The Company Man (10) Part 2

Dejected at the sudden drop in their fortunes, Nic glanced westward and noticed the jagged form of the rocks that indicated the entrance to the mines. 

          We’ll put our backs to the rocks and make our stand there, Delfin’s words in his head brought a sense of urgency. Maybe it was a fool’s errand. He thought of the last remnants of their resistance huddling in the abandoned caves as they awaited their fates. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a speck rising from the void. He looked again and he saw another, and another. After a few seconds there were a small group of maybe ten of them coming closer and closer. Drillpods! The utter dread he felt as they slowly ascended and increased in size was compounded as the General turned and saw them too. 

          ‘What’s this?’ He said sarcastically. It seems your information was accurate, Lieutenant.’ He raised his communicator again. ‘Destroy those pods.’ He pressed his hands onto the glass and watched with glee as the warships did his bidding. They barely had to move. Their blasters extended and silent flashes of orange streaked down through the sky. One by one, the drillpods were vaporized in flashes of orange and red. The last flaming embers slowly turned to dust as they floated down towards the unsuspecting crowds below. The General was practically drooling on the glass.

          Some show, Nic thought as his heart sank. Bagon and the others blasted to dust before they even fired a shot. The crowds probably think it’s just fireworks. He firmly pressed the button on the EMP. Let’s give them a real show. He spun around desperately and dived towards the tomb beside him, but he froze in mid-air, his outstretched fist barely a centimetre from the red hot energy of the tomb. From behind him, he heard an unfamiliar voice, dark and ominous.

           ‘My loyal comrade, indeed,’ it cackled. The General’s voice had changed from honeyed wine to a guttural boom. ‘Tell me Lieutenant. Do you take me for a fool?’ 

          Nic felt himself gradually begin to lift and rotate. He was as rigid as a block of lumber on the factory floor. As he slowly moved upright and into the view of The General, Nic watched, terrified, as his form slowly shifted and changed in front of his eyes. The blue-green swirls in his eyes were gone and the colours began radiating fiercely out his sockets, like the flames from the jets of his ships. He stood with his legs apart and fists by his sides. He unfurled his hands to reveal jagged circular stones buried in his palms. They were glowing the same vibrant shades of green and blue. He seemed to grow two feet taller and his face slowly shifted. His dark complexion became grey and his face contorted and stretched into a long, gaunt horror. The General was no more and the looming presence of the Grand Visigoth drove utter terror into Nic’s soul. He knew now without a doubt, too late of course; Odessa’s visions had been real. The General was nothing but a tool of The Grand Visigoth’s box of wicked designs. 

          Created to manipulate an entire world, Nic fretted, hell, even the galaxy itself. He tried to recoil but couldn’t. The Grand Visigoth’s demonic thrall made a mockery of Nic’s own machinations to get close to Odessa. The stones in his palms grew brighter and brighter; Nic felt their light burning into his retina. How he wished he could just close his eyes and stop the searing pain. His floating body remained upright as his arms and legs spread from his body. He was now floating like a human star enveloped in a cloud of green-blue cosmic dust a metre from the ground. He felt his limbs straining apart from his torso; his very skin felt as if it was being stripped from his body. The pain was excruciating, but he couldn’t so much as scream.

          ‘Do you really think you can presume to lie to me with such gall?’ The General boomed. His face was a picture of twisted malevolence. ‘Why would I need to spike your tea? I am a destroyer of star systems! I enthralled your whole planet in a mere heartbeat.’ He smiled wickedly. ‘So they’re in the mines, are they. I thank you, Lieutenant. I will ensure that every last one of them dies in excruciating agony. You will watch as I strip the skin from their bones, knowing that their fate awaits you.’ He looked at Nic’s extended right arm. ‘So, you wish to free the Alphanian monstrosity,’ he sneered, ‘even she is no match for me. She failed at Andromicron Prime, and she has failed again today.’ 

          Nic listened to his diatribe, powerless to move and despondent at his failure. The Grand Visigoth’s words became meaningless. It was an endless stream of insults about the human’s of Earth’s lack of evolution, and the boundless might of his own galactic order. At the moment when Nic had all but given up, he saw something in the distance outside slowly rise over The Grand Visigoth’s right shoulder. A second wave of drillpods! He marvelled in frozen silence. In The Grand Visigoth’s distraction, they had ascended the entire height of the building and were manoeuvring into position. As he ranted and raved, Nic watched as they silently moved in front of the warships. No firepower, Nic pondered, and no match for blasters, but they’re damn near indestructible when it comes to mining. Nic could do nothing to brace himself for what he realised must be coming, he just watched and hoped. 

