ChirikoFan – Spider? Hahaha. I know the aliens are sometimes referred to as bugs, but spiders? I'd hate to have that kind of spider lurking around under my bed. Hehehe.
Linilya Elf – Sequel…sequel…gotta get to work on that sequel.
A/N – Sorry for the delay. I've been so busy at work I forgot to upload the chapters for the last couple of weeks to the site. So here's two at once.
Chapter 14 – Pursuit
Gateway Station
The white light faded, revealing a Man and a Dwarf, both shocked and surprised. Aragorn dropped the metal item he had been holding before the white light had swallowed them and he quickly drew his broadsword.
Gimli grunted and retrieved his axe from his back. "I have the impression that we are no longer in Mirkwood."
"It appears that way, Gimli. But where is here?" asked Aragorn with curiosity. Everything around him was strange. The room was white, much like those in Minas Tirith, but none of the furnishings were familiar. Aside from that, there were bodies of men and women tossed about, some dismembered. Fires had broken out in various places as was evidenced by charred walls. The Man and Dwarf knew nothing of the equipment in the room. They knew nothing of the translocator platform and its functions or the large computer system that made it operate. No such equipment existed in Middle Earth. Having experienced many strange things in their battles, the two accepted this as another challenge and cautiously walked around the room, inspecting the bodies for signs of life.
Everyone was dead.
Aragorn walked up to something hanging on a wall. As he neared it, the wall beside him slid open. He exchanged glances with Gimli.
"A way out?" asked Gimli.
"If there is a way in, then there surely must be a way out," stated Aragorn, even though he was well aware that they had not entered through any door.
They exited Lab B and headed down a long corridor. At an intersection, they glanced ahead and to the left and right.
"Which way?" asked Gimli in confusion. "The passages all look alike."
"Let us try the left one." Aragorn took his sword and scratched the tree symbol of Gondor on the corner wall. "I will leave these marks along the way so we can find our way back, if need be."
The two took the left corridor. They went about halfway when a sound from behind made them turn abruptly. At the intersection they had just left, an alien rounded the corner and hissed furiously.
Gimli's eyes widened. "Ach, it's one of those hideous creatures!"
Aragorn clenched his teeth and looked at his sword. One swipe and it would melt away, leaving him completely defenseless. He looked up as the alien started toward them. "Run!" Aragorn pushed Gimli ahead of him and they dashed down the corridor, a teeth-gnashing alien on their heels.
Middle-Earth – Mirkwood
Arwen stared at the spot where Aragorn and Gimli had vanished. Her heart pounded in her chest and she turned and ran along the path back to Thranduil's caverns. Along the way she ran into the elderly woman who had placed things at the foot of Ariedel's statue. Arwen pulled the woman to a stop. "Who are you?" she demanded.
Startled, Alma replied quickly. "I am Alma. I was Lady Ariedel's handmaiden."
"What were you doing at her statue?" Arwen wondered if the elderly woman was a sorceress with ill intentions in mind.
"I was placing things there."
"What things?"
Alma shook her head in confusion. "Just several things that belonged to her. Although there was a strange metal object that I did not know. She had it with her the day we found her after she had fallen from her horse many months ago. I had kept it in my room and meant to ask her about it, but in the excitement of the wedding and all, I had completely forgotten about it."
"What kind of object?" asked Arwen, frantically trying to understand what could have caused Aragorn and Gimli to vanish.
"I do not know, my lady. As I said, I had never seen it before the day she had injured herself. I assumed it was something she had picked up on her travels."
Arwen released the nervous handmaiden and continued down the path to the bridge. The guards at the Great Gates didn't stop her as she ran through and continued on down the corridors. She found Thranduil and Lord Elrond, her father, seated at a table in Thranduil's Hall. The two turned at her approach.
Elrond stood up, noticing the frantic look on his daughter's face. "Arwen, man ha lin?" (what is it, Arwen?)
"Aragorn is gone!"
Thranduil stood up as well. "Gone? Gone where?"
"I know not where. One moment he was standing in front of Ariedel's statue with Gimli and the next they were both gone. They vanished in a flash of bright light."
Thranduil turned to Elrond. "The work of a wizard," stated Thranduil. The Elf king moved toward the doors and called out for his guards. Four armored Elves rushed into the hall. "Find Gandalf and bring him here!" ordered the king.
The Elf guards rushed out in search of the white wizard.
Gateway Station
(Legolas's POV)
"Where is the horde mainly located?" I asked Bishop as we ran down along the tracks of the tram, Ariedel close at our heels.
