from races she had never before seen.

  The fully armored trailblazer stepped through casually, only to have several short spikes thrown through the air towards her, but a wave of her hand caught them in an energy field, then casually dumped them to the floor beside her.

  “Be nice,” she said, with the hundreds of people here scurrying this way and that, with a few small groups actually heading towards her from various angles.

  Morgan detected Essence buildup in several of them, as well as other psionic-ish things happening, as her spidey sense started screaming at her, but she wasn’t going to turn and run. Instead she decided to strike first…or second, if you count the futile spikes.

  Morgan went Saiyan level 3 and zoomed ahead, heading for one of the psionic users then diverting to the left at the last moment to get to her real target…one of the Essence wielders. She put up every defensive technique she knew, including powering her armor’s technological Essence shield, and didn’t try anything offensive. That wasn’t Morgan’s style, or strength. Her hand to hand skill was.

  She used her Lachka to grab the tentacle-like hexped and drag it closer rather than push it away, catching it offguard as she moved in to slice it with her death sabers, only to have them blocked on an invisible Essence field as slippery as could be, but when Morgan’s shoulder hit it, one of her techniques must have nullified the enemy’s defense, for her body moved through and she rammed it between the third and four leg ‘shoulder’ joints and felt several ribs crack as it was still simultaneously moving towards her.

  A third of her defenses were drained immediately, and she knew that at this close range it was do or die, so when the enemy rebounded off her after the collision, she brought up her right arm and let loose with her Bra’stem without any time for Essence enhancement…and cored a hole through his angled torso that then extended up like a lance through his upper body and crab-like head, nearly bisecting him in less than a second.

  Morgan spun and darted before he hit the ground, moving ahead of some energy field that just missed her from one of the psionic users. She reached out and crushed his neck with her Lachka, surprised that the attack got through, while simultaneously throwing a Jumat blast into a group on her left to knock them back and give her time to maneuver. Even in Saiyan mode there was a considerable amount of distance to travel in the large room that appeared to be a command center or viewing station, for there were numerous terminals and holograms, including a giant one of the system directly over their heads.

  Several more attacks missed due to her speed, but then she took another Essence attack that drained her countermeasures to almost nothing. That put her into extra lethal mode, and her Saiyan speed increased further, as did her mental processing and all other body functions. She’d flirted with this during training, but this was the first time experiencing it full force, and she didn’t have a name for it yet, nor did that matter. These opponents were not Hadarak, but they were extremely lethal, and had fired on her first. Now she had no option but to kill them or run before they killed her, and she was well away from the doorway that was now obscured by a group of them attempting to cut off her possible retreat.

  So be it, she decided, launching herself like a missile towards the nearest Essence user and leaping over him at the last moment and dragging her death sabers down across his head, finding them also useless, but she fired off a Jumat at the same time as well as several mental psionics to the surrounding group trying to slow down or distract them.

  Her Jumat knocked him to the floor, then as his throat suddenly constricted and he pushed against it with an Essence technique to relieve the pressure, several Dre’mo’don blasts from Morgan’s wrist hit him in his unarmored back, burning through the clothes and skin as she was already on her way to her next target.

  Back and forth she moved, feeling her opponents adapting to her and landing brushing attacks against her despite her erratic and blurry movements, which was when she finally used her Neeko Furyan ability that she and she alone had developed, creating two visual copies of herself using forcefields and pseudo holograms. Both they and her became shrouded, so you couldn’t tell which was which, and she managed to draw off several attacks as she launched herself towards the biggest Essence signature in the room, which came from a body half her size.

  Morgan slid underneath another Essence attack and kicked the small alien in the chest, knocking him backwards as she shot him with her wrist-mounted cannons, taking him out quickly, though his attack hit and disintegrated two other people behind her that had not been engaged in the fighting and were cowering along the walls, exposing a third behind them that somehow blocked the attack on himself.

  The Furyan used one trick after another, often having to launch three or four attacks at an opponent in rapid succession to allow just one to get through, and fortunately none of those assembled here were wearing armor or technology of any kind, let alone a symbiont like the Neofan and now the Varkemma had.

