Superhero Adventures, UK Style

As the feeling of temporal nausea faded and the teammates looked around them, they reluctantly accepted that they now stood amongst the ruins of a future Wessex. Young Mary and that ruddy dog hadn’t been conveyed with them for some reason, but both Rory and Psipher had, and the team quickly recognised the neighbourhood – they were standing less than a mile from the BASEment. The good news was that whatever had been affecting Young Sam previously, no longer seemed to be debilitating him. What had happened here?

A still armoured Psipher and Rory moved off the street, leaving the four of them standing in the middle of the deserted road. In the distance, a colossal needle-like tower stretched high, several miles into the sky. While they were focusing on that, the sound of rubble being shattered on the road behind them made them spin round. In the distance, but coming towards them, was a large red light seeming attached to the chest of a giant humanoid robot with what looked like twin chambers or gun barrels on its back.

Sam quipped, “Friend of yours?” Akira muttered, “No and it looks heavier than I’d like.”

It waded in closer, causing Sam to move over and interpose himself in front of Rory and Psipher. Close up, it was definitely humanoid in shape; was that a good sign or bad? Sam thought it might mean that this was possibly friendly.

Akira took no chances and threw up his shield round himself as the creature came to a stop a short distance from them and a speaker in the chest shouted in a synthesised voice, “Stop! You are duly arrested.”

Over their internal comms, the team debated what to do, was this one of the good guys, possibly even some form of future Police or at least it thought it had some form of authority around here? Unwilling to start a war based on nothing more that this confrontation, they stood their ground but refused to be the ones who threw the ‘first punch’.

Sam out his hands up and spoke out, “Yes, I surrender”. He was willing to go with the robot until they had some more information to go on.  They could always figure out their next move when they got to wherever this metallic Marshall decided to take them.

Then from behind it came an armoured human-shaped figure that looked familiar. It had the same armour design as the two that had attacked Fizzgig. Was there also one of the animated corpses inside? What had she called them? Omegadrones? That wasn’t necessarily a good sign. As Akira muttered, “I never forget a tin can.” A couple more of the armoured humanoids began to appear, coming towards them marching in synchronised conformity; regimented in their actions and perfectly in step with each other.

Sam said, “Ah guys I don’t think we should take them on just yet. I think we need more information.” Mace agreed and Banshee shrugged as everyone agreed to go quietly until they knew more and could understand what had happened here.

Then they saw a female figure that a couple of the team recognised on top of one of the ruined buildings. Death Metal! She began to gesture towards the robot and the advancing ‘troops’. All they could hear was her voice screaming, “Run you stupid idiots, run!” at the top of her voice. Suddenly the robot collapsed to one knee as her gesture twisted the hydraulics on the leg into scrap. Sam momentarily wondered whether she was talking to the team or the soldiers? Akira didn’t hesitate, he ran towards their two non-combatants to shield them as they entered the nearby building opposite Death Metal.  Sam shouted, “Mace do you want a lift?” “Love one, thanks” as Sam flew and grabbed her then headed into the air as he confirmed their two apparent non-combatants were now inside the same building. Better not draw attention towards them, he thought. Banshee turned insubstantial and headed up into the air to try and draw the creatures’ fire.

Mace pulled out an experimental arrowhead she’d been tinkering with previously, a head that used the same technique as Adam’s Christmas present, the tracer bolt. Manually fitting it to one of her crossbow shafts, she fired it at the armoured troopers.

The arrow appeared to explode before it hit anything, an apparently wasted shot; in reality, the explosion disguised the small dart-like bug microphone, which was expelled out under the cover of the explosion and impacted clandestinely on the lead Omegadrone. Over the comms the team eavesdropped but all they could hear was short bursts of static. It seemed as though they were not communicating verbally but it did appear as though they were receiving (or sending?) some sort of radio transmission.

What to do about Death Metal? Having quickly reminded Akira who she was and Sam insisting to Mace and the others that she wasn’t necessarily a villain, “it’s complicated” he explained. Akira levitated up towards her, “thanks for the heads up, we were about to surrender to those guys. We haven’t met before but I’m Akira…” She gestured and crushed one of the suited creatures below about to shoot at them. Her anxiety and anger evident, she almost screamed, “I know who you are Akira, now get to the BASEment and hurry. I can’t hold them off for forever. You need to get to the BASEment and the White Room; otherwise they will capture you along with all the others.”

This conversation was captured and subsequently relayed over Akira’s earpiece to the others. Sam asked, “How does she know about the BASEment and the White Room?”  Akira repeated the question to Death Metal. She looked at him with utter disgust and a tilted head as if to say ‘are you a moron? Instead she said, “We’re in the middle of a firefight and you want to ask stupid questions..?”  Akira wanted to explain that he was just conveying Sam’s question but never got a chance to speak. Instead she pointed in the direction of the park and shouted, “BASEment! NOW!!!”

