Chapter 515: 515
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"The Mad Lemurs of Terra consider horror and terror as something that can be enjoyed in controlled doses. A simple viewing of 'slasher films' or 'horror movies' reveal terrifying truths about the lemurs if one is brave enough to look for them.
Or mad enough." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff
The scientists watched the lemur as it sat motionless inside the room. Their atmospheric controls were not responding to input and it was beginning to appear that the room was impenetrable, isolated somehow from the rest of the research station.
As they watched, a light mist covered the floor, covering her knees. Red lemur blood, heavy in iron and oxygen, crawled up her body until she was completely covered in it, her hair vanishing into the thick red liquid. It suddenly vanished, as if it was sucked into her skin.
Her hair was braided, a complex ornate set of braids with the sparkling of precious gems in it. She wore an outfit of red and black that concealed flesh but somehow made her appear lewd. A tiara of black iron was on her brow, a ruby the size of a chicken egg in the middle that glowed with a soft light.
The mist lowered and the scientists stared in shock.
She sat in a circle of purple Atrekna blood, smearing artfully in a pair of circles around her, the space between the two circles filled with warped and twisted runes that resembled Atrekna hieroglyphics and lemur runes. She sat in the middle of an eight pointed star, each point extending out past the two circles. At the tip of each point were candles of tallow rended from the adipose tissue of Atrekna, the flame steady and white.
She laughed.
A cold, malevolent thing that shimmered in the air around her, echoed in the air of the observation chamber, and touched the minds of the watching Atrekna.
Her eyes opened and the Atrekna saw they were lit with a bright red light that illuminated her eye sockets and the brown flesh around her eyes. Her face had makeup on it, dark around the eyes, white on her cheekbones, and purple on her lips. She smiled, revealing even white meat tearing teeth.
**what is it doing** the Chief Scientist asked.
**we do not know** one of the scientists answered.
**nothing. she did nothing. no phasic that we could detect just a surge of energy around her and increased activity in three of her brain structures** another stated.
**phasic activity detected** one warned.
The ruby had begun to glow, matching the glow of her eyes, and a reddish nimbus seemed to cover her brow. She stood up, a bronze and silver dagger somehow in her hands.
**where is she getting these physical objects? how is she getting them** the Chief Scientist demanded to know.
**unknown** one scientist said. It leaned down, looking closely at its instruments. **the temperature drops slightly for a moment while its internal body temperature rises in accordance to the appearance of material objects**
**perhaps it is related to** another started.
The female lemur stood up, waving her hands and chanting. A purplish and dark indigo nimbus surrounded her hands as she moved them. From her lips flowed black mist as she spoke. The words made no sense, even though some of them were familiar to the Atrekna. Somehow she was using the ancient spoken language, used rarely, interspersed with other language.
**at least three, no, four, no, five other languages** the Chief Linguistics Officer stated.
Blood dripped from her hands as she raised them up.
"I AWAKEN THEE, REGULATOR!" she shouted out.
There was a sudden spike of phasic power that burst from her, strong enough that the phasonium alloy prison reverberated with it. Power dampeners flared and shattered, the crystalline structures overloaded.
**what is a regulator** the Chief Scientist asked.
------------
I checked my system power as the weapons check finally came back at 100%. I was sitting pretty at 100% across the board, in some cases, such as my nanite repair and optimization systems, I was sitting at more than 100%.
I glanced at Peel, a combat data analyst out of Alpha Company, 108th Military Intelligence (Old Blood), our sister company for the Rangers of Delta Company (Old Hatred) 108th MI (Old Blood). She had her eyes closed, her eyes moving back and forth rapidly under the lids.
Both of us were clad in black armor. Archiac looking stuff, like platemail from a museum on Old Terra, but neither one of us were going to complain to our mysterious benefactor. The armor was still environmentally sealed hyperalloys, even if the faceplates were fashioned to look like skulls.
Of course, we were only armed with swords. Engraved and inlaid swords that were packed full of nanite systems that automatically synched up with my systems when I grabbed them. A good, heavy sword, with a variable sharpness edge. A good combat weapon.
Not that Peel knew how to use one.
I did.
My combat systems were unlocked, I could have used any of my onboard weaponry, but our benefactor had let us know we were on a space station an unknown distance from any rescue or assistance, and the last thing anyone needed was me to cut loose with my onboard weapons and blow a hole clean through the hull to outer space.
"How's it look, Control?" I asked. It was comfortable working with her, I'd worked with her plenty of times before. More than once it had been her calm voice on the comlink keeping us updated when the shit hit the fan.
Peel didn't bother opening her eyes. "Just under a hundred of them left. Our benefactor is toying with them for some reason. Using a lot of nanite constructs molded to look like biologicals. They're going full horror-show out there."
"Terrified enemies don't think well," I said.
"No, they do not," Peel said, her voice cool, remote, detached.
I was fine with that.
"Map is updating. Route is being set. Looks like our benefactor has us moving toward an area with high phasic energy systems," Peel stated.
