Chapter 49

  “I.. I can't believe he's dead,”mumbled Warrick to himself in a psychotic trance.

  “It's not your fault Captain,” said another member of his crew as he tried to console him.

  As they were speaking, Amos, and the crew of the Samantha, beamed down directly in front of the wounded Hebridians. A look of shock and dread covered their faces as they sat there mesmerized by the blue light and group of mysterious warriors in front of them.

  “Who are you?” demanded Warrick as he and his shipmates held their energy rifles.

  Amos, clad head to toe in brilliant white armor, carefully approached the fearful Serrakins and lowered his helmet to ease the situation.

  "Hello, my name is Amos Fyree. We picked up your distress signal in hyperspace and decided to come to your aid.

  Warrick rose up from the creek he was resting on and addressed Amos, “Thank goodness, I am Warrick, captain of the Sebrus. I have wounded, could you please tend to them? I've already lost two –.”

  Warrick stopped speaking and began to cry, carrying an unbearable loss after the death of two of his companions.

  Sha're walked up to one of the wounded crew members, analyzing his wounds as blood slowly oozed out of him. “Amos, I'm not sure he has that much longer to live, maybe we should teleport all of them up to the Samantha and have Reva look at them. She may be able to revive their dead using our resurrection chambers.

  Amos agreed, then tapped his holobadge, “Reva, this is Amos, we need you to lock on to the crew of the Sebrus and beam them up to the infirmary. We have two dead and at least one injured. See if our medical technology, especially our resurrection chambers, will work on them.”

  "Copy my love. Beaming them up now,” said Reva.

  After the crew of the Sebrus had beamed up to the infirmary of the Samantha, Amos and the others set out in search for the escaped prisoners.

  "We'll cover more ground if we break up into teams,”said Amos. “Egeria, you're with me. Michael, go with Sha're. If you run into any trouble just hit us up on the holobadge and we'll head over to your location immediately.”

  The four of them split up into two groups and began hunting the prisoners. As they were walking through the dense forests of the unnamed world, Egeria turned to Amos and asked, “Ampu, how many prisoners are there?”

  Amos responded, “There should be 24 prisoners that escaped. Check your hud, you should see several red dots. Those are the enemy.”

  Egeria quickly brought up the life signs detector on her hud and, sure enough, half a dozen red dots appeared on her view screen.

  "What are the blue dots, Ampu?”wondered Egeria, using her telepathy rather than her lips.

  "That should be Michael and Sha're,” replied Amos with his thoughts. As they walked deeper into the forest a burgeoning question kept weighing on his heart. “Egeria, bae, why do you keep calling me Ampu?”

  The two stopped walking and looked at each other. Both Egeria and Amos removed their helmets and stared at each other passionately. Then Egeria raised her hand and placed it on Amos's warm cheek. The two then locked eyes with each other in an unending glance that felt like an eternity. Just as Egeria was about to speak, bright balls of green light flashed around them in every direction.

  "Get down,”screamed Amos. “It's the prisoners!" Amos and Egeria quickly took cover behind a large tree stump and quickly put back on their advanced helmets with only a thought.

  Dozens of green orbs reigned down on the two would be lovers as they took cover from the fray. “I'm counting six, no seven prisoners coming in from the north,”said Egeria meticulously analyzing the data on her HUD screen.

  Amos looked around for anything that could be used for cover and plotted a way to take out the incoming combatants. “We need something we can use for cover as we advance,”said Amos.

  "Won't our suits defend against their weapons?” replied Egeria.

  “You want to be the one to test that theory out?”said Amos sarcastically.

  “Yeah, you're right. Better be safe than sorry.” Out of the corner of his eye, Amos spotted a nearby boulder big enough to shield against enemy fire. He reached out with his mind and wrapped his thoughts around the large boulder like a glove. Slowly he lifted the rock and brought it over to their current position.

  "Get behind me, and have those blasters ready,”ordered Amos. Egeria then got behind Amos and brandished two lantean blasters in her hands. The two then moved forward through the approaching onslaught.

  As Amos shielded the blasts with the boulder, Egeria fired blasters, taking out each prisoner one by one. “One down, two down, three down, four…”counted Egeria.

