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ES06 - Eternal Sunder (part 06): 900,000 Years Ago
Posted By: Wado<wyamauchi@msn.com>
Date: 26 December 2003, 8:19 PM
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Note: This is part 6 to Wado's Eternal Sunder series.
900,000 Years Ago
"Who are you? What do you want?" whispered a voice to echoes in the night.
The wind responded with mysterious might, "I had many names when I was in chains -- Now untamed, I am unnamed."
John awoke to cold and chills. "My Lady, what was that?" he asked still in a daze.
"You are with us, good," answered the Lady. "It takes a certain type of mind to fathom the trip through null space. It takes even more of a special one to interact with it."
"Our destination has arrived," announced Croaker the mystical Sauran. As he spoke, spiraling energy tunnels created tiny vortexes in the fabric of the universe. Lightning bolted and John stood still. All moved around him. All came to him. He was the center of all reference and now with a zap and a big bang he felt ground beneath him once again. Hurricane winds swirled through darkened skies. It was the end of all, and then suddenly it stopped.
A sunny morning's dew settled on John's boots. The multi-colored energies of the Portal of the Old Ones surged behind him. The trip had ended and now he and his companions were somewhere else, over nine-hundred thousand years ago.
"The air feels so still, like a lazy summer day," commented Max the Imperial Elite. Max stood beside John. Croaker and the Lady close behind. The glowing blue orb, Sparky, floated above. Between them all was the box that contained the core to their former ship Eternity's Sunder and Cortana. Things were calm and peaceful, and the sun was high in the sky on this alien world.
"John, while the others lock down the portals, I recommend we secure the perimeter," suggested Max.
"Right," replied John. "Sparky you stand watch. Max, let's see what this place is all about."
"Chief, I've reprogrammed your translation routines to be better suited for this time period," interjected Cortana. "Now be safe."
"Okay mother," replied both John and Max to the silent groan of Cortana. The two of them moved up to higher ground. Looking over the top of a hill they spotted dust clouds in the distance. "What do you make of that Max?" asked John.
"A welcoming party, not much could have missed that entrance we made," replied Max. "Maybe we should tie Sparky to the end of a stick and use him as a cudgel."
"Max, human sarcasm coming out of an Imperial Elite, even after all of these years, it still doesn't sound natural," smirked John. "True we are unarmed, but maybe they are friendly."
"Maybe John," said Max. "Then again, maybe we could rig that pile of large rocks over there to slide down on them, just in case."
"Falling rocks against what is likely plasma-cannon armed Forerunner shock troopers," questioned John. "Just like old times."
Max smiled saying, "Of course, these times are older than even our old times." Then Max used visual signals to alert Sparky of the situation. "John, Sparky reports that no active scans have hit this area but that doesn't rule out other forms of surveillance. He recommends we stay near these rocks for cover."
John opened his mouth as if to say something; however, before John could respond to Max, he was surprised by a young and rhythmic voice. "Papa?" she said. "Oh you're not papa, who are you... human?"
"Ki, ki, ki,..." John stuttered. Something tied his tongue. He could do nothing but drool in awe. She was an Archon, the likes of which he could not remember ever experiencing, but yet she seemed compellingly familiar.
"Whose slave are you?" she asked. "No matter, you remind me a lot of father. I think I'll keep you. Father has gone off to rescue mother. That was many eons ago. Will you play with me a while?"
"Wake up!" shouted the Lady's telepathic voice in John's mind. John snapped into reality and averted his eyes from the mysterious young woman that had surprised him.
"Who dare!" said the young woman. She turned to see the Lady who had arrived in a hurry. "A Nomdian... a Deathstalker assassin here? You must die."
The young woman's beautiful face turned dark and her eyes narrowed a solid yellow hue. She hissed and revealed fangs and claws. She darted at the Lady with quickness faster than a falcon's dive and more agile than a cat in disguise.
But she did not get even three strides before she was cut down, her mind a flame from the Lady's mental blast. The Lady had not hesitated even a moment, sending waves of pain into the mind of the young and ferocious Archon woman. The result, the Archon's brain short-circuited many magnitudes worse than the worst imaginable migraine and seizer combined.
