For several days now, the team had been looking out for signs of where the starship that had risen from the ocean had gone. No sooner had it risen from the depths beneath Point Phorcys than it had headed North at great speed, vanishing from sight within seconds.
Unfortunately, it had proven to be invisible to all sensors, including satellite tracking, so where it had gone after that was anyone’s guess. It could have entered orbit or even left the system by now, but Akira thought otherwise. He suspected that it had been heading towards the Arctic but couldn’t or wouldn’t say why.
Meanwhile, Brian had just finished several days of intensive surgical procedures and was scheduled to have a couple of days of R&R,to find that Stacy had elected to join ‘Team BASEmates’, as a teacher for Chris. He had come home after the first day of training only for Stacy to announce that Chris’s intelligence was phenomenal but his formal education was severely lacking and she’d decided to work with ‘Edward’ and Mikey to help correct that.
So, while he undertook monitor duty with Frankie (it was quiet, so he was actually catching up on a couple of Lancet’s articles on the latest surgical techniques), Stacy was one floor down currently teaching the kid.
There had been an incident on her first day when Singularity had got frustrated and he’d accidentally unleashed an out of control blackhole, only for Stacy to turn into her crystalline form and reach out and hug him until he’d calmed down and had regained his composure. He’d then been able to regain control and dismiss the deadly vortex he’d created.
Brian wasn’t sure she should have revealed her abilities in front of him, at least not yet, but he had to admit it had worked. Her Meta-induced increased mass had shielded Jeeves from the gravitational pull until he could get to safety and allowed her to cross the room to Chris without being sucked into the maelstrom long enough to get him to calm down. The surprise at seeing this petite woman turn into diamond and then calmly ignore the effects of the black hole as she crossed the room, had countered his anger with amazement and as a result, he was able to dissipate the singularity he had named himself after.
X-Ray’s chain of thought was interrupted by Frankie. <<Designation: X-Ray>> It paused as Akira and Banshee entered the lounge area. <<Correction, Designation: The Balance, I believe I may have located the ship. A rambler has just claimed on social media to have found what appears to be a massive, organic-looking ‘torpedo’ embedded into the ground near Glencoe. He states that he was about to approach it when several people suddenly appeared in front of him. He claims that one of them gestured towards him and a shadowy creature materialised out of thin air and savaged him.
The assault left him badly injured but he somehow managed to make his way down to the roadside where a local crofter found him, administered emergency first aid and drove him to the nearest hospital at Fort William. He’s just awoken, having undergone surgery and posted a picture of his injury.>>
Frankie posted up a picture of a young man with a horrific wound on his chest and stomach that was reminiscent of a shark bite.
“When did this go live Frankie?” asked Banshee. <<Designation: Banshee, 6.3 seconds before I spotted it. It has not yet raised public attention locally. The Caledonian Protectorate is currently occupied dealing with another case, and I estimate it will be several hours before the matter is spotted by the authorities and any form of investigation is carried out. The description is similar to your missing ship. Shall I request Mikey prep the Crate?>>
Akira muttered something about wondering how much shark repellent did they have and suggested they load the freeze guns onboard just in case. X-Ray smiled, seems a trip to the Scottish Highlands was on the cards. He wondered if they could swing over Rannoch Moor on the way and get a look at the Deep Six High Security Penitentiary facility, or at least the surface level of the prison. He’d heard so much about it but had never had a chance to visit.
The reported site of the ‘torpedo’ where the rambler had said he’d been attacked, was 725 kilometres north of the BASEment and would take an hour and a quarter to reach the glen at the Crates’ top speed. There had been no further posts from the rambler and they assumed he had succumbed to exhaustion after his ordeal. Good, hopefully that would mean no curious tourists for them to have to worry about.
Over an hour later, they found themselves hovering over a half-buried ship of some sort, lying in a valley. It was surrounded in mist and its impact had ripped the landscape apart leaving a wicked scar in the gorse and heather. The area was eerily quiet, devoid of all life as though something was keeping them away.
This was the ship from Point Phorcys, its weird organic-looking yet clearly metallic composition matched as did the dome Akira’s astral form had seen under the water though it was now opaque and glowing purple due to the shielding being raised. On land and exposed, it resembled an elongated, legless beetle. X-Ray estimated that it was over 100 metres long, about 50 metres wide in the middle and about fifteen metres tall, which should mean multiple decks inside.