"I copy," I told her. I closed my eyes.
"Updating map systems. Standby for upload," Peel stated.
I simply waited.
Internal mapping system updated.
Routing waypoints set
Computing optimal route - done
All of it floated in my vision for a moment and in my mind, in that warm spot where I heard my own voice informing me of my status.
"Mission engagement countdown," Peel stated. Her words floated up in my vision in the Control Font and light blue coloration.
"Standing by," I answered.
ALL SYSTEMS ENGAGED floated up in my vision as everything went live. I felt parts of my brain come alive, felt muscles that I hadn't been born with, could feel the thudding of my cybernetic heart in my chest and the expansion of my vat grown lungs.
I SUMMON THEE, REGULATOR appeared in my vision and as a whisper in my ear. A woman's voice, throaty, sexy in the 'a few shots of whiskey and a cigarette' way that some singers were.
The wall in front of us rippled, pulling back like water parting. Mist rolled in and the lights of the hallway were flickering. The angles were off slightly, the whole thing looked like it had been designed to appear biological and grown.
I knew it was for alien aesthetics.
I led the way, radar and sonar systems up, echolocation doing its job. The mist, the fog, the flashing lights, all easily compensated for by my onboard systems. Peel moved along behind me, exactly five paces, just what training had shown.
A part of me wondered how long it had been since she had last been in the field and been forced to act as direct action control.
It didn't matter, though. What mattered was quickly moving through the hallway.
A creature loomed up, dark mauve skin, tentacles on the face, huge white eyes with a pupil so narrow it was almost invisible. Squidlike head, long fingers, wearing an iridescent robe. It was flush with phasic energy and my psychic shielding ramped up automatically as easily as breathing.
FWOOP
The psychic attack was strong enough to make the air ripple, a physical thing of biologically directed phasic energy.
I stepped through the attack, ignoring it. The medieval armor protected me to the point that my internal systems suffered no degradation from the attack. Two others loomed out of the mist as I took three rapid steps into the creature's face.
"Target species tenatively identified in military intelligence databases as: Atrekna," Peel's voice was soft and remote. "Previously encountered on Hesstla and several other planets. High phasic combat ability, temporal manipulation abilities of unknown strength, poor physical combatant."
By the time she'd listed the world I was in its face, one hand reaching out. I grabbed its robe even as it cut loose with another attack.
FWOOP
I felt my armor vibrate slightly as I rammed the three feet of steel through it, lightning crackling up and down the blade as the nanite systems electrified the blade with enough juice that the blood popped and hisses.
The other two started to back away as I threw the corpse the side as soon as it went dead weight.
Both of them hit me with their phasic attack, making my armor vibrate but little else. A backhand, servo and cyber-piston driven with artificial muscle fiber enhancement, shattered one, the blade sliced the other in two.
I'd faced the black dog on a hill on Telkan.
These things were nothing.
"Take a right, Regulator-Actual," Peel ordered.
"Affirmative," I replied.
MOMMA'S WAITING appeared in my vision. DON'T TARRY.
"You get that?" I asked Peel.
"Affirmative. Our benefactor is non-military at a 92% confidence rating. Based on nanite control, predictive analysis places a 42% chance that they are cybermancer or technomancer trained," Peel answered. "Take a left."
A door opened but before the Atrekna could react I'd already caved in its skull. My motor control was directly wired to my muscles, my reactions hardwired in. I was faster than almost any natural born human, with only a few exceptions. It didn't even get a chance to lash out with its psychic power before I crushed its cranial vault into splinters that tore apart its brain.
If this was the best the Atrekna had, then they had nothing.
--------------
The Atrekna on the station were in a panic. Something they had never felt in their long lives as everything seemed to turn against them. The halls were concealed by mist that seemed to be full of tentacles, creatures, or just fanged maws and eyes. The rooms were slowly being overgrown by what looked like living tissue but did not respond to any powers the Atrekna could bring to bear. The tissue seemed to have no DNA, but grew and expanded to slowly cover walls, floors, and ceilings. Other rooms were full of creatures that seemed immune to phasic power, to psychic ability. There was no mind, no consciousness, just a drive to hunt and kill.
The Atrekna that had made it to the armory found themselves fighting against tentacles jellies that sprouted eyes, maws, and tentacles with equal abandon.
They lost.
A dozen Atrekna fought to get aboard on of the ships, lashing out at one another.
One of the black creatures, eyeless, long tails with a sharp bladed end, ran down the hall at them, ignoring panicked attacks, and fell upon them.
In moments it was over, the creature vanishing into the mists.
The scientists watching the female lemur could do nothing but observe. They had lost control of the prison cell, no Atrekna was willing to go into the cell after she had turned two Atrekna inside out somehow, literally pulling their skeletons out of their mouths.
The skeletons stood on either side of her, glowing with purple and indigo energy, cruel curved blades in their hands, their skins discarded on the floor next to a puddle of internal organs.
