Protector of Men Ch 104
"Zandra, get to a turret!"
"Where?"
"Front!"
Zandra scampered off to the barracks room while Kesia maintained the ship's balance. Shade watched the battle in front of them frozen – and at the moment, without a job.
"Shade!" Kesia commanded. He looked at her, shellshocked.
"Get on radio with the Mayflower," she ordered, "Find out why they're here."
Only minutes before the two ships had gazed at each other's exteriors, barely avoiding each other in the thin pipeline. Only seconds had passed before the sentinels that had been peacefully following the Libertas started attacking the Mayflower, leaving them without an opportunity to communicate. Since that moment, it had become an all-out battle between man and machine.
The Mayflower was taking the brunt of the destruction; the machines saw the ship as a threat to the Libertas, the One. But after a few minutes of brief warfare the sentinels added the Libertas to their targets, and started attacking from behind. Kesia was unable to maneuver the ship much (due to the Mayflower's presence), and there were only three of them in the ship. Already the sentinels were attempting to break into the hull.
"Go Zandra!" Kesia shouted on the loudspeaker as the ship swung around in an attempt to face their attackers. Shade grabbed the arm of his chair with his free hand while radioing the Mayflower.
"Captain Columbus?" Shade said into the panel in front of him, hoping for a response.
"Cover?"
"No, captain," Shade said, simultaneously relieved and saddened, "It's Shade – what are you doing out here?"
Kesia looked to him disapprovingly, but at the moment his slight insubordination would go unnoticed by the captain.
"Coming for you," the captain said after a moment of muffled shouting, "Can we talk after this is over?"
Shade mumbled a reply and turned off the radio as a loud blast echoed through the tunnels. He turned to look instantly - a sentinel had fallen to the ground and lay in flames on the metal floor of the pipeways.
"What happened?" Shade asked Kesia. She was busy maneuvering the ship to Zandra's best angle, and didn't look at him as he spoke. When she answered, it came out stifled, as if she wanted to scream out the answer, but was reserving her energy for the task at hand.
"It exploded after a few hits," she answered, "Don't know."
Shade gave up, and stood. "I'll help Zandra," he said, and ran to the gun deck.
She was sweating prolifically; her brows furrowed, her eyes squinting in concentration. Shade didn't say anything, but briefly touched her shoulder before setting himself down at a second turret console.
"They're all over," Zandra panted, swerving her aim to the back of the ship, "I can't even keep centered on the damn things."
Shade took her comment to heart and slapped on his headset, ready to attack.
"What are they doing?" Zandra asked a moment later, still firing haphazardly into the tunnels, "I thought they would leave us alone!"
Shade said nothing.
"Mercury, get on 'em!" Shouted Alias, sitting next to him in one of the many turret stations on the Mayflower. Mercury sighed angrily.
"I am," he answered, jaw clenched. It was hard enough to keep the ship free of sentinels in the storm, but even harder was dealing with Alias' condescending tone.
It looked like there were at least fifty sentinels in the air, constantly buzzing around each of the ships before a few would latch onto the hull, firing their lasers. The ships hovered almost in place, turning a few degrees every minute or so in a small attempt to dislodge what sentinels had already connected with the hull. The sentinels were falling quickly, however difficult it seemed to terminate them.
There was an explosion, a wave of heat, and silence. Both the ships were momentarily silent as they recognized the impact; their turrets lay motionless, spinning to a ticking stop as everything lay silent for that one moment. And then everything exploded back into motion.
Sentinels had erupted from a wall in the pipeway; many of them already lay dead as a result of smashing into the wall. But the force of many had done it, and now over two hundred sentinels were immediately latching onto the hulls of both vessels, now completely overwhelmed.
"Oh, shit," Columbus whispered as their ship shuddered each time a sentinel latched on. She struggled for control of the vessel.
"Kapera," she said, strangely reserved, "Turn everything off. Now."
"Even-"
"Yes, Kapera!" She shouted, "Everything!"
Instantly she jumped out of her seat and bolted to the breaker room. Now it was just a matter of time before either of the ships blasted their EMP, and hopefully they would come out with at least one ship intact.
"Someone turn everything off!" Came Kesia's voice on the P.A. system. Zandra and Shade looked at each other for a moment, eyes wide.
"Go," said Shade, returning to his firing, "I'll keep them off."
Zandra pulled herself out of the turret system, but didn't go.
"You can't do it alone," she said, "There are too many, now!"
