Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (34 page)

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The weird
Cosmic forces up ahead suppressed all light within the tunnel.

The dark powers Shalaen fought against appeared to absorb even light.

Naero and Danjen held back, trying to assess what they were up against as they crept slowly forward.

Th
ree dark shapes constantly closed in on and hurled themselves at Shalaen, who flared and blazed with blue-white power.

Her face looked scared, yet determined.

The enemy seemed shapeless at first, shifting, and yet they bristled with what looked to be slimy, black glowing tentacles of all shapes and sizes.

They
tried to ensnare Shalaen with them.

These appendages were even more dangerous than the ones Naero had fought against inside the ion cannon control room.

Shalaen fought for her very life against these dark, shifting horrors. She blazed against them and glittered like a small flickering star, striking at them with waves and flashes of pure energy that melted and sliced off their tentacles. The flailing appendages whipped forward like snakes to strike and constrict around her.

She cried out in pain and fear whenever they struck or touched her.

Shalaen remained much as Naero recalled her since their last meeting. Perhaps slightly older. A slender young woman with glistening, deep-blue ageless eyes.

Ye
t Naero had never seen such doubt and terror on Shalaen’s normally serene face before. And with good reason.

Naero sensed it
close up as well. Full force.

The
se horrific things weren’t just fighting her. They fed on Shalaen somehow. Not just injuring her, but draining her Cosmic energies and converting them into their own dark, twisted power with each attack at the same time.

She
grew weaker.

While t
hey grew stronger. With each second that passed.

B
ut these frightening dark horrors were definitely not Dakkur or Ejjai. They were maddening to look at. So unnatural.

What in the hell were the
se things?

Another alien life form? The masters that the Dakkur spoke of?

Om spoke up, feeding her info.

They are machines. Living machines of foul
and ancient origin and intent. If you can even call them life. Abominations. They exist for one purpose: to feed upon all natural energies–even pure Cosmic energy–and convert them all into the Darkforce. An anti-energy that only exists to destroy all else.

Who could make such things?

These nightmares were the foul creations of the G’lothc, the mortal enemies of the Kexx and the Drians. Masters of the Kahn-dar and the Dakkur, and other mighty servants.

What hope was there against
advanced tek such as this?

Naero perceived exactly what the foul things were in her mind, thanks to Om
’s Kexxian-born knowledge, and her own returning teknomancing abilities.

“T
hey are machines,” she said aloud. “They’re Darkforce generators.”

Danjen turned to her, looking stunned.
“How do you know that? I’ve never seen or fought anything like this. They make my flesh crawl just watching them. How do we fight something like this?”

They are still
machines. Despite their formidable defenses, they can still be damaged and destroyed, and cease to function. Then they will self-destruct. Either a tremendous explosion or implosion.

Which one?

I’m not sure yet.

Naero shook Danjen.
“I’m sure Gaviok will come help us soon. We can’t just stand here in fear. That’s my friend. They’re hurting her. Trying to capture her. Then they’ll do something even worse to her. We have to damage them enough so that they will stop functioning. We have to attack.”

Danjen nodded, still hesitating.
“All right. I’m with you. But these things really creep me out.”

“M
e too.” she patted him on his furry shoulder. “Let’s try concentrating all of our attacks on one of them and take it down first.”

“O
kay. Good plan. I think.”

They drew their weapons and picked the one closest to them.

They cut loose and blasted it.

At first the dark thing reeled and shuddered, as they blaste
d pieces of it away. Then it turned on them.

“Naero!” Shalaen nearly sobbed.

Shalaen took heart, relieved at only having to fight two of the things now, instead of all three.

She went on the attack
, driving the other two back. Smashing them with fists of pure blinding light. Knocking them off balance. Keeping them from feeding on her.

Naero and Danjen kept up their fire, hoping to gun the writhing horro
r down.

But it seemed to adjust its defenses against their attacks, and soon their shots didn
’t do any harm to it at all.

It shuddered and shrieked and convulsed, rapidly regenerating all the surface damage they had done to it.

Naero holstered her blaster pistol and gripped her Chaos katana with both hands once more.

“W
e can’t let it reform itself. Try cutting it apart!”

Danjen drew his own energy
blades.

They attacked it again
, hacking and slicing off pieces and chunks.

The severed parts either disrupted or merely got
re-absorbed back into the whole.

Then Naero realized that it stood upon two stout legs.

She attempted a leg sweep, but the infernal device was far too dense, and too close to the ground.

Then she cut through the
thick legs with her Chaos Katana, even though the thing absorbed her energies even as she cut it down.

Her sword vanished.

The vile machine fell onto its back, shaking and hissing like a nest of vipers.

One tentacle wrapped around her ankle and
immediately stung her with eye-popping agony.

With her
battle blade she chopped her way free, feeling the relief as the stinging pain dissolved away.

