Sorry this has been going slowly - time is a bit more cramped at the moment. However! Never fear, for progress is still being made!
And as a mark of apology, I've popped up an extra big chapter. We've still got a ways to go, though, so I hope you don't mind a bit more of this sort of stuff in the next chapter.
This time reality didn't bother sneaking up on Jon. It just punched him in the face. The type of headache was familiar, and the memory of Aschen soldiers zapping him and his team quickly came to mind.
'Really, Jon? You recognize the weapon by the type of headache it gives you? Sad. Very sad.'
By instinct he stayed still, not yet certain of his surroundings. His eyes slowly took the room into focus. It looked like the ship's mess hall, and there were stacks of bodies casually piled about. He was on top of one himself.
A faint flashback to his black ops days shook him and smells of blood and cordite assailed him.
His heart began hammering and he closed his eyes, pushing back the memories with recitations of where he actually was.
'It's clean here, I'm in a spaceship, the room is lit, there's no shouts of men coming to torture ...'
His breathing slowed and he cracked his eyes open, taking in the differences. Painted walls, lots of light, tables, no blood. The man under him was breathing too.
Perhaps just as importantly there were no sounds of any conscious people. No voices.
Jon flexed his arms and legs, moving them slightly. No bonds.
'Weird, but not complaining.'
He gently turned his head and saw what seemed to be the entire ship crew piled about the mess hall, apparently all unconscious. The tables were all clean, so … no food?
The men and women who had come up with him and Cameron were lying about as well, easily noticed by their protective suits instead of the standard crew uniforms the others wore. Their head coverings had been removed.
Strained ears didn't pick up any sounds of movement, and Jon slowly decided that he really was here without watchers, or at least any observation was electronic in nature. Nothing he'd be able to do about that, though. The haphazard piles of people suggested that the Aschen weren't worried about them waking.
'Possibly ever,' floated through his mind.
Nonetheless, he was awake and he wasn't about to let such an advantage go to waste. Maybe he could get some food while he was here.
His head nearly split with pain as he pushed himself up off the three people making a small pile under him. Two ensigns and a lieutenant.
For several seconds he stood still, swaying as dizziness washed over him and slowly faded away. With its fading, his thoughts slowly became more focused, and the distracted thoughts passed. Besides, they probably didn't have cake on a spaceship. Hmmm, space cake.
Jon grinned at his wandering thoughts. At least they were wandering down pleasant paths now.
'All right Jon,' he mentally shook himself. 'Figure it out. The Aschen guessed what our plan would be, but that was pretty easy - we had to take the bridge. Somehow they knew just how to get there quickly, and how to get in. Must have been a spy. Doesn't matter now. So why leave us all lying about, unwatched and unbound?'
For that question, Jon didn't have an immediate answer, but he shook off his ruminations - he'd have to act quickly if he was to take advantage of the situation, whatever the reason for it.
Jon made his way over to Cameron and shook him lightly. He was still breathing. A few light smacks to Cam's cheeks seemed to get no reaction. He pried open his eyes, and the pupils reacted to the room's light. Good. Between the Air Force first aid courses he'd taken over the years, and his frequent stays in hospitals, he knew his way around the medical basics.
Smack!
Cameron's head rocked from Jon's smack, but he otherwise didn't stir.
'Ok, so that's why they weren't worried about binding or watching us. They drugged us. Or ... ' his mind spun for a second. 'Or … it's whatever they used to take out the people here in the first place. Yeah, just remove the suits' head covering and let them breathe it all in. Their ray guns keep us unconscious long enough for the … whatever it is, to take effect.'
So he wasn't going to have any backup here.
Fine. Just … dandy.
He grabbed his backpack and weapons from where they had been tossed in, and quickly checked through it.
The grenades, det cord, stacks of ammunition and clips, and the weapons weighed well over a hundred pounds, but he wasn't likely to be making ten mile hikes in space. He grabbed Cameron's Zat too.
Time to go hunting. He needed to contact SGC, but in a ship crawling with Aschen soldiers, and possibly some of their super soldiers - yeah, he was going hunting.
The door zipped open at his approach, and he listened carefully for any sounds of Aschen coming to investigate. Nothing. He slid a little mirror slowly around the door's edge to double-check, but there was no one.
