Akira and Banshee had been searching the domed regions known as the Green on and off for several days now, though it was unclear whether they were primarily searching for any escaped BloodRavagers or for traces of this Chrysalis entity whose ‘children’ they’d encountered before the invasion. Akira claimed he was really searching for the legendary crashed starship, that some of the locals had encountered out here, to claim as their own. Meanwhile he wondered where Paragon was.
Mary explained that Paragon had begged off the search today, claiming he had a meeting with the Governor of Starhaven, though he had refused to give any details or explain why the other two weren’t invited.
This evening’s search had led them to the place known as the Greenwalls in the South-west corner of the city. They could hear the distant roars of the Green’s less sentient inhabitants as they marked their territory, but it was otherwise eerily quiet. There was an excessive smell of ozone and the rotting fragrance of dying flowers despite all the plants being in full bloom.
This region had apparently once housed most of the original biotech geneering facilities of the Preservers. It hosted a variety of overlapping alien biomes after the barriers had broken down over the millennia. The flora and flora here were obviously mutated – the result apparently of ancient bio-engineering experiments seemingly still being run by ancient computer systems; making this an ideal location for an ancient alien intelligence like this Chrysalis.
The systems in this part of the city had been designed to keep its experimental subjects alive while apparently continuing to modify and augment them. Those same concealed systems must be responsible for generating massive holograms rendering much of the area into surreal mirages that tended to conceal threats and leave those unfamiliar with the area wandering an ever-shifting labyrinth.
After several hours of fruitless searching, they saw in front of them what looked to be a sizeable settlement merge out of the seemingly endless jungle like another mirage, though in this case they were also confronted by the sounds of a bustling small metropolis going about its business.
Interestingly none of the residents appeared to be speaking Lor, Vilani or even any Terran language they could recognise or had been programmed into the teams’ commdots for that matter.
Presumably, this had to be the community the locals referred to as the MirrorZone.
Before they approached, Akira reluctantly released from his TK ‘cage’ the unconscious, mutated smilodon that had so foolishly tried to eat him. He sighed, “I wanted to keep it, it’s rather cute!” but realised taking an apex predator, even an unconscious one, into a human settlement would be unacceptable in any culture.
Like the majority of settlements on Starhaven, most of the buildings in Greenwalls tended to consist of circular domes interconnected by sky bridges or were squat, flat-roofed and seeming intended as laboratories or for research.
The MirrorZone had a reputation as a place where people went missing, yet looking at the tranquil avenues lined with reflecting pools, mirrored walls and flowering hanging gardens with open balconies and overhead rainbow-coloured glass footbridges, it seemed like a rare oasis in this hostile environment, yet rumours claimed that those who visited this settlement rarely came out again.
The usual smell of cooking fires and too many sweaty people crammed tightly together was surprisingly missing, leaving them with the overpowering aroma of the fruits and vegetables on display outside the properties.
They had chosen to search this area largely because it reportedly had the largest number of Chrysalis ‘converts’ of any place on Starhaven. Though looking at the numerous alien icons and statues of alien gods on display everywhere, including an impressive holographic display (either depicting Collapsar or a spacial breach in space and time, assuming they weren’t both the same thing) that could just be because they weren’t ostracised for their ‘biological upgrades’ or the worship of their ‘God’ here. It was also possible that the number of Children of the Chrysalis present was just due to the receptive religious nature of the other residents.
As they stopped to examine the holographic display, they saw residents walking through it. Then they found themselves confronted by the appearance of a humanoid monstrosity stepping through the display that vaguely reminded them of something they’d seen previously.
It resembled the converted humans they had encountered in the warehouse but this was more severely mutated that the ones they’d seen previously. It retained its human form but it was impossible to say if it was or had been male or female anymore.
Its skin was grey and cephalopod-like tendrils covered its chest and stomach and surrounded a secondary functional, circular mouth filled with multiple rows consisting of sharp shark-like teeth. Its arms had been replaced with tentacles covered in what they suspected was stinging cells and its face had another growth covering its eyes and original mouth though this had separate ‘eye’ of its own and resembled a star-shaped echinoderm or starfish in shape and function.
As it shuffled forward, three or four others joined it, it was hard to confirm how many due to the moving holograms that distorted their view, each of them similarly mutated yet each in its own unique way. The fragrances of the market place were overtaken by the cloying, gagging stench of rot and decay as the figures shambled ever closer to them.
