Part 11


Earth Takes a Stand

Chapter Eleven: The Death of Thaylen

by Anonymous

Chris was wandering the halls more or less without direction. Fortunatly, the halls seemed to be more or less empty. The sounds of battle comming from a few decks above him explained that. Everyone was probably trying to help get rid of Laura. He felt a swell of pride for a moment, this was his lover after all, and she was posing a mortal threat to the entire ship!

As he was about to turn a corner, he cuaght a glimps of the sleeve of a Beta uniform. Probably a guard. Guarding what? He didn't dare turn the corner yet to find out. He needed a plan. They were probably armed. He looked down at the weapon Raymond had given him. It looked pretty big, and strange. It was probably made of the same stuff his armor was, it was the same color of metal and shined the same way. The firing mechanism was simple enough to understand, it was just a trigger and a big switch that read "safety." He slid the safety to the "off" position and started to think.

Suddenly, a huge crash rocked the ship! It litereally shook the ship off it's axis to the side, and from the room the Betas were guarding machinery hummed louder than it had before. Chris thought "Thanks for the distraction, Laura." and leapt into action. He planned to shoot one Beta, roll out of the way, and then shoot the second one. If there were more, he'd hide down the corridor and pick them off as they came around the corner.

But that's not at all what happened! Chris leapt into the hallway with the distracted Betas, and opened fire. Good God! Four protrustions on the barrel he couldn't explain before roared to life as they and the massive center of the barrel exploded into an enormous white beam of some sort! It was easily over six inches in diameter, and vaporized half the first Beta's chest! It continued through him and struck the other Beta as well. The beam was weakened by passing through the first Beta though, eating through the flesh and muscle but leaving the bones slightly charred. Both the Betas stood for two seconds, it seemed like eternity to Chris, before crumpling to the floor in a heap. Expressions of shock and horror were still visible on their lifeless faces.

"Holy Shit! I love this thing!" Raymond wasn't kidding when he said that this was the most powerful gun Steve could come up with. He had no idea what it fired but he hoped there were some more shots left in the clip! He looked down at the Betas to inspect the damage. Wow! One had a perfectly circular hole boared in the left side of his chest, the flesh around it burned to the point where it wasn't even bleeding. The other Beta had taken the shot square in the center of his chest, and his slightly blackened rib cage was clearly visible through the hole. Everything in his chest was disintegrated excpet the bone.

Then he glanced up and saw the shot had even struck the wall behind them! It was glowing faintly red, and the rivits and armor plating had fused permenently together in an eight inch circle. And that was after passing through two super powerful aliens! If this was the technology Raymond had access to, he hoped that he, Laura, and Fairchild could eventually persuade him to join them.

Chris looked at the door they were guarding. It had all sorts of important looking signs on it, all in Arion. Unable to read the signs, he decided to take a look inside. He hit the button that he assumed opened the door, and burst in with his massive weapon ready.

"Everyone on the floor! Now! Hands where I can see them!" Even the Arions who couldn't understand English understood a gun the size of their heads. All five hit the floor. "Who here speaks English!" Chris started to walk around the Betas and took their weapons.

One of the Betas answered that he does, and Chris told him to stand. "What does this place do?"

"This machine creates the artificial gravity. That's all. There's nothing important in here." Nothing important? Chris got an evil grin on his face. He knew that there was no Arion Prime with the power of flight, but Laura was a different story. If the gravity on this ship suddenly quit, that would put her at a definate advantage!

"Okay, everyone get up nice and slow and back against the wall. Things are about to get real interesting around here."

*

Raymond was still following the intructions of the Beta he had in his grip as he proceeded to where he hoped Aurora was being held. The truce depended on her survival, and the sooner he could find her the better the chances were of that happening. If he was caught in a fight with Laura in space, he knew he would lose. She could easily stay in a vacuum far longer than he could, and had vastly superior powers of flight. There was no way he would return to Earth alive if Luara found a reason to break the truce.

