章節 113: A Taste of the Future, Part 3
The sun was dipping as we approached the cave where we had been living for the past month and a half. One of the men that I had knocked out was slung over L'Naan's shoulder like a sack of potatoes with his hands and feet bound with metal wire. He had woken up at one point during our walk back, but Echo knocked him out again with a solid punch to his temple.
Filigree had been watching for us, so she rushed into the cave to alert Katye, no doubt. Katye met us at the entrance of the cave with a questioning look. L'Naan dumped him on the ground with a huff and stretched.
"They pulled a double ambush on us, and on the same day that I decided it was time to use Plan B. I know that you probably won't be able to tell if Sancu is directly involved, but I'm hoping that you can gather some information about their group. I'm sick of playing this defensive game," I huffed.
"Alright, I'll see what I can pull out of his mind. Do you want dinner, or are you just going to focus on healing?" Katye asked.
Before I could answer, there was a soft boom in the distance, and we all turned our heads. A fireball was streaking through the darkening sky which had to be a new ship... or a probe. Considering the 'perfect timing' of the arrival, L'Naan immediately retrieved her tricorder and opened it up, tapping a few buttons.
"It has a Federation signal... It seems our ride has arrived," she stated, closing the tricorder.
I let out a growl, and I twisted away from the others then punched the cliff face, my anger flaring due to my pain and annoyance. Sancu was doing all of this on purpose, to test us, I know, but I could not help but be beyond frustrated. I was heavily injured, my Soul Power was low, the amount of food that I had eaten in the past week would just be a large meal to me back on Voyager, and now, we were likely going to have to fight our way to the probe, so that we could get out of this hellhole.
Upon seeing the probe crashing in the distance, Katye gave a light sigh and ignored my outburst as she knelt down. She placed a hand on the prisoner's head, her fingertips glowing violet, and started extracting his memories. It took less than a minute and, since she had not taken the gentle approach, he started to foam at the mouth as his brain short-circuited; no doubt, he would be dead soon.
"Let me guess... their camp is in the direction that the probe landed," Echo remarked, seeing Katye's annoyance.
"And they have a well-fortified campsite with repurposed phasers from their ships. Considering how heavily basic hand phasers can harm Becca, those will likely be able to kill us with a single hit and even the shields built into our exo-suits probably won't be able to handle more than a blast or two before the cores are drained. With Sancu pulling the strings, if the probe didn't directly land in their campsite, it's close enough that they will be able to drag it back before we can reach it," Katye replied.
"At least night is falling. The Yin Realm will be available to us, so we can have the element of surprise when we hit them," L'Naan commented.
"Perhaps, but I wouldn't trust it. They have sensors, and with us developing 'mana' sensors for Voyager, I would not be surprised if they had them too; invisibility is too much of an advantage, especially with the ease that we got it," Katye countered.
"Then what do you suggest? It sounds like neither a frontal assault nor a stealth operation are optimal," Echo asked.
"Actually, a combination of the two. Becca, here start eating," Katye said, retrieving a small bag from her ring and tossing it towards me.
I did not even need to look into the bag to know what it contained as I could sense the ripe mana fruits and accused with a light growl, "I knew you were holding out on me."
"For exactly this reason... Ultimately, the entire reason why we are in Istar's Inner Realms is to train both of us to be able to handle the power of our True Soul. When do you unconsciously tap into your true power? When you are worried, when you are desperate, when you have nothing left but the Will to survive... The small amount of food will do nothing more than give you a bit more energy for our next fight, and might help you, or me, keep you from a complete meltdown."
I did not bother to argue because I knew she was right. Instead, I just started tossing the berries into my mouth without regard. I had been on the verge of starving for days, to the point that I spent all of my time meditating unless I was watching over Echo and L'Naan while they hunted, so a fulfilling meal, like mana fruits, was all I wanted at this point.
