When he woke up, a bit disoriented and surrounded by darkness and unfamiliar shapes, Slade took a deep breath and tried to regain his bearings. The last thing he remembered was trying to save Saber from Balzac. The bastard had shot him with something, and then everything had gone black. It had to have been some kind of knock-out drops, or a stun-gun or something like that.
He wasn't particularly happy about that, and when he got his hands on Balzac he was going to do things to him that would make even Saber sit back and gape... but, first he was going to have to get his bearings again. And for that, he needed to know where he stood.
(Saber? You still with me, brother?)
(Yeah, I'm here,) Saber said, though his younger twin sounded a bit more cranky than he'd have thought he would; even in this kind of a fix. (I feel like someone dropped a safe on my stomach, or like I just got trampled by a horse, though. So I'm not quite at my best right now. How're you doing, brother?)
(About the same,) he said, pausing for a second to take stock of himself. (Though not about the trampling part.)
Probably something else that could be blamed on Balzac; that bastard had a lot to answer for. Opening his eyes once he was sure that there was no one close enough to see that he'd already woken up. He didn't know what they'd do to him if they realized that, and frankly he didn't want to find out. The sense of motion had alerted Slade to the fact that he and Saber were most likely onboard one of the AEM's transports; he didn't think they were being flown in, both since aerial transports were more vulnerable to Spider-crab attacks, and because he was familiar with the sounds that large vehicles made when they were in motion.
True, he'd never ridden in anything this big before, but the sounds of the motor and the feel of the road going by under the wheels was nearly the same as all the other times he'd spent in vehicles like this. Looking around the interior of the transport, Slade quickly caught sight of Saber. His younger twin was sitting up on the bed just beside the one Slade himself had been laid out on, and he was gingerly touching his left flank in the way Slade could remember doing when he had had bruises and he hadn't quite known where they were. Not wanting to disturb his brother while he was working at such a delicate task, Slade just watched and waited.
And hated Balzac all the more for what he'd done.
(Are you finished now, Saber?) Slade asked, as he saw his younger twin settling back down on the hard pallet just like the one he'd awakened on.
(Yeah, I'm done. Still annoyed about the handcuffs, though.)
And it was only then, after having Saber draw his attention to them so bluntly, that Slade really took note of the cuffs binding his wrists. (And here I thought you training yourself to escape from handcuffs back when we were kids was just something you did to show off. Makes me kind of wish I'd paid better attention to what you were doing back then.)
(Well, they always say that hindsight's 20/20,) Saber said, studying his own restrained wrists for a few, long moments. (Still, I don't think it would be a great idea for me to try breaking us out of here.)
He was just about to ask what Saber had meant by that, when he heard the sounds of muffled footsteps coming toward them. Or maybe it was back to them, since the two of them had to have been loaded into this transport by someone, but either way there were people coming, and it was just best if no one knew they'd recovered. With barely a look to Saber, since it was obvious that his younger twin already knew what was coming, Slade lay back down on the not-particularly-comfortable pallet that he'd found himself on when he regained consciousness.
Forcing himself to relax, not the easiest thing to do when he was surrounded by potential enemies and almost helpless to fight back, the way he was at the moment, but knowing it was best that none of them knew that he and Saber weren't quite as out as they'd looked, Slade closed his eyes and focused on what he heard. Just because he'd been deprived of one of his senses, that didn't mean that he was entirely helpless. It just meant that he would have to be a lot more attentive to what he heard while the soldiers were working.
He and Saber hadn't had time to make any plans for escaping, not even the most tentative ones, before the soldiers had come back into the transport and they'd had to lay low, but he knew his brother well enough to know what Saber would have suggested if he'd been able to. He even agreed with it: wait until the soldiers inside the transport were sure that they were out, then jump them, knock them unconscious, and then Saber would fly the two of them out of here.
Balzac had probably reported that Saber didn't need anything like Pegas to transform, so Slade could at least hope that none of the solders would be too interested in how his younger twin still managed to transform when Pegas wasn't nearby.
As he began to hear the soldiers talking around him, Slade wished for a few seconds that he could talk to Saber about what they were going to do when they got back to the Command Center, but he knew that it was obvious when he and Saber used their telepathy. Commander Jamison had told him that he'd been able to see the light on Saber's forehead, the one that Slade himself had always seen when he and Saber would use their telepathy when they were within each other's line-of-sight. He'd thought it was something only he could see, some other artifact of the transformation that was only visible to other Teknomen, but now that he knew that Commander Jamison had seen it, he wasn't willing to risk any of the AEM soldiers seeing it.
Forcing himself not to react as one of the soldiers lifted up his right hand, Slade relaxed his face as he felt the soldier's thumb moving over the back of his hand. He didn't know what was happening, and he couldn't risk opening his eyes to see anything without giving away the fact that he was still awake to notice what was happening to him, so Slade forced himself to relax.
"You know, Teknoman, I don't know how you managed to shake off the effects of that tranquilizer that the Major dosed you with," the soldier said, and Slade couldn't quite stop himself from tensing as he felt a sharp pinch in the back of his hand. "But I have to thank you for being so cooperative."
The feeling of what was obviously a needle sticking into his hand brought Slade's attention squarely to the fact that he shouldn't have been so concerned with tricking the soldiers. He should have told Saber to break out of those handcuffs and then the two of them should have gotten as far away from this transport as they could. But now, he didn't even know if Saber was still awake to hear him if he called, and he was already starting to feel tired and disoriented from the injection he'd just been given.
"This dose is twice as strong as the last one, so don't think you're going to be getting up so quickly this time."
As Slade felt himself slipping into unconsciousness again, he could only hope that Saber would at least be all right; he doubted that they would be kind enough to keep him and Saber together the way they were here.
1001001000
Standing in front of the pupation-chamber that Sam, Shara, and the other surviving Teknomen had been transferred to - most likely while he had been recovering from the damage that Ness had inflicted on him - Spear sighed. He didn't know what he was going to do about Ness and Cain; they seemed determined to stay back on Earth, refusing to return to their proper place. Refusing to come back so that the three of them could all be a family again.
He knew that it was the fault of their late father, that it was because of him that two of Spear's younger siblings refused to return to their proper places in the cosmos. The trouble was that he didn't know what he was going to be able to do about that; Lord Darkon was not going to be so lenient with him if he didn't start showing some positive results soon. He would have to start being more ruthless, to show Ness and Cain just what it meant to betray their family for complete strangers the way they had done.
He just hoped that he wouldn't be required to do too much to them; misguided or not, traitors or not, Ness and Cain were still his younger brothers.
Forcing those dark thoughts out of his mind with a bit of mental exertion, Spear turned his attention to the remaining members of his family. Sam was nearly finished, his baby brother having merely been placed in a state of suspended animation while the few remaining alterations were carried out, but it was Shara that he was more concerned about at this point. There was still something off, something that seemed unfinished, about her.
He didn't know what to make of it, and it was honestly starting to worry him a bit.
(Spear. Is there something troubling you?)
(Yes,) he admitted, having the feeling that his Lord wanted to ask him something, and grateful for the consideration he was being shown. (I don't know if you'd be able to do anything about it, but I'm worried about Shara,) he said, reaching out to gently caress the teknopod that held his only sister. (I can't seem to get any sense of her; not like I have of the others, but it doesn't quite feel like she's trying to block me out, either. I'm... I'm just confused. I don't know what I can do for her.)
(Be patient, then,) Lord Darkon said firmly. (Things will work out, or they will not. Now, as to why I contacted you: the humans seem to have deployed some new weaponry. You are to report to the Space Ring and assess it. If the situation seems favorable to you, you are to destroy this new weaponry. I will not have the humans gaining any further advantages in this war.)
(Of course, Lord Darkon,) he said, inclining his head in a subtle bow. (As you say: we can't let the humans gain any other advantages.)
Advantages that they had most likely gained from Ness and Cain's collusion; he hated that fact, knowing that his own younger brothers had betrayed Lord Darkon's cause and abandoned their true place in the universe, but hating it would not make it any less true. The twins might have originally been forced to leave by their late father, but Spear had seen the defiant expressions on their faces when he had first come to retrieve them. It would not be an easy thing, getting his younger brothers to give up whatever absurd ideas of rebellion that the humans had most likely planted in their heads, but if Ness and Cain were to survive in the new world that Lord Darkon would create, then it would have to be done.
Leaving the sanctuary of Lord Darkon's vessel, Spear called his mount to his side with a mental effort and continued on his way. He'd been transformed when he came out of his teknopod, after he'd been healed after Ness had fired a Tekno-bolt at him. He still couldn't understand why one of his own younger brothers would do something so cruel, but he was determined to find out.
Likely enough, it had something to do with those humans who had captured them, though he doubted the woman was responsible; she didn't seem like the sort, and the fact that she had been so willing to put herself at potential risk to protect Cain said a great deal about her character. He would have been hesitant to attack the ship where his brother was sleeping, yes, but the woman would have had no way of knowing that. So, under the circumstances, Spear could respect the human woman's courage.
Standing on the back of his mount, Spear guided the creature out of Lord Darkon's ship with a combination of subtle mental nudges and slight repositioning of his feet. From the tone of Lord Darkon's mental voice, it seemed as if the Warlord wished for him to remain on the Space Ring, at least until he was recalled. It made sense, he supposed; there was no real way to know how long he would be required to stay on the Space Ring, how many of the humans' new weapons that he would need to deal with before his mission was complete.
