Such a shame she couldn’t spare any time for it.
Liera’s eyes glowed orange and her hair fluttered in the exhaust heat produced by her wide open vent lines. Smoke came out of her mouth, her nose her tear glands and even her skin pores.
> Sineul Recommendation: Thermonucleate
“I want to eat you” The calm voice reverberated through the biomass before her, as the crude mouth shape it emulated tried to sync the lips with it.
A hand emerged out of the biomass, peeling off the ground towards her, fingers with sections as large as her entire body.
Liera held her palms facing each other at her chest. Biomass poured all over her in a relentless onslaught, she would've drowned in this tar if not for her extended shield bubble. Her legs glowed red hot for a split second and she dashed through this river of tar, burning a hole through it. The vervid hand followed her closely, trying to pin her down into the tar.
She used the klin shield to project herself off the round, flying headfirst into the thumb before the hand gripped her. The impact broke its structure at the wrist.
While airborne, she tilted her palms slightly forward, aiming at the bubbles on the top of the head. The skin panels of her arms slid open at the elbows, revealing her glowing muscles now steaming coolant.
She let go at the peak of build up, two giant beams from her palms crossed at a point just centimeters ahead of her.
Three black hands rose from below and encircled her, cutting off her line of sight with the head.
The vervid had tried to counter her too late.
She extended her arms abruptly, smoke bellowing out from her open muscles. The super concentrated klin sphere hovered in front of her for a split second.
In the next moment, All her emitters fired their maximum output simultaneously, releasing 76% of her remaining capacity in under 2 nanoseconds. Absorbing that immense energy, the klin sphere underwent a chain reaction.
Blinding white light illuminated Rhea from the space port, vaporizing anything that was unfortunate enough to be in its range. The space port was a large empty space, yet the explosion filled up nearly a quarter of it. Concrete turned to ash, steel to liquid and biomass to atoms. The wall itself was turned to dust, the shearing white light carved a conical shape through the city beyond, decimating four buildings and toppling several more.
She landed almost a kilometer away in the opposite direction, smoking from every vent and orifice. She was hot enough to melt steel with a touch and several core functions shut down one by one.
Sineul: core functions suboptimal
- reboot required
- 28 minutes remaining
- full recovery inadvisable
Sineul Recommendation: prioritize soul preservation
- internal refactor required
- estimated 3M:12S
- rebooting…
This was inevitable. She sat where she landed and fell on her back as all her servo clusters lost power.
As her mind drifted to the void, she received transmission. “Hey can you hear me! They-re-!” She heard the boy’s garbled voice as her mind drifted to the void.
She snapped awake 3 minutes 12 seconds later and stood up. Her body was back in working order except for some minor damages that she suffered in battle.
> Sineul Recommendation: prioritize soul preservation
- 25 minutes remaining
- time insufficient for full data copy
- quantizing layers…
- ground level signal interference risks data corruption
- establish line of sight with the satellite
She looked at the space port.
> Override
> Contacting Calan…
- transmission established
The sound that came through rivaled the screams from the sphere. He was sobbing uncontrollably and the things he was saying made no sense.
“I’m coming, stay exactly where you are”
> Sineul: 7% power remaining
- soul transfer requires 4.7%
Liera used 1% of the remaining to enhance her legs. She dashed across, breaking a wall into the nearest terminal and cut across to the terminal she left Calan at. She got there in 17 seconds. Winding down, she scanned the area as she kicked the final wall between her and the open area.
> Scanning…
- life signs detected (1)
> Navigation: path mapped to [target]
- destination 378m
She found Calan hiding in a trash collector. There was no one else in the vicinity. His face was twisted in fear and he broke down crying as soon as she lifted him to her arms.
“Twhey leftme!!” He cried, crying his eyes out. He was overheating inside the rain suit.
Sineul: shield extension (1.7m)
That was less than ideal, but that was all the power that could be reasonably spared for it. Liera pulled the hood off his head and tore the visor off his face. It was blurred with perspiration.
“What happened?”
