Episode 19: The Reflex Gun

"Nothing else yet." Nova said, looking intently at the small ship's radar aboard the recon plane Seagull. "From what we've seen so far though, we won't get anything on the radar to begin with. It's hidden somewhere our equipment can't register it."

"Just keep a look out." Dash replied, concentrating on the rough terrain racing by. They were almost to Wildstar's position. Once there, they would join him and watch for the flashes of light Derek had seen.

"Here we are." Dash said as he slowed Seagull and landed her next to Derek's Zero.

Everyone disembarked and Derek was there to meet them.

"See anything on the way here?" Wildstar asked when Dash, Sandor and Nova were all out.

"Once." Nova replied, "A few minutes ago we saw the same flash you reported. Two of them hit the ship while you were down here waiting."

"Is the ship alright?" Wildstar asked, surprised.

"She's fine now." Sandor replied, "But we can't risk too many more hits like the two she's already taken. The oddest thing about the encounter was that the second hit came when we were on the other side of Pluto."

"Maybe there's more than one base." Wildstar replied.

"Perhaps." Sandor said, "But we saw no source for the energy surges. If there are multiple bases, none of them are on the other side of the planet."

"There has to be some kind of relay system then." Wildstar offered.

"That was my thought as well." Sandor agreed, "There is no other way for the energy surges to appear as they did. Unless they've found a way to cloak their ships like our intruder cloaked himself."

"Let's hope that isn't the case." Nova put in, "Or else we may be in much deeper trouble than we already are."

"Yeah, really." Dash said wryly. "Let's find these guys and get outta here."

Derek began, "There haven't been any more –"

"There!" Nova exclaimed, her finger pointing at something that was already gone. "There was another one! That way! Is that where they've been coming from?" She asked Derek.

"Yeah, same direction." He affirmed, then his eyes grew fiery, "Whatever it is, it's what they've been using to charge the planet bombs before they launch them. We've got to take this thing out."

"Now that we have a good bearing, let's go. Follow the Seagull, Wildstar. We have more sensor equipment than you do. Once we find anything promising, we'll land and check it out, but we have to go quickly. The longer we stay out here, the more damage the Argo is taking." Sandor ordered them all back into their respective craft.

"Wait, what do you mean?" Wildstar stopped Sandor.

"Argo is acting as bait, to keep that weapon firing so we can find it."

Wildstar's eyes widened, "Let's get outta here then." He hopped into his plane and sealed the cockpit, ready to take off before the Seagull's hatch was sealed.

They flew for what seemed like an eternity. Nova felt the fatigue the most as she was watching most of the sensor arrays, trying to find even the barest hint of something useful. Finally, she found something.

"There's a heat signature coming from several hundred meters ahead." Nova said.

"Very good, Miss Forrester." Sandor nodded in approval.

Seagull and the lone Zero zoomed on towards the spot Nova had found.

"What's that?" Dash asked, looking down at the ground at something black that didn't resemble any of the rocks they'd seen during their flight.

Sandor looked down at the ground, "Exhaust vents." He supplied, "They're underground. That's why we haven't seen them."

"At least we know they're not cloaked." Nova said, relieved.

"True," Sandor said, "But those vents are most likely for the excess heat caused by those energy surges. If we get caught in there during a surge that will be the end for us."

"Nice and crispy." Dash quipped.

"Take us down." Sandor ordered.

The Seagull landed, followed closely by Wildstar in his fighter.

"Oh, exhaust vents," Wildstar said as he hopped out of his plane, "Lovely."

"Watch for another energy surge." Sandor instructed. "As soon as anyone sees one, say so. We'll wait for the hot air to escape the vents and then go in."

Everyone looked up in a different direction, waiting for the bright flash that meant their comrades were taking another pummeling for them.

"There!" Dash saw it this time.

Fifteen seconds later a mass of hot air spewed out of the vents.

Immediately they all scrambled into the vent, being careful not to damage their EVA suits.