Leaving the weaker gravitational influence of the Moon, Spear barely spared a thought as he slid down into the Earth's gravity-well. Using his own thrusters, Spear broke away from his original trajectory and flew toward one of the nearby airlocks. He was pleased to have found one so close, and as he made for the airlock so that he could reverse his transformation and rest from his journey, Spear spared a thought for his younger brothers.
He hoped they were doing all right.
1100101001
Waking up after being forcibly sedated twice in what seemed like a short time wasn't Saber's idea of fun, but as he listened to what was going on around him, he realized that that wasn't quite the end of his troubles. There were people around him, and some of the smells wafting toward his nose he could recognize from his stays in the Space Knights' infirmary; so he at least had some idea where he was at the moment. Not that it was likely to do him much good at the moment.
"You can stop pretending to be asleep now, Saber," said a smug voice, one that he wasn't at all happy to hear. "We all know you're awake; I heard your breathing change a few minutes ago. Your recovery-time is very impressive, I have to say. That was almost as long as a normal person would have taken to recover, and that was two and a half times the amount that any normal person would have been exposed to. You really are quite incredible."
"So I've been told," he said, opening his eyes at last.
Sure enough, there was General Gault, looking down on him in a sad, pathetic attempt to be paternal. Given the way Saber felt about the man, and all that he'd just been through at the hands of one of the bastard General's underlings, the attempt fell about as flat as an Origami cube that'd just had a bowling ball dropped on it. When Gault leaned over, reaching out like he was going to touch Saber's face or something weird like that, Saber moved his head so that he was just out of the bastard General's reach.
He didn't quite manage to keep the bastard from touching him, but at least Saber could say that he hadn't been entirely passive; if he was going to be confined to this hellhole for an indeterminate amount of time, while the Commander and his and Slade's fellow Space Knights worked to get them out of the clutches of General Jackass and his hired goons, Saber would take what victories he could get.
"Where's my brother?" he asked, sitting up once Gault stood back far enough that he could do so without smacking his head against the asshole General's.
"You've no need to worry about him," Gault said; the smile on the jackass General's face made Saber long to leap out of the bed and pummel him. "He's been taken care of quite nicely."
He could see the other soldiers standing around, though, and he knew that if he did anything too aggressive they would probably come down on him like a collapsing wall. Leaning back against the bed in the room that he'd been shoved into, Saber forced himself not to tense up as Gault continued to leer down at him. He wasn't going to give this bastard and his goon squad anything.
010010010
As he was yanked forward by the group of soldiers, Slade tried not to think about what might be happening to Saber. He'd have the opportunity to contact Saber once the two of them were alone; no sense letting anyone here know anything about him that they didn't have to. Once he found himself alone in his cell, the mesh door slamming shut in front of him, Slade waited until he couldn't hear the footsteps of the soldiers anymore, then leaned back against the wall of his cell and concentrated.
(Saber, are you all right?)
(I'm fine,) his younger twin said, though he sounded kind of annoyed. (Gault was just being a bigger bastard than usual.)
(That's hard to believe,) Slade said, gritting his teeth and hissing slightly as he thought of all the power-hungry General had done to them. (I don't really see how he could be any more of a bastard than he has been already.)
(Well, consider yourself lucky, then, big brother,) Saber said sardonically.
Slade didn't know how to respond to his younger twin's assertion, so he decided that it was best to change the subject. (Do you think you're still being watched, somehow?)
(I don't know,) Saber said. (I haven't seen any cameras in here, but I'm not about to assume there aren't some hidden around.)
(That's probably a good idea,) he said, then paused as he realized something. (How are you keeping them from seeing what you're doing? The Commander told me that he could see the same thing on our foreheads that I can see.)
(Yeah, he told me that, too,) Saber said, and Slade got the impression that his younger twin was thinking deeply about something; but then, Saber always had some sort of plan when he was somewhere he didn't want to be.
His brother was probably thinking of ways to get the both of them out of this place; Slade knew that he just had to trust his younger twin to get them through this. He didn't know if his father would have approved of that, about him counting on someone who was younger than him - someone who he had promised to protect back when they were both normal boys - but anyone who had known the two of them could tell that Saber - and earlier, Cain - was a much better planner than he had ever been.
It wasn't that he couldn't plan things on his own, it was just that Saber was the more inventive of the pair of them; if there was anyone Slade knew that he could count on to get them both out of this mess all right, it was Saber.
0010100111
When she'd woken up, about half an hour before her alarm would have interrupted her sleep and let her knowthat it was time for her to start getting ready for her day, Star hoped for a moment that the events of yesterday had been some kind of horrible dream. That, when she went to Slade's room to check on him, she would find him there. Maybe staying with Saber, since the two of them had been subjected to some pretty horrible things during yesterday's battle with Darkon's Spider-crabs, but she hoped that seeing someone familiar would help a little, at least.
Washing and dressing quickly, Star made her way down the corridor to the room that Slade had been assigned. On her way there, though, she met up with Ringo. Normally, she wouldn't have thought anything of that, but it was the expression on his face that let Star know that this wasn't like any of the other times she had met up with him in the corridors of the Command Center.
"I see you had the same idea," Ringo said, shrugging in something that Star couldn't help but know was a depressed sort of resignation. "They're not here, Star," he said, walking up so he could stand next to her. "The AEM arrested them yesterday, remember?" he asked, obviously trying to be as gentle as he could while he talked; Star still felt like her heart was breaking.
"I know," she muttered, stricken. "I just hoped-"
"Yeah," he cut in, stepping closer so he could pull her into a gentle, one-armed hug. "So did I."
They stood like that for a few, long moments; each trying to draw some strength from the other's presence. If she hadn't been so worried about the twins, and if she hadn't been desperately trying not to think of what Slade was feeling after he'd been separated from everyone who had tried to help him hold onto his humanity in the face of everything the Radam had done to him - not to mention everything the AEM was probably going to do - she might have found the situation they were both in ironic. She still remembered the time when Ringo wouldn't have cared nearly as much if something had happened to the twins.
It just went to show how much Slade and Saber had become an indispensable part of the Space Knights during the time that they had stayed with the team. It was so different from those first days, where the twins had worn the uniforms but there had still been an obvious - though mostly self-imposed on their parts - separation between the two of them and the rest of the Space Knights.
Star was glad that she, Ringo, Tina, and the others had managed to break down the walls that Slade and Saber had tried to put up between themselves and the rest of the world. She still didn't know what they had suffered, what had made them think that isolating themselves in their various ways was the best option they had, but she was still determined to find out. Still, she knew that they would have to focus on rescuing the twins from the AEM and General Gault before she and the other Space Knights would be able to find out anything more about them.
And, they would probably need time to recover from whatever it was that General Gault and his forces were going to end up doing to them.
"Come on," Ringo said gently. "Let's go talk to the Commander. I'm sure he's already got some idea how to handle this."
Nodding wordlessly, not really feeling up to speaking at the moment, Star let Ringo lead her back down the corridors toward Comm. One. She hoped that the Commander did have an idea or several about what they were going to be able to do for Slade and Saber; Star didn't know what she was going to do, otherwise.
101001001
There had been nothing to find on the Space Ring, and so he'd returned to the Argos; Lord Darkon had been understanding, and Spear was glad for that.
It was odd, Spear reflected, how silent the halls and corridors of the Argos were now; he knew why that was, and he knew that soon the ship would be filled with sound and life once more, but it was still odd to him to be in a place that had once been his home-away-from-home and to see it so desolate. Sitting on the bed that had been placed in his quarters, the bed that he'd never actually had a chance to use before Darkon and his Radam forces had come for him and the other members of the Argos' crew, Spear reflected on how wonderful it would be when he finally managed to bring Ness and Cain back to Darkon's fold.
And that woman, as well, he mused, thinking again of the dark-haired human who had been so quick to try to protect one of his younger brother's from what she saw as a threat. It was an admirable thing, that courage she had displayed when facing what she must have seen as the worst threat possible. Cain will be happy to see her again, at least.
Ness would probably tease him about his crush, since that was what Cain would have done under the same circumstances, and it seemed to be the prerogative of all siblings to tease each other about their romantic prospects. And, given the fact that she had been so willing to stand up to him as a mere human, it was clear that she would make a worthy Teknoman. Still, there was the matter of transporting her to Darkon's vessel, since none of the teknoplants that had been cultivated on Earth were mature enough to produce teknopods as yet.
True, they were producing the nutrient gas that enabled others of their kind to receive extra sustenance, and that would serve to protect them from any humans who might seek to do them harm, but the fact remained that not one of them was mature enough to produce even a single teknopod of their own. If he was going to make that woman, whatever her name turned out to be, a true part of their family, then he would have to find a way to bring her to Lord Darkon's vessel so that she could undergo her transformation, and also so that his misguided younger brothers could finish their own.
