Queen Potter (The Potter Xenomorph Saga: Book 1)

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

The Easter holidays are almost over when the Russians finish with their setup. E'jeah takes one look at them starting before she begins packing away the electronic equipment. Moody isn't even that gentle as he opens his trunk to the expanded compartment, and just throws the computer components in before closing it all and grabbing E'jeah's hand while his other hand is shrinking the trunk back down. As soon as the trunk is shrunk down, E'jeah disappears in a flash of phoenix fire, Moody along with her.

10 ritualists and 30 dragon hunters don't even notice their disappearance as their attention is focused on the entrance to the hibernating hive. As the ritual reaches a crescendo a cloud of fire appears above the circle with creatures and faces forming as it angrily tries to escape it's bonds. Beneath it, a funnel of air slowly starts to form, leading through the narrow opening in the rock and ice to the chambers below. Suddenly, the funnel reaches the cloud of fire and transforms into a tornado of fire, sucking down into the hive and through the permafrost torching everything in its path.

Off to one side, a diviner, bent over a polished silver plate with a thin layer of water covering the surface, calls out to the dragon hunters, "It's working, it's working."

One of the dragon hunters turns to translate the message to the two brits that brought them the information and gave them so much knowledge on the layout with their strange magical device. As they walk over to see where the pair have gone, the fire comes into contact with the first of the ancient yautja thermal converters. As it does, it begins to power still more ancient machinery. As the fire comes in contact with a second thermal converter, a depleted fusion reactor starts to fire before throwing an error to the system. This reroutes the charge that's being generated to massive capacitor banks while atmospheric pumps start to draw in oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, and compressing them into separate fusion storage tanks. What little atmospheric helium and water that can be found is split and pumped directly into the fusion chamber. By the time the fire reaches the third converter, the system has enough energy to spare to start activating the rest of the hive complex. There, massive electrical furnaces start to pump warm air around the complex while adjusting the walls so that the fire is contained to the converters that are buried through the earth to the power centre.

Above ground the Diviner starts to shout that something's gone wrong, but the ritualists are committed until the last of the Fiend Fyre goes underground.

Deeper underground, at the centre of the complex, the platform that should hold the queen slowly rises to the laying platform. Once there massive electrical discharges play over the frozen form of the queen that's laying to one side of the shaft the platform came from. As they do, the queen is jolted out of hibernation, and the same systems note the movement and begin broadcasting a countdown timer.

On the surface, the last of the fire funnels into the cave and burns up the last of the tether between the surface and the fire.

As the ritualists make their way to the tents the leader of the expedition makes his way over to the diviner, "Did we get them all?"

The diviner shakes his head sadly, "No, there is one left deep inside the cave."

A thump from deep underground interrupt their conversation as the capacitors discharge all at the same time to create the magnetic bottle and ignite the hydrogen and helium mix in the fusion reactor. Now starved of magic and combustible material the fire also burns itself out.

The diviner replaces the water that was spilt with the rocking of the earth before recasting the spell they were using. As they do, the spell takes a while to locate the large Raka that they found before. When it does, the queen has already moved off of the platform and its electric shocks. It is now starting to lay eggs, and it already has two eggs on the floor around it.