B
ut even as damaged as it was, the infernal device seemed to relish the brief taste of her energies that it had gotten, and focused all of its attacks on her. Shooting all of its remaining appendages at her in an attempt to overwhelm and constrict her.

Naero screamed in pain and fear
, hewing at them, slicing through them again and again.

Danjen bravely leaped on top of the thing and stabbed it repeatedly with his blades.

Gouts of hot steaming fluid and sparks of disrupting energy gushed and sprayed out, like oil or some kind of foul blood.

A tremendous Darkforce shock charge pulsed out from the damaged body and nailed Danjen
. It flung him against the far wall where he hit hard and slumped down, smoking and stunned.

These things packed quite a punch. And with no warning.

Naero felt only a fraction of that massive shock charge, but it still left her hands and arms numb.

How were the machines generating these huge bursts of power?

But her and Danjen’s combined attacks cut away the tentacles, revealing a hatch or panel underneath. Naero spotted a large, clear round sensor eye or view screen.

She
smashed at it with all her might.

It cracked
and buckled.

She hammered and struck at it
repeatedly, shattering it. Tearing both the machine and her battle blade to pieces.

Another
pulsating explosion of Darkforce energy.

Bolts of black lightning
erupted and lashed out at the very air like energy whips.

One of them scorched her,
flinging her aside.

Om barely managed to shield her from its effects.

She slammed into the wall not far from Danjen, who still lay twitching and groaning.

Naero
struggled to recover and regain her feet.

Shalaen screamed and went down
under similar attacks.

The other two machines had her
helpless, draining her powers each second.

Gaviok rushed in
, instantly launching himself at the two infernal devices. Even he cried out as they attacked and sapped his energies. Yet he grappled with them unchecked, battering and tearing them apart.

Naero watched in horror as the third device that she
and Danjen had almost taken out convulsed and attempted to regenerate–right in front of them.

She crawled toward it. Collecting what weapons she could.

If the third device came back online, they were all lost.

Even Gaviok m
ight not be able to take out three of these horrors by himself, before they sucked him dry of his Chaos energies.

“D
anjen. We must finish this one off while its down. Get up, damn you. Help me or we’re all dead!”

Danjen
nodded and crawled toward it with her.

Naero got to it
first and hacked at it with her blades. She shot it with her weapons. She picked up rocks and smashed them on it.

It grew weaker again, but it kept wriggling.

Danjen pointed to one of the dead miners.

“E
xplosives,” he said, sniffing the air.

Naero
staggered over and cut the satchel of mining charges from the dead man’s back.

She shoved
the charges under the alien machine and set them.

“T
ake cover.”

She and Danjen held onto each other, hiding off to one side.

A flash and an ear-splitting explosion tore through the shaft.

The alien generator slammed up into the top of the
tunnel, back down, and burst open.

As the smoke cleared, Naero and Danjen came closer to see
if it was finally wrecked.

They glance
d over at Gaviok. He looked weaker too, but he took turns slamming first one of the machines and then the other into the battered walls of the tunnel, again and again.

He had them both on the ropes.

Something still glowed inside the ruined alien generator. Perhaps its power source.

They pulled the panel open slowly, ready to fight.

Naero lifted a battle blade in her other hand.

Danjen lifted a heavy rock over his head, ready to bring it
crashing down.

Naero
glanced inside and gasped.

It took all of her strength to hold Danjen back.

“No, don’t!” she screamed.

Danjen dropped the heavy rock to one side
, breathless.

“What
?…Why did you stop me from smashing it?

Naero pointed.

Hashiko lay curled up inside the ruined device. Blistered and scarred and battered, in a crushed and shattered pod of ruptured, oxygenated fluid.

B
ut she still lived.

Naero reached in and
yanked her comrade free of the vile machine. Despite getting stung by all of the smaller feeding tentacles that were still attached to Hashiko’s body like ravenous, devouring worms.

Still feeding off of her energies.

They hissed and shrieked once detached from their host.

Naero ignored her own
pain.

She could only imagine what the torment had been like for Hashiko.

First Naero set Hashi down, safely away from the convulsing generator. Then she steeled herself and quickly examined the remains of the fell machine with her teknomancy.

It
s construction and purpose disgusted her and Om. They both perceived and understood its foul workings much better now. It was in fact, primarily a generator. One that produced immense amounts of destructive Darkforce energy. The accursed thing had fed off her comrade constantly, stepping up her stolen energies a hundred fold. Perhaps even beyond that.

The raw concept of the device and its functions terrified her.

It used Hashi like a Cosmic battery, sucking her dry. Torturing her and feeding off her every instant.

Hashiko was
indeed its power source. It’s host.

But once she was free of it, the device
could only feed upon itself and began to implode. She and Danjen watched as it dissolved away right before their eyes.

Just like Om predicted.

At least the damn things had weaknesses that they could exploit.