Shashamar cries and whimpers, tears flowing down his face. He tries to remember as he stares at his captors. He had tried to stop them. He had tried to save his people.
He and Rhansir are resting near a lagoon. Massive trees offer shade from the scorching Segerid sun, their leafy branches hanging down as if weeping. The sound of water breaking on the sandy shore fills the air. Rhansir is startled. She shakes her love awake. He opens his eyes, and sees the demonic apparitions approach. The beasts, obviously from the hellish bowels of the Earth, carry strange looking staves.
“Arrr,” Shashamar roars, jumping to his feet. He stands tall and muscular. There are ten of them, but he has the faith of his elders. He can cast away demonic apparitions. But something happens, something strange. One of them laughs, and raises his staff. With a flash, Shashamar feels his body twist uncontrollably. He falls to the ground. Rhansir screams and runs to his side. Shashamar lifts his head, and watches helplessly as two demonic apparitions approach from behind her. One of them raises a rod to her head. With a flash of light, she drops down beside Shashamar. He lays his head down and stares into the empty eyes of his lover. A demonic apparition comes to stand over him.
“Rhan...sir,” Shashamar says. “Noooo!” He begins to cry. The creature lifts up a staff and brings it down on the temple of the Chieftain. All goes black.
The pain on his temple still hurts. He massages it and returns his gaze to the guards. A breath of pollution forces him to convulse.
“Please!” Shashamar says. “Please, somebody help!”
A flash of light directly in front of the gate startles him. He gasps and jumps backwards. The entire area becomes awash in blue tinted light and three figures emerge.
Soleran, Natharon, and Addia-Sahl stand at the gate. A gold string of light flashes simultaneously across each of Soleran’s eyes. He scans the pens, and locks onto the positions of each Segerid prisoner. Immediately, he raises his right hand and moves his fingers. Externally, he is merely gesturing. But within his perspective, he is activating holographic commands. One by one, in a quick flash of light, the Segerid prisoners are teleported from the pens.
Soleran’s shield is activated as the huvril soldiers open fire. There are static, hissing sounds as the lit projectiles collide with the shielding. All three of the guardians turn to face the huvril soldiers.
Natharon steps forward, and a string of energy flashes across his eyes as he gestures with his right hand. Reality responds, so that a string of blue energy flashes across each of the huvril’s weapons. One by one, each soldier yelps in pain and drops his weapon. As the weapons fall to the floor, each begins to melt. One soldier reaches down to pick up his weapon, but within an arm’s length, his hand is scorched in the heated air. He jerks backwards, and hops up and down, while screaming and holding his wounded hand close to his chest.
The three guardians extend their arms from their sides. They phase out as they lift off the floor towards the ceiling, each rotating in place as they rise. Several floors above, they phase into a wide, storage-like laboratory. Thousands of towering glass tubes atop mechanical platforms fill the area. Within each tube is a Segerid corpse sustained in fluid. Solid metal spans the floor, and light fixtures hang overhead. Several unarmed huvril scientists cry out, collide into each other in panic, and finally run towards a side door.
Addia-Sahl steps forward. A string of light flashes simultaneously across her eyes, and she scans and locks onto each of the corpses. Gesturing with her right hand, the corpses are teleported from the tubes.
A group of five huvril soldiers run into the central corridor. Each one brings with him a leashed, six-legged beast consisting of massive talons and maws of jagged teeth. At the far end of the laboratory, the soldiers unleash the beasts. With feral roars, the beasts lunge towards the three guardians. One by one, the beasts collide with the shielding, and fall to the side stunned. None of the three guardians so much as flinch. Soleran watches as one of the beasts lies on its side, writhing. He looks back up at the soldiers and sighs, shaking his head from side to side.
As Addia-Sahl turns to step back, Natharon steps forward. Simultaneously, his eyes flash with the string of light and he gestures with his right hand. He scans and locks onto the tubes, of which one by one burst to send the contents to the floor. Just as the flow of the liquid chemicals approaches Soleran, Addia-Sahl, and Natharon, the three raise their arms, lift up off the floor, and phase out. The soldiers and beasts scream as they are carried down the laboratory by the flood.
The three guardians rise through the remaining floors to the very top, emerging onto the vessel’s bridge. As they phase in, the captain of the vessel runs over to one of his officers at a control station.
The huvril speech sounds like slurs and hisses, with simple syllabic words, punctuated by hard gutturals.
“Activate the dampening field,” the captain commands.
The officer nods and begins franticly pressing commands on his screen.
Soleran walks up to a navigator sitting at his station, who panics and runs for cover. Soleran extends his hand, and his shielding activates. A tiny arc of static electricity erupts from the shielding in front of his hand, and impacts the navigator’s console, sending up sparks and smoke.
“Arrrrgh!” The captain growls, as he beats on the back of the officer. “Do it now! Do it now!”
Finally, the officer hits the last command, and a dampening field erupts around the Armenkkerik.
Soleran’s shielding de-activates. He smirks as he shakes his head from side to side. I chuckle a little at his behavior.
“Shoot them!” The captain says. “Shoot them now!”
The soldiers on the bridge open fire, and the lit projectiles collide with the skin of the three guardians, ripping away to expose bright, golden light swirling underneath. Calmly, Soleran turns and walks back to the two others, and then turns to face the captain and his guards. Soleran’s eyes erupt, as if on fire, and his shielding returns. He then extends his right hand. The portion of the shielding at the end of his hand erupts with the conveyance of positronic information. The intense beam cuts through the bridge’s flooring and then through the floors below. A brief moment later, the beam bursts through the bottom of the vessel and continues through space. Addia-Sahl, standing on Soleran’s left, raises her left hand to the side, and a beam bursts from her shielding to the left wall. The beam continues through the huvril vessel. An unfortunate huvril is standing in its path. His upper torso disintegrates, with his lower body dropping to the floor lifeless. The beam bursts from the Armenkkerik’s side and continues into space. Natharon, on Soleran’s right, does the same, extending his right hand at an angle, sending a beam through the right wall. The force throws all others present on the bridge to the far walls. The ship begins to shake from the explosions, tossing everyone around.