I finally managed to get back to writing after my little slump. here is chapter 14 and the stakes are rising. :-D
Chapter fourteen
The Reactor
The Celsius lands on a large square platform connected to the reactor's main building. The ship lowers its ramp and Yuna, Tidus and Paine jog off, pulse rifles in hand, and head towards the only door leading from the platform. They open the door tentatively, expecting to see something jump out in front of them, but the corridor is empty. They advance onwards, warning claxons and flashing lights fill the area. They reach a pair of large lift doors and Yuna presses the button to summon the lifts. The right lift reaches them first and the door opens, they all hop in and press the 'down' button.
"How is the metre doing?" asks Paine.
Yuna checks the little proximity metre, "It's decreasing; we're getting closer."
"Good."
They stop at the bottom of the lift shaft and the door opens up to reveal another, darker corridor. Pipes shoot out jets of steam at infrequent intervals, more of the same orangey lights flash and the claxon continues to sound out.
"Lets move a bit quicker we haven't got long," says Paine, stepping up her pace.
Yuna and Tidus follow her at a steady trot, with Yuna frequently checking the metre.
"We're getting closer."
The corridor ends and they are forced to go down several flights of stairs and walkways. They reach the bottom of the stairs, turn a corner and stop, as to their great displeasure the walls are covered in the all too familiar resin.
"I feel like we've been here before," mutters Tidus.
"No kidding," replies Paine, raising her Pulse rifle.
They advance more slowly now, ready for anything.
"Okay she's fifteen metres away from us and closing," whispers Yuna.
They continue slightly more urgently.
"Ten metres… five metres, four, three, two, one…"
She trails off as she doesn't see Rikku anywhere nearby, and yet the metre reads '0.50 metres'. She looks hesitantly at the floor and sees the transmitter. Slowly, with a shaking hand she picks it up. She collapses to her knees and starts sobbing at the realisation that she might never find her cousin in time.
Rikku, unconscious, has been stuck to the wall with the strange resin. She starts to stir and wake up. She shakes herself with the limited play that the resin is giving her and freezes. An egg, a couple of metres away from her, starts to open and her own eyes follow suit.
"Help! Someone help please! Yuna! Somebody, please!" though in her heart she knew that there was probably no one around to help her.
Yuna suddenly snaps to attention and listens intently for what she thought was the sound of Rikku's voice.
"Rikku!" she screams at the top of her voice.
She hears Rikku respond, not all too far away, "Yuna! Come quickly!"
She jumps up, almost knocking back the other two and runs blindly into the room where Rikku is trapped in; she is shortly followed by Tidus and Paine and in their haste they all fail to notice the dozens of eggs lying around the room.
The egg in front of Rikku is open and a face hugger is starting to wriggle its way out. Yuna gives it a glare and shoots it with her pistols, shredding the grotesque creature. They then jump to Rikku and start to pull the resin off of her, releasing her. She gets up a little groggily, but her face soon lights up at seeing them all and she hugs Yuna.
"Thank you for not abandoning me Yunie, I didn't want to die here."
"Its okay Rikku, we're here for you now. But we have to leave; this place is going to blow up soon enough."
As she says it an automated voice sounds out on the speakers, "Warning, reactor core will self destruct in twenty minutes."
They begin to leave when they realise their situation and look around themselves. Eggs are strewn all over the place. A creepy silence descends upon them, the only audible noises being the claxon, the hissing of steam and the sound of their own short quick breaths.
As they concentrated more on the silence they gradually became aware of a strange noise, a series of squelching noises, coming from behind them. They slowly turned around to see what looks like a fleshy tube, through the end of which appears one of the eggs.
The group begin to look from the laid egg and along the tube, which rapidly expands; it is probably a metre and a half in diameter. Then they started hearing another strange noise. To them it sounds like someone breathing through their teeth, only deeper in tone. They continue to turn until they see the source of the noise and where the tube ends. Silhouetted by a light directly behind it is an enormous black object attached to the other end of the tube, it has no discernable legs and arms; it just looks like a giant black statue. Whatever the thing is, its most striking feature is its crest, similar in shape to the praetorian's crests, except that it was a lot bigger, the top of the crest was shaped like a curvy 'W'.