X-Ray could feel a menacing energy emanating from its hull, that he assumed was responsible for the dearth of life in the land around it. He recognised its signature; it was identical to what he’d experienced when the ship had risen from the sea. Then he suddenly realised why it felt familiar – it was the very antithesis of life, of Gaea – it was anti-life, death personified.
Despite the extensive damage to the land, the ship was clearly still functional.
He contacted the others and told them what he’d experienced but struggled to explain what he meant by anti-life and why it made him so uneasy. He’d first encountered a similar dark energy after an encounter with an animated corpse in Stoke-on-Trent, a creature he’d later identified as a Wamphyri. This energy signature was different, but it shared a number of similarities that sparked off his anxiety and it was strong. Something inside this ship was both animated and very dead. He stepped away to re-join the others, his emotions settling the further he got from the ship.
Akira nodded; he also could feel some sort of energy field around the craft that prevented him from getting a clear reading on either the ship or its contents.
They approached slowly; clambering over the ripped-up ridges created by the ship’s impact and approached the opaque, globe-like protrusion at the front of the ship. Despite its size, they had assumed this would be the flight deck, but to X-Ray’s enhanced vision it appeared to be devoid of any controls or equipment, instead it was appeared to be filled with some sort of liquid. He did wonder aloud whether something needed the fluid to live, in the same way, as humans needed oxygen.
Again, Akira reached out with his medallion-enhanced senses and felt its properties. There was something about the fluid on the other side that felt mystical. It was only much later that he realised that it had reminded him of the mana-enhanced fluid they had swam through when they had visited the mystical between realms known as the Convergences. That had been filled with an oxygen-rich, viscous fluid that was the lifeblood of the omniverse.
Could this be an interdimensional rather than interstellar craft? Could the globe be there to house a navigator, possibly even one of the interdimensional, seemingly aquatic, natives of that realm? What had they called themselves, Luminae?
Meanwhile the others were searching the hull for some means of entry or the group of people the rambler had claimed to have seen. There was no sign of them and they could find nothing in the exposed areas of the ship that resembled an obvious entrance or airlock though there were a number of organic protrusions along the hull. They had to chance it. It was time for ‘Team Stealth’ as Banshee phased his two companions insubstantial and invisible with herself and then they passed through the walls and found themselves in what appeared to be a large cargo hold. Thankfully, there was a breathable atmosphere inside the hull.
The lights inside was dim and in places completely dark as they remained unseen and tried to make out what was in the hundreds of transparent stacked containers piled all around. They were each about a metre cubed in size, filled with a thick amber coloured fluid each containing thousands of small, dormant organic objects, each barely moving. It took them a few seconds to realise that what they were seeing were control bugs, millions if not billions of living, if seemingly dormant bugs being stored inside the ship.
A large lumbering humanoid walked out of the darkness. He stopped directly in front of them and, despite being both invisible and insubstantial, turned to look in their direction before picking up one of the tanks and moving it to the front of the hold. This was one of the Terminus’ Omegadrones – a reanimated corpse that Banshee and Akira had encountered a couple of times before.
It was however, X-Ray’s first encounter with the robotic soldiers whose dead augmented bodies had been used as the mechanical framework for their continued service to Terminus even after death. Their faces under their helmets were skull-like and the cameras embedded in their eyes glowed an eery red as it processed whatever it was seeing. If it could locate them, despite being cloaked by Banshee’s invisibility and insubstantiality, it clearly wasn’t responding negatively to their presence, for the moment at least.
This was the source of the anti-life energy he’d felt previously, an abomination to him, both as a child of Gaea and to his Hippocratic oath as a surgeon and a healer. Just being this close to one was freaking X-Ray out.
Akira whispered what he knew about the reanimated creatures to him. He concluded with a “there is nothing scary about them, they are just equipment.” X-Ray still insisted that they were unnatural and just plain wrong.
As their eyes adjusted to the dim light, they could see that there were actually a number of near-identical Omegadrones spread around the hold walking around the chamber either checking or picking up and moving the tanks towards the front of the ship. Clearly carrying out their programming, it appeared. They had to wonder how many of the little buggers were actually onboard.
Akira wondered where he might find a small nuclear bomb, just to be sure. Since that was unlikely, they needed to find some other means to eradicate the risk this ship represented and quickly.
They checked out one of the containers and confirmed that while docile the control bugs inside were clearly alive.
They had to know whether this ship was a left over from the Terminus’ last attempt to invade back in 2009 or a more recent arrival, part of a planned return in the near future? Akira and Banshee’s visits to the future had shown that at some point they would return and invade this Earth.
