Out of The Frying Pan Into the Fire
The red sunset on Chenadiss was beautiful. The firey ball of a sun sank down behind the horizon. Casting shadows in it's wake, the smell of the wet jungle was ever prominent. A slight wind russled the ferns and trees bordering the field. The waves of wheat moved in unison with the wind. Bugs chirped and predators walked silently, the birds flew through the air and sang in their language. A romantic feeling hung in the jungle air, except in one certain location.
Too bad the Chassi bots weren't arround anymore. Thier powerless, mangled and melted forms littered the road to the center of the complex. Huge holes where explosions from the C-6 were as accourant as the warehouses, smoke still smoldering from some and rising high up into the air, drastically reducing the ammount of already vanishing light. Several overturned vehicles were piled up ontop of eachother began to smoke. The small blue, oranged suited alien toting two huge riffles and two pistols picked his way through the craters and heaps of metal, searching for useful items that he might need while he was in the apartments.
626 was comming closer to the towering apartments, raising ten stories above the warehouses, the four corners flashed with yellow lights to ward off any low flying space ship. He chuckled at the small fountain and rock garden infront of the building, it almost mocked the whole complex. He noticed that floors number four and five were missing, replaced by two story windows that gave the occupants a view of the complex from high above the ground. From the ground he saw what appeared to be medical equipment of some kind, but couldn't tell it was too far away. He swiflty ascended the stairs leading up to the apartment and up to the glass entrance doors.
He peered inside to the entrance lobby, most of the lights were off and the vaulted ceiling lobby was vacant. He pushed the door open, which he was suprized it was. The first thing he noticed was the decorative stone floor made of millions of tiny tiles arranged to make patterns then they were out- lined in what appeared to be gold border. Clearly no expence spared. A hardwood desk with a rack of keys stood about halfway in the lobby to the left. Stacks of various colored papers were piled ontop of eachother, some had fallen to the floor and were snatched up by a lightning quick hand. With the weapons pionted in the general dirrection, 626 slowly padded over to the desk. Behind the wooden desk he found the cowering form of an alien, by which the body suggested that it was a woman. The name tag on her red shirt read, 'Iska'. Nervously she packed a box full of files and such, trying to keep out of sight. 626 poked her in the leg. Iska stopped and turned arround, and met four barrels of doom. "What?" she said casually, no fear in her voice, untill she turned to see him. She screamed loud and long, 626 folded his ears back and poked her hard in the chest. Her scream ended with a chordial thump. "I had overheard some soldiers talking about a lab of some such under the building, how do I get down there?" 626 asked. She gave him a terrified look, her eyes filled with tears, "Oh, please don't hurt me. Please... don't...." she whined. 626 growled, and shoved the barrel of the C-6 under her neck, she grunted. "Last chance." he stated, pionting all the rest of his weapons in her face. "In the elevator," she gasped in pain, "There is a button hidden under the panel, push it." the blood in her face started to drain, she felt faint. 626 turned arround, he paused long enough to hear her whimper. He whipped arround and smacked Iska on the side of the head, not hard enough to kill her, but put her under. A loud crack, and she slumped on the floor. Iska slowly sank to the floor, letting the unconsciousness sink in. "Thanks." 626 said with a tone of ice on his voice.
The elevator was small, only five medium sized occupants would fit. But 626 was extra small, arround thirty of him would fit inside. The button was exactly where the woman said it was, he pushed it. The stone cold steel elevator came to life, rumbling noisily as it descended into the bowels of the base. The long ride made him uneasy, that meant that the base was far under ground. Emotionally draining music played on a small speaker, the whine of it filled the already stale air. He shot out the speaker, the music died in a whine, slowly fading out. A twisted grin spead across his face. He'd killed the speaker.
The anchient elevator slowlt groaned to a halt, the smell of acid, formaldrahyde and oiled equipment filled his nose. The doors tried to open, a loud screech filled the air, it hurt his sensitive ears. He dropped his weapons to cover them, he only picked them up after he was sure the noise had stopped. The door remained stuck. He sniffed the air, and smelt several well-oiled riffles on the other side, or that was his guess. He hoped to God that the Cyrtos III could pierce old elevator doors. The weapon whinned in his hand as the trigger was pulled, the guns recoil was counter reversed by a counter weight inside the upper tube on the top. The elevator doors became filled with holes, the Chassi gaurds fired back into the elevator, but fired to high because thy were programmed to shoot things over five feet tall. 626's rounds hit and decomissioned every last one.
The door were wrenched open and tossed aside. 626 chuckled, "Pretty good weapon, I'd like to thank the guy who made it." He looked at his surroundings, a long white hall, now stained with black by the gaurds oil, stretched far into the earth. Doors linned the first hundred feet, all offices and meeting rooms. Stuff that always confused him, politics. The rest of the legnth was all locked steel doors that lead to various testing facilities. Flourescent lights linned the roof casting a soft glow onto the white and black tiled floor. A basic lab set up, shouldn't be to hard to navigate.
Alien letters were written by the side of each steel door, he passed, 'Bio.' and 'DNA Refinery' and many others. He approached one with 'Deathblow' as the name. This interested him, he knocked on the door, no answer. He tried the key pad, no hint to the code. He then surveyed the door, one locked by air pressure cylinders that pushed it closed, he only had to find then and release the air. He took his Crytos, stepped back and began to blow holes arround the door. Several hisses of air told him he'd succeded. He tried the door again, it pushed easily open.