  Suddenly a lone green energy blast hurled down from above and hit Queen Egeria on the chest. It was a prisoner. He had climbed a nearby tree and took position above them for a better angle.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “I've been hit!”yelled Egeria.

  Amos quickly dropped the boulder protecting them, aimed his lantean rifle at the tree where the prisoner was stationed and fired his rifle. Instead of a ball of white energy coming out of the lantean rifle however, an elongated beam of light punctured the air and disintegrated the would be assassin leaving nothing but ash. Amos then turned to Egeria to assess her injuries but to his surprise there was nothing to worry about. Reva's new nanite battle armor worked and Egeria was ok.

  “Remind me to give Reva a kiss when we get back to the Samanta,”said Egeria as she examined the structural integrity of her new armor.

  “I might join in,” said Amos, a hidden smile growing below his helmet.

  “What about your rifle? I've never seen a lantean rifle do that before,”said Egeria, shifting her attention to Amos's long gun.

  Amos didn't know that the Lantean rifle had multiple settings, when he fired at the prisoner in the tree he simply aimed, focused, and fired. Focus. Could it be? Amos remembered the battle on Hala when he and Kvasir fought endless hordes of Replicators. He was able to enhance the ability of his anti replicator gun by focusing his mind turning a small pulse into a large disrupter wave, bypassing the Replicator Queen's shields. Could that be what happened when he fired the rifle? It had to have been. Maybe there were more to these Lantean weapons than meets the eye.

  Amos looked at Egeria and said, “It's our Lantean powers, it enhances the effects of the weapon. I don't know how it works as of yet, but with more practice we might be able to do more with these weapons.

  As Amos finished talking, Egeria noticed movement behind him in the trees. “Amos, more prisoners, get down!”she yelled, pushing Amos out the way in the process. With both blasters in her hand Egeria lifted both of them towards the encroaching enemies focusing her mind on all of them. Suddenly, two orbs of light formed on the end of the Lantean blasters as if charged by Egeria's focus. After growing considerably the orbs of light ejected from the tips of the Lantean blasters and made their way towards their enemy. Boom. Boom. Huge explosions could be seen as the large orbs of light made contact with their targets.

  “Woah,”said Amos. "Looks like you've figured them out!”

  “Indeed. All I did was focus my mind and the blasters created a charged shot that took out all the prisoners,” said Egeria her eyes glued to her blasters. “In many ways it's like the Goa’uld kara kesh. It uses a mental component to further activate its functions.”

  The two continued forward counting all of the dead prisoners in the forest. “I'm counting 11 dead prisoners; no 12. I forgot about the one you disintegrated,” said Egeria, a small smirk growing on her face.

  Amos confirmed her count, turned back to Egeria and said, “You're right, that's 12. Hopefully Michael and Sha're can get the other ones. We should probably inform them of our progress and head towards the Serbus and use that as a meeting location.

  On the other side of the lush forest were Sha're and Michael Jackson. They had been walking for some time now without running into any of the missing prisoners.

  "So, do I remind you of your husband?"asked Michael Jackson removing his helmet.

  Sha're looked at Michael and laughed. "It's true that I programmed you to be very similar to Daniel, however, you are still quite different. You're too proper for instance."

  "I thought your husband was also quite proper, a Doctor in his field,"said Michael.

  "Daniel is very polite, and professional in his dealings with others but there is another wilder side to him that most other people don't see,"Sha're elucidated.

  Michael continued walking, gripping his rifle, looked up at Sha're and said, "Well what about the sex? Is the sex the same or better?"

  Sha're bit her lips underneath her helmet and was about to speak before a large green ball of energy sped its way towards Michael Jackson.

  "Michael!" screamed Sha're as the green orb bolted towards her elven lover.

  Without realizing it, Sha're had extended her hand towards the green orb stopping it right in front of Michael, only inches away from his face. She then moved her head to the right, noticing movement in the brush and sent the green orb hurling back towards the enemy on the ground.

  "Michael, are you ok?" said Sha're.

  "I am quite fine, my lady. You saved me from sure death."

  Sha're blushed then hugged Michael deeply, removing her headpiece in the process. The two continued their embrace when out of nowhere a group of several men and women began to surround them.

  "My lady, I hate to interrupt you, but I believe that we are surrounded,"said Michael.