And speaking of Laura, here she comes now. She was racing down the wide corridor at incredible speed. She stopped for just a second in front of Raymond. "Look there's two, maybe four Primes behind me. Hold them off, I'm going to find Aurora. Later."

Before Raymond could speak a word, Laura was gone. She raced down the corridor and dissapeared around a corner faster than Raymond could organize the questions he had, or tell her that apparently the Beta was trying to tell him that they were almost to Aurora already. He turned around just in time to see two Primes, one man and the same woman who had fought him at the Particle Physics Lab, barreling down on him. No time to talk to Laura.

Raymond tossed the Beta in his hands down the hall and turned to face the Primes. He rushed at them at full speed, and the three collided like the defensive and offensive lines of a football team. Only this collision shook the entire ship off of it's axis, which allowed Chris to take command of the artificial gravity generator.

The two Primes weighed considerably less than Raymond's three ton armor, and were sent flying backward from the impact. Raymond then raised his left arm and sent dozens of tiny needels flying through the air from their cylindrical launcher, sliding between the cells of their skin and injecting the muscle relaxants into them.

The pair seemed unaffected by the needles. They were just small enough to be irritating. "Was that supposed to be some kind of a weapon?" the woman demanded.

Raymond assumed a fighting stance. Could the Arions have special immunity to them that Laura didn't? He knew they were about a third as strong, so he used a third the needles he normally would have, was that a mistake? Would he be able to handle to Primes at once? Should he conserve his ammunition for when he really needed it or use it now, and decreace the amount of Primes that he would have to fight later? Damn, where did his confidence go?

The Primes got up and charged again, and Raymond let them come. The male leapt into the air, propelled by his powerful legs, and came down toward Raymond foot-first in a flying leap kick. Fortunatly, Raymond's Tai-Chi had prepared him for this and he swept the man's foot away from a direct collision with a circular motion of his arm. His other arm struck his airborn body, bringing him down hard on the metal floor, causing it to buckle.

The woman was nearly on top of Raymond that very second, and pummeled him with a deadly looking (and sounding) combination of punches ending with a knee in the abs. Raymond staggard backwards from the blows, this one was one hell of a fighter!

"What the hell was that?" Raymond had never seen that style of fighting before. In all his martial arts tournaments he never encountered whatever combat form that was.

"That, my friend, was the most powerful style of combat in the galaxy! I'm an Arion military specialist, a combat trainer. You were there when I beat Aurora, not even a Velorian Protector could stop me."

"Am I supposed to surrender?"

"Now that wouldn't be any fun at all!" She assumed a very stable looking fighting stance, legs wide, guard up. Raymond began his routine as well. The two circled closer, and finally erupted into a flurry of punches, blocks, and attempted grabs that occured so quickly, so violently, and so powerfully, the entire ship echoed with their fight.

Raymond had to use every trick he knew to keep up with her. He had gotten struck a few times in the chest and helmet, but barely felt the impacts through the armor. His circular Tai-Chi style was effective only in blocking most of her attacks, he could rarely find an opening anywhere to strike back!

*

Meanwhile, Laura raced to the back area of the ship. It seemed logical to her that would be where the detention cells would be. As it turned out, she was right. Several Beta guards tried to stop her, but without any real hope of hurting her with their weapons. They had been designed so that a missed shot wouldn't put a hole in the side of the ship, but any gun that weak wouldn't be able to really hurt a Velorian!

Kayne heard the sounds of battle and struggled to hold back Fairchild's powerful heart. With renewed, panicked strength, he felt it weaken, and then stop. He had won! There was only one thing left to do to ensure victory. He lowered his lips to the impressive Velorian breasts before him, and began to milk them of the nearly limmitless energy he knew they contained.

It was obvious that Fairchild was not dead, only comatose, immediatly. His touch stirred a reaction in her, causing her nipples to become hugely erect and diamond hard. With his powerful hands massaging the flesh, his lips and tongue danced over her nipple for a moment before the flow started, her breast leaking the chemical energy that his body could use.

