Disclaimer: I do not own Vandread or Deathstalker.
Vandread belongs to Studio Gonzo.
DeathStalker belongs to Simon R Green.
Vanstalker:
This is a cross over between the anime series Vandread and the Deathstalker series of Novels written by Simon R Green.
Quite a lot of people will be familiar with Vandread, fewer will be familiar with the Novels written by Simon R Green.
For those who may be interested the series revolves around the main character Owen Deathstalker.
The series is set in the distant future where humanity has established a mighty empire in the stars. A feudal empire that is ruled with an iron fist.
The empire is ruled by the empress Lionstone the XXIV. Worshiped and adored, also know as the Iron Bitch.
Her rule is absolute and those that speak out against or displease her tend to have messy and fatal accidents.
Below Lionstone stand the Lords. The ruling families, incredibly wealthy and powerful they exist above the law and control worlds.
Built on the blood of clone slave labour and the power of Espers, (humans with psychic abilities who are treated as property), enforced by the might of the Imperial fleet and the Church of Christ the Warrior the Empire is the most glorious and terrible civilisation in humanities history.
But it is rotting from within. In their Ivory towers the powerful families plot and scheme to win the throne. Under the streets and in the shadows the clone and esper undergrounds plot to overthrow the current order and win their freedom.
And on the edges of the Empire the rogue AI's of Shub and vicious alien races threaten to destroy all that humanity has built.
The Empire is a tinderbox waiting to explode.
Owen Deathstalker last of his line is a quiet man. Descendent of a proud warrior family, Owen prefers to spend his time as historian on his family's world of Virimode.
When the empress Lionstone outlaws Owen his life changes forever. Desperate to escape capture he and a band of unlikely companions make their way to the legendary world of Haden. And there they pass through the Madness Maze. An artefact leftover by an ancient and incredibly powerful alien civilisation.
Those that pass through it are changed forever becoming far more than they once were. And the empress has made a terrible mistake. By outlawing Owen Deathstalker she has awakened a lust for vengeance in a quiet man, and unleashed the power of a name that is legend. Now the rebels and the traitors, the downtrodden and the abused, the espers and the clones all have someone to follow, someone to lead the Deathstalker Rebellion. And then the Killing begins.
This is a kind of quick summary of the main plot behind the Deathstalker series by Simon R Green. I recommend it to all people that enjoy grand space opera, but a warning. Mr Green does not hold back at describing scenes that are incredibly violent, gruesome sometimes disgusting, while at the same maintaining a tongue in cheek humour that can bring tears to the eyes.
And now the VanStalker Prologue
Prologue:
Pain flooded his senses, drowning out all else.
It only served to focus him further.
He was weak, weaker than he could remember being in a long time.
His body was a wreck, bruised and battered. He had taken wounds that would have killed a human a hundred times over. But he had not been human for a long time.
He was dying. He could feel it. His strength was slowly draining out of him. Once it was gone he would no longer be able to hold against his enemy.
But that did not matter.
He was close now, so close to his goal. The closer he came the more the pain increased, but that mattered not at all.
He flew straight and true at his enemy, like an Arrow to its target, like a Phoenix into a sun.
Suddenly he was there. Inside his enemy. It screamed its hatred at him, trying to bring all its formidable strength and power to bear, to kill this being that dared threaten its life.
And its power was formidable.
Abominations, nightmares given form struck at him. Products of the diseased mind of his enemy they were dark and terrible, full of sharp teeth and tearing claws.
There were many of them and he was weak.
But not that weak.
He struck out at them with his power, like a lion against a horde of Rats.
Even weakened they could not take him easily and each of his blows sent a score back to the dark hell from whence they had come.
Slowly, step by tortured step he fought his way to the heart of his enemy. The one place it has true shape and form, the place where it was most real.
The place where it could die.
As he approached his goal it taunted him. It spoke of his failure, of how many of his friends had died for him to reach this spot. Of his own weakness, for if he had only been stronger, faster, better then so many would not have died.
He ignored it.
The enemy brought images from his past to plague him. Times of weakness, times of hate. Times when he remembered hating himself, times when he had failed.
He remembered those times, they as well as the good had shaped him into what he now was, like the different strokes of a hammer on a sword at the forge.
And while those memories were unpleasant, now they only served to strengthen his resolve to remind him of what he had already overcome, and what he had yet to do.
Finally it brought visions of the future. All of his wishes, his plans his dreams.
His many regrets of what he had not been able to do.