  "Stop. Drop your weapons. We have you surrounded." yelled a female prisoner.

  Michael and Sha're were surrounded by 6 prisoners, energy rifles at the ready.

  Sha're quickly let go of Michael and turned to meet the enemies circling around them.

  The woman leading the group of prisoners shot her rifle at Sha're's feet barely missing her heel. "That was a warning, now put your weapons on the ground and let me see your hands,"said the young dark haired woman. Both Michael and Sha're did what the young woman instructed and they placed both of their Lantean weapons on the ground and raised their hands above their heads.

  "My name is Tarnis Reynard, and you're in luck, I steal space ships for a living. Now tell us how you got to this planet and where we can find your ship," barked the heavily armed woman.

  "We're not giving you our ship,"said Sha're. "We're here to take you in."

  Another prisoner laughed, shrugging off Sha're's words like an insect gripping his rifle even tighter.

  "Ok, I'll give you 5 seconds to tell us what we need to know or we'll simply kill you, how does that sound?"said Tarnis.

  The seconds began to dwindle but Sha're and Michael were unmoved. As the clock struck zero the group of Hebridian prisoners began firing indiscriminately at the two.

  "Do you hear that?"Amos asked Egeria. "Weapons fire!"

  Amos and Egeria were walking towards the downed Sebrus when they heard what appeared to be a barrage of enemy weapons fire.

  "It's Sha're and Michael! They're under attack!" stated Egeria. "We need to head over there and help them."

  Amos and Egeria then headed over to the location of Sha're and Michael Jackson. When they arrived at the scene, they were met with a peculiar site. Caught in the air were several green orbs, spread out and coming from every direction. Sha're had stopped all of the energy weapon blasts in mid air with her mind.

  "Woah, unbelievable!"said Amos as he gazed at the impressive sight.

  The surrounding prisoners were also dumbfounded at the spectacle, never seeing anything like that their entire life.

  "What the hell is she?" yelled one of the male prisoners.

  "How did she do that?"screamed another.

  Then with one single motion, Sha're closed her fists and sent every single energy blast back towards her aggressors knocking them all out in the process.

  Amos and Egeria hurried to Sha're and Michael's location. "That was Amazing!" said Amos. "Your training really paid off."

  "Indeed it was,"added Egeria. In one fell swoop Sha're had knocked out all six of the escaped prisoners.

  The four of them headed to the crash site of the Sebrus looking for more prisoners along the way. Soon they arrived back at the doomed ship's crash site.

  "We still have a few more prisoners we need to round up before we make contact with the Samantha,"said Amos as they walked into the visual range of the Sebrus. As they approached the downed vessel a blonde man, appearing in his twenties, stepped out of the wreckage carrying what appeared to be an improvised explosive device.

  "Grenade!" yelled Michael, as the alien explosive made its way through the air towards the crew of the Samantha.

  As the grenade descended Michael reached out his hand and captured the grenade using telekinesis.

  "I caught it! I caught it!"said Michael. This was the first time Michael had demonstrated one of the powers of the ancients, but like Reva and the rest of the Elves, these powers were also in his reach.

  Michael's exuberance immediately turned to dread when the grenade he had meticulously caught in the air exploded sending him and his fellow teammates down to the ground.

  "My bad,"said Michael as he and the rest of the crew from the Commonwealth tried to get up after the prisoner's grenade attack.

  "Is everyone alright?"asked Amos, checking for damage and injuries bleeding through his nanosuit.

  "We're all right,"confirmed Egeria. "We just need to remind ourselves that we are not invulnerable. Heavier ordinance like explosives and grenades should be able to penetrate our armor and cause us injury.

  "Look here comes another one," pointed Sha're as a flurry of improvised explosives rained down on them.

  Amos, angered by the barrage, stepped forward, disintegrated his rifle and raised both hands in the air. Instead of catching each projectile in the air, Amos manifested a domed energy shield destroying the explosives on impact. When all of the explosives had been destroyed Amos reached out towards the ship with his mind and dragged out the remaining prisoners who had taken refuge inside.

  "You guys are lucky…" said Amos.

  "Why is that?"answered one of the prisoners.

  Egeria laughed, "Because we killed all the other ones".