ARC OF THE IMMORTALS Book 2
Time Rifts-30: Search for Touzdae — Outside
Jac Questing for Touzdae — obsession or passion?
[scenes of violence]
Recap: TR29 — Journey /Cornered [3]: Lieutenant Commander Gorshoff gives Jac a run-down on the first three of six commands that the exo-suit carries out.
Two Entu monks enter DKr. Malley’s lab. Malley/Pakaiyo whines that he was out-smarted by Touzdae and he can’t hold the two dimensions together.
The team escorting/assisting Jac is hit by gunfire. Jac sees seconds into the future. He sees an invisible cloaked gas coming and erects field two. Three of the five-member team fail to erect the field in time to prevent the metal-eating gas. They die by gas and bullet fire. Two soldiers and Jac retreat. While retreating the remaining male soldier is cut into pieces by a level four laser canon. He bursts into flames. Jac asks the female sniper how to get to the sphere. She says by going outside the ship.
The Entu monks force him to view Malley’s love and wife being tortured. Malley weeps openly.
Touzdae is suspended above the deck in a force field.
Current episode — A small EVA sphere emerged from the bay. It was the same color/configuration as the hull. It hovered near a hatch. The hatch slid open. Jac and Sim, the female sniper, slipped inside the two-person craft. The small sphered vehicle slipped through the plasma energy field. And power into space above the hull of the ship.
Jac was at the helm. He banked the craft left and then right as a laser beam sliced upwards from the hull. Multiple laser hits impacted the craft. He dove down to the surface and flew across, fractions of an inch above the hull. The targeting lasers had a more difficult time locking onto the small craft. But three of the hits was to the fuel tanks.
The craft skidded to a halt.
“Prepare to disembark,” the sniper barked.
“Affirmative. Ready.”
“Popping the hatch,” Simm informed.
Nothing.
“Explosive bolts?” Jac wondered. The ship careened to its side.
“Open the bottom hatch,” Simm said. The hatch slid open a few inches and stopped. There was a short and main power cut out. The craft went dark. Suit lights came up and turned on.
“We use the explosive bolts at the top. The bottom is too close to the damaged fuel tanks.
“Use Level Four and Five,” Simm shouted.
“That would be the forcefield and combining the two fields together, right?” Jac asked.
“Correct.”
The forcefields raised and combined.
“Explosive Bolts armed. Countdown from five starting… Now!” Simm said.
Audio from inside their suits sounded, “Five, four, three, two, one… ignition.”
The hatch flew away from the tiny sphere with a blast. Free-floating fuel droplets exploded in a chain back to the source. Jac and Simm pushed themselves free of the craft amid the blast. It consumed them.
“I will try my best to resurrect the link between dimensions. But no tunnels,” Malley / Pakaiyo said. “Please release my wife.”
“How long?” one of the Entu monks demanded.
“An hour at the least.”
The fire from the explosion of the craft extended upward and out of both ends of the ship. It went across the hull. The explosion claimed everything in a 50-foot radius.
Captain Tommalar strode across the bridge.
“What is it?” He drilled the Chief of the Ship or the COS.
“I was about to tell you. The faster-than-light, the FTL is working for short and long jumps,” the COS said.
“We need a destination for a long jump. I wish Jac were here,” the Captain said. ”Do we know where he is?”
“Last reports have him in or near an explosion of one of the repair crafts.”
“Outside the ship in that sector! He’d be very lucky to be alive,” Tommalar said low and fast. “Get that empath, telepath, Suke up here, now,” he ordered the COS.
A door to the bridge slid open and Suke walked in.
Inside the explosion in the forcefield, they ran in smartmag boots the length of the flames. And jumped down into a service groove. Simm made adjustments to Jac’s boots and hers. Jac watched and “saw” how it worked.
That’s Level Six? Jac sent the thought.
Level Six A, Simm thought back. We’re lucky, deploying of the mist will happen along this tract in… She looked at her wrist chronometer, in 90 seconds. It will cover our run down into a pucker-pod. From there we can plan our next move. She thought to Jac.
He saw it, the run and an inner dimple to crouch in. Jac nodded to her. She did a countdown. Spray created a heavy mist and they sprinted in a new mode of smartmag boots running. All the Levels were up and running.
Jac, I can feel you. I know you’re getting closer. I haven’t figured out how to get out of this forcefield, yet. My location is — she saw her location. Touzdae cross-referenced her location with other known parameters of the sphere. She remembered them when she deposited the Lingham Stone. All from memory.
They landed in the pucker-pod. It was a combination of metal and flesh tied together at the bottom.
Does this pod open, here? Jac pointed beneath their feet.
No, she thought back. They both felt a series of clicks and buzzing in the hull.
What’s that? Jac thought to Simm.
Small flying bots will be here quick to finish us off. Jac felt the fear rise in her.
Can we fire our guns there at the center of the pucker?
Don’t know.
Jac started firing an automatic rifle at the center. Simm followed suit. A hole opened as bots arrived. Their forcefields extended up and blocked the initial round of laser fire.
Three bots cut through the forcefield. The field shorted out and was resurrected. This happened two more times before it went down.
The hole. Big enough? Jac to Simm.
I hope so, and she jumped.
Jac jumped after her. The bots followed.
They slid down long tubes. Toward where? Neither of them knew. They fired up at the bots as they descended...
the next chapter:
previous three chapters:
Contents:
Thank you for joining me in the adventures that span lifetimes and worlds. Blessings, Passion, and Grace on your journey. May whatever your looking for — find you.
[This is a fictional story. Like all fiction, elements of truth are present.]
(If you do NOT wish to be tagged, let me know, and I’ll tag you not):
Alison Hollingsead | Rebecca Romanelli | Joseph Lieungh | Dr Mehmet Yildiz | Kris Bedenian | Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 | Blaine Coleman | DL Nemeril | Rip Parker | Annelise Lords | Barbara Murray | K. Pearson Bradley | Libby Shively McAvoy