"I'm in front of something stone..." said Swift, in a concerned voice.
Emilly floated in the water just offshore, watching the wreckage. "Yeah," she said. "Near Steam."
"With waving tentacles..."
Emilly blinked. "Oh, no, that's supposed to be there."
"What?" Swift asked, after a long pause.
Emilly dove back underwater, swimming to where the underwater temple used to be. She lands neatly on the sand beside Swift, peering into the well of writhing green flesh.
"Maybe I should have put up a sign? 'Harmless'? Or, at least--'Contained'?"
Swift just stared at her, then shook his head, and swam back to the gunship.
"We can't get close enough to them," said Laurence.
"I got a heat grenade type shell--try that?" asked Briggs.
"Try it!" said Justine.
Emilly swam closer, trying to edge around the remains of the ship still at the crash site.
"I've got eyes on--" Justine said. "They're firing on something!"
Emilly groaned, gouting blood into the dark waters, midsection charred. She was very, very glad she was no longer carrying the heirs.
"Me," she finally whispered, slowly swimming away, returning to the TG tram, summoning a shuttle to take her to Tannhauser Gate station. "I got too close. That...is a very big gun..."
"That shell hit!" crowed Justine.
"Damn things can repair themselves too," said Laurence.
"They--WHAT?" yelped the Duchess.
"Direct hit!" said Laurence. "One hostile down."
"[Sh*t]," said Justine. "There's one left."
"This is Gearhaven Actual," Hiro said for the third time. "Return to Tannhauser Gate. Mission scrubbed. New data to be reviewed in second mission briefing."
"Briggs, can you pick us up and get us back to the station?" asked Justine.
"Yes," he said. "Packing up now."
"Laurence, stay with me. We're waiting for extraction. Tom, you're awfully close to the crash site. Are you taking fire from the one remaining hostile?"
"On board the ship," said Swift.
As Justine and Laurence boarded, Laurence checked Justine over for wounds. "Are you hurt anywhere?"
"I think I'm okay," she said, holstering her blaster. "Tannhauser Command to Duchess Emilly, come in?"
Emilly didn't answer, shifting on her way up to Tannhauser, picking a form mostly at random--a pale bunny. She felt rather helpless for this fight, maybe that was why. She made her way to the command deck. Hiro was peering intently at the screen when she arrived.
"So what is our situation?" Justine asked. "We eliminated three of the four hostiles. There are still tentacle monsters. But most importantly, TOTS appears to have moved."
"Right," Emilly said, slumping into a chair. Hiro looked over with concern.
"As far as I know, the Duchess is the only one who actually saw the ship move and knows where it is."
Emilly nodded at Justine's words, even though Justine couldn't see the motion. "I don’t think the cargo's on board anymore..."
"No?"
"No, I think it's still at the crash site."
"Let's go to the briefing room. If anyone has visual recordings of the crash site, please share them with me."
Justine, back on the station, took the lift to deck 02. "Okay, let's get what we've got up on the screen here."
"This is what's left at the crash site," she said, pointing out the forward section of the ship, the various threats around it, and the--whatever it was--that had slid partially into a deep furrow behind the ship.
"One hostile, some interdimensional incursion, and...one guardian monster."
Emilly leaned forward, peering at the image. "Hiro, no," she said softly.
Hiro looked over at her, shaking his head. She sighed and sat back in the chair.
"The cargo is a weaponized eldritch warhead," Hiro said.
Justine frowned. "I...see."
"We bought it from an instance of Jack Parsons...We do need it back on the station before anyone--the Federation, the UAP, et cetera...get it."
"Oh, we get it," Justine said darkly. "It's still being guarded by one remaining hostile. We've learned that if we fire at the hostiles enough, they stop firing back briefly. We might be able to get past it and retrieve the cargo, and get back out."
"What happened to the others?" he asked. "Did you kill them?"
Justine nodded. "Chief Briggs was able to take them out with heavy artillery, before he ran out of shells. A launched heat grenade took out the last one we were able to destroy."
Justine looked down at the control panel. "Hold on...I've got a shot of the new location of TOTS." She threw up the image of the collection of scrap metal.
"And that, friends and neighbors, is where the ship ended up," Emilly said.
"That is close to GH," Hiro said. "Is the site secured?"
"It's IN Gearhaven," Emilly retorted. "Or at the very least, just edging into the Dark Sea, but on land. If you were standing at that center lithon, Hiro, and walked left? You'd be at Steam."
Justine sighed. "Well, it appears the core is no longer on fire, at least."
"No, but...it fractured," Emilly said.
"So we can worry about that later," Justine said.
"Any news on the survivor?" Laurence asked.
Emilly shook her head. "Never got close enough to the ship. Kept getting shot."
"Justine..." Hiro began. Justine startled as all the station klaxons started screaming.
"STAN! What is that??"
STAN turned the screen black, before words scrolled up:
STAN: Eldritch anomaly detected.
An image appeared on the screen. Emilly sat up in the chair. "Wait! I saw one of those! I pointed that out to Briggs when we were going to the shuttle!" She turned to Hiro. "You don't have ANOTHER of those alien--things--aboard still, do you??" she asked frantically.
"I doubt it," Hiro said.
"The fact that you're not sure fills me with dread."
"STAN, bring all station defenses online!" Justine cried out, tapping the control panel. The picture changed to something desaturated and slightly grainy.
"Please tell me this isn't a live feed," said Laurence.
"I think it is," replied Justine. "STAN? What is going on?" She rushed to a separate terminal, pulling up data from the scanners.
STAN: All defensive systems online."Okay, so...We have a lost weapon guarded by hostiles in the Dark Sea," the Duke said slowly. "A moving crash site close to the Mansion...We have--whatever--happened...last night...and now that." He pointed at the screen.
Justine looked puzzled. "There's nothing on the scanners." She looked up. "Laurence, can you see anything?"
Emilly looked over her shoulder. "That's not possible."
"It is if something is jamming us," Justine said.
"Are we being jammed?" Hiro asked.
Justine ran a frequency modulation bypass filter on the scanners. Laurence looked over her shoulder.
"What the hell are they?" he asked.
Emilly shrugged. "I don't know."
"I'm heading to Command Ops," Hiro said, moving at speed out of the room. Everyone else piled out after him, running to the gunship again. Justine stumbled over to the copilot seat, strapping in in a hurry.
"Shields up!" Hiro said. "Reactors online!"
"I see them! West side of the station," Justine said. "Behind the cathedral. Chief, can you take us there?"
Briggs flew around the station, zeroing in the on the targets in the gunship.
Emilly stood, starting to move towards the door, and paused. She looked down, seeing pinpricks of red slowly blooming on her white dress. She tapped her comm, not sure if it was still on.
"Guys...I don't think...the patch work held..."
There was screaming over the comms, then--
"Briggs? BRIGGS!" yelled Justine.
Emilly fell to her knees, holding her stomach. She tried to stagger to her feet, and collapsed. Everything...went...dark.
(Continued in part CLVII.)
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