Rising from his bed, Spear made his way down the corridors of the Argos toward the kitchen area. Those few perishable supplies that had been carried on the ship had mostly been cleared out by the activities of his father and younger siblings, but Spear could remember with a wry sort of amusement the relief he'd felt when he realized that he couldn't smell anything when he was wearing the armor that had been granted to him by the Radam's transformation. Disposing of even the small amount of spoiled food that had accumulated in the Argos' refrigeration unit would have been much more of an ordeal otherwise.
Still wearing a shadow of the amused smile that he'd worn when he'd been forced to carry spoiled food out of the Argos' refrigerator, Spear reached the kitchen and looked around. He knew very well that he could simply return to Lord Darkon's vessel if he desired to truly have his energy replenished, but he knew that his craving for food would not be satisfied if he did such a thing. This craving for food that he was experiencing was more a thing of the mind than the body, Spear knew. Besides, above and beyond all of those considerations, it would be nice to have a flavor in his mouth that he could actually identify.
There were still a few non-perishable food items stored in the kitchen, but there were still times that Spear wished he had the supplies to cook something. He enjoyed cooking, and beyond the practical reasons that someone would want to do such a thing, the activity had always served to settle his nerves when he was feeling on-edge. Still, being inside his teknopod served to relax him as well, and without any way of gathering the supplies that he would to prepare even the simplest meals for himself, Spear knew that he would just have to leave it at that for the time being.
Settling himself down at the only table in the Argos' small kitchen area, the same one where his younger siblings and the few other members of the crew who had not gone into hyper-sleep for the journey had all taken their meals, Spear chewed thoughtfully on a stick of beef jerky. He knew that there had to be some method of getting his younger brothers to come back to Darkon's fold with him, some way that he could convince them to see reason and abandon their futile struggle, he just needed some space to think. He was the eldest, it was his duty to take care of his younger siblings; Ness and Cain just seemed to want to make that harder for him.
Or, perhaps it wasn't a matter of wanting at all; they were misguided by their father's interference, after all. He'd have to think on that, Spear mused, leaning back in the chair he was sitting on. Fleetingly, he wondered which of his younger siblings had sat there in the past.
1101010011
It was getting harder to keep track of time, Saber mused, as he ran through yet another kata. He didn't know just what Gault and his cronies were planning, but whatever it was he didn't like it. Sure, they'd been pretty hands-off so far, when they weren't treating him with elaborate courtesy that he didn't trust one bit, and all that even without him having to punch one or more of them in the face. Not that he didn't want to, but he was a feeling that doing something like that would be a hell of a lot more trouble than it was worth.
Scooping up the towel that had been draped over the edge of the single chair in his room by a soldier whose name he didn't care to learn, Saber wiped the sweat from his face and neck as he made his way back to the bed that he'd been using while he was stuck in this room. He still had to keep himself in shape, not only for getting himself and Slade out of this over-glorified prison, but because once they had gotten out of here, they were going to have to go right back to fighting Darkon and the other Radam Teknomen.
There was just no way in hell that those Tekno-suits would be good for anything but hunting Spider-crabs.
Once he'd gotten the last of the sweat off his neck and shoulders, he tossed the towel back onto the chair, put his feet up on the bed, and began to do pushups with his left arm. Breathing deeply to focus himself on what he was doing, Saber still didn't fail to notice the sound of the door to the quarters he'd been assigned sliding open. And, even though he was fully aware of just who it was that had come to visit him, he made it a point not to react.
He wasn't going to give that asshole the satisfaction.
"I'm glad to see you're keeping yourself in condition, Saber." Gritting his teeth, biting back a stream of invective that would have made Grant Goddard himself sit back in surprise, Saber continued to put his body through its paces. "That's what I like to see in a soldier."
When he felt a hand on his back, moving up and down in synch with the rhythm that Saber had established for himself, Saber bit back a sigh as he continued moving. He was still determined not to give General Asshole the satisfaction of getting a reaction out of him, true, but now that the man was leaning over him, probably leering down that same way he'd been doing when Saber had first woken up to see his ugly face leaning over him... It was all Saber could do not to launch himself into an overhead heel-kick that would have shattered General Bastard's skull when it connected.
That would have had severely unpleasant consequences, for all that it would have made him very happy for a very short time.
Ignoring whatever else it was that Gault was trying to say to him, not wanting to tempt his desire to do something likely-fatal to the asshole who was holding him and Slade captive, Saber carefully shifted onto his right arm so he could give it the same kind of conditioning that he was working on in his left. After five more reps on his part, Gault finally left his room. He didn't know just what had drawn the asshole off, and he honestly couldn't have cared less.
Continuing through the routine that he had established for himself during whatever amount of time that he'd spent in this damned, stuffy hellhole, Saber cast his awareness out to someone else. Someone who'd once been just a room down the hall from him, when they were both still in the only place either of them felt like they belonged anymore.
(Hey, brother; how're you been holding up lately?)
(I'm doing all right,) Slade said, though there was something in his mental tone that Saber didn't really like; something that made him think that his older twin was keeping something from him.
Like maybe Slade way lying to him, trying to keep him in the dark so he wouldn't worry; didn't work, he was still worried.
(You sure about that? I don't want to come down there and find you've been lying to me; you know that kind of thing annoys me.)
(I'm all right, Saber,) Slade said, sounding worn out but also like he was trying to hold himself together; though really, they were both trying to do that. (I can stand this. How are you doing, Saber?)
(I guess I'm doing all right,) he said, breathing steadily as he finished his workout and climbed back to his feet.
Picking up the towel that he had discarded, Saber wiped the newly-accumulated sweat off of his face and neck then tossed the thing in the hamper he'd been provided with. He'd wondered, back when he'd been shoved into this room and left where he was, if every set of quarters in every base that had been made was built on the same plan. He'd long since stopped caring about stupid things like that, and focused all of his attention on planning how he was going to get himself and Slade out of this hellhole.
That was all that mattered to him anymore.
1010100111
(Spear.)
Looking up from his book, one of the few that he had brought with him onto the Argos since he had been slated to be placed in hyper-sleep when their journey had begun, Spear slipped his bookmark inside. Lord Darkon sounded particularly incensed, and for a moment Spear wondered if it had anything to do with his younger brothers. He hoped not, but there was always the chance.
(What do you need from me, Lord Darkon?) he asked, settling back on his bed. He didn't know what he would be called on to do, but it was likely that he would be called to fight again.
(The humans have deployed their weapons on the Space Ring,) Lord Darkon said, sounding as if said weapons were a personal affront to him. (They are becoming far too bold, and entirely too enamored of those weapons of theirs. I wish for you to show them the error of their ways.)
(Of course, my Lord,) he said, rising from his seat and making his way out of his room.
He would clearly have his work cut out for him, if he was to deal properly with the weapons that the humans were clearly deploying. It was clear that the humans were not content with simply accepting the inevitable, as they should have been; as Lord Darkon had said, it would fall to him to teach them the error of their ways.
Leaving the Argos behind once more, Spear wondered for a moment if he would find that his younger brothers were a part of this assault; he hoped not, but there was always that chance...
0010100111
As he oversaw the transport and deployment of more of his soldiers to the Space Ring, those who would be overseeing Balzac's progress and helping him to test the Tekno-suit under live-fire conditions, Gault tried to ignore Jamison's inane blather. It wasn't as if he'd ever find any of it relevant to his situation, and the man didn't honestly know what he was talking about in any case.
"Jamison, are you going to be any help?" he asked, cocking his head slightly to address the man on the screen. "Or would you rather waste my time with your criticism."
"General Gault, you know my suggestions always have a logical foundation."
"I suppose that depends on your point-of-view, doesn't it?" he needled, smirking slightly; anyone could see that the good Commander didn't have one iota of power, here; this was his territory.
"Let's dispense with the pleasantries, General; I'm not in the mood," Jamison said, obviously impatient despite his efforts to conceal it. "What I really want to talk to you about are the twins."
"Well," he said, in a considering tone, though both of them knew how this argument was really going to go. "That's classified information; you'll have to demonstrate that you have a valid need-to-know."
"These are human beings we're talking about," Jamison protested, his voice barely changing inflection; Gault sometimes wondered what it would take to truly make him angry.
"What we're talking about is potential Military weaponry," he said, opting not to mention anything about Saber; it certainly wasn't any of Jamison's business what he did with his people.
"You've had them in your care for some time," Jamison said, putting a particular emphasis on the word that told Gault he didn't think that was the case. "Your new Tekno-suit is online. You don't need either of the twins anymore, General."
"What I need is my business, Commander," he snapped, beginning to become irate; that always seemed to be the pattern, when he engaged the Commander of the Space Knights in a debate: Jamison's sheer unflappability would always seem to get the better of him.
It was infuriating.
"Very well, but I'm making whatever happens to those young men my business, do you understand?"
Jamison cut their connection quickly after that, obviously having nothing left to say. Still, as long as he got what he wanted from Slade, Gault wasn't going to concern himself with trivialities. Besides, Saber seemed to be settling in well enough; it likely wouldn't be long before he would be able to send the boy out alongside Balzac and his squadron of Tekno-suits without having to concern himself with the possibility of the boy running off to rejoin Jamison's Space Knights at the first opportunity he was given.
As he continued to listen to the reports from the combat-teams that he had already dispatched to the Space Ring, Gault smiled slightly. It seemed things were going better than ever; soon, he would have all the power he needed to drive the Radam away once and for all. And, once he did, he would be hailed as the man who saved Earth from the alien menace.
