The Road Not Taken
Sanah felt the music thrumming through the floor underfoot long before she reached the hatch. The bulkhead walls on either side seemed almost to be reverberating before the storm of noise blasting from the other side. A deep breath served to steel her for the assault. A cheerful door-chime went entirely unheard by all of creation and Sanah rocked back on her heels as the shockwave struck. The opposite wall was wholly taken up by a massive vidscreen, upon which a digital crowd cheered and jumped to the beat. Between her and the screen was a skinny figure thrashing about and shredding on a holographic guitar. Belting the lyrics to AC/DC's 'Whole Lotta Rosie' at the top of his lungs, he went entirely oblivious to her entrance. Sanah watched him gyrate for a few moments more, he was enjoying himself after all, but then raised her Omni-tool to the screen. Screen and song all winked out and his last yelled note wilted in the air. Her brother spun on the spot and yanked his headphones down to his neck,
"Uh, high-score? Ruined?" Sanah smirked,
"Uh, late?" Khalad didn't reply, but his blank expression told her enough, "Dad wants us down at the shuttles? Haven't you checked your comms tab? I've been messaging you for twenty minutes." She his sheepish expression deepen as he scrolled through the backlog of missed messages on his Omni-tool. "As I said, you're late. He sent me to fetch you." Khalad winced. She hadn't added a tone of threat to her last statement, there was no need. "Put some pants on and meet us down there," Sanah threw a pair that had lain waiting over the back of a chair, "Wouldn't want you getting left behind, hmm?" He waved a middle finger at her back and struggled into some clean clothes.
Duffel bag bouncing against his back, Khalad crashed to a halt at the checkpoint to the shuttle bay. The attendant took the bag without a word and set to checking its contents against the manifest,
"Four sets of Initiative standard-issue deck-wear, one photo-frame with OSD, one standard Omni-tool…one copy of Guitar God 19," she glanced sideways at Khalad but kept her silence, "and one patterned neckerchief. All accounted for, good luck and safe journey." Khalad grinned and snatched up the bag. Shuttle engines purred as he skidded to a halt beside the open hatch. The grin he wore turned eggshell-brittle when he caught sight of his father's face. He kept his eyes on the floor as the kick of acceleration pressed him back into his seat. From the window, Khalad saw the expanse of grey dust falling away, the moonbase shrinking to a white speck. But what lay ahead soon eclipsed all else. Sleek and shining, the Hyperion waited in its cradle. Sanah looked over his shoulder, her eyes just as wide, and her smile just as broad. They shared a glance, the excitement bubbling out of him as a brief laugh. This was going to be so much fun.
A muffled voice struggled to rouse Khalad from his rest. The return to consciousness felt like dragging himself out of a tar pit. Sensations awoke one by one, he felt the frigid air prickling his skin, the ache of his bones and a…lightness of movement. It was true, though the restraints held him close, Khalad could feel no pull of gravity. Every small motion of his head sent his thick curly hair swaying like the fronds of an anemone. Dim light filtered through the pod's single pane of glass, flashes of orange that told him things were not as they should be.
"The Hyperion is currently experiencing a temporary loss of gravity, please remain in your pod until a crew member comes to assist you." Over and over the pod's VI assured him of a rescue, minute after minute, and so he waited. After listening the VI's spiel for the hundredth time, Khalad could bear it no more. There has to be an emergency release, right? Cold hands probed the edges of the pod door,
"Come on, come on where are you?" He muttered, until his fingers brushed what felt like a lever at his feet. He arched his back down, but the restraints locked and held him fast with his stretching fingers just unable to grasp the lever. Khalad growled a string of curses and prodded the internal control panel for the release function,
"Passengers are reminded that pod restraints are necessary to prevent injury in the event of turbulence…" the VI tried to warn him. Soon he was freed and Khalad immediately grasped the lever. His cold-numbed hands had only a fraction of their usual strength, however. As he made to rip it from the metal, the entire ark seemed to lurch and Khalad's head crashed against the cryo-pod door. His cry echoed in the stillness as he and the door tumbled gracelessly across the cryo-bay. A string of expletives he would never dare utter in his father's hearing coloured the air as he halted his flight with one hand, the other clutching at his brow. Squinting against the flashing amber alarms, he saw the other cryo-pods resting undamaged and undisturbed. Save for his own, and the one beside it.