There was a passing resemblance to the children of The Chrysalis but these were more mutated through all had an alien eye and mouth somewhere on its body. Banshee and Akira had previously seen similar specimens in glass cases deep under the ice of the Arctic… *
Those monstrosities had been dead for millennia, these were very much alive and seemed determined to ‘convert’ the nearest citizens who, when touched by the monstrosities, immediately collapsed to the ground as though stunned.
The marketplace seemed to ignore the shambling sounds of the monstrous visitors and continued about their business unperturbed by the collapsing inhabitants falling as the Children of the Chrysalis touched each with their tendrils in turn.
A small green tendril began to burst forth from the bodies of the fallen like a new stem sprouting on fast forward. Remarkably, the others present seemed to ignore their fallen comrades, as though oblivious to them, though they did walk around or over rather than stand on their bodies.
Mary rushed forward to try to treat the fallen, while Akira tried to ‘twat’ the four monstrosities he could see with his mystical blasts. The first two shots missed their targets; thankfully, the next two blasts hit and knocked both of the last two monsters away from their intended victims.
As Mary reached her first victim, she was surprised to feel a massive static discharge as she touched it then the body shattered into a million sparks of light even as it vanished. She immediately rushed over to another victim only for the same thing to happen again as soon as her fingers reached out to touch the body. What was going on? The fallen body proceeded to dissipate into a shattering of light leaving only a sprouting tendril waving in the soil.
Akira and Mary looked around and noticed that the other inhabitants were still going about their business as though nothing was happening. They had to wonder if this wasn’t a massive hologram and the inhabitants weren’t really there? Could the attack be the creatures’ dissipating the optical illusion or was Mary somehow causing the victims to disperse by trying to touch them?
What was going on here? The monstrosities appeared real, as Akira had been able to attack them, but what was their goal?
One of the Chrysalis-infected suddenly stumbled forward towards Akira, its appendages outstretched as it tried to touch him. He moved quickly out of the way, frustrated that it had got so close to him. Behind him a fifth creature appeared, walking through the walls as though to prove that the whole settlement was a holograph, possibly even a visual trap. It reached out its tentacles towards Mary. Thankfully, she was able to stumble out of its path even as Akira unleashed a series of mystical blasts starting with the two that she had dazed previously. The first target staggered back even as the next blast also hit the other dazed creature and it collapsed. His third attack was against the new arrival, rendering it unable to proceed with its attack.
Behind them, the scenery began to swirl and alter as an even larger monstrosity, one that immediately reminded Akira of the Godzilla movies he occasionally watched, easily twenty times their own height, stepped through materialising as through it was turning visible. Its head seemed to stretch up towards the roof of the dome even as one of its claws tore a hole in the roof and breached the protection of the dome. The air rushed out into the atmosphere of Europa with a roar even as they were forced to avoid being pulled closer to the gap in the dome.
Mary immediately changed into Banshee and turned insubstantial even as Akira used his flight to move back. They could see that only themselves and the monstrosities were affected by the breach, the ‘inhabitants’ went about the business as though confirming that they were holograms.
One of the monstrosities they’d been fighting was pulled up into the air and dragged it towards the rip in the dome. That left them at least four plus the ‘big dude’, who reminded Akira of a Gruffalo, to deal with.
Above them, the dome was clearly repairing itself even as the new arrival, resembling a mash up of Godzilla and King Kong roared, releasing a cloud of steam from its mouth as it advanced on the man-sized obscenities that were attacking them.
It was massive; they only reached up to its shins in height as it stumbled forward. There was an unholy rasping roar echoed across the square followed by a series of sharp, almost cough-like barks as the creature approached, each step causing the ground to shudder and shake. Surprisingly, there was a newborn baby smell about the creature.
Akira wondered if the new arrival might consider them allies if they continued to target the shambling monstrosities – the enemy of my enemy sort of thing. He targeted the three he could see who appeared to be focused now on attacking the Griff’ and hit the one that had been hit previously. It collapsed unconscious, as did the next one he targeted. He also hit the last one but did minimal damage even as another appeared out of the holographic walls.
Banshee also attacked the remaining two, concentrating she tried to focus her fearful shriek so that it only affected her intended targets and not scare the new arrival. They backed up under the cry but only caused one of them to be dazed.