Death Metal continued her attack on the robot and troops, crumpling segments of their armour with the walking dead inside and attacking the various joints of both them and the robot. Akira flew across to join the others and, mustering all his energy created a portal to the White Room. “Follow me guys, to the White Room!”

Death Metal elected to remain providing cover as she refused to stop attacking the robot and the zombie troopers. They could also see that she was now joined on the rooftop by a young female, apparently formed out of living ice. She began to unleash several waves of ice onto the lower extremities of the robot, trapping it in place. Sam shivered; he’d need to make sure he avoided her if they survived this.  For a brief moment, he thought he heard her say something about him looking a bit like Sam? Then expediency took over and the comment was lost amongst the chaos of battle.

Akira tried to get everyone to jump through the portal but Death Metal and the icy female seemed determined to maintain the rear guard action until they were all clear. The female, Death Metal called her Permafrost, unleashed wave after wave of ice at the troops below then shouted to Death Metal “There are two more incoming and another squad.”

Sam, who was still carrying Mace, also grabbed Rory who was unable to get to the roof and flew them both up. He was about to go back for Psipher when she appeared, having managed the climb unassisted. Akira was the last through, admittedly reluctantly. His last view was of Death Metal and Permafrost heading off in different directions, fleeing.

To their surprise, the BASEment had been bombarded and nearly destroyed sometime in the recent past, though the roof and walls of the White Room seemed to have survived intact. What was out of place was a large man-sized antique mirror which stood against the rear wall. Its thick wooden frame surrounded a bespeckled and slightly cracked mirror.

Out of this silvered surface suddenly, and impossibly, appeared a human, female hand, which gestured towards them. At first, they worried that it wanted Rory for some reason, Sam muttered, “you can’t have him, he’s ours” then thought to smell the hand from where he stood. The scent was familiar, including a familiar smell of oil and mechanical equipment. Mikey?

Reluctantly they each stepped up and then through the mirror, which for a second felt as though they were walking through dry water. On the other-side, they found themselves in a large room covered from ceiling to floor in multiple mirrors. Sam and Akira immediately recognised that they were standing in the Mirror Room of Ffrwd Dylluan. They’d been transferred instantaneously across the country to the border of Wales, near Brichester, in the Severn Valley. Behind them stood a mirror identical to the one in the BASEment; a linked teleportal?

Akira spoke out, “This is my ancestral home. The house is cloaked by some mystical means to appear abandoned.” “Welcome to Sanctuary” said a familiar voice. In front of them stood a slightly older and stressed-looking Mikey, partially dressed in the Omniweapon armour. How did she manage to get hold of the Omniweapon suit from that obnoxious Marcus Moore?

Outside the door to this room, they could hear a lot of people moving around. Mary immediately asked, “We need information, what’s happening, or, more to the point, what’s happened?”

“Where have you four been?” Mikey replied.  Mary replied, “We jumped.” and Akira continued, “We’ve come from the past, we…” Psipher had been removing her helmet and suddenly jumped up. Her hair was a black/blue and shaved on one side but it was her pink pupils that were really striking. Was she Vilani (they had different coloured pupils didn’t they) or possibly it was just that she was wearing contacts? She immediately interjected, “Spoilers! You mustn’t tell them too much, not about themselves anyway. It would affect the timeline…”

Sam muttered about “temporal paradoxes” and “creating possible time-loops…” Akira and Mace confirmed that needed to avoid that if possible. Psipher, or Danni as she now referred to herself, said that she would allow Mikey to explain what had happened here (as this was itself indicative of a time alteration) but she would veto any attempt to pass on personal information that could affect any specific individual. Then, like a mother hen, she sat down on one of the sole chairs in the room to act as censor.

Akira said, “We should find out what happened to the BASEment as we don’t want it to get smashed to smithereens.” “The BASEment was taken over, ah after you four vanished when it was attacked and destroyed by the Terminus troops, their Omegadrones, but it was useful to maintain it as an escape ‘chute’ to here, to Sanctuary.” pointing towards the door to the rest of the house. Made sense, the house was located in a rural area far from any major city.

Sam spoke up, “So Mikey, what do you need us to do and how do we get back?” Mikey looked utterly taken back. Sam continued, “Look we’re glad to see you but we don’t want to cause a paradox accidently…” That brought a smile to her lips, then she replied, “First welcome, and for now we’re just trying to stay alive.” Looking at Psipher she asked, “Can I tell them what happened? I assume they have come from a time before the invasion?”