"These are heat-resistant to a point, but we can't get caught in one of those air streams. If we do, whoever bears the brunt of it will likely die from the extreme heat," Sandor said as he led the small pack down the vent. As he went, he stopped periodically to knock on the walls of the vent.

Finally he must have found what he was looking for because he stopped and pulled something out of his suit pocket and started drawing a glowing circle on the wall.

They didn't realize what he was doing until he kicked the circle he'd drawn. The metal piece fell away to reveal another tunnel, this one clearly not part of the vent system, for which they were all thankful.

"Let's go." Sandor motioned for them all to go through the fresh hole.

They dove through quickly as the heat sensors on their suits began to protest. Another surge was coming.

Sandor jumped through the hole just as the blast of air whooshed by, sending his suit's alarms blaring in his ears, but the heat disappeared quickly and the alarms quieted, though his suit had sustained some damage from the blast and he had a slow leak in the seam of his left leg.

He sealed off that part of suit and pulled out a small device. He studied the screen for a few seconds, then pointed, "The energy reading is strongest this way."

Sandor moved to lead the pack again.

Derek looked down at the ground, trying to figure out what kind of passageway they'd landed in now. Sandor passed him and Derek's brow furrowed when he saw a small hole opening in Sandor's suit leg.

He reached out to stop the XO, "Sandor, your –" he pointed to the opening.

"Don't worry about it, Wildstar." Sandor skirted around the questions he knew Derek was going to ask.

"But, Sandor –"

"I said, don't worry about it. It isn't a problem." Sandor insisted as he brushed past Wildstar and kept going, the rest following him. No one else had noticed the breach in their leader's suit.

"Get us out of here, Venture!" Avatar ordered. "Take us to the surface."

Mark sent the ship into a quick descent, dodging another energy surge in the process.

They flew low over the surface, staying just high enough to avoid crashing into any hills or mountains. They thought they'd finally gotten off the enemy's radar when yet another explosion wracked the ship.

"The main engine's been damaged, Captain!" Orion announced. "We can't go on like this."

"Just a little longer." Thought Avatar, "Eager, is there a sea or a lake anywhere near here?"

"One small sea, but it's iced over."

"Give Venture the coordinates." The captain said.

"Yes, Sir." Eager sent Mark the location he'd found.

"Take us down, Venture."

"Aye, Sir." The navigator changed course and pushed the ship as fast as she would go towards the body of frozen water. Once there, he let the ship hover over the surface just long enough to melt some of the thick ice, then he took her down.

Ice cracked and creaked under them, then with a great groan it gave way under the massive weight of the old battleship.

"Break up the ice around us as much as possible." The captain ordered. "Orion, get to the engine room."

"Aye, Sir," Orion left the bridge faster than any of them had ever seen the old engineer move before.

"Captain!" Eager exclaimed, "Energy surge at six o'clock!"

"Submerge the ship." Avatar ordered.

Mark thought the order strange, but obeyed quickly and sent the Argo diving beneath the waves.

There was no explosion of impact.

"What happened to the surge?" Mark asked.

"Didn't make it through the water." Eager answered.

Mark breathed a sigh of relief; "All we have to do is sit tight then, right?" he turned to look at the captain.

"We cannot be sure the Sandor and his team have found the enemy base yet, and until we are sure, we can't stay here forever."

"Captain, our reserve oxygen tanks have been damaged," Eager relayed, "We can only stay submerged for a total of twenty minutes."

"It will have to be enough." Avatar replied, "Engine room." He paged the crew on duty down in the depths of the ship.

"Yes, Captain." One of the engineers replied.

"You have Ten minutes to do as much as you can to repair the engine before we have to surface again."

"Yes, Captain," came the dismayed answer, "We'll do what we can, Sir."

"Eager, keep an eye on that radar, and Venture, be ready to surface on my command."

"Yes, Sir."