"We can't wait too long, I'm sure, so honestly, Becca, how long can you use your Dusa form?" Kate asked.
"Without caring for how long I will be out afterwards, perhaps ten minutes, but I would be emptying out my Soul Power completely... It will likely be weeks before I wake up again," I answered between bites.
"I won't ask you to use it lightly, but unfortunately, we'll likely need your strength. I have the makings of a plan, so let's discuss it on the way and flesh out what details we can," Katye suggested.
We all agreed and followed Katye as she directed us towards the campsite of the raiders. It was not a short walk to the region around their campsite, which was good because we had a lot of things to plan out. Thankfully, we had crippled their numbers in the morning, and Katye estimated that they should only have about forty or fifty people left with our report of events, but that was still enough to give us some trouble with how fortified they were.
While the four of us discussed strategy, Filigree fluttered around me as she used several Voyager medical devices to treat my wounds. For treating plasma burns, the equipment was on par with my healing ability, but the charge on them was smaller than my own, so she only treated the worst of them by the time that the devices were out of power. She wanted to use her magic to help heal me as well, but Katye would not allow it as I would need my stamina, and she would need her mana because the little fairy had her own task...
The wreckage of three shuttles made up the main structures of the raider campground while salvaged bits of other ships were used to create walls and passageways between the ships. Turrets were mounted on the walls and there was a single tower in the campground's center which had the strongest phaser bank turret. While there was no proper shielding, the sensor net combined with the thick alloy-metal walls made it nearly impossible to breech... but that was by conventional means of the average Mortal that crashed upon this world.
The three moons that circled the desert were all in the sky, barely, marking it as the peak of the night. That was the moment when a giant, violet daisy of pure mana bloomed above the clouds, and started to rain down petals. Their sensors picked up the incoming danger, and their camp came alive with alarms, but that did not mean that they could repel the attack. Wherever the petals landed, an eruption of mana exploded and destroyed everything around them. The tops of the three ships were significantly damaged and chunks of the outside walls were destroyed... giving me the opportunity to rush inside.
As soon as I saw Katye's spell land, I rushed towards the raider campsite with my exo-suit on. Activating the shields on my suit was a thought away, but I wanted to wait until my senses warned me that I was the target. Once I was within fifty meters of their remaining walls, my senses flared, and I activated my suit's shield less than a second before I was hit with a hard blast from a phaser bank. The shields absorbed the bulk of the hit, but the suit's reserves were cut by a third.
"Main turrets take the suit's reserves down by a third," I reported through the comm system as another blast came my way.
Activating my superspeed, I dodged the next phaser beam and rushed into one of the ships through a hole that Katye's spell had created. The room that I found myself in was empty and small, but that did not bother me as I had gotten out of the turret's sight. I retrieved a sword from my storage ring and infused it with both my mana and Weapon-Force. With a single swing of my sword, I cut a large gash into the metal door which granted me access to the corridor; I might have been able to use the keypad, but my temper was driving most of my actions at this point.
I stepped out into a corridor which had a few men with phasers and, due to my entrance, they were pointing them at me. They did not hesitate and opened fire immediately, but my shields absorbed the blasts. Smirking, I pointed my sword at one end of the corridor then thrusted it forward which released a bolt of gray Weapon-Force that pierced through multiple bodies. At the same time, I conjured a baseball-sized ball of blue fire, a fusion of Wind and Fire, and threw it at the other end of the hallway. After what Katye had told us that she had gleaned from the raider's mind, no one wanted to go easy on these assholes.
I charged at the men who I had attacked with Weapon-Force as the other end was busy with the flames from my fireball. I made quick work of those that were not killed by my initial attack, then moved onto the next room. While I did not have a map of the ship, I was moving to the front of the ship where I guessed the bridge would be. More men tried to block my path, but I took them down without too much trouble, though my suit's reserves were below half while my own energy was at a third of my reserves.