  Morgan didn’t want to wear one, but would have liked the back up now, though before she realized it the fighting was over, with the last attacker crumpling to the ground with a hole in his chest the size of a football and Morgan standing several meters away as she slowed to a stop from her attack run, watching and scanning those remaining on the fringes.

  “Are we done?” she demanded, breathing heavily and suddenly feeling a heavy headache set in. She’d been using something new in her physiology, and she was
pretty sure she’d overloaded it, but she wasn’t going to tell them that.

  “Well done,” a voice with a very weird accent said from the back of one of the huddling crowds in the Star Force language as the others pulled away to reveal a spider-like creature two meters wide and wearing skin-tight robes that had flaps here and there, but otherwise was a body suit that came all the way up to the neck that poked out of the middle of the top of the body and angled forward. “I did not expect you to survive the first three engagements.”

  “Are there going to be more?” Morgan said, turning to face the creature while keeping her Pefbar and other senses covering the others.

  “We disagreed how to approach you when you were killing the Hadarak outside. Aggression was not the preferred way, but the habits of some races are too strong for wisdom to override. You are securing this system, and even if we killed you we would have to deal with the others in your empire, and Star Force is not rumored to take kindly to the killing of its people.”

  “The rumor is correct. Identify yourself,” Morgan said, trying to lock down the shaking in her arms and legs that wouldn’t seem to stop.

  “We are observers from other galaxies. Our names you would not recognize.”

  “Allies of the Hadarak?” Morgan said, taking a guess.

  “Acquaintances would be a better term,” another of the aliens answered, walking up on Morgan’s left but keeping a respectful distance. “We heard there was someone resisting one of their purges, and we came to observe your techniques and how long you would last. We did not expect you to know of this place, let alone find it and take it from the Hadarak. You were not meant to know we were watching.”

  “Why did the ‘watchers,’” Morgan said sarcasm heavy enough that she hoped he understood, “try to kill me?”

  “We are not used to being in combat,” he admitted.

  “Nor are we used to kneeling before inferiors,” a third alien said, this one standing twice as tall as Morgan, but was so spindly it looked like he could barely stand, though the Essence glow in him was quite bright, meaning he had skills. “Unlike you, we have an armistice with the Hadarak and many other races. We do not fight one another, nor do we take orders from one another. You coming here is unheard of, and they reacted in the way they thought best. Your combat skills were not recorded as being this ferocious.”

  “Recorded by whom?”

  “This facility is an ancient one that monitors this galaxy and records the major happenings. It has been studying Star Force for some time. Your ships were said to have Essence weaponry, which the Hadarak confirmed, but your skills are beyond such technology. How did you develop them?”

  “I don’t feel like sharing,” Morgan said, beginning to pace so her increasing shakes wouldn’t show. “So what now? Are you going to attack me, call the Hadarak to do it, or something else?”

  “Unfortunately we are your prisoners,” the spider-alien said. “The Hadarak transported us here, and you have taken away our means of leaving.”

  “More than just neighbors then.”

  “Our relationships are more complicated than you can understand.”

  “We can discuss that later. Who threw the spikes?”

  The aliens turned towards one in particular, ratting him out with startling apathy, as the bulbous quadruped retreated a step.

  Morgan tried to reach into his mind, only to be blocked, then she pointed a finger at him. “That one was free. Next time you get hit back.”

  The alien slumped with relief, but didn’t speak.

  “I am translating for those who did not learn your language,” another said, this one an obvious shapeshifter that appeared to be floating mist going through numerous forms. “He will not strike you again.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Not long. This facility was only recently discovered by the Hadarak, but we have been in this galaxy observing you from lesser vantage points soon after your barrier wall stopped the Hadarak advance.”

  “Did you come through the high mass gravity wells in galactic center?”

  “Of course.”

  “On Hadarak ships or your own?”

  “Our own. But travel throughout the galaxy would expose us, so we allow our hosts to take us to the most interesting places.”

  “Expose what?”

  “Things you do not know or understand. If you did, you would have run away when you saw us.”

  “That powerful, huh?” Morgan scoffed.

  “More so,” another alien said, a biped similar to Morgan’s form, only larger. “I could have killed you if I wanted, but I chose not to. Be grateful.”

  “I’m not in the grateful mood after what just happened,” she glared back at him through her helmet.

