Istarie Front, Darkwater Plateau, Heedro System

Lix slid down the snowy slope. The arctic gear was a little cumbersome to her liking, but adequate for her purposes. A squad of Soldiers followed her into the frigid dark green liquid coming down from the mountain’s inners. The lake wasn’t frozen, and the de-crystallizing properties of the algae kept it that way.

The Soldiers sunk into the greenish water down to their necks. They moved slowly skirting the edge of the lake to the north, with Lix as the guide. She kept an eye on the sky overhead. An inverted tornado loomed a mile above the lake, its swirling red and white vapors threatened destruction on where ever it decided to land on, should it land at all.

The layers of synthetic memory plastic in the clothing regulated temperature and buoyancy. The red long slit on Lix’s goggle was the only contrasting color around her head with the environment. Fourteen dimly lit red slits moved along the surface of the water for almost a quarter of a mile.

Lix came out of the water holding a short staff like object in front of her. The dark clothing changed color to dark white as she moved onto the snow. The dimly lit red slit opened up to reveal her eyes. She ran into the wooded terrain of Darkwater, halting to scan the area for enemy targets and security devices.

The squad behind her formed a cigar shaped perimeter. The Assistant Patrol Leader moved up next to Lix. “Sir, all present.” He whispered.

“It’s too quiet.” Lix looked down at a handheld digital compass. A GPS 3D reading displayed, showing the objective rally point as a small blue triangle, and the primary objective in the distance.

“Could they have evacuated the base?”

Lix looked at the Soldier with concern. “Let’s move”

The APL stayed where he knelt and let Lix continue towards the objective, counting the squad members as all of them passed by him.

The squad stopped short of the objective inside a dense patch of bushes and trees. The petrified trees were icy white with dark brown slivered pointy leaves, but the darkness of the night made everything seem black with very minuet differences in shades of gray. The reddish light from the tornado was far from them now, but it did provide some illumination for the goggles to work at peak performance.

Lix and the communications specialist, the RTO, laid prone in the middle of the circular defensive perimeter. “Sir, the base seems to be powered down.” He whispered.

The APL crawled next to Lix and the RTO. “Sir, Jath’s armor needs to recharge and heal. The lake water must have frozen some of the connectors in his leg.”

“We will use the time to scan for ground vibrations. Tell Poth to setup the ground radar.” Lix replied.

The APL reported back five minutes later. “Sir, Jath’s armor is functional and Poth reports no unnatural activity.”

“Prepare to move.” Lix commanded and rose to a knee, the goggle visor changed color to black.

A minute later, Lix moved up front as point man again and disappeared as she passed the APL. The armor clothing became transparent as all the Soldiers disappeared after passing by the APL and moved into position before assaulting the objective.

The underground base entrance was closed, but the surrounding fence line was vacant of sentries, vehicles, or robots. The exploded electrical mines had left several thousand small three foot craters on the ground outside and in between the triple layer fence line which should have been cloaked but was now visible to the naked eye.

“It looks abandoned.” The APL said coming up next to Lix.

“Okay, move by twos, Bravo team stay outside for cover in case we need to evac in a hurry.” Lix motioned the Alpha team leader to move up.

The goggles allowed the squad to vaguely see each other in short distances, which was enough for Lix to see Alpha team breach the fences and enter the base grounds. She moved in with the last pair as the entire team secured the front entrance and panel. The small hill the entrance occupied created a low silhouette, which almost made it seem like the team was about to go into an outside basement entrance; except the front doors were wide enough to let a concert grand piano in without effort.

The doors opened slowly as the manual override had to be used since power was out. The team moved inside the long corridor two stories down to an elevator and branching hallways.

“Sir, friendly forces have taken the plateau.” The RTO reported.

“Understood, maintain silence until we clear the area.” Lix said and motioned the team to split up in two.

The Soldiers moved swiftly with very small assault rifles in front of their faces down the two hallways. The base was very large, but the lack of personnel in it made it easy for the team to clear. Their invisibility armor gave them the element of speed and surprise so chances of someone waiting in ambush was highly unlikely.

“Sir, first floor cleared.” Alpha team leader reported.

“Assemble at the east wing stairwell. We’ll go as a group to the genetics lab computer center.”

“Moving.”

The team worked their way down four floors and entered a maze of computer terminals and core drives.

The team looked on as half of the eight foot tall silver core drive cylinders were smothering or severely melted.

“It seems they tried to destroy the evidence.” The A-Team leader said.