Sanah…
So where was she? Where was Dad? The bridge. If he could get there…
"SAM?" All that answered was the muted buzz of static. On my own, then. He could always go to the SAM node; the A.I. could assess the situation much more swiftly than he. Hand over hand, Khalad brought his feet to the floor, that his mag-boots might get their grip. The door at the end of the bay still worked, at least, though the rest of the Hyperion seemed to be operating on emergency power. The corridor beyond was deserted, save for a few loose articles hanging in the air. He remembered the route to the SAM node…sort of. This would be much easier if I could ask SAM, he thought, where even is he, anyway?
His progress was cautious, wary, for it seemed that the whole ark sat empty. The atrium felt more like a tomb or crypt, and Khalad shivered in the stillness. His eyes were drawn to the windows overhead, and the view that lay beyond. A vast amber orb dominated his vision, a gas giant glowing under the eye of a blue-white star. Between there and the ark, a bright sphere of blue, green and white was growing larger as the minutes ticked by. Khalad kept up his pace, the click-click of his mag-boots loud in his head. That wasn't Habitat 7 out there, where the hell are we? He had to find Sanah, or Captain Dunn, anybody, and get the ark back on course.
Lights In the forward section shone far brighter than elsewhere. Panels shimmered and winked at him and the alarms had been stilled. At last he found the corridor he was looking for. Once again he found a darkened room, filled only with the restful purr of server banks and furnished only with a glass cylinder at its heart.
"Hello, Khalad." The young man smiled, relieved,
"Hey SAM, glad you're okay." The shifting vortex of data became threaded with bright cerulean,
"Likewise, though I must apologise; my link with your implant was disrupted by the anomaly that struck the Hyperion off course. You should re-establish the connection swiftly at my console, the ark is still in danger." Questions thronged Khalad's brain but he hurried to the console and called up the required functions, soon a loading bar winked into being.
"What's going on, SAM? Did we make it to Heleus?" Spots of indigo flared within SAM's matrix,
"Affirmative, ark Hyperion arrived in Andromeda with all hands accounted for, but struck an unknown cosmic phenomenon almost immediately after exiting FTL. Link is 50% established." Khalad's dark eyes grew even darker as his brow furrowed,
"We hit…what? Some kind of space speed-bump?"
"More like a road-block, but yes. The phenomenon is immense, my scans are detecting it in every Golden World system. It appears to be composed of dark matter that is continuously generating unstable mass effect fields, but I will need a closer look to give more detailed analyses. For now, the Hyperion is performing a semi-controlled orbital insertion around the nearby planet, which records show is the Initiative-designated Habitat 3." A shiver ran through every nerve in Khalad's body, "link re-established," SAM's voice chimed inside his head, "performing physical diagnostic. Khalad, I'm reading damage from a head injury, moderate bruising, you should see Lexi as soon as possible." The reminder caused his temple to throb painfully,
"Sure, SAM, but first I have to find Sanah and Dad." Before SAM could respond, another voice echoed throughout the ark,
"Warning. Gravity systems re-engaging." The wonderful lightness was struck down and Khalad wobbled on numb legs for a moment.
"Your sister is assisting Lexi in the med-bay. The Pathfinder is on the…" But Khalad was already running.
"Sanah!" That was the worried yell that preceded his crashing like an out-of-control locomotive into the med-bay. A half-dozen heads swivelled to look at him, and a smiling blue face swept up to him. Gentle hands turned his head to bring his bruised temple to the light,
"So how did this happen, hmm?"
