The Right Stuff

Truely, this is the first story in the first season. It forms the beginning of the arc including Swarm and is referenced in other stories. Other stories that were written will be put elsewhere.

The Right Stuff

 

Caledonia could taste her own blood.  In all her battles, she had never shed her own blood and it was a unique sensation.  Fear crept into her heart and she knew that this could be her final moments.  How did she want to go out of this life? 

 

The wound on her head was a deep one and the blood was flowing down her face and dripping on her arm.  She was still reeling from the hit she had taken and could hardly think straight.  The disintegration ray, streaming from the Zigonian’s machine, was the strongest she had ever felt and she knew her energy barrier couldn’t hold out forever.  She had to try.  She was the only hope for the children huddled on the floor of the chamber underneath her.

 

Her consciousness ebbed and her barrier started to buckle and waiver.  She fell to one knee.  Where was Wrathius?  She could just teleport away and take the easy way out…  She couldn’t deny the thought was crossing her mind.  The temptation was real.  What good would she be able to do in the long run if she died here?

 

Of course, nobody ever said being a superhero was easy work.  She couldn’t help but remember how it started in the training chamber of the Reverent Knights’ base mere hours before…

 

The Akkadian Knights had been invited to the Reverent Knights base, situated in a natural cavern nestled deep in the Blue Ridge mountain range in West Virginia.  Being the foothills of a much larger range, the natural caverns formed over millennia as a result of water runoff and deep aquifers.  The Reverent Knights base was impressive and was suspended by an intricate cable system inside a rather large cavern so as not to disturb the stalagmites and stalactites that naturally formed over thousands of years. 

 

The teams began sparring at noon, taking only brief breaks throughout the afternoon to allow the machinery in the simulator to cool down.  Both teams performed admirably and produced multiple nail-biting matchups.  Dark Heart took particular delight in teaching some of the Akkadian Knights a thing or two and by 5 pm both sides were worn out.  StrongArm was griping that some of his weight equipment needed replacing.  Everyone laughed that one off. 

 

Shortly after 5:00 pm, a tremor rocked the mountain.  Being suspended as they were, it didn’t shake the base too much, but the alarm systems blared out several warnings and both teams rushed to the control center.  The large plasma and LCD displays sprung to life and multiple cameras on the exterior of the mountain displayed a horrid scene of destruction in the forest on the mountainside.   A Zigonian ship, a science vessel by the looks of it, had crashed and left a swath of destruction a mile long in the pristine landscape.  Readings from the reactor indicated that it was close to losing its integrity.  Should that happen, the explosion from the fusion core would level most of the mountain.  Although there were no towns nearby, the resulting wildfire could spread for hundreds of miles.  It couldn’t be allowed to happen.

 

Both teams charged out of the base, intent on stopping the inevitable.  Being the senior team, Captain Atom took Reverent Knights out in front and met the oncoming wave of Zigonian warriors head on.  Cap took the lead, incinerating the first two bugs before they could get a shot off.  The rest of the Reverent Knights tore into the enemy lines with devastating effect.

 

Eron and his team circled around and entered the downed science vessel from a gaping hole in the fuselage.  There was no time to lose.

 

After quickly hacking into the network, what was left of it anyway, SoulSearcher found the quickest route back to the engine core and the team darted off.  CALEDONIA remained, looking at the display.  Wrathius grabbed her arm, “Hurry short stuff, we don’t have much time!”

 

“But look here…” she said pointing at the screen.  “This was a science vessel.  Their last stop puts them in the town of Richmond, Virginia.  I recognize that part of town…”  She trailed off for just a moment and then her eyes shot open.  “That location is an orphanage run by the Sisters of Charity.  I used to live a few blocks from there.  They were stealing kids to perform experiments on them again!  We have to save them!”

 

Wrathius turned to look for Eron.  Eron, looked back down the hallway, having heard the exchange, and merely nodded approval.  Caledonia and Wrathius headed the opposite direction from the rest of the team.  They were on their own.

 

Rounding the corner, they found the door to the laboratory shut tight.  A luminous red field covered the door, indicating that the security measures were still active.  Three Zigonians appeared around the corner behind them brandishing blasters.  Wrathius turned to Caledonia, “you save the kids and I’ll hold off the bugs!”

