Everyone was relishing the moment to reclaim their breath. It had been one hell of an exit out of the chamber with fire trailing their heels, to be put out by falling Bing Verslas rock, only to have it explode into more flames. But fortunately, the run upward and down less volatile rock walls saw their path eventually clear into a medium-sized lab room furnished with a couple of benches and microscopes with rock samples on the dishes.
“You love making chambers explode, don’t you, Concordat?” Creed grumbled as he stood before Veronika with his arms folded over his chest.
“I, well, um…” She awkwardly scratched her head with no words to counter.
Jorgen chuckled. “I’m gonna take it on faith that you truly are on our side.”
Everyone was beginning to look more calm and their energy levels stable.
“That’s a whole year’s worth of profit gone!” One of the civilian’s cried out with woe.
“Mister Addlestone, it was better than the alternative of seeing Concordat Forces kill us and take control of the mine,” Simone’s mother coolly answered back.
Veronika stared at the people she and the others had just saved. They were wearing the Starcharter full body uniforms of red and brown stripes on white, with their hands covered in soft leather gloves. Most of them were middle-aged, with bodies that hinted at their years-worth of laboratory experiences. Her mind flashed back to a moment of seeing similar type of people wander about her tank window. It made her hands shake, but she was able to steady them with a tight fist and a few deep breaths.
Simone grabbed Veronika by the hand to introduce her to her mother. “This is my mother. Mother this is…um…”
She looked apologetically at Veronika for not knowing her name.
Veronika scanned in the image of the older cretarian woman, who was just as beautiful as Simone. Her long golden hair was smoothly held back in a tight bun. Unlike Simone’s soft round amber eyes and pixie features, her face was long with narrower amber eyes and thin lips. There were minimal wrinkles and lines on her skin to give away her age. But the way she carried herself was full of dignified confidence. If felt odd to see the woman’s expression steady. She glanced around the others she had saved, mostly human and cretarian, and saw their fear from their eyes. Simone’s mother was very calm. That type of calmness seen on a honed warrior than a scientist.
“Shepherd. Veronika Shepherd,” she coolly answered.
“Pleasure, Miss Shepherd. My name is Ashtra, Khyslaka. Thank you for your assistance.” Khyslaka politely thanked her.
“A clone with a name. That’s strange.” One of the human scientists commented on the fact as his handheld scanner finished a scan-run over Veronika’s body.
“How so?” Veronika didn’t take offense, she was curious to know what they knew of clones. To date, she didn’t know too much about her own kind.
The human scientist explained that the Concordat clones they had faced were only identified in tag and rank numbers. After all, they were designed to be simple resources for specific tasks rather than assume the role of a person. This fact made Veronika frown.
“But, clearly, we’re still people.”
“Hardly. Your kind are nothing more than organic tools. Just like the gun you’ve got in your gun holster. Although it’s strange for a clone to be named, it is nothing more than that. I mean, guns can be named too. By your age being late teens and gender, it would seem your purpose was to fill the infantry fodder numbers.” He scoffed at the absurd notion that she was considering herself a person.
“Well, this organic tool just saved your ass, Mr. Scientist,” she soberly said, feeling ticked off. “And you’re wrong. I was designed to be a super soldier.”
“Being designed is what is wrong here. You are clearly not meant to be a person.” Mr. Scientist continued to press his bias viewpoint on a clone’s purpose.
Khyslaka interrupted the conversation before it became an argument, with some calm reasoning.
Veronika heaved a sigh to clear away her tension on the matter and changed the subject.
“How did you survive against those fodder soldiers? It seems they were hellbent on killing anything that moved.” She eyed her carefully.
Khyslaka explained that concordat soldiers had streamed into the laboratory where she was analyzing samples with Simone, and began to gun down some of the staff down. She used the sudden commotion and confusion to grab Simone and escape down a corridor, only to encounter soldiers headed their way from a connecting tunnel. She kept her daughter heading for the exit at the corridor’s end, while she diverted the soldiers away.
“I found the others in the observation chamber where you discovered us. We sealed ourselves into the quarantine room to protect ourselves from the attacks, but that also left us trapped.”
“How? You were unarmed. They would’ve been infiltration soldiers, able to catch up to you.”
“They did. But you can see what happens to activated Bing Verslas rock.” She smiled with smug airs.