He started down the hallway, ears searching for the slightest sound and soon caught a faint murmur from up ahead. He was approaching one of the computer network hubs scattered through the ship, if he remembered correctly. Which made sense, he decided, if the Aschen were still trying to gain control of the ship.
"... there's nothing connecting them. These crystal things can't be involved in this run"
"It must to be involved, though. Every time we reset the communications, this bank of crystals activates."
A tiny grin pulled at Jon's mouth. Sounded like they were having headaches with the technology. Good.
He poked the mirror around the corner, seeing the backs of several people. He risked poking his head around and saw four men hunched over a bank of crystals and human computers, and two men standing guard watching the technicians, weapons casually held in one hand and four rifles set to the side.
Jon pulled back, plans spinning through his head.
'They're really confident that no one is going to be active onboard. Good. Time to take advantage.'
Probable response times and response routes from other parts of the ship flashed through his mind combined with his own available tools and responses.
"No sir. This tech is unlike anything else on Earth. They've integrated some weird crystals in their systems. We're still working on bypassing it."
Jon grinned. One of the technicians sounded like he was reporting. The Aschen calmness was a little frayed, he could tell.
"Yes sir. We're ready to run a test. Restart the communications board again. …. Yes sir."
"This isn't going to work."
"Maybe not, but it's the only thing we can think of."
"So we've descended to the point of turning it off and turning it back on, hoping it works?"
"Look, if you have any better ideas, we'll go with them!" The voices were testy.
Jon heard a brief burst of static from the ship's speakers and a couple groans from the men around the corner. Someone there chuckled softly, and Jon suspected it was one of the guards.
"Unravel it all! Nothing is connected at all between them! Those crystals are completely separated! Nothing but power leads connects them to anything! It's illogical!"
The voices lowered to soft curses and mutters. Jon pulled out the zat, deciding this was as good a time as any.
He stepped around to see them still huddled around the bank of computers.
Zap! Zap!
The zat'nik'tel shot out its beams, catching the two guards in the back.
The sound was enough to have the techs spinning with alarm and diving aside as Jon zatted another of them.
"We're - !"
One of them had triggered his comm and Jon zatted him next. The other two had dived behind the guards, using their bodies as covers, and the zat wasn't the most precise weapon to aim. He got one of the technicians in the butt, enough to knock him out, but the last technician had picked the larger guard to hide behind.
The man was calling into his comm when Jon zatted the guard's body twice more, making it disintegrate with the third shot. The technician's face was a rictus of shock and terror as he looked at Jon for a tiny fraction of a second before Jon's shot caught him and sent him into unconsciousness.
None of the technicians had gotten off information about who he was or what sort of force was attacking, but the frantic, aborted calls were plenty to sound the alarm.
Strike and Evade.
'I'm telling Jack we need a version of SERE for space.'
Strike Team Leader Vellum stood with manufactured calm at back the alien ship's bridge, attention split between the scanners which showed the Aschen fleet surrounding Earth and the progress being made by the occupation crew which he had led to take the ship.
The capture had gone smoothly, but after that ….
He knew his altered perceptions removed him from the psychological norm of his species, and he was fine with that, in the larger scope of things. He had another forty years to serve his position before he would be reversed to a normal member of the People. It was his service. It was his place.
But damn! Would the rest of the crew please work a little faster?! A dozen technic-trained were working on the ship's system with no apparent concern that they were aboard an unresponsive hulk that could be blown up at any moment if Earth's defenders decided to destroy them.
At least that was what he would do if he were in charge of Earth's defenses! The officers and technics seemed to be oblivious of the possibility. Captain Deellor was calmly making decisions where asked, and exposed no sense of hurry about any of it.
Vellum clenched his fist on the back of the chair next to him, feeling the metal bend under his grip.
The metal's groan caught Captain Deellor's attention.
"Strike Team Leader Vellum? Is something wrong?"
'Yes something is wrong! You're all moving like molorks! We're in a Unravelor-Damned war! Not a training scenario!'
Vellum gritted his teeth, the carbon-frame teeth withstanding the force that would have shattered normal teeth. He forced himself to speak carefully.
"Captain. Should the Earthlings determine we are about to take their most powerful space vessel, they will likely destroy it first. They surely know we have overcome their own rescue team. We must get this vessel to an operating state immediate!"
That last part had come out rudely forceful, but Captain Deellor ignored it.