 

As Wrathius began tearing into the Zigonians, and blaster bolts lit up the hallway in a shower of heat, light and sparks, Caledonia grabbed the doorframe and pulled with all her might.  In moments, the door lay on the floor behind her and she was in the room.

 

The scientists behind the door were surprised to see her, and most scrambled to get out of the room through other exits.  One, however, continued about his grizzly work.  He was herding about a dozen young children into a large, clear cylinder.  Caledonia recognized the markings immediately.  It was a disintegration chamber.  It was part of the Zigonian “blackened earth” philosophy for sure and she had come just in time to stop it.

 

With her enhanced speed, she crossed the 25 feet to the scientist and laid him out cold within no time at all.  She opened the chamber and let the children out.  They started to come and stopped, wide eyed in fear. 

 

Caledonia turned around just in time to see a massive Zigonian slam her in the head with the butt end of his blaster.  Falling backwards, she landed in the chamber.  Dozens of tiny hands began helping her to sit up.

 

The door to the cylinder shut loudly, or was it just the ringing in her ears?  She came to fully just as the machine whirred to life.  A bright disk over her head began to hum and emit a strange heat.  Caledonia knew instantly that the machine had been activated.  She threw everything he had into an energy shield to stop the blast, hoping that help would come before she gave out.  Just a second longer and she could have blasted out of the chamber entirely but that second was a not coming and the effort could have injured or killed the children at any rate.  She was trapped.

 

Outside, Wrathius was doing badly.  Against one, even two Zigonian soldiers he could mop the floor with them.  The third was a little much and he found himself struggling to stay alive.  He heard a soft whirring behind him and a bright light filled the hallway.  The light was blinding and the Zigonians reeled away from it.  Taking the opportunity, Wrathius pressed the attack and blasted one of the three through the bulkhead into a tree outside.  The other two fled down the hallway.

 

He could see outside and knew the battle was going well for the team.  Not being dead yet told him that Eron had done his job disabling the reactor core.  He turned back to the room and, to his horror, realized what was making the brilliant light.  A very large Zigonian wearing goggles was standing at the control panel of a disintegration chamber.  He could barely make out the form of Caledonia inside, surrounded by what appeared to be tiny children. 

 

Charging into the room, Wrathius lost his temper and ripped into the Zigonian.  The battle between the two was short and one sided.   Wrathius stood up to see Caledonia fall down on the floor with one arm and about a half dozen kids propping her up and the other extended upwards projecting what must have been a shield.  A second later she let out a scream which was quickly cut off and fell to the floor.  The bright light filled the chamber entirely. 

 

He looked at the control panel and saw gibberish.  He never bothered to learn Zigonian and was regretting it now.  Adrenaline surged through his body as he grabbed the base of the panel and ripped the whole thing from the floor. 

 

The light stopped.  The machine died down.  The machine he was holding made the sound of metal on metal as it hit the floor and Wrathius could now hear the sobbing and coughing of children through the thick, transparent walls of the chamber.  The chamber was filled with smoke.

 

The door to the cylinder came off at the hinges as Wraithus tore it away.  Caledonia was laying on the floor, streams of black smoke rising from her blackened form.  Her skin and garments were burnt and she had lost most of her hair.  In an effort to save the kids when her shield fell, she must have absorbed the radiation into herself.  She was a hero true to the last.

 

He knelt down over her and reached down to check her pulse.  He couldn’t feel one.  He bowed his head, a single tear running down his cheek and a noise lifted up to him.  His heart skipped a beat when he heard her take a single weak, raspy breath.  He gingerly picked her up and, leading the children, he carried her outside and up into the Reverent Kights’ base.  Caledonia would be ok in the long run, with several bionic enhancements provided by the Reverent Knights’ medical team in thanks for her heroism.

 

The remainder of the Zigonian forces had been suppressed.  The Reverent Knights took the heaviest hits, but stood their ground and routed the beasts.  Eron rejoined the team moments later, reporting that the core was indeed disabled, along with about 10 more Zigonians.  In all, 33 of the aliens were either killed or subdued in the effort.  Another half hour search by both teams turned up 3 more hiding in the wreckage.

Reviews

[Joshua Haines]

Not a bad story. I think I will enjoy this book XD