Veronika nodded. She wasn’t convinced the woman was only a scientist, but it didn’t sound like she was lying. And why would she. At least, she hoped there was nothing more to the woman than her gut feelings toward her.
“For a Concordat clone willing to help us, you’re sure good at nearly blowing us up. And destroying useful resources,” Krawl soberly commented to draw everyone’s attention to Veronika. She didn’t feel there was suspicion to his words, but more like annoyance.
“And what would you have done to clear out those soldiers. My last count of them was 20 against the 10 of us, in a 1500 square feet area, at least. All shooting plasma beams from assault rifles.”
Krawl answered with a huff. Khyslaka sighed and gathered everyone’s attention to her. Veronika found it intriguing that no one was about to question her leadership. But the woman did have a viable plan of action, where they could head through the corridor, which started at the far end of the room. Take its direct path to the external garage compound, which was on the corridor’s other end. If there were enemy resistance, Veronika and soldiers could cover their escape into the compound, and one of the garaged land rovers.
After a few checks, they moved out of the room and headed down the corridor. A quake disrupted their path half-way along, which caused brown rock and rubble to close the path before them.
“I swear that wasn’t me this time!” Veronika blurted as she coughed and waved off some of the dust shower that had fallen on their heads.
A new opening was made by two full-sized insectoids, which had busted through the rock using their metal limbs. They looked like they were fleeing something. They stood high on their hind legs and shrieked with confidence at the seeing the humanoids before them.
Veronika felt the sword at her back. Her spirit energy was still too low to send her sword flying, but she could at least wield it about with brute, physical strength.
“Guys, be men and protect them. I’ll squish the bugs!” She shouted as she unsheathed her rusty sword and activated her remaining spirit energy to it. It was just enough to make the sword light and flexible in her grip, and quite sharp to land killing blows.
“No complaints. You heard the clone.” Brayan began navigating the group back up the corridor toward the laboratory to give her space.
Veronika’s mind slipped into a killer focus. She activated a digital view of the area to reveal weak spots in the bugs and her surroundings.
The insectoids released clouds of toxic gas, which she was able to counter with her kinetic barriers. She ran a path of their weak joints in her mind and sprinted forward to execute a cut in the nearest vital nerve points, with fast precision. Taking the insectoids off guard and stumbling to the ground with paralysis.
Both of the insectoids middle eyes were charging up for a laser beam attack. But they didn’t get the chance, when she jumped on large rock debris and used the walls to leap about the area and reach the bugs’ top middle eyes. She stabbed hard into them, then did a somersault backwards to clear some space before their heads exploded.
“Gross!” She screwed up her face at the icky stuff that was gushing toward her from their bodies.
“Duck!” Kami grunted and barked.
She dived low to avoid the ice attack and follow-up gunfire that sent the bugs bodies shattering.
“We can’t go back the way we came.” Balak noted.
Everyone gathered around the opening the insectoids had made. A cool breeze was felt on their cheeks.
“It’s worth the try. The cold air suggests there could be a way out.” Khyslaka suggested.
“You don’t know?” Veronika innocently asked.
“No. There are parts of the mine we had yet to tap into and explore.”
Veronika frowned, feeling something was off with her words but, like everyone else, she followed Khyslaka’s lead through the unmapped tunnel. It was dripping with moisture and slippery. But the air quality was good. A few of the scientists reassured the group that it was unlikely they would stumble into an insectoid nest, given that there was a good level of breathable oxygen. The group was satisfied with that explanation, especially when their way forward was uneventful.
But the calm was soon disrupted when their path ended at an enormous set of open caverns and a dark and formless chasm. Raw and large hematite stalactites hung from whatever part of the high ceiling they were connected to. Most of the upper area was concealed in darkness.
Khyslaka led them into one of the large caverns, which was cut into a rock wall. Veronika saw an unexpected sight. The walls inside were shimmering and smooth hematite with circuit board line patterns all over the surfaces, which pulsated with green light.
They walked through circuit-board patterned metal floors, which eventually opened into a walkway, and a circular platform at the far end.
Hovering at the platform’s center was an enormous object with icosahedral sides. Its width and breath was the same as of a building. Its material was of a dark, shimmering, metal but didn’t seem to reflect any of the green light. Rather, absorb it. Veronika noticed there were no seams or lines to suggest panels or construction. But the make of it felt too artificial.
“This is odd. Why are we at the artifact? This should be on the other side of the mine area.” Simone gulped as she took in the cavern’s wonders.