The room inside was huge, about twice the size of one of the ware houses. Catwalks wound arround the top of the room with controll panels straped onto them, the wires danlged down and led into a huge computer in the lower corner of the monstrous room. A giant object sat in the floor, taking up most of the space. He guessed it to be a satelite in assembly because of the pieces spread out all over in an orderly pattern. A low, brown table fileld room with windows spanning from floor to roof sat on the far side of the wall, it looked out into the room with the satelite. Five large silo like objects sat under the catwalks at the far end of the chasm like room, 'Fuel' 626 noted. Huge bay doors were right by the fuel tanks, they led into a much bigger room. The ceiling was a good fifty feet tall and the room was arround two hundred feet long by fifty wide. Seven huge assemblies of equipment were stationed arround the satelite, testing wires led into the huge thing.
Eight or so scientists were huddled in a corner, trying not to bee seen. They saw that 626 had entered the room and hurried to a blast door that led into a small windowless room. One was too slow and got locked out. "HEY, LET ME IN!" he screamed, pounding on the door. 626 came closer, waving the guns he held. "Whats that?" he asked in a low tone, he pointed to the satelite. "No." the scientist said in a tone of desperation, and started to slide against the wall to get away. 626 pulled off a round, it missed the alien in the white lab coat and hit the fuel tank, the scientist re-set his glasses and turned around to look, the liquid was leaking out. "Next shot explodes it." 626 growled. The scientist moved several more steps. He reached the door, only to find it stuck shut. He tried hard to open it, pulling at the seam in the door, but couldn't. Fear made him tremble, he sank to the ground and held his head in his hands.
"You're stuck in here and I'm the only way out. Tell me what I want a I'll let you go." 626 reasoned. "No, I've seen this before. You'll kill me after I spill my guts. I know. Just kill me now and be done with it...." he choked on his tears. 626 swung his riffles over to the fuel tanks. "You're right, I will." he said in a low tone. He was about to pull the trigger, the blast would kill the scientist and barely wound him. "Wait!" the scientist sniffed. 626 stopped. "I'll tell you..." He sighed in defeat. 626 perked his ears up in interest. The scientist started. "It all began three years ago........
It turned out that a hired space pirate had assaulted the secret base out in the Zenon quadrant three years ago. He sent a team of his men to the surface of the crater posing as delivery men dropping off a box for strorage in the secret base. They put the box on the lift and left. The box contained a soldier who when inside opened the crate and pulled his assault riffle out made sure the gaurds were 'sleeping' on duty. He let the other men inside and they began to raid the place. They took all things of value and somehow picked up the booklet and diagrams for the project "C-6 D-15" Then planted explosives in the core of the asteroid and high tailed it outa there.
"Eventually the plans were sold to a man named Darfinis Maurader. Maurader took the plans hired the best scientists in the galaxy and put them here to build it. He called it operation 'Death Blow', hoping to use it to unseat the council from power and then take order of the Federation himself. And here we are. We're ony a few months from launching it." he finished. "What exactly is 'it'?" 626 asked. "It is a Heleo degradification neutralizer." "In basic please.." "It is used to destroy large geleological formations in space." 626 though for a second, letting the words get processed. His heart sank when he realized what that meant. "It's a planet killer?" The scientist nodded. "None other." "Do you know how many lives will be lost?" 626 laid it out flat. The scientist skipped the subject, he was starting to feel like this small alien wasn't concerned about hurting him, only about the satelite. "We're being paid well and...."
"PAID?!" 626 yelled. "You're in the middle of a dead galaxy on a planet that is nearly devoid of all life, plus you are in a base that isn't supposed to exist making something that shouldn't be. Can't you see it?" 626 chuckled. "See what?" the scientist got edgy, the small blue thing knew something that he didn't. "You aren't here to build this thing to collect the glory and credits later on. The only reason you are here is to complete the device and then he'll slaughter you all, down to the last man in a white labcoat." 626 told him. "Nope, not true...." the scientist firmly objected. "Middle of nowhere. Secret base. Bogusly high wages. You do the math."
The scientist face turned as white as his lab coat. He stuttered. "No... I...can't be true. Can it? I mean..I never saw it....." he asked. "I can't... I have to get out." he started hitting the door. "You'll never get it open." 626 sighed at his ill fated attempts. "You said you'd let me go! Get me out!" the scientst shouted in desperation. "Does Cristallic inverted mean anything to you?" 626 asked. The scientist stopped, "You want that? Come. It doesn't matter anymore." he walked over to the glass room and punched the security code in. 626 followed him close behind. "Here." the scientist stopped at a table and pointed on it. He walked off to a console in the corner and was quiet about whatever he was doing. 626 leapt up on the table and looked for whatever the white coat pointed to. He saw five small, square disk-like objects with a tiny red crystal in the center of a gold plater disk. Success! He stuffed them into his back pack and re slung it on his back. He peered over his shoulder, the Scientist was just too good to be true.
The scientist came back from over by the computer. "We need to go." he announced. "No, I want to dis-able the satelite." 626 said. "No, we need to go." 626 looked at him. "I've got the guns, I say we stay. Wait......What did you just do over there." he raised an eyebrow. "We have fifteen minutes to get out of here." the scientist said in a dead serious voice. "Self destruct." 626 figured. Both emmerged from the room and headed for the door. The tall scientist introduced himself as Roland on the walk over, 626 refused to give his title. 626 watched as Roland passed the blast door, he didn't even bother to give his colleauges the chance to get out. "What about them?" 626 pointed to the blast proof door. "They'd never listen." he replied simply. "You won't even give them a chance." 626 shot back. "Only as much as they gave me." Roland muttered. 626 decided that it was best to leave that issue alone.