That’s when they saw a series of muddy footprints on the deck, too small and delicate to be the ‘drones and likely made by a youth or petite female. They headed across to a triangular column at the centre of the hold. It was clearly some sort of device. X-Ray could see the alien quantum energy surrounding it. He thought it might be a teleporter of some sort as its energy signal was similar, but not identical, to Singularity’s portal when he manifested it.
The question was whether to phase through to another level but which way, up or down?
As soon as they stepped up to the column the ‘drones all stopped what they were doing and turned in their direction before proceeding to walk towards it, large futuristic rifles suddenly appearing in their hands despite the team still being phased and invisible, almost as though they could see them.
If this was a teleporter as they suspected, could they figure out how to activate it? Akira stepped away from Banshee, materialising even as he reached out and touched the organic-looking triangular column and proceeded to read its recent past.
He ‘saw’ A blue haired female that looked vaguely familiar reach out her hand towards the centre of the column, her arm started to change shape and composition, into something metallic then nothing. Had that been due to the column or a Meta-ability activating, before the device had seemingly teleported her away and to where? There was no way to say. Unfortunately, he didn’t know how she’d activated the device or where she’d been transported to but her contact with the device had caused the same reaction from the ‘drones in that they had stopped their tasks and proceeded to march across the deck towards her. As soon as she’d vanished, the ‘drones had immediately resumed their work.
He tried to think where he’d seen her before then it came to him, they’d encountered her in Frankfurt – she was the Czechian Meta terrorist known as ‘Arzenál’, one of Kaos’s Kult of Destruction, able to form her arms into near mono-filament thin blades, capable of cutting through most armour. He thought she’d been one of those captured after Kaos had escaped with whatever he’d stolen. She must have subsequently escaped – Akira was convinced the whole ‘kidnap the chancellor’ stunt had been a ruse to allow Kaos access to whatever had been in OmniTech’s CrimePrev research facility’s security vault.
If she was here, did that mean the powerful Meta Kaos and the other Kult members were also?
Behind them, they heard the nearest ‘drones powering up their weapons. Banshee materialised, grabbed Akira and X-Ray as they stepped away from the column. Banshee phased all three of them and they proceeded to flow up into the top deck as several ‘drones fired off their weapons after them.
They materialised in front of a massive humanoid-shaped robot standing immobile in front of a small platform, its head brushing the top of the hull; a Terminus Probot! Suddenly it activated, its red glowing eyes clearly following them. X-Ray was just thankful that this thing didn’t radiate any dark anti-life energy.
They could also see movement beyond it, up in the ‘bow’ area located above the forward ‘dome’. Several human-sized figures moving in the gloom, possibly trying to activate some sort of built-in device. Going by the reflection, one of them was covered in silver armour. It took Banshee and Akira several seconds for their eyes to adjust and realise that it wasn’t armour they were seeing, it was mutated skin; it was the terrorist known as Kaos himself.
Akira initially suggested they continue their search of the ship before getting into a confrontation but the other two disagreed, not willing to allow the other intruders to complete whatever it was they were doing. They could be trying to repair the ship and allow it to resume its journey to wherever it had been heading before its crash-landing in the wilds of Scotland. There were so many variables and they didn’t need any further complications.
They headed forward, past the probot and confirmed that the metallic figure was indeed Kaos. The also recognised the others; with him was the Etched Man whose body was covered in ink that moved of its own volition – he could make the illustrations come alive and suddenly the ramblers attack made sense – he must have unleashed one of his tattoo horrors on the man.
The blue haired female ‘Arzenál’, was also present, her arms already transformed into sharp blades that glistened in the artificial twilight. They could now see the others – the lightning-casting Electrocutioner and the psychotic woman known as ‘Krvavá Marie’ or Bloody Mary, her eyes devoid of emotion even as her lips were twisted into an evil grin.
They clearly didn’t belong here and Akira shuddered to think what this group of terrorists could do if they gained control over the ship and its inhabitants.
Banshee released her hold on her companions, allowing them to appear even as X-Ray raised his force field then unleashed a high-energy radiation beam in the direction of the console that the Kult appeared to be working on. The robot elected to move towards him at that moment, accidentally scattering most of the blast. Banshee followed it up by unleashing a wail. The sonic attack dazed the Etched Man but the others were able to weather the attack.