Danni nodded, “I’ll stop you though if it gets too personal…”  Mikey continued after a few seconds of thought, “A couple of years ago, the planet was invaded not by interstellar invaders but by inter-dimensional reivers, aliens from another dimension, for the most part humanoid. Their Omegadrones are their reanimated dead, even our own dead are forced to serve them. The Terminus wastes nothing… “

Sam wondered if it was anything like the Assembly, the techno-organic creature that had used the dead as components.  Mikey continued, “We think the process is something similar but no it’s not the same – no control cables involved. These creatures, I refuse to think of them as human anymore, are able to function independently. Anyway the Terminus came here but had already infiltrated the world Governments’ sometime before; a fifth column already in place and fully established. So, when they invaded even Dalton and his meta-human army were quickly assimilated and taken over by the control parasites within a matter of weeks. Troops were sent to the wrong locations or ambushed and defeated very quickly. Once all organised opposition was destroyed they started working on building their Conversion Towers. You might have seen the one they built in Wessex?

Somehow these Towers will allow them to steal the planet’s resources, in fact everything they can from the planet leaving it uninhabitable. They’ve spent the last two years building their Towers to power this land grab.  What you will see here are among the last of the Resistance, the last of those still free.”

Sam interrupted, “So you’re in a state of martial law?” Mikey nodded, “Full scale invasion. From what we’ve learnt the invaders plan to steal the planet, bit by bit and somehow transport it back to their own dimension. They’ve taken over 99% of the populated world, defeated our armies and defences.

At the beginning, before we understood what they were doing their infiltrators unleashed the Silver Storm and their parasites to very quickly assimilate most of the meta-humans, who then became their troops. This Terminus aren’t necessarily controlling everything but they are successfully completing the construction of their Towers.”

She pointed through the window. It was now night and the moon was in the sky, seemingly larger, closer than they remembered it and misshapen. As they watched a series of pockmarks appeared round its equator, each casting up dust and leaving behind them a small hole in the moon’s surface like a new crater – or as though something massive was taking a series of perfectly circular ‘bites’ out of it every few minutes.

“Those are the result of the first Conversion Towers they built – on the Moon; they are now constructing a series of six Towers around the Earth. We figure each new crater is 2.6 kilometres in diameter. Remind you of anything?”

Sam and Mary gave each other a look and replied together “Birmingham, that’s what happened there.”  “Trial run we think.” Mikey replied, as the team remembered the tragedy from ‘two’ years before on their timeline when a section of that city, including thousands of its inhabitants, had suddenly vanished. Finally, the mystery was explained. Also explained why the superhero team, the Protectors had been involved.

As Mikey started to walk towards the door, Akira couldn’t resist asking, “So we disappeared when we went to St. Kilda then?” and Mace teased, “That would have been about what, two years before?” Danni quickly interjected, “That is definitely spoilers.” Mikey though looked as though she wanted to tell them but…

Akira turned to Danni, “Is there anything else we need to do here before we leave to try and go back to our own time?” She replied, “You’re here for a full day, it will take that long for my powers to recover fully. My ability to time travel is restricted to once every 24-hour period. You’re already integrated into the here and now so as long as you avoid trying to find out your own future you should be ok.”

Mace asked “So what can we achieve in a day?” Mikey replied, “Survive? “ as Akira realised that he was hungry and wanted to know if he could find something to eat… As Mikey went to open the door, another armoured individual walked in.

“The Illustrious armour! But who..?” said Rory. Mary immediately recognised it as the suit she’d seen in pictures of a certain Irish hero, previously crewed by a member of her pseudo-family. The helmet was removed to reveal a slightly older and now redheaded Mary the younger and now one of the commanders of this ‘Dad’s Army’ apparently. Could her presence here and now be why Mary hadn’t time travelled with them? If that was the case, what did that say about their presence?

It was obvious she recognised Rory but the recognition was not mutual. Why should it Mary thought, they’d never had the time since his rescue to introduce him to his daughter.

There seemed to be a common theme – with the resistance using a variety of armoured suits. Sam even asked the team sub-vocally if they might have armoured suits they could use, to replies of why would you need them and dragon scales not armoured enough for you anymore?

Mary asked the two women “are you able to do anything more than just survive?” Mary replied, “That’s what we do, we’re what remains of the resistance. There are various things we are doing to try and drive the invaders away including trying to stop the Towers from coming online. In fact we have an attempt planned to stop some of the Conversion Towers from ever being completed.”

Sam asked how they were doing for food and medicine to be told they had some, not as much as they’d like but they were able to grow food in the grounds as well as one of the rooms upstairs had somehow linked themselves to locations growing crops. It used to be linked somehow to a forest then one day it changed, “Still don’t understand that but… Well, it works.”

