Vivid Stars Online

I focused on the Well of energy inside me as we moved. While my practice had diminished the energy inside, I could feel a small trickle of energy flowing back from the outside world.

It feels almost like a filtering effect, I mused as we turned the last few corners to the stairway down. Like part of me is pulling trace amounts of Psi energy from the air and funneling it into my Well.

The soft echo of alarms pulled me from my thoughts. “Do you two hear that?” I asked.

“Yes,” Linnea replied, quickening her pace. “Sounds like it’s coming from the floor below us.”

I hurried to follow her, worried about what might be happening downstairs. It looked like I may have spent too long in the Arkathian chamber after all. By the time we made it to the stairs, I could clearly hear a familiar claxon sound, the same one that had heralded all our problems so far.

With it came the same voice as well. “I’ll translate,” Elana yelled over the noise. “Just a minute.”

I nodded back at her before advancing down the stairwell. Linnea followed a beat behind me, with Elana taking up the rear.

Upon reaching the bottom, I found two of the three passageways in front of me covered by glowing force fields. The third passage was entirely clear, without even a hint of a failing field.

“Well, that’s ominous,” I said, staring at the passage on our left. It led further into the facility and was one of the routes that had been blocked off earlier. “Looks like it’s used all the second floor’s power to stabilize the fields of its choice,” I continued, turning back to the others.

“Looks like,” Elana nodded in reply. “Translation should be up in a second.” A moment later, her watch began echoing the announcement in English.

“Warning Self Destruct initiated. You have twenty-seven minutes remaining to evacuate.”

“Fuck,” I swore. “I think I made it mad when I used the temple room.”

“I’m not so sure,” Linnea responded, staring at the open hallway. “If it just wanted to take us out, then why the long-timer? Why leave a way forward and not just lock us up in force fields? No, I think the self-destruct warning is a hammer, designed to force us to go where it wants.”

Calming down somewhat, I nodded in response. “Right, so do we go along with it or try to escape? Any ideas?”

“I’m not sure we can escape,” Elana said, looking worried. “I can’t take these force fields down, we found that out earlier. While we might be able to loop back around to the hanger entrance using the maintenance shaft, I’m sure it got that locked down as well.”

“I say we follow the path it’s laid for us,” Linnea said, her face set in a look of focused concentration. “While it will probably be dangerous, it’s the fastest way for us to shut down the self-destruct. If that leads us into a trap, so be it. We’ll just fight our way through.”

I was getting the feeling that she was not fond of whatever was running this facility. I wasn’t either, it had made this entire trip far more difficult than I had expected. I also rather agreed with the sentiment, it would be best to face this head-on.

There was just one thing I had to confirm first. “Can you shut off the self-destruct?” I asked, turning to Elana.

She looked worried but determined. “If you can get me to the main control room, I should be able to,” she said with a shrug. “I can’t fight an AI digitally, I’m not a programming specialist, but I should be able to physically disable the hardware if I can get access to it.”

“OK,” I said, turning toward the empty hallway on our left. “That’s the plan then, we get Elana to the main control room and keep her safe while she disables the system.” I checked that Elana and Linnea were on board, and then moved forward at their answering nods.

We moved through twisting hallways, forced to take a particular path at each intersection. I kept a close eye on my scanner read-out to make sure we weren’t just being led in circles.

We weren’t, instead, we were being taken on an almost direct path further into the facility. Minutes passed as we progressed, easily tracked by the facility's announcements counting down the remaining time.

I’d expected to face more enemies, either robots or more Beasts. Yet the journey was oddly calm, with no danger presenting itself. Finally, we arrived at another massive steel door shortly after the countdown hit twenty minutes.

I approached and looked up at it, wondering if we’d need to get Elana to force the door again. As I grew near, however, it split open with a deep grinding noise.

“Get ready,“ I said as I drew my pistol and braced myself for anything. Behind me, I could hear the clanking sound of Linnea’s long rifle transforming. She must be getting ready to snipe, I thought as I aimed at the door.

As it slid open, I could see inside the room, revealing a massive space filled with electronic equipment. It looked like one of those massive server rooms you saw in movies with towering stacks everywhere the eye could see.

Then two turrets extended down from the ceiling. They looked to be like the guns the robots had wielded, though on a far larger scale. Each of their multiple barrels was larger than the one on my pistol.

Frantically, I glanced around, looking for cover. Unfortunately, our options were extremely limited in this long corridor. The walls were entirely smooth, the only place we could avoid the turrets’ fire was on the sides of the door.

“Get beside the door,” I shouted as I dove to the left. A glance behind me showed my companions following my lead. Beyond them, thirty feet behind us, I could see a glowing barrier blocking the hallway.

Fuck, I thought as I saw our retreat cut off. It’s certainly got us trapped this time. Contrary to my expectations, however, the turrets didn’t immediately start firing. Instead, we got another announcement.

Elana’s watch repeated it a second later, forcing me to strain to hear it from where she stood on the other side of the door. “Leave the Technician and you may leave with your lives.”

“What!” Linnea shouted from where she stood next to her sister. She sounded furious, and I had to hold up a hand to stop her from ducking around the corner and opening fire.