After clearing out the bridge, I pulled off the glove on my left hand and injected a console with my Borg tubules. Scanning through the computer system and files, I confirmed that the raider camp had found and retrieved the probe. Thankfully, the retrieval team had only returned less than an hour before we started our attack, so the probe should be mostly intact... or so I hoped.
"Probe located... well, the majority of it. The scavengers were in the middle of stripping it," L'Naan reported. "The power core has been removed, possibly more. I need to check it over before I'm sure."
"L'Naan, ping your location, and, Echo, let me relieve you. My mana is low, but I can lock down a location," I said through the comm.
"Happily," Echo replied, as it meant that I gave her free run of the complex.
My visor updated my vision so that I could see a beacon where L'Naan was, despite the bulkheads between us. Thanks to raiding the ship's logs, I knew where the closest exits were, so I left the ship quickly. When I stepped out, I found out that Katye had destroyed the main turret, much to my delight, so running over to the other ship was not too difficult. The door was locked, but I shifted into Yin Realm and passed through it, finding a corridor filled with people. I quickly stepped out of the Yin Realm and found that they were all facing the other way, which happened to be the direction that visor was pointing.
I retrieved two custom phasers that were designed for rapid fire from my ring and unleashed a volley into their backsides. Half a dozen were hit before anyone could react and, even when they realized what was happening, my shields absorbed the few phaser blasts that hit me before I finished off the remaining raiders. Stepping over the bodies, I tapped the door button, but it was not surprising when it did not open.
"Knock, knock, Echo," I said through the comm system, tapping lightly on the door.
The door opened a moment later, and I found Echo and L'Naan standing in a cargo bay. L'Naan was standing at a workbench, working on a device which was, no doubt, the probe while Echo was at a console. I pulled off my visor as I walked over to them and sent it back into my storage ring.
"Wow, you look like crap," Echo mocked.
"Jok yu... I've still got enough strength to kick your ass, if you wanna test me," I growled.
Echo held her hands up in mock surrender, knowing better than to push me further in my cranky state. Taking out her helmet, she said, before putting it on, "We're going hunting."
The reason why she said 'we' was because Nyka was fused with her, boosting Echo's strength by nearly double. Much of our time here, they were in this state and had found that it had become much easier for them to maintain their fusion. It had even gotten to the point where I could communicate with Nyka through Echo's and my connection, which allowed me to learn just how sassy the little fox was.
Echo left the room out the door that I had come in through and complained, "Did you leave any for me?"
"Filigree still counts twenty-two life forces below, but a few have started to flee," Katye said.
"Anyone with half a brain would if something started blowing holes in two-inch duranium hull plating," L'Naan scoffed while she continued to work on the probe.
I chuckled to myself, and Echo, but did not comment. While Katye and I were able to use strength similar to our later years in 'The 100', and Echo had been able to regain her weaker Hunting, Ice, and Illusion spells when fused with Nyka, L'Naan's magic was still very restricted. Outside of a weakened version of her Weapon-Force, she could only use the most basic spells, with only Fireball possible in combat due to her natural affinity. Needless to say, her Klingon pride had taken a hit, and her mood was nearly as foul as mine.
"Hey, get your tricorder out and start scanning the shelves. Look for anything Federation," L'Naan said.
"Alright," I replied, pulling out a tricorder from my storage ring.
Tapping a few buttons, I started scanning the parts on the shelves. Tricorders were a blessing as there was no way that I would be able to find the dozen or so small parts that were scattered about, mixed in with other parts. I brought over the pieces as I found them, and L'Naan worked on installing them. Through our connection, I could tell that Echo was enjoying the challenge of tracking down the remaining raiders and had already taken down five of the twenty-two. Fifteen minutes after I replaced Echo, L'Naan finished repairing the probe and connected our comm system to it through her tricorder.