"Apparently you are in error. They have not yet destroyed this vessel which suggests they cannot."
Vellum gave a rudely skimpy acknowledgement of the Captain's decision, and seethed. He glanced over at Makkan,the other Enforcer on the bridge, and an unspoken word of agreement passed between them - they were both feeling uncomfortable with the state of things.
'Or, the humans can tell we are making no progress deciphering their security systems, so they are just taking care of other things before destroying us!'
He had a grudging respect for the security systems on the ship. Who would have ever thought of having security built into the very stations of the ship! Madness. It was like they didn't trust each other and were putting roadblocks in front of each other … just because. If he understood the technic mutterings properly, each person was likely required to put in a personal code just to activate their station, and then the station could only access particular parts of the ship's systems.
Madness not to trust each other and to put up difficulties for each other, but damn it was effective madness at keeping them out of the computer systems!
His question must have stirred something in the Captain. Vellum's acute hearing could clearly hear him speaking into his comm to one of the teams.
"... restart the communications system again?"
"Yes sir," came the response from the person on the other end.
"Very well."
The Captain spoke. "Power station. Remove the power connection array for the communications array and then put it back in."
The technic calmly and unhurriedly followed the captain's orders as Strike Team Leader Vellum glared.
'What stupidity is this? Unplug it and plug it back in again?! Have the technics gone mad? What possible good could that do?'
Vellum wrestled his irritation back under control. He forced himself to go through a stalking preparation exercise, lowering the adrenaline in his system. The problem was that they were in combat, and yet he couldn't do anything. He was designed for combat, aggression, and action. He could suppress the drive at times when he was not in combat, but they were in combat now whether they realized it or not, and the hormones were making him edgy.
He was considering cutting his status all the way back to non-combat-ready when his hearing picked up the sound of the Captain's earpiece activating with shouts of alarm.
The Captain listened to the brief calls and turned - 'With too much damn slowness!' - to face Vellum.
"It appears that there is an Earthling that was missed when we captured their team. Gather a team and go remove the threat. We will continue …"
Vellum didn't wait for the drawn out conclusion of the order. He signed a quick order to Makkan to remain at the bridge on guard even as he kicked his senses into overdrive and darted toward the bridge doors. He skidded to a stop as they opened, slowly to his perceptions, and he pushed them open and was gone into the hallway, already calling his strike team together.
His hearing did pick up a soft sigh from the Captain as he streaked down the hallway.
"... Enforcers are useful, I guess, but ..."
Stupid norms! Sometimes he was certain that he would remain as a Strike Team Leader when his time was up. It seemed like the rest of the entire Aschen people were too … boring!
Ninety seconds later he and the rest of his Strike Team had gathered two hallways down from where the technics had been attacked.
Most of the security on the ship were merely Aschen soldiers, but the Strike Team - they were the true power of the assault force. Five more fully enhanced enforcers like himself. Whoever this was, they would track him down and gut him.
His hands flashed through signs and the team began to advance on his orders.
Two of them moved ahead and activated their highest hearing settings. It was enough to hear heartbeats at a hundred feet. The ship's walls would bounce the sound around, but they would know if their prey were anywhere around.
The two of them paused, obviously listening and then signed that there were multiple heartbeats near the place the technics were supposed to have been, but that was all.
Vellum and the others moved forward, weapons at the ready until they reached the tiny hallway leading to the computers the technics had been investigating.
Five bodies lay scattered about, all apparently alive, but that was all. He waved three of his team ahead to secure the other end of this hallway as he and the remaining two investigated for any clues.
Mollers pointed to a scrap of human-colored cloth under the guard and Vellum nodded for him to get it as he watched their backtrail. No one would be sneaking up on them to catch them by surprise - he was a veteran of hundreds of fights and no one was going to catch him or his team by surprise. He heard a scrape and clunk as Mollers grabbed whatever it was from under the guard's bulk.
Vellum glanced over his shoulder to see what it was.
Mollers was holding up a smooth metal ball with an odd little post and clamp sticking out to the side. Mollers glanced up at Vellum with a puzzled look. It wasn't something Vellum recogni -
BOOM!
The blast sent Vellum flying and he could feel a dozen sharp stings pierce his body even as he was in midair.
Vellum's body bounced against the bulkhead and landed with a clang against the hallway floor. His instincts were telling him to get up and move, but his body was still catching up and it took him several seconds to pull himself to his knees.