"They're in the Arboretum. It's the only place on the station that has a constant tropical climate. The aliens love heat. Plus it's big enough for them to create their resin walls where they encase the hosts. Luckily the Arboretum is on the opposite side to where we need to go. There'll be a larger concentration of aliens in and around that place and we need to avoid it."
I was beginning to find it difficult to concentrate. The queen kept taunting me. She kept projecting images to me. I could see her drones searching for me…for us. And someone else…I stopped running and looked down, trying to clear the image that was scrambled in my head. I was vaguely aware that Ariedel and Bishop had also stopped and walked back to me.
"Legolas, what's wrong?" asked Ariedel.
The image began to clear. Two men were being pursued. I squeezed my eyes shut and reached out to sense my surroundings. Something familiar about the man…someone familiar. And then it came to me. "Aragorn…"
"Aragorn?" repeated Ariedel.
I opened my eyes and glanced around. How was it possible that I could sense the ranger here, on this station far from Middle earth? More importantly, I had seen the image of what one of the creatures was seeing. It was pursuing Aragorn…and Gimli. "Aragorn and Gimli are here."
"What? That's impossible, Legolas. How could they have gotten here?"
"I know not how, Ariedel. But they are here. I can sense them."
Bishop looked on in confusion. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but who're Aragorn and Gimli?"
Ariedel ignored Bishop. "What're we going to do? We've only got two hours and eight minutes before the marines arrive and blow the station up. It takes at least forty-five minutes to program the translocator for SR-682."
In my mind's eye I kept seeing the image of Aragorn and Gimli being pursued. "They are being pursued. We must find them." I turned to Bishop. "How can I find their location?"
Bishop motioned with his head and hopped up onto the platform. Ariedel and I quickly followed him. We went down a short corridor and entered a room. Bishop sat in front of various pieces of machinery, including one that looked like the telemonitor that I had enjoyed viewing on Earth. He began pressing small squares with letters on them and the telemonitor screen came to life. The image changed every few seconds, revealing some part of the station.
"There!" I yelled, seeing a view of Aragorn and Gimli rushing into a room. Aragorn glanced around, realizing he was trapped. He whirled around and raised his sword. Up ahead and coming fast down the corridor was one of the creatures.
"Computer, seal door in compartment 36K, main level," said Bishop.
I watched the image and the door slid closed, followed by a loud thud as the creature struck it from the other side. "How do I get to this compartment?" I asked, pointing to the image.
"It's not far. It's actually just beyond Lab B," stated Bishop.
"I don't get it. How could they be here?" asked Ariedel.
We jumped back down to the tracks and kept running for another ten minutes. Finally Bishop jumped up onto another platform. "It's this way."
After running through a series of corridors, I stopped in my tracks at something on the wall. The white tree of Gondor was scratched on it. "Aragorn passed through here." I followed Bishop and Ariedel down the corridor and into a chamber full of mutilated men and women.
"Holy shit, oh Jesus," said Ariedel, covering her mouth.
Bishop went around to check for survivors, but I could sense no life in this room. They were all dead.
Ariedel was on the verge of tears. "Bishop, what's going on? I thought the aliens didn't kill when a queen is present? They should have taken these people as hosts."
"I can't explain it. It must be some new behavior we're not aware of."
Ariedel spotted something on the floor near a silver platform. She stepped over to it and picked it up. "It's my Transmutator. The one I had with me when I arrived in Middle Earth. It has my initials on the barcode. I thought I lost it." Then she looked up at me. "Aragorn and Gimli must have found it and accidentally pushed the return button. That's how they got here."
Despite the fact that I still did not understand the mechanics of this Transmutator she kept referring to, at least it explained Aragorn and Gimli's presence in the station. "Ariedel, do whatever it is you need to do here and I will search for Aragorn and Gimli."
Ariedel grabbed my arm before I could address Bishop. "No, Legolas. Bishop can go."
"Sure," replied Bishop with an indifferent shrug of his shoulder. "I can find them for you."
I turned to Ariedel. "And Aragorn will take off his head before he can utter a word. You do not know the king of Gondor as I do." Ariedel released my arm. She knew I was not embellishing Aragorn's erratic behavior when the ranger was running scared. I imagined the combination of the strange surroundings and the appearance of the alien were creating havoc in Aragorn's mind.
Bishop stepped up. "If you're going to go, you better hurry. The US Colonial Marines will be here in less than two hours, give or take ten or fifteen minutes. Compartment 36K is down the corridor, turn left at the intersection, then right and right again."