"We're close." Sandor said several minutes later as he stared at that device he'd brought – one of his inventions he'd put together over the past several weeks onboard ship. Suddenly he stopped in front of a door with odd symbols on it. "We're here." He tucked the device back into his pocket and studied the door.

"Something about a 'reflection system'?" Sandor thought, puzzled as he read bits of the symbols on the door.

"Hey, that looks familiar." Derek piped up, pointing at the symbols.

"Yeah, it's like the inscriptions you guys recorded at that tomb back on the floating continent." Dash supplied.

"No – it's something else. Like I've seen writing like that before." Derek insisted.

Every muscle in Sandor's body suddenly tensed, "Focus on what we're here for, Wildstar." He said as he rigged the control panel on the door to let them through.

The portal hissed open. "We're in." Sandor said, pulling his device back out and pushing a few buttons before deeming the entryway and the area beyond safe.

"What is that?" Wildstar pointed at the strange weapon at the end of the gigantic room, dumbfounded at the sight.

The weapon was the strangest they'd ever seen. It looked something like a gigantic budding rose. The end of it was a rounded crimson crystal that glowed as they watched. It was supported by a dark green stem which connected to the base of the weapon. The thing looked like it could move to adjust its firing angle, much like the guns onboard Argo.

"What's the ceiling made of?" Wildstar asked, looking askance at the roof.

"Energy." Sandor replied. "A force field appears to be holding back the water that surrounds this area."

"So the only thing between us and icy death is some flimsy energy shield?" Wildstar asked.

"That would be an accurate assessment." Sandor replied, starting towards the weapon. "So I suggest we set these charges and leave as fast as we can."

"Yeah, let's do that." Wildstar scrambled to follow the XO and he and Dash helped set the explosives they'd brought along while Nova kept watch at the door for any unwanted visitors.

"We're done!" Wildstar announced, "Now let's get out of here," he hopped down from the weapon's base and quickly crossed the distance between it and the door. Sandor was right behind him, followed by Dash.

The four left as fast as they could and took another route back to the surface as the timers on the explosives counted down from twelve minutes.

"Take us up." Avatar ordered after receiving word mere seconds ago that the engineering team had made some progress on the engine repairs. "It will have to be enough for now. We don't have enough oxygen to spare to stay down here any longer." He thought as the ship rose through the freezing water and broke the surface.

"Energy surge at three o'clock!" Eager exclaimed, "How did they find us so fast?"

"They never lost us." Avatar said quietly, then ordered, "Take us back down, now!"

Mark obeyed, sending the ship down again, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid all of the blast and the ship shook and groaned in agony as its starboard side was ripped open.

"Evacuate the affected areas and raise the bulkheads to stop oxygen loss and flooding." The Captain said even as they descended into the ocean again."

"Captain, we only have a few minutes left down here." Orion's voice came over the comm from the engine room. "We lost some of our oxygen reserve in that last explosion."

"How much time do we have?" the captain asked.

"Two minutes." Orion replied.

"Then we will stay down as long as we can." The captain declared, then he looked at Venture, "But be ready to surface as soon as I give the order."

"Aye, Sir."

The bridge crew sat in silence, the water around them seemed to roar as they floated silently in the darkness. Everyone felt like they'd been swallowed by a tomb and were sinking down into the silent earth never to see the sun again.

Suddenly the order came. "Take us up!"

Venture eagerly sent the ship back to the surface, hoping that Sandor and his group had finally been able to destroy this dreaded weapon.

He hoped in vain. Not ten seconds after they emerged from the roiling water, another surge sped right towards them and slammed right into the Argo's already heavily damaged stern.

With a final groan, the ship went down, and despite anything Venture did to stop it, the Argo sank of her own accord, having taken all the punishment she could for her crew before rolling over and landing upside down on the bottom of the Pluto sea.

"Sandor, did you see that?" Wildstar broke radio silence.

"Wildstar, maintain radio silence." Sandor replied with his usual calm.

"But I saw something! It looked like a ship. I think their relay system is in Pluto's atmosphere and orbit!"