Bannum arrived as he tried to stand up, giving him a hand to balance on.
'Booby trap.' The thought finally made it through his mind as he turned to see the results.
Enforcers had greatly toughened skin - cells wove a webbing of multiple fiber types across their skin, providing toughness, pain resistance, and a strong resistance to being pierced by projectiles.
It hadn't been anywhere near enough to protect Mollers whose head and chest had been shredded apart. Geller who had been partially between Vellum and the blast was lying on the ground not far away, bleeding heavily from deep wounds. He would probably survive with quick aid. Maybe.
"Strike Leader, you're wounded."
Vellum shook his head slightly. He'd been a little further away and Geller's body had protected him from at least some of the blast.
"I'm still combat capable. Call in aid for Geller."
"Yes sir," Bannum responded, keying his com.
Vellum looked down the hall to see two of his men still at that end of the hall, keeping watch, though they were both glancing down his way.
'Good men,' Vellum thought. They hadn't all come rushing down, leaving everyone open for a potential second attack.
It was something these hostiles might have done. It had been nearly a century since Enforcers had faced any hostiles with anything but the crudest of projectile weapons. These Earthlings were experienced and advanced enough that they might set up devious double ambushes.
He began checking himself over.
Several long furrows were bleeding slowly, already beginning to clot up thanks to his improved body. His calf had a piece of metal sticking out of it which he tugged out with a wince.
Bannum pulled out four more pieces of metal from his back. They had managed to poke through both his uniform's protective cloth and his skin, but just barely. Little more than drops of blood oozed out.
He glared at the wreckage of Mollers' body.
"Forget even trying to capture these people. Just kill them."
It wasn't loud, but he knew Enforcers could hear the words.
He looked down the hall just in time to see a blue beam lance down the hallway, making his men quickly pull back before returning fire down the hallway.
Vellum lunged forward, his wounded calf just barely slowing him down as he streaked down the hall.
He glanced quickly around the corner and saw a human pop around to fire one of their own beam rifles down the hallway.
They hadn't fought against an advanced enemy for a hundred years, but they'd exercised against each other quite often. He knew just how to deal with beam rifles. They had an unfortunately long recharge time, but were safe for ship use. Regular Aschen wouldn't be able to make it down the hall before the rifle had recharged, but Enforcers? They'd be on him before he could fire again since it seemed to be just one person down there.
The idea that it had been just one person to take down the entire tech team passed across his mind, leaving a little thread of worry.
"Tuv, Bigg. Time your run. Bannum and I will provide cover. As you're ready."
They exchanged two more sets of fire with the human, setting up the pattern. The human poked his head and gun around, sending down a beam, and Tuv and Bigg took off, half-blurred even to Vellum's enhanced eyesight. It would be barely a second for them to cover the fifty feet -
Half way down the hall, they suddenly seemed to leap up against the ceiling, arms flailing, bouncing off the ceiling, walls, and floor as they flew down the hallway.
It took Vellum a second to recognize what had happened. Gravity had been cut off in the hallway.
He had just enough time for a sick feeling in his stomach to grow before Tuv tumbled through the air to the intersection. A loud series of blasts echoed down the hall as an automatic projectile weapon began firing. Tuv's body jerked and flew backwards against a wall, pinned by the impact of the bullets.
The force of the impacts kept him there for several long seconds as the roaring continued, blood splattering from Tuv's body held weightlessly against the wall.
Big had managed to catch a light fixture along the hallway and stop himself short of the trap, floating in the air, twisting to face the threat ahead of him.
The weapon's roar stopped and Tuv's body drifted away from the wall, and Vellum could hear the Earthling's feet as it cautiously moved away.
'I'll rip his entrails out and stuff them down his throat!' Tuv wasn't a particular friend, but the idea that this Earthling was killing his men burned deep in Vellum's gut.
He could see that a floor panel at the hallway intersection ahead wasn't set back in its place and snarled. He'd bet a million credits that the gravity system ran through that intersection.
He lost the sound of the human's footsteps down the hall and ran forward, diving ahead where Tuv and Big had lost their gravity. He continued sailing down the hallway, giving a slight correction to his drift against the ceiling and sailed through the intersection, gun aimed down the hall, but the human had left. He reached out and grabbed Tuv's body, sending them into a sudden twisting path, but he'd had several classes of zero gravity combat, and he quickly reoriented himself and pushed back toward the intersection.