“We always figured there were other ways to it. Odd, but no matter where we go, we seem drawn to this area.” Khyslaka looked lost in thought as she and the other Starcharter civilians approached it.
Veronika noticed there were other walkways connecting to the platform to indicate other entry points. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something dangerous was lurking nearby. And wondered if this was what the insectoids were running from. Despite the device appearing harmless and dormant, there was an unworldly energy about it that made her hairs stand on end. A recent memory of Krawl saying that some of the scientists had gone mad resurfaced in her mind.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Kami grunted.
“Me too. Krawl was this the thing that turned some people mad?”
Krawl nodded and keep a hesitant distance from the thing.
Brayan did a scan on the device and frowned at his readings. “The material shows compound structure similar to Bing Verslas. And it’s dormant.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“It’s Bing Verslas?” Veronika matched his frown as she tentatively took a couple of steps toward the object, but stopped with the thought that they had to somehow shield themselves from it at least.
Suddenly she felt weak, like a force was draining away her energy. But it was more than that, she felt her blood was being excited and flowing at a fast rate to make her head feel ready to explode. Amongst her pain and impacted vision, a digital display flashed in her head, but System was still showing as offline.
[Task: disable the bomb before it destroys the mine]
“Bomb? This is a bomb? Hell!” She shouted that had the others, except the scientists, on alert and shouting out curses.
Crap. She was barely able to stand. How the heck was she going to disable a bomb that massive?!
But before she had the time to analyze the device, Concordat soldiers dropped into the area from some part of the ceiling. There were eight of them carrying long swords and concealed in slinky, full black body armor. One of them strutted toward her with her heels making horrid chink noises at each step. Veronika recognized the swordswoman she had faced off back at the Junkyard Town.
“Veronika Shepherd. You should be a corpse.” The swordswoman’s voice was level and not showing surprise this time. Her face mask was removed to reveal her snow-white skin and soft almond-shaped eyes of a calm blue. Her long dark ponytail flowed gracefully about her slender shoulders, as she stepped closer.
Snippets of memory cut in and out of Veronika’s mind, causing pain upon remembering the woman’s name. This couldn’t be possible. This woman was the best friend who had shot her in the back. And held the same face as the woman who had betrayed Wu Chen. Not possible. Not possible!
“Yan… Hua? Not possible.” Veronika huffed, struggling to maintain her oxygen.
“Still remember my name. I can see the lack of oxygen hasn’t dulled your memory.” Yan Hua leaned in to inspect Veronika’s pitiful sight. “You were always weak.”
“What do you want?!” Creed shouted out with rage.
“Wipe the filth from this area. This bomb is one of eight that will cause a vast impact to clean this region. The Concordat will do what the Starcharter and Star Council fail to do: give peace back to this planet once and for all. It’s all for the greater good,” Yan Hua answered as she straightened up, not fussed about holding back on the details. Especially, when it was causing a shock impact on the aliens and giving her team time to set up strike points.
“By bombing craters in this area and killing innocent lives?! That’s insanity, not peace!” Veronika argued against the notion.
“Traitorous failure. I won’t let you stop us.” Yan Hua glared at her when their eyes met. “You were meant to be the super solider, but you couldn’t fire a gun. Now, you’re playing hero to these aliens? You should’ve died. It would’ve been easier for us all!”
Yan Hua unsheathed her sword and stabbed it into Veronika’s stomach, who collapsed to the ground when the sword was pulled out, blood free.
“Shepherd!” Scot bellowed with outrage and activated his sniper rifle to ready a shot for the swordswoman’s head.
“Kill the filth. Don’t let her live at any cost!” Yan Hua ordered her lackeys, who began attacking Veronika’s party.
Veronika was struggling to keep control of her focus and body. “I’ll stop you and this insanity.”
Through her blurred vision, she saw Yan Hua activate a digital terminal from a console box jutting out of the bomb’s surface, and key in some code before vanishing from the area.
The entire cavern lit up with intense green light. An ear-piercing and throbbing drone rebounded around them.
She saw Khyslaka and the other civilian scientists being contained within a semi translucent barrier column connected to the bomb. A strange energy from the bomb was draining the scientists’ lifeforce and making them too docile to move.
An artificial voice began sounding around them, which triggered a form of countdown.
Concordat lackeys rushed to deal final blows to Veronika, but found themselves caught by the strange force that drained their energy. Scot used his magic to sweep them off the platform. But he was soon blocked by more incoming soldiers who dropped before him.
