Tech Planet (Project NightStorm Book 2) Read online

  Arri reloaded his gun, he had managed to hold on to it when a punch from the monster caught him in the chest putting him down firmly on his backside. He shot upwards back to his feet, gun held before him ready for another attack. It took him a while to get his heart rate under control, his ribs felt tender and if he breathed in too deeply his chest felt like someone was pulling chains across it.

  The punch had created a small distance between himself and the attacker, giving him enough time to aim the gun carefully. He unleashed the shot and watched detached as the body keeled over.

  He stretched out easing the muscles in his shoulders and neck, instantly he regretted it and brought his hand down to his chest to cradle at the bruised area.

  The third wave of the attack had taken a toll, his arms and legs were sore from blocks, punches and kicks and he was down to one ammo magazine.

  "If we don't find your friend soon, we will need to go back," Arri said, "we don't have the weapons to face many more of these zombie Nivgarians."

  The end of the long tunnel opened out into a vast chamber, the sides of which were hidden in the darkness far beyond the reach of the meager light. The journey from the surface had taken well over an hour and had left them somewhat battered.

  Arri stomach began to grumble, the song that had been stuck in his head had ramped up to another level and he was finding it very distracting, which is why he failed to notice the man stood motionless emerging from the murky black.

  "He's there," Echo said, "Hey Topper we've come to rescue you."

  The figure didn't reply just remained totally still one hand outstretched before him. He was wearing the same style of suit as Echo, form-fitting that extended up over half of his neck. The garb was one colour in his case a very light grey. Around his waist was a thick belt with several strange devices attached and a very long knife. His face was partly obscured by a mask and his eyes were wide open unblinking. His bodysuit revealed a well-defined muscle structure that boasted a six pack.

  "I have a terrible feeling about this," March said, at some point, she had switched her items of clothing colour back to a black and turned off the glow of her eyes.

  From the darkness five points of red light blinked on, growing larger as they advanced from their positions.

  Arri had the gun in his hands, without even thinking, the song in his mind thumped to its own beat, but the adrenaline rush at the start of combat helped to drowned it out.

  March pulled more thin sticks from her pack, breaking them to create the brightly burning light. She threw them one by one in the direction of the five red dots. One glow stick flew in an arch coming close to Topper, it froze mid-flight the light went out.

  Galdan could clearly see the Nivgarians now, they moved with grace, advancing from the darkness every detail burning into his mind. He steadied himself for combat, reaching down to both of his plated thighs he produced what can only be described as two short swords. He flicked them out in a downward motion, the blades extended several inches, short swords growing to become normal.

  Arri closed the distance between himself and the first attacker quickly. Over the past hour, he had become used to the recoil of the handgun, got used to lining up the sights with the target he wanted to shoot. As he walked he fired, keeping a solid stance as he progressed, more of his bullets were striking their targets now.

  March followed in Arri's footsteps, firing off round after round at her target, five shots later it dropped to the ground, twitching as it did so.

  Galdan's swords passed through the neck of the creature, removing its head from the body. He turned to face another. Carrying the full weight of his armour had taken a lot of effort, the enhanced muscles were offline meaning he had to rely on his own strength. It was through weary eyes he squared off against another.

  Arri was pinned to the floor, he hadn't seen the attacker until it was too late, it caught him on the side at speed. The air had been forced out of his lungs with the hit, he tried to gulp as much of it in as he could. Panic started to rise in his mind temporally pushing away the music. Out of desperation, he grabbed at the gun holstered upon his leg, the one of advanced technology with the wolf design etched over the grip and barrel that matched the buckle on his belt. The gun snapped free.

  The fusion round tore through the metal and silicone cybernetic side like paper, almost ripping the creature in two. His wrist device sprang into action, the rectangle display opening up over his forearm, data scrolled across its surface, showing his rapidly beating heart rate, his high blood pressure, and low oxygen levels.

  He pushed the remains of the Nivgarian off of him, the five red dots had been defeated, he had taken out two, March one and Galdan who was on one knee two also. The music faded from his mind, it was as if it knew when there was trouble. He carefully placed the gun with the wolf design back into its holster. He had brought it with him for show, it certainly looked a scary weapon, he hadn't been sure it would work due to the technology dampener.