It must want Elana to fix up the facility or something like that, I realized. Thinking back, it had been awfully quick to separate her from us back at the hangar as well. Even that spider, I thought it was lured in to kill her, yet all it was doing was wrapping her in webbing.

Even that may have been intended to drag her off. Perhaps to bring her here? Whatever the case, I wasn’t about to abandon her. Instead, I decided to stall for a minute so we could come up with a plan.

“Elana, can you translate what I’m going to say? Don’t worry, we won’t leave you, I’ll just be bluffing it while you and Linnea try to think of something.” Between the two of them, I was confident that would find a way forward.

She nodded, fiddling with her watch for a second. While I waited, I noticed a message from Linnea on my watch.

We can’t leave her here. I can’t go into the details, but our situation is a little beyond normal full-time immersion. She can’t log out right now. If we leave her, she’s stuck unless it kills her.

Looking over, I caught her eye and nodded. I’d been wondering why she’d been so protective about Elana when she was trapped earlier, it seemed I now had my answer. While before I wasn’t going to leave her on principle, now it seemed I’d have to take it more seriously.

“OK, you're good to go,” Elana spoke up, seemingly unaware of the moment between Linnea and me. “I routed the sound from your watch back through, so just speak into it.”

I nodded, taking a deep breath and bracing myself. I would have to make this sound good. “What assurances do we have that the other two of us will be allowed to leave?” I winked over at the woman as I did so, trying to convey again that I wasn’t serious.

My watch repeated what I said in the melodic alien language and I quickly set it to maximum volume. The sound echoed through the suddenly quiet hallway and I hoped that meant the AI was listening.

A few seconds later, I got a response. “You have my assurances that you will die if you do not give her up.” Next to me, the door began retracting further into the walls of the corridor, leaving us less space to hide from the turrets.

Well, that didn’t work, I thought with a sigh. Thinking quickly, I tried again. “If you open fire, you might kill her as well, surely talking this through is the safer option.”

Across the hallway, I could see Elana had pushed her drone-turned-jamming device onto the ground and was furiously reworking it. Linnea was shielding her from the direction of the hallway, hopefully blocking the view from any cameras.

I really hope that means she has a plan. I just need to keep the damn AI distracted until she’s done.

The voice of the AI echoed through the hallway again a second later. “You dare to bargain with me, Alien Mortal? Perhaps the dregs of power you stole have made you bold. Still, you may have a point. I will make a single concession.”

Down the hallway, the force field fizzled out with a hiss, leaving the way clear. “If you leave without the technician, you will be free to go. Try to leave with her, and the turrets will open fire.”

Not much of a concession, I mused as I stared at the empty corridor. While it might look safer, it could still shoot us down just as easily as before. Not to mention that it could still block us further down, out of sight.

Its response did, however, have something I could use to keep the discussion going. “By dregs of power, do you mean the room where I got my Psionic Ability? Surely it’s not theft if the owners are long dead?”

The response to that was swift and at a volume loud enough that it left my ears ringing. “This facility still belongs to the Arkathian empire and no official notice of termination has been received. Until such an event happens, this is still a military facility. You should be grateful to be allowed to leave at all.”

Now that’s interesting, I guess it’s not entirely confident about taking us all out after all. Surely it would be more focused on fulfilling its duty otherwise. Unless, of course, it’s just waiting till we’re separated from Elana to strike.

From across the hallway, I could see Elana yank something from the center of the Drone. Looking up at me, she gave a thumbs up and mimed chucking it into the room. I nodded, hoping that whatever she was doing would disable the turrets.

A glance at Linnea showed she was ready to go as well. Taking a deep breath, I signaled Elana to begin.

She lunged forward and flicked the object around the corner, holding up a hand with five fingers as she did so. A second later, she lowered one of them and I realized she was counting down.

As she lowered her last finger, a massive burst of light exploded in the room, spilling out into the corridor. I sprinted around the corner to see the turrets dangling limply from the ceiling.

Not leaving anything to chance, I aimed my pistol at the one on the left. Before I fired, though, an idea struck me. Reaching out with my mind, I quickly Attuned to the gun and focused my attention on it.

I visualized the blast coming out of the gun being larger and stronger than usual, hoping that I could empower the shot as it was formed. Then I pulled the trigger and felt Psi energy flowing out of me.

At a guess, it was about fifteen percent of my total, a significant amount to spend at once. The results were obvious, however, as a massive purple blast of plasma shot from the barrel. It crackled with energy as it flew before detonating against the turret.

When the flash of fire cleared, I could see a smoking hole where the barrel used to be. Looking over at the other turret showed Linnea had dealt similar damage with one of her sniper shots.

Nice, I thought with a grin. That was a significant boost in power, even if I could only use it a few times before running out of juice. It would be a very nice addition to my combat style.

Around us, the AI’s voice echoed, loud and angry. “So you have chosen death. Very well then, prepare yourselves.”

A loud skittering noise drew my attention as six of the quartz spider Beasts scuttled out of the room’s corners. It looked like we had at least one more battle to fight.