"Turbulence and a cryo-pod door," Lexi smirked,
"SAM warned me you were clumsy but I expected you to at least make it off the ark before I had to patch you up." Shocked indignation fluttered across Khalad's face,
"He said that I…SAM you said that I was clumsy?!"
"Your rate of accidental self-injury is roughly 30% above average, I felt it prudent to relay this information to the medical team." Lexi was chuckling as she sprayed a thin layer of medi-gel over the damaged skin, "now just try to avoid any low-hanging door-frames for a few hours, alright?" The boy was practically vibrating with impatience now,
"I'll be careful, I promise, but I need to find…" Lexi tilted her head in deepest scepticism,
"Don't bullshit me, Ryder. Sanah's over in the back, putting Liam back together. Another one who flings himself about without a care." Khalad dashed away, leaving Lexi shaking her head in his wake, "bloody road-runner."
Liam raised a hand at his approach,
"Hey Ryder, you took a battering too?" Khalad flashed him a grin,
"Yup, had to take out a batarian stowaway, Glasgow-style." Liam scoffed,
"Yeah, and I found a live varren in the fridge. Glad you're up, though," Khalad nodded with his hands on his hips, then remembered why he was there in the first place,
"Sanah!"
"Nice to be acknowledged, finally," his sister answered with a wry grin, "welcome to Andromeda, little brother. You sleep in again?" His mirth was replaced by confusion,
"Yeah, I had to break out of my pod, and my SAM link was busted. Something to do with this dark energy cloud we hit?" Sanah's face fell as she remembered,
"Dad was awake just before we dropped out of FTL. When Captain Dunn ordered him to wake a skeleton crew for damage control he-,"
"Brought you out? And-," She fixed him with a stern look,
"It's not what you think, Khalad. There was damage to your pod, your revival process was interrupted. Harry and Lexi fussed over you for an hour to make sure your vitals were stable. Dad nearly wore a groove in the deck he was so worried!" Khalad tried not to pout, really he did. "Don't make that face-,"
"Pathfinder team to the bridge," crackled from the intercom.
"That's Dunn, something must be up." Sanah clapped Liam on the shoulder, making his legs buckle, "Stay out of trouble, Kosta." Liam made an affirmative noise from behind gritted teeth and waved them on their way.
"Do you always have to run everywhere?!" Her ragged yell came from several metres behind Khalad as the twins reached the staircase to the command deck. His answering laugh was cut short as a shiver coursed through the floor. Khalad's feet abandoned the plating,
"Ah shit, gravity's gone again," he moaned as his legs pinwheeled comically in mid-air, slowly flipping him upside-down. Sanah too was drifting, her toes a scant few inches from the deck, "Engage your mag-boots, you're still close enough to the floor." Sanah obliged and swayed forward as her feet came to a sudden stop.
"That wall is coming up pretty fast, Khalad." Twisting his whole body, he saw just in time the Andromeda Initiative logo bearing down upon him, and sighed,
"I'm really not having a good day so far." The bridge crew looked up at a muffled thud from beyond the door, followed by a trail of curses. A short while later, the doors parted and the pair of them strode smartly onto the bridge proper. The cyan glow of the holo-display casting his face in sinister shade, Alik Ryder looked up. Khalad waited, unsure of how to stand, where to look, as his father rounded the console. "Uh…sorry I'm la-," But the breath was knocked from his lungs and Khalad felt his ribs creak under the crushing hug. Alik stepped back,
"Glad to see you on your feet, son." Khalad managed a quick nod,
"Me too."
"We saw your little acrobatic display on the cameras, by the way,"
"Goddamnit!" Alik laughed, wrinkles alighting in the corners of his eyes.