**she is doing it. i do not know how but i know she is the cause of all of this** the Chief Scientist stated.
The Chief of Station Operations said nothing, just stared at the floor he was sitting on, surrounded by his own misery and a feeling of hopelessness like none he had ever felt.
The two remaining scientists looked at him.
**send the data we have gathered. perhaps other eyes can see what we cannot** the Chief Scientist said.
**the two reanimated lemurs approach** one scientist warned. **they are heading directly toward us. there is no Atrekna willing to attempt to stop them now**
**then they will reach us. transmit our data** the Chief Scientist ordered.
One scientist carefully connected to the data transmitting neural clusters deep in the station. The shared consciousness was full of mocking laughter and whispers of doom. They knew it was the lemur, they just could not figure out how the lemur was doing it.
But the lemur had shown high levels, almost absurd levels of phasic ability, with lethal psychic defenses to any who attempted to touch her conscious or unconscious mind.
It was not much data, but the scientist consoled itself that nobody else had gathered a tenth of what the station had.
The data had just been transferred when the wall rippled and opened.
The two reanimated lemurs, entirely in black armor with skull faceplates, stood there. The female slightly behind the male.
The scientist knew, somehow, that she was controlling him.
He added that to the observations going out.
The flash of a blade meant that his death was transmitted at the end of the data.
The Chief Scientist gathered his psychic ability and channeled it into a blast that would leave even the largest slavespawn stunned.
The lemur didn't seem to notice as it took two steps forward, idly lopping off the Chief of Station Operation's head as he passed, and thrust the blade into the Chief Scientist's chest.
The Atrekna died, not understanding what had gone wrong.
His science was the science of temporal mechanics, of biological manipulation, of phasic and psychic energy.
He had been beaten by a science of small things. Each only a dusting of atoms wide.
And the will to use them.
-----------------
The station was clean. No trace of the Atrekna or the things that had killed them remained. It still had power, generated by living organs. It still had light, the diffuse illumination of light emitting nanites.
The trio had checked out the spaceships and found that they had no idea how to use them in the slightest, so they had backed off to a clean empty room.
"Any ideas?" Lady Keena asked. She was dressed in leathers again, her sword and clothing retrieved from the storage area that the Atrekna had put it all in.
Peel opened her mouth to say no and stopped. She patted her pockets and smiled.
"What?" Keena asked.
"If it works," Peel said. She pulled a small device slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. "It uses paired spooky particles, so somethimes it doesn't work right. It doesn't care about distance or interference. It's slow, no voice or video, just text."
"Can it get us out of here?" the Regulator asked.
Peel shook her head with a smile. "It can't, but I might be able to call someone who can."
-------------------
Vuxten had his foot on a stool, his leg held in a traction cast while his knee healed naturally. He was tapping a pen on the desk while he stared at the only other person in the room.
"...doing well," Vuxten was saying. "Personally, I'm gratified that I made the right decision to believe you'd be an asset to First Telkan. With that, I think we can call this meeting over and..."
beep beep beep
The other person in the room frowned. "Sorry, sir."
He dug in his pocket for a moment, pulling out a small device that Vuxten recognized as having previously been on a loading frame.
"Is that your blinky?" Vuxten asked, sitting up, his ears going up. "Who's calling you on it?"
"It can't be," the man said.
"What?" Vuxten asked.
Casey stared at Vuxten, his one eye starting to glow a soft amber.
"It's Peel. She says she's alive."
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"The Mad Lemurs of Terra consider horror and terror as something that can be enjoyed in controlled doses. A simple viewing of 'slasher films' or 'horror movies' reveal terrifying truths about the lemurs if one is brave enough to look for them.
Or mad enough." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the Hasslehoff
The scientists watched the lemur as it sat motionless inside the room. Their atmospheric controls were not responding to input and it was beginning to appear that the room was impenetrable, isolated somehow from the rest of the research station.
As they watched, a light mist covered the floor, covering her knees. Red lemur blood, heavy in iron and oxygen, crawled up her body until she was completely covered in it, her hair vanishing into the thick red liquid. It suddenly vanished, as if it was sucked into her skin.
Her hair was braided, a complex ornate set of braids with the sparkling of precious gems in it. She wore an outfit of red and black that concealed flesh but somehow made her appear lewd. A tiara of black iron was on her brow, a ruby the size of a chicken egg in the middle that glowed with a soft light.
The mist lowered and the scientists stared in shock.
She sat in a circle of purple Atrekna blood, smearing artfully in a pair of circles around her, the space between the two circles filled with warped and twisted runes that resembled Atrekna hieroglyphics and lemur runes. She sat in the middle of an eight pointed star, each point extending out past the two circles. At the tip of each point were candles of tallow rended from the adipose tissue of Atrekna, the flame steady and white.
She laughed.
A cold, malevolent thing that shimmered in the air around her, echoed in the air of the observation chamber, and touched the minds of the watching Atrekna.