Akira multi-attacked them after putting his force field up. Again, the Etched Man was hit, leaving him staggered even as he tried to release one of his shadow creatures. What did he have to do to toast them? The blast at Bloody Mary went straight through and hit the console behind her. The third blast hit Kaos but only managed to ‘bruise’ his metallic skin. The blasts aimed at both Arsenal and Electrocutioner missed completely.
Arsenal ran towards them, her arm blades raised ready to attack both Akira and X-Ray. One of the blades sliced through X-Ray’s costume as he twisted his body out of its path though it did draw blood. Akira parried the other arm as it glanced off his mystical shield even as another electrical blast from Electrocutioner washed over them.
The massive electrical discharge passed through Banshee’s insubstantial form but X-Ray was hit though thankfully his force field absorbed the blast.
The female known as Bloody Mary ran towards the still invisible Banshee, materialising a staff as she did so. Banshee reached for her own Bo Staff and popped it open even as her staff interacted with her insubstantial one – she was insubstantial as well and they were clearly in phase, which meant any attack could physically interact and affect her.
The staffs clashed as they two duelled, swirling their staff tips trying to disarm each other. Bloody Mary pirouetted on one foot and aimed for Banshee’s head, only for it to be blocked by Banshee’s staff. Bloody Mary swirled around and tried to stab with the tip only for Banshee to swirl her staff round and dodge the blow.
In front of the duelling couple the Etched Man pulled at a figure on his skin and suddenly a shadowy figure like a shark was suddenly crawling across the deck towards them – Akira wished they had packed shark repellent after all, though he doubted it would affect the shadowy creature.
It suddenly changed direction and rushed to attack X-Ray only to impact against his shields and dissipate as Akira fired a mystical blast at its head.
As they duelled with staffs, Bloody Mary gestured with her left hand and a crystalline blade materialised. She sliced with it towards Banshee’s ribs even as she was forced to dodge a blow towards her head. The blade almost cut Banshee and she was forced to dance backwards and hit out at the blade. A second later, Bloody Mary had dropped her staff, which clanged against the deck as it materialised and she manifested a second crystal spike like blade in her other hand. She used this blade to try to slash at Banshee’s throat, but thankfully missed. Both blades radiated evil and were clearly the product of blood magic.
Banshee grabbed hold of Bloody Mary’s right wrist, twisted it, though she was unable to make her drop the blade, and unleashed a corrupting touch. Bloody Mary pulled free just before the mystical attack could affect her.
Bloody Mary’s two blades sliced across Banshee’s chest and again she was forced to dodge the deadly blades as Bloody Mary squealed with glee. Banshee reached out again to try and grab her hoping to unleash another corrupting touch. This time she was able to hold on until the Sidhe attack flowed into her opponent leaving her staggered and struggling to break free.
While this was going on Kaos stepped into the shadow and seeming vanished – it was a reminder to Akira and Banshee that he did have the surprising ability to teleport and again was willing to leave the others to hold the line.
X-Ray saw the probot activate and move between him and the Etched Man, stamping down on one of his shadow minions even as X-Ray unleashed a full blast at Arsenal. The overdose of focused radiation washed over her and knocked her unconscious even as Banshee and Bloody Mary continued their deadly ballet.
Akira unleashed multiple blasts at the Etched Man as he tried to pull a spider-like beast from his skin – the blasts knocked him unconscious as blast after blast wiped away the ink from his skin.
Electrocutioner unleashed a series of lightning blasts against Akira and X-Ray but the metallic shell they were in was making the attacks unpredictable as it grounded the attacks or discharged against their force fields.
The giant robot suddenly blasted at all three of them. One shot went through Banshee and Bloody Mary’s insubstantial bodies, the next shot missed Akira but its last blast hit X-Ray. The discharge went through his force field but didn’t do him any permanent damage though it did leave him twitching. He responded with a rad burst that hit its chest, melting its shielding and some of its servos. Akira also unleashed multiple blasts at the probot.
Electrocutioner used the opportunity to unleash another lightning bolt against X-Ray. The massive electrical discharge went through his force field thankfully dissipating most of it though what remained left him stunned. He tried to shrug off the assault as he struggled to get back on his feet.
The Probot unleashed an energy net against Akira, snaring in the net and tried to pull him towards it. X-Ray saw Akira being pulled towards the robot and fired off a blast at the wrist of the hand manifesting the net, severing it completely. As the arm was severed the energy net blinked out of existence. It staggered back, trying to compute what had just occurred. Akira blasted it in response. It was unable to dodge the blast leaving it incapacitated and causing it to collapse inert.