Akira had to ask, “So there’s no fast food outlets left?” And Sam laughing muttered “I guarantee Starbucks would have survived.” And Akira carried on talking about being able to get Cookies and cakes there and how they hadn’t eaten since heading to St. Kilda… “It’s been literally years since we ate.”

Mikey stopped him, “look you can head down to the kitchen and eat but before you do I need to introduce you to people so you don’t cause a panic, so… Sam!!!” Sam replied “Yes” at the same time as a female voice from the now opening door. In walked a red skinned, armoured female with small, draconic wings obviously designed for gliding rather than flying. Like the Male Sam, this ‘Sam’ was dressed in fire-resistant shorts though she also wore a fireproof bikini top.

Akira couldn’t resist, “A transgender Sam, you look good old friend.” The young draconic woman immediately stopped dead looking at the other Sam. “Why are you wearing HIS image?  How dare you… “Young Sam replied, “Ah, it’s my image.” As he watched she changed back into a young, tall (though not as tall as Sam or Annie) woman, quickly slipping on a nearby top.

Sam said,”Ah, cool” and also changed into his tall, human form. She looked at him, “My name is Young Sam.” “No, wait that’s my name, my identity. I’m confused.”  She looked surprised, “Well, you definitely look like him in both forms.”

Despite being in human form, his senses remained heightened and he discreetly checked her scent and mystical flavour; she smelt of Tiamente, his progenitor. He sensed she had similar powers and power levels to him. “We should probably talk at some point, I feel like..? ” he said, obviously confused. He turned to Danni, “Can I talk to her? I mean about..?”

“I’m not happy about it, but as long as you don’t ask about what happened, will happen to you.”

As Danni spoke, several other people entered the room. The first was a young man in a long coat and partial armour who immediately shouted out, “Aunt Mary, Uncle Sam… Mace!!!” Then seeing Akira he went a bit cold and said, “Akira.”

“It’s a regular reunion apparently,” said the male Sam. “hey there, hi. I’d have brought you a gift but this wasn’t exactly a planned visit.” The boy continued, “It’s just great to see you, I haven’t seen any of you since before Dad died.”

The youth took off his visor and Sam immediately saw a family resemblance to a friend of theirs, Inspector Tolliver. He’d a teenage son hadn’t he? He’d seen several photos of the boy on his desk and shelves next to those of Marcus’ uncle, the 80’s hero Protector… Luke wasn’t it? “Hi Luke…”

Luke smiled and then stood aside as others came in to the room; a young woman with a broad Scottish accent introduced herself as Beltane, followed by several others. Behind them, they heard someone access the room via the mirror,  Permafrost who looked nearly hysterical as she reported, “They got Death Metal.”

Sam muttered, “We need to help and try and rescue her if we can.” Akira replied, “How? They got her” and Mary spoke up, “Then we get her back.” and then walked with Mikey over to try get the details of what happened from the girl.

Mace was aware that, except for young Mary and Mikey she’d never met any of the future people now crowding into the room, though several appeared to know her or of her at least. Akira unsympathetically asked the girl, “is Death Metal now dead metal?” and got a glare in response.

“She’ll have been sent to one of the holding camps to be processed before being sent on for conversion. There’s a possibility we can save her but we’ll need to wait until they start to transport her before we can act. We do need to get to her before they place one of their control parasites in her,” Said Mikey, “They don’t generally carry that procedure out in the camps”.

“We can help carry out some form of rescue mission but need more information.” Said Mary as the team confirmed that they would make an attempt before they returned to the past.

Young Mary and Mikey pointed out that they’d be expecting an attack right away, it would essentially be a suicide mission. Better to wait and attack when Death Metal was being transported to the Conversion site at the base of the Tower. They wouldn’t be expecting an attack so close to their main camp. They also had someone else in the same camp who was due to be sent on for conversion or examination and might be in the same transport.

It was essential that they rescue this other person as she’d been spying for them and had managed to infiltrate the Tower and apparently got her hands on their construction diagrams. Their last call from her before her capture said she’d found a way to destroy the towers but needed to sneak the information out.

She was captured trying to get away and was sent to the same camp as Death Metal was now at.  They’d been watching and waiting and the next transport was due to be sent out tomorrow. Danni’s temporal recharge period might even work in their favour.

Akira wandered off to the kitchen in search of food calling a planning meeting over the kitchen counter while munching sandwiches once he’d made enough for the whole team.