"Leave now" it whispered in a voice that was not a voice.
"I will let you go. Leave, know life, know peace, know love. I swear that neither I nor my kind will seek to harm you as long as you live"
It sensed his indecision, his sudden hesitation as he contemplated the offer and it that moment it struck. Drawing its mental strength it lashed out at him with its core power. The essence of its being distilled by hate and rage into a weapon that could crush worlds.
The enemy crowed its triumph. Nothing could have survived that blast.
In its dark and tortured mind it laughed at the folly of these upstart beings, these maggots that dared to oppose it. Surprisingly powerful, they had caused its race the first losses they had suffered in millions of years, but fundamentally they were still weak and that meant that as always its kind would triumph.
The enemy sat there laughing at the folly of its foe, full of its own pride and arrogance. And in that moment he struck.
His indecision had been a feint to draw its attack. When it came he had been able to avoid the worst of the blast. But not all of it.
He was dying now, his body had been shattered by the blast, and he did not have the strength to maintain it. But it was no longer necessary.
Gathering all his remaining strength, derived in a lifetime of hard training, combat and discipline he struck at his enemy. His very essence, all that he was and had ever been he formed now into a weapon. A weapon with one purpose. To kill his enemy.
It screamed a howl of agony whose power was such that it could have killed lesser beings.
It raged against him trying to find some way to save itself, to go on, to survive.
But there was no escape. By opening itself, by using the power of its very essence, it had left itself open, vulnerable. He pored himself through the gap it had left, like an assassins dagger finding a chink in a targets armour.
And finally he stood there in what would be considered the beating heart of his enemy.
It was a place out of space, out of time, it existed in multiple dimensions and in none.
He stood in that place and gathered himself for the final step of his journey.
His enemy railed at him. Threatening, begging, pleading, as it desperately tried to convince him to stop. It was all it could now do. This terrible being, this blight upon creation which in its time had fed on worlds and brought death to suns was now powerless to stop him. He was in its heart, it could no more touch him, then he could have ripped out his own heart and survived, had he still been human.
In his last breaths, he looked back and reflected on his life and thought that it had been good. As with any life there were moments of happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, pride and disappointment. But at the end he was satisfied, and would not have had it any other way. His body was a ragged mess barely recognisable as human.
His soul was also bruised and battered, but not broken.
As he gathered himself for the last time he never questioned what he was about to do. Too many had died so that he could stand here now, too many more would die if he did not complete this task. A task that he had taken up willingly, a duty he now happily fulfilled. In his final moments he smiled within himself, for the enemy had no concept of self sacrifice, of duty, of honour, of love. And because of that eventually, humanity and its allies would triumph. He regretted that he would not see that day, but he was glad that with his last breath he would hasten its coming.
And then it was time. With a final command he released the power he had gathered holding nothing back. In the black heart of the enemy, a place of pure darkness it was like the birth of a new sun. The power and light of his soul, released it a great explosion reached the walls of his enemy's heart and burst them asunder.
Light flowed over the blackness, bursting it into nothing. Rendering it void.
The light flowed everywhere across all the many dimensions that the enemy occupied and where it found its foe it annihilated it.
In the material world, a heaving black mass hovered over a star .
The size of a planet it pulsed and heaved, following patterns and designs that made no sense and brought only madness.
Suddenly its sides burst and tore, raw light pouring from burst fronds of black matter. Explosions continued to rippled across the vast bulk of the monstrosity, shredding it as spears of raw light burst from its centre ripping away vast chunks of its rotten black flesh.
And then finally with a great implosion, the bulk of the creature was sucked back in upon itself. When the whirlpool of power ended there was nothing left of the black creature. Nothing physical. But forever after, for those with the ability to feel it, a psychic scream would be embedded upon that sector of space.
The death scream of a great and terrible being that for millions of years had wandered the universe like a predator in its feeding ground.
And above that terrible sound, like the clear ringing of a trumpet, the victory cry of the man that had refused to be its prey.
He sensed, nothing. He had no body, he almost had no soul. The very power of his existence had gone to kill his enemy. Now all that was left of him was fading into the darkness. A darkness that was somehow comforting. Like a mothers womb.
A place of possibilities and new beginnings. Gratefully he let himself fade, feeling the care and burdens he had born lighten and drop away. Feeling the pregnant promise of a new beginning and a new turning of the wheel.
But suddenly there was light.
It lit up the comfort of the darkness, bright and shining and cold. He felt the strands of himself return and reform. As they did memories, feelings and burdens returned.
