Mavron plucked the spear out from the hands of the dead overlord, arming himself with it. Foster kicked a second unused laser cannon toward Mavron. “Pew-pew gun might be more effective.”
Mavron spun and twirled the spear in the air with one hand like a martial arts expert. “I will be fine with this.”
“Suit yourself, darling!”
Foster and Mavron followed behind Tolukei while lights on the walls changed their color to red as an alarm started to make a racket throughout the ship. The whole ship must have been alerted about us by now, she thought. “Tolukei, is there a reason why you didn’t just teleport us back to the Carl Sagan?”
“My mind was still partially connected to the Carl Sagan navigational computer. I forced the ship to drift far enough away out of teleportation range. And then gave the crew coded messages of my plan and what they must do. As we speak the crew is silently retaking control of the ship. I couldn’t risk Marduk easily teleporting back aboard with reinforcements to interfere once he found out.”
“And now we can’t get back with ease . . .”
“If all goes well, the Carl Sagan will move back in range.”
The three encountered a second set of patrol guards, guards that were on the lookout for them. Storage crates gave Foster cover as she sprayed laser blaster fire at the soldiers, a flurry of head and chest shots put her targets down. Tolukei drew back on his expertise as a combat psionic. His cybernetic arms glowed orange, orbs of purple plasma balls formed in the palms of his hands before being hurled at the attacking soldiers. Mavron leaped directly into the fray, lunging and twirling his spear that glowed purple, imbued with the low-level psionic gifts he had. Each of Mavron’s thrusts penetrated the armor of the grunts and overlords with ease, almost as if there was no armor to start with. Mavron’s hands periodically rose up sending mild telekinetic thrusts that threw off the balance of nearby adversaries.
They began to run further down the hall as the last body hit the floor, with smoke billowing away from the gaping hole in its head. A pair of guards from behind them appeared out from a doorway, Foster’s quick turn and draw taught them a valuable lesson, never sneak up on a southern gal with a gun.
Three overlord soldiers were ambushed by Tolukei, his telekinetic mind caused all three of their heads to bash against the walls repeatedly until their helmets fractured and their skulls caved in, crushing their psionic minds. The undead grunts they had control over in the storage room the two entered next, fell over dead as a result.
Dead end, Foster thought as she looked about amongst the cargo crates. Her frantic search for another door turned up nothing, there was only one, the one they entered. “Tolukei, we gotta turn back—"
She stopped herself having realized there was a tiny window looking out into space from behind them. She saw the Carl Sagan in the distance as it slowly began to come about from the drift Tolukei had forced it into. This was part of his escape plan, get to the section of the ship that would be closest to the Carl Sagan, and therefore the first part that would be in range for teleportation.
There was just one problem, and it presented itself via a bright teleportation light.
Marduk materialized out from it and wasted no time attacking them with his mind.
Foster dodge-rolled behind a crate and sprayed down supportive fire while Tolukei and Marduk dueled with their psionic wizardry. Their clashing psionic powers created bright flashing lights, and sparks showered down upon them from the damaged ceiling. Boxes were flung back and forth as projectiles, it forced Foster to change her cover every so often when a box she hid behind was levitated upward and tossed.
Overlords and grunts entered with the now trapped trio, Mavron dashed in to engage the overlords in spear to spear combat. Foster upped the intensity of her laser shower, hoping it would draw the grunt’s attacks away from Mavron and toward her as she continued to dive and roll to new cover while new cargo boxes fell to the floor.
Marduk, like Tolukei, had a psionic barrier protecting him, an impressive feat considering he lacked the cybernetic implants needed. Even more impressive, was the fact that his barrier was clearly stronger than Tolukei who did have the implants. And it was that advantage that made Tolukei’s mind grow tired, while the energy that was required to power Foster’s laser ran low, whatever the hell they used to power it.
Foster looked back through the window, the Carl Sagan was closer than before, escape was seconds away, assuming Tolukei had enough left in him to perform one. Then there was still the risk of Marduk teleporting aboard to chase, hell, he could just have his ship chase them again, and they’d be right back to where they started.
Marduk or his ship needed to be taken out, ideally both, and ideally right then and there. Foster’s gaze shifted up at the ceiling and saw where the sparks had shot out from earlier. There were some pipes, wiring, and god knows what else exposed from the fighting. They all looked important, important things tend to explode, burst into flames, or straight up make computers not work correctly.
She aimed her laser at it, used what little charge was left to power it and unloaded. The lasers blasted upward toward the damaged ceiling, she held her breath for several seconds and eagerly waited for what would come next. An explosion? Flames spraying out? A hull breach? She was up for any of those at this point.
She saw tiny flames flare out from a pipe she shot. Then a sparking wire dangled next to the flames. A loud bang roared, it was preceded by jets of hot green plasma spearing out from the pipes, down upon the two fighting psionics.
Tolukei jump ported backward next to Foster, and then yanked Mavron over toward them with his psionic pull. Marduk shielded his face from the hot plasma pouring all over his body as his shields shattered. What would happen to him next was anyone’s guess as bright teleportation light surrounded the trio.
Foster, Mavron, and Tolukei rematerialized. They were aboard the bridge of the Carl Sagan. She heard cheering and laughter from the crew. Bodies of the undead grunts rested all over the bridge floor. Williams was more than happy to leap up from her captain’s chair and offer it back to her. She was glad to take it.
“Save the cheerin’ for later, we ain’t done yet,” Foster said. “Get us outta here!”
The Carl Sagan turned away from Marduk’s ship and disappeared as it entered sub light speeds. Marduk’s ship however stayed where it was. There was only one person that could pilot it, and he wasn’t available to do so.
36 FOSTER
ESRS Carl Sagan, Decontamination chamber
Interstellar space, entering Sirius A system
May 22, 2050, 07:25 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Foster was experiencing quite possibly the most awkward situation of her career thus far.
She sat cross-legged, butt-naked, with decontamination gel glistening on her pasty southern American skin. She kept one arm across her breasts and ensured she faced the wall with her back toward Pierce, Mavron, and Chevallier who all found themselves in the same awkward situation together. She could tell by Chevallier’s shadow on the floor that she too sat in the same pose. Pierce kept both of his hands down low, obscuring his manhood from the rest of the group, his face flushed bright and his lips sealed shut.
It was met with disappointment by Nereid who tried repeatedly to make small talk with him, unaffected by the fact she too was unclothed. Nereid tried to poke him, made playful jokes, just about anything to get his attention. Nereid’s endless giggling was driving Chevallier insane, while Pierce struggled to flush out of his head whatever a lonely middle-aged man like himself would notice, and focused on being the calm gentleman that he was. That included looking away from Nereid’s chest whenever she stood in front of him.