“The man! He told me I was going to die,” Calan whined. Liera’s eyes fell on his ribs. His rain suit was cut over the chest. They had found out about his wound.
“You’re not going to die” She turned as the freighter ship fired its engines in the distance. She hacked into Hegsworn’s transmission line.
“Stop. You won’t make it”
“I’m sorry but that kid’s as good as dead. No one survives with a wound like that. You should’ve told us when you left him with us”
“You’re not going to make it beyond Rhea without me” Liera reiterated.
“Well, I’ll take my chances!” Yelled Hegsworn and the freighter took off towards the horizon.
“T-they left!!! What do we do!”
Liera placed the hood back over his head. “You stay as close to me as you can, don’t even lift your head, understand?” She wrapped him around her torso like a tarp. “It’s going to be shaking, a lot more than before”
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“It’s too hot!” He complained.
“I’m sorry about that” She didn’t have enough time to cooldown to a comfortable level. She was still hot enough to crumple his rain suit wherever it touched her skin. “It won’t take long”
She tore off a piece of tape from his hood and flattened it. “Bite on it and keep biting on it as hard as you can” she slid it between his teeth. He was terrified enough to obey her every command now. This was ideal.
> Sineul: shield extension (0.3m)
She needed some energy to get to the top of the space port. She dashed across the terminal, holding Calan close to her with a tight grip, her muscles adjusting every now and then to account for excessive vibrations.
A bright ray of light came from the clouds as she jumped over structures and pillars. She stopped for a brief moment. The freighter fell over the mountains. The laser that hit it was an orbital canon. Several other beams pierced the clouds, vaporizing its remains in quick succession in sweeping square patterns.
That was a terrible bet. She hoped to counter any orbital weapons with her klin shields. But that 7% remaining would’ve barely covered the first massive cylinder that broke the ship in half. She would’ve been helpless to prevent others. GALSTAN was not energy constrained. They could always fire again.
Then again, she could’ve drained a fuel cell in the ship to charge herself back to 30% or above. She could’ve gotten them far enough to crash-land and find cover. Hegsworn doomed his family all on his own based on vague suspicion.
Liera stopped at the top of the space port and set Calan down.
“We’re here” She told him, sitting down.
“What do we do! They left without us!”
Liera had no answer to give him. The boy was in fact, doomed now.
> Sineul: prioritize soul preservation
- 21 minutes remaining
- quantized data copy transfer takes 16 minutes 33 seconds
- establishing line of sight with satellite…
Calan fired 31 questions at her before he gave up and curled up next to her on the floor. The strange pale woman with red hair only smiled pleasantly at him and ignored all of what he had to say. He tried shaking her and even tried biting once but he would’ve had better luck trying to harass concrete.
“I’m scared,” he whined, tears draining down his face. He tried calling his mother and his brother. The emergency line nothing worked. Finally, he gave up, trembling from head to toe as he lay in the fetal position next to the only stranger that cared enough to bring him here.
> Analysis: severe mental distress
- subject is a child
Liera didn’t know what drove her to bring this helpless thing with her. It was an impulse, it was embedded into her plan and she had no authority to question it. It ended here, with him being stranded, all alone facing certain death when the reactor explodes.
> Sineul Recommendation: abandon subject
- all options for rescue exhausted
Even Sineul came around to the same conclusion after facilitating every single moment that led to this. She could’ve gotten here much earlier if it wasn’t for the child.
> Override
The word flashed. She heard the voice louder than before and she ‘saw’ the voice this time. It came from a place indescribable with words. In that place, she saw herself in a claustrophobic tunnel. The walls pulsated relentlessly and there she was, staring up with fierce orange eyes and wet red hair. Her lips were pale and her skin had more color. The mouth that the voice came from lay partly open.
>Sineul<
The lips moved, she could read what they said before it registered as a voice in her brain.
>I will handle it<
Liera’s eyes closed abruptly and her head tilted down as life left her body.
Liera, the 98th Red Priestess woke up for the first time in 12 years. She received a full contextual data stream from her body as her eyes opened and all information integrated with her soul by the time her eyes fell on the child curled up next to her.