Him, not Jamison and those Space Knights of his.
"Get me the assault-commander aboard the Space Ring; I want a status-report on how well the new Tekno-suit is working!" he ordered; he tried not to think about Jamison and all of the annoyance that man had stirred up.
He was still going to be the one who got the glory, in the end.
0100100101
As he lead his combat\support-team deeper into the Space Ring, hunting down any of the Spider-crabs that he could find, Balzac smiled. Once he managed to get rid of all of them, he would likely be on the fast-track to another promotion. Grinning at the thought, even as he shot down yet another Spider-crab that had attempted to ambush them, Balzac kept moving.
"Men, now you see how well these crabs do against our new technology," he said, after he'd shot yet another of the Spider-crabs, this one after it had actually managed to capture one of his personnel. "Stick with me, and I'll show you some more!" Two more Spider-crabs jumped out of hiding after he made that pronouncement; he grinned all the wider. "Ah, more volunteers for my demonstration!"
Targeting the space between them, Balzac increased the output of his Z-tron rifle and fired at that space. The energy-discharge vaporized the two Spider-crabs, and Balzac smirked with supreme pleasure as he prepared to move forward with his compatriots. This is perfect! With this armor and weaponry, I'll be a hero, and those Tekno-twins will be just a bad memory.
Even with everything that he'd lost, that thought was still enough to make him happy; he'd have the fame and recognition that he'd been searching for all his life, even without
Marlowe there to share it with him.
0010100111
"What do you mean, Gault won't give them back?" he heard Star demand, as she slammed her hands down on the inert control-console just beside the one he was working at. "You're just going to leave it at that?"
"Under current regulations, we've done everything we can," he said, continuing to work on the computer virus that he had prepared; the one that would cripple the security-systems that Gault relied on, and open the way for Star and Ringo once they inevitably decided to take matters into their own hands.
"Commander Jamison, aren't we even going to try anything else?" Tina asked, sounding more plaintive than he had ever heard.
"These swivel-chair commandos, they're all the same," Ringo snarled. "All of them!" he heard the man's fist slam into the wall, as his emotions became too much for him to deal with and maintain his composure. "I expected more from you, Jamison. We believed in you, but you were just waiting to let us down like everyone else!"
"Why?"
"Oh, give it up, Star. What's the point?" Ringo demanded, his scorn obvious. "You want me, I'm going for a walk; I don't like how the air smells in here."
Star was the next to leave, following Ringo at a sprint; once the two of them met up, they would more than likely begin making their plans to infiltrate the Military headquarters. Or perhaps such a thing would be done on a whim; he knew better than most just how Star would act in the presence of an injustice, or when one of her close friends was in danger. This situation, which combined those two provocations, was hence far more likely to drive her to act than any other.
And, for the chance to give her and Ringo the means to bring Slade and Saber back to the home that those young men had so clearly made for themselves in the Space Knight Command Center, he was willing to bear the scorn of as many of his people as became necessary.
"Got to admit, I sure do miss them," he heard Tina say, with a morose tone to her voice.
"Listen, Chief, I've got to tell you: we all expected more. This isn't like you," Maggie said, her surprise more than obvious.
"Come on, we've got work to do."
"What? Mac!"
As the footfalls of one of his best engineers faded out alongside those of one of the best of his technicians, Jamison continued his work. Nothing would truly be solved if he spent his energy attempting to console the people who worked under him. As much as he sometimes wanted to, he had learned through long, harsh experience to prioritize.
1101001010
"Hold on a minute, Mac!" she called, hurrying to catch up with her coworker as his quick, determined stride carried him down the corridor on his way back to the engineering section that they both spent so much time in. "You mean, we're supposed to just go back to work as if nothing's different?"
"Yes, that's exactly what I mean, Maggie," Mac said, not even turning around, as the two of them continued on their way down the corridor.
"And, what about the twins?" she asked; she could still remember the kiss that she and Saber had shared under the moonlight almost a week ago; granted, the circumstances surrounding it hadn't been the most romantic in the world, but she still wanted to have at least the chance at another. Saber might have been a bit awkward at first, but once he'd gotten his bearings, he was really a pretty good kisser. Not to mention the way he had to be worrying about what was probably happening to Slade; heck, she was worrying about what was happening to Slade, and she didn't even know what was happening. "Don't you even care?"
"Of course I do," he said, finally stopping so he could turn to look at her; it finally felt like he was talking to her, rather than at her the way he'd been doing. "But, whatever the Commander's done, I'm sure he has his reasons. Don't you think he feels bad about it?"
"What can we do?" she asked, finally feeling as if she was being heard.
"We've got work," he said, the rolled up plans that he had been carrying as he came into the room with the rest of them still leaning against his shoulder. "People depend on us." He tapped her on the forehead with those plans as he said that last thing.
"Ohh," she said, glancing toward the plans; she didn't quite remember what they were for at the moment, but then she'd been thinking about a lot of other things lately. She still was, really. "I know that, Mac."
"Then act like it, lass," he admonished, turning slightly away from her in an obvious prelude to walking away. The message was clear: he was leaving with or without her, but without would cause more problems.
"All right," she said, resisting the urge to sigh; she'd done enough of that over the last few days. "But if anything happens to either of our boys, I'm going to be one upset redhead, understand?"
"I'm shaking," Mac deadpanned, finally turning and beginning to make his way down the corridor. He brandished those plans of his like a battle-flag as he picked up speed. "Come on."
11010100100
The computer virus was complete at last; able to bypass the security-systems that Gault had installed, and to provide Star and Ringo with the chance that they would need to bring Slade and Saber back home. Now, he just needed someone to upload it; someone who wasn't burdened with the myriad tasks of keeping the Space Knights and their various personnel working together and at as close to peak-efficiency as this war against the Radam would allow them to be.
"Tina?" he called, knowing that the young Space Knight was still in the room with him, even though he could hear her light footsteps carrying her away. "Come here, please."
"Yes, sir?" she asked, sounding a bit apprehensive; he understood, though he often wished that she would settle more comfortably into her role, but something like that would take time. Everything took time, but time had become a precious resource lately.
"I want you to take this, and load it into the mainframe," he said, handing her the flash-drive that he had used to save his work to.
"Um, okay, sir," she said, looking from him to the flash-drive in her hands. "Ringo and the others are pretty upset right now, so with all due respect, if you're going to try to talk to them, you might want to wait awhile."
He heard her say that as he left the room. It was sound advice, and if he had been going out for the reasons that Tina had surmised, he would have certainly taken her words to heart. However, there were many other things that required his attention, and many of them had nothing to do with the core group of his Space Knights. Tina might learn that in the future, if she ever chose to take up a position of command herself.
Of course, that wasn't likely to happen until far in the future; Tina still had a lot to learn.
1010011110
Knocking one of the scientists who had been trying to examine him away, knowing that if he let them in close he would never be able to get away from them unless he gave them everything they wanted, Slade breathed heavily. He knew that they had to be lying about Saber, knew that his younger twin wouldn't have cooperated with these sadists even if they had tried to offer him every one of his favorite foods and a foot massage. His brief amusement at that mental image, something he'd deliberately thought up to distract himself from what was happening to him, had to be quickly put aside as the scientists began to crowd around him again.
Grabbing the scientist who'd come within his strike-range, Slade threw him against the wall.
He hadn't had much energy to talk with Saber lately; the tests he was being forced through sapping both his strength and the mental focus he needed to carry on any kind of a meaningful conversation with his younger twin, and he could tell from the way Saber reacted that it was worrying him. He hated that; he didn't want Saber to have to worry about him, he was the one who should have been worrying about Saber.
Dad had told him to look out for his younger brother, but all he seemed to do lately was rely on Saber to help him; he was sure that Dad would have been disappointed in him for that, if their father had still been alive to see it.
A lunge from another of the scientists surrounding him brought Slade's attention firmly back to the present, reminding him that it wasn't safe to let his attention wander anymore. He couldn't afford to let his guard down around these people. They weren't like the Space Knights at all: any hint of weakness on his part, and they would be on him like sharks on a wounded fish.
He knew that from bitter experience.
"Get away from me," he snarled, his breath heaving from the exertion he'd already been put through by these bastards. "Don't ever touch me."
"Slade, we're not trying to hurt you," the scientist who'd been trying to force him into one more of those tests that those sadists had set up for him said. "We just want to get a quick analysis of your Tekno-armor and its circuit-paths. We already have your brother's data, but yours needs to be recorded to see if it differs in any way."
"All that we need you to do is walk through this scanner," another one of them said, gesturing to a large, upright shape that Slade had heard Saber describe from his time in the care of the Space Knight doctors. "It's not going to hurt. You can trust us; and what would your brother say, if he could see you acting like this? I think he'd be pretty disappointed."
Slade wanted to punch him for that; lying to him, trying to use his feelings for Saber against him. He hated all of these people, and there were times that he was tempted to just kill them all and escape with Saber on his own. But, no; he wouldn't be the monster that they so clearly wanted him to be.
He wouldn't.
One of them began to close in on him again, and Slade braced himself as he saw armored talons reaching out as if to touch his face.
"I'm not going to hurt you, little brother," Spear said, closing in even as Slade felt his own body freeze up. "I just want to help."