Behind them, the Kaiju stumbled forward, its foot, which they could feel radiated intense heat, came down on top of them. Akira was forced to throw himself out of the way. Banshee also dodged but was slower and was grateful for her insubstantial state though the intense heat of the near stamp left her breathless and unappreciated for their assistance so far.
There was a sharp sizzling sound as several of the towns’ inhabitants began to sparkle and vanish one by one, leaving behind only a mixed stench of chlorine and burning.
One of the remaining monstrosities suddenly unleashed a ray from the eye on its chest that splashed across the Kaiju’s chest but did minimal damage even as Akira realised that the other was trying to grab hold of him. So, it wanted to dance, eh? He would oblige. He twisted out of the reach of its additional limbs and returned the favour with a mystical blast. It missed. His next blast also missed its target but unfortunately did hit the heel of the Kaiju as it came down between them.
Banshee unleashed a wail at the remaining two human-sized opponents. One staggered back while the other collapsed. It also dazed the Kaiju and it responded with a burst of super-hot steam from its nostrils at both Banshee and Akira. They were forced to dodge out of the way, as they saw the last remaining monstrosity as it tried to stagger towards the centre of the MirrorZone. They noticed that as the Kaiju shuddered after it, that the buildings it stood on just vanished leaving the stench of burning vegetation behind. Was everything here a hologram? Akira wondered at the nature of the big fella, he reached out with his mystical senses to see it was magical in nature and felt nothing. It was clearly not a mystical creation.
He elected to unleash the Somnambulant Spell of Sirrion on it. As he focused, a pink mist started to appear around its head. It started to cough again as it shuddered and collapsed to the ground derezzing the buildings. A second later, a meowing echoed around the area and a 6-metre wide crab-like creature with three separate human heads on elongated necks, each crying out as though in pain, materialised behind them. A multitude of human voices cried out for someone to help them as it slithered towards them on its multiple legs.
Akira turned and shook his head, “To add to our problems, it looks as though we now have crabs!”
Banshee asked, “How can we help you?” she asked in Lor. “Free us!” was the joint response, with one voice continuing “Null did this to us.” “Who and where is this Null?” asked Banshee as it continued to walk towards them. A female head responded, “Wherever we came from. He sent us to take out the Chrysalis before it could destroy the bait.”
Akira joined in, Null sent you but you don’t want to be here, is that right?” The creature responded with a cacophony of voices talking over each other – “What happened to us? We don’t want to be here. Free us! What has he done to us? Why oh why?”
“What is the last thing you remember?” asked Banshee and as one voice the three heads replied in sync, “being attacked, captured, whilst in the Green, here in this place or somewhere like it, taken prisoner by weird armoured creatures. When we awoke, we were like this, conjoined and forced to obey HIS commands.”
The heads then began to speak separately with one angry voice demanding that they free it or else, another, the female head, crying and pleading with them while the youngest screamed as though in pain. The creature’s body was clearly in consensus as it marched towards them and the slumbering beast lying on the ground, its claws crushing two black crystals that had been at the centre of the holographic settlement as though in frustration.
After it had crushed the crystals the whole of the MirrorZone dissipated away, vanishing to reveal a clearing in the middle of a rotting jungle, with all the plants around them either dead or decaying. The stench of the putrid vegetation was overpowering and if anything, this seemed to make the crab trinity even angrier as it muttered something about “only having a little time to complete its work here before being sent there.”
“The joys of global warming?” muttered Akira as he looked around, prepared for an attack as the crab creature crawled over the body of its giant sleeping companion.
Banshee elected to cool it down a bit and unleashed the Breath of Manannan at it, but only succeeded in making the terrain around her slippy and icy. Akira tried to cage the creature and stopping its advance but it seemed to make it even angrier as it tried to break free. Beneath its feet, the snoozing beast began to dissipate but in a manner that seemed to indicate it was being teleported away rather than derezzing. A tight beam of light was directed into space as it dematerialised bit by bit. Something or someone else was apparently recalling their attack Godzilla.
Banshee levitated and elected to jump into the beam and began to vanish, leaving Akira with the crab in a ball battering away, trying to break free. “Damn, come back!” he thought as he dropped the creature and levitated to the same spot above the disappearing creature and stepped into the light.
He reappeared standing behind Banshee in a small dome, presumably still on Europa going by the gas giant with its now familiar red spot in the sky above them. The angle was all wrong though, which seemed to indicate that they had been teleported some distance from Starhaven.