“System!” Veronika screamed out, feeling frustrated at how weak and useless she was feeling. She was stronger than this!
[.... performing runtime checks…]
Now wasn’t the time to be emotional. She steadied her breathing and refocused some of her armor’s barrier energy to the inbuilt medicine distribution unit, which passed salve through the fluid tubes, to flow over her stab wound. That would, at least, keep her alive and able to stand.
“Hurry. The console can be used to disarm the device.” Khyslaka huffed as she struggled to speak. She was doing her best to reassure Simone that she would be fine. But her mind was slipping in and out of consciousness, with her self will being weakened by another.
Simone was losing her mind to panic. Especially, when Concordat soldiers kept rushing at them with attacks. Scot and Kami were able to push back the enemy with their magic. But the enemies armor was made to withstand a great deal of impact. Fortunately, the soldiers had their attention on the others, that they failed to see Veronika staggering toward the console area.
[Task: disable the bomb before it destroys the mine. Explosion in 15:00 minutes]
The task display flashed into her head again. She had reached the console box. The bomb’s emitted energy was pushing her down to the ground with a gravitational force. It took a great deal of her will and might to push herself up and try to activate the console. She waved her hand over the box’s surface, but nothing was happening.
“What do I do?!” She screamed out with frustration and banged the damn thing with a fist.
“Genetic code accepted. Status panel activated.” A digital-green, semi transparent, keyboard and display screen appeared before Veronika.
“Right.” She panted and wheezed, but was determined to disarm whatever bomb was about to go off. But when she looked at the hexagon array of glowing white glyphs on the keyboard, they were in an alien language. None were part of her 140 language translation module.
“Excellent. Console. Use it!” Simone hurried to her side to hold her up. Her eyes lit up with confidence as she recognized some of the symbols. “Of course! Icosahedral device of Ichemotian innovation. We might be, no, are standing before a biological reshaper. Great big machines that were intended for ecosystem reconstruction.”
“How is it that you can be so perky, and I feel like I’m gonna die again?” Veronika moaned.
“Iron enriched blood! Humans full of it. The device releases doses of gravitational force to stabilizer inertia dampeners and stop big black bomb from drifting off into space. But impacts iron in blood. Need to wear G-Force black slinky suits to stop force pull and blood pushing into head to crush it! Fortunately, my kind lack the dosage to make us paste on the ground.” She patted Veronika’s back and began playing with the keyboard like it was a piano.
Her chirpiness dropped with her keying, and was one of horror when she saw that the command sequence she was keying in had increased the drain on the trapped scientists’ lifeforce.
“Can… we… disarm…” Veronika was struggling for breath.
“No. It seems the disarming sequence requires mitochondrial genome combinations. Nothing we can key in.” Simone went to face her mother, who was looking ill and fighting to stay herself. She closed her eyes and opened them with a resolve.
“Refuse to give into that option. Always another way!” she said as she returned to the terminal, at which point Veronika was slumped on the ground.
The lakionian warriors had killed off their attackers with rapid, synchronized, gunfire or made them fall into the bottomless depths. The soldier threat had been cleared, but there was still the bomb.
Scot approached the terminal screen and ran a hand-scan over it. “This mitochondrial genome sequencer only requires a small sample. A drop of blood should be sufficient for the code.”
Simone shook her head and glanced up at the magnitude of the bomb.
Veronika huffed as she noticed Scot looked fine. “All your metal, why… you… not going… paste”
Scot only responded that he was stronger than he looked.
“Simone. I’m already tagged for domination by the device. I led you here. To disarm it, my death is the only way,” Khyslaka sadly said to her daughter. “You have always been my pride and joy. No matter what anyone else says, your brilliant mind… spirit… essential to… world.”
“Mother. No. I refuse to give in. I’ll save you,” Simone firmly and clearly said.
[Task: disable the bomb before it destroys the mine. Explosion in 8:00 minutes]
Veronika refused to fail this task. She had a promise to keep and was damned well going to keep it.
“Simone… bomb. How… we… dis…arm?” She heaved out her words.
Simone sighed. “Life force from specific mitochondrial deoxyribonucleic acid sequence. The DNA is used as a code to deactivate the Bioreshaper. Generally, if the Bioreshaper was a normal-sized and small device, a drop of blood would be enough. But this device is larger than any building we have in our colony. To disarm this bomb would require a full sample set, maybe more. People would need to die.”
