Chapter 27
The shuttle was slow, and silent as it rose toward the ship. Perhaps the speed was a result of the tension that seemed to hang over the team. There were two rooms, the cargo hold, and the bridge. Not much, a large window above a single screen, it barely had three buttons. Foolproof. Trilby sat watching out the front. The others sat on low benches, white walls plain and simple, the only door was the big one at the back of the cargo hold. White was a recurring theme, a ubiquitous colour, seemed to colour the irony. The contrast between the walls and the experiments, Yellow, red, two light blue and one dark. There was silence but they seemed to share a thought, purpose and resolve. The only simple difference between them. Was the way they saw it being achieved.
The ship above them seemed to swallow the shuttle. The huge monster devouring the fly. The cargo bay was large, it was similar to the one they had entered through before, save for the debris. Where there had been capsules and cages there was empty space. That was bad sign.
"Get ready," Trilby whispered, leaning through the door between the two rooms, they crouched ready to pounce like colourful cats. Peeking through the window in front, Trilby counted 8 guards. None of them looked particularly interested. They would be soon. They were all different sizes. Some were big some were small, different alien races no doubt. All dressed in the classic white, they were bulky, strong. In the wide open space of the bay there would be no subtlety. He relayed his observations with the experiments in the cargo hold.
"Soooooo we just jump out and hope for the best," Slushy said sarcastically. Trilby smiled, what a sense of humour at a time like this.
"No, Slushy I want you to do the same thing you did last time, freeze them once they are wet." He looked at Yin who nodded. "Good, you know the drill." When you take out the guards the alarm will be raised. You need to get to the laboratory with the ship- wide controls, I will guide you from here."
There was a knocking at the door, at the back of the cargo hold. Then a distinctively slimy voice.
"Hello? *Slurp… anyone in there?"
"Ok time to shine, save your cousins." With that he hit the open command in the front. The door lowered to reveal a small guard in white. When he saw the group he stood deathly still. He wiped his visor.
"Oh…" Yang hit him in the face with a ball of lava. The force of the hit sending into the wall. Yin and Slushy leapt out the shuttle. In their way stood 7 other bulky guards.
"Sparky the guns," he flew at unrivalled speed from gun to gun, frying the interior. Yin proceeded to soak the guards while Slushy froze them. Red lights began to circle above them. The large circualr door command turned red. Trilby sat in the cargo hold of the shuttle, he closed the door. Over the headsets he said.
"That is the alarm, they are probably playing that sonic wave as well. Don't touch your headset. Yang melt that locked door." So he did. With explosive glee. A large ball, compact and superheated. Collided with the door. It melted leaving liquefied idiorite; alien metal with the texture of plastic and the strength of steel, in its wake. Slushy cooled the bubbling metal before leaping through the hole in the door. All down the hall red lights flashed, the white walls appeared a lot more intimidating with its red hue. Guards rushed from all sides. The corridors were a complex of straight lines leading into each other. From every opening, every junction in the corridor rushed guards of every mentionable shape and size. They were disorganized however, they pushed they shoved, each one vying to be the one to catch the experiments. The experiments themselves were rushing down corridors, turning into identical looking corridors. Turning and turning, almost in circles. They were small agile, they rushed past door after door. Most doors were red- the locked symbol. Some were green and regurgitating soldiers. The sporadic changes, the meandering pathways served to the experiment's advantage. Trilby's voice, the guardian angel guiding the team through the mess of corridors. Trilby tried to outsmart the mercenaries by constantly changing their path and it worked for the most part. Yang took the lead, taking out the stray guards, who lay in their path. Trilby continued to guide them through the hellish red corridors to an impressively large red door.