In front of them stood a humanoid, easily three metres tall with leathery skin and a domed head that at first they mistook for a helmet. Its dark eyes seemed to be appraising them.
Beneath their feet, still asleep, was their original opponent though it appeared to be stirring.
They could ‘hear’ a voice inside their head, <<Who are you and why have you intruded on my domain?>> A telepath? That might make this conversation tricky if it could read their thoughts.
The Godzilla shook itself awake and they were forced to land behind it as it stumbled over to a large gun-like device, which was moving, recalibrating its target possibly? Had this been responsible for bringing them here (wherever here was)? The barrel, which resembled a large cannon, was now pointing into deep space towards a twinkling blip of distant light, a satellite or another moon perhaps? Was that its final destination or merely a relay of some sort to redirect the teleport beam?
Although most of the dome was taken up by their now reawakened fellow passenger, there were chambers of various sizes clustered around the walls. Inside were several alien organisms that were enlarging even as they watched. This Null fella seemed to be a geneticist involved in growing new forms of life though the twilight lighting made making out details difficult.
It took them a few seconds to make sense of what they could see. The chambers contained miniaturised monsters, but each was in the process of growing in size and strength even as they watched. Mechanical limbs was altering their anatomy and mutating or building them into weapons of destruction (or in the case of their travel companion, mass destruction). Then they realised that in each case a human was the initial template used to alter into the unique biological weapons growing around them in each chamber. Null clearly had a god complex and was playing with sentient life.
The remake was absorbing the body leaving a controlling human brain and sensory system to be absorbed into the alien creature that was being built around them. Thankfully, those that hadn’t been fully absorbed yet were unconscious.
Then the saw what looked to be two young children unconscious in their chambers being surrounded by floating silver dust that appeared to be remaking them into younger versions of Akira and Mary. It was as though this creature had sampled or duplicated their genetic structure when they had teleported in and was now altering the children’s DNA to match their own, “making them into cute mini-me’s. Always wanted one.” Akira muttered. Despite his levity, Akira was horrified that that the child’s genetic code was clearly being overwritten by his own.
Banshee noted that his doppelgänger was forming into a young version of Mary not Banshee and while the child, once fully overwritten, would have the potential for magic, she would have no innate powers or abilities that could be perverted and used by this Null. That probably meant that Akira’s double would only have access to his meta abilities but none of his mystical and certainly none of his training.
Although he didn’t speak or transmit to them, it seemed that this Null might have also realised that at least one of his two latest creations was powerless and was projecting a feeling of intense anger.
Then a single word, <<Contaminated!>> came into their minds. Akira asked him, “What’s your problem, why say it’s contaminated?”
<<I have no problem. I was growing weapons for the forever war but now your genetic code has contaminated / corrupted my remaining supply of base code. They will be useless in the war and I will be forced to seek new stock, reducing my efficiency temporarily as a result.>>
“But war is a terrible thing to be involved in if you don’t have to be. Who are you at war with?”
<<I am at war against the artificial intelligences left behind by the Preservers.>>
“We’ve also fought against them before. Surely if you say your weapons have been contaminated since it’s by my genetic code then it will be one mother of a weapon?”
<<You are an unknown quantity and your abilities are not reflected in your genetic code which does not compute.>>
“Not to myself I’m not.”
<<Are you willing to hand yourself over, to become a weapon in my arsenal? To allow me to gauge your abilities and potential?>> Silence reigned until he again heard Null, <<Otherwise I will need to test your potential to see if it worth retaining… I struggle to obtain base component material as so few humans enter the Green and wander into my trap, especially now that Chrysalis has uncovered it.>>
“What do you mean by gauge my abilities?” <<Test to its full capacity your powers to see if it is worth reproducing as a weapon. A test to destruction of the original would be adequate. Otherwise I have wasted this component.>> Null turned and pointed towards the young boy slowly turning into Akira.
“It will not be wasted; my abilities as a weapon are quite considerable.” Akira glanced over at the implanted new Mary who was completely powerless. Null’s use of humans as spare parts made him their foe and given the giant Kaiju was now fully awake and under his control, a threat to be dealt with quickly and decisively.
Then the ‘cannon’ or whatever it was, activated again and they saw that the creature was beginning to dematerialise and be beamed away, but to where?