There was no way that he would ever be able to fight Spear; not on his own, and certainly not in his human form. Forced to give ground as Spear closed in on him, Slade wondered desperately what had happened to Saber. Slade would never forgive himself if he let something happen to his younger twin; especially after the way he'd already made Saber worry because of what he was doing.
When he felt Spear's arms wrapping around him from behind - one of them curling around his waist in an eerie mimicry the way Saber would do when his younger twin wanted to comfort him, and the other supporting his right arm - Slade tried to break away. But, it was like he was paralyzed or something; he couldn't move a muscle.
"Here, little brother," Spear said, his tone as frighteningly gentle as it had ever been. "Let me help you."
He found that he couldn't even move his arm the way he wanted it; either Spear's grip was too tight, or there was something wrong with his body, but Slade found that all he could do was watch as Spear brought his armored arm up into line. His fellow Space Knights were standing in front of him, and Slade desperately wanted to yell to them; to tell them to run away and save themselves.
He couldn't even open his mouth.
"Well done, little brother," Spear said, as the blood-soaked remains of his and Saber's fellow Space Knights fell to the ground. "I'm proud of you."
He hated the fact that he couldn't move, that he couldn't turn and attack Spear for what he'd done; what his evil brother had made him do. He tried to call for Saber, not having seen his younger twin with the rest of the Space Knights that Spear had made him butcher, and knowing that his younger twin would want revenge for that just as much as he did. And Saber would probably be able to get that revenge.
Anyone could see that he couldn't do anything.
"We'll be able to find Cain soon enough, Ness," Spear said; Slade struggled all the harder, wanting to punch him, kick him, slash him, anything to show that he was still himself. Anything to prove that he wasn't completely useless. But he was, and all he could do was follow where Spear lead...
Waking up, feeling his head swim from the after-effects of what had probably been another dose of sleeping gas, Slade curled up against the wall of his prison and shuddered. Sure, he knew now that he'd just been dreaming, but that didn't change how helpless he was; it didn't change how useless he was. He'd always known that Saber was the stronger one, but he'd liked to think that the two of them could at least stand as equals sometimes.
He was learning better now, though. Saber, I really wish I could be with you right now, he thought to himself, behind the mental walls that they'd both constructed in order to have at least some privacy, considering what they were. He didn't want to put anymore pressure on his younger twin than he was sure was already there, though, so Slade didn't call to him. He didn't want Saber running himself ragged; the AEM was doing more than enough of that for both of them.
101001001
He'd spent more than enough time in this area of this particular base to get used to it, and to know that this was also at least reasonably close to where they were keeping Slade. His older twin had sounded more and more worn-down as Saber had talked to him, and as the conversations themselves had become more spaced out, he'd started to worry. Not that he hadn't already been worried, since the two of them had never been forcibly separated for this long, at least not without doing something drastic to the person responsible for the initial separation, anyway.
He'd just become moreso, given how Slade was seemingly withdrawing from the world in general and him in particular.
Carefully moving down the corridor in front of him, making sure that anyone who saw him would just think he was going down to have lunch, Saber made his way toward the place where he could sense Slade's mental signature the strongest. He'd had more than enough of playing the good little soldier-boy for these fuckers.
101001001
When she'd left to find Ringo, after seeing the Commander being so infuriatingly nonchalant about what was happening to the twins while the Military was holding them captive, he'd looked just about as furious as she'd felt at the prospect of what was going on. The two of them had talked for awhile, and finally decided to go see if they could at least pay a visit to them. They'd been close friends with both of those boys, her personal feelings for Slade notwithstanding, and if this was the only thing they could do then it would have to be enough.
But now, all they seemed to be running into was a dead end.
"I said out!" the soldier who had been shoving Ringo out of the corridor said; the one next to him, pushing her, was silent. Infuriatingly so.
"All right, all right!" Ringo said, as the two of them were shoved out into the corridor entirely. "Don't get so huffy about things. We're just trying to see our friends, all right?"
"Leave, right now. Before you get into more trouble," the larger soldier, the one who'd been shoving her, said with the kind of deadpan tone that made her want to punch his face in under the circumstances.
Slamming her right fist into his stomach, Star finished the job with a crushing elbow-strike to his back once he had doubled over from the pain. She was so very tempted to finish the job by crushing his neck under her heel, but the momentary temptation passed and she was profoundly grateful that she hadn't acted on it. That man had been doing his job, and as much as she might have resented him in the heat of the moment, he really didn't deserve to die for that.
"You know, you could have said something," Ringo said, having taken out the other solder with a single chop to the left side of his neck.
"I'm tired of talking. I'm going to do something," she said, taking in the expression of mild shock on his face and dismissing it just as quickly as she'd seen it. "You with me? Let's do it."
She didn't know just what Ringo said when she began making her way down the corridors at high-speed, but he followed along right after her as she moved. That was good; she didn't want to have to punch him for being stupid.
001001000
As he and his support crew continued on their way through the Space Ring, bushwhacking Spider-crabs and killing them as they tried to attack, Balzac felt a slight, niggling annoyance. He'd run out of ammo, and was now forced to wait as some of his people caught up with him.
"Where's my support-squad?" he called, finally having had enough and wanting to hurry them up. "Get those energy-packs changed. Hurry up! Come on, let's go. Keep your eyes peeled," he said, having spotted the remains of a Spider-crab or two lying on the floor a bit back the way they'd all come. "There's a lot more where they came from."
"Lieutenant, my sensors are picking up a large object, coming this way-" before the tech at the scanner could say anything more, the doors just in front of them - closed in the absence of power to open them - exploded inward. At first, all he could see was the near-blinding, swirling light of the explosion, but as the fires began to die down from the lack of usable oxygen in the Space Ring, he began to see just who was standing in front of him.
It can't be! But the figure standing in front of him remained right there, casually defying everything he'd known from his briefings.
"Well now, this is interesting," the Teknoman named Spear said.
010010010
"I don't believe it!" he exclaimed, seeing the Teknoman that had suddenly appeared in front of Balzac and his group. The creature was brazen, he had to give it that; now, they only had to find a way to kill it. "Give me a read-out!"
"General, sensors show that it is a Teknoman: Spear."
"Sir, our instruments indicate that Balzac is having intermittent problems with his power-circuits."
Balzac, make it work, he thought fiercely. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that any of the current combatants would be able to hear him, but he couldn't help it. He'd seen the kind of destructive power that Jamison's Teknomen could unleash at whim, and while he had both of them contained for the moment, there was simply no chance of him being able to dispatch Saber at this point.
It wasn't even a matter of the boy being a potential flight risk, there was simply no time to round him up, give him his marching-orders, and send him to assist Balzac and the others. Everything rested on the first Tekno-suit now. He would only have to hope that his faith in Balzac hadn't been misplaced in the end.
He hated it, but in the end he was powerless.
1101001001
"How adorable, a little tin Teknoman," Spear chuckled. "Why don't you let me help break your new suit in?" Spear seemed to consider something for a moment. "Actually, I think I'd rather just break it," Spear laughed outright this time.
"Hey, Spear, why don't you do us both a favor and leave?" Balzac asked, his confidence clearly audible in his voice, even over the mild distortion of the Tekno-suit's speakers.
"Oh I'll be leaving soon, little man," Spear practically cooed. "But not before I get to take your adorable little suit apart. I think I'd like to see what makes it tick. And, while I'm at it, I suppose I'll take you apart, too." Spear's chuckles turned quickly to outright laughter.
Raising his Tekno-suit's Z-tron rifle, Balzac fired five blasts of energy straight into Spear's face. Spear, for his part, just stood there and let the blasts hit him. The little insect would learn to fear his power soon enough.
"That got him," Balzac said, and grinned.
Once the light caused by all the energy that had been released had a chance to clear, Balzac saw that Spear wasn't as gone as he had thought the Teknoman would be. In fact, Spear wasn't even scratched.
"Was that supposed to impress me?" Spear asked, sounding more bored than anything, his right pointer finger tapping on his folded arms.
"I don't believe this!" Balzac shouted, firing his rifle up until the power cell was completely depleted.
Thinking that there was no way that even Spear could have survived that kind of an onslaught, Balzac relaxed. He relaxed, that is, until the light started to clear again. Spear stood there, again completely unscathed. Dry firing until he realized that he was out of power, Balzac started to slowly back away.
"You seem to be having a problem," Spear said calmly, closing the distance between himself and Balzac with slow, sure strides.
The group of military soldiers raced forward to form a protective barrier between Balzac and Spear. Spear scoffed, looking at all the soon-to-be-dead insects that were trying to keep him from his chosen target. Lunging forward, Spear impaled one of the 'soldiers' through the chest. The tip of his weapon stuck about two inches out the insect's back. Twisting his blade, Spear ripped it out.
It took a fair amount of the insect's chest with it, but Spear didn't care very much about that. The next insect to die was one who foolishly tried to blindside him. Spear's punch easily crushed his opponent's skull. Spear thought that the deep red blood that now decorated his pale-colored armor made a very nice contrast indeed. Laughing, Spear took a moment to select his next target.
