Star Force: Trials (SF68) (7 page)

Their shared bioshield held up and they raced off down
the trail, but they weren’t out of trouble yet.

“Don’t stop running,” Larissa insisted, leading her
down the length of dirt road and scanning ahead with her Pefbar as a giant roar
sounded from behind them.

“Wasn’t planning to,” she said as Larissa darted off
the trail and into the brush. Dina followed a step behind and dived in with the
brush sliding over her bioshields and not tearing into her exposed skin…for
sometime
during her nap her clothes had disappeared, which
she groggy head barely noticed until she stepped on a rock and did a half jump
into the air, after which she shunted some bioshield beneath her feet, though
that made her movements slippery and even slower.

“Almost there,” Larissa said while sending her a
telepathic warning. “Just
gotta
get past the
sentries.”

“You’ve
gotta
be kidding
me,” Dina said as they broke through the edge of the forest and onto a sandy
beach that stretched a good quarter mile up to a body of water separating the
forest on the other side. There were three T-Rexes out there with a host of
smaller raptors, all of which seemed to be holding their positions until the
two Humans hit the sand.

“Blow through and jump. Do…not…swim,” Larissa said a
she slowed a bit so the pair of them could share one shield again as the beach
erupted with various forms of stun blasts. The raptors sprinted towards them
while the T-Rex nearest on the left turned its giant head and blew out a stream
of air at hurricane speed, kicking up a wall of sand that threw down a line in
front of them. She sensed form Larissa that they had to go in, but as soon as
they hit the wall of moving air and grit Dina was knocked off her feet and
cartwheeling to the right.

Larissa formed a Bataf conduit with her and that kept
both of them from spinning completely out of control, so that when they hit the
ground again they were able to walk through the storm slowly, then when it
stopped they took off running again, but not before a trio of raptors got to
them. Larissa ran towards them, distracting them away from Dina as she signaled
for her to sprint on ahead as the trailblazer began to dance around the
mechanical bipeds in a series of jumps and flips, all the while avoiding
touching them to avoid the stun charge their body plates would render on
contact…which would knock her immediately unconscious with even the slightest
brush.

When Dina got within a few steps of the water’s edge
she knew it was too far to jump, but she was determined to get as far across
the moat as she could and launched herself up into a pathetic leap having no
shoes and with her feet sinking into the sand and sucking away her pushing
power. As soon as she was airborne she got a shove from Larissa, then a Bataf conduit
that telescoped out and delivered her to the other side.

The nude Archon dropped into the sand and turned
around, ready to help Larissa get across. It took a few seconds for her to
evade the raptors, then another sandstorm covered them all. Thanks to their
battlemeld she could still sense where Larissa was and vice versa, essentially
giving the other Archon her senses to use. A moment later she hit the shore and
jumped, with Dina pulling her across as much as possible.

It wasn’t enough and Larissa splashed down three meters
from safety, landing face first in the water and scrambling to get back up as a
swarm of tiny machines swam up towards her. Dina pulled her out with their invisible
rope, but not before Larissa got ‘bit’ on the leg by two of the little fish
bots.

That broke their battlemeld link and sent Larissa into
a wash of dizziness worse than what Dina was still feeling, so the less groggy
trailblazer pulled the other the rest of the way up and out of the water with
her Lachka until she got a physical grip on her arm and hauled her up a safe
distance onto the sand, watching the robotic dinosaurs to see if they could
come after them or not, not to mention the forest behind them that was an
unknown.

“Da
eet
,” Larissa said, her
words slurred by the stun as she tried to shake her dead leg with her loopy
right arm.

“I’ve got you,” Dina said, picking her up in a
fireman’s carry and almost losing her balance. She held it together enough to
get them both up the short sandy incline to the forest and set Larissa down
against a tree trunk a few dozen meters inside as Tom contacted her
telepathically inquiring as to their status.

She told him where they were and how incapacitated
Larissa was, with him telling her to stay put until someone got to them.