The first was anger. Anger that he was pulled from the embrace of the void. Anger that he was robbed of his new beginning . Anger that he was denied his rest.
With his newly refocused self he screamed a question at the light with all of his being.
WHY!!!!!
An answer flowed back to him. He felt the power in the answer. He knew it could crush him like a falling mountain could crush an ant. But the touch was warm and firm, like a hand on his shoulder, steadying and lending strength. And with the touch the answer came to him.
Duty
The entity who had been a man gave the equivalent of a sigh with his whole being. But he did not argue. Even diminished as he was in this form he knew what he was, and that meant duty was engraved on his soul.
He allowed himself the luxury of another sigh before turning away from the void and making his way to the light.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Parfet grumbled under her breath as she studied the area around her. She stood on the floor of the Plexis chamber. The floor stretched out around her for hundred of meters as she stood on the bottom of the spherical shaped chamber, Above her she could see the great cyan blue crystal bulk of the plexis.
Parfet sighed again "Plexis what are you up to now?"
For the last day the plexis had been acting strangely. After the initial battle with the robot cubes the newly reformed pirate/colonisation ship had been making its way towards what everyone's best guess was the Tarak and Mejeri system.
No one from the system had left in living memory so only the captain Magno, had even the least idea about interstellar travel. That was not really much help as Mango had been a child at the time and remembered very little that was useful.
Fortunately the ship appeared to have a very detailed set of star charts, assuming that they could be relied upon. So the crew had a rough idea about how to get back to their home. Unfortunately it was a long way away, across several unknown and possibly hostile systems.
At least the ship was fast. It appeared to have a very powerful set of sublight engines and the ability to make jumps from one system to another nearly instantaneously.
The ability was limited to a few hundred light years and needed time to recharge after each jump, but it still meant that by their best estimates they were only months not years away from their home system.
Still it would be a long voyage and Parfet was still not comfortable with the technology of the ship. She was the chief engineer, responsible for keeping the ship running, but how could she do that when she didn't even understand most of the systems.
Hence this exercise, for the past day the Plexis had been pulsing. Sudden power surges had gone through the ship. They hadn't impaired operations in any way but they appeared to be getting closer. Parfet had been meaning to explore the mysterious energy source anyway so now seemed a good time.
"Parfet anything to report"
"No sub commander, we still don't have any indications on what could be causing the plexis to behave the way it is."
"Very well continue, but keep me informed of any changes"
"Yes sub commander"
Parfet sighed again, any changes, if I could just figure out what the plexis was doing.
Wham!!
A thud seemed to shake the entire ship, throwing Parfet and her crew to the floor of the chamber, scattering their tools over the floor.
"Parfet, the Plexis pulses are getting closer together they're approaching peak!!!"BC
"What do we do" yelled one of the techs
"Umm, Ahhh" Parfet stared up at the Plexis, the pulses were coming closer and closer together, cyan flashes bathed the chamber in Blue light.
The pulses came closer and closer together until they seemed to be one constant blaze of light.
Parfet was still trying to work out what was happening, when suddenly there was a blinding flash of Cyan light, and then everything went still.
On the bridge BC reviewed her monitors. "All stations report"
"Bridge operations all functioning" Ezra
"Dread bay all systems functioning"Meia
"Register we're all fine down here"Gascone
" Cafeteria, some food got spilled but that's all, I'll clean it up: Dita
"Engineering, everthings back to normal, the plexis has stopped pulsing.
"Well captain it appears that everthings back to normal"
"Indeed, but what was that all about, has Parfet had any results yet?"
"Checking now"
"Parfet"
"Here subcommander, we got some really weird energy readings from that last pulse. It looks similar to when the ship's merged and we were transported out here."
"You mean the plexis was trying transport us again?"
"I don't think so commander, the energy patters are different, much more localised and stronger."
"I see"
"What about your team Parfet are you all right down there"
"Yes were all fi" A piercing scream drowned out the last of Parfets response.
Parfet whirled around looking for the source of the noise".
One of her technicians was crouched on the floor one hand covering her now silent mouth. The other was pointing with a trembling hand at the centre of the chamber.
There lying curled in a foetal ball in the centre of the chamber was a body. From where she stood parfet could clearly see the face, and from her recent encounters with Duero she recognised that it was clearly a man.
"Well, that's interesting".
End……
Comments and reviews are welcomed. Please send to darkblade101@westnet.com.au
Vandread belongs to Studio Gonzo.