Big and Bannum had followed after him, and pulled themselves around the corner into the Earthling's corridor where gravity was again being generated.
"I've called in medics, just in case," Bannum said.
Vellum nodded and pulled out his tablet, bringing up a ship schematic. He spoke into his com.
"Squads one, two, and three. A hostile is on the loose. Armed. Dangerous. Squad three, guard the bridge. Two, proceed to intersection of F-3-1 and R-3-9. One, go to D-3-2 and S-3-7. Bridge, shut down lifts between floors. Technics along hallway E-3-1 should evacuate to intersection of F-3-1 and R-3-9. Wait for squad two, then return to bridge."
Vellum ignored the flurry of confirmations to his orders and snarled at the remaining two people on his team. "We aren't going to follow this little bug around, stumbling into his traps. We're going to corner him and rip him apart."
He gestured to his tablet.
"He's trapped in this triangle here. There are plenty of rooms to hide in, but that's fine. He can't leave - we're going to corner him somewhere in here. Pin him down and then kill him."
They both nodded, anger glowing in their eyes.
Vellum checked and re-checked his map of the human ship, looking for likely places where the accursed human might set up ambushes or traps. It was evident that the person was a soldier willing to go on the offensive, but his larger goals were uncertain. Likely he was he looking to sabotage the ship, crippling or even destroying it, but how? They needed to keep him isolated from sensitive areas while they cornered him, and the quicker the better. If the human could somehow escape their enclosure …
"Boarding squad one in place."
"Boarding squad two in place."
Vellum nodded. Good. They had the human trapped.
"Proceed with a room-by-room search of hallways D, E, and F. Leave four people at your current locations and the remaining eight proceed with your searches. Once you find him, keep him pinned down until reinforcements can arrive. He is heavily armed and dangerous."
He tagged his tablet onto his and took his own weapon out. He and Bannum began moving down the hall.
Half way down the short hallway rooms began to open up. Based on what he had heard, the human had run further on, but he wasn't taking any chances with this one. Doubling back for an ambush seemed just his style.
Fortunately the first two rooms were unlocked - a storage room and a small meeting room. Their agent's identity card had stopped working fifteen minutes after they had arrived, but it had gotten them into the key areas before it had stopped working. The Earthling's penchant for locking their own people out of rooms on their own ships was bizarre and had to be wildly counterproductive, but it was certainly proving to be a pain. On the other hand, it would limit the human too.
The hallway ended in a T-intersection with the hallway their teams had designated as E-3.
"Bigg, you're going to cover this intersection while we start scouting hallway R here."
Vellum quickly laid out their own search pattern which would clear the ship as they went forward. Their prey would be hiding somewhere, hoping to evade their search and then gain access to the rest of the ship, but they could hear his heartbeat from fifty feet away and could dodge his shots. The human was doomed as long as they didn't get sloppy.
"Bannum, you listen here for anything, then we'll split up and proceed with our searches."
He and Biggs retreated back to the opposite end of the hall. Their sensitive hearing was extremely useful, but with two other heartbeats thundering nearby, it would be difficult for Bannum to detect much of anything else. Vellum noted Bigg had stopped breathing, and followed suit.
It was a useless gesture. The sudden, sharp explosions of projectile weapon fire was muffled and echoed through the halls, but easily audible.
Vellum and Bigg both blurred forward to Bannum's position. Vellum's com crackled to life as he arrived.
"Weapons fire at D-3-4! Squad one, team one taking fire! Men down!"
A second series of blasts were clear over the com channel with the soft whine of their own rifles barely audible as a faint response.
"Secure your position," Vellum yelled into the com while grabbing his tablet to check where D-3-4 was located. Likely the human was in a conference room. Unfortunately it had two doors, which was probably the human's retreat route. "Squad one team two proceed to support team one. Squad two teams remain ready until hostile confirmed to be pinned down. I am proceeding to D-3-7 for assault on the hostile's rear."
He spoke to the other Enforcers. "Bigg you're covering this exit point in case he manages to slip away. Bannum, you're with me."
Several more blasts echoed through the halls as he spoke and though Vellum winced at the possible carnage that was likely being visited on the soldiers, he also cheered - the unraveled human was at least staying put. Hopefully they'd close off his escape.