Her eyes opened and the Atrekna saw they were lit with a bright red light that illuminated her eye sockets and the brown flesh around her eyes. Her face had makeup on it, dark around the eyes, white on her cheekbones, and purple on her lips. She smiled, revealing even white meat tearing teeth.
**what is it doing** the Chief Scientist asked.
**we do not know** one of the scientists answered.
**nothing. she did nothing. no phasic that we could detect just a surge of energy around her and increased activity in three of her brain structures** another stated.
**phasic activity detected** one warned.
The ruby had begun to glow, matching the glow of her eyes, and a reddish nimbus seemed to cover her brow. She stood up, a bronze and silver dagger somehow in her hands.
**where is she getting these physical objects? how is she getting them** the Chief Scientist demanded to know.
**unknown** one scientist said. It leaned down, looking closely at its instruments. **the temperature drops slightly for a moment while its internal body temperature rises in accordance to the appearance of material objects**
**perhaps it is related to** another started.
The female lemur stood up, waving her hands and chanting. A purplish and dark indigo nimbus surrounded her hands as she moved them. From her lips flowed black mist as she spoke. The words made no sense, even though some of them were familiar to the Atrekna. Somehow she was using the ancient spoken language, used rarely, interspersed with other language.
**at least three, no, four, no, five other languages** the Chief Linguistics Officer stated.
Blood dripped from her hands as she raised them up.
"I AWAKEN THEE, REGULATOR!" she shouted out.
There was a sudden spike of phasic power that burst from her, strong enough that the phasonium alloy prison reverberated with it. Power dampeners flared and shattered, the crystalline structures overloaded.
**what is a regulator** the Chief Scientist asked.
------------
I checked my system power as the weapons check finally came back at 100%. I was sitting pretty at 100% across the board, in some cases, such as my nanite repair and optimization systems, I was sitting at more than 100%.
I glanced at Peel, a combat data analyst out of Alpha Company, 108th Military Intelligence (Old Blood), our sister company for the Rangers of Delta Company (Old Hatred) 108th MI (Old Blood). She had her eyes closed, her eyes moving back and forth rapidly under the lids.
Both of us were clad in black armor. Archiac looking stuff, like platemail from a museum on Old Terra, but neither one of us were going to complain to our mysterious benefactor. The armor was still environmentally sealed hyperalloys, even if the faceplates were fashioned to look like skulls.
Of course, we were only armed with swords. Engraved and inlaid swords that were packed full of nanite systems that automatically synched up with my systems when I grabbed them. A good, heavy sword, with a variable sharpness edge. A good combat weapon.
Not that Peel knew how to use one.
I did.
My combat systems were unlocked, I could have used any of my onboard weaponry, but our benefactor had let us know we were on a space station an unknown distance from any rescue or assistance, and the last thing anyone needed was me to cut loose with my onboard weapons and blow a hole clean through the hull to outer space.
"How's it look, Control?" I asked. It was comfortable working with her, I'd worked with her plenty of times before. More than once it had been her calm voice on the comlink keeping us updated when the shit hit the fan.
Peel didn't bother opening her eyes. "Just under a hundred of them left. Our benefactor is toying with them for some reason. Using a lot of nanite constructs molded to look like biologicals. They're going full horror-show out there."
"Terrified enemies don't think well," I said.
"No, they do not," Peel said, her voice cool, remote, detached.
I was fine with that.
"Map is updating. Route is being set. Looks like our benefactor has us moving toward an area with high phasic energy systems," Peel stated.
"I copy," I told her. I closed my eyes.
"Updating map systems. Standby for upload," Peel stated.
I simply waited.
Internal mapping system updated.
Routing waypoints set
Computing optimal route - done
All of it floated in my vision for a moment and in my mind, in that warm spot where I heard my own voice informing me of my status.
"Mission engagement countdown," Peel stated. Her words floated up in my vision in the Control Font and light blue coloration.
"Standing by," I answered.
ALL SYSTEMS ENGAGED floated up in my vision as everything went live. I felt parts of my brain come alive, felt muscles that I hadn't been born with, could feel the thudding of my cybernetic heart in my chest and the expansion of my vat grown lungs.
I SUMMON THEE, REGULATOR appeared in my vision and as a whisper in my ear. A woman's voice, throaty, sexy in the 'a few shots of whiskey and a cigarette' way that some singers were.
The wall in front of us rippled, pulling back like water parting. Mist rolled in and the lights of the hallway were flickering. The angles were off slightly, the whole thing looked like it had been designed to appear biological and grown.
I knew it was for alien aesthetics.
I led the way, radar and sonar systems up, echolocation doing its job. The mist, the fog, the flashing lights, all easily compensated for by my onboard systems. Peel moved along behind me, exactly five paces, just what training had shown.
A part of me wondered how long it had been since she had last been in the field and been forced to act as direct action control.
It didn't matter, though. What mattered was quickly moving through the hallway.