He needn't have bothered. The next soldier, seeing two of his friends die at the armored hands of the Radam monster, came charging right at Spear. Full of rage and righteous fury, he didn't even see Spear's hands come back up. Catching the insect in a stranglehold, Spear was mildly disappointed to note that the insect's own momentum didn't cause his neck to snap.
Then, Spear decided that that wasn't so bad, after all, as he slowly crushed the insect's neck. It was somewhat amusing, Spear thought, to watch him kick and struggle. Pity he can't scream right now, but I suppose that one can't quite have everything one wants, Spear laughed to himself. Another one of the insects tried to tackle him, Spear threw him off, then crushed the insect's neck with his foot.
Now, though, the game was starting to lose its novelty. So Spear pulled out his lancer again. Diving forward, Spear swung his lancer in a broad arc, catching a great deal of the alleged soldiers amidships. His lancer tore them in half at their waists, and Spear laughed. Turning to the other group, Spear hacked them to bloody pieces before any of them could even think to try to avenge their pitiful brethren.
Now only three of the insects stood between Spear and his chosen target. Laughing as he ripped into them, Spear reveled in the screams that he could still hear over his own laughter. The blood that now coated him liberally was only cause for more laughter.
Balzac, meanwhile, was frantically reloading his Z-tron rifle. He knew that the soldiers who had been assigned to his unit were dying with frightening speed and suddenness. He also knew that there was no way in hell that he would be able to do anything for them. So he focused on saving his own skin.
When he had finally managed to gather up all the remaining power packs, Balzac heard a coldly amused chuckle coming from behind him.
"So, now it's just you and me," Spear said. "How perfect. Come now, show me what that little toy of yours can do."
"It can do this!" Balzac shouted, firing again into Spear's face, hoping to somehow distract the evil Teknoman.
"This is getting very boring," Spear said dully, once the crackling energy surrounding him had had a chance to clear again. "Is this really all you can do?"
But by then, Balzac had already taken the opportunity to turn tail and run. He didn't know just how far he was going to get, not with Spear practically breathing down his neck, but giving up without a fight just wasn't in his nature. Besides, he owed at least something to General Gault for giving him this kind of opportunity for fame and glory. He just had to get to one of the spaceports and get his hands on a shuttle.
Why do they always have to try and scurry away? Spear wondered to himself with more than a little amusement. These pitiful little insects could never hope to escape from him once he had decided to hunt them, but it was kind of fun to watch them try. So Spear decided to let this one run his little race, it would make it all the more fun when Spear caught him.
Willing the dim light in this section of the Space Ring to bend around him, Spear rendered himself invisible. The hunt was now on.
110101001
Saber stood just inside the door of the room he was sheltering in, waiting for those bastard doctors and scientists to come back and try something; most of them were running around like headless idiots, but there were still a few competent ones running around loose. He would make them all regret ever taking him away from his brother. When the door finally opened, Saber's first reaction was instinctive, understandable, and completely miscalculated. Putting most of his considerable strength behind a hard straight punch, Saber didn't even consider that there might be someone friendly on the other side of the door.
Feeling his fist slam into someone's face, Saber was more than a bit surprised to hear Ringo's familiar voice.
"Thanks a lot, Saber!"
"Ringo! Sorry about that," Saber said.
Ringo was now sprawled out in the middle of the hallway after having opened the door in front of him. There was a small trickle of blood running out of his nose. The two Space Knights had first made for Slade's cell, since it had turned out to be the closest to where they had come in. But, once they had seen how exhausted and dispirited Slade had been, Ringo had insisted that they go look for Saber.
"So, I'm going to guess that it wasn't us that you were expecting to come in here," Ringo said, seeming to get over his anger faster than either Star or Saber would have expected.
"No. Not really. Have you found Slade yet?"
"Yeah, we found him before we found you. But he's in pretty bad shape, so I thought that it would help if we found you first, and then brought you to him."
"Good thinking," Saber nodded. "All right, let's get going."
Ringo, hauling himself up off of the floor with Saber's help, dusted himself off and pulled out a piece of tissue to wipe his nose on. Tossing it carelessly to the ground, Ringo smirked. I wonder if General Fathead and his idiot cohorts would mind that I just used their base for a trashcan. Ringo shook his head, focusing on where he was going.
He could practically hear Saber fidgeting behind him, not that anyone else would be able to tell he was doing it. Saber was almost as quiet and self-contained as Slade was, but he covered those traits with his near constant jokes and cutting remarks. Only someone who had known Saber long enough to know that all the banter really was a cover would be able to appreciate just how similar Saber and Slade were.
Saber was also extremely protective of his older twin, and Ringo pitied anyone stupid enough to awaken Saber's wrath by harming Slade. Some people say beware the fury of a patient man, I say beware the fury of a Teknoman. Ringo smirked, thinking of just what Saber was going to do if he ever managed to get his hands on General Fathead. It would be spectacularly messy, that was for sure.
"Well, here we are," Ringo sighed. "I gotta warn you though, Saber. It's not pretty."
"Neither is General Gault's fat, veiny ass," Saber drawled.
"What?" Ringo blinked, not knowing what to make of Saber's last statement. Beside him, Star choked on a laugh.
"Just open the door," Saber said, sighing.
"Okay. But please tell me you didn't have a chance to see General Gault's fat, veiny ass," Ringo pleaded jokingly.
"Thankfully, no," Saber smirked.
Star was snickering quietly now. No matter what the situation was or how dire, if it didn't involve Slade being harmed, Saber would find a way to lighten it. Ringo opened the door, and Saber rushed in without another word. He was at Slade's side in the time it took Ringo to blink twice. Sitting down on Slade's bed, Saber began to gently stroke his brother's hair.
"Slade, can you hear me?" Saber asked hoping for but not really expecting a response.
Ringo and Star had mutually decided that it was best to let Saber handle the job of getting Slade back into the land of the lucid. Saber always seemed to know just what to do and what to say to get his brother to listen. Of course, there had been a few times that Slade had been stubborn enough to ignore the advice of his younger twin, but all in all Slade and Saber were incredibly good at keeping each other out of trouble.
Slade's just a little too self-sacrificing for his own good, Ringo thought. Saber, having been with Slade long enough to tolerate - if not understand or condone - his brother's tendency to try and take the weight of the world on his shoulders, was often the perfect one to talk him out of his funks. Sure Saber had a temper, and he would sometimes smack Slade upside the head and tell him he was being an idiot, but only when Slade really was being an idiot.
But this time Slade seemed to be beyond even Saber's reach. Ringo was just glad that Saber was more patient with Slade than he had ever been. Slade needed someone who could deal with his drastic and mostly negative moods, and yes, occasionally to slap some sense into him when he was being especially moronic.
Without the slightest hint of warning, Slade jerked himself upright and buried his face in Saber's chest. Saber didn't seem the least bit surprised, though, and Ringo hoped again that Saber would be able to reach Slade past whatever self-imposed barriers Slade had put up when he was in the military's 'care'. Slade was shivering, and Saber had started to rub his brother's head.
"Calm down, brother, I'm here for you now. I won't leave you again, I promise."
Watching from the sidelines, Star and Ringo looked for any sign that Saber's words were having the desired effect, both Space Knights were hoping that being able to see his brother again would have positive effect on Slade. So far, it seemed to be working.
When Slade finally looked up, emerald green eyes hollow and dark from all the things he had seen or thought he had seen, his reaction was not the one that any of the other people in the room would have expected.
"What are you doing here?" Slade asked dully, looking up at Saber.
"What kind of a stupid question is that?" Saber was confused; he had expected Slade to be happy to see him, but Slade looked as if Saber was the last person in the world he wanted to see.
"Why did you come here? You should have gotten out of here when you had the chance. Leave me here, I'm not worth it. I'm not worth anything." As he spoke, Slade had been turning his face away from his younger twin.
By the time Slade had finished speaking, he was staring blankly at a point just below Saber's right shoulder.
Saber, meanwhile, had to work to control a strong urge to slap his brother upside the head. Hitting Slade wouldn't do any good with the state his brother was in now. Grabbing Slade's chin, Saber forced his brother to look at him.
"Don't you ever say things like that, you hear me? You're worth a lot, to me and a lot of people," Saber hissed. "If I ever hear something like that out of you again, I'm going to hit you hard enough that you're going to wake up wondering what continent you're on."
"Why bother?" Slade asked dully, not seeming to hear anything his brother was saying.
"Because I love you, you idiot," Saber spat.
Ringo sighed, this was going even worse than he had thought it might. It was a good thing that they had Saber to help them deal with Slade. Otherwise, Ringo might have been tempted to try a more 'hands-on' approach to dealing with Slade's depression. Of course, Saber looked like he just might want to try something like that himself.
But either Saber had more restraint when it came to dealing with Slade, or he just knew that his brother wouldn't respond well to even more rough treatment. Whatever the case was, Saber just sat there and glared.
"Do you know how much trouble we went through to get to you, Slade?" Ringo asked. "Star knocked out a couple guards to get us into this place. Then we found your brother and brought him here to see you."
"Then you wasted your time," Slade said with finality.
"I won't argue with you there, pal," Ringo said, ignoring the scathing death-glare that Saber shot him for that remark. "But you and your brother both have a job to do. We need you boys to help save the world. So get up, and stop feeling sorry for yourself."