Arsenal had recovered enough to get back onto her feet and was trying to stab X-Ray again. Her blade sliced at his costume before it her right arm/blade began to change shape, into something resembling a cannon. Seemed blades weren’t the only weapon the blue haired girl seemed to be able to manifest.
Electrocutioner again moved at speed dodging multiple blasts even as he unleashed a lightning blast at Akira. It missed but instead of responding to the assault Akira began to gesture and weave his hands around binding the ley energy that flowed through the valley into an elemental shape.
Meanwhile Bloody Mary was using her materialised blades to try to stab at Banshee. As Banshee parried with her staff her opponent stumbled and one of her blades ccidentally pierced the decking before she pulled it free. Banshee tried to grab hold of her again but she managed to break free before Banshee could do anything or unleash a corrupting touch against her.
His spell complete, Akira called forth Ghorummaz. This was a primal, elemental force, linked to “dragon lines” of force within the Earth and with the elements, what laymen thought of as ley lines. Ghorummaz was Lord of Earthquakes and Storms, a binder of what is unnatural and there was nothing more unnatural that Bloody Mary and her use of blood magic.
Akira summoned forth the Grasp of Ghorummaz, a clawed hand bursting up from the deck to seize and hold Bloody Mary despite her being insubstantial. She found herself rendered immobile, defenceless and unable to break free.
The sudden appearance of a giant clawed hand gave X-Ray the opportunity to gravi-kinetically toss Arsenal against the far wall rendering her unconscious and bleeding even as several omegadrones started to materialise on that level.
Electrocutioner fired off a blast against X-Ray but failed to hit though the sudden appearance of so much undead energy left X-Ray feeling sick even as one of the ‘drones fired at him but thankfully hit the hull instead.
Another ‘drone fired against Akira, which almost hit forcing him to drop to the ground fast, leaving him bruised. X-Ray could see three omegadrones materialise behind them and Electrocutioner was till in front of them. Despite the risk of a continued assault from Electrocutioner, he felt the need to attack the anti-life creatures, his blast hit the latest of the ‘drones to arrive leaving it stunned and unable to move, blocking the teleporter from receiving any more passengers.
Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek hoping to take out their cybernetic control modules and return them to corpses. The shriek staggered one of the new arrivals and damaged another even as Akira followed it up with a series of blasts. One of them collapsed once more rendered dead, the next blast missed and the final blast took one the one still on the teleport platform though it managed to blast Akira even as it collapsed. The blast spun him round even as Electrocutioner tried to shoot at all of them again but was unable to retain the energy long enough to do any real damage.
One of the remaining ‘drones used the opportunity to try to target X-Ray but before it could unleash a blast, Banshee and Akira targeted it and let loose together, utterly destroying it. X-Ray used the opportunity to target the next one, destroying its command interface even as the remaining ‘drone fired at him, leaving him staggered.
Banshee unleashed a Wail of the Banshee at Electrocutioner, staggering him. Akira zapped him at the same time but missed. He responded with burst area attack at everyone in the chamber. The electricity backfired as it reflected off X-Ray’s force shield back at him, rendering him unconscious.
Banshee unleashed a Shattering Shriek at the last ‘drone even as Akira followed it up with a mystical blast. X-Ray followed up with a radiation beam aimed at its skull and it finally collapsed.
Free of adversaries, they elected to look around and ‘play with the toys’ while X-Ray and Akira’s Meta healing factor helped them recover from their injuries. There were a number of enclosed pods on this level and it took them several minutes of tampering before X-Ray realised what they were; autodocs. There were five of these automated medidoc stations in the central chamber apparently used to reanimate and repair the ‘drones. Scientific juju artefacts designed to bring the dead back; automatic surgery and repair machines, not intended for the living he suspected unless they wanted to become ‘drones themselves, controlled and no pain suppressant or aesthetic involved.
A quick look around found a sixth unit in the engine control room at the rear of that level.
He knew he had to destroy them starting with the one at the rear of the deck. He muttered as he tried to figure how best to achieve that, “It’s really a little ship of horrors isn’t it?” He definitely wanted to do something about before they were used again – a high frequency radiation blast should make them go boom.
After a brief discussion about possible dangers, it was agreed that X-Ray should start with the one in the rear and if they survived move on to destroying the rest, as they had no idea what would happen when X-Ray began flooding the device with radiation.