Dina hunched down on her bare feet, keeping the rest
of her smooth, pale skin from touching the dirty ground as she took a series of
deep breaths and tried to slip into a bit of Sesspik to clear the rest of the
grogginess from her body. She had no idea what was going on, nor where her
clothes had gotten to, but she got the feeling that some major
badassery
had just gone down to get her out.

Then her full bladder finally registered and she
slipped over behind a bush to take care of that problem before the others
arrived.

7

Morgan peeled off her uniform top and flicked it to
Dina, who caught it telekinetically from two meters away and pulled it to her
as Morgan stripped down to her underwear but kept the shoes for herself, with
several other Archons doing likewise to give the escaped prisoners some
clothes.

“Thanks,” she said gratefully, pulling the uniform on
and looking around at the others who were clustered in a clump of trees not far
off from where they’d been held while most of the Archons were deployed in a
distant perimeter looking for threats and buying some time as those who were
stunned recovered. Five were totally unconscious, with six others being partially
awake but numb like Larissa, but everyone had been pulled out, bringing their
team strength back up to a full 100. “How did we end up naked?”

“Probably our fault,” Morgan said, standing in a jog
bra and skin tight short shorts. “When we first found you laying out there you
had clothes, but we didn’t want to risk a rescue until we figured out where the
dangers were. I think losing your clothes was a penalty for us not acting
sooner.”

“Look on the bright side,” Jason said, walking up
beside Dina as she flicked her long, loose green hair out of the neck of
Morgan’s uniform. “Probably made some trainer’s day getting to take them off
you.”

“I feel so much better now,” she said dryly, stepping
into the pants but still being barefoot. That was going to be a problem going
forward, bioshields or no.

“What’s the situation?” Boris asked as he pulled on
Paul’s uniform. “And how long have we been out?”

“None of us has a watch,” Jason answered, “and the
sunlight is on constantly, so we don’t know how long we’ve been in here. The
situation is we’re a cold insertion two at a time, with those getting snagged
by the
stunbots
being hauled off by drone and
deposited in the prison we just sprung you from. There are supply caches hidden
around this very large park, but only a handful of
destunning
serum injections. We used all that we had to wake you guys up, so those who got
hit on the way out are going to have to sleep it off.”

“Ouch,” Dina said, knowing that meant a load of pins
and needles. Fortunately she’d skipped that stage, but was still feeling a
touch groggy despite the wakeup run. “No extra shoes in those supplies?”

“Unfortunately not, but I think we can make some crude
sandals. There are enough thorns around here that I wouldn’t want to risk going
barefoot even if it meant slowing me down a bit.”

“How crude is the question,” Landon asked.

“Depends how inventive you are. But big picture, we’ve
finally got a mission assignment, delivered via ghost Obi-wan. There’s a big
mountain full of stun bugs and apparently we have to find their lair to disable
them, then we’re supposed to know what to do next.”

“That’s it?” Dina asked, finishing tying her hair into
a knot on her head in lieu of the hair tie that had also been stripped off her
body.

“More than we had previously, but yeah, that’s all we
know.”

“What’s the plan?”

“Getting you guys out…then going from there.”

“Peachy,” she said, throwing in a few stretches, for
her body was very tight after lying on that rock for who knew how long.

“We need to investigate the area beyond the mountain,”
Morgan said, getting down to details. “There may be items to be obtained that
will help us assault the mountain. We recovered some grenades from taking down
an aquatic mech earlier, and I’d bet there are more goodies out there.”

“Stun grenades?”

“Nope. All the weapons we’ve recovered are the real
deal…and next to useless against the swarms. Wilson’s mockery, we think.”

“Why didn’t you use any against those robotic
dinosaurs?”

“Smash and grab op. We weren’t sticking around long
enough to try to take down any of the big ones, and if we so much as touch them
we get stunned.”

“Now that’s just not fair,” Dina added, stopping her
overhead stretch to glare.

“Not much here is,” Jason added. “Which I think is the
point. There’s also no ambrosia, so we’re all running on empty by now.”

“Son of a bitch,” she said, looking at Morgan.

“Tell me about it.”

Dina huffed. “Where do you want me?”

“Same,” Zak said, with the others waiting to hear or
simply nodding in agreement.