Akira immediately responded by unleashing a mystical blast straight at Null’s head. It hit before he could dodge but it failed to do any real damage even as the teleporter came back online and the crab-like creature began to materialise inside the dome, presumably recalled by Null.
Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek at the teleporter and was rewarded with it exploding but not before part of the incoming transmission had already materialised. What hadn’t materialised were a couple of its rear legs and part of its rear shell as it screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor.
Null responded to the attack by unleashing a dark energy blast at them both. The blast passed through Banshee’s insubstantial form as Akira dodged. Akira TK’ed ‘Crabby’ towards the glass chamber containing her mini-me shattering it and releasing her and a cloud of silver mist into the dome. The child pulled herself free as though waking up. He was a combination of both his own original form and Akira’s – whether or not he had obtained any abilities though was not obvious. He was clearly struggling to breathe.
The silver mist, now released, settled on everything including the four figures now in the main chamber. Banshee, remembering their previous encounters with the nanites that formed the Silver Storm had to wonder whether it would affect them in any way.
She unleashed a Wail and let it wash over Null. The sonic attack shattered the remaining chambers, freeing the inhabitants but failed to knock him back instead he began to slowly dissipate as though he too had been a hologram, though the light particles seemed to being transmitted in a tight beam towards the sky following the same trajectory as the cannon.
“Whatever happened to the good old Tarantino explosion of blood and guts? They just vanish or dissipate away instead…” muttered Akira in response. So, had Null been a computer-generated image, an A.I., or a hologram transmission of a real living creature? It was impossible to say though surely if he’d been a hologram he wouldn’t have been able to be telepathically communicate with them?
Banshee changed back into Mary and began to tend to the medical needs of the released prisoners some of whom had been partially transformed and were unable to survive the premature release though all were grateful for it. Unfortunately, they were trapped in a dome on Europa, miles from Starhaven without any form of transport. Unlike Paragon, they couldn’t survive the native atmosphere and intense cold of the moon without spacesuits. Akira examined the damaged cannon transporter and found that it was still aligned. He considered trying to teleport back but realised they were too far away as he couldn’t get a fix on any location he knew in Starhaven.
He approached the injured Crab and used the Medallion of Modrossus to try to communicate with the three heads but got three scared and frightened voices in his head. He asked Mary to use her abilities to try to calm them down enough to communicate with him. He finally managed to resolve their panic and learnt that the alien called Null had kidnapped them from Starhaven, taken them back here and had experimented on them while they were unconscious then had sent them back to the town they’d been kidnapped from as a test, though a test for what they didn’t know. One of them thought it had to do with a fight against an A.I. though they had encountered both Akira and Banshee there instead, before being brought back here only to be injured as a result.
They clearly knew little about what was really going on.
Between Akira and Mary they started to work for the next few hours on repairing the damage to the transporter cannon. Thankfully, the majority of the damage done by Banshee was superficial and the primary components inside the device had been unharmed and they were reasonably sure the settings were restored.
They couldn’t do anything about the nanites in the air as they made sure the remaining freed prisoners were gathered together, ready to be (hopefully) transported back to Starhaven.
They had five survivors, only two of whom were changed and a now patched up ‘Crabby’ having bound its wounds. Standing together, they activated the beam. As they materialised back where they had originated from, they could see that the MirrorZone ‘settlement’ had somehow been ‘fully repaired’ during their time away.
Its holographic inhabitants were once more walking around as though nothing had happened, despite couple of the giant crab-like legs and fragment of its shell lying on the ground in the middle of the road. Something or someone had clearly replaced or repaired the previously damaged black crystals.
‘Crabby’ and the remaining five children were escorted back to the inhabited part of the settlement and handed over to the authorities to deal with even as a signal came over their VERA communicators…
* Flashback to deep beneath the Arctic ice –
In front of them had been a large chamber. On either side of them were what looked like a variety of glass tubes and gigantic transparent chambers each containing a specimen preserved in some sort of fluid. Then, as they stepped towards the displays, the lights around them suddenly refocused and formed into a holographic diagram of the solar system clearly showing a highlighted satellite in solar orbit around the Earth and Sun. It had been Mace that had figured it first; the satellite had to be the Earth’s so-called second ‘moon’, in reality an Aten asteroid known as Cruithne. Its orbit looked different to its current kidney-shaped path round the Sun and the Earth, which made her think that this display had to have been made thousands if not hundreds of thousands of years previously.