Ariedel grabbed my arm before I could turn away and she threw her arms around my neck to kiss me fiercely on the lips. "Please be careful."
"I will." I looked up at Bishop. "Bishop, seal this doorway and do not open it unless it is I." I pulled away from Ariedel and stepped through the doorway, turning to make sure that it closed behind me.
Gateway Station
(Ariedel's POV)
I watched Legolas disappear through the doorway and the door sealed behind him. Something nagged at me like something terrible was going to happen. I shook my head to clear the cobwebs and rushed over to the computer, steering clear of the bodies scattered around.
Bishop ripped open the door of a locked compartment and retrieved a translocator on the shelf. Then he walked over and sat down at the keyboard, handing the translocator to me. He began to type swiftly and the images on the screen changed to a list. The list scrolled rapidly and then paused on the reference for SR-682 as it flashed.
"Where shall I program the drop point to be?"
I nervously tapped my foot, trying to think clearly. My thoughts kept drifting to Legolas and the possibility that he would be overwhelmed by the odds. Nearly two thousand aliens against him. What if that crazy alien queen sent her entire horde after him? He didn't have enough arrows in his quiver to handle all of them. Why the hell didn't I give him a blaster before he left? Shit!
"Miss Schuyler…where on the planet do you want me to program the drop off point?"
"Oh…uh…" I closed my eyes to think. Gondor…Anfalas…Lothlorien. Where? Then I thought about Legolas's father, thinking that the poor Elf king was probably distraught over losing his son. Where was Legolas from again? Mirkland? Mirkshore? "Mirkwood!" Not that the name mattered much to Bishop or the computer. The database didn't contain the names of locations on the planet as they were known to the occupants. That's why the computer recognized the planet as SR-682 and not Arda. "Shit, Bishop, I don't know." When Bishop punched some more keys and a map popped up on the screen, I stared at it intensely. Finally I pointed to what looked like Mirkwood, in the forest near the river. "Here it is."
Bishop continued to type on the keyboard. "Bar code on the device."
I looked down at the device in my hand and turned it over to the bar code. "Uh…it's 974 dash HJLFH dash 0000567945 dash 799."
More typing. "Okay. It's programming. It'll take approximately thirty minutes."
"Goddamn, we're cutting it close. Is there any way to communicate with the USCMs? Can't we tell them we're here before they blow up the station?"
"Their ship is in hyperdrive and we can't communicate with them until they come out of hyperdrive. They'll reach Pluto by that time and the ship's computer won't even need to wake up the crew to do the job. It's all programmed."
"Shit," I said through gritted teeth. I started to pace nervously, biting my thumbnail. "Bishop, put Legolas on screen, please."
"I can't. The computer's programming the translocator."
Just then there was a sound coming from the ceiling. I looked up just as several aliens crashed through. Before I had a chance to raise my blaster, one of them slashed it out of my hand. Another swipe and everything went dark.
Gateway Station
Aragorn walked around the room for the hundredth time, looking for anything that could be used as a weapon. The pounding on the other side of the door panel had not stopped ever since he and Gimli had found themselves trapped.
"Aragorn, they will be breaking through this door in a matter of moments," stated Gimli. It was the obvious.
Aragorn turned to stare at the door, at the way the metal was beginning to cave from the continuous bashing of multiple alien heads. There was no other way out. They would have to make a last stand, their only weapons a sword and an ax. "Do not strike them until they enter the room. We may be able to escape behind them."
Gimli nodded beside Aragorn and held his ax ready. "Let them come."
The pounding continued until one finally broke through the metal door. The alien inserted four fingers into the opening and with powerful skeletal hands ripped the door completely from its frame. After tossing it aside, it turned to the occupants in the room and hissed in triumph. More hosts…
Aragorn and Gimli prepared themselves. There were two others behind the one who had taken the door off. Just then an arrow pierced the head of one, followed rapidly by two other arrows, killing the second creature.
The alien in front turned at the sounds of his squealing brethren and received two consecutive arrows in the face. It collapsed at Aragorn's feet.
Aragorn stared at it briefly before looking up to find Legolas running toward the threshold. "Legolas," he uttered in shock.
Legolas stopped on the other side of the fallen bodies of the aliens and kicked them out of the way. "Aragorn, Gimli."
Aragorn rushed over and grasped the Elf in a firm embrace. "I thought you were dead."
"I nearly was," replied Legolas. Then he turned to Gimli and they exchanged a greeting.
"Tis good to see you alive, lad," said Gimli with a cheerful laugh.