“Let’s hope they failed.” Lix ran towards an intact terminal on the far end.

“Nath, call up to Hoth and relay message. Need retrieval assistance immediately. Send in units to permanently deactivate self destruct systems.” Lix almost tripped as she ran over harden melted plastic, metal, and debris on the floor.

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The electricity was off, but the translucent lamps were shedding chemically induced light into the room as an emergency measure.

“We need to get power back on.” Lix commanded to the team.

“Sir, the fire extinguisher system works on a separate power source and infrastructure. We might be able to divert power.” The RTO suggested.

“Something happened to stop the core drives from being destroyed and extinguishing systems from completely working, so before you put anything back online make sure those two are disabled.” Lix said as she prepped the terminal that seemed to be in good physical condition.

The team split up around the room, half securing the room, while the other three Soldiers searched for a power conduit. The Soldiers left the room in search of the geothermal generator room. The minutes seemed to take an eternity to pass as Lix waited for good news.

Finally, radio silence was broken. “Sir, systems are disabled and power is coming online in ten seconds.”

“Understood.” Lix turned on the terminal once half of the room came to life.

Nath and the A-Team leader looked on from behind Lix’s shoulders. The screen showed the lab’s logo and login information. Lix typed in the information without hesitation, the computer granting complete access to the level ten genetics projects.

Nath and the A-Team leader looked at each other in disbelief, then down at their Captain.

Lix quickly typed in a search. Videos and reports popped up, a small woman with the same skin and hair characteristics of Cyer appeared in a fusion chamber. A brilliant light came out of her, blinding the screen, but voices spoke in the background and the light was filtered to show the woman’s figure pulse with energy.

The three kept silent, but Nath jerked backwards as the woman exploded, body chunks and dark liquid spattering on the camera lens ending the experiment.

“Why would they blow up people?” The A-Team leader asked.

“I don’t know, but Nath, I need you to take a video of the screen. If I try to download the information, the database will be formatted.

The RTO touched his headset and started the video, keeping his stare, steady on the screen.

Lix looked back and forth between the screen and scientific keyboard. The latest documents and project results came up on separate windows and folders.

“What’s a genowraith?” The A-Team leader had wanted to ask since the term popped up from the beginning.

“It’s a genetically created super being, and there he is.” Lix replied and put a video on full screen.

“The destroyer of Ordis.” Nath said out loud in awe.

Cyer floated in space with a very large asteroid in front of him. Light energy came out of his hands and the fifty mile wide asteroid instantly shattered into pieces. The video clips and angles changed as well as target types and sizes. The final demonstration was the destruction of a dwarf star. The three looked on in awe, but the last video was more disturbing.

Cyer dressed in a silver yellowish skin tight suit, stood inside a space bay from what seemed to be a starship. “Command central has transmitted your next mission, please follow me?” A background male voice said.

Cyer stood like a statue overlooking the closed bay doors.

“Genowraith, you will comply.” A different male voice stated.

“Are you sure I will?” Cyer calmly countered.

“Your programming includes obedience to your emperor. You will obey.”

Cyer turned his head towards the off screen speaker. His eyes glowed yellow but his dark pupils could be made out. “You creatures believe in power, but have no understanding of creation. No one commands me.”

Cyer walked towards a turbo-lift entrance with the video following his back. “And, you should be mindful to watch your tongue.” Cyer said and instantly held out his arm and hand behind him. A flash of light blocked out the screen for a second, and the camera view shot up to the ceiling and then back down to a dead man on the floor. The middle of his body was gone with green powdered sediments everywhere. Two figures came into view in disgust as thick blood splatter was additional evidence of the murdered Kalarian scientist by the hand of a genowraith.

“That’s all that I can salvage.” Lix said in disappointment.

“Isn’t that enough?” Nath asked.

“No, I needed all the genetic information to find a weakness. The core cylinders that contained most of that information are gone. Now, we have no idea how to kill this monster.” Lix replied.

“So, what now?” The A-Team leader asked.

“You all go back off the grid. I need to hurry and rejoin the campaign before they start to question my whereabouts.” Lix stood up and started to quickly walk out of the large room.

“Sir, do you think a fleet of our best ships can stop that genowraith?” Nath asked.

Lix didn’t look back at the RTO. “I think the only hope we have is with the queen, or some other miracle.”

The reply brought sorrow to Nath’s heart. The queen was rumored to be Emperor Korvax’s slave, or half dead. Cassandra’s able forces had been scattered throughout the galaxy and they were losing the war, star system by star system.