As they walked into the corridors, they noticed lots of people crammed into the house, though Mace couldn’t help notice that the number of women in the house and grounds far outweighed the men. There were also hordes of children running around underfoot. As they passed, they were warned that going too far into the top floors often resulted in people ending up in the basement and you wanted to avoid being there if you could, it could be dangerous. Akira reminded them that the house was magical in nature but that’s what made it so useful. All outsiders ever saw was a ruined house, completely unlivable and having been in that state for decades.

They also noticed that everyone they passed had some form of shielding on the back of their necks, even the babies. These neck-guards were apparently to protect against control parasite infiltration. Some had metal guards (but several were made out of soft plastic) covering the base of the skull to part way down the spine. Akira realised he was vulnerable when his shield was off and grabbed one just in case as did Mary.

Sam meanwhile was being hounded by the female Sam, or Samantha as he elected to call her. She kept on following him around saying, “You do look like him, but how? You can’t be him.”

However, every time she began to talk more about why this couldn’t be, Danni would interrupt and drag one or other of them away. She was trying extremely hard to prevent ‘spoilers’.

However, on one of the occasions when Danni was trying to forestall Samantha, Mikey grabbed him and said that he had to see this and without their temporal chaperone. She dragged him outside into the gardens and towards a single wooden cross set away from a makeshift cemetery next to the woods. This grave had been singled out for some reason. He walked towards it then knelt down using his night vision to read the burnt in legend; ‘Adam Meyers, Hero, “He died that we may live.” 2025.’ By the amount of weathering, the cross looked like it had to have been erected anytime within the last year or ten.

Sam tried to rein in his emotions; “Oh, bollocks” was all he managed before tears came unbidden to his eyes.

Then he had to know, no matter what the cost. “How, what, when… How?”  Mikey knelt down beside him, “I can’t tell you specific details as Danni might, would try and prevent me somehow, somewhen. Basically Adam was involved in one of the attempts to try and rescue some of the people here. He also developed this,” and pulled out a device that resembled a torch, “this can be used to extract one of the control parasites from a victim. If we inject the creature with a little bit of iron this device can find it and using a miniature grav-powered tractor beam to guide it out without killing its host.” Sam admitted, “That sounds like something Adam would create.” Mikey continued, “he got the idea from something he called ‘tinks’, I think. The iron makes the parasite visible on a scanner.” Sam asked, “Is that the only one?” “No, we’ve made more but it does need something injected into where they nest in the brain as once embedded they are virtually invisible. Iron works as a tracer but can cause side effects in the host. Silver is better as it kills them, but is harder to get hold of.

What happened is that the vast majority of meta-humans were assimilated within weeks.  that’s where you three came in, as that’s one thing Terminus had difficulty with, it really doesn’t understand magic. That coupled with humans with their innovative solutions and determination never to give up. That’s why we wear the suits, they put us on par with the meta-quislings. We were able to keep on fighting when the meta-humans were no longer able to.

That’s why Dalton’s army was so ridiculous; they were taken over within weeks.”

Sam asked, “What about the library?” Mikey shrugged, “We don’t know, we don’t know what happened.” “They were always secretive before, they probably went into hiding…”

Mikey looked over her shoulder and continued, “That was something the Balance was looking into, that and trying to make contact with the Fae. Mary had an idea about forming an alliance. We don’t know what happened and I can’t say where or when we lost contact with you as Danni would figure it out and it could change the timeline.”  Heading back inside, Sam muttered about “too much wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff” as he passed Danni and joined the others in the kitchen.

Mikey offered to meet up with them in the mirror room later and, if they wanted to help, she had some ideas how they might help. The two Sam’s wandered down to the hospital area to see if they could help with Samantha (“Hey, I’m Sam, I’ve been here longer..”) in tow trying to probe for more information.

Worried about what was happening on the moon, Mace cornered Danni. She explained that, “I can’t give you timelines and I’m not going to discuss your personal future, I really don’t want to risk changing your personal timeline but there are somethings you need to know.

The Terminus are inter-dimensional invaders, not interstellar. They dwell in another dimension and they appear to live in a Dyson sphere – a shell that completely surrounds their sun within the same orbit as our earth. To explain just how big this is, it intercepts 100% of the output of its sun, that’s 30 trillion times the output of Earth and the landmass is over half a billion times the surface area. They invade other dimensions to literally rip their planet’s to its component parts and transport it back to expand the habitable parts of this surface that is in perpetual sunlight inside this sphere.  The earth and the moon are raw materials that allow them to expand across the inner shell… Human beings are just additional slaves, to be worked until they die and even then, they continue to serve; converted into techno-zombies, troops to serve their masters even after death. The earth provides them with life giving building materials to be transported and used; raiding dimension after dimension, literally invaded and destroyed hundreds of parallel Earths as well as any accessible planets they can travel to via stargates. ”

When Mace reported this back, Sam was for hunting down Chrono in his Tempus personae, wherever when he might be to see if he might be able to help them and given the ‘history’ between Death Metal and him the next step had to be rescuing her. Sam asked if visiting Terminus would be a really bad idea and Danni had to admit she hadn’t a clue how to get there and Mace was sure that she wouldn’t want to go, that it wasn’t a good tourist destination. Not just yet, anyway.