          The Grand Visigoth’s haughty snarl was finally silenced with a thunderous roar, as the pods charged the warships and smashed them into the outside of the dome. As ships and pods exploded, the whole room shuddered violently in a hail of fire and broken glass. Nic hit the floor with a violent thud, as the Grand Visigoth spun around at the deafening sound. The EMP rolled out of Nic’s hand, along the floor, and bumped into the side of Odessa’s tomb, before rattling to a stop on the ground. Nic looked up, heavily winded, and watched as two drillpods smashed through the glass directly into the Grand Visigoth. They careened across the room leaving a trail of destruction in their wake before crashing into the lifts on the far side of the room and coming to rest. 

          Nic limped to his feet as fast as he could and dragged himself to the tomb, holding his stomach all the way. He looked at the wall where the ships had come to rest. That won’t hold him for long, he thought as he saw the two pilots clambering from wrecks, Bagon and Honza! He grabbed the EMP, its green activation light was still flashing, and tried to push it into the pulsating blue energy of the tomb. He could get his hand within about half a centimetre of its surface, but it was just too hot to get any closer. He felt his skin begin to burn as he tried to get it closer. In a panic, he looked up again and saw Bagon and Honza running towards him. Behind them, the wrecks of their drillpods slowly began edging outwards and the sounds of metal grating on metal and the tile floor echoed around the room.

          ‘Do it now, Nic!’ Bagon screamed from across the hall as he vaulted a burning control panel.

          ‘Now Nic,’ Honza yelled, ‘what are you waiting for?’

          Nic looked at the EMP and back at the shield. ‘A fool’s errand, indeed,’ he muttered, before clasping the EMP in his fist and punching with all the force he could muster into the sea of blue fire. The smell of burning flesh, instantly cauterized, seared into his nostrils as he screamed in sheer agony. 

          As Nic’s fist disintegrated into the shield, the EMP made contact and emitted a violent screeching sound as the pulse was emitted. It knocked Bagon and Honza from their feet and enshrouded the entire room in darkness. 

          There was a light thud as a body hit the floor beside Nic, but he was too preoccupied writhing on the ground and clasping at his burned stump in excruciating pain to notice. 

          The creaking metal scraping along the ground slowly became louder. Eventually, there was an almighty din as the Grand Visigoth freed himself, and the remains of the drillpods were thrust to the sides of the room. The radiance of his eyes and palms glowed in the distance in a soft blue-green hue, and gently lit the room. The ambience it created, combined with the starlight and soft breeze coming through the smashed dome, belied the wrath he exuded. He bounded quickly across the room in a blind rage. He smashed everything in his path with a wave of his hands. Burning chunks of metal and pieces of heavy machinery were flung into the sides of the dome and through the gaping holes onto unsuspecting masses hundreds of metres below.

          ‘Insolent swine,’ he boomed, and he thrust his hands into the air. 

          Nic watched as Bagon and Honza flew into the air and were held in turquoise clouds of energy. ‘You will die in agony!’ He screamed in fury, and Nic watched as their throats began to constrict and they started choking, their hands and feet slowly crunching into broken contortions and unnatural angles, followed by their arms and legs. The Grand Visigoth’s face was a wrinkled picture of evil as he slowly crushed their fragile bodies. As Nic watched in terror, he held the arm of his dissolved fist in agony and awaited his own fate, but from beside him, he heard a voice that brought joy to his ears.

          ‘Release them!’ Odessa screamed, her once soft voice resonated a booming authority. 

          Nic saw the orange light from her eyes slowly glow brighter and raise from the ground as she stood. Her demand unanswered, she thrust her fists forward and a powerful beam of orange light blasted across the room. When it made contact with The Grand Visigoth, the bodies of Honza and Bagon fell to the floor with a sickening crunch of shattered bone. The Grand Visigoth’s blue-green emanation merged with the orange brilliance of Odessa’s laser blast. Such was the brightness of the flash that Nic momentarily forgot about the pain in his hand. He was instead consumed by a piercing pain in his eyes, as his retinae were finally burnt out.