The breathing noise is becoming very audible now. Slowly and gracefully its body moves, almost as if it is unfolding. Four arms and two legs very slowly start to move away from its body, the legs touch the ground and the bottom of the crest begins to rise, any discernable 'face' could not be seen because the crest was shielding it.
However, something started to creep out from underneath the bottom of the crest, they could begin to make out a chin and lower jaws, and then it came out completely. Now the whole face is visible to the friends, the enormous beast opens its mouth and gives a deep throaty hiss, bearing crystalline, razor sharp teeth as it looks at the intruders.
"Holy shit," mumbles Tidus.
"This must have been what started it all. This must be their leader, their ruler," surmises Paine.
"Their Queen," gasps Yuna.
The Queen gives out a roar and Tidus notices something move out of the corner of his eye.
"Look out there's one over here!" he points and shoots the Xenomorph and it falls from the wall in a splash of blood.
Paine hears movement from behind her and spins round to see an alien crawling towards them; she opens fire with the same result as Tidus' shots. Then the group notices some of the eggs begin to open up.
Yuna sneers, "Shoot 'em up!"
They all shoot at the eggs that are nearby and the ones that are opening, causing great distress to the Queen who tries to swipe at them with her larger pair of arms but to no avail. Once all the nearby eggs have been riddled with bullets Yuna takes out the Sunburst mine, presses a button and leaves it on the floor.
"Lets go lets get out of here now!"
They make a mad dash, retracing their steps to the way out, leaving the queen screeching furiously behind them. They round the corner and dash up the steps as fast as they can.
The Queen thrashes about, still attached to the egg tube. Gradually she tears away from her bonds to the walls and the tube. With a last jerk she frees herself completely and starts to head in the direction the group took.
The others reach the lifts, only to find that they have automatically ascended to the top of the shaft. Frustrated, Paine punches the button.
"Damn it, why is it up there? We used it to come down; we never sent it back up. Any excuse to waste more time," she hisses.
An explosion from below rocks them off their feet.
"That must have been Shinra's mine," exclaims Yuna.
"That was powerful, sometimes that boy worries me," mutters Paine.
Suddenly the Queen's screams echo somewhere down the stairs, only she sounded closer than they wanted her to be.
"Sounds like she's on her way here," huffs Tidus.
The lift is close to the bottom when they hear the signature deep hiss of the queen, and they turn to see her slowly coming round the corner. As the lift reaches the bottom and opens up, the Queen starts to move forward. Yuna, Paine and Tidus turn their guns towards her and release what ammunition they have left at the Queen, she stops moving and uses her crest to protect herself, the bullets ricochet off of her. Rikku hammers the button inside the lift to take them up and the others jump in as the queen gets close to them, At the last second the door of the lift closes just in time and the lift goes up.
Tidus breathes a sigh of relief, "Whoa that was too close. She is huge, I mean really huge."
"You don't need to tell us about it," mutters Paine.
Rikku hugs Paine and Tidus with all her strength, "Thanks you guys."
The usually inert Paine looks at Rikku, smiles and hugs her back, "It's alright; if you died then there wouldn't be anyone to be my opposite, no one to balance out the team."
"Thanks," she says and turns to Yuna, "and thank you too Yuna, it was you who persuaded them to go to, I can tell," she throws her arms around her cousin as well.
"It's alright Rikku, I wasn't going to loose you a second time, no way."
The lift reaches the top of the stairs, amongst the little explosions.
"This place is falling apart!" comments Paine.
The door of the lift opens up and they run out and stop, the Celsius is gone.
"No! Damn you Brother! How could you leave us here to die like this!" screams Rikku.