He and Bannum flashed through the halls, ricocheting off bulkheads as they took corners. The relatively short hallways didn't leave much room for acceleration, but they still manage to make the trip in less than a minute.
They skidded to a halt in front of the second door to the conference room and took positions on either side. They could clearly hear their prey on the opposite side, or at least the blasts from his weapon.
Vellum gestured for Bannum to hit the door release and growled in frustration as the door failed to open. Locked!
Well there were manual ways to open these doors. It just took longer.
Suddenly the blasts from inside stopped, and they pulled back from the doorway, hoping the human would be exiting.
Vellum's com spoke up.
"Target closed the door. Repeat, target closed the door."
"Status," Vellum ordered.
"Six men down."
Vellum winced. 'How can a human be doing this? They don't have Enforcers!'
"Hold position. Squad two, teams one and two proceed to their position. Prepare for entry. Doors are likely locked. Force doors but do not enter until my mark."
Bannum was working on the door. The doors had manual locking mechanisms, but the human must have jammed something in it from the other side because it wasn't releasing.
Vellum tried not to pace as Bannum worked on the door, the man's grunts showing the poor progress.
"Squad two arrived. Working on door."
Two long minutes passed before Bannum stood up.
"Sorry. We're going to have to take cut through. I can't get more than a finger in there. These aren't enforced bulkheads or doors here. It won't take long."
Vellum shook his head. "Too long to fetch and set up. Look out."
Instead of bothering with the lock Vellum took a position opposite the door and began dumping adrenal hormones. Almost instantly his heart began racing and his vision narrowed down to the door in front of him. A deep breath and he lunged forward with a kick to the door next to the latch and lock.
Clang!
The door's metal dented in.
Again he pounded his kicks against the door.
Crang! Screech!
The door's metal deformed under the kicks and finally began to pull away from its lock.
Vellum glanced quickly through the inch-wide gap and then stuck his fingers through and heaved back. The kicks had heavily dented the door at the lock, but had also deformed the rest of the door. Vellum's enhanced strength was enough to force the bent metal back along its track two feet before he dove out of the way, expecting a blast of weapons fire.
Nothing came, though, and Vellum rolled to his feet, chest heaving with the exertion.
"See about the other door. Hopefully it wasn't as thoroughly jammed. If though, bash it open."
Bannum nodded and took off, circling around the halls to head to the other side of the room.
"Bigg," Vellum called through his com. "Come over to me. We have the enemy trapped."
"Confirmed. On my way," came the man's reply.
Vellum looked through the half opened door, hoping to catch a glimpse of their foe, but a pile of chairs was stacked in front of the door to chest height, obviously hurriedly placed to slow any entry. It also blocked sight of most of the room unless he poked his head in, and he definitely preferred to keep his head on his shoulders.
Vellum hated to admit it, but the crude block would be effective in slowing them down. They were going to pay a butcher's bill to get through, he suspected, but the human was trapped now with no way to escape.
A moment later he heard the impact of Bannum's kicks against the room's other door and then a screeching of metal as the door was yanked aside.
Vellum heard the speeding footfalls coming his way, and seconds later Bigg arrived at his side.
"He's somewhere inside. We're assaulting from this side while Bannum and the troops are coming in from the other."
Biggs nodded his agreement as Vellum keyed his com. "Bannum, we're starting with a light show, then assault. Don't skimp on the lights."
"Confirmed. Light him up, and go."
Vellum charged up a string of light bombs, the tiny glass bulbs each generating more light than a million of these lights of human design. The human would be blinded even if he had his eyes closed and covered with his hands.
He pulled out a electronic face mask. It sealed over his face, a solid metal mask providing everything he needed inside, the only view generated by its screens, using the dozens of tiny cameras it sported. He glanced at Bigg, showing the Enforcer had his own visor in place.
Vellum subvocalized into his com. "Bigg, you in first to the right. I'm following to the left. Everyone. Lights on 'Go'. Three … two … one … go."
Vellum flung his beads in, catching a brief bit of motion directly across the room as Bannum threw in his own light beads. Then his world went dark except for a red glow that flashed around the edges.
The cameras started again just as Bigg smashed into the room, sending chairs flying. An echoing crash came from the other side as Bannum began his assault.
It was just the briefest hint of movement that caught Vellum's attention. It would have been out of his line of vision if not for the expanded field of vision the visor provided. One of the doors down the hall opened up just as he was about to plunge into the room with the trapped human.
Vellum halted his step.
Two of the human gunshots sounded from inside the room along with a small explosion, and the sizzle of beams began to hiss in the room as the soldiers began to shoot in response as they piled through the doorway.
Every fiber of Vellum's body vibrated to charge in with them to rip apart the human, but the door opening just fifteen feet back down the hall set off a competing suspicion in his mind. Vellum stepped back from the conference room door just as the human stepped forward from the doorway down the hall.
Vellum saw the tall, solidly muscled man step into the hall facing him. An expression of surprise was on the man's face, but it was merely a passing flicker and the man's face returned to a cold concentration.
Vellum had put down insurrections on four different worlds over the last eighty years, and had been in more fights than he could remember. After that many years, the fights tended to bleed into one another, and the faces were mostly the same. Battlelust and rage in the face of someone charging to kill him. Then, soon after that, fear and desperation as he almost effortlessly destroyed them.
He'd killed hundreds of people with his bare hands or with massive clubs, the degenerate, crude, ungrateful scum of those who refused to appreciate the Confederacy's right to rule. Rage, fear, desperation, even sometimes a brave recognition of coming doom and yet still resisting. He'd seen them all.
He hadn't seen this sort of expression though - a calculation, an iron confidence, and a - a -
Vellum didn't have the words to describe it, even to himself. Vellum had been in fights for longer than this human had been alive, but this human exuded a professionalism Vellum had never imagined. Something in the man's expression seemed to be looking through him, as if he were nothing more than a problem about to be removed.
Their eye connection suddenly snapped and Vellum began to move forward as the man's hand came up. Vellum had done this a hundred times before, and this soldier would die just like all the oth -
The hand didn't hold a weapon, but instead a device with a little red switch.
Something deep in his mind screamed out a warning, but it was too late. Even as Vellum took a step and then another, the man's thumb flicked the switch and the world roared in response.
Spaceships were cramped for space, even in this big Earthling spaceship - every inch utilized. The blast was caught in the iron-walled conference room and compressed by the unyielding walls. The air vents were small and did little to release the sudden blast pressure. The doors, half open were the release route for the overpressure, and the blast of superheated air pounded out of the doors, catching Vellum with a giant's sledgehammer and smashing him against the opposite wall.
Pain exploded through Vellum's body at the impact. He barely registered the world around him as he crashed to the floor, his face mask popping off. His body desperately fought against unconsciousness, but it only managed to stave it off for a few seconds.
Vellum's final sight was of the floor, and then a human-designed boot stepping into his view.
A final, puzzled thought managed to spark through his mind as darkness overtook him.
'Just human. How ….'
A/N: Thank you all for the comments - I really do love them!
I'm gonna bend your ears, er, eyeballs ... or ... hmmm. "Bend your eyeballs" doesn't work very well. So "bend your ear" while reading becomes ... Anyway! I'll bend your eyeballs for a second on my take on Aschen.
They don't have a professional army in the sense that Earth nations do - their army is more along the lines of what we would think of as guards and, well, enforcers - armed forces primarily used for suppression of minor rebellions and rioting among non-Aschen, and maybe guards against mostly non-Aschen. Their Enforcers are certainly elite, but most of their training is oriented toward breaking up riots among relatively low-tech opposition. They have fought the Goa'uld, but that is far more a matter of biological warfare than direct Enforcer-vs-Jaffa combats. So once again, they haven't fought directly against professional forces. They haven't faced more than late 1800s level of weaponry in a long, long time.
Ditto for some of their culture's interactions with security - there haven't been nation-states among the Aschen, and combined with their cultural norms of suppressing emotional reaction in favor of carefully logical decision making while following orders, they don't have anything close to the concept of "hacker". Especially considering that they keep all the subjugated peoples down at a 1700s-level of development, there's not much need to protect your computer systems. (that, and they're far more interested in biological systems than artificial systems)
Why would you put passwords on something? Someone who needs it might not be able to access it! Worried about unauthorized access? Nonsense - no one would do that!
So anyway - a few hundred words about something that's only of interest to me. Hmmm, maybe there's a lesson in there somewhere.
Eh. Nah!