  “You will not be attacked again,” the spider said forcefully. “We have decided as much. Killing you would mean we would never again leave this place if your fleet removes the Hadarak. Negotiation is our only logical course of action.”

  “Then why didn’t you stop the others?”

  “We have no right to do so.”

  “Apathetic then?”

  “Allowing each to do as they wish is the only path to peace at our level. You are not on our level and would not understand, though I do appreciate your situation in the war against the Hadarak and do not begrudge you your mindset. You have a right to defend yourself against them.”

  “But you won’t stop them from murdering everyone in sight?”

  “It is not our place. They do as they wish, we do as we wish, and avoid each other.”

  “What is this chamber?” Morgan asked, still pacing and not wanting to show weakness in case they changed their minds about fighting.

  “A place where we can view everything we wish,” the shapeshifter said. “We have been watching your battles in space with great interest. You seem to understand how to defeat the Hadarak. The question that remains is do you have the power to overcome a larger war of attrition.”

  “That’s the plan,” she said, having enough of this. “You remain in this room. You answer questions we have. And we will drop you off in a neighboring Hadarak system assuming they’ll take you. I have no interest in keeping you prisoners long term.”

  “That is more than gracious of you,” the spider said, clicking its face mandibles together. “We will not attempt to escape, though there are biological needs this chamber cannot fulfill for us. We have several prepared areas nearby that we will highlight for you and we will remain in them or here. Is that satisfactory?”

  “Possibly. I need to confirm what they are and what they can do.”

  “We shall stay here until your curiosity is met. In the meantime, you will want to retire and rest. Your body is overwhelmed with the stress of battle.”

  “I’ve been through worse,” Morgan said, peeved that it was so visible. “Are any of them revivable?”

  “Not with the wounds you inflicted,” the tall, frail one stated flatly.

  “If you don’t interfere with each other, then don’t interfere with their bodies. They stay as they lay,” she said, looking at the spider.

  “Agreed.”

  “Can you tell the Hadarak to leave the facility?”

  “They will not respond to our orders, only allow us access to their ships as if we were their own. We are otherwise invisible to them.”

  “Why were they guarding the door?”

  The spider pointed up, with Morgan looking to see a Hadarak growth on the very high ceiling wrapped around what looked like inverted skyscrapers.

  “What is it?”

  “One of their organizational units. It coordinates with others in the area, though its telepathic signals are being blocked by the facility. Those outside were couriers waiting to deliver messages.

  “Is it surrendering as well?”

  “No. But I believe it did send off a courier before you destroyed the rest. There may be more of them coming to reclaim this location.”

  “And you’re
just going to observe?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wonderful,” Morgan said, turning her back on them and heading for the doorway she’d cut. When she got outside and out of view she slumped against the wall, not wanting to think about how close she came to dying.

  Morgan raised her left arm, and mentally ordered a tiny piece of her gauntlet to detach. It morphed into a little orb and shot off down the corridor the way she’d come with orders to retrace her steps and send a message to the V’kit’no’sat troops in the building. She needed a perimeter established near this area, but well away from these ‘observers’ who she had a feeling were some of the major powers that Azoro had warned Paul about.

  And she’d just killed 27 of them in solo combat.

  “Huh,” Morgan said, pleased with that part of the situation, but not her vulnerability against the others, some of whom she guessed might even more powerful by their Essence glows flares when she’d insulted them…though that wasn’t a strict way of measuring power, for it could be misleading on the low end.

  Right now though, she was going to take them at their word and move on the other direction to see if reinforcements were coming. If they were she wanted to fight them far away of these potential backstabbers.

  And if they weren’t coming, she still wanted to get away…at least until her limbs stopped shaking.

  Morgan walked down the corridor and stepped over the minion pieces as she used her armor to review her battle, finding that her movement speed had indeed surpassed anything she’d ever approached before, in battle or training. Whatever she had done was new, and her body was absorbing the first training effect from it…meaning she was going to be very ‘sore’ in some way or another.

  “Why did I have to come down here alone?” she groaned, keeping watch on the Essence signatures behind her until she got too far out of range to monitor the group who was so far keeping their word and staying put.

  7

  December 8, 154960

  System 9923004 (Hadarak-Occupied Territory)