"Ringo's a bit more blunt about it than I would be, brother. But he is right, for once. I can't do this kind of thing on my own. We all need you, Slade. You should know that by now," Saber said.
"Go away," Slade said dully.
Ringo sighed and threw his hands up in the air in disgust. "You can do something about this little attitude problem your brother's having now, right Saber?"
"I intend to try," Saber said firmly.
Star, standing off to the side, looked sadly at Saber and Slade. Saber was trying, he really was, but Slade seemed to be determined to ignore the efforts his brother was making. It wasn't a good situation.
101001001
Running in his Tekno-suit wasn't quite as easy as Balzac had expected it would be, but at least he couldn't see Spear anywhere behind him. It might have been a little too much to hope that the crazed, evil Teknoman had given up. But, at least I managed to buy myself some time, Balzac silently congratulated himself. That was when he felt something hard slamming into his back.
"Did you really think you could get away from me?" Spear asked, appearing out of literally nowhere. "I will admit, though. For an insect, you ran a surprisingly good race."
"Back off, Spear! I'm warning you!" Balzac aimed his Z-tron rifle at Spear's face, hoping to distract the Teknoman while he looked for a shuttle.
"You're warning me," Spear said boredly. "About what?"
With an incoherent yell, Balzac fired off another barrage of Z-tron pulses. This time though, Spear did something that he hadn't bothered to do any other time that Balzac had attacked him: he dodged. Jumping out of the way of the bright flares of energy, Spear heard them burn the air briefly as they passed him by.
Slamming into the little tin insect with all the force he had, Spear drove him right into the wall of the Space Ring. For Balzac it felt like he'd been hit by a speeding car, even with the protection provided by his Tekno-suit. Balzac bit back a scream as Spear began to hammer him with punches that would have crushed his bones if it hadn't been for the layers of metal protecting his body, and still came damn near to doing that anyway.
Balzac couldn't stop himself from stumbling as Spear kicked him in the back, but he got to his feet with just barely enough time to dodge the Teknoman's follow-up punch. What annoyed Balzac the most was that Spear was actually laughing at him, as if everything that he was doing was funny, as if there nothing he could do that would stop Spear from winning.
Balzac hated that. He was the one who controlled his own destiny, and he was currently in possession of the most powerful weapon ever designed by human hands. It should have been a clear win for him, and instead Spear was kicking him around like a soccer ball. That wouldn't do.
Spear wound up and delivered another crushing haymaker, this time to Balzac's head. Balzac worked his jaw to make sure it hadn't been broken, and then dodged the follow-up kicks that Spear delivered next. Spear, on top of being inhumanly fast and strong, was also tougher than any opponent that Balzac had ever faced. Being a street brat, he'd faced off with some of the more vicious thugs that Earth's slums could throw at him.
That was what had made him so much better than those brainless Spider-crabs that the Radam kept sending: he could outthink them. And he didn't have that ridiculous time-limit that those freaks that'd been working for the Space Knights did; that was what made him better than Saber and Slade.
All that being true, however, why the hell couldn't he beat Spear?!
He was knocked out of his little pity-party by one of the aforementioned Teknoman's fists, then forced to duck quickly to avoid being impaled on the end of his enemy's namesake weapon.
"Well, it seems you were paying more attention to your surroundings than I gave you credit for. Such a shame," Spear drawled. "I suppose I have no choice now but to beat you to death."
His teeth clenched too tightly to speak, Balzac growled deep in his throat. There had to be a way for him to win this!
010010010
His left cheek pressed against his brother's hair, which seemed to be pretty much the only contact that Slade would allow, Saber tried to think of what he could use to snap his brother out of the deep pit of self-loathing that he'd obviously sunk himself into. Nothing was coming to mind.
It wasn't a good situation; here they were, in the center of a military base that was under the control of a power-hungry sadist, and all Slade seemed to want to do was mope. He probably had good reasons; the conditions that those military bastards had kept him in had only been comfortable under the loosest definition of the word, and the treatment had bordered on the sadistic. While he might joke with Slade about his being 'dull and broody', he could understand.
They'd been through almost the exact same hell, after all; and worse, they'd been separated.
He and Slade were the only hope that Ringo and Star had of getting out of this base; he just had to get Slade back on his feet and ready to fight. Unfortunately for all of them, that seemed like it would be easier said than done.
(You shouldn't rely on me anymore, Saber,) Slade said, his mental voice as dull and lifeless as his physical one. (I'm weak; I'm useless,) Slade continued, burying his face deeper in Saber's chest; Saber thought for a moment that he could feel his brother crying. (I can't help you anymore.)
Okay, there's a time and a place for delicacy, and this sure as hell isn't it, he mused, behind his mental barrier. (Hold that thought for a second,) he said, trying to make himself seem as calm as he really wasn't. Pushing his older twin back from his resting place, Saber noticed in a flash that his brother had been crying. He wasn't about to let that stop him, though.
His open-palmed strike knocked Slade's head sideways, but the look on his older twin's face hadn't changed a bit. "Are you done being stupid yet, big brother?" Slade didn't move, just continuing to stare blankly at the spot on the floor where his head was coincidentally pointed at. After a few seconds, when Slade's eyes began to brighten slightly, Saber thought he'd gotten through to him.
But, all Slade did was curl up against him again, folding inward like a tent without a center-pole. (I guess I really am hopeless, aren't I?) he asked, and Saber got the impression that the question was a rhetorical one; didn't mean it pissed him off any less. (You should leave with Star and Ringo. Just- just stay for a bit longer, please? I- I don't want to be alone yet.)
(You're not ever going to be alone, you idiot spaz,) he said, trying to rein in his growing desire to punch his idiot of an older twin in the head; he'd already slapped him and that hadn't seemed to do any good, so he didn't think just escalating the level of violence would do even a bit of good. (We're all going to be heading back to the Command Center together, get me? Now, just shut up if you don't have anything useful to say.)
A long silence, and then: (Sorry.)
Saber sighed, resting his chin on top of his older twin's head; he really wanted to find the person responsible for this and strangle them, unfortunately that wasn't really possible.
0001001001
More insects, he mused, not entirely certain if he was more amused or annoyed by the prospect. True, these creatures died particularly easily, but they were also a distraction from his ultimate goal of crushing the worm in the armor. It was an amusing little toy, he had to admit, and if he hadn't been so concerned for the welfare of his two younger brothers, Spear would have been willing to play with the worm and his insect cohorts. At the moment, however, the state of Ness and Cain had to take precedence over his own amusement.
As the insects began firing on him again, becoming rather annoying in light of the fact that he hadn't yet dealt with the worm, Spear swung his lancer and unleashed a barrage of electrical energy at them. The blast scattered the insects again, but the worm had already moved to capitalize on his momentary distraction. True, the blast the worm fired at him was completely inadequate for the task of breaching his armor, and the worm screamed in a particularly satisfying manner when Spear fired a bolt of electricity at him, but his concentration had still been divided by these creatures.
That fact was rather annoying, for all that it was still true.
1010100111
He didn't know just why Star and Ringo were still standing in his cell; they'd found Saber, and anyone could see that he wasn't going to be any use fighting Spear. (You shouldn't be here, Saber. You shouldn't worry about me like this. I can't help you fight Spear; I can't protect you from the Spider-crabs... I couldn't even protect you from Balzac when he was hurting you.)
(Don't say stupid things.) Slade could feel it when his younger twin inhaled, and then the feel of Saber's breath through his hair when he sighed.
(It's... it's like what happened to Conrad,) he said, knowing that he had to explain further if he was going to be able to make Saber see; he needed his younger twin to understand this.
(What does our psychotic older brother have to do with anything?) Saber asked, and Slade got the impression that his younger twin's patience was starting to run out.
That was all right, he didn't expect Saber to be patient with him; he didn't deserve it. (Within me is the same evil that drove Conrad insane; I can't control it. It's too much for me, brother. You've always been stronger than me. I'm sorry.)
(That... is the single stupidest thing I have ever heard you say, Nessie.) Slade was stunned enough by the fact that Saber had used that name - he hadn't heard it since the two of them were human, and he hadn't thought that he would ever hear it again - that even the feel of his younger twin's hands clenching against his back didn't faze him so much as that.
(What do you mean, Saber?)
"Are you boys all right?" Star asked, inadvertently reminding him that there were other people in the room besides him and Saber. "You've both been so silent."
"We're fine," Saber said, sounding like he was either rolling his eyes or he wanted to. "Slade's just being more of an idiot than usual, that's all."
"You've been using that selective telepathy of yours, haven't you?" Ringo asked, though it sounded more like a flat statement.
"How ever did you guess?" Saber retorted, and Slade could tell that his brother was probably smirking at Ringo.
"You two might not have noticed this, but there are these funny little symbols that appear in the center of your foreheads sometimes," Ringo said; he was probably pointing to his own forehead when he said that. "I didn't know what to make of them at first, but since you said that they show up whenever you use that telepathy of yours, I think I can guess."
"That's why you both covered your foreheads, that time when we'd all just gotten back from the mall," Star said, in the tone of someone who'd just had a revelation. "Who were you talking to, back then?"
Saber sighed, or he might have just laughed, soft and rueful. "Spear. And not by choice, either."
"Spear?" Ringo echoed. "What in the world did he want?"