Their anger and fear is interrupted by the noise of the second lift. They rush to the metal mesh preventing them from falling down the lift and watch it slowly rise to their level. They back away from the lift shaft, knowing in their gut exactly what is inside it, and wait for the impending abomination to emerge.
They watch as the top of the lift appears, and then the rest of it. The doors open to darkness; a couple of flashes reveal the Queen crouching in the lift. The group looks on in horror as she slowly gets out of the lift and hisses at them.
"Looks like this is it then guys,"
"Not if I can help it!" says Rikku, and unclips her daggers from her belt and stands ready for a fight.
"Rikku don't fight it, the acid blood will…"
"These daggers are resistant to their acid; I killed one of those things with these earlier."
"Rikku don't," implores Yuna.
They suddenly hear the airship and they turn around to see it moving in closer with the ramp open. They look the airship and then back at the Queen.
"Well now that we have a chance, let's get out of here!" shouts Rikku.
They dash for the ramp, which floats a metre off from the edge of the platform and jump, they all land just inside of the ramp which instantly starts rising, they watch as the queen slowly slips from view as the ramp closes. They run up to the lift and use it to get up to the bridge. As they travel up the lift an explosion outside of the ship rocks the entire machine sideways.
"This place is crumbling all around us! What are you doing Brother? Get us out of here!" yells Rikku, even though Brother would not be able to hear even her yelling.
The Celsius adjusts itself away from the platform and accelerates out of the building and away from the reactor.
Yuna, Rikku, Paine and Tidus enter the bridge.
"You guys sure took your sweet time," speaks Buddy.
"Nice to see you too Buddy," says Rikku sarcastically.
Brother jumps up from his seat and spins around, "Rikku you're alive!" he gets out of his driving seat and picks up his little sister and hugs her, "I don't know what I would have done if you had died in there."
"Good to see you as well bro."
He puts Rikku down and looks at the other three.
"I don't know what to say, besides thank you."
"Anytime," they all say.
"Hey guys I hate to break up the happy reunion and all but I don't know if we're going to get out of range of the blast. Beclem how long do we have?"
Beclem is visibly sweating as he speaks "Uh thirty seconds!"
Brother jumps back into his seat, flips a few buttons and grabs holds of the handles with visible force.
"I suggest you sit down and brace yourself; it's time to put the booster Gippal installed to the test."
They all obey, even though there are not enough seats. Beclem sits down and the predator sits next to him. He eyes the predator and nods his head once, the predator returns the nod.
Brother then flips another switch and the Celsius jerks forward as her rear engines go into accelerative overdrive.
"Yehaw!" scream the two pilots.
Beclem strains to look at his watch, examining the count down timer he set earlier; it read '5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.'
The Celsius speeds through the sky away from Macalania; suddenly a dark circle consumes Macalania City and rapidly expands outwards. Seconds later brilliant white flashes erupt from the site. The familiar and extraordinarily loud noise of a gargantuan Ultima spell charging up spreads over the area, with the Celsius still in it. Beams of light shoot out from the centre of the doomed city. Then the colossal explosions, typical of Ultima, begin to thunder outwards, heralded by hundreds of circular waves of light, heading in the direction of the Celsius with great speed decreasing the gap between the spell and the Celsius.
"Uh, it's gaining on us!" shouts Buddy.
The room begins to glow green and purple from the light outside and the bridge shakes violently as the concussion waves reach the ship.
"Come on baby hold together!" fumes Brother.
The Celsius is slowly engulfed in the outer, dark, sphere of Ultima, not even the spell's powerful light can illuminate the Celsius's location. Moments pass as the light continues to expand, but is now visibly slowing down. The Celsius suddenly bursts out from the obscurity and shoots away from the destruction.
"We did it, we're gonna make it! We rule! Hahaha! I love this machine," shouts Buddy patting the controls of the airship.
The speed of the Celsius decreases and everyone is able to get up to their feet again.