"People, the task at hand?" Captain Dunn waved to the shimmering projection of the ark's trajectory, "The Hyperion may not be plunging from the sky in flames but we're still stranded out here. Comms can't seem to raise either the Nexus or any of the other arks." Alik waved his hand and the display magnified the planet's surface below the ark,
"So, we're marooned. Twenty-thousand souls adrift at sea. We're a long way from Habitat 7, but you take any port when the storm hits, and our power reserves won't last forever." Dunn nodded gravely,
"Indeed, time to live up to your title, Pathfinder. Take a team down to Habitat 3 and get me an aye or nay on viability. I'll work on restoring functionality to all our systems." Khalad looked at the tiny blue dot that represented the Hyperion, then out the broad windows at the planet's surface rolling beneath them,
"What can we tell from up here? Atmosphere? Gravity? Biochemistry?"
"Atmosphere is Earth-parallel, carbon-based ecology, gravity seems comfy enough. You shouldn't have any problems just standing on the surface, at least." Alik pushed back from the display,
"Alright then, Sanah, Khalad, suit up. We're wheels-up in thirty minutes."
Restless silence dominated the shuttle ride down from the Hyperion. Khalad examined the edge of his monomolecular sword against the light, thinking back to the day he attained the Master-level proficiency that qualified him to wield such a blade. Never seen Dad more proud. They'd gone for pizza afterwards, god he hoped it wouldn't be long before those were a thing again. The folks on the Nexus were probably already enjoying all that stuff, if they even made it in the first plac-Oh fuck, Dad's talking to me…
"-if things go south. Understood? Laddie? Earth to Khalad?" He sighed, "I need you to find a vantage point and watch our backs, lay down some covering fire if it all goes sideways." Khalad rolled his shoulder, testing the weight of the Viper long-range rifle strapped to his back,
"You can count on me." The journey down through the atmosphere seized the craft in a fiery grip and all conversation was halted until the shaking subsided. White clouds hissed like silk over the shuttle's charred hull, and parted to reveal a strange horizon. Beyond the mountains, the smouldering face of the gas giant reared large in the sky, its dull orange glow falling upon the neon forests. A ways ahead, Khalad saw a shining expanse of water, "How about a beach party?" Sanah and their father squinted at the oncoming coast, Alik smiled,
"Those cliffs would make for a decent vantage point while Sanah and I assess the ecology of the land and sea, good shout, Laddie." Khalad felt supremely glad his mask was concealing his face, and simply nodded.
Grass bowed beneath the thin thrust plumes of the descending shuttle. The hatch slid back, and Khalad took a deep breath. The jungle ahead was dark, thrashing against the wind from the shuttle. He felt a hand on his shoulder, "First to set foot on a new world, even before the Pathfinder, not bad, huh?" The lad's helmet, fashioned into a man's smiling face in white steel, turned a little towards Alik,
"I'll try not to get eaten," Alik gave a brief laugh,
"Good to know, we'll be back to pick you up once we've determined viability." Strange glassy leaves crunched under his boots. Khalad shielded his face from debris as the shuttle roared away from the clifftop, bound for the shoreline far below. A nano-weave hood and coat kept the drizzle from his hardsuit, and Khalad looked around. The trees seemed little different from those way back home, though the glowing leaves were pretty cool. A short walk along the cliff edge found him a pair of trees clinging to the stone just before the drop. A soft hollow of bare soil nestled between them, good sight lines, level surface, yeah this'll do. He slung the rifle from his back and unfolded it, laying down in the hollow to test it. He quickly found the shuttle with the scope, touching down upon the sand. Two small figures stepped out, gazing around at the scenery. Sanah's voice buzzed inside his helmet,
"Okay, comms check, everyone on this channel?"
"Comms are good," Alik turned around, scanning the clifftop, "How's the view, Laddie?"
"Picturesque, it'd make for a nice postcard."
"Any activity?" The rifle scope raked the treeline from one end of the beach to the other,
"Not a peep, you've got the place to yourselves for the moment."
"Excellent. Sanah, break out the field analysis kit, I'll ping the Hyperion and let them know we've made planetfall."