"That door is the laboratory you need to enter. Yang, if you please," The door was molecules in seconds. "You will have to be quick now, Sparky get inside the massive supercomputer at the far end of the laboratory. Try and bypass the firewalls and look for the password to the ships internal mainframe. Yin, yang and Slushy slow down everyone else. Once we have the password we can escape the laboratory using the vents." The laboratory was huge 100 metres wall to wall and had every manner of vile liquid and noxious fume, tables organized in such a way that you could easily get lost in the sprawling mass. Bottles of toxic bubbling liquid were perched precariously on work stations, that were themselves covered in similar liquids that seemed to be sentient, bubbling, fuming flowing in impossible ways. Sparky upended countless questionable substances upon tables, floors and the unfortunate inhabitants of the room. Small aliens, clad in flowing grey hazmat suits of some kind, large gas tanks and masks enveloped their faces and goggles that seemed complicated enough to program NASA. Sparky paid them no attention as he passed them by. They cowered behind their work stations like rabbits to a fox. It was clear what supercomputer Trilby was referring to. Factoring in the coolant that was linked to the computer with complicated pipes: It took up a large chunk of the rooms space, which was likely the reason the other end was so convoluted with equipment. Sparky, hovered for a second in front of the main panel. It was magnificent. Sparky was built to short circuit equipment and to him this was like a huge lollipop. He allowed himself to savour the implication before diving into the panel. He felt the headset slip off his head: He couldn't take objects into electrical equipment but he couldn't hear anything while inside. He hovered in the electrical limbo, around him wires like chains swarmed, flowed, code in long lines that seemed to have neither a beginning nor end. It was like swimming. A normal computer was like a puddle, but this monstrosity it was like an ocean. Chains swarmed in confusing convoluted patterns. He needed to find the chain that contained the password, and for that he needed to go deeper, past the firewalls. This was going to take a while.
Outside, the three remaining experiments were standing in the doorway trying to slow the onrush of fanatical mercenaries.
"Now listen, I have a plan to slow them down. Yin flood the corridors, give it everything you've got." Yin, who could contain gallons upon gallons at any one time emptied it out into the corridors. It flowed like a tidal wave down the corridors following the lines down junctions and corners. The guards were mildly inconvenienced by the wave itself but they were drenched by its volume. They laughed at its mild effect shrugging off the wave. Trilby didn't need to give the next order. Slushy bent low as the wave roared down the corridors. He lifted his hands rubbing them together. The air seemed to freeze over, the temperature dropping and dropping. Below 0, below -100, below that. He slapped the water then the clod spreading along the water tendrils. The water froze instantaneously. The cold followed the water, down corridors up the legs of guards and into the cracks in their armour. The soldiers, whom had been charging carelessly, recklessly down toward them was stopped, frozen in place in a second. They remained in that state, and remained. A delay of powerful proportions.
"That's it," Panted Yin, "I'm all out,"
"You've done great Yin, get to the computer and hold out, make a barricade and wait for Sparky to return. Yang cover the door from behind it." They leapt over tables and chairs, knocking over more glass that crashed spreading noxious liquid everywhere. It possibly would have burned the experiments were they not completely heatproof, save for Slushy, who rode on Yang's back, as he splashed through plasma, coolant, and many other indistinguishable forms of liquid. As they neared the supercomputer, a small alien leapt out from behind a table and swung at Yang with a spanner. He looked terrified, especially when Yang shrugged the hit off. He grinned maliciously showing his array of sharp teeth. The alien ran squealing away into the depths of the room.
"Amateur," They reached the computer and proceeded to empty tables of their contents. The floor became an even bigger mess. Liquids had started to flow into each other with dramatic reactions. Explosions resonated around the room. Large plumes of gas imploded rising to the ceiling to pool in large clouds. The room grew dark and smoky, they could barely see. Infrared sensors kicked in. Yang, being the only one with the ability to delay the enemy now, peeked over one of the tables. Big red outlines had started to appear at the door. He plugged his ears and fired. Boiling pools of lava collided with the door. The outlines seemed to scurry off, but they kept coming back. He fired again and again with mixed results. Several made it through the door and were crawling through the mess. Some were dispatched by violent chemical reactions on the floor as others fell to the rain of lava. Others slipped past, but not many, and not quickly. The delay was working, but it was just that- a delay. Where was Sparky? He has to finish soon or the people in the corridor will thaw, if they hadn't already. Then they would be trapped.