DeathStalker belongs to Simon R Green.
Vanstalker:
This is a cross over between the anime series Vandread and the Deathstalker series of Novels written by Simon R Green.
Quite a lot of people will be familiar with Vandread, fewer will be familiar with the Novels written by Simon R Green.
For those who may be interested the series revolves around the main character Owen Deathstalker.
The series is set in the distant future where humanity has established a mighty empire in the stars. A feudal empire that is ruled with an iron fist.
The empire is ruled by the empress Lionstone the XXIV. Worshiped and adored, also know as the Iron Bitch.
Her rule is absolute and those that speak out against or displease her tend to have messy and fatal accidents.
Below Lionstone stand the Lords. The ruling families, incredibly wealthy and powerful they exist above the law and control worlds.
Built on the blood of clone slave labour and the power of Espers, (humans with psychic abilities who are treated as property), enforced by the might of the Imperial fleet and the Church of Christ the Warrior the Empire is the most glorious and terrible civilisation in humanities history.
But it is rotting from within. In their Ivory towers the powerful families plot and scheme to win the throne. Under the streets and in the shadows the clone and esper undergrounds plot to overthrow the current order and win their freedom.
And on the edges of the Empire the rogue AI's of Shub and vicious alien races threaten to destroy all that humanity has built.
The Empire is a tinderbox waiting to explode.
Owen Deathstalker last of his line is a quiet man. Descendent of a proud warrior family, Owen prefers to spend his time as historian on his family's world of Virimode.
When the empress Lionstone outlaws Owen his life changes forever. Desperate to escape capture he and a band of unlikely companions make their way to the legendary world of Haden. And there they pass through the Madness Maze. An artefact leftover by an ancient and incredibly powerful alien civilisation.
Those that pass through it are changed forever becoming far more than they once were. And the empress has made a terrible mistake. By outlawing Owen Deathstalker she has awakened a lust for vengeance in a quiet man, and unleashed the power of a name that is legend. Now the rebels and the traitors, the downtrodden and the abused, the espers and the clones all have someone to follow, someone to lead the Deathstalker Rebellion. And then the Killing begins.
This is a kind of quick summary of the main plot behind the Deathstalker series by Simon R Green. I recommend it to all people that enjoy grand space opera, but a warning. Mr Green does not hold back at describing scenes that are incredibly violent, gruesome sometimes disgusting, while at the same maintaining a tongue in cheek humour that can bring tears to the eyes.
And now the VanStalker Prologue
Prologue:
Pain flooded his senses, drowning out all else.
It only served to focus him further.
He was weak, weaker than he could remember being in a long time.
His body was a wreck, bruised and battered. He had taken wounds that would have killed a human a hundred times over. But he had not been human for a long time.
He was dying. He could feel it. His strength was slowly draining out of him. Once it was gone he would no longer be able to hold against his enemy.
But that did not matter.
He was close now, so close to his goal. The closer he came the more the pain increased, but that mattered not at all.
He flew straight and true at his enemy, like an Arrow to its target, like a Phoenix into a sun.
Suddenly he was there. Inside his enemy. It screamed its hatred at him, trying to bring all its formidable strength and power to bear, to kill this being that dared threaten its life.
And its power was formidable.
Abominations, nightmares given form struck at him. Products of the diseased mind of his enemy they were dark and terrible, full of sharp teeth and tearing claws.
There were many of them and he was weak.
But not that weak.
He struck out at them with his power, like a lion against a horde of Rats.
Even weakened they could not take him easily and each of his blows sent a score back to the dark hell from whence they had come.
Slowly, step by tortured step he fought his way to the heart of his enemy. The one place it has true shape and form, the place where it was most real.
The place where it could die.
As he approached his goal it taunted him. It spoke of his failure, of how many of his friends had died for him to reach this spot. Of his own weakness, for if he had only been stronger, faster, better then so many would not have died.
He ignored it.
The enemy brought images from his past to plague him. Times of weakness, times of hate. Times when he remembered hating himself, times when he had failed.
He remembered those times, they as well as the good had shaped him into what he now was, like the different strokes of a hammer on a sword at the forge.
And while those memories were unpleasant, now they only served to strengthen his resolve to remind him of what he had already overcome, and what he had yet to do.
Finally it brought visions of the future. All of his wishes, his plans his dreams.
His many regrets of what he had not been able to do.
"Leave now" it whispered in a voice that was not a voice.