"Hsssst," went the Lady, a combination of terror and delight projected from her face. Her eyes glowed bright purple and her tentacles for lips vibrated and twisted in harmony. She was ready to feed.
"Noooooo!" pleaded John.
The Lady hesitated. Her eyes gazed at John with the look of scorn and sympathy. John could see something different about her. The Lady clenched her neck in pain, purple blood spewed from her mouth. In John's mind he heard her say just one thing to him. "Fool" she said. Then the Lady fell. Her body lay motionless in a heap.
"The air..." said Max followed by the sounds of struggle.
John saw something move in his peripheral vision, but there was nothing there. Max was swinging a large stick he had picked up from the ground. Max was fighting something, something silent and unseen.
Just at that moment John felt another presence. The air that was so still felt cooler and John sensed a minute change in pressure. In his mind, faster than logic could comprehend, John pictured a path of vacuum being created allowing for something unseen to move inside of it quickly and silently. It was the air, the air signaled an attack.
John pivoted as he dropped. Something cold passed over him and John got hold of it. It felt like an arm. John spun it around and locked it under his knee. With a crunch and a strike, he could feel it snap. John went up the arm and turned the enemy's head with a forceful twist until it faced the wrong direction. Its body quivered once and then went limp. Totally limp.
Max had dispatched of another one. Their bodies, now visible, were of Archonian men dressed in flowing red robes over armor. They each had carried only one visible weapon, a black dagger with the emblem of twin serpents.
Max moved with caution towards the Lady. He whispered as he moved. "John, were you hit?"
"No. Max, who were they?" whispered John as they treated the Lady's wounds, always cautious of the possibility of more assailants.
"Archonian Bloodguard by their garb," replied Max. "They were the personal bodyguards to the Archon royalty; and that young female resembles a young Princess Kira. My opinion is she's royalty."
"Max, we've treated the Lady's wounds but something is still wrong, a poison?" asked John.
"I agree, the best we can do is slow it down," stated Max as he worked more on the Lady. "Where is Sparky, we need his med scan?"
Sparky, Cortana, and Croaker were nowhere to be seen, but there was some movement from the top of the hill above.
Many forms appeared in heavily armored but decorative battle suits. They wore their helmets off and attached to their backs as if John and Max offered no threat to them. Their faces fairer than most humans and their ears came to a distinctive point much like those of the Archons but they weren't Archons, they where stockier, more to human proportions. These were the Forerunner regulars or as they would have been called, Praetorians.
These Praetorians were quite well armed with plasma-cannons designed to fight mobile armor. John and Max's thin environmental suits would be less than a sheet of tissue paper held in front of a flame-thrower to them.
One Praetorian still wore his helmet. It gave him more height and resembled the head of a bird. When he spoke, the words echoed with command. He looked at John saying, "How very convenient. The Archonian delegate met her demise at the hands of a Nomdian assassin. The young Princess Kira really had no chance since she was distracted by a human slave and an Elite soldier. It is a shame that there were no survivors. The human and the Elite lost their heads while trying to escape.
"We come in peace," stated John, half-knowing that his words were meaningless to these Praetorians. John felt the strange and violating feeling that often came from a probing scan. The scan most likely came from the Praetorian commander's plasma-cannon. It had locked onto him and its guided systems would not miss him whether he was fleet of foot or solid as a rock. He would be nothing in moments but expelled gasses into the ozone layer.
There was moaning from below. The young Archonian woman that the Praetorian had called Princess Kira was still alive and moving.
"Elite, dispatch of that Archon like a good servant," commanded the Praetorian commander. Strangely, as if predisposed through generations of servitude, Max obeyed and moved towards the young, helpless Archonian woman. Max grabbed one of the Bloodguard daggers on his way there.
The Praetorian commander lowered his weapon saying to John, "This is why Elites make good servants and humans can never be anything more than insubordinate slaves."
"No, Max don't do it," pleaded John but at that moment another one of the Praetorians moved beside John and struck down at him with the back of his hand.