The taste was slightly bitter, and very strong. He switched breasts after a bit, kneading and sucking that one as well to promote the flow of the chemicals it contained. He wrapped his arms around her limp body, pressing her soft breast into his face as he drank from her. His lips provided a suction that no earthly force could possibly have generated and his tongue massaged her nipple and the area around it as he drank. Pity she's almost dead, he thought, she would probably be enjoying this quite a bit!

After a few moments, he had nearly drained that breast of it's power. It became difficult to suck any more out of it so he switched back to the first one. This was turning him on so much, holding the limp form of one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy so intimatly close, raping her of the very chemical energy that gave her her incredible power!

Then Laura burst into the room, bodies scattered behind her. She looked down and saw Kayne at Fairchild's breast, Fairchild so obviously helpless before him! The shock of this sight made her pause for a moment, her friend, her lover, limp and lifeless in the arms of this rapist!

Then Kayne turned to face her, his body pulsed with raw power, muscles flexed beyond anything she had ever seen before! His eyes glowed violet and his mouth glowed red whenever he opened it. His breath came in huge lungfulls as he dropped Fairchild's body between them. Then he spoke. "It Hurts! Make it stop!" He had supercharged himself with Fairchild's energy beyond what he could handle!

Kayne threw himself at Laura, landing a powerful blow on her that sent her flying through the wall behind her. She got up quickly and charged Kayne, throwing all her streangth and flying power into one, massive blow to his midsection! He was so solid she hurt her hand, but that was quickly forgotten when she saw the effect of her blow.

Kayne was in so much pain from the energy he had taken that he was distracted and ill-prepared for Laura's mighty punch. He puked red-hot energy, searing Laura's hand and arm at its touch! Laura drew back in pain, and saw the powerful vomit eat through the floor and onto the decks below. If he did that again, he might tear a hole through the ship, and then Fairchild would be blown out into space and lost!

Kayne lifted both fists into the air and brought them down on Laura's shoulders, only her flying power kept her from being thrown through the decks below. She sent punch after punch into Kayne's body, but the pain inside of him seemed to be stronger than any she could inflict. This wasn't right, she was a Velorian, and he was only an Arion Prime, she was supposed to be far stronger!

Kayne grabbed her arms and pulled her close to him. She felt his massive erection throbbing under his uniform. "It hurts! I have to make it stop!" Laura finally understood just what was so painful as Kayne's freed his enormous cock from his pants, it glowed bright red! She struggled under his grip, but he had the incredible strength of Aurora as well as his own, and could not free herself.

Then Laura felt his organ pressing against her sex. She tried as hard as she could to keep herself closed to him, to not let him enter, but it was in vain as she heard the fabric tear from the lower part of her costume, and Kayne slowly forced his way inside of her.

*

Captain Thaylen left the bridge to try to plan his next move. He had several powerful beings on his ship and knew where none of them were. He heard the sounds of battle just as clearly as everyone else could, but had no idea which side was winning. The communications officer saw his chance.

"All Betas, abandon ship! Bring as many weapons as you can, your escape PODs are programmed to take you to a rondezvous point. All Betas, abondon ship." The bridge cleared in an instant, except for the communications officer who stayed to finish programming the rondezvous for the PODs.

Thaylen burst from his office and saw only the communications officer, doing something at a station that was not his own. Immediatly, searning pain surged through his mind but he had to finish or everything was lost! "This in inexcusable! I am in the middle of a crisis and I need my crew to stand with me! There will be no abandoning of the ship!!" The pain was nearly incapacitating, but the officer managed to finish what he was doing before collapsing on the floor in agony.

