Spiral of Light

Chapter 22: "Is that what they teach you nowadays?"

The door had opened up into a large vaulted space that was filled with around fifty large pulsating incubation globs, similar in design to the ones that he had seen earlier in the central den.

Silhouette stood at an alien looking technical control panel that was connected to another even larger whirring gestation apparatus. It seemed to serve as an adjunctive circulatory system, for the organisms that were mutating inside the globs. Beside her Kotuk and the fresh lizard hybrids stood, and they were all looking at Moloch and Salazaar, their forked tongues snaking in and out of their scaly lips as they tasted the air.

"I did not expect your arrival so soon, Centurion." Silhouette said, not even lifting its head up from the panel it was reading.

"I would have hoped that Tzreek and his den of genetic filth could have delayed you a bit longer. But it is fine, I am only disappointed that there aren't more of you. After all, soon I will have so many mouths to feed, and I don't know if the bodies of yourselves and the donors will be enough. But the best part about my creations is they are not picky when it comes to their meals. To them flesh is flesh."

The lizards issued a low hiss at that. Kotuk, despite his previous wounds from his battle with Grux, seemed like he was feeling much better, and his wounds had already begun scabbing over. He roared his challenge from beside Silhouette, shaking his great horn from side to side.

It looked up from the panel now and waved a hand indicating all the pulsating globs. Moloch could see in a far corner there was a pile of kidnapped tourists and employees from Drydellia that had been carelessly thrown in a haphazard heap of jutting limbs. With its other hand it made a swift input into the panel's screen. The resisteel door snapped shut, and locked with a resounding click.

Salazaar groaned.

"And now we're trapped."

"Yes, but now they are trapped here with us." Moloch said drawing his emitter pistol and his void blade.

"Typical supid Legion bravado." Silhouette said, as its lizards lashed their tails in anticipation and dropped into all fours, slinking off and away into the darkness of the vault to encircle them.

"Be sure to leave something for your new siblings to eat." Silhouette called out to them. "We want to make sure they grow big and strong."

"Lets stick together and deal with them as they come." Moloch said.

"And if they come at us at the same time." Salazaar asked, as he ignited the voidblade and held it out before him. The light from its hot green edge reflected off a twisted reptilian face that pressed against the side of a glob to snarl at them through the membrane.

"Then we shall take as many of them with us as we can." Moloch said, as the heat from the incubation globules made it impossible for him to track the movements of the reptile hybrids as they disappeared, creeping amongst them, the whirring and pounding of the gestation apparatus in the middle made it difficult to listen for their approach.

"Aim for the gestation apparatus." He instructed Salazaar.

Silhouette laughed at that. "Do you think I would just let you stand there and talk to me, if there was any possibility that it could be harmed by your weapons?"

Just to make sure Silhouette wasn't bluffing, Moloch shot the gestation apparatus several times, each shot that impacted on the apparatus, was absorbed with a ripple. It was like a droplet of water falling into a pond.

Silhouette laughed. "Stupid Legionnaire. This can't be harmed by republic tek. This is from beyond the stars, brought to us by the Krakons. It is one of only a precious few that escaped destruction when the Krakons were annihilated by your blood thirsty legion.

The obscura bracer parsed its voice in flickering tones, but it still communicated the tone of reverence in its voice.

"It seems like you almost admire the Krakons."

"Is it not the place of inferior species to admire their betters?" Silhouette asked.

"There are no inferior species, only inferior ways of conducting yourself. When the Krakons arrived they upended our world and attacked us without reason or mercy" Moloch said. "We did what we had to do to ensure our survival."

"Is that what they teach you nowadays?" Silhouette said angrily.

"Is it not the truth?"

"The victors of a conflict never teach the whole truth, but they cobble together half truths into a narrative that endures to poison the minds and hearts of future generations."

"Centurion, I think it is trying to stall us so its hybrids can get the jump on us." Salazaar said.

"Undoubtedly." Moloch said.

"It sounds as if you've lost your mind." Moloch called out.

"Like the rest of your ilk, I find you to be insufferable." Silhouette said.

Moloch discreetly reached into the pouch at his belt and returned with a spectrum mine. It was a piece of new reverse engineered tech that they had just been given from the legion research labs.

Silhouette looked up from her control to examine them.

"What can the two of you possibly do against all my creations? Any sane being wouldn't want to be alive for what is coming next." It said, in a disinterested tone. "You have the courage bestowed from ignorance that is only possessed by fools. To be devoured alive is not a fate the wise would endure."

"I'm getting sick of being called a fool, Centurion." Salazaar said.

"You talk too much." Moloch said and he threw the primed spectral mine straight into the beating heart of the gestation apparatus.

It exploded in a dazzling eruption of rippling hot light that tore into their dimension and then in a blinding flash slid out from their time and space in a long twisting crackle. In the wake of the detonation the mine warped the gestation device into a twisted wreck that spurted amniotic fluid in several final squelching wheezes, before it quivered and the last of the fluid guttered out in a long dribble across the stone floor.

"No! What have you done?!" Silhouette shouted, making furious inputs into the device panel but her efforts were to no avail, the gestation apparatus had been utterly destroyed.

Immediately all the occupants of the gestation globules began writhing and squirming and frantically clawing at the thick gelatinous membrane that held them encased in the globs.

"You're not the only one with tek from beyond the stars. I was hoping my first spectral mine would be used in a special occasion." Moloch said, watching the desperate thrashing from inside the globules as the hybrids inside began to suffocate on the unoxygenated amniotic fluid.

"It did not disappoint my expectations."

In the next instant one of the hybrids leapt at Salazaar, hurtling through the air and bringing him to the ground with a resounding slam. Salazaar managed to skewer it on his voidblade as he fell, but it slashed at the skin of his chest and abdomen, tearing deep furrows in his flesh. Moloch leapt forward and kicked the writhing creature off the Constable and pulled him up, putting two shots from his emitter pistol into the creature's neck. It died as the connective tissue that held its head to its shoulders melted into dust.

"Nothing important is damaged." Salazaar said, "I'll live." He said, lifted a hand stained with blood away from his chest.

"Stay on your feet Constable, if either of us get dragged down by these creatures it will be a death sentence."

"End them quickly, and return to me, we must pack up our equipment and leave this place!" Silhouette shouted incensed with rage at Kotuk and the other hybrids.

"Once again, the legion has caused me another intolerable disruption to my work!"