“We’re splitting up by teams and going after what
objectives we can find,” Jason said as the last of them finished dressing and
walked over to the group that was forming. “We’ll get to the mountain later.
Right now we’re going shopping…and the 2s are going to try and bag a raptor.”

Megan sprinted out across a dirt path that held
numerous lemming holes, drawing a stream of the speedy little bots out of the
ground and heading towards her as she jumped over a boulder, tapping the top
theatrically with her hand mid flip, then landed and kept running into the
perimeter of the
dino
zone that surrounded the
prison.

When the lemmings followed her Dan and Brian came
through at nearly the same spot, crossing the dirt and heading off into the
forest in the opposite direction towards the raptor bot they’d scouted. There
were probably more of them in here than just the one, but they’d adjust as
necessary to what they found…which didn’t take long, for a partial stun ring
flew out from the left, hitting Dan’s bioshield and sucking a good measure of
strength out of it as the pair pushed their Pefbar to the max and saw two more
raptors nearby heading to their direction.

“That one,” Brian said, changing targets and running
directions, sending a mental ping to the team as they raced towards the raptor
closest to the dirt boundary. They ran quickly, dodging trees and brush while
spreading out slightly. When the raptor got within line of sight it fired at
them once before jumping into an aerial lunge intending to land on Brian, but
the Archon was quicker and rolled to the left as he ducked, causing it to
overshoot with the help of a telekinetic shove from Dan.

Both Archons used their Nemsa in battlemeld to shove
it down into the ground for a moment, but they couldn’t hold it there for the
machine’s leverage was too strong. It stood up and shot at them again as the
other two raptors got close to firing range themselves.

A ping from Paul told them to hold position, and
before the raptor approaching on the left could get to them he and Jason
emerged from behind and knocked it away with another of their invisible
clothesline attacks. Jack and Randy came up on the other side a moment later
and did the same thing, diverting the other raptor while Ivan, Emily, and Kip
linked up into a 5-way battlemeld with Dan and Brian. As one they lifted the
pinned raptor up off the ground where it could only kick at the air, then they
threw it through the trees all the way out to the lemming dirt clearing.

The Archons followed, but Emily and Kip split sideways
to push back the lemmings coming at them from even more holes in the ground.
The other three Archons lifted the raptor again and chucked it across the
boundary and into the trees on the other side before sprinting across the gap
and going after it before it could get away.

Megan showed up and joined the trio after circling
around and losing her lemming horde. The four of them pinned the raptor in
place again, then got close to it and carried it in the air through the trees
another 60 meters before they lost strength and had to put it down. It
staggered in place while they restrained it partially while their mental
strength regenerated. It lunged towards Dan, but came up short and got its face
planted in the dirt so it couldn’t fire off another stun blast.

A moment later Randy and Jack caught up and they added
their strength to the battlemeld and carried it again, this time more than 100
meters and further away from the
dino
zone. After
another pause they decided to throw it again, with Dan and Brian going ahead to
‘catch’ it when it landed and hold it there, more or less, until the others
caught up.

Bit by bit they moved it through the forest for nearly
a kilometer until Paul and Jason signaled that the others had finally
retreated, apparently giving up on it or sensing a trap…with the latter being
more likely if there were trainers on the other end remotely controlling the
things.

When the duo caught up with the others they all linked
up and pinned it to the ground as Randy used his Pefbar/Lachka to look inside
the thing and start pulling bits apart. It managed to shoot another stun ring
into the ground near Paul’s foot, but shortly thereafter Randy was able to cut
power to the weapon. A minute after that the entire thing went slack and was
pancaked to the ground by the combined telekinetic power of the 2s.

“I think that did it,” Randy said, continuing to poke
around inside.

“Who wants to touch it and find out?” Emily asked.

“No rush,” Paul insisted. “It might take a while for
those plates to fully discharge.”

“Easy fix,” Ivan said, telekinetically snapping a thin
branch off the nearest tree and floating it over to the raptor.

“Poke it with a stick?” Megan asked with a laugh.

