Zarah was just entering the sunlight after getting rid of the helmet and gloves, when one of the workers ran towards her and her company. His face distorted with fear, this overall-equipped alien panted in exhaustion,
"Alarm, e-everyone, we... we have been attacked!" he yelled. "Everybody to our ships, we have to try to flee! The protection shield has somehow failed... and everything has been blown to bits!"
Zarah's jaw hit the floor as her eyes fastened to the burning remains of the buildings behind the shouter. Chaos had suddenly struck the relevantly calm atmosphere. Nothing had been left from the dwellings of the workmen; all had been wiped away with a gust of wind. The individuals ran hectically along the ruined surroundings. And this all had happened so out of the blue, so unexpected.
"But, isn't there any protection from the space rangers? Can't we call for help?" she demanded and understood now being alone with the dust-faced alarmer. Her companion had vanished somewhere.
"There was the protection shield, but..." the man whined. Swiftly another explosion shook the ground and a heavy cloud of smoke rose up from the direction of the airfield. Men came running back, screeching and panicking their arms in the air. Zarah tried to leer around to make some sense into the event. Who would attack them? And now when she had just arrived? Was there possibly some connection between her presence and this manic tumult?
But, the aggressor was soon made clear as she heard heavy roar in the air and noticed two hyper-hornets landing among the frenzied run of the miners and other workers.
"Zurg...! Those are Zurg's robots!" she gasped. "What does he want from here?"
The evil-forced mechas began their programmed tasks and fired the men with stunning doses of plasma. Two other droids landed and started to carry the indolent into a line on the ground. Afterwards there would come a slavery ship from Planet Z to gather all the captured people and transport them into the dark destination.
G'Deneb was now rather irresolute and lurking fear gradually made her heart stiff. Somehow she had by and by understood that she might be the main target of this planned attack, though none of the hornets had still noticed her, which was odd. The girl had hid herself behind some bushes that were situated right beside the tunnel hole. Lying low, the redhead ran along the narrow gap that was between the plants and the rock face, heading towards the smouldering back dwellings nearby the beginning forest. Her space ship had not been on the main aircraft area, but beside her own temporary flat. What if it was still there? What if the explosions had not destroyed it yet? She might still have the change to flee!
Choi ran like a fool towards her last hope. She jumped over burning wrecks, fell a couple of times onto the ground, got her suit ripped to the sharp branches of the trees but finally succeeded to rush the half-mile marathon. What was there to wait for her? Her dwelling was intact and her ship was there, in the most perfect condition it could be! She felt supreme delight in her heart as she thought herself to be saved now.
Lurking a few seconds behind a gigantic rock, she assured that the course was clear. Strange, no one was there. The hornets had seemed to forgotten this place totally. Why was that so? She felt that there was something not right here now. But as Zarah was full of fear and eager trying this one possible change, she left her hideout and bolted towards her ship.
But her dash was cut short. As she was going to enter the cockpit, Darkmatter stepped right in front of her from behind the spacecraft. The engineer stopped like in front of a wall, got her eyes wide of terror, and screamed shrill. She had never seen anything so frightening. The man she faced was huge, strong and sturdy, this fact being already one reason for fear. Zarah namely was so short that she barely reached his armpit in height. However, he had even his battle helmet on, his weapon arm aimed right towards her, so that the alien was looking even more menacing and extremely violent. Getting now in ultimate scare, Choi took a leap towards the woods and scooted again like a madman.
Warp, on the other hand, was for a short moment a bit stunned when his eyes had met his target, for the very first time in open air. Was that now... the one he was supposed to capture? The 'nerd' had been utterly different in the monitor picture he had carelessly clanged at, in his ship. Did she look like that in reality? Warp had not had women surrounding him for a while. He had experienced a sort of boredom to the usual female company he had had so much, they all seemed to be just some feather brains whose mere interest was his handsome outer appearance. Well, he knew what kind of Mister Z Empire he was, but... everything gets dull if it is boosted too much. The time had flied enjoying the dark benefits and dogfights with Team Lightyear; it had somehow been more intriguing. Mira Nova was actually nearly the only woman he had seen closely lately, but she was with completely different physics, tall and able to ghost. In every case, the flickering monitor had shown Zarah quite differently. The impression of her being some famished was now washed away with the fact that this person was a literal shortie. But he wiped fast his side thoughts away, preparing to chase her.
Zarah panted and sweat flooded along her forehead. Her feet ached, because she had fallen onto the ground so many times and got her knees sore. She was desperately looking for a possible hideout around her, but did not spot anything. There was a small square after the thin forewoods the girl was at this instant entering. In her panic she glanced over her shoulder to see, whether the nightmare-like enemy was still after her. Well, there he was, closer than she ever had thought. She squealed again in fright and unfortunately got her long ponytail stuck between a couple of tree branches. G'Deneb attempted manically to rip it off with her both hands, finally succeeding. However, this means opened up her coiffure, letting the thick hair smash right in front of her eyes. She rushed forth, at the same time that she groped her hair away from the view -and could not avoid stumbling. The result was that the female fell full length onto the muddy sand. Scrambling up was too late. Darkmatter stood now right in front of the squatting human. Agent Z had reached her easily with a short run.