Thaylen crept toward him smoothly on his four legs, still wearing the cloak that hid his features. "What were you doing?" There was no answer. "Tell me what you did or you will die." Thaylen couldn't read Arion, he could only speak it. He had no idea what the messege on the console meant. He knew not what had happened to the PODs. "Tell me!" The Beta had no chance under Thaylen's mind assault. He was in so much pain all he could do was scream in tortured agony. "I have no time for this. I have to defend my ship." Thaylen took the Beta's weapon from him and shot him several times at point blank range, ending his torture.

*

"Damnit, Prok, help me here!" The woman was furious as she was doing all the fighting against Raymond and her companion was just standing there. "We can taken him down easily together, we need to find the Velorian!" But Prok was unable to help.

"I can't move my legs! I can barely move my arms! What happened to me?" Prok felt like his limbs were made of lead and his strength was gone as he stained to move.

The Arion woman fighting Raymond suddenly became aware of an uneasy feeling deep in her stomach. She felt her strength leaving her as well! Raymond saw the weakness in her eyes. "Aha, so the relaxant does work! It won't be long before you start to feel it too, first your limbs will go numb, then you'll feel weak, it will get harder and harder to move..."

"Shut up!" She shoved Raymond away with a powerful blow that got through his defences. Raymond was having a psychological effect on her by describing the sensation, and it accelerated the process by makign her focus on it.

"Soon, you'll be unable to even lift your arms to defend yourself. And then you'll both be at my mercy! Can you feel it, can you feel the chemicals stealing your strength?" The woman's knees buckled slightly. Raymond saw his chance and he threw his most powerful punch square into her jaw! She couldn't even lift a finger to block it, and the world suddenly went black.

"Now to find out what was in this door." Raymond was about to open it when it opened itself, and about fifteen Betas ran past him and down the corridor. Inside, he saw a cloaked figure screaming in Arion at a Beta on the floor, before taking his gun and shooting him. This wasn't the detention cells.

"Who the hell are you?" Raymond demanded over his loudspeaker. Thaylen looked up and emptied the last of the Beta's clip into Raymond. The shots impacted harmlessly against the carbo-metallic armor. "I said, who the hell are you?"

"I am the captain of this ship. Captain Thaylen. You have caused me no end of trouble, Terran. You killed several of my men, and disgraced me in the eyes of the Arion high command. You will die now." Thaylen took his cloak off, revlealing a spinlely form underneath. His dress was odd, move like a thick rope wrapped around him than cloth. His appearance was even stranger. His head was too tall for how wide it was, and his arms were far too short. His body was almost cylindrical and ended in four legs at the bottom, two on the sides, one in the front, and one in the back. He moved like some kind of giant insect.

"What are you? You're not an Arion. What are you doing on an Arion ship?"

"You idiot. This is no Arion ship. This is the design of MY race! It's beautiful, isn't it? Not a right angle anywhere on the whole ship. Even after the Arions modified it. My race was conquered by the Arions years ago, I joined them to survive.

"One of the Arions needed my help rising in command. It seems one of his commanders didn't like him and was refusing his promotion. I changed his mind for him, and the Arion I helped was very grateful. He made me a captain, let me keep one of my race's ships, and gave me command of a crew. Now I'm the last of my race, and I will not die at the hands of a Terran!"

"What do you mean you changed his mind? How?"

"Like THIS!" Thaylen's thoughts invaded Raymond's mind, tearing into his brain and sending agony through every nerve in his body. He dropped heavily to his knees, three tons of carbo-metal impacting with the floor resounded through the ship. "One out of every ten thousand of my race has stronger mental powers than the others. I am one of them. Good-bye, Terran. I hope you enjoyed your life."

But Raymond was not to be defeated without a struggle! He tried to block out the pain, to ignore the fire in his veins, to stand and fight, but he couldn't. He could not rise from the floor as hard as he tried. His rage built inside of him as he screamed. "You're just as bad as they are, you use your powers to hurt and kill! I hate you! Hate you!!" One clawed hand slammed down on the floor in front of him, tearning into the metal. Slowly, ever so slowly, Raymond pulled himself forward. Three tons of armor screeched horribly as it dragged itself across the bridge.