John blocked the strike, catching the arm in defiance. Shortly afterwards, yet another one of the Praetorians struck John in the back between his shoulder blades. John did not go down. Two more of the Praetorians joined in, kicking and striking John until after many blows John finally did go down covering his head. The Praetorians continued to kick at John's prone body. The Praetorians knew what they were doing, they broke a rib or two and badly battered and bruised John, but they did not strike him in any lethal area. They wanted to keep him alive and conscious to suffer in his pain.
Max held the dagger menacingly over the young Archonian woman. He raised his hand quickly as if to strike down soon after with great force but the dagger awkwardly slipped from his hand.
It flew towards the Praetorian commander as if guided by the mystical forces of gods, neither the Praetorian's shield or his armor slowed its path. The dagger cut across the Praetorian's weapon arm. He fell to his knees, blood spewing from his mouth inside his helmet.
With the Praetorian commander out of the picture, Max then leaped up and tackled two more of the Praetorians that were attacking John. He picked up one of them and raised him high into the air; then he smashed that one head first into the second.
From the hill above came a loud battle cry as Croaker charged with a huge rock that he smashed into the gut of a Praetorian. Even Sparky bashed into the fray doing the best he could to run into and distract the Praetorians while Cortana jammed all the communication channels.
John while still on the ground grabbed the vulnerable legs of two Praetorians, bringing them to the ground in a loud slapping sound. Then using rocks he grabbed from the ground he smashed through their shields and crushed their skulls.
In moments, six armored Praetorian shock troopers lay dead on the hard and bloody ground. A seventh one, their commander, continued to throw up blood in gagging convulsions. Soon too he would be dead from the poison that burned inside.
Max knocked the Praetorian commander to the ground and grabbed his weapon. The plasma-cannon did not arm; Max deduced it was a signature weapon. Then Max grabbed the body of one of the dead Praetorian troopers and by placing the trooper's hand on the weapon, he got it to arm. "We do what we must, you shall suffer no more," he whispered as he put his hand over the hand of the dead trooper and leveled the energized plasma-cannon point first at the Praetorian commander.
Max could not finish off the Praetorian commander, a gentle hand weighted on Max's arm. Gentle but with the weight of a thousand sorrows. It was the hand of the young Archonian woman and in sweet words she spoke saying, "Elite, allow me to take one less burden from you today, let it be known that this one was released by an Archon." Then she waved her hands and sang unpronounceable phrases of beauty and darkness.
A thick and silvery vine grew below the Praetorians. It hugged them like a mother to child but it was not soft and warm. Its leaves were razors and its thorns spiked teeth. The bodies contorted and in twisted shapes of agony, they turned to stone. Forever, as long as stone can last, to be warnings to all that dare cross the ways of the Archons.
She gracefully turned to John saying, "So human, you think I am cruel. I have a mean streak but I can also be merciful. I sense this dieing Nomdian is your friend. I can save her if you wish, but first you must vow to be my bodyguards until proper replacements can be summoned for the ones you killed. Nomdians are the sworn enemies of the Archons, I would not make this request in vain."
"Yes, I vow with all my heart, no harm shall come to you except through my dead corpse," John replied with no hesitation. Perhaps not the easiest phrase to understand, but spoken like a true Archon would, with obfuscation and emotion. They were fitting words and the others chimed in agreement, they trusted their leader and friend. The bond was strong and the young Archonian woman felt this too and took it to heart.
"Ashes to blood," the young Archonian woman sang over the Lady. She cut herself with one of the black Bloodguard daggers and her blood turned to golden dust. "That which kills all does not harm the one it protects." Strange riddles always ring true from the mouths of Archons, especially Archonian royalty but never in the ways one might think. The poison did not harm her and instead her blood served as the anecdote to the poison. The ritual continued and the Lady's poisoned body began to heal and come to life.
"Chief, the Archonian rituals are so beautiful," commented Cortana.
"Yes, beautiful," replied John. He bent to his side clutching his ribs -- His wounds from the battle now becoming his focus of attention. He took short breaths commenting, "Cortana, we're not here even ten minutes and we already are buried deep into an intergalactic incident."
"Yes Chief, just like old times," stated Cortana. "Now let's get you some medical attention.
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