It was a relatively massive and large ship, much less alien at first sight than people might have imagined.
It was also in the most imaginable place possible. The metal of the hull shone with a glassy glow even at the end of daylight. Nor would it be a space vehicle that humans would have imagined. The colossal proportions showed no movement. It was alien manufactured and retained a certain exotic beauty.
The secondary openings were open. The atmosphere there was much warmer than the inhabitants of that place would have imagined at first.
"Have you made any progress in shield repairs?" Bash asked. He wiped the sweat off his face, avoiding complaints.
He was like the others, still young and dreaming. The dream of serving the Confederation brought pride. Scarlet looked at her travelling companion, not excited. In his opinion, Bash was very pleased to be lost and trapped in the middle of nowhere. She studied his features that the natives would have classified as masculine with a new sigh. And again he looked doubtfully at the ship's appearance after the camouflage mechanisms were back in operation.
-Are you sure that humans will not suspect or notice something that big?
Bash's face reacted with indignation.
-It is a transport vehicle widely used by the natives from what I read. Why would they suspect? I think you can manage all this here.
"No equipment?" She mumbled, holding a kind of dark metal key that was stuck in the steel of the mechanical structure. - Power cords need ... Damn! I need new cables for this contraption.
A third silhouette approached, laughing. She looked like a young girl, too young for her age. It was a pleidian. The Galactic Federation of Light ... She was a telepath, capable of manipulating emotions. Scarlet closed her mouth very seriously.
- You will ask me again about our captain. - Sereide spoke softly and smiled.
Scarlet hated that woman! Her thoughts belonged only to her. Naturally, she worried. Zorack for a while was the companion he could have expected to find. He was active in the relationship. Matched your needs. Only that girl he was trying to rescue ... She frowned as she looked around with a shudder.
"Are you worried about the girl?" Sereide probed softly.
Scarlet left the tools lying there and stood up, wiping her hands on her clothes.
- Take care of your life, psychic. Or worry about an ignorant native who is about to reach Spartakus.
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Was that a college?
Zorack's astonishment couldn't be greater when he walked the crowded and crowded corridors of young people who were talking out loud. He stopped in awe in front of a couple. He had read native habits in some library book. These were hormones. Exchanges of intimacy there were scandalously shared.
A couple of teenagers were kissing. They exchanged body fluids with their mouths. He averted his bland face even more irritated. Was that what the unfortunate girl had learned on that planet? May the stars have mercy on him! He was not going to accept the decision of his community council. At least in N'Tirlay he reserved his own places for those activities.
After the great invasion, exchanges of fluids like this had been prohibited. Zorack always tried to remember the new habits, further curbing frustration.
He averted his face and stopped in shock. The smell that came from there ...
He could sense their scent. Bash had made a mistake in his calculations. The air was starting to get colder and it wasn't just the afternoon that was advancing. It was something else. There was a disturbing presence there that aroused his instincts.
It was almost instinctive. I wouldn't even have to waste time there using the most basic magic practices. He could capture the energy of the girl he was looking for. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, trying to make contact.
The echo of a telepathic cry of horror left him deafening as he leaned blindly against the wall. It didn't take long for the screams to start creating unrest among the locals as well.
Fear! His muscles tightened with the cold sweat that invaded him. The heartbeat was too fast. The air barely reached the lungs. The girl was there and scared. And I wasn't alone! He projected his fear in an absurdly intense way and it wouldn't be long before he reacted like any of them defending themselves.
His hand under his coat touched the taut laser gun. If the whole building was hit ... Zorack shook his head. It was all going to burn up very fast.
An explosion noise created more screams and ran among the young people there.
It was bad luck. Angel! The reactions emerged instinctively with the dread the girl felt. He was starting to pick up more energy around her than he would like. The girl was beginning to react on a defense instinct and would probably put herself in even greater danger.
He went on, ignoring the turmoil when he stopped bewildered. The Scream! There was a new echo of mental scream that left him totally deaf and inactive. She wasn't just scared.
He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. I shouldn't appeal to gifts in front of natives. Only the security protocols ... That all the guidelines would go to hell.