Shade stopped firing and got out of his chair, breaking a small glass window and pulling out the small EMP-gun. "Go! One of us has to!"
Zandra said nothing and ran off.
"Kesia!" she shouted, hoping that perhaps, by chance, she could hear her shouting, "What order?!"
There was no answer, so Zandra continued her way to the breaker room, leaping down a ladder and landing on the metal floor with a thud. In a brief flash of genius, she smashed the button on the P.A. box.
"Kesia! What order?"
As she waited for a response, she began unlocking the breakers for heat and maintenance systems. Zandra eyed the wall for another harmless power circuit.
"Just do it," Kesia answered as the ship shuddered and veered downwards. "We're heading down either way!"
Immediately she began opening the other breakers, completely neglecting to look at what she was undoing. With both hands she undid the power systems, and around her lights and sounds began to dim.
"Zandra! Do-" and the P.A. went quiet. Horrified, Zandra shoved back in as many breakers as she could, her hands shaking with energy, her mind electric with thought.
"Zandra!" Kesia shouted as the P.A system came back to life, "Leave EMP!"
Zandra didn't respond, but she got the message. Again she opened the breakers, shut off each power circuit in seconds as the ship lurched closer to the ground. She could hear the clank of multiple sentinels on the outer hull and instantly imagined Shade, with his EMP gun… sentinels hovering overhead, ready to attack…
There was a blast and the ship lost control. Zandra held onto the breakers as the Libertas lost power and she suddenly became weightless, holding tighter as the moment of impact loomed closer. Everything was quiet for a second, and then the Libertas crashed. Zandra fell, and silence again possessed them.
"Mercury, she's in here," someone said in a quiet, hurried voice. Her breathing was labored, and she leaned heavily against the porthole above Zandra's unconscious body.
"I found Shade," another voice said, "Need help with him."
"Mercury!" the woman repeated, to no avail. She swore, and pulled herself down into the porthole. She dropped, fell to the ground, and painfully picked herself up before looking to Zandra.
"Wake up," she said soothingly, eyeing her wounds. Damnit, she thought, after all this… There was a cut on her forehead that seeped blood and the left side of her face was already a mess of bruises.
"Zandra," she repeated, pulling out a syringe from her medical pack, "Wake up."
With no response, she uncapped the syringe and plunged it into Zandra's neck. After waiting a few moments, Zandra mumbled and opened her dilated eyes.
"Alias?" she slurred, her eyes almost crossed, "'sat you?"
"Mercury!" Alias yelled again, frustrated, "She's down here!" Zandra winced at the loud noise and closed her eyes again.
"Where's Captain Cover?" Columbus asked Kesia, already dreading what answer may await. Kesia looked down, her jaw clenched.
"Trim went Agent," she answered quietly. Columbus exhaled slowly – she already knew what Kesia was about to tell her. "Cover couldn't get out and… and we tried, but he couldn't get out…"
Columbus put her hand on Kesia's shoulder; both out of consolation, and a shared mourning. Columbus' hopes for a family were gone; her vision of peace after war was now replaced with emptiness. She was a widow before she was a wife.
"I'm sorry," Kesia said, but was cut off by Columbus' embrace.
"It's over," she answered quietly, "It's already over."
They pulled away and Columbus' eyes were red. "We don't have a lot of time. Is he still here?"
Kesia nodded. "He's in his quarters."
Within fifteen minutes the Libertas was empty; Zandra, Shade, Kesia, and Cover had been evacuated to the Mayflower and would soon be on their way back to Zion. It would be almost a day before they arrived at the gates of their home, and they dreaded the worst. They looked to Zandra for a plan, but even she still did not know her purpose yet.
A/N – whooh, this chapter was sooo hard to write. Seriously, I've been trying to do this one for over a week. I'm tellin you, it gets harder and harder the closer I get to the end. It's so annoying because all I want to do is write, but I have absolutely no time to. I'm trying to juggle writing this, writing my original epic, school (speaking of which, msn.com named Davidson college as the #7th hardest school to get into! W00t.), updating my choir website, and choir practice… aaah! Anyway! Getting closer to the end…..
Alocin – I know, a year… it certainly has been a long time…
Kal – well, not much longer than it is now, I'm definitely winding down to the end now. And no, I had absolutely no idea that it was going to end up being THIS long. When I started, I just had this vision of this character Zandra falling on her first jump and being really pissed at herself. (make any sense? Sorry) It's certainly morphed into quite an epic…