Danni admitted there had been a Terminus incursion some years before their time, they had been driven back but there was a cost, both of the Challenger-Wildeman children’s parents had died closing the breach and a number of heroes had not survived.

A few hours later, they were asked to head down to the Dining Room for a meeting with younger Mary and Mikey. As soon as everyone had sat down at the table, Mikey reminded them that a few days ago, they’d managed to sneak a spy onto the Conversion Tower site but before she could get out with vital information about the tower vulnerabilities, she was captured.

She continued, “It’s just been confirmed that both Death Metal and our agent would be shipped out by grav vehicle and the convoy would pass nearby tomorrow heading for the Tower. If we can get access to that information, it would enable us to carry out a co-ordinated three-pronged attack on the three towers in the Northern Hemisphere and strike a real blow against them. We have the Amazons in France attacking the Tower in Europe, a team in Canada and us all attacking simultaneously. The three Towers in the Southern Hemisphere are already behind schedule so it would deal a real blow to their plans to strip-mine the planet.

We don’t have enough people to rescue our people and then carry out our attacks at the same time. We need your team to attack the transport, rescue Death Metal and our agent and transmit the information to us as soon as possible. Meanwhile we will be infiltrating the Towers and waiting for the information to be transmitted to us so we can take all three of them down simultaneously. A case of divide and demolish. We have at most 20 or 30 minutes from the time the convoy is attacked before the Towers are reinforced and the rescuers are captured, unless there was a distraction that stood their ground. It would be a suicide mission, unless of course, the rescue team had someone capable of escape, say via time travel. We have calculated that if you rescued the prisoners nearby and they then escape via the mirror path, the attacking team would need to make a stand and hold the line for at least twenty minutes until Psipher was fully charged and able to chronoport you out of there. I think this would be the perfect mission for this team if you’d be willing to try.”

She explained that they would be able to provide a transmitter to allow the information to be sent and if that failed, they needed to get their agent and Death Metal back here so they could transmit the information to the three teams who would already be inside the towers. Then by standing their ground, they would act as a decoy. The timing fits quite closely. They’d have just under half an hour from the time the transport leaves until Psipher could ‘port them out and the convoy is due to arrive at the Conversion Tower.  However, the convoy might also have some meta-quislings onboard, enhanced individuals trying to protect the transport or they could be there quickly.

The team agreed to try, then started planning out how to make the ambush happen. They’d need to get the lead prisoner transport to land so they can free the 40 or so prisoners. There could be up to three Probots and a second vehicle filled with a squad of Omegadrones as well as an unknown number of meta’s as escort. They needed to figure out how to take out the convoy and support troops then preparing for possible reinforcements once they sounded the alarm. They would then have to act as the local ‘distraction’.

For the next few hours, they made plans.

They asked Permafrost if she’d be willing to come with them and Danni on the mission.  Rory would accompany them but would stay out of the way. They did some research on the Probots including their limited EMP shielding which might allow Mace’s bolts to knock out selective weaponry but would not take the robots completely off-line.  The transports wouldn’t be shielded however. They discussed everything from meta-guards to how to avoid collateral damage to the prisoners.

Sam asked Mace if there was any way to create EMP grenades for each of them – she responded by removing three of her prepared arrowheads and began rigging makeshift triggers on each for Banshee, Akira and Sam. Akira worked on preparing a spell he’d been studying before the trip to St. Kilda; a spell known as the Miasma of Malador. He entered a meditative state to ready the spell.

Meanwhile Mikey informed them they’d found a suitable location for the attack, on the outskirts of Wessex that the convoy would pass over, close enough to the BASEment to make an escape via the White Room possible. However, it also meant they would be very close to their reinforcements once they got an alarm off or they failed to report in. The upside though is that they wouldn’t be expecting an attack so close to their stronghold; a definite case of swings and roundabouts.

The Mirror Path between the BASEment and Sanctuary was shielded against Omegadrones so Sam and Banshee decided to travel through the mirror to see if they could find anything useful in their Armory. As they stepped through, they discovered they were not alone, an Omegadrone stood guard. Mary (and Sam) however had stepped through in insubstantial form and that confused the techno-zombies’ ability to assess the threat level but it had recorded that the mirror acted as a form of transport.  Before it could transmit, Sam stepped away from Banshee, turned substantial and unleashed his fiery breath which decimated his transmission capacity but it remained functional until Banshee hit it with her shattering shriek causing it to collapse to the ground, spasming.  Sam unleashed a second burst of his flame breath rendering it non-functional and reduced it to a roasted skeleton.