A creature loomed up, dark mauve skin, tentacles on the face, huge white eyes with a pupil so narrow it was almost invisible. Squidlike head, long fingers, wearing an iridescent robe. It was flush with phasic energy and my psychic shielding ramped up automatically as easily as breathing.
FWOOP
The psychic attack was strong enough to make the air ripple, a physical thing of biologically directed phasic energy.
I stepped through the attack, ignoring it. The medieval armor protected me to the point that my internal systems suffered no degradation from the attack. Two others loomed out of the mist as I took three rapid steps into the creature's face.
"Target species tenatively identified in military intelligence databases as: Atrekna," Peel's voice was soft and remote. "Previously encountered on Hesstla and several other planets. High phasic combat ability, temporal manipulation abilities of unknown strength, poor physical combatant."
By the time she'd listed the world I was in its face, one hand reaching out. I grabbed its robe even as it cut loose with another attack.
FWOOP
I felt my armor vibrate slightly as I rammed the three feet of steel through it, lightning crackling up and down the blade as the nanite systems electrified the blade with enough juice that the blood popped and hisses.
The other two started to back away as I threw the corpse the side as soon as it went dead weight.
Both of them hit me with their phasic attack, making my armor vibrate but little else. A backhand, servo and cyber-piston driven with artificial muscle fiber enhancement, shattered one, the blade sliced the other in two.
I'd faced the black dog on a hill on Telkan.
These things were nothing.
"Take a right, Regulator-Actual," Peel ordered.
"Affirmative," I replied.
MOMMA'S WAITING appeared in my vision. DON'T TARRY.
"You get that?" I asked Peel.
"Affirmative. Our benefactor is non-military at a 92% confidence rating. Based on nanite control, predictive analysis places a 42% chance that they are cybermancer or technomancer trained," Peel answered. "Take a left."
A door opened but before the Atrekna could react I'd already caved in its skull. My motor control was directly wired to my muscles, my reactions hardwired in. I was faster than almost any natural born human, with only a few exceptions. It didn't even get a chance to lash out with its psychic power before I crushed its cranial vault into splinters that tore apart its brain.
If this was the best the Atrekna had, then they had nothing.
--------------
The Atrekna on the station were in a panic. Something they had never felt in their long lives as everything seemed to turn against them. The halls were concealed by mist that seemed to be full of tentacles, creatures, or just fanged maws and eyes. The rooms were slowly being overgrown by what looked like living tissue but did not respond to any powers the Atrekna could bring to bear. The tissue seemed to have no DNA, but grew and expanded to slowly cover walls, floors, and ceilings. Other rooms were full of creatures that seemed immune to phasic power, to psychic ability. There was no mind, no consciousness, just a drive to hunt and kill.
The Atrekna that had made it to the armory found themselves fighting against tentacles jellies that sprouted eyes, maws, and tentacles with equal abandon.
They lost.
A dozen Atrekna fought to get aboard on of the ships, lashing out at one another.
One of the black creatures, eyeless, long tails with a sharp bladed end, ran down the hall at them, ignoring panicked attacks, and fell upon them.
In moments it was over, the creature vanishing into the mists.
The scientists watching the female lemur could do nothing but observe. They had lost control of the prison cell, no Atrekna was willing to go into the cell after she had turned two Atrekna inside out somehow, literally pulling their skeletons out of their mouths.
The skeletons stood on either side of her, glowing with purple and indigo energy, cruel curved blades in their hands, their skins discarded on the floor next to a puddle of internal organs.
**she is doing it. i do not know how but i know she is the cause of all of this** the Chief Scientist stated.
The Chief of Station Operations said nothing, just stared at the floor he was sitting on, surrounded by his own misery and a feeling of hopelessness like none he had ever felt.
The two remaining scientists looked at him.
**send the data we have gathered. perhaps other eyes can see what we cannot** the Chief Scientist said.
**the two reanimated lemurs approach** one scientist warned. **they are heading directly toward us. there is no Atrekna willing to attempt to stop them now**
**then they will reach us. transmit our data** the Chief Scientist ordered.
One scientist carefully connected to the data transmitting neural clusters deep in the station. The shared consciousness was full of mocking laughter and whispers of doom. They knew it was the lemur, they just could not figure out how the lemur was doing it.
But the lemur had shown high levels, almost absurd levels of phasic ability, with lethal psychic defenses to any who attempted to touch her conscious or unconscious mind.
It was not much data, but the scientist consoled itself that nobody else had gathered a tenth of what the station had.
The data had just been transferred when the wall rippled and opened.
The two reanimated lemurs, entirely in black armor with skull faceplates, stood there. The female slightly behind the male.
The scientist knew, somehow, that she was controlling him.
He added that to the observations going out.
The flash of a blade meant that his death was transmitted at the end of the data.
The Chief Scientist gathered his psychic ability and channeled it into a blast that would leave even the largest slavespawn stunned.
The lemur didn't seem to notice as it took two steps forward, idly lopping off the Chief of Station Operation's head as he passed, and thrust the blade into the Chief Scientist's chest.
