As soon as they arrived Null and Infy knew something was wrong. The coordinates they received were within the atmosphere of the planet which caused the ship to suffer some turbulence. The ships shield only took a few seconds to adapt to the new gravity and atmospheric pressure. It wasn't the turbulence that worried the boys' it was the voice of the universe.
It was only for a brief moment while the shields were adapting but they could sense an extreme disturbance in the voice. They noted that the nullification shield was drawing a substantial amount of energy. They realised that Phosphoros had set them up, giving them coordinates already inside the zone and knowing they would teleport instead of a gate.
The twins looked at the other three and noticed they were all terrified. They had the sweats and their legs were shaking. Kikei moved as close as possible to Null. "Don't let them take me".
"Don't let who, Kikei?" but she was too afraid to answer she just snuggled into Null chest.
"They are hungry, the voices. They want our souls. Ahh, make it stop" Chris started to run away from something invisible.
Jania was fighting off some invisible foe. "die you evil spirit!"
Null and Infy realised that something had got inside the shields either when they first teleported or the somethings were not blocked by the shield at all. They hope it was the former as they had a solution for that. They cast a small version of their nullifying field and started to expand it until it met up with the ship normal shield.
Their guess was correct and the other three returned to normal. Kikei moved away from Null while trying to hide her reddening cheeks. Null was missing the warmth of her body. They both quickly refocused.
"What the hell was that. The voices" Jania couldn't even finish the sentence, she was still shivering and having a flashback to their first mission. Chris came over to comfort her.
"I think it clear that Phosphoros has set us up, we need to leave" Infy was pissed off, he had his hopes on finding out if he could get his own soul but instead they had sent him to another disaster zone. There was going to be no answers here.
"Bastard!, he locked us in another barrier" Null had tried multiple methods to escape but had come across a familiar foe, the barrier used at Ollhelian. They didn't have the time or even the energy to fight against the barrier and whatever was fighting against the nullification barrier.
The other three members of the party had calmed down a bit and started to consider the situation.
"I don't think we are locked in like Ollhelian, I think if we can solve whatever crisis this is, he will let us out. He seemed sincere on his desire to get information from here." Stated Chris.
Null and Infy agreed with Chris assessment, but they didn't even know where to start in solving the crisis as they had no idea what was happening. They walk over and tapped Kikei on the shoulder and she nodded her head. Merging their senses always helped the boys' gain a deeper understanding.
First, they wanted to see what the voices were. Null asked if he could look into her memory. She was hesitant but reluctantly agreed. The voices weren't coherent but the intent was clear they yearn to devour your soul. They needed to know more if they were to identify what was going on.
They got Kikei to look out the observation deck with them so they could use her aura vision. What they saw wasn't making much sense. The whole planet seemed to have just one large aura. It was as If they were on a living planet.
"I have an idea, can you filter out Soul and Life fields?" asked Kikei.
"I would have to leave the shield to hear it, but I can let you hear what we heard when we entered the system"
"That ok, let's start with that"
They did as requested, the soul field was extremely distorted from what it normally sounded like. Yet Kikei was able to perceive some of the links between them. She believed she had identified what had happened if not how it happened. She share her idea with the boys and they believed it had merit.
She then shared it with the rest of the party. "We think we understand what happened here. They have separated life into its three components of life, mind and soul. It appears that whatever method they used is still running."
Jania was curious "so what were those voices?"
"Ghosts, minds without a soul or life, why we can hear them I don't know" answered Kikei she had asked Null and Infy the same question.
Chris naturally wanted to know the motivation, since having all the information possible was important to him. "but why would they do that?" asked Chris.
"who cares let's just blow it up and be done with it" Jania was just a hammer and everything was a nail and she especially didn't like the idea of fighting against ghosts.
Infy intervened, "we can't just blow it up, what if that creates some sort of tear in the fields? As for why I have two ideas. One they wanted to merge with the soul field which is spiritual faction end goal remember. Second, they wanted to reincarnate with their memories and mind intact instead of just a soul"
"So you are saying we need to go explore and determine the source before we can turn it off?" asked Chris.
"Yes, but without a nullification shield, I think we would be disintegrated instantly. I also don't think it going to be easy or otherwise, they would have fixed this already."
"So a mission with a chance of instant death and we have no reconnaissance. I hope there is something to kill that is not a ghost. I'm excited, hurry up little bros let's go" not for the first time, Chris was awed by Jania ability to get excited over the prospect of battle.
The boys' sent out some drones to try and do some reconnaissances but as soon as they exited the shield they were attacked by a swarm of some kind of alien insect that managed to devour the drones in seconds. The swarm then returned and became part of the ground.
"What the. I have no words how are we going to fight that?" Chris was beside himself, how does one fight an enemy like that.
Jania knew just the thing and her smile became larger. "Plasma Throwers!". Plasma throwers were an upgrade to the flame thrower and used similar technology to the boys' plasma shields. Jania and Null both had training from their super-soldier days.
"Oh, I think we can do better than those Martian plasma throwers" the boys' teleported themselves to the workshop to work on their new and improved weapon. They had to have integrated heat shielding and multiple different patterns. Plasma could be controlled using magnetic fields which allowed them to multiple firing modes. They integrated an individual anti-matter power supply and weight reduction alloy to create a weapon that even Kikei could wield with ease. Not that she would use it. She had made it clear she was never going to use a weapon.
The other three finally made it to the workshop. "Null you inconsiderate jerk, either take us with you or build some teleporter on this ship" Kikei was not pleased with having to walk from one end of the ship to the other.
Null shrugged "maybe one day, but anyway check out these." He showed them the 3 different firing methods. straight, mushroom and dome setting. Straight was good for clearing a hallway while mushroom started small before spreading out like a mushroom which was good for an area of effect. The final option was a dome and could be used as a full 360 shield if needed.
He gave one to Chris and Jania.
"Now we can't pinpoint where this effect is emanating from unless we go outside the shield. I think it should just be me, Null to first and once we locate the origin we will come back and plan."