>Sineul<
>Conversate
She let out a sigh, taking in the scene laid out before her. This was a bad situation to wake up in. But Ephistome III had a perpetual sunset, something that reminded her of a place she didn’t want to forget.
“Calan?” Her voice came out naturally. She never got used to hearing her own voice. This self-awareness needed a few hours to fade. The boy did not have a few hours. She had to talk to him now, for the first time.
> Sineul: This was your idea, Priestess. You wanted to bring him with you
> Sineul: May I ask what for? There is no way to save him. You saw what contingency protocol does. They won’t let anyone get off planet, or anywhere else in the planet
She gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t talk to me” He mumbled, rolling his shoulder off her grip.
“I can tell you what happened to your mother and Linan”
Calan flipped around, his small face full of anger. This was the first time he heard her mention them.
“I know what happened to them,” he said, his eyes darting to the floor. “That bad man earlier. He told me they’re dead”
“They are dead, yes,” Liera grabbed his face. “I know how that feels”
“You’re a stupid robot,” Calan whispered through a sob.
“He told you that too?” Liera pulled the hood off his head. It didn’t matter now if he got infected.
“See, I woke up just now. I was asleep for 12 years. I was asleep the whole time the stupid robot brought us both here”
“What!” He shouted angrily. “You’re lying! You're awake. You jumped all over the place and made things explode!”
“That wasn’t me” She smiled. It wasn’t the pleasant expression that it defaulted to; this was a more nuanced smile. “Although, for some reason, the stupid robot wanted my opinion when it came to you. I told it to bring you along. I was just talking in my sleep”
The boy didn’t know what to say to that. For one, he couldn’t even imagine the sentence he heard.
“We die too now!?” he switched the topic.
“Yes, it looks like that was all for nothing”
> Sineul: Your data copy cannot be quantized any further. Please start transmission now!
“Who are you? What’s your name? You didn’t tell me”
“It’s Liera” She answered. “Well met, Calan” She lifted his face by the chin. “Look at me. I have a question for you”
“I don’t want to talk anymore” He turned away and sat down, sulking at the horizon.
“Do you want to live?” she asked it anyway.
“Yeah, I do!”
“-Even if you can’t meet your mother or your brother anymore?”
“I’m scared!” He cried. “I don’t want to explode!”
> Sineul: What does that change?
> Force Eject: [signal array]
- ejecting transmission module
> Sineul: What are you doing! Stop!
Liera dug into the back of her neck and pulled out her signal array, a cylindrical module the size of her hand. She opened the skin panels of her elbow and jammed the connecting end of the cylinder into her arm. Her internals adjusted for the new configuration.
Without any further words, she grabbed Calan and slid the fore finger of the same arm into his brain dive port.
> Sineul: You can’t be serious? You’re throwing a thousand years away, for this child? why? I don’t understand you
*“Let's hope this is worth collecting”*
“W-what’s happening! What’re you doing!” Calan struggled to turn to her. She didn’t let him move.
“I’m sending you to the orbit. This is the only way that works”
> Soul Transfer: initializing...
- calibrating signal array
- full data copy… (4%)
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN!” Calan yelled, his eyes rolled back as soon as his brain interface connected with Liera’s at full bandwidth.
“You’ll see,” her voice echoed.
“ARE YOU COMING WITH ME?”
His ears were full of static and he barely heard Liera’s voice. He was frozen in time for 13 minutes as Liera held his limp body. When the transfer finished, his eyes twitched and his pupils dilated. His body fell on the concrete as Liera pulled her finger from the dive port.
> Soul Transfer
- complete (787s)
The Dome reactor grumbled, its massive plates fell open as it reached critical mass. The city cracked around it as the support beams bent outwards, the creaking sounds echoed across the city.
Inside, the core erupted in a massive white ball the size of Rhea, momentarily lighting up the entire habitable zone of Ephistome III around it. It punched a hole through the storm clouds, creating a large vacuum bubble.
In a few seconds, the explosion twisted in on itself, just as violently as it expanded.
Everything was reduced to a single point in space.
And there was nothing.