Aragorn made note of the scar on the left side of Legolas's forehead. He thought that if it was in this state now, with the healing powers of the Elves, the wound must have been deep when it had been inflicted. Then he smiled at Legolas's weapon. "What is this contraption?"
"It is called a pump action crossbow." Legolas demonstrated how the arrows loaded. But he knew they did not have much time. "Come, we must go."
Aragorn and Gimli followed behind Legolas as they maneuvered around the dead aliens, trying to avoid the acid blood that spilled from their wounds.
"Legolas, where are we? What is this place?" asked Aragorn.
Before Legolas could explain, they were accosted by more aliens. Legolas dispatched them easily, their squeals of pain echoing loudly through the corridors. They ran into many more along the way back to Lab B.
Not having an adequate weapon to fight against them, Aragorn and Gimli felt helpless and remained behind Legolas. He had no problems killing whatever aliens threatened them. He still had thirteen arrows in his crossbow and fifty more in his quiver.
They kept running, even when he would occasionally turn around to shoot one or two aliens that suddenly popped out of nowhere and pursued them. He never missed a target, no matter how fast it was moving or how far away it was.
Aragorn looked around at the establishment in wonder, the structure made entirely of materials he was unfamiliar with. He followed Legolas without question for the Elf seemed to know where they needed to go.
Moments later they were passing the corridor where Aragorn had scratched the symbol of Gondor on the corner wall.
"This is where we came, Legolas. Why do we go back there?"
"Ariedel awaits us."
He looked surprised. "Ariedel? She is also here?"
"Aragorn, there will be time to explain. We cannot dally any longer."
Gimli simply shrugged when Aragorn turned to him. "Tis best we follow, Aragorn. The Elf will answer our questions soon enough. I am certain we will not be able to shut him up when that time comes."
Aragorn smiled and followed Legolas down the corridor. The door at the end did not slide open as he had seen so many other doors do in this place.
Legolas pounded on the door. "Bishop, open the door." When there was no response, Legolas suddenly realized something was wrong. He extended his senses beyond the door, feeling for his wife. His eyes narrowed when he did not feel Ariedel. He pounded again. "Bishop!"
Aragorn looked at Legolas in confusion. "What is it, Legolas? Who's Bishop?"
Legolas pushed Aragorn out of the way as he backed up and aimed his crossbow at a small panel to the left of the door. The arrow struck it and sparks flew. Legolas went back to the door panel, slid his fingers into the frame and pushed the door open with his extraordinary Elven strength. "Ariedel!" he yelled as he rushed into the room.
Bodies were still scattered around on the floor, but luckily none were Ariedel. Then Legolas walked around several large pieces of equipment before he found Bishop. The android was missing his right arm and left leg, milky white fluid pouring from the stumps. His head was nearly severed from his neck and more white fluid leaked from his mouth. Legolas was surprised to find Bishop was still alive.
Bishop looked up as the Elf approached. "I know…what you're thinking. I've looked… better…right?"
Legolas did not understand the android's humor. "Bishop, what happened?" he asked as he crouched near him.
"They came…from the ceiling," said the android, his voice sounding more mechanical and broken. "I…tried to stop them. There were…too many."
Legolas swallowed hard, trying to control the sudden rapid beating of his heart. "Ariedel…"
"They took her."
Legolas glanced down at the floor for a moment, his eyes widening and his mind opening to communicate with the queen. She was excited that she had something he cherished. She beckoned to him…Come and save her, if you dare, she said. Legolas clenched his teeth in a sudden rage he could not seem to control. He stood up with a furious growl and went around the room, collecting blasters that were tossed about.
Aragorn and Gimli stared at the dismembered man, his blood the color of milk. Both of them were not sure of what to make of him. Orcs had green blood. So it was possible that there were people that did not have red blood.
Without a word to anyone, after Legolas collected everything he needed, he rushed out of the room.
Aragorn had never seen his friend show such anger. He was about to run after him.
"Wait," said Bishop. "Take the translocator. On the table here."
Aragorn reached for the device. It looked similar to the one he had found at the foot of Ariedel's statue.
"It's still being programmed," continued Bishop. "When the green light comes on, it'll be ready for use."
Aragorn did not know what the strange being was telling him, but he put the device in a pouch at his belt and slapped Gimli on the shoulder. "Come, Gimli."
The Man and Dwarf rushed out of the room to follow their Elf friend.
Bishop swallowed hard, fluid still leaking from his lips. He reached into his android brain to the chronometer there. The US Colonial Marine ship would be arriving in one hour and seven minutes. He hoped that the others would make it off the station alive.