Rays! They threatened the girl! He drew his pistol, indifferent to the few curious looks of those who were still struggling to leave the corridor and an explosion increased the rush there and brought new commotion with people who were in turmoil in search of the way out.
Zorack paid no attention to the natives. His mind was more attuned to that girl than he could possibly like. He burned with blind fury.
They took advantage of her inexperience. The enemy had come in order to conquer and plunder the planet's resources.
-Angel! Zorack thundered furiously and urgently.
His only answer was a new cry that could freeze ...
It was enough to move past the tiredness down the corridor, dodging the enraged and frightened human mass. The blocked passage showed several problems that he had not previously considered when the metallic and characteristic hissing reached his ears, causing him to tighten his muscles.
K'Aldriants? But right now? The infection could not have spread so quickly. He was almost thrown to the ground when he stopped looking for balance when he was hit by a young woman with red hair. The girl screamed, forcing herself to stay alert and draw the energy sword with complete dismay.
-You? - The young woman asked and it took minutes for him to assimilate the words. - I was in the morning with my father at the hospital. But what the fuck is going on here?
He opened his eyes wide. She was a young woman, perhaps older than Angel. The well-made body showed suggestive curves that the clothes never failed to imply with the low neckline and the short mini skirt.
-Your father? - he asked with regret.
A town as small as Small Mountain and probably almost everyone in town knew each other. It was the inevitable start of panic.
- Yeah, your dad was very kind earlier. - Zorack answered grudgingly, avoiding noticing the hands that held his arm with all his strength.
And no sign of Angel! I couldn't capture anything else with the proximity now.
Shit!
Without wanting to, the memories returned to his mind. There was Klaus. Why did her slightly apathetic and sickly manner resemble Klaus so much?
Ravenack! There was no other explanation for not feeling Angel there. The organic chip she carried in her body did not inhibit her abilities as an edriana. But he was also an Edrian. Only the alien technology of those creatures dominated the ability to inhibit their powers. It was like being in the citadel again and wearing inhibiting organic handcuffs.
-What the hell is this? the redhead shouted, pointing in terror to the end of the corridor.
What was? I think it's good not to be what I'm weighing.
From there came more high-pitched metallic hisses as the ground shook under his feet. The sound reverberated louder in a dull thud of something that collided. In fact, the whole place was shaking as if it were the beginning of an earthquake. The earth itself moved.
The image of the metallic armor that resembled a second skin was the first thing Zorack imagined seeing in the midst of that chaos. The damn and hellish mining fields. Sentinels always brought predators to watch for the hosts selected by Ravenack. It was a guarantee that no K'Aldriant would disobey orders to touch something without sharing it with the community.
But it wasn't quite the armor that appeared reflected in the shadows that grew on the wall at the end of the hall.
"Holy shit!" He mumbled with a heavy sigh.
He put the sword around his waist, cursing angrily as he examined the laser pistol that was soon to be reloaded, raising his hand firmly in the air as he pressed his fingers as if holding something that no one else could see.
The dry, hot and muggy air was a setback when trying to manipulate the humidity of the atmosphere, creating ice crystals that appeared in the palm of your hand very slowly. It was even more tiring than conjuring portals.
May the stars help you. There was technology in bio-organic chips capable of taking any living organism that received them to death with multiple organ failure. They were defense mechanisms activated in the slightest attempt to remove the implants.
Taking a deep breath, the first burst of ice crystals were thrown from her hands towards the end of the corridor, while pushing the girl beside her without any delicacy. Distressed, he turned to her only as long as necessary.
-Get out of here and try to find your father ordered at the limit of his strength.
She did not stop to watch the looks of the astonished redhead who was still watching him advance, before leaving the hall in a hurry.
He might not know where Angel was in that building, but Ravenack's sentries kept watch over what that monstrous alien was looking for.
A hybrid. The first of an alien and deadly species. They sought greater adaptability and strength. Mixing genes to create new offspring was perhaps the only cure that those things would have to escape an involutive process.
And that was all that the Confederacy was trying to prevent. But at what price?
What defense mechanisms had Angel put through implants to ensure that Ravenack's plans failed?