Gloved hands drummed on Khalad's knees. "These algae samples can't be normal…" Drops of rain beat a tune on the slick tree bark overhead,
"The water seems ordinary though so it can't be that…" An insistent beeping meant it was time for another sweep of the treeline, but the scope told him the same as it had for the past hour. No activity. "Could it be the anomaly? Dark energy causing mutations?" Alik's reply was dour,
"I couldn't speculate given our limited data, but the prognosis is looking less and less optimistic." Khalad sat up,
"What's going on, guys? Are we setting up a beach house or not?"
"The volleyball tournament might have to wait. The flora samples we've gathered from the rock pools are showing unusual mutations, extreme even. Sanah, let's take a look at the treeline, we need to know if this phenomenon crosses ecosystems." Khalad's scope followed the pair up to where the beach was swallowed by the jungle,
"You're both still good, no activity." Long shadows were fading into being now, the faintest spark of blue-white crested the ocean horizon. He watched half-interested the two figures pottering between shrubs and ferns, his mind darting from here, to the Hyperion, to the Nexus wherever it might be. Khalad started humming the first few bars of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song', his hands tapping on the tree trunk, until a monotone voice broke through,
"Khalad, I'm registering movement in your vicinity." The song vanished,
"Where, SAM?" His eyes darted from every shadowed hollow, every lightless patch of earth,
"Unable to pinpoint the source, the target seems to masking itself from your suit's optics." One hand snapped around the sword-hilt at his waist,
"Khalad here, SAM's picked up movement near me but he can't give me a precise fix. Target suspected to be utilising sensor jamming." His father's voice was calm, steady,
"Acknowledged, stay sharp we're coming to you." SAM intruded once more,
"Target is within twenty-five metres." Khalad swallowed,
"Hurry."
Every rustle of leaves made him start, every swaying frond became a prowling beast to his eyes. Khalad remained statue-still in the hollow, his eyes scouring the brush for this strange presence.
"Khalad, the Pathfinder is at the base of the cliff, ETA eight minutes." But the young man was staring into a shifting patch of fluorescent leaves, a pattern that swung around to stare right back. A pattern that sprang towards him. Alik and Sanah heard his yell over their comms,
"Khalad!"
"Laddie, what's going on?!" The scrape of metal was the response, then sounds of panic,
"SAM, what the fuck is that?! SAM?!"
"Alert, Khalad, I'm detecting additional contacts." Alik heard the sword sing, heard something screech in pain, "Khalad, there is a path on bearing two-seven-five, approximately thirty metres ahead there is a rise that would give you an advantage in fending them off." Alarm flooded with renewed ferocity through Alik's body,
"Wait, Khalad stay put, I'm almost there!"
"There is not enough time, Pathfinder," SAM explained over their private channel, "Khalad's odds of survival were only 33% at his initial location. The rise increases them to 56%, but I advise haste."
"What attacked him, SAM?!"
"A group of native fauna, Pathfinder, predators that possess a natural cloaking ability. Their scales provide only minimal protection from a monomolecular blade, however. I suspect mass effect based weaponry would also be effective in dispatching them."
Turquoise blood sprayed in a great arc from the tip of the shining blade. One of the creatures folded up at Khalad's feet, and he flourished his blade at the survivors,
"C'mon then! Who wants to be next?!" He sidestepped as another lunged for him, the sword cleaving through tough hide until it met the skull.
"Caution, Khalad, the ground beneath the rise is unstable." A crowd of stones proved SAM's point in their tumble down the steep drop beyond,
"Are you trying to kill me too, SAM?!"
"Quite the opposite, now please duck." Claws ripped through empty air above Khalad's head, "Upward counter." Khalad growled in annoyance as the sword point lanced up under the beast's jaw into its brain.
"I know how to fence, damnit!" He caught sight of two white-clad figures sprinting through the bushes towards him, only for a leaping mass of scales and teeth to block his view. The thing collided hard against him, and Alik was treated to the sight of his son vanishing over the precipice. The words, "Oh fuck me…" came in the most resigned tone over the comms.