"I've never seen such obsession! Your mind is incredibly focused, I can feel your rage like a fist. But it won't help you. The sprit is willing, but the mind is weak. I'll tear apart your thoughts until your mind dies. I don't need to get through that armor to kill you." Raymond's other claw struck out in front of him, also tearing into the floor and dragging the armor forward.

"This should slow you down. The Arions told me you've never felt Orgone energy before, they didn't have a chance to try it yet. You'll be so distracted you won't know which way is up." Thaylen brought a small box, looking a little like a remote control, to him telekinetically. He trained it on Raymond and fired the wide, green ray. "Nothing? I'll turn it up. They said you Terrans need huge doses." Thaylen turned it up to its highest setting, but still there was no effect Raymond kept crawling foreward.

"This can't be happening. You must feel like you're on fire right now! How can you move?" Raymond would not be stopped. His obsession drove him forward, with every ounce of will he had, backed by rage and fear of death, he pulled himself forward with his claws. "Where are the Kintzi!?" He telekinetically pushed a button on the other side of the bridge and threw the useless Orgone device away. "Kintzi! This is Captain Thaylen! I'm on the bridge and the Terran is here, HELP ME!"

Thaylen backed away from the advancing armor. He was nowhere near as physically strong as the Arions, and knew that he would be no match for the armor if it got a hold of it. Before he knew it, he had backed himself into a curved portion of the bridge near his captain's chair. Slowly, ever so slowly, Raymond's armor dragged itself across the bridge toward him. "Stay back! Stay away from me! You should be dead by now!"

But Thaylen's fear only weakened his grip on Raymond's mind. Five feet seperated the two. Then four feet. Then three feet as Raymond strained to move against more pain than he had ever felt in his life. "STAY AWAY!!!" Two feet. Then one massive, armored claw gripped his front leg so tight that he cried out in pain. He was pulled off his feet and into the grip of Raymond's other claw.

"Let go! Let go of me!" Thaylen redoubled his efforts as a primal fear of death gripped his mind, but pain has little effect on a machine. As long as Raymond could move an inch, he could control the armor.

"I'll see you rotting in Hell, Thaylen. You and the Arions and Aurora, I'll see you all rotting and burning in HELL!!" Raymond had a grip on Thaylen's front leg and his shoulder, and with a force a thousand times greater than was nessesary he ripped the alien in half, ending the pain for both of them.

*

Chris finished piling all the Betas' sidearms on the artificial gravity generator after seeing to it that all the Betas were tied up in the corridor. He confirmed which button closed the door, and fired the massive weapon Raymond have given him at the impressive machine inside. Eight inches of intese yellow light roared from the barrell and the four protrusions around it, carving a clean hole in the generator. Sparks flew from the machine and everything in the room began to be pulled toward the hole Chris made as the generator overloaded violently. Chris closed the door and ran down the hall as fast as he could.

The explosion rocked the entire ship, and the air blowing out the hull breach shook the ship violently starbord as the gravity suddenly ceased.

*

Laura, still caught in the grip of the supercharged Kayne, was still trying desperatly to keep him from violating her any further. His strangly glowing cock was painful to be inside of her, but there was little she could do to match his greatly enhanced strength.

Without warning, an explosion rocked the ship violently to starboard, the sudden shock making Kayne lose his grip on Laura. At the same time, the artificial gravity cut out on the ship, and both Kayne and Fairchild bounced helplessly against the walls of the detention cell corridor. Laura, the only one able to fly, righted herself and rocketed at the useless, floating body of Kayne. The impact sent Kayne flying down the corridor, bouncing off a cell door and impacting with the wall at the end of the cells.