"Something he was never, and is never, going to get," Saber said, firmly enough that Slade knew that that was all he was going to say.
No matter who else asked him; his younger twin was firm that way, when he was sure of something.
1101010010
"My younger brothers, where are they?" the evil Teknoman asked, as if the two of them were just having a nice chat over coffee; he didn't know just what was in that alien freak's head, but hell if he was going to fall for it.
"I'd worry about myself, if I were you," he shot back, bravado lacing his tone.
"Under the circumstances, I rather doubt that," the freak said flatly, armored fingers tapping against the shaft of his weapon. "I will give you one, last chance, insect: tell me where my younger brothers are, and I might spare you."
Gritting his teeth - who the hell did this alien freak think he was, trying to give a soldier orders like that?! - Balzac hissed through them. He wouldn't do anyone any good if he let this freak rile him up and then ended up getting killed because of if. Still, he'd be damned if he let some Radam freak get the better of him; no matter how many fancy tricks he had.
Dodging back and away from the evil Teknoman to give himself more maneuvering room, Balzac fired up his Tekno-suit's thrusters, curved his flightpath around the immobile figure, leaped up onto one of the bulkheads that hadn't yet been brought down by all the fighting, and leaped off it so that he was coming down behind and above the armored alien freak.
"I've got enough firepower here to take out two of you, Spear!" he crowed in triumph, firing six shots of hot Z-tron into the evil Teknoman's back. "You're finished!"
"Of course you do," the evil Teknoman said, his tone so dry and completely deadpan even as he was enveloped by the bright, coruscating sphere of power that had obliterated so any of those damned Spider-crabs, that Balzac knew he couldn't just leave it at that.
Firing two more shots into the rapidly-expanding sphere of deadly light and energized particles, Balzac watched in satisfaction as Spear's tall, broad-shouldered, sharply-pointed silhouette was completely obliterated by the light. However, once he had retracted his rifle and the light from the Z-tron reaction began to die down, Balzac saw the worse possible thing, under the circumstances, that he had never hoped to see: Spear's silhouette emerging from the light.
What was worse was that he looked completely unscathed by all of the power that Balzac had poured into the shots hitting his armor, and on top of that, the evil Teknoman was coming toward him. Slowly, almost deliberately, and inexorable as a rogue wave.
"That little toy of yours isn't nearly as impressive as you think it is, insect," the evil Teknoman said, his tone as deadpan as it had ever been.
"I don't believe this!" He fired for all he was worth, he fired four times, before he finally realized that he was out of ammo yet again. "Back off! Get back!" he shouted, frantically giving ground before the deadly, armored apparition in front of him. "Where's my support squad?! Cover me! Cover me!"
As the group of soldiers who had come up to the Space Ring with him opened fire on the Teknoman in front of him, Balzac breathed a brief sigh of relief. "It's about time! Keep firing; I'll be back to handle him after I reload."
Leaping over Spear's head, with a short burst from his thrusters to help his large, comparatively bulky armored form make it the rest of the way, Balzac landed behind the defensive line that his support-squad was maintaining. Without any kind of pause, not even having the time to catch his breath no matter how much he wanted to, Balzac began the process of reloading his Z-tron rifle. He was definitely going to be taking some extra ammo, this time.
"This farce no longer amuses me," he heard the evil Teknoman say, actually displaying a sort of emotion for the first time since this part of their battle had begun. What he was displaying, however, wasn't particularly promising. "I suppose I should show you at last, the true discrepancy between your feeble powers, and mine."
Balzac wondered for a moment just what Spear was about to do, since it looked like the evil Teknoman was gathering himself for something, when he remembered just what it was that those freak-brothers could do when they had needed to clear a roomful of Spider-crabs.
Mother of God... "Please, no!" he pleaded, not really knowing who he was speaking to but knowing all the same that it was futile.
As the awesome, terrible red light bore down on him and all of the members of his squad, streaming out in coherent beams before converging on their intended targets, Balzac at last managed to tear his attention away from red death closing in on him at speed. Turning a 180 as quickly as he could, since his Tekno-suit hadn't exactly been designed with tight turns in mind, Balzac could hear the screams of those men he'd left behind in an effort to put as much distance as he could between himself and burning red death as possible.
He only heard the screams for a few moments, as the men and women doing the screaming were wiped out of existence by the powerful energies that Spear had unleashed on them. He was distantly thankful for that, but the whole of his world had become heat and pressure and pain, leaving precious little room for coherent thought. He was determined to survive this ordeal, but he was beginning to think that determination alone wasn't going to be enough.
It wasn't a comforting thought.
1101001001
As he stood there, watching the utter obliteration of the forces that he had ordered dispatched to the Space Ring to deal with the Radam occupying it, Gault was too horrified to speak for a few, long moments.
"General, we've lost contact with three of our squads on the Space Ring," one of his underlings spoke up, clearly more level-headed than he was feeling at the moment. "We've got a report coming in from the fourth squad right now."
"-what's left of my squad; thousands of Spider-crabs are-" the image of the man making the transmission went to static as his signal cut out. "-Can't-" more static. "-much longer, General! We need help, and right now!" the image went to static for the last time, as the soldier's comm. link cut out entirely.
Groaning in fear and fury as he leaned over the banks of monitors that lined nearly every square-inch of the monitoring room, Gault tried to stay on his even though he felt as if all the strength had gone out of his legs. I don't believe it! The Tekno-suit is gone! There's no defense against the Radam; we're helpless!
He couldn't even hope to salvage this situation by sending Saber out to deal with the invading Radam horde; the boy would never get there in time, for one thing, and no one was quite sure where he'd gone in all the chaos, for another. There was no hope anymore.
010101111
(I've cleared the way for you; go now,) he ordered the legions of Spider-crabs that he had been placed in command of by Lord Darkon when he had been deployed to the Space Ring to deal with the new weapons-system that the humans had deployed. (Deal with the humans; make sure they can't get in our way anymore. I will deal with the traitors.)
He had been right: that armored suit that he had been facing might have been a completely laughable one-to-one against himself, or likely any other Teknoman that would be required to deal with it, but if the machine had been allowed to become anything more than simply a prototype, things might very well have become rather troublesome for all of them.
For the moment, however, I suppose I will have to leave that be. I have matters of my own to attend to, he mused, looking up to the moon even as his thoughts turned to his younger brothers back on earth. Ness. Cain. You're coming home with me; whether you like it or not.
1101010010
Crawling now, on his hands and knees in the aftermath of the damage that had been caused to his Tekno-suit - what remained of it after that beam-attack that Spear had blasted him with at the end of something that couldn't have been called a fight - Balzac forcefully shoved every thought, regrets and recriminations and reflections, aside so that he could focus. Focus and survive. That was all that mattered now.
He had to find a shuttle-pod and get back to Earth; everything else was secondary to that goal. Even the knowledge that he would most likely be called on to report the kind of power that Spear had demonstrated. The power that had crippled his Tekno-suit and reduced his support-squad to scattered, free-floating atoms.
Crawling over a particularly large chunk of rubble, he failed to notice until the last minute that it was loose. As his right arm was pulled from underneath him by the unstable surface, Balzac forced himself to relax and let the force of his tumble propel him along the deck of the Space Ring.
It was a bumpy ride, to be sure, but it was also a bit faster than he'd been able to move on his own in his damaged Tekno-suit; that was really all that mattered right now.
1101010111
"General Gault, the monitor is picking up thousands of them!"
"What's their heading?" he asked, wanting at least to know where the next attack was going to be; even though he knew that there was nothing he or anyone in this room could do about it anymore.
"Working on it, sir," the technician said. "Apparent trajectory is," he heard the sounds of keys being punched, and then a slight pause; this clearly was worse news than even he had thought. "Our command center. They're going to land here, sir; right here."
So, that was it, then; even the Teknoman Saber wouldn't have been able to save them from that many Spider-crabs, even if someone had been able to find him. This was the last stand of the Allied Earth Military's Arizona Command Center.
101001011
Standing within the sanctuary of his own Command Center, temporary as it way very well have been, Hamilton Jamison watched as uncountable numbers of Spider-crabs descended on the Allied Earth Military's center of operations in this state. There were more of them then could possibly be displayed, even on the large screen that he was standing before. Seeing that massive swarm... it was as if he was looking into the past, seeing the hopeless state of the war, before Slade and Saber had fallen to Earth. Before those two young men had joined in the planet's defense, and given all of them a fighting chance.
He'd never thought to see this kind of disaster again; he'd never wanted to see it again.
"Commander, isn't there anything that we can-"
"No," he said quickly, cutting Tina off before she could begin to worry too much; he worried for them, too, but a commander's duty was to keep his people stable.
To help them stand up under stress, even when that stress was affecting him as well; Tina's worry served no practical purpose at this time, best he didn't let her focus too much on it.
"Oh, Commander. If Slade and Saber don't come back..."
"I know," he said, putting his hand on her right shoulder as she trailed off.
Without the twins with them, to provide the Earth's defenders with both the morale they needed to feel that their efforts were not in vain, and the power they needed to ensure that they would actually succeed in those efforts, the people of Earth were in nearly the same situation that they had been in during the first six months of the invasion. Perhaps even worse, since under the circumstances it could easily be assumed that Slade and Saber had abandoned them.