Khalad's world was a chaotic blue of black, purple and neon blue, punctuated by plants slamming into him. Then all was lightness and the rush of air,
"Acceleration increasing,"
"No kidding!" The gorge was deep enough that the bottom was lost in shadow. If he fell much further there would be no ledges to reach for. Khalad shut SAM out long enough to concentrate. Bright blue energy wrapped around him, each of his nerves resonating in unison to produce the biotic field, and his descent slowed to a crawl.
"Quick thinking, Khalad. There is a ledge approximately forty metres ahead, I suggest you head there." The jet-pack in his suit, insufficient for sustained flight, would nevertheless allow him to reach solid ground. Maintaining the mass effect field as he drifted towards it was sapping the strength from his limbs second by second, but at last he could collapse in a heap on the cliff edge. Khalad rolled onto his back and breathed deep; his arms and legs felt as though their bones had melted into jelly,
"'There are no strings on me…'" He sang, giggling weakly,
"Shit, I think he's delirious…Khalad?!" Everything sharpened and he bounced upright,
"Oh, hey Sanah."
"Are you safe?" Alik's voice had a slight tremor to it now, "I'm signalling the shuttle, we're coming to get you now." Khalad looked around, he was sat not just on a ledge but at the mouth of a lofty cavern. What he saw made him raise his sword again,
"Uh, I guess I'm safe, but you guys should really come see this." Even SAM's voice held a tone of apprehension as he clarified,
"We've discovered evidence of previous habitation, Pathfinder. Artificial structures not of Initiative origin." There was a prolonged silence from the comms, then,
"Understood, SAM, we're on our way."
Sanah found her twin slumped against a perfectly smooth rectangular column. Her walk was stiff with concern, but his cheerful wave melted the ice in her veins and she gathered him up in a tight hug,
"You lunatic," she chided, "Just once can I be the one who falls into the some nonsense and have you pull me out?" He merely laughed, and she punched him in the chest,
"Ow! Shouldn't you be geeking over the awesome ruins I found for you? The ones that prove we're not the first people here?" Intellectual curiosity overtook Sanah's need to annoy her brother.
"True, these remind me a little of the Prothean digs I visited back in the Milky Way. The Prothean style was strange; advanced structures that somehow managed to look ancient. These, I think, are just ancient, but I'll need to take samples for carbon-dating to know exactly how ancient." She wandered away between the polished stone pillars, muttering to herself, and Khalad scrambled to his feet at his father's approach. He could sense disapproval radiating from behind that tinted visor, and kept his back as straight as he could.
"Laddie…I'm glad you're alright," I'm sensing a 'but' coming, "but you really need to learn to focus, I can't have every mission I bring you on turn into us putting out your fires." Synthetic leather creaked as Khalad's fingers tightened around the sword handle,
"…Okay," he mumbled to the dirt at his feet, "What do we tell th-,"
"Pathfinder, we have a problem," SAM interjected. Neither Alik nor Khalad had time to formulate a question before Sanah reappeared, slowly, with her hands spread. A hulking shadow followed closely behind, pointing a sleek pistol directly at the back of her head.
Tension made the air as tar. Each one of them remained pinned where they stood, waiting, planning, preparing. The alien was an imposing being, broad-shouldered and a head taller than any of the humans. A curving helmet concealed the face, but a harsh voice barked words the translator could not discern. The emotion was clear, however. Anger, yes, but a refined shade of such. Outrage. Khalad looked from Sanah to their father, desperate for any kind of assurance.
"SAM, what do we do?"
"Be careful, there are five more aliens concealed in caves on the upper level. They are heavily armed." Alik very slowly placed his Valkyrie rifle on the ground, and the alien growled more of its incomprehensible tongue at him,
"Can you understand what they're saying yet?"
"I have little to no reference for deciphering an alien language, Khalad, even my translation matrices will need time and context before fluency can be achieved. Please try to remain still, we cannot anticipate what kind of body language could be construed as provocation." Alik was speaking now, slowly, clearly, declaring their peaceful intentions, but the alien's voice only grew louder and more hostile,
"SAM, they've got a gun to Sanah's head! I can't just-"
"If you make even the slightest aggressive movement your sister's life would be imperilled. Alik won't let her come to harm, Khalad."