"I hope you have some way of getting out of here, the door is locked." Roland said distasefully. 626 nodded. "Yep." 626 slung two of the riffles on his shoulder. He braced himself, then approached the door. With all he strength he slowly pulled the doors apart, pushing thier bent shape into the sides of the jam. "Whoa." Roland stared. 626 had already taken off down the hall to the elevator.
626 tossed a brick of C-7 into every room he passed, just to lighten his load. Roland followed behind him, not realizing the elevator was broken. 626 pushed open the doors and holstered all his guns. He then jumped up onto the roof and climbed out an axcess hole. Roland knew what the blue creature had done, he hoped he would climb a ladder in fifteen minutes. 626 was nearly up by the time Roland started. "I'd like to take time and visit those fat slobs on the tenth floor and give the greedy blitznak's what for, But we're short on time." Roland announced while he was climbing. 626 ignored him and continued to climb. He reached the first floor.
He peered out a crack in the door on the first floor, ten Chassi bots were waiting for him, their riffles pointed at the elevator door. He jumped back and caught the opposite wall with his claws, he held the Crytos III with one arm, he slowly pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun whined in the small space, the door was getting torn to shreds, he heard instant destruction on the other side. He stopped and listened, nothing, no breath from the occupants outside, light streamed into the holes in the door. He wrenched them open and emmerged. He took a second to get his eyes adjusted to the light in the lobby. The ten soldiers were now just lifeless forms, their oil pooled into the dip in the floor. Most of the heads were gone, some of the metal arms were gone. The smell of burnt wires was semi- pleasing to 626. Roland climbed out of the shaft, dirt sticking to his white lab coat. He gave a grin. "Made it."
He stood up and took one look outside, he fell to the floor. Not a second later laser rounds hit where he was standing. "The whole damned base is on alert. They've got tons of Chassi bots out there." he informed 626 who seemed to ignore his every comment. "I'll go back here, somewhere safe." Roland crawled along the floor to the back of the lobby. 626 ran to one of the pillars in the lobby, he already had a plan formulated.
Out side the base was on full alert, soldiers rushed arround, taking up defensive positions and setting up blockades on the road. They had their orders, capture the blue alien at all costs. They had surrounded the Apartment, waiting for the thing to come out. Tanks and heavy armnaments had their barrels facing the doors, waiting for the command to shoot and tear the place apart. All was quiet inside, the lights had been turned out, it did them no good, 626 prefered the dark. The robots milled arround, waiting for him.
The night was lit up by the explosion of the two tanks, the ground shook violently. Shrapnel cut into the soldiers standing too close, the hot metal dug into their circuits, burning it. Riffle fire opened up, the soldiers couldn't see any thing, the just shot. The front of the buliding exloded in a shower of fire, the blaster rounds blowing chunks out of the brick, a red dust filled the air. 626 had taken defence behind a pillar, a thick one at that. The fire stopped, he pulled out his knife, gripped the blade and peeked out, he spotted a soldier. He flung the knife with all he had. It flew through the air like lightning, it hit the intended soldier with so much force that it traveled through him and exited out the other side, putting him offline instantly. His finger pulled the trigger, the riffle cracked two times, one round went harmlessly into the woods, the other hit a nearby soldier in the head, exploding it. 626 snickered when he heard the thump of the knife. He realized he hadn't much time. He would be pinned down for the next hour, unless. He had a crazy idea, so crazy, it might just work.
"Where are you going?!" Roland yelled. The blue alien darted to the back of the building, smashing down any door he came a cross. Roland stood up, guessing that the fight was over. Then the ground shook, he layed flat on the floor again.
The soldiers waited for several seconds before firing again. Their shots still didn't find any target. They all looked up, the wall of the apartment was comming closer. They'd seen it too late. The force the buliding hit the ground measue a 2.5 in the ricter scale, the superstructure disintigrated when it slid, sending tons of bricks into the warehouses, effectively destroying them. The Hydrogyn tanks used for heating fuel exploded, sending a streak of fire into the sky, lighting it up for a while. The spiraling tower of inferno reached to the sky, bight enough so that you can see it from space. It died when the fuel ran out.
A somewhat smoke out 626 laughed at the immence dammage. He'd cracked the foundation of the building and tipped it over, small feat. He watched for any soldiers that survived the huge rain of bricks, none appeared. Roland stood up from the floor, a little disorientated from the blast. He swayed drunkenly. "What....how? did you do that." he stammered. "Let's go." 626 said without emotion.
Roland took a high speed truck and put the pedal to the metal. He drove out of sight in a few seconds. 626's mental clock told him he had eight minutes to get the hell outa there. He grabbed a small transport cruiser, hotwired it and took off toward the field. He was a long way from the whole he'd cut. He hoped he had enough time. Three minutes. 626 shot through the hole he'd cut in the fence earlier that day and into the field of waving grass. He slammed on the air brakes and jumped off the the cruiser. He took out the comms unit Jumba gave him and shouted into it. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" no reply came back. 626 looked imaptiently at the apartment. Ten seconds. He tried again. "JUMBA, I HAVE FIVE SECONDS BEFORE I AM TOAST!" he screamed. Three......Two.......One. 626 felt a tingling sensation, the field dissappeared and his vision swirled inward.