The two disguised Unity with them at the time had tried to herd them forward towards the centre of the chamber. As they did so the lights in the chamber realigned again to highlight the central path through even more of the cylindrical ‘glass’ containers on both sides filled with all sorts of species, some local to the depths of the arctic ocean, all now floating in a viscous-like fluid. The specimens inside these tubes all looked strange and disturbing as if they had undergone mutation – tendrils and tentacles erupted from various locations on their bodies, and they often sported eyes in abnormal places splitting through their skin or fur. In some cases, the creatures had obviously died when the tentacles (so like those of the shambling creature they had seen earlier in the corridor) had grown out of their mouth and face. This included several early humans including a Neanderthal, a sabretooth smilodon and a mammoth all split apart and with tendrils and tentacles bursting out of the skin, distorting them. The growths were of pulsing multicellular protoplasmic masses or tentacles burning out of the face and chest, faintly luminescent and filled with gelatinous bubbles; with multiple eyes and temporary organs constantly forming and un-forming on them.
Interlude 1, Sanno Shinto Shrine, Nagasaki, Japan
Burakkui (Agent Black) of the Inazuma Akushonrenjaa (Lightning Action Rangers) looked as though he might be physically crying beneath his helmet, as he looked around at the destruction the colossus Kaiju had caused to this beautiful memorial sanctuary.
Jeeves shrugged. He was too tired. Thankfully, they had finally managed to pump enough animal tranquiliser into the beast before it had killed anyone. He looked at the beast as Annie and Sam delivered the last of their tanks of animal tranq’ into the beastie orally. Jeeves shrugged as it finally collapsed and began to wheeze loudly in its drug-induced sleep. He smiled despite the decimation around them. Who would have guessed that they snored?
According to Aka (Agent Red), they had at least three and a half days and potentially months before whoever was behind this, sent any more of these artificial monsters to appear over Japan. No one knew why that was or why Japan was being targeted, teleported in presumably, but if so from where and why?
Whoever was behind these attacks had started by unleashing geneered prehistoric creatures on downtown Tokyo so when the first Kaiju appeared the Japanese authorities were initially not prepared for monsters of that size but he had to admit that they had responded quickly and efficiently to the ever-changing threats.
The appearance last time of a second Kaiju during the same attack had really caught the Rangers by surprise. It was the size of this creature that had surprised them this time. Thankfully, the Balance had already in the city following a potential link between the local Bōryokudan clans and Labyrinth and so were able to offer their assistance.
Jeeves looked into the sky as giant helicopters began to hover above the Kaiju‘s and harnesses lowered and placed around the captive beast. Surprisingly the Japanese government had a strategy in place to deal with eventualities like this and the beasts would be flown to somewhere Red called Kaiju Island to spend out the rest of their existence, however long that might be. He confided that there was some sort of shield there that prevented their escape from the island as well as blocking their ability to teleport back to wherever they had come from.
The first Kaiju to attack Japan a few months before had eventually been subdued only to vanish from its cage three and a half days after it had first appeared. That’s when the authorities had elected to move them to the island for further investigation rather than kill them.
So, were Labyrinth behind these attacks and if so, why or was it just a coincidence that these Kaiju had appeared during their visit to investigate their Yakuza connection?
The Yakuza are known to the Japanese Police as Bōryokudan.
Interlude 2, Far away
The massive underground dome sparkled with an over-abundance of necrotic energy as it forced the massive tanks of metamorphic fluid to form into bone and sinew of another unique creation as another Kaiju was in the process of being ‘born’. Only one sentient creature currently existed in the cavernous laboratory – a humanoid alien, millennia old yet only recently revived from its long sleep. As the Preserver’s Gene-Engines worked their unholy magic, reshaping life, it could ‘hear’ the agonising mental cacophony of screams in his mind emanating from his creation’s shape-changing descendants deep below in the world ocean that circled this little moon. Their pain and anguish made the alien smile. It was not a natural reaction and it looked more like a painful grimace on its face. It had seen the expression on the face of the sentient simian humans that dwelt in the domed city above and had elected to try it. Joy was an alien emotion to him, but one that felt appropriate after the test of his ‘children’ against his ‘brother’ Chrysalis and its unknowing allies had gone so well. Having proved his viability as weapons on the surface, he’d used the Preserver’s dimension gate to then send one to Earth. It would ten and a half of that planet’s rotations before he would know the results of his little experiment but he was sure its arrival would be followed by death and destruction. He could wait, after all, what were a few more time periods to an immortal such as he?