They headed to the Armory first where they began scavenging under collapsed slabs of roof for anything worth retrieving that hadn’t been looted yet; they got lucky, finding a partially-damaged freeze gun, some fragments and parts belonging to stun rifles that might be useful and then struck lucky; two functional stun grenades.

Sam also wanted to try for the hangar but there was a rock fall blocking the corridor.  Banshee phased through. The Raft was missing but Mace’s Grav-Bike was there, seeming untouched as was a portable generator and a selection of Adam’s tools.  Strapping them to the back of the bike Banshee managed to phase the whole lot through the rock fall and headed back to the mirror.  Sam did notice that as she phased, she seemed to also become invisible; a reaction to trying to phase so much through the rock fall?  She immediately informed Banshee who suggested that she might need to take to wearing bandages, that being the accepted response to spontaneous invincibility apparently.

Having unloaded the equipment through the mirror, they tried pushing the mirror only to see the frame physically distort to accommodate the bikes chassis! They followed the bike through and stood once more in Sanctuary. Sam shouted out, “it’s Christmas, gifts for everyone!” as he started to unpack the cargo. Mace was excited to find they had brought her the bike.

Mary asked Mace if she could analyse the signal frequency they’d received from her bug and build some form of scrambler to block their radio signals. Mace set to work, building a signal blocker with up to a one-mile radius. Akira and Banshee each took possession of one of the recovered stun grenades and Sam gathered up the now repaired Ice Cannon.  If this plan worked then there was a strong possibility they would lose the mirror and the BASEment as an escape hatch afterwards but it would be worth it if they got the information about the Conversion Towers to the resistance.

Several hours later and as suspected, the Resistance confirmed the convoy had set off, two transports and two Probots were enroute to the base of the tower.

They headed via the BASEment for the intercept point and Danni and Rory (with the scrambler) hid nearby. The convoy came into view; two Probots ran alongside the two transports flying about a hundred metres up, one upfront and one bringing up the rear. It was T minus 20 minutes until Chronoport was possible.

Akira, shielded and invisible, with Sam in chameleon mode approached the lead Probot. Mace was in flight with her two passengers; Permafrost and Banshee, who was maintaining her insubstantiality and invisibility over all three of them.

Akira unleashed the Miasma of Malador on the Probots, its mists eating away at both robot’s visual sensors rendering them blind and they went into defence mode. Akira immediately told Rory to flip the switch on the scrambler rendering the area a mile-wide communications dead zone, including their own internal comms. The Probots blasted blind, fortunately not hitting anything or anyone.  Mace avoided the wide beam blasts, and flew as close as possible to the first transport whilst Banshee, holding Permafrost, flew across and whilst insubstantial and invisible, infiltrated the transport. Looking around they saw 20 prisoners, including two she recognised; Death Metal and a tall, redheaded female – an unchanged Annie who seemed aware something was going down! In the front were two Omegadrone guards and the pilot in a separate section. Permafrost stepped away from Banshee and unleashed a blast of ice into the cabin at the two guards freezing them.

Mace meanwhile unleashed an EMP bolt at the rear transport. Its engines sputtered and died causing the ship to crash into the ground and knocking the pilot unconscious. Sam rushed round and, using the Ice cannon, immediately froze the manoeuvre drives solid.  The doors then began to open and a female warrior, in ornate armour and armed with twin swords rushed forth. This was obviously not a drone!

She shouted, “Who dares challenge Madrigal of Terminus to combat? Show yourself.” Why did this feel like a female St. George with himself as the dragon?

Akira immediately dropped his shield so he could throw the stun grenade at the woman in armour.  She jumped out of the way heading still towards Sam but the grenade did manage to knock out the first three drones at least who’d charged out of the transport doors.

The first Probot released a metallic snare net in Akira’s direction.  Akira managed to dodge it in time just as five Omegadrones exited the ship. Mace hovered nearby and targeted the rear Probot with a couple of her bolts aimed at the joints, stopping it in its tracks while another bolt exploded its blaster.

Madrigal rushed at Sam with her blades, which appeared to easily slice through metal. He stood his ground, ready to try to parry the attack. He twisted his body just as she struck causing the blade to score but not pierce the scales on his arm. Two Omegadrones sneaked behind him whilst a further three Omegadrones, having jumped over their stunned companions, joined in the attack beside Madrigal. Sam flew over them and straight in through the transport hatch. ”Hello boys!” he shouted as he set off the EMP charge. The wave bust through the ship’s interior rendering all of the remaining ‘drones techno-implants inert.

