ARC of THE IMMORTALS Book 1 — Pursuit:
Derelict Genetics Station
Chapter 2.2: Science-Fiction, Suspense, Pursuit, Escape-No Escape
[some scenes of violence]
“Stop, Uncle. Silence, please.” Jac strained to hear.
‘The Foray Needle-craft definitely made a transdimensional jump along a pre-planned route. I’m doing an analysis of its route now. Harry went in for some routine brain surgery on a pineal uptake problem. But nothing more than that so far.’ Touzdae’s words appeared in Jac’s head.
‘Acknowledged,’ the reply was swift and silent.
“Okay, it’s all right, let’s move,” he told Uncle Harry and they inched forward through the gloom.
They moved around a corner. Jac fired his blast rifle into the darkness. A large white ephemeral shape loomed over them. It crackled with an electrical arc that outlined the shape. The discharge from the weapon dissipated it into nothingness.
“That was a plasma being.”
“What?” Harry registered shock.
Jac walked up to Harry’s force field generator unit and made adjustments.
“I’m strengthening the aft field.”
Two large Dackra Snakes attacked the field from opposite directions. Jac blasted the one in the rear. A beam from his blaster went through the mouth of the beast and it exploded. He swung around and sliced the other one in half.
“Oh shit,” Jac alarmed.
“What? Don’t say ‘oh shit’.”
“We have to get out of here right now,” he sucked in a breath. “Run!”
Harry and Jac ran as a giant Dackra Snake the size of the corridor shot down upon them. They dashed for a smaller hallway. The snake bit through the aft field and it collapsed. They moved into a smaller hallway inside a static bubble. The beast would not enter.
“That was close,” Harry stated.
They moved into an adjacent passage out of the static bubble,
“Shhh, there’s someone up ahead… In that opening,” Jac said.
“That’s the main lab, where we want to be. How did we get here so fast?”
Jac rolled his eyes, “We ran.”
‘He jumped to the station. He’s here, be careful.’ Touzdae’s voice manifested in Jac’s head.
‘I figured.’ He turned towards Harry and bent to ear level and whispered:
“The Pursuer is here.”
A claw reached through two force fields and missed both Harry and Jac. Jac fired his blast rifle in the direction of the arm. It struck the field surrounding the lab. It ricocheted off all of Jac and Harry’s field before destroying a part of the bulkhead.
“You stay here. I’m going to try something.”
Jac stole away from Harry. The claw of the Pursuer reached in and grabbed Harry’s legs and lifted him in the air. Harry shrieked in agony.
Jac placed his palms together and with knees bent in an odd posture he slowed time to microseconds. He moved to the force field of the Pursuer and stepped between the pulses cutting the field. He spread his arms out and time resumed. He picked up Harry in his arms and precariously balanced the rifle.
Jac fired a beam from his blast rifle at the Pursuer. The blast dissipated into Pursuer’s personal shield at crotch level. The shock forced him back and he dropped Harry who crumpled to the deck like a damaged marionette.
Jac slowed time again, extending his field around and into Harry’s field. Pursuer looked on blinking as if in shock. Or it was the time dilation.
Time backed up. Harry moved upward quickly. In slow motion, Harry sailed to the floor where Jac caught him. He passed green, blue, and purple energies from his hands and healed Harry’s crumpled legs.
“Can you move your legs now?”
Harry moved his legs in a mechanical fashion and stood wobbling.
“We need to move. I don’t know how long I can hold us both in this state.”
Harry faltered, hobbling forward. Then he started to walk. Jac created a faster pace.
“Can you move a little faster? I may ask you to make a run for it. Do you think you’ll be able to do that?”
“If I have to I will. How come he came after me instead of you?”
“I’ll explain later, right now I want you to keep moving as fast as you can.”
Jac flipped open his side pouch and extracted a communicator and turned it on. He activated a variable-frequency sound interference field as a mask for communications.
“Jac to Touzdae, do you read over?”
“Here.”
“Get the Fish ready to go.”
The slower time began to erode. Pursuer moved in slow motion.
“Charge the Dimensional Transporter. We may need it to pull Harry and me out of here.”
Pursuer began moving a bit faster, closer to normal speed.
“Get a fix on Harry. He’s hurt. We’ll get as close as we can. Wait for my signal via communicator.”
Touzdae sped around the bridge monitoring panels and adjusting controls.
“Got it. I’ll get on the dimensional transporter right away. I’ll have it up in five.”
“I need it in one.”
Pursuer leapt in slow motion from one end of the lab to the other. And in close to normal speed was almost upon them
“Touzdae, I need it now!” Jac shouted.
Jac glanced backward over his shoulder. Pursuer picked up more speed in his leaps forward. Jac held the communicator up to his mouth about to speak.
“ — -Thirty seconds.,” Touzdae barked breathlessly.
“ — -Now.”
Pursuer landed between Jac and Harry. Jac fired a blast at point-blank range, but Pursuer’s field neutralized it. Pursuer snatched Jac’s laser rifle and threw it aside as if it were a twig. As Pursuer reached down for Jac, Jac slowed time. Pursuer slowed too. The time differentials were out of phase with one another.
Harry picked up speed and disappeared in a blur.
They swung at each other at varying rates of time. Jac’s fist and Pursuer’s claw passed through each other, slow, fast, slow, and all blurred.
Harry disappeared through the Dimensional Transporter from the main aisle.
Pursuer landed a blow that grazed Jac’s right cheek. Jac rolled away from the thing as Pursuer cackled his beak dripping. Jac pressed his palms together and closed his eyes.
Pursuer leaned down over Jac beak spread wide.
“All too easy,” Pursuer gargled.
Jac opened his eyes and released his hands to his side. The beak of Pursuer enclosed his head and upper body and started to close.
Timed stopped.
Jac stared inside the open beak of Pursuer as the dimensional jump shifted overhead. Pursuer fizzed, blurred, and vanished.
The Fish maneuvered back and forth in the bay. The mooring lines were intractable. And stuck. Release proved impossible.
Jac climbed up through the hatch. Dizzy, he knocked into a portal and fell into the melding chair. It morphed around his body.
Explosive charges jettisoned the mooring lines. The lines whipped through the air creating electrical charges. There was a cascade effect. An arc of electric energy shorted the damping field of the dock and several other bays on either side. The ship shot out into space away from the platform.
The Fish catapulted into a transdimensional jump tube. Jac was ejected out of the melding chair with a thump onto the deck.
“Jac, transdimensional jumping is not advisable now!” she raised her voice. “Think of something else.”
Pursuer popped out of stilled time. In two leaps he was in the docking bay next to the Needle Craft. He leapt into the open cockpit, which materialized shut in an instant.
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Jean Carfantan | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Adam Mackay | Dr. Preeti Singh | Pene Hodge | Ravyne Hawke | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | madmess’s thoughts | Lee David Tyrrell | DL Nemeril | David Price | Rip Parker