"Woo Hoo! Not bad!" shrills Rikku, turning to the others, "Let's do that again."
"Later Rikku, much later," says Paine dryly.
For a while no one says anything as it has dawned on them that, despite their survival, they have lost so many and not just their comrades, the marines. The only noise apart from the Celsius's engines was the occasional click or growl from the Yautja.
"All those people, gone," mumbles Yuna, "It seems so futile, they died in order to create those creatures and now we have just destroyed them. I didn't want them to escape as much as you guys, but I can't help but feel that the people's deaths have been completely pointless."
Tidus puts a comforting hand on Yuna's shoulder, "Death has a way of making you feel that way. But we did what we had to do," She holds his hand as he wraps his arms around her.
Everyone continues the silence.
After ten minutes of silent reflection, Brother speaks.
"Hmmm that's odd. The front left engine seems to be slowly loosing power."
"Maybe the explosion got to it," suggests Buddy.
"No, I'm thinking that booster we just used did it. The Celsius has never used it before. Damn, what a ride that was. Remind me to thank Gippal later on."
"Hey look over there, it's Bevelle," Buddy points to the distant and ever magnificent city.
"Never thought I would be so happy to see that city," comments Beclem.
"I have no idea how we are going to explain all of this to Nooj, Baralai and Gippal," speaks Elma.
"Yeah there's so much to tell them."
"Well let's see what there is to tell," states Paine, pragmatically, "We went searching for survivors, got ambushed on two occasions by hundreds of monsters that were not fiends, but something completely different, and lost most of our soldiers as a consequence. Oh and to top that off, the murderers we set out to kill in the first place, are in fact aliens from outer space..." she was about to continue when the Predator interrupts her.
"Yautja," he said in his deep growling voice.
Everyone turns to it, including the pilots.
"Oh yeah I forgot to mention," pipes up Rikku "he seems to have a vague understanding of our language."
"We are Yautja."
"I, see. I think," declares Paine.
"This is gonna be a great story for the grandkids huh guys? Oh whilst we're talking. What was that thing I saw coming out of that second lift, it was enormous!"
"That was their leader. The Queen we supposed. She was laying eggs, hundreds of them, until we arrived."
"I hope you whooped ass," says Brother.
"I think we did. Too bad we ran out of ammo to whoop her arse with," replies Tidus
"I had my daggers, I recon I could have taken her!" pouts Rikku.
"Acid resistant weapons or not I very much doubt that," mutters Paine.
The predator points at Rikku, "Strong and honourable warrior."
He walks up the steps that leads to the entrance of the bridge and picks up one of the Praetorian heads. He walks up to Rikku and holds it out for her, she takes it.
"Thanks," she turns to the others, "Do any of you guys know where this one came from?"
"Well he was holding onto one of them after he managed to find us at the Celsius, and at that point in time we were about to get attacked by the owner of that second head. It looked like a smaller version of that Queen and I gotta tell you he wiped the floor with it, it was quite impressive," declares Tidus.
Rikku looks at the Predator, "Thanks for saving them," he clicks a few times and bows his head.
They all turn to the window of the Celsius and watch as Buddy and Brother manoeuvre it around one of the buildings. One of the hangar doors opens and they carefully move in. The pilots settle the Celsius on the ground and shut off her engines. They begin to head for the exit when a concerned expression crosses Rikku's face and she looks at the Predator.
"Hang on guys. What about him? He can't just waltz out there and expect to receive the same attention as the rest of us. He's killed a fair few people and Gippal would love to have a chance to take a shot at him."
"Well how about he stays here for now and we don't tell anyone he's here? We can sort out Nooj Baralai and Gippal, get them out of the way then come back here and deal with him from there."
"Sounds okay, I guess," she turns to the predator, "We need you to stay here for a while, just until we get back okay?"
He understood what both Rikku and Yuna said and so he nods in agreement.
"Alright, let's go."
Sorry Ikon, you're thirst for Rikku's blood will have to wait.