"And this one is for what you did to Fairchild!!" Laura flew down the corridor, accellerating as fast as she could. The massive, inflated, supercharged Kayne could only look on in horror as she flew at him at high subsonic speed, both fists in front of her! She impacted with Kayne's body, tearing the both of them through the hull of the ship and into the vacuum of space once more.

Kayne, without any means of propultion whatsoever, was sent tumbling through empty space. His silent screams for help and an end to the pain he had brought into himself from Aurora went unheaded as his massive form shrank away from the ship into the blackness.

Laura flew back to the ship quickly, she knew that Fairchild would be blown out into space by the hull breach. She quickly found her lover and flew the two of them back to the ship.

*

Raymond was feeling much better in a matter of moments. The pain had all been psychological, none of it was real. He quickly recovered and brought himself to his feet. He surveyed the torn form that had once been Thaylen. There were marks on his shoulder and his leg where his claws had crushed the fragile flesh, and the skin and tissure in his midsection were streached and torn. The dead do not bleed, but they still leak, and a puddle of something that looked like antifreeze surrounded the area where Thaylen had been torn in half. It was a grusome sight to be sure.

Raymond looked around the bridge. Look at all this technology! He could learn so much from all of this. He went to the communications console, at least his best guess as to what it was. After fooling with it for a moment, he got it pretty much figured out. One of his preperations before leaving was to turn on a specialized sort of "modem" he had built, one that would accept transmissions from laser and radio communications. This was the break he was waiting for. The Arion ship had several methods of communication, one of which was laser. He selected several small files at random from the Arion computers and began trasmitting them to his computer, hoping they were just text. His first step would be to try to decode the Arion alphabet!

It was then that the Kintzi had shown up on the bridge. They had been searching the ship ever since they were releaced for something to kill, but were unable to find anyone until Thaylen called them to the bridge. Now they were iching for a fight!

It was then that Raymond felt an explosion rock the ship suddenly starbord. The gravity let go of everything on the bridge at the same time, throwing Raymond, the Kintzi, the Beta, and Thaylen's two halves against the port side. Raymond, fortunatly, had forseen this possibility when he was thinking about being in space. He had pressurized his armor, added oxygen tanks, made sure his propultion didn't require an atmosphere, and installed magnetic clamps in his boots. He was suprized he didn't need to use them before, in his wildest dreams he never would have thought the Arions would have actually developed artificial gravity.

The Kintzi suddenly were panicked, now they had their fight, but they had no gravity! They had no idea how to fight in zero G! Raymond waded into the group, attached to the floor by his magnetic clamps. He grabbed Kintzi after Kintzi, throwing them around the bridge to seperate them. His armor suffered little but scratches as any attempt to strike him resulted in the attacker being forced away!

Raymond considered trying to kill them all, but there were too many. It would take too long. In this zero G, their awesome strength meant little, hitting things simply pushed them away by Newton's laws of motion. Instead, he calmly walked out the door and sealed it shut with his laser. The roars of the Kintzi could be heard all over the ship, as their were cheated of their chance to join the fight and defend the ship at the last possible moment.

The two Primes were still just outside the door to the bridge. The relaxants were still keeping them immobile, and they had in fact fallen asleep until Chris' explosion woke them up. Raymond picked up the male to face him, his limp body hanging uselessly. Oddly enough, when he grabbed Prok, green sparks shot from his claws and arced to him. "Pork, was it? Tell me where I can find the Velorian Aurora. And I don't mean the bridge, or whatever the Beta thought I meant."

In his relaxed state, this was incredibly funny to Prok. He laughed out load as he realized that the Arion word for helm control sounded extremly similar to the name Aurora. The Beta took him straight to the bridge by accident! Raymond shook him out of it by slamming his back into the wall, causing a deep indentation. "I'm sorry, that was just too funny! The detention cells are in the back of the ship. Just go that way." Prok tried to point, but found himself unable to lift his arms. The relaxants were starting to mess with his mind, and he found this drop-dead hilarious too!