In her haze, Veronika recalled that the hard shell texture of her upper arm’s armor were oxygen cartridges fitted into the material, for emergencies. She clumsily fumbled around a set of tiny khaki switches on her left pauldron. This refocused her artificial oxygen to flow through her fluid tubes into her mouth instead of her recycled liquids. The tanks were small and just enough to last for ten minutes. This ensured the water treatment cartridges, fitted into the armor of her left thigh area, weren’t impacted. Otherwise, she would get a mouthful of yellowish gunk.
“What sequence is needed? Seems human is a combination if I was able to activate the console,” Veronika managed to say.
“Activating the console and bomb is one thing. Anyone can do! But there is a genetic kill switch that will require an actual kill.”
“How many?”
Simone soberly keyed in sequences to return a value. “Two lakionians. One cretarian and one human. Full sample.”
At this point, System came back online. Veronika felt a rush of energy flow through her and a large amount playing around her stab wound to work on rapid healing of the area. Her armor oxygen and water treatment functions resumed their normal operations.
[Sorry. The device’s virtual interface had been attempting an attack penetration on my nodes. This kept me running in background mode. Fortunately, I am programmed with some basic Ichemotian protocols, which had been tampered with Concordat Forces protocols that I’m well versed in. While I was counterattacking their hack efforts, I’ve discovered a way to disarm the bomb without sacrificing lives]
“Wait! System says there is a way to stop the bomb and save everyone!” Veronika blurted.
“System?” Simone cocked her head to one side, showing her curiosity on the subject.
[Task: disable the bomb before it destroys the mine. Explosion in 3:00 minutes]
[Veronika. I’m taking control]
“Control of what?”
System answered by manifesting before everyone as her white canary digital image. Veronika cursed when she was on the ground again, feeling all her energy sapped out of her and unable to move. It was control of her kinetic functions.
System flew around the area to cause electric sparks on Creed, Jorgen and Simone, and taking readings from them. She then returned to the terminal and transformed herself as a semi transparent, digital blue, text document, overlaying the display screen. System was running a hack on the console. The text on the overlay document changed to a single, horizontal, disarm gauge aligned at the center.
The gravitational pressure, Veronika suffered, extended across the platform, so everyone was feeling their bones crunch as their bodies were being pushed to the ground.
“Form Reactor Disarmament protocols initiated. Deactivation of device in T-minus two minutes.” An artificial voice echoed around them.
The disarm gauge was slowly filling with a solid blue color: at the same time, the entire cavern was pulsating with near blinding green flashes from every surface circuit pattern. System continued with the hack, making the disarm gauge continue to rise.
An intense blue light began to draw over the green circuit pattern lines and convert the cavern’s overall color.
Veronika was losing consciousness, but she knew that passing out was fatal. She had to stay awake to allow System to save the day.
“Deactivation of device in T-minus one minute.”
An alert popped up in Veronika’s head to show the bomb’s time to explosion.
[Task: disable the bomb before it destroys the mine. Explosion in 55 seconds]
The disarm gauge was wavering in and out of focus. No doubt because of her weakened energy levels. Scot struggled toward her and placed a hand on her back. He began feeding all of his energy into her to keep her awake, but it was draining him fast.
System continued with the hack, not showing signs of turning off or making an error. The disarm gauge was at 99% when the artificial alert announced the deactivation would occur in 30 seconds, but the likelihood of explosion was in 27 seconds. The redrawing of the circuit pattern lines paused.
“System… hurry.” Veronika huffed.
The blue light resumed and picked up in speed until all the green was gone from the circuit patterns. The gravitational force stopped. System’s hack completed the code breaking, ensuring a successful processing of the disarmament protocol. She disappeared from everyone’s view to return to her default state within Veronika, who was almost unconscious. The others were recovering and on their feet.
“Form Reactor Disarmament protocols complete. Aversion of device chain reaction successful within 15-second code block. Form Reactor Sector B2 acknowledged. Have a good day,” the artificial voice said before going silent.
[Task: disable the bomb before it destroys the mine. Explosion averted. Task completed]
The task completion screen popped up in Veronika’s head, with a running list of her updated stats and some skill gains.
“Don’t give me any weird stats.” She groaned, then smiled when she saw Khyslaka and the others were free. They were saved. Unable to hold on, she passed out.