The ground shook, removing any neatly stacked boxes in the ware houses to the floor. Where the huge apartments once stood bulged out, the explosion subsided. A huge blast rocked the warehouses, the C-7's only helped the destruction. The countdown was linked to the nuclear fusion reactor deep within the base. For a brief second the ware houses were pulled unto a dip on the ground, then were thrown up into the air. A huge fire ball turned slowly into gigantic explosion and then curled under into a mushroom. The shockwave flattened the jungle one hundred miles in every dirrection. Fires broke out in the forest, the planet would eventually burn into the ground. The dammage was so cacastrophic that you could see it from orbiting the planet.
626 vision returned to normal, the bright light of the cruiser was intense compared to the dark night of Chenadiss. He waited for a few seconds then opened his eyes. Jumba stood over him grining in success, "I suppose you have it?" He smiled. "Nope, " 626 said, just to worry Jumba, who's expression turned sour, "Them , I have them." Jumba smiled again. 626 handed him the pack and went to the bathroom. Inside he found a mirror. His orange suit was darkened, blood stained it in several places and a hole from where the blaster hit showed. He winced as he touched the wound. That was where the blood was comming from. He pulled off the suit and wrung it out in the shower, the blood dripped off. He threw the suit into a corner and looked at himself in a mirror, there was a fine dust on his head, spots where the blood leaked through. He felt dirty, although he didn't look it, he felt it. He climbed into the shower and slowly turned the handle, the water dripped out then beacame a full flow. He winced when he went into the stream. This was totally against his nature, but what needed to be done... It was warm and realixing if you didn't think it was water. Soothing warmness flowed over him, washing all the dirt out of his wound. When the blood and dust was washed away he turned off the water and shook off. He then carefully dried himself with a towel.
Jumba opened the bag and saw some thing reflect, he pulled them out, the inverters, five of them. He then produced the boxed object, which said it had thirty two features on the box. "626, you are crazy, a swiss pocket knife." he chuckled, he found a wadded up piece of paper, strange lettering was written on it, even he didn't understand it. 626 came out of the bathroom rubbing himself with a towel. "Was there an underground lab?" he asked him. "Several." 626 answered.
Jumba set a course for Turo. He then pulled another bottle of liquor out of the small cooler in the kitchen and poured some into his glass he'd used that whole evening. He sat down on the remaining couch and listened to what 626 had to say about the base and the warehouses.
*
Exausted and tired, 327 sat at the computer, there was nothing else to do at five in the morning. She paged through the news like she did all the time. The computer screen was the only thing in the room giving off light, it cast an eerie blue glow arround the room. She was waiting for Jumba to return with 626. 625 had whined the whole evening about there being no bread, and that Jumba was a greedy hog for taking it with him. Zri had stopped by several more times to check in, nothing suspocious about that. But he did seem to be poking arround the palce quite a bit. The news was nothing new, she yawned and headed back to bed. Halfway there she heard a noise, not one of the regular ones like there always was, a different noise. A noise like something was moving, stalking. She scanned the darkness, and listened carefully, nothing. She continued on her way, passing it off as nothing, probably 625.
She heard it again, this time she crouched into a doorway. "625." she whispered. Something moved closer, she felt it. Her fear took over. She leapt up and started to run to the safest place she could think of. A sharp pain shot up her back, she reached for where it was, to try and pull it out. Another prick, this time lower, on her leg, she couldn't tell she was getting numb. She began to skake, another pain. She could barely stand, another, this time it felt like a push, a pressure, not a needle. She fell over on her back, her vision started to fade, black seeped into her range of vision. A dark shadowed figure passed her motionless body, and hovered arround her. 'How?....What?...' she thought. 327 started blacked out, only to see a hand comming closer to her face.
* * * *
She awoke when someone poked at her. "Wake up." Another poke, she opened her eyes, thing were blurry. She rubber her eyes. 625 was standing over her. "Get up, I'm hungry!" he poked her harder. She instinctly grabbed his arm and flung him down the hall. 327 found herself proped up against the wall. Her back hurt, she didn't know why, she didn't even know why she was on the floor, she had been going to bed, then nothing, she didn't remember. Nothing, she just blacked out. "There's nothing to eat!" 625 complained from down the hall, he didn't want to go near 327. "Run out of bread?" she asked with a hint of venom in her voice. "Yeah, and Jumba is hiding the other loaves somewhere." he whined. She stood up, her limbs were shakey. She supported herself as she walked down the hall to the kitchen, a cup of coffee would fix her ails.
She siped silently at the black remedy. X sat in the corner reading, 594 was busy looking for the bread as was 625. Some one else was in the room, experiment 621. Experiment 621 was the same as the rest of the lot, four arms antena barbs and such. He fur was a dark black with a light tan stomach, he loudly munched on some croissants. 625 and 594 turned up with a loaf of bread and were now fighting over who got the first piece. 327 wonered why she was asleep in the hall. Why hadn't she made it to her bed. What was that pain in her back?
Two hours later she felt light headed, then she realized that she had been tranquilized, the light headedness was a side effect. All f Jumba's experiments suffered from, that. She searched all over for any missing experiments,all were accounted for, even the deceased and the cryo frozen ones. Nothing seemed out of the usual. She blew it off as an experiment having fun. She reminded herself to tell Jumba.