In the air, Banshee phased through the frozen drones with Permafrost and unleashed her corrupting touch on the pilot, causing her to spasm and shiver but not immediately go unconscious. She reached over and pulled her out of the pilot seat as the ship went into a dive. Permafrost jumped over the frozen corpses of the ‘drones and grabbed the controls, stabilised the ship and heading in for a hard landing.

Akira hurried to the prisoner transport, which was decanting its cargo of passengers. He arrived in time for Annie to run out and give him a quick hug, “I don’t know how you’re here but I’ve important data I need to get to the Resistance.” As she spoke, she pulled a data cable out of her skull, “Do you have the means for me to send this? I need to get to a transmitter and send the information.” For a few seconds, Akira considered switching off the scrambler to allow Annie to transmit her stolen data. Instead, he opened a portal to the White Room and began to send the prisoners through starting with Annie and Death Metal.

It was now T minus seven, the prisoners were hopefully safely away, they just had to hold the line for another seven minutes. However, as they looked at the skyline the convoys failure to report in had resulted in several Probots being dispatched from the Tower to find out what had happened.

Madrigal stood ready; Sam rushed in and tried to bear hug the female. She was a lot stronger than he expected. She broke free as Sam jumped back. Mace unleashed a dazzle bolt at her. She jumped back, her sight recovering almost instantly and she responded by grabbing at Sam, her blades hanging from her wrist as she slammed Sam to his knees. Banshee unleashed a terrorising scream but she just shook off the attack.

Permafrost unleashed an ice slick at Madrigal’s feet but missed as she swung her swords back into her hands ready. Akira unleashed a mystical blast at the armoured female before she could strike at Sam. The blast ricocheted and hit her from the rear leaving her dazed.  Sam grabbed her and using his draconic persuasion “Why don’t you fight me as a warrior, hand to hand; on an equal footing? All you’d need to do is drop your blades.” Her eyes glazed as she dropped her swords and began punching him.

Then the first two of the Probots arrived on the scene. A blaster flared at Mace, but she managed to dodge passed it without being hit. The second Probot fired a blaster at Sam as he jumped out of the way of both the bolt and Madrigal’s reach. Mace targeted the Probots’ visual sensors with a dazzle bolt blinding the first temporarily and unleashed a second bolt against the second.  It flared into life and overwhelmed its sensors as well.

On the ground, Sam was rushed at by an enraged Madrigal.  She grabbed him with her bare hands; Sam broke her grip and managed to dance out of the way. Banshee, invisible and insubstantial, flew behind one of the Probots and landed on its back changing back to her substantial form before turning both herself and the massive robot insubstantial – in this state, its sensors failed to function, as did its communications systems forcing it to reboot as it tried to get away from whatever unknown force was affecting it.

Permafrost unleashed a frost blast at Madrigal but she managed to break free from the icy shell. Akira took the opportunity though to hit her again with another mystical blast, stunning her this time before she could do anything else. The problem was that she was recovering faster than expected. Mace unleashed a sleep bolt rendering unconscious again. They briefly considered sending her to the White Room but still under the control of the control parasite? Was it worth the risk?

Sam flew up and unleashed a blast of fiery blast at the remaining Probot. The blast must have hit a vital control system as the head unit suddenly exploded.

Danni, now in her full Psipher armour stepped out of cover and began to power up, but what to do about Madrigal? They decided to leave her though she appeared to be recovering at a remarkable rate. Her bruises began disappearing even as they watched. Sam used several blasts of the ice gun to pin her to the ground as Psipher signalled that she was ready. Then they heard a massive explosion and turning saw a massive detonation as the top of the Conversion Tower sheered off and collapsed to the ground. The Resistance attack had to have been successful.  The nausea hit as a sparkling wave of inter-temporal energy suddenly washed over them, then suddenly…

They appeared near the village of St. Kilda on the cliff above the village. Nearby they could hear Akira’s voice shouting, “Morning friend, did you also see that thing in the sky just now?” Another male voice, “Who are you? What are you doing here?” That Akira replied, “we’re just exploring a series of unexplained phenomena in the area…” He was interrupted with an urgent, almost panicky “how did you get here? The next transport from the mainland isn’t due for another six months at least.” “We just teleported in.” “But how?  The meta-sensors should have immediately have activated…” Then whispered. “hide quickly, hide!” Akira continued talking, “That thing in the sky, do you know what it is?” then several rifle shots rang out.

They also still had the scrambler, ice cannon, the remaining stun grenade and two EMP grenades as well as Mace’s grav-bike with them.