Knelt onto the dust, Zarah noticed that everything was futile. She slumped down and cried out in despondency. There was no strength left in her to resist. She thought that this man wanted to kill her, so with these thoughts her powers vanished in the air. She only stared at him with her full regard. He was just something incredibly frightening, even more as she could not see his face behind that mask. Well... Choi could not actually determine was that chaser a man or a machine.
Warp had gone silent too in front of her and stared at her just like she did at him. So, this was the one that Zurg wanted. But... she looked more like a child than an adult woman. Quasars, she was so small and fragile! Should he now shoot that with the usual ion dose? But so Zurg had ordered and he would not be without operating. However, he still went on hesitating. "Now, Warp, do your job and then get the usual price. This was supposed to be an easy gig!" he muttered to himself and raised his mechanical arm.
Again the courage of blasting the dose disappeared, as he saw the desperate fear reflecting from her deep, green eyes. Those eyes had now somehow hypnotised him, not allowing him the change to turn his regard away from them. She laid on the soil her suit torn, her coiffure open, her face distorted into a fearful grin. Sensing some odd gush in his heart, Warp once more heaved up his cyberbiotic arm, and slowly pulling it down with mixed feelings. The more he observed those eyes, the heavier his soul was. He somehow could not stand the gawp of hers.
Zarah breathed rapidly and was stiff of fear. She dared not to move, only gazed at the weapon of Warp. A lonely teardrop trickled along her cheek as she prepared to die. She had not been long in this world, but maybe this was the best in the middle of all the suffering, she thought. Hence, she closed her eyes and let a hollow whirr conquer her head, while endeavouring to dispossess all the thoughts she ever had had. She stayed in her position, sitting on the mud hole, only bowing her head down. Her thick, red lockings fell on her pale shoulders like an afterglow.
The seconds went forward and the sense of time and place was lost. She did not remember any more where she was, as she capitulated herself for meditation and the black dreams about crossing the last border. Then something happened, but she had hardly expected this.
"Get up! Go!" she heard a metal-sounding voice in front of her.
Zarah raised her regard with timid wonder in it. The rival she had thought to kill her, had suddenly put his weapon down and stood erect, letting only his sturdy figure look frantic. Feeling her palate dry like a bucket of gravel, there came no utter out of her mouth.
"Didn't ya hear what I said? Go!" Warp puffed bothersome and pointed at the forest with his finger.
Unhurried she scrambled up, keeping her stare all the time aimed at him. Warp sensed that the trepidation was still overwhelming the young woman.
"Do... do you mean that..." Zarah threw in, her voice shaking.
"Go now! Before it's too late!" A shout came from the front of her, boosted with a fist-shake.
Choi gave a glance at him from his toes to the end of his helmet, collected the remains of her suit and ran into the woods.
As she had vanished behind the undergrowth, Warp took his mask away. His thick fingers were so slack that the helmet was dropped straight to the sand. The enemy alien just stood there, silent, like all his energy had suddenly been sucked away. What was it with him? Next, wiping cold sweat away from his forehead, he sighed long and deep.
"Now what... What is happening to me...?" he inquired himself. He had just let go the captive that he was supposed to bring to his Master.
Abruptly she was there again, in front of him, in an illusion. Those eyes... the fear. The pitiful fear. No, he was not a pitiful person, had never felt any compassion. He had joined the forces of evil because it was the thing that had always intrigued him. Thus, what was it now wrong with him? He had never disobeyed the commands of Zurg, neither freed any captives.
"She had green eyes..." he stroked his goatee while examining the little footprints Zarah had left on the mud. "So full of fear... I just couldn't touch her..."
Out of the blue hot blood rose up into his heart as he sensed he wanted to see her again. But it was impossible, now. He took a couple of steps towards the bushes, but comprehended it being very much futile.
Then the reality struck him again. "What am I going to say Zurg? I failed the mission!" he swore to himself and still for a short moment pondered of going after his former booty. But the hallucination of her regard appeared again in a lightning in front of him and made him startle. "I can't touch her, I just can't! What the dratted supernova is it with me, but I can't touch something so frail!"
"But how am I going to report this to Zurg? I have never let him down! If I just... say that I couldn't find her at all. That's a good one. I did not find her. I searched for her but was just not able to spot her. I even found her ship, but she wasn't there. That's it. That's what I'm going to say to him." he deliberated creaking his teeth. "Okay... maybe I'll go to check out her hut in case she has left there some information disks or relevant... and take them to Zurg. I just gotta put up some good fake story... quasars, what is it with me? If Zurg finds out the reality, it can be a funeral time for me!" he sighed in order to understand. But the behaviour comprehension never came. So he turned about and left the sand square.
Zarah ran, ran, ran... she felt moving like in a slow-motion film. And suddenly all was black, the landscape twisted upside down and turned into sackcloth...
A lonely hyper-hornet stood in the middle of the grass and roots, its arm weapon smouldering. "Work is done, code 666.666" its processor buzzed. It picked up the indolent woman and took a short flight to the main area. Well, Warp had programmed the robots not to touch Zarah, but this one could not recognise her from the scan in its memory, her appearance was much something else now.