The red sunset on Chenadiss was beautiful. The firey ball of a sun sank down behind the horizon. Casting shadows in it's wake, the smell of the wet jungle was ever prominent. A slight wind russled the ferns and trees bordering the field. The waves of wheat moved in unison with the wind. Bugs chirped and predators walked silently, the birds flew through the air and sang in their language. A romantic feeling hung in the jungle air, except in one certain location.
Too bad the Chassi bots weren't arround anymore. Thier powerless, mangled and melted forms littered the road to the center of the complex. Huge holes where explosions from the C-6 were as accourant as the warehouses, smoke still smoldering from some and rising high up into the air, drastically reducing the ammount of already vanishing light. Several overturned vehicles were piled up ontop of eachother began to smoke. The small blue, oranged suited alien toting two huge riffles and two pistols picked his way through the craters and heaps of metal, searching for useful items that he might need while he was in the apartments.
626 was comming closer to the towering apartments, raising ten stories above the warehouses, the four corners flashed with yellow lights to ward off any low flying space ship. He chuckled at the small fountain and rock garden infront of the building, it almost mocked the whole complex. He noticed that floors number four and five were missing, replaced by two story windows that gave the occupants a view of the complex from high above the ground. From the ground he saw what appeared to be medical equipment of some kind, but couldn't tell it was too far away. He swiflty ascended the stairs leading up to the apartment and up to the glass entrance doors.
He peered inside to the entrance lobby, most of the lights were off and the vaulted ceiling lobby was vacant. He pushed the door open, which he was suprized it was. The first thing he noticed was the decorative stone floor made of millions of tiny tiles arranged to make patterns then they were out- lined in what appeared to be gold border. Clearly no expence spared. A hardwood desk with a rack of keys stood about halfway in the lobby to the left. Stacks of various colored papers were piled ontop of eachother, some had fallen to the floor and were snatched up by a lightning quick hand. With the weapons pionted in the general dirrection, 626 slowly padded over to the desk. Behind the wooden desk he found the cowering form of an alien, by which the body suggested that it was a woman. The name tag on her red shirt read, 'Iska'. Nervously she packed a box full of files and such, trying to keep out of sight. 626 poked her in the leg. Iska stopped and turned arround, and met four barrels of doom. "What?" she said casually, no fear in her voice, untill she turned to see him. She screamed loud and long, 626 folded his ears back and poked her hard in the chest. Her scream ended with a chordial thump. "I had overheard some soldiers talking about a lab of some such under the building, how do I get down there?" 626 asked. She gave him a terrified look, her eyes filled with tears, "Oh, please don't hurt me. Please... don't...." she whined. 626 growled, and shoved the barrel of the C-6 under her neck, she grunted. "Last chance." he stated, pionting all the rest of his weapons in her face. "In the elevator," she gasped in pain, "There is a button hidden under the panel, push it." the blood in her face started to drain, she felt faint. 626 turned arround, he paused long enough to hear her whimper. He whipped arround and smacked Iska on the side of the head, not hard enough to kill her, but put her under. A loud crack, and she slumped on the floor. Iska slowly sank to the floor, letting the unconsciousness sink in. "Thanks." 626 said with a tone of ice on his voice.
The elevator was small, only five medium sized occupants would fit. But 626 was extra small, arround thirty of him would fit inside. The button was exactly where the woman said it was, he pushed it. The stone cold steel elevator came to life, rumbling noisily as it descended into the bowels of the base. The long ride made him uneasy, that meant that the base was far under ground. Emotionally draining music played on a small speaker, the whine of it filled the already stale air. He shot out the speaker, the music died in a whine, slowly fading out. A twisted grin spead across his face. He'd killed the speaker.
The anchient elevator slowlt groaned to a halt, the smell of acid, formaldrahyde and oiled equipment filled his nose. The doors tried to open, a loud screech filled the air, it hurt his sensitive ears. He dropped his weapons to cover them, he only picked them up after he was sure the noise had stopped. The door remained stuck. He sniffed the air, and smelt several well-oiled riffles on the other side, or that was his guess. He hoped to God that the Cyrtos III could pierce old elevator doors. The weapon whinned in his hand as the trigger was pulled, the guns recoil was counter reversed by a counter weight inside the upper tube on the top. The elevator doors became filled with holes, the Chassi gaurds fired back into the elevator, but fired to high because thy were programmed to shoot things over five feet tall. 626's rounds hit and decomissioned every last one.
The door were wrenched open and tossed aside. 626 chuckled, "Pretty good weapon, I'd like to thank the guy who made it." He looked at his surroundings, a long white hall, now stained with black by the gaurds oil, stretched far into the earth. Doors linned the first hundred feet, all offices and meeting rooms. Stuff that always confused him, politics. The rest of the legnth was all locked steel doors that lead to various testing facilities. Flourescent lights linned the roof casting a soft glow onto the white and black tiled floor. A basic lab set up, shouldn't be to hard to navigate.
Alien letters were written by the side of each steel door, he passed, 'Bio.' and 'DNA Refinery' and many others. He approached one with 'Deathblow' as the name. This interested him, he knocked on the door, no answer. He tried the key pad, no hint to the code. He then surveyed the door, one locked by air pressure cylinders that pushed it closed, he only had to find then and release the air. He took his Crytos, stepped back and began to blow holes arround the door. Several hisses of air told him he'd succeded. He tried the door again, it pushed easily open.