Sandor didn't respond right away and Wildstar thought the XO was ignoring him.

"You are correct Wildstar. Your sensor data verifies your sighting. Find that ship and disable it."

"Alright!" Wildstar whooped, happy to be back in action.

Derek shot off towards where he'd seen the strange thing. He soon found it and discovered that it wasn't a ship at all but a satellite with reflective plating.

"What on earth is this thing?" he thought, circling it once to get sensor data he knew Sandor would want, then he blew the satellite out of the sky. "If there's one, there's bound to be more." He thought, then zoomed away towards the Argo's last known location, along the way he shot down two more satellites and as he approached the ship's location he was horrified to see another satellite pointed down at a bare patch of water, the Argo nowhere in sight.

He took aim and fired at the thing, causing a rain of debris to shower down into the cold water.

"Where are you…?" he thought, his mind racing. He checked his sensors and was in shock when the instruments said that the ship was right below him, submerged, perhaps never to rise again.

"Commander, we've done it. We've sunk the mighty Eratite ship." The tech said in triumph.

"So it would appear." The commander replied, "Send out Choshek Dagah.* They'll finish them once and for all."

The commander was about to order the tech to send a good report to Lysis when the entire base was rocked by a giant explosion.

"What was that?!" the commander shouted in surprise.

"Nahalor* has exploded! The field around it collapsed; water is rushing into the base." The tech frantically started pushing buttons, sealing off areas of the base that were already under water. "We have to get out of here!"

The commander stood silently, then crossed his arms and bowed his head, "It's too late." He looked up at the terrified tech, "We underestimated them, and they've won."

Just then the full force of Pluto's sea crashed in on the control room and sent its occupants into oblivion.

The explosion blossomed into the air. It was the sweetest thing Wildstar had ever seen and he felt a sense of accomplishment watching the weapon that had so wounded his ship being blown to smithereens.

"Argo!" he tried to raise the sunken ship on the radio, "Argo, come in!"

There was no answer.

"They are in great danger Adrianna," Queen Starsha said sadly to her Jeshurunian companion. "The engine itself calls to me in pain," she held out her hand, on it was a strange glove dotted with holes – an Interface the Iscandarians had called it. It allowed Starsha to communicate with anyone who also possessed an Interface, or to tap into machines with the Interface technology built into them. Before she had sent the engine core to the Eratites Starsha had found a way to allow herself access to the Eratite ship's systems as needed. When they had installed the engine core, everything had opened to her. Her only limitation was that she could not always see what was going on except in dire need. Thus far, she had seen the crew three times, and she was sure she would see them many more times before their journey was over.

The Interface activated.

"Do you wish to connect?" the device asked in its signature monotone.

"Connect to the Eratite engine core module." Starsha ordered.

"Connection established. Please input desired instructions."

"What is the ship's status?" Starsha asked.

"The Argo is at the bottom of a body of water, unable to rise on her own. Her engines are functioning at minimal capacity and her reserve oxygen is gone. The crew are in protective environmental suits."

"How much power do they need?" Starsha asked.

The interface displayed a number - a large number.

The young queen thought for a moment, then rushed to the palace's crystal basement faster than she ever had in her life. Once there she rushed to the center of the room and laid her gloved hand on one gigantic glowing crystal.

"Restart the ship's systems. Correct everything that can be fixed remotely and send them the power they need." She instructed.

"This operation is unsafe." The machine counselled.

"Do it anyway." She ordered, knowing that there was no time to spare if the Eratite ship, "Argo" as she now knew it, was to be resurrected.

"System restart initiated. Energy transfer in progress."

Starsha felt the heat of the energy as it coursed through her one small hand and across many thousands of light-years to a ship in great distress, a ship she wanted very much to come to safe harbor in the Sea of Iscandar.

Episode 19 Notes:

* Choshek Dagah – literally "fish of darkness", a submarine
* Nahalor – literally "guide of the light," more commonly known as "the reflex gun"