Raymond left the hysterical Prime floating there as he continued toward the back of the ship the sparks becomming more visible as he let go until he moved far enough away from Prok. The ship was completly empty. The Betas had all evacuated, two Primes were unable to move near the bridge, and the entire compliment of Kintzi warriors were locked in the bridge.

Locked in the bridge? Oh no, the communications station! If they figured out it was trasmitting he won't get all the data! And if they had some way of figuring out where it was trasmitting they'd know where he lived! His mind raced, could such an animalistic race do that? Maybe. He rushed back to the bridge and sliced a hole in the door with his laser. He ran to the communications station, ignoring the grops and swipes of the Kintzi, and smashed it to peices. He wondered how much he got of what.

The Kintzi were furious now. He had come back just to crush the communications station? One who was close to a wall was able to spring himself off the wall and at Raymond. He caught the armor from behind, slashing and tearing for all his was worth! Raymond struggled under the assault, trying to get the Kintzi off of him, but it's grip was relentless. He raced back out of the hole in the door and down the corridor. If he could find Chris or Laura they could help him. He rushed in the direction of the detention cells as Prok began to laugh histarically again at the sight of a Kintzi on his head!

*

Meanwhile, Chris still had his hands full with the Betas he had captured single-handedly. They were bound with steel cables and he told them to lead him to the detention cells.

He was halfway there when Raymond came racing around a corner and nearly fell over laughing himself! Here was a nearly eight foot tall heavily loaded broad shouldered three ton suit of power armor, struggling to get a Kintzi off his head! "Hold still, Raymond, I got 'im!" Chris aimed and fired the powerful rifle, it roared to life and struck the Kintzi full in the side.

The Kintzi roared with pain as the fur was burned off the impact sight. Raymond was finally able to get a grip on the Kintzi's leg and throw him to the ground. He held the Kintzi down by it's throat, leving it to desperatly claw at his arm. Just like it happened at the Particle Physics Lab, although the Kintzi cut deep gashes in Raymond's armor, there was no pain to make him let go. Raymond's right wing swiveled around and connected with is right arm, the .50 caliber machine gun mounted on it swiveled forward at the same time. He stuck the barrel inside the mouth of the Kintzi, and a few shots managed to dig through the soft tissue into its brain, quickly dispatching it.

"Come on, Raymond. These Betas are taking me to Aurora. Laura's probably there already if I know her." Raymond and the Betas lightly pushed themselves off the floor and floated down the hall.

"You found one that spoke English? Why couldn't I do that?"

Moments later the small group was at the detention cells, and a sorry sight greeted them. There was Laura, half nude and crying, holding Fairchild in her arms. Fairchild had a large bruise just under her rib cage, her breasts almost looked deflated, and she hung limply from Laura's grip.

Raymond assessed the situation immediatly. This was horrible! The truce was over! Aurora was dead! "God Damnit! I'm not going down without taking this ship with me though!" Raymond used his laser to cut the lead Beta out of his bonds, grabbed him and quickly ran down the corridor. When he grabbed the Beta, the same shower of green sparks ran from his claws to the Beta, but Raymond was in far too much a hurry to ask questions.

"Laura, is she..." Chris started.

"No, she's still alive, but her heart is stopped. I'll need to bring to back somehow, but I don't know how! She did it for Kara once, but I don't know enough about it. Do you?"

"A little, I saw some of what they did, she needed me around to bring her to the magma under the house when she finished. It's really draining. But she said that if I stuck around too close, the energy release might hurt me pretty badly. But our immediat problem is Raymond. Did you hear what he said? I think he's going to destroy the ship!"

Laura was feeling too much to think clearly right now. At least there was a chance that she could bring Aurora back to them, but that was almost worse, because she didn't know exactly how to do it! "If he thinks Fairchild is dead, then he thinks our truce is over, and he knows I can outfly him in space, Oh God Chris, we have to get off the ship before he can blow it up! But I don't know if Fairchild is okay to survive reentry!"