"I will let you go. Leave, know life, know peace, know love. I swear that neither I nor my kind will seek to harm you as long as you live"
It sensed his indecision, his sudden hesitation as he contemplated the offer and it that moment it struck. Drawing its mental strength it lashed out at him with its core power. The essence of its being distilled by hate and rage into a weapon that could crush worlds.
The enemy crowed its triumph. Nothing could have survived that blast.
In its dark and tortured mind it laughed at the folly of these upstart beings, these maggots that dared to oppose it. Surprisingly powerful, they had caused its race the first losses they had suffered in millions of years, but fundamentally they were still weak and that meant that as always its kind would triumph.
The enemy sat there laughing at the folly of its foe, full of its own pride and arrogance. And in that moment he struck.
His indecision had been a feint to draw its attack. When it came he had been able to avoid the worst of the blast. But not all of it.
He was dying now, his body had been shattered by the blast, and he did not have the strength to maintain it. But it was no longer necessary.
Gathering all his remaining strength, derived in a lifetime of hard training, combat and discipline he struck at his enemy. His very essence, all that he was and had ever been he formed now into a weapon. A weapon with one purpose. To kill his enemy.
It screamed a howl of agony whose power was such that it could have killed lesser beings.
It raged against him trying to find some way to save itself, to go on, to survive.
But there was no escape. By opening itself, by using the power of its very essence, it had left itself open, vulnerable. He pored himself through the gap it had left, like an assassins dagger finding a chink in a targets armour.
And finally he stood there in what would be considered the beating heart of his enemy.
It was a place out of space, out of time, it existed in multiple dimensions and in none.
He stood in that place and gathered himself for the final step of his journey.
His enemy railed at him. Threatening, begging, pleading, as it desperately tried to convince him to stop. It was all it could now do. This terrible being, this blight upon creation which in its time had fed on worlds and brought death to suns was now powerless to stop him. He was in its heart, it could no more touch him, then he could have ripped out his own heart and survived, had he still been human.
In his last breaths, he looked back and reflected on his life and thought that it had been good. As with any life there were moments of happiness and sadness, joy and sorrow, pride and disappointment. But at the end he was satisfied, and would not have had it any other way. His body was a ragged mess barely recognisable as human.
His soul was also bruised and battered, but not broken.
As he gathered himself for the last time he never questioned what he was about to do. Too many had died so that he could stand here now, too many more would die if he did not complete this task. A task that he had taken up willingly, a duty he now happily fulfilled. In his final moments he smiled within himself, for the enemy had no concept of self sacrifice, of duty, of honour, of love. And because of that eventually, humanity and its allies would triumph. He regretted that he would not see that day, but he was glad that with his last breath he would hasten its coming.
And then it was time. With a final command he released the power he had gathered holding nothing back. In the black heart of the enemy, a place of pure darkness it was like the birth of a new sun. The power and light of his soul, released it a great explosion reached the walls of his enemy's heart and burst them asunder.
Light flowed over the blackness, bursting it into nothing. Rendering it void.
The light flowed everywhere across all the many dimensions that the enemy occupied and where it found its foe it annihilated it.
In the material world, a heaving black mass hovered over a star .
The size of a planet it pulsed and heaved, following patterns and designs that made no sense and brought only madness.
Suddenly its sides burst and tore, raw light pouring from burst fronds of black matter. Explosions continued to rippled across the vast bulk of the monstrosity, shredding it as spears of raw light burst from its centre ripping away vast chunks of its rotten black flesh.
And then finally with a great implosion, the bulk of the creature was sucked back in upon itself. When the whirlpool of power ended there was nothing left of the black creature. Nothing physical. But forever after, for those with the ability to feel it, a psychic scream would be embedded upon that sector of space.
The death scream of a great and terrible being that for millions of years had wandered the universe like a predator in its feeding ground.
And above that terrible sound, like the clear ringing of a trumpet, the victory cry of the man that had refused to be its prey.
He sensed, nothing. He had no body, he almost had no soul. The very power of his existence had gone to kill his enemy. Now all that was left of him was fading into the darkness. A darkness that was somehow comforting. Like a mothers womb.
A place of possibilities and new beginnings. Gratefully he let himself fade, feeling the care and burdens he had born lighten and drop away. Feeling the pregnant promise of a new beginning and a new turning of the wheel.
But suddenly there was light.
It lit up the comfort of the darkness, bright and shining and cold. He felt the strands of himself return and reform. As they did memories, feelings and burdens returned.