He smiled again. The Preservers had attempted to evolve and diversify life across the galaxy but even they hadn’t attempted to build such as his pets, he had ascended beyond their ambition by creating creatures so powerful.
Interlude 3, Starhaven
“What the..?” wondered Paragon as his new VERA-enabled commlink informed him that he had an incoming unidentified message. He didn’t know that many people, aliens, beings, whatever, here in Starhaven yet, so who would be calling him so early in the ‘day’? He assumed it had to be either Akira or Mary but then he heard their voices as they were also linked into the call via the nearest cabled comms tower to them.
A familiar mechanical voice said “Designations: Paragon, Banshee, Akira, Firefly Initiative…” The rest of the message was lost in a short, electronic screech. He heard Akira mutter, “Only Frankie refers to us as Designations, but how had she managed to get a signal all the way to Europa?”
Mary laughed as she realised what was happening. “VERA, please record the message for playback later.” “Affirmative, recorded,” came the response from the base’s AI.
Over the comms she explained to the other two, “I think it’s Annie reaching out to us as only she can. Firefly! Them can’t stop the signal? No? Come on! You’re telling me Annie never made you sit through the TV series or the follow up film?”
She paused as though waiting for her companions to acknowledge her conclusions. When they didn’t, she continued. “It’s Annie, she’s sent us an encrypted message but as she doesn’t know where we are she must have used Frankie to piggyback it onto any and every off-world transmission she, they, could access, bouncing it through any and all communications in-system. This transmission was likely bounced off that inbound Khanate ship or the ESA satellite that passed Jupiter a year or two ago, to get to us.
The electronic blip means she has sent us an encrypted message, compacted so that it’s unlikely to be completely corrupted by being repeated and Chinese whispered across the solar system. She knows we’re out here somewhere and is trying to make contact as only Annie and Frankie can.”
It was a few hours later before the three of them were able to meet up at their apartment and another hour before Mary was able to figure out how to unencrypt the blip. She nodded to the other two as she set it to play.
Annie appeared on-screen, sitting in the Frankie chamber in the BASEment, clearly as anxious and frustrated as her android body could allow. “Balance, …reaching out via … Firefly initiative. If you receive this, if you can, let us know you’re okay. Frankie has calculated that you have to be off-world somewhere, so we’re attaching this message onto every transmission on and off the planet we can access. Seven assures us that you have to be still in this dimension, something about still reading a residual mystical resonance from Akira’s aura apparently.
If you can let us know you’re okay and where them are, we can help. If you need a lift home, let me, let us know somehow where you are and if necessary, I’ll ask the kids to get you…” Whatever else she had to say was lost in static.
“Kids?” asked a mystified Paragon. Mary replied, “She means the Challenger-Wildeman family, they have the capacity to get here, having built their own jump-capable ship. So, how do we let them know where we are?”
It was Peat who supplied the answer, The Khanite destroyer was tracked by Daedalus leaving the system. He would be able to send a message for them back to Earth, possibly even fly them home himself if they wanted.
That was when Peter made his announcement. He’d decided to stay in Starhaven for the foreseeable future, help form a team to defend the base in case of future intrusions. He’d been asked by the Governor Tamara-Van to recruit local powered individuals and train them; he’d decided to call his elite team, the Starhaven Sentinels.
Akira was a bit aggrieved that Tamara-Van hadn’t asked the whole team until Banshee pulled him aside and explained that it was because of Peter’s unique ability to survive in space and therefore on Europa and his lack of family back on Earth that he’d been chosen. Both of them would at some point need to return to Earth and their lives there. Other than his adopted mum, Peter had nobody and had already started to make a home for himself here with his clone father Daedalus.
It was only a few days later that they said their farewells as Daedalus undertook a supply run back to Earth with both of them as passengers. Peter had already started to recruit his team, his special forces, from amongst the alien refugees and they saw that he was accompanied by Bran the hacker who was being seconded to his service as the new team’s techie.
After a short farewell, with promises to one day return, Daedalus’ jumpship, Lapyx left port and proceeded to head to Earth with its two extra passengers.
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 