"Voyager to the Fae Dragon. A transporter beam with a radius of two meters will activate at the coordinates of the probe in exactly thirty minutes. Be advised we've detected a temporal differential between our two positions. According to our calculations, the differential ratio is .4744 seconds per minute. Repeat, Voyager to the Fae Dragon..." Janeway's voice announced in the recorded message.
"Damn, I never thought I would be happy to hear Janeway's voice," Echo remarked through the comm system.
"What does that break down to?" I asked.
"Two days, eleven hours, and fourty-seven seconds from now," a familiar voice said from behind me.
I spun on my heel and found Sancu with his casual smile. Before I could say anything, he tapped his cane and a flash of white light erupted, bringing Katye, Echo, and Filigree to the room.
"I must say that I'm impressed. Even Istar did not calculate the ease at which you would complete this trial. Nearly every prediction had Echo or L'Naan being captured in the ambush and, if neither were, it would have been due to a complete retreat, not wiping out everyone that attacked. You simply have too much mana to really challenge you properly while not placing you all in an environment that completely outclasses your companions, Rebecca, and even Katye. Istar has decided to craft a seal to restrict your mana proportional to your groups' average strength, but he won't place it until you leave this universe," Sancu explained.
"We can finally beat you in a spar," L'Naan remarked with a smirk.
I rolled my eyes at the provocation and complained, "How can I protect them if I am weakened? It isn't fair to constantly throw us into danger without our full strength."
"Life isn't fair," he retorted with a smirk, then tapped his cane.
He vanished, but in his place, there was a red satchel with mana crystals on the drawstrings. Katye reached out a hand and used her telekinesis to pick up the bag to bring it to her hand.
"Well, if we get to keep this bag, the amount of storage room is incredible. We could probably store Voyager within it," Katye remarked then pulled out a ripe mana fruit that was different than the ones that I grew. My eyes were locked on the fruit, my hunger stirring immediately, and she tossed it to me with a chuckle and added, "There are around a hundred more, so just let me know if you want more."
I only gave a hum of acknowledgement as I devoured the fleshy fruit that was packed with mana, feeling the icy rush of energy throughout my body. She retrieved another, smaller, fruit and gave it to Filigree, who beamed with excitement.
"I take it that Fae is inside the bag?" Echo asked for confirmation.
"Yes, we have the ship, a hundred fruits, a hundred pounds of meat, and numerous herbs... all which seem to be from the Endless Firmament," Katye replied. "None of you get to touch the herbs. I'm going to start researching proper alchemic formulas because I'm sure that it will be helpful in our next 'universe', so don't try... I saw how you all simply ate raw herbs during Sancu's game."
"Did you really expect us to start mixing potions with Ishu identifying the various herbs we found?" I mocked with a mouthful of fruit.
"Even if you had Fae's databanks, I wouldn't expect any of you to make potions," she retorted.
L'Naan grumbled a few Klingon curses while Echo growled softly, "Jok yu."
I chuckled, since I had long accepted that Katye's abilities far exceeded my own, and replied, "Whatever... let's get back to our home. I want to eat, heal, and sleep, in that order."
"As you command, O' mighty Dragon," Katye mocked.
I growled, but she pulled out another fruit, and any retort I might have had was gone in that instant. She gave me the fruit, as I finished the first one, and we all left the cargo bay and raider camp, altogether. The few that remained of the original group had all fled the grounds, so we had no difficulties as we returned to our cave system. I healed what I could with my remaining mana, Filigree as well, and slept through most of the next day.
I was mostly healed when I woke up the next day, so Katye cooked us all a barbeque with the meat from the satchel, which was on the level of what we had in Sancu's game. It was already delicious before, but with Katye's cooking, it reached a whole new level. We relaxed for the next day and a half until it was time for Voyager to transport us back to the ship.
A/N: Well, I've obviously been slowing down on my releases currently, so I wanted to ask... Would you guys prefer I release on random Fridays, or start releasing on the 1st of every month which I would do a mass release of what I have?
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