The Atrekna died, not understanding what had gone wrong.
His science was the science of temporal mechanics, of biological manipulation, of phasic and psychic energy.
He had been beaten by a science of small things. Each only a dusting of atoms wide.
And the will to use them.
-----------------
The station was clean. No trace of the Atrekna or the things that had killed them remained. It still had power, generated by living organs. It still had light, the diffuse illumination of light emitting nanites.
The trio had checked out the spaceships and found that they had no idea how to use them in the slightest, so they had backed off to a clean empty room.
"Any ideas?" Lady Keena asked. She was dressed in leathers again, her sword and clothing retrieved from the storage area that the Atrekna had put it all in.
Peel opened her mouth to say no and stopped. She patted her pockets and smiled.
"What?" Keena asked.
"If it works," Peel said. She pulled a small device slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. "It uses paired spooky particles, so somethimes it doesn't work right. It doesn't care about distance or interference. It's slow, no voice or video, just text."
"Can it get us out of here?" the Regulator asked.
Peel shook her head with a smile. "It can't, but I might be able to call someone who can."
-------------------
Vuxten had his foot on a stool, his leg held in a traction cast while his knee healed naturally. He was tapping a pen on the desk while he stared at the only other person in the room.
"...doing well," Vuxten was saying. "Personally, I'm gratified that I made the right decision to believe you'd be an asset to First Telkan. With that, I think we can call this meeting over and..."
beep beep beep
The other person in the room frowned. "Sorry, sir."
He dug in his pocket for a moment, pulling out a small device that Vuxten recognized as having previously been on a loading frame.
"Is that your blinky?" Vuxten asked, sitting up, his ears going up. "Who's calling you on it?"
"It can't be," the man said.
"What?" Vuxten asked.
Casey stared at Vuxten, his one eye starting to glow a soft amber.
"It's Peel. She says she's alive."
"The Mad Lemurs of Terra consider horror and terror as something that can be enjoyed in controlled doses. A simple viewing of 'slasher films' or 'horror movies' reveal terrifying truths about the lemurs if one is brave enough to look for them.Or mad enough." - Former Grand Most High Sma'akamo'o, from I Have Ridden the HasslehoffThe scientists watched the lemur as it sat motionless inside the room. Their atmospheric controls were not responding to input and it was beginning to appear that the room was impenetrable, isolated somehow from the rest of the research station.As they watched, a light mist covered the floor, covering her knees. Red lemur blood, heavy in iron and oxygen, crawled up her body until she was completely covered in it, her hair vanishing into the thick red liquid. It suddenly vanished, as if it was sucked into her skin.Her hair was braided, a complex ornate set of braids with the sparkling of precious gems in it. She wore an outfit of red and black that concealed flesh but somehow made her appear lewd. A tiara of black iron was on her brow, a ruby the size of a chicken egg in the middle that glowed with a soft light.The mist lowered and the scientists stared in shock.She sat in a circle of purple Atrekna blood, smearing artfully in a pair of circles around her, the space between the two circles filled with warped and twisted runes that resembled Atrekna hieroglyphics and lemur runes. She sat in the middle of an eight pointed star, each point extending out past the two circles. At the tip of each point were candles of tallow rended from the adipose tissue of Atrekna, the flame steady and white.She laughed.A cold, malevolent thing that shimmered in the air around her, echoed in the air of the observation chamber, and touched the minds of the watching Atrekna.Her eyes opened and the Atrekna saw they were lit with a bright red light that illuminated her eye sockets and the brown flesh around her eyes. Her face had makeup on it, dark around the eyes, white on her cheekbones, and purple on her lips. She smiled, revealing even white meat tearing teeth.**what is it doing** the Chief Scientist asked.**we do not know** one of the scientists answered.**nothing. she did nothing. no phasic that we could detect just a surge of energy around her and increased activity in three of her brain structures** another stated.**phasic activity detected** one warned.The ruby had begun to glow, matching the glow of her eyes, and a reddish nimbus seemed to cover her brow. She stood up, a bronze and silver dagger somehow in her hands.**where is she getting these physical objects? how is she getting them** the Chief Scientist demanded to know.**unknown** one scientist said. It leaned down, looking closely at its instruments. **the temperature drops slightly for a moment while its internal body temperature rises in accordance to the appearance of material objects****perhaps it is related to** another started.The female lemur stood up, waving her hands and chanting. A purplish and dark indigo nimbus surrounded her hands as she moved them. From her lips flowed black mist as she spoke. The words made no sense, even though some of them were familiar to the Atrekna. Somehow she was using the ancient spoken language, used rarely, interspersed with other language.**at least three, no, four, no, five other languages** the Chief Linguistics Officer stated.Blood dripped from her hands as she raised them up."I AWAKEN THEE, REGULATOR!" she shouted out.There was a sudden spike of phasic power that burst from her, strong enough that the phasonium alloy prison reverberated with it. Power dampeners flared and shattered, the crystalline structures overloaded.**what is a regulator** the Chief Scientist asked.