Ivan smiled and moved the broken part of the branch
into the side of the raptor. He tapped it three times, then rotated the entire
branch over and whacked it a fourth time. “Looks dead.”

“I’ve cut the power feeds to the armor plates,” Randy
said. “But the welds are solid. I can’t pry it open from here.”

“Do you see what I see?” Emily asked.

“An Easter egg,” Paul confirmed. “Let’s get this thing
open.”

“What’s in it?” Ivan asked, tossing the stick aside.

“I think it’s shielded. I can’t sense anything.”

“Booby trap?” Megan wondered.

“Let’s find out. Stand back,” Randy said as he walked
up to it and the others scattered. “If I wake up naked I’m blaming Megan.”

“Twit,” she said in a whisper as he knelt down beside
it and pressed a finger to the head. He didn’t fall over, then proceeded to tap
it a couple more times ensuring that there was no stun charge left, then he
held his finger over it a couple of inches and waited for more than a minute.
Finally he touched it again, this time with his finger sinking into the thin
armor plates amidst a cherry red glow of melted material. He punched through
then pulled his finger across it slowly, cutting open the mechanical raptor and
creating several seams.

“Pry these please,” he said, working his way down
towards the tail.

Paul and Jason linked up again and telekinetically
pulled apart the metallic petals that Randy had exposed, bending them back and
exposing the inner mechanisms. As Randy moved on the duo pulled more and more
apart until it looked like a gutted
tauntaun
from
Star Wars.

Randy pulled his finger out and theatrically blew on
it, then he reached inside and started pulling apart the exposed machinery that
they intended to make use of however possible. “Make like Legos guys.”

Dan, Brian, and Megan stepped in and helped him along
with Paul and Jason while the other four stood guard. There were some more
small melting cuts that had to be made, but between their physical leverage and
their psionics they were able to disassemble the thing without too much delay,
eventually exposing a small canister tucked away inside that had no obvious
purpose within the raptor, though it did have a button on the casing.

Randy pulled it out and walked away from the others,
not knowing what would happen. A stun grenade would be poetic at this point, or
a summons for a swarm of stun bugs or a T-Rex to come and stomp on them. But
the only way to know was to press it and find out, so after he got about 80
meters away he held it out as far away from his body as possible and pressed
the biometric button that required flesh rather than telekinesis to trigger.

Waiting for a bang, he was puzzled when it simply
clicked and the shell cracked a hair. He pulled the top open with one hand and
saw a small vial inside with a label that read ‘500 doses.’

“Guys,” he said, jogging back over to them. “It really
is an Easter Egg.”

“Candy or money?” Jason asked.

“Better,” Randy said, holding up the small vial of
reddish liquid for them to see. “Ambrosia.”

“Son of a bitch,” Emily said. “Then they did expect us
to tear one apart.”

“Wonder what one of the big ones has inside,” Kip
commented.

“Box of donuts would be nice,” Megan quipped.

“More like truck,” Paul amended.

“Don’t suppose they stuck a suit of armor out there somewhere,”
Ivan asked.

“That’d be too easy,” Emily said dismissively. “The
stun soak would give us too much endurance. And armor without it wouldn’t do us
a lot of good here.”

“Wilson might have thrown a set in just to taunt us,”
Randy added, “just like the weapons.”

“I still think we can make use of them,” Paul
insisted. “And a little live fire test on this one should answer some
questions.”

“So we’re hauling this whole thing back?” Dan asked.

“Waste not, want not,” Emily said, prompting the
others into a team-wide battlemeld link to make the carrying easier. “Let’s get
going before the carcass attracts any more critters with the smell of hydraulic
fluid.”

The others turned and looked at her as the pieces of
the raptors flew up into the air and back into the main body.

Emily frowned. “Sorry. That sounded better in my
head.”

“We did kill the transmitter, right?” Jason asked.

“I got it,” Randy assured him. “Intact but without
power.”

“Good,” he said as they started walking with their
floating cargo between two rows of three while the other four circled around as
skirmishers but still close enough to help share the telekinetic load. “Don’t
want anyone crashing our party when we get back.”