The room inside was huge, about twice the size of one of the ware houses. Catwalks wound arround the top of the room with controll panels straped onto them, the wires danlged down and led into a huge computer in the lower corner of the monstrous room. A giant object sat in the floor, taking up most of the space. He guessed it to be a satelite in assembly because of the pieces spread out all over in an orderly pattern. A low, brown table fileld room with windows spanning from floor to roof sat on the far side of the wall, it looked out into the room with the satelite. Five large silo like objects sat under the catwalks at the far end of the chasm like room, 'Fuel' 626 noted. Huge bay doors were right by the fuel tanks, they led into a much bigger room. The ceiling was a good fifty feet tall and the room was arround two hundred feet long by fifty wide. Seven huge assemblies of equipment were stationed arround the satelite, testing wires led into the huge thing.
Eight or so scientists were huddled in a corner, trying not to bee seen. They saw that 626 had entered the room and hurried to a blast door that led into a small windowless room. One was too slow and got locked out. "HEY, LET ME IN!" he screamed, pounding on the door. 626 came closer, waving the guns he held. "Whats that?" he asked in a low tone, he pointed to the satelite. "No." the scientist said in a tone of desperation, and started to slide against the wall to get away. 626 pulled off a round, it missed the alien in the white lab coat and hit the fuel tank, the scientist re-set his glasses and turned around to look, the liquid was leaking out. "Next shot explodes it." 626 growled. The scientist moved several more steps. He reached the door, only to find it stuck shut. He tried hard to open it, pulling at the seam in the door, but couldn't. Fear made him tremble, he sank to the ground and held his head in his hands.
"You're stuck in here and I'm the only way out. Tell me what I want a I'll let you go." 626 reasoned. "No, I've seen this before. You'll kill me after I spill my guts. I know. Just kill me now and be done with it...." he choked on his tears. 626 swung his riffles over to the fuel tanks. "You're right, I will." he said in a low tone. He was about to pull the trigger, the blast would kill the scientist and barely wound him. "Wait!" the scientist sniffed. 626 stopped. "I'll tell you..." He sighed in defeat. 626 perked his ears up in interest. The scientist started. "It all began three years ago........
It turned out that a hired space pirate had assaulted the secret base out in the Zenon quadrant three years ago. He sent a team of his men to the surface of the crater posing as delivery men dropping off a box for strorage in the secret base. They put the box on the lift and left. The box contained a soldier who when inside opened the crate and pulled his assault riffle out made sure the gaurds were 'sleeping' on duty. He let the other men inside and they began to raid the place. They took all things of value and somehow picked up the booklet and diagrams for the project "C-6 D-15" Then planted explosives in the core of the asteroid and high tailed it outa there.
"Eventually the plans were sold to a man named Darfinis Maurader. Maurader took the plans hired the best scientists in the galaxy and put them here to build it. He called it operation 'Death Blow', hoping to use it to unseat the council from power and then take order of the Federation himself. And here we are. We're ony a few months from launching it." he finished. "What exactly is 'it'?" 626 asked. "It is a Heleo degradification neutralizer." "In basic please.." "It is used to destroy large geleological formations in space." 626 though for a second, letting the words get processed. His heart sank when he realized what that meant. "It's a planet killer?" The scientist nodded. "None other." "Do you know how many lives will be lost?" 626 laid it out flat. The scientist skipped the subject, he was starting to feel like this small alien wasn't concerned about hurting him, only about the satelite. "We're being paid well and...."
"PAID?!" 626 yelled. "You're in the middle of a dead galaxy on a planet that is nearly devoid of all life, plus you are in a base that isn't supposed to exist making something that shouldn't be. Can't you see it?" 626 chuckled. "See what?" the scientist got edgy, the small blue thing knew something that he didn't. "You aren't here to build this thing to collect the glory and credits later on. The only reason you are here is to complete the device and then he'll slaughter you all, down to the last man in a white labcoat." 626 told him. "Nope, not true...." the scientist firmly objected. "Middle of nowhere. Secret base. Bogusly high wages. You do the math."
The scientist face turned as white as his lab coat. He stuttered. "No... I...can't be true. Can it? I mean..I never saw it....." he asked. "I can't... I have to get out." he started hitting the door. "You'll never get it open." 626 sighed at his ill fated attempts. "You said you'd let me go! Get me out!" the scientst shouted in desperation. "Does Cristallic inverted mean anything to you?" 626 asked. The scientist stopped, "You want that? Come. It doesn't matter anymore." he walked over to the glass room and punched the security code in. 626 followed him close behind. "Here." the scientist stopped at a table and pointed on it. He walked off to a console in the corner and was quiet about whatever he was doing. 626 leapt up on the table and looked for whatever the white coat pointed to. He saw five small, square disk-like objects with a tiny red crystal in the center of a gold plater disk. Success! He stuffed them into his back pack and re slung it on his back. He peered over his shoulder, the Scientist was just too good to be true.
The scientist came back from over by the computer. "We need to go." he announced. "No, I want to dis-able the satelite." 626 said. "No, we need to go." 626 looked at him. "I've got the guns, I say we stay. Wait......What did you just do over there." he raised an eyebrow. "We have fifteen minutes to get out of here." the scientist said in a dead serious voice. "Self destruct." 626 figured. Both emmerged from the room and headed for the door. The tall scientist introduced himself as Roland on the walk over, 626 refused to give his title. 626 watched as Roland passed the blast door, he didn't even bother to give his colleauges the chance to get out. "What about them?" 626 pointed to the blast proof door. "They'd never listen." he replied simply. "You won't even give them a chance." 626 shot back. "Only as much as they gave me." Roland muttered. 626 decided that it was best to leave that issue alone.