------------I checked my system power as the weapons check finally came back at 100%. I was sitting pretty at 100% across the board, in some cases, such as my nanite repair and optimization systems, I was sitting at more than 100%.I glanced at Peel, a combat data analyst out of Alpha Company, 108th Military Intelligence Old Blood, our sister company for the Rangers of Delta Company Old Hatred 108th MI Old Blood. She had her eyes closed, her eyes moving back and forth rapidly under the lids.Both of us were clad in black armor. Archiac looking stuff, like platemail from a museum on Old Terra, but neither one of us were going to complain to our mysterious benefactor. The armor was still environmentally sealed hyperalloys, even if the faceplates were fashioned to look like skulls.Of course, we were only armed with swords. Engraved and inlaid swords that were packed full of nanite systems that automatically synched up with my systems when I grabbed them. A good, heavy sword, with a variable sharpness edge. A good combat weapon.Not that Peel knew how to use one.I did.My combat systems were unlocked, I could have used any of my onboard weaponry, but our benefactor had let us know we were on a space station an unknown distance from any rescue or assistance, and the last thing anyone needed was me to cut loose with my onboard weapons and blow a hole clean through the hull to outer space."How's it look, Control?" I asked. It was comfortable working with her, I'd worked with her plenty of times before. More than once it had been her calm voice on the comlink keeping us updated when the shit hit the fan.Peel didn't bother opening her eyes. "Just under a hundred of them left. Our benefactor is toying with them for some reason. Using a lot of nanite constructs molded to look like biologicals. They're going full horror-show out there.""Terrified enemies don't think well," I said."No, they do not," Peel said, her voice cool, remote, detached.I was fine with that."Map is updating. Route is being set. Looks like our benefactor has us moving toward an area with high phasic energy systems," Peel stated."I copy," I told her. I closed my eyes."Updating map systems. Standby for upload," Peel stated.I simply waited.Internal mapping system updated.Routing waypoints setComputing optimal route - doneAll of it floated in my vision for a moment and in my mind, in that warm spot where I heard my own voice informing me of my status."Mission engagement countdown," Peel stated. Her words floated up in my vision in the Control Font and light blue coloration."Standing by," I answered.ALL SYSTEMS ENGAGED floated up in my vision as everything went live. I felt parts of my brain come alive, felt muscles that I hadn't been born with, could feel the thudding of my cybernetic heart in my chest and the expansion of my vat grown lungs.I SUMMON THEE, REGULATOR appeared in my vision and as a whisper in my ear. A woman's voice, throaty, sexy in the 'a few shots of whiskey and a cigarette' way that some singers were.The wall in front of us rippled, pulling back like water parting. Mist rolled in and the lights of the hallway were flickering. The angles were off slightly, the whole thing looked like it had been designed to appear biological and grown.I knew it was for alien aesthetics.I led the way, radar and sonar systems up, echolocation doing its job. The mist, the fog, the flashing lights, all easily compensated for by my onboard systems. Peel moved along behind me, exactly five paces, just what training had shown.A part of me wondered how long it had been since she had last been in the field and been forced to act as direct action control.It didn't matter, though. What mattered was quickly moving through the hallway.A creature loomed up, dark mauve skin, tentacles on the face, huge white eyes with a pupil so narrow it was almost invisible. Squidlike head, long fingers, wearing an iridescent robe. It was flush with phasic energy and my psychic shielding ramped up automatically as easily as breathing.FWOOPThe psychic attack was strong enough to make the air ripple, a physical thing of biologically directed phasic energy.I stepped through the attack, ignoring it. The medieval armor protected me to the point that my internal systems suffered no degradation from the attack. Two others loomed out of the mist as I took three rapid steps into the creature's face."Target species tenatively identified in military intelligence databases as: Atrekna," Peel's voice was soft and remote. "Previously encountered on Hesstla and several other planets. High phasic combat ability, temporal manipulation abilities of unknown strength, poor physical combatant."By the time she'd listed the world I was in its face, one hand reaching out. I grabbed its robe even as it cut loose with another attack.FWOOPI felt my armor vibrate slightly as I rammed the three feet of steel through it, lightning crackling up and down the blade as the nanite systems electrified the blade with enough juice that the blood popped and hisses.The other two started to back away as I threw the corpse the side as soon as it went dead weight.Both of them hit me with their phasic attack, making my armor vibrate but little else. A backhand, servo and cyber-piston driven with artificial muscle fiber enhancement, shattered one, the blade sliced the other in two.I'd faced the black dog on a hill on Telkan.These things were nothing."Take a right, Regulator-Actual," Peel ordered."Affirmative," I replied.MOMMA'S WAITING appeared in my vision. DON'T TARRY."You get that?" I asked Peel."Affirmative. Our benefactor is non-military at a 92% confidence rating. Based on nanite control, predictive analysis places a 42% chance that they are cybermancer or technomancer trained," Peel answered. "Take a left."A door opened but before the Atrekna could react I'd already caved in its skull. My motor control was directly wired to my muscles, my reactions hardwired in. I was faster than almost any natural born human, with only a few exceptions. It didn't even get a chance to lash out with its psychic power before I crushed its cranial vault into splinters that tore apart its brain.If this was the best the Atrekna had, then they had nothing.