His blast started low but quickly escalated as X-Ray poured more and more energy into the unit’s destruction. The system overloaded causing a light on the unit to start flashing red. The coffin-like pod started to fill with a thick liquid, which almost immediately burst into a green-flamed bonfire. Akira looked in, smiled and asked, “Anyone bring marshmallows?”
In response, the door to the chamber began to seal even as a gas flooded the chamber, robbing the oxygen of its flammability as X-Ray jumped back out of the way.
It had to be an inert gas, like Halon – an inert chemical that was electrically non-conducting and considered the most effective universal extinguishing agent for aircraft use. It was just a shame it was so toxic by default. Thankfully, the door sealed as the gas extinguished the flames by suffocating them.
That still left five autodocs to destroy in the main chamber and there might be even more in the lowest level, which they hadn’t explored yet. The decision was taken to blow the other autodocs simultaneously, with Banshee phasing them out of that level but first, before they tried again, they dragged the unconscious Kult members outside and away from the ship.
They re-entered the top level and Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek at three of the units while X-Ray and Akira blasted the other chambers. As soon as they were sure that they would explode and the doors began to seal they rushed together and Banshee immediately phased them down to the next level.
There was a moment or two before they realised that the light levels in the cargo hold was now much brighter than before and seemed to emanate from the front of the ship. It was as though someone had removed the globe to allow the sunshine in. Another moment passed before they came to the realisation that a shimmering hole in space was letting in that light, which was being reflected off a surface covered in snow. Snow that didn’t currently exist this low down the mountain side, snow so thick it was clearly from somewhere much further North. Blocking some of that light was a small mountain of amber containers on the other side of the portal each filled to capacity with dormant control bugs and transporting a floating platform of even more containers through the portal was the silver being,who called himself Kaos.
X-ray wondered if something rather than someone else was responsible for the portal but it seemed that it was just another aspect of Kaos’ powers. Between themselves and the portal were half a dozen ‘drones lying on the deck with their heads and faces melted. Seems Kaos wasn’t a fan of the animated dead either.
X-Ray’s enhanced vision saw that the bugs seemed unaffected by the cold and he estimated that Kaos had transported about half of the containers in the cargo hold over to the other side.
He shouted out, “Kaos, for goodness sake stop what you’re doing, these things are dangerous.”
“Exactly, that’s the whole purpose. Is this where I’m supposed to stop what I’m doing and do a glorious monologue…? Sorry” His English was perfect if without an obvious regional accent. ”These are my toys now.”
The portal began to shrink, closing quickly.The Balance started to rush towards it, intending to jump through to wherever the other side was.
Kaos responded by unleashing a heat blast from his eyes against all three that even Banshee could feel despite being insubstantial. It hit X-Ray but his shields managed to bleed off most of the heat, Akira however was also hit and forced back by the attack, leaving him dazed. By the time they had recovered, the portal had shrunk before vanishing completely.
They went back in to search the ship’s lowest deck. This was devoid of ‘drones but contained what they assumed were the flight deck and the ships weaponry including racks full of missiles.
Akira was for blowing it first, then contact the authorities and let them know they had arrested known terrorists. The others agreed that the ship, its technology and cargo had to be destroyed.
Akira and Banshee assumed they would have to persuade X-Ray to leave the ‘drones to their fate but in reality he was relieved to find they were all in agreement.
In the end, X-Ray Gravi-kinetically activated one of the missiles and then threw it through a teleportal manifested by Akira at the racks while they stayed a good distance back with their prisoners, hopefully far enough back to be safe when the missiles exploded.
It worked, though they were still peppered with flaming fragments from the subsequent explosion and Akira and X-Ray had to use their powers to extinguish the moorland fires that their detonation had caused across the glen. The good news was that the explosion was so loud that the authorities were automatically alerted and arrived promptly.
Windows in crofts and cottages within a two-mile radius were blown out by the explosion but thankfully no one was hurt.
The Police immediately arrested the Kult, transferring them directly to Deep Six while they questioned them about their activities both in the UK and abroad where several countries would want them extradited for their crimes. A sanitised version of events was provided in the Balance’s statements. What they didn’t know was why Kaos had wanted the control bugs. They also had to try to figure out why the ship was here in the first place.
Banshee asked Frankie to contact Rory MacCarty, her pseudo-grandnephew and ask him to inform the Covert Surveillance Bureau about what they had found. The last thing they expected however was for Kaos to appear in Dover a few days later and hand himself over to the authorities.
To be continued
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 