"Dad?" Sanah's voice quivered like a leaf in a gale. Alik licked dry lips,
"Just…stay calm, Sunflower, first contact is always a dicey business." Every nerve in Khalad's body was firing, his arms and legs twitched like a marionette, ready to spring in every direction,
"They're not gonna back down, Dad, they're gonna shoot her…"
"Stay calm, I said," his father replied through gritted teeth, "let me think." SAM's voice sprang into Khalad's head again,
"I detect rising adrenaline levels in the aliens, Khalad, the odds of resolving this peacefully are decreasing rapidly."
"Dad, they're gearing up for a shootout, what should I do?" Alik carefully pushed his rifle away from him with one foot,
"You can be quiet. We only get one chance to do this right. If you fuck this up we may regret it for as long as we stay in Heleus." 'If you fuck this up', thanks Dad.
"A biotic toss would be non-lethal, o-or I could cloak and sneak around-"
"I SAID BE QUIET, KHALAD!" Those words reverberated loudly off every rock, every cave wall and pillar, and all three knew immediately that Alik had made a mistake. Before Khalad's eyes the world seemed to slow, and SAM's voice cut in through the silence,
"Khalad, I've triggered a massive release of adrenaline that will considerably increase your reaction speed for a time. Please, protect Sanah." Lightning crackled between his fingers and Khalad launched a comet of biotic energy in a broad curve towards the alien holding Sanah hostage. The projectile slammed into them like a bullet and flung them like a doll thirty feet across the clearing,
"Run, Sanah!" He drew his sword and dashed to her side, letting the aliens' shots graze his shields. Khalad brandished his sword, light dancing upon its blade, at any who trod too near. Alik sprayed a hail of fire over the attackers' heads,
"Everyone into the shuttle, NOW!" Sanah made the hatch and Khalad, still with adrenaline flooding his system, saw a sniper lining up their shot. The lance of blue arrowed forth, and Khalad heard SAM's voice in his head,
"Deflecting counter," he saw the sword swing down and across, saw the burst of sparks spring from the blade, and saw the projectile flung away. He saw it fly straight and true, to pierce another alien in the chest. Blue blood spattered the stone pillars. A lanky figure crashed to the ground and lay still. A strong arm seized him, threw him bodily into the shuttle, and then they were flying away.
Deep breaths. Deep but not deep enough. His helmet was too tight, the air too sour. Khalad ripped his helmet free and gasped like a drowning man returned to the surface. His chest was tight, the breaths coming faster, too fast. SAM's voice, coloured deeply with concern, fought through the choking mist, "Khalad, you are beginning to hyper-ventilate, you must slow your breathing or you will fall unconscious." Someone was sitting in a chair nearby, a muffled voice straining to be heard. Wide eyes swivelled. A face, afraid, pale, shining with sweat,
"Khalad? Khalad I'm okay," One corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile. Alik glared darkly down at his son, his mouth a thin line, his jaw tight,
"What's going on with him, SAM?"
"Khalad is in shock, Pathfinder. A combination of the battle and the adrenaline boost I administered overtaxed his mind and body."
"You administered what? SAM I expect full disclosure of all combat enhancements before they're applied! Care to explain your reasoning?"
"I had hoped your negotiations would prevail, Pathfinder, but I felt it necessary to prepare a back-up plan." Alik massaged the bridge of his nose with one hand,
"If I'd known, I wouldn't have snapped and started that whole fiasco." SAM managed to sound sheepish,
"My apologies, Pathfinder, I am still getting used to participating as part of a team. Please, do not place the blame solely on Khalad." Anger still seared white-hot within him, "the twins are alive and unharmed, I simulated a dozen less favourable outcomes." Alik sat heavily on a shuttle seat,
"True enough. But our first alien contact ended in a firefight and it looks like this planet is a bust as far as viability is concerned. Any way you slice it, there's no good news for the Hyperion."