"I hope you have some way of getting out of here, the door is locked." Roland said distasefully. 626 nodded. "Yep." 626 slung two of the riffles on his shoulder. He braced himself, then approached the door. With all he strength he slowly pulled the doors apart, pushing thier bent shape into the sides of the jam. "Whoa." Roland stared. 626 had already taken off down the hall to the elevator.
626 tossed a brick of C-7 into every room he passed, just to lighten his load. Roland followed behind him, not realizing the elevator was broken. 626 pushed open the doors and holstered all his guns. He then jumped up onto the roof and climbed out an axcess hole. Roland knew what the blue creature had done, he hoped he would climb a ladder in fifteen minutes. 626 was nearly up by the time Roland started. "I'd like to take time and visit those fat slobs on the tenth floor and give the greedy blitznak's what for, But we're short on time." Roland announced while he was climbing. 626 ignored him and continued to climb. He reached the first floor.
He peered out a crack in the door on the first floor, ten Chassi bots were waiting for him, their riffles pointed at the elevator door. He jumped back and caught the opposite wall with his claws, he held the Crytos III with one arm, he slowly pulled the trigger. The sound of the gun whined in the small space, the door was getting torn to shreds, he heard instant destruction on the other side. He stopped and listened, nothing, no breath from the occupants outside, light streamed into the holes in the door. He wrenched them open and emmerged. He took a second to get his eyes adjusted to the light in the lobby. The ten soldiers were now just lifeless forms, their oil pooled into the dip in the floor. Most of the heads were gone, some of the metal arms were gone. The smell of burnt wires was semi- pleasing to 626. Roland climbed out of the shaft, dirt sticking to his white lab coat. He gave a grin. "Made it."
He stood up and took one look outside, he fell to the floor. Not a second later laser rounds hit where he was standing. "The whole damned base is on alert. They've got tons of Chassi bots out there." he informed 626 who seemed to ignore his every comment. "I'll go back here, somewhere safe." Roland crawled along the floor to the back of the lobby. 626 ran to one of the pillars in the lobby, he already had a plan formulated.
Out side the base was on full alert, soldiers rushed arround, taking up defensive positions and setting up blockades on the road. They had their orders, capture the blue alien at all costs. They had surrounded the Apartment, waiting for the thing to come out. Tanks and heavy armnaments had their barrels facing the doors, waiting for the command to shoot and tear the place apart. All was quiet inside, the lights had been turned out, it did them no good, 626 prefered the dark. The robots milled arround, waiting for him.
The night was lit up by the explosion of the two tanks, the ground shook violently. Shrapnel cut into the soldiers standing too close, the hot metal dug into their circuits, burning it. Riffle fire opened up, the soldiers couldn't see any thing, the just shot. The front of the buliding exloded in a shower of fire, the blaster rounds blowing chunks out of the brick, a red dust filled the air. 626 had taken defence behind a pillar, a thick one at that. The fire stopped, he pulled out his knife, gripped the blade and peeked out, he spotted a soldier. He flung the knife with all he had. It flew through the air like lightning, it hit the intended soldier with so much force that it traveled through him and exited out the other side, putting him offline instantly. His finger pulled the trigger, the riffle cracked two times, one round went harmlessly into the woods, the other hit a nearby soldier in the head, exploding it. 626 snickered when he heard the thump of the knife. He realized he hadn't much time. He would be pinned down for the next hour, unless. He had a crazy idea, so crazy, it might just work.
"Where are you going?!" Roland yelled. The blue alien darted to the back of the building, smashing down any door he came a cross. Roland stood up, guessing that the fight was over. Then the ground shook, he layed flat on the floor again.
The soldiers waited for several seconds before firing again. Their shots still didn't find any target. They all looked up, the wall of the apartment was comming closer. They'd seen it too late. The force the buliding hit the ground measue a 2.5 in the ricter scale, the superstructure disintigrated when it slid, sending tons of bricks into the warehouses, effectively destroying them. The Hydrogyn tanks used for heating fuel exploded, sending a streak of fire into the sky, lighting it up for a while. The spiraling tower of inferno reached to the sky, bight enough so that you can see it from space. It died when the fuel ran out.
A somewhat smoke out 626 laughed at the immence dammage. He'd cracked the foundation of the building and tipped it over, small feat. He watched for any soldiers that survived the huge rain of bricks, none appeared. Roland stood up from the floor, a little disorientated from the blast. He swayed drunkenly. "What....how? did you do that." he stammered. "Let's go." 626 said without emotion.
Roland took a high speed truck and put the pedal to the metal. He drove out of sight in a few seconds. 626's mental clock told him he had eight minutes to get the hell outa there. He grabbed a small transport cruiser, hotwired it and took off toward the field. He was a long way from the whole he'd cut. He hoped he had enough time. Three minutes. 626 shot through the hole he'd cut in the fence earlier that day and into the field of waving grass. He slammed on the air brakes and jumped off the the cruiser. He took out the comms unit Jumba gave him and shouted into it. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!" no reply came back. 626 looked imaptiently at the apartment. Ten seconds. He tried again. "JUMBA, I HAVE FIVE SECONDS BEFORE I AM TOAST!" he screamed. Three......Two.......One. 626 felt a tingling sensation, the field dissappeared and his vision swirled inward.