  He turned his attention to the figure in the centre of the room.

  8

  Time Freeze

  The man stood statuesque highlighted by only the dim light of the floating orb, from high up in the chamber water dropped gathering in a pool three feet above his head. Arri approached him with caution he didn't want to become trapped in the same way. He tested the trap by throwing his least valuable coin bar at it. The small silver object now hung three feet away from the man Toppers belt.

  "Looks to cover a radius of about so far," Arri said, he opened his arms to indicate the distance, "in all directions. I can't see anything that is holding the trap open. Do we even know if he's still alive in there."

  "It kinda reminds me of suspended animation, the old super sleeps people had to take to travel the vast distances of space," March said, her mouth pulled to one side creating a strange expression.

  Arri circled around the target, his eyebrows scrunching together his hand resting upon his chin. Something felt strange about this situation, he could feel his heartbeat thumping in his chest. He was aware of the heat under his arms and the coolness of the chamber air on his face. He could feel his blood race through his veins, from behind his right ear a whooshing sound started in time with his heart.

  With a sharp intake of breath he clamped a hand over the side of his neck. The roaring sound of his blood became louder obliterating all thought. Fast it pulsed now racing along both sides of his head.

  Beneath Toppers thick-soled leather style boots he noticed the greenish glow, so familiar to something he had seen before. Curling his fingers into a fist he forced his mind to ignore his blood. The greenish light had the same colour as the light that had caused him to lose access to his overlay. That had thrown his whole world up into the air and forced him to confront old friends.

  As he formed the idea of what the light was like within his mind it seemed to respond to him, slowly forming itself into brighter lines of green patterns, like letters from a language.

  "Do you see that?" he pointed down at the strange glyphs below the man's feet. Galdan walked over to stand next to him, his large armoured boots made the most noise on the metal floor.

  "See what?" Galdan asked following the direction of Arri's pointed finger.

  "Those green patterns they are almost like letters."

  Galdan looked back at Arri, "Did you hit your head during the fight? There's nothing there."

  "Not that I remember," Arri said relaxing the muscles of his face and letting the rush of his blood take over his thoughts again. The glyphs remained, glowing by the feet of the trapped man.

  A memory began to form in Arri's mind absorbing all of his senses.

  "You know," Niko's voice sounded inside his own head, " it's a humane trap, see how its caught the little creature."

  "Can he escape daddy?" the small girl's voice asked.

  "No but you can easily open the trap, just press there."

  The memory faded, Arri's vision slowly returned to norm
al. "That was weird, the memory was specific to this situation," he thought to himself.

  He wondered if there was an easy way to spring the trap, then he remembered what had happened when he drew his antique gun in desperation near the end of the fight. He snapped his wrist up while turning his forearm toward his face.

  The screen popped into existence as always hovering just above his layer of clothing. He concentrated sending commands at the device with his thoughts, nothing happened. The device was working somehow, he pressed his finger on to the screen, it responded. With a few swipes he activated the camera and cycled through the different modes. In the part of the spectrum occupied by heat, he detected a line of energy heading away from the trap out into the darkness.

  He followed the path with caution, alert for other traps all the while nervous about the large spiders webs stretched out above his head. The rushing of his blood diminished as he moved away from what he had now dubbed the time trap. Within fifty paces he discovered another glyph this one suspended high above his head.

  "How about that one?" he pointed up.

  "I see a shape, perhaps light blue in colour hard to tell in this light," March said.

  "Think I need my eyes tested I can't see a thing," Galdan said, he had always prided himself on his eyesight.

  "Can you feel your blood whooshing through your veins?" Arri asked.

  "Yes, it was really loud by the frozen man," March said.

  "Well my blood is perfectly fine, no whooshing here. How did you get that computer working?" Galdan said.

  "It just started up during the last fight."

  March pulled out her machine pistol and took careful aim off to the side of the trapped man. She pulled the trigger, nothing happened. "Guess you must be special."

  "Come here I have a theory," Arri said. He waited patiently as March walked over to him. He handed her his wolf etched gun and took several steps away. The screen over his wrist vanished. "Try your gun now."