The first was anger. Anger that he was pulled from the embrace of the void. Anger that he was robbed of his new beginning . Anger that he was denied his rest.
With his newly refocused self he screamed a question at the light with all of his being.
WHY!!!!!
An answer flowed back to him. He felt the power in the answer. He knew it could crush him like a falling mountain could crush an ant. But the touch was warm and firm, like a hand on his shoulder, steadying and lending strength. And with the touch the answer came to him.
Duty
The entity who had been a man gave the equivalent of a sigh with his whole being. But he did not argue. Even diminished as he was in this form he knew what he was, and that meant duty was engraved on his soul.
He allowed himself the luxury of another sigh before turning away from the void and making his way to the light.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
Parfet grumbled under her breath as she studied the area around her. She stood on the floor of the Plexis chamber. The floor stretched out around her for hundred of meters as she stood on the bottom of the spherical shaped chamber, Above her she could see the great cyan blue crystal bulk of the plexis.
Parfet sighed again "Plexis what are you up to now?"
For the last day the plexis had been acting strangely. After the initial battle with the robot cubes the newly reformed pirate/colonisation ship had been making its way towards what everyone's best guess was the Tarak and Mejeri system.
No one from the system had left in living memory so only the captain Magno, had even the least idea about interstellar travel. That was not really much help as Mango had been a child at the time and remembered very little that was useful.
Fortunately the ship appeared to have a very detailed set of star charts, assuming that they could be relied upon. So the crew had a rough idea about how to get back to their home. Unfortunately it was a long way away, across several unknown and possibly hostile systems.
At least the ship was fast. It appeared to have a very powerful set of sublight engines and the ability to make jumps from one system to another nearly instantaneously.
The ability was limited to a few hundred light years and needed time to recharge after each jump, but it still meant that by their best estimates they were only months not years away from their home system.
Still it would be a long voyage and Parfet was still not comfortable with the technology of the ship. She was the chief engineer, responsible for keeping the ship running, but how could she do that when she didn't even understand most of the systems.
Hence this exercise, for the past day the Plexis had been pulsing. Sudden power surges had gone through the ship. They hadn't impaired operations in any way but they appeared to be getting closer. Parfet had been meaning to explore the mysterious energy source anyway so now seemed a good time.
"Parfet anything to report"
"No sub commander, we still don't have any indications on what could be causing the plexis to behave the way it is."
"Very well continue, but keep me informed of any changes"
"Yes sub commander"
Parfet sighed again, any changes, if I could just figure out what the plexis was doing.
Wham!!
A thud seemed to shake the entire ship, throwing Parfet and her crew to the floor of the chamber, scattering their tools over the floor.
"Parfet, the Plexis pulses are getting closer together they're approaching peak!!!"BC
"What do we do" yelled one of the techs
"Umm, Ahhh" Parfet stared up at the Plexis, the pulses were coming closer and closer together, cyan flashes bathed the chamber in Blue light.
The pulses came closer and closer together until they seemed to be one constant blaze of light.
Parfet was still trying to work out what was happening, when suddenly there was a blinding flash of Cyan light, and then everything went still.
On the bridge BC reviewed her monitors. "All stations report"
"Bridge operations all functioning" Ezra
"Dread bay all systems functioning"Meia
"Register we're all fine down here"Gascone
" Cafeteria, some food got spilled but that's all, I'll clean it up: Dita
"Engineering, everthings back to normal, the plexis has stopped pulsing.
"Well captain it appears that everthings back to normal"
"Indeed, but what was that all about, has Parfet had any results yet?"
"Checking now"
"Parfet"
"Here subcommander, we got some really weird energy readings from that last pulse. It looks similar to when the ship's merged and we were transported out here."
"You mean the plexis was trying transport us again?"
"I don't think so commander, the energy patters are different, much more localised and stronger."
"I see"
"What about your team Parfet are you all right down there"
"Yes were all fi" A piercing scream drowned out the last of Parfets response.
Parfet whirled around looking for the source of the noise".
One of her technicians was crouched on the floor one hand covering her now silent mouth. The other was pointing with a trembling hand at the centre of the chamber.
There lying curled in a foetal ball in the centre of the chamber was a body. From where she stood parfet could clearly see the face, and from her recent encounters with Duero she recognised that it was clearly a man.
"Well, that's interesting".
End……
Comments and reviews are welcomed. Please send to darkblade101@westnet.com.au