The ground shook, removing any neatly stacked boxes in the ware houses to the floor. Where the huge apartments once stood bulged out, the explosion subsided. A huge blast rocked the warehouses, the C-7's only helped the destruction. The countdown was linked to the nuclear fusion reactor deep within the base. For a brief second the ware houses were pulled unto a dip on the ground, then were thrown up into the air. A huge fire ball turned slowly into gigantic explosion and then curled under into a mushroom. The shockwave flattened the jungle one hundred miles in every dirrection. Fires broke out in the forest, the planet would eventually burn into the ground. The dammage was so cacastrophic that you could see it from orbiting the planet.
626 vision returned to normal, the bright light of the cruiser was intense compared to the dark night of Chenadiss. He waited for a few seconds then opened his eyes. Jumba stood over him grining in success, "I suppose you have it?" He smiled. "Nope, " 626 said, just to worry Jumba, who's expression turned sour, "Them , I have them." Jumba smiled again. 626 handed him the pack and went to the bathroom. Inside he found a mirror. His orange suit was darkened, blood stained it in several places and a hole from where the blaster hit showed. He winced as he touched the wound. That was where the blood was comming from. He pulled off the suit and wrung it out in the shower, the blood dripped off. He threw the suit into a corner and looked at himself in a mirror, there was a fine dust on his head, spots where the blood leaked through. He felt dirty, although he didn't look it, he felt it. He climbed into the shower and slowly turned the handle, the water dripped out then beacame a full flow. He winced when he went into the stream. This was totally against his nature, but what needed to be done... It was warm and realixing if you didn't think it was water. Soothing warmness flowed over him, washing all the dirt out of his wound. When the blood and dust was washed away he turned off the water and shook off. He then carefully dried himself with a towel.
Jumba opened the bag and saw some thing reflect, he pulled them out, the inverters, five of them. He then produced the boxed object, which said it had thirty two features on the box. "626, you are crazy, a swiss pocket knife." he chuckled, he found a wadded up piece of paper, strange lettering was written on it, even he didn't understand it. 626 came out of the bathroom rubbing himself with a towel. "Was there an underground lab?" he asked him. "Several." 626 answered.
Jumba set a course for Turo. He then pulled another bottle of liquor out of the small cooler in the kitchen and poured some into his glass he'd used that whole evening. He sat down on the remaining couch and listened to what 626 had to say about the base and the warehouses.
*
Exausted and tired, 327 sat at the computer, there was nothing else to do at five in the morning. She paged through the news like she did all the time. The computer screen was the only thing in the room giving off light, it cast an eerie blue glow arround the room. She was waiting for Jumba to return with 626. 625 had whined the whole evening about there being no bread, and that Jumba was a greedy hog for taking it with him. Zri had stopped by several more times to check in, nothing suspocious about that. But he did seem to be poking arround the palce quite a bit. The news was nothing new, she yawned and headed back to bed. Halfway there she heard a noise, not one of the regular ones like there always was, a different noise. A noise like something was moving, stalking. She scanned the darkness, and listened carefully, nothing. She continued on her way, passing it off as nothing, probably 625.
She heard it again, this time she crouched into a doorway. "625." she whispered. Something moved closer, she felt it. Her fear took over. She leapt up and started to run to the safest place she could think of. A sharp pain shot up her back, she reached for where it was, to try and pull it out. Another prick, this time lower, on her leg, she couldn't tell she was getting numb. She began to skake, another pain. She could barely stand, another, this time it felt like a push, a pressure, not a needle. She fell over on her back, her vision started to fade, black seeped into her range of vision. A dark shadowed figure passed her motionless body, and hovered arround her. 'How?....What?...' she thought. 327 started blacked out, only to see a hand comming closer to her face.
* * * *
She awoke when someone poked at her. "Wake up." Another poke, she opened her eyes, thing were blurry. She rubber her eyes. 625 was standing over her. "Get up, I'm hungry!" he poked her harder. She instinctly grabbed his arm and flung him down the hall. 327 found herself proped up against the wall. Her back hurt, she didn't know why, she didn't even know why she was on the floor, she had been going to bed, then nothing, she didn't remember. Nothing, she just blacked out. "There's nothing to eat!" 625 complained from down the hall, he didn't want to go near 327. "Run out of bread?" she asked with a hint of venom in her voice. "Yeah, and Jumba is hiding the other loaves somewhere." he whined. She stood up, her limbs were shakey. She supported herself as she walked down the hall to the kitchen, a cup of coffee would fix her ails.
She siped silently at the black remedy. X sat in the corner reading, 594 was busy looking for the bread as was 625. Some one else was in the room, experiment 621. Experiment 621 was the same as the rest of the lot, four arms antena barbs and such. He fur was a dark black with a light tan stomach, he loudly munched on some croissants. 625 and 594 turned up with a loaf of bread and were now fighting over who got the first piece. 327 wonered why she was asleep in the hall. Why hadn't she made it to her bed. What was that pain in her back?
Two hours later she felt light headed, then she realized that she had been tranquilized, the light headedness was a side effect. All f Jumba's experiments suffered from, that. She searched all over for any missing experiments,all were accounted for, even the deceased and the cryo frozen ones. Nothing seemed out of the usual. She blew it off as an experiment having fun. She reminded herself to tell Jumba.