--------------The Atrekna on the station were in a panic. Something they had never felt in their long lives as everything seemed to turn against them. The halls were concealed by mist that seemed to be full of tentacles, creatures, or just fanged maws and eyes. The rooms were slowly being overgrown by what looked like living tissue but did not respond to any powers the Atrekna could bring to bear. The tissue seemed to have no DNA, but grew and expanded to slowly cover walls, floors, and ceilings. Other rooms were full of creatures that seemed immune to phasic power, to psychic ability. There was no mind, no consciousness, just a drive to hunt and kill.The Atrekna that had made it to the armory found themselves fighting against tentacles jellies that sprouted eyes, maws, and tentacles with equal abandon.They lost.A dozen Atrekna fought to get aboard on of the ships, lashing out at one another.One of the black creatures, eyeless, long tails with a sharp bladed end, ran down the hall at them, ignoring panicked attacks, and fell upon them.In moments it was over, the creature vanishing into the mists.The scientists watching the female lemur could do nothing but observe. They had lost control of the prison cell, no Atrekna was willing to go into the cell after she had turned two Atrekna inside out somehow, literally pulling their skeletons out of their mouths.The skeletons stood on either side of her, glowing with purple and indigo energy, cruel curved blades in their hands, their skins discarded on the floor next to a puddle of internal organs.**she is doing it. i do not know how but i know she is the cause of all of this** the Chief Scientist stated.The Chief of Station Operations said nothing, just stared at the floor he was sitting on, surrounded by his own misery and a feeling of hopelessness like none he had ever felt.The two remaining scientists looked at him.**send the data we have gathered. perhaps other eyes can see what we cannot** the Chief Scientist said.**the two reanimated lemurs approach** one scientist warned. **they are heading directly toward us. there is no Atrekna willing to attempt to stop them now****then they will reach us. transmit our data** the Chief Scientist ordered.One scientist carefully connected to the data transmitting neural clusters deep in the station. The shared consciousness was full of mocking laughter and whispers of doom. They knew it was the lemur, they just could not figure out how the lemur was doing it.But the lemur had shown high levels, almost absurd levels of phasic ability, with lethal psychic defenses to any who attempted to touch her conscious or unconscious mind.It was not much data, but the scientist consoled itself that nobody else had gathered a tenth of what the station had.The data had just been transferred when the wall rippled and opened.The two reanimated lemurs, entirely in black armor with skull faceplates, stood there. The female slightly behind the male.The scientist knew, somehow, that she was controlling him.He added that to the observations going out.The flash of a blade meant that his death was transmitted at the end of the data.The Chief Scientist gathered his psychic ability and channeled it into a blast that would leave even the largest slavespawn stunned.The lemur didn't seem to notice as it took two steps forward, idly lopping off the Chief of Station Operation's head as he passed, and thrust the blade into the Chief Scientist's chest.The Atrekna died, not understanding what had gone wrong.His science was the science of temporal mechanics, of biological manipulation, of phasic and psychic energy.He had been beaten by a science of small things. Each only a dusting of atoms wide.And the will to use them.-----------------The station was clean. No trace of the Atrekna or the things that had killed them remained. It still had power, generated by living organs. It still had light, the diffuse illumination of light emitting nanites.The trio had checked out the spaceships and found that they had no idea how to use them in the slightest, so they had backed off to a clean empty room."Any ideas?" Lady Keena asked. She was dressed in leathers again, her sword and clothing retrieved from the storage area that the Atrekna had put it all in.Peel opened her mouth to say no and stopped. She patted her pockets and smiled."What?" Keena asked."If it works," Peel said. She pulled a small device slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket. "It uses paired spooky particles, so somethimes it doesn't work right. It doesn't care about distance or interference. It's slow, no voice or video, just text.""Can it get us out of here?" the Regulator asked.Peel shook her head with a smile. "It can't, but I might be able to call someone who can."-------------------Vuxten had his foot on a stool, his leg held in a traction cast while his knee healed naturally. He was tapping a pen on the desk while he stared at the only other person in the room."...doing well," Vuxten was saying. "Personally, I'm gratified that I made the right decision to believe you'd be an asset to First Telkan. With that, I think we can call this meeting over and..."beep beep beepThe other person in the room frowned. "Sorry, sir."He dug in his pocket for a moment, pulling out a small device that Vuxten recognized as having previously been on a loading frame."Is that your blinky?" Vuxten asked, sitting up, his ears going up. "Who's calling you on it?""It can't be," the man said."What?" Vuxten asked.Casey stared at Vuxten, his one eye starting to glow a soft amber."It's Peel. She says she's alive."