  March pulled it from the holster so quickly it would have given even the great gunslingers a run for their money. She fired a burst of three shots creating small holes in the ground. Almost unthinkingly she put the machine pistol back and studied the gun Arri had handed her.

  "Picked it up from an antiques runner on station Indigo-Alpha. I'll get Tidal to take a look at it," Arri said.

  "So not only does it have that fine design its also an anti, anti technology dampener. I want one." She handed the gun back to Arri grip first.

  Arri pulled another small bar coin from his pocket, and threw it up so it hit the centre of the glyph, it glowed brighter for one moment before dissipating like smoke on the wind. From behind them where the time trapped man had stood there was a thump, immediately followed by the splash of a large amount of water.

  Arri turned and looked back, hand outstretched waiting for the small bar to drop, he caught it without looking. Echo rushed over to her fallen friend and moved his body so that it lay flat out on the floor, she placed her head on his chest.

  "He's still alive," Echo said, "I can hear his heart and breathing." She pulled back one of his eyelids, his eye was rolled back in the socket exposing only the white part.

  The doctor worked quickly, his hands bright red with Tidal's blood, the rod had cut through an artery, which was pumping blood out at an alarming rate. The path the stretcher had followed to get to the medical area had small pools of red spaced evenly in time with Tidal's heartbeat.

  The lights around the ship burned brightly for a moment before going out plunging everything into darkness. The doctor froze, he had just grabbed hold of the cut artery and was about to seal it back together.

  The emergency lighting came on, a low level red, enough that a person could find there way around the ship, not so good for performing life-saving surgery.

  "I need light, quickly." He clamped his fingers down temporally stopping the bleeding.

  Johns called up the plans to the ship, overlaying them on his own vision to create a hybrid map of sorts. He searched for the location of the emergency supplies. One in the medical bay, five feet right, head down. He pulled open the drawer and grabbed the small flashlight.

  "How's that?" he held the light high over the doctor's shoulder and looked down at the blood. His legs went a little bit shaky.

  "Hold it steady, I've almost got the difficult part done," the doctor said. From the medical table just off to the side he picked up a small delicate looking gun, squeezing the trigger a small amount of glue-like substance poured out along the tear, stopping the flow of blood and sealing the hole.

  "We need to get him back to the town," Echo said as she hugged herself with both arms crossed below her chest.

  "Can you see where that tube starts?" Arri asked.

  "Over here," March replied, "There are some travel pods too."

  "Enough for all of us?"

  "Only three."

  "OK take Echo and her friend back to the transport, Galdan and I will go the long way back. If his condition worsens get him back to town, then come back for us."

  "Yes captain," March gave him a quick salute.

  Echo was the first to enter the travel pod, a small sphere device with one passenger seat, Arri wasn't sure Galdan and his armour would have been able to fit. The control panel had a touch screen and the standard control interface that pretty much all applications had come to adopt, studies had shown it to be the most efficient.

  Arri with a few touches loaded Echo's pod into the tube and fired it up to the entrance. Next, He loaded March and then the unconscious Topper.

  "Just us then, let's look around a bit, I have a feeling we are going to be spending a bit of time here waiting for them to come back," Arri said.

  "What do you make of these Nivgarians?" Galdan asked turning one of the bodies over with his foot and looking at the now colourless eyes.

  "I've encountered something like this before, a friend of mine lost control of his implants. Something was done to him, the doctors are not sure what. For a long time, he was in a coma."

  "Marcus? The ones whose co-ordinates led us here."

  "Yes, he attacked me, I was injured quite badly before March shut him down with an EMP. The people who controlled him also stole something, a piece of technology which we think came from this planet," Arri said.

  "From the looks of the flesh these guys have been dead for a while, did Echo say how long her friend was missing?"

  "I didn't ask," Arri opened the screen to his computer, using one of its many sensors he scanned the flesh, a short beam of every changing colour highlighted the face. "Cell death occurred six days ago."

  "How is your gun making that work?"

  "When I bought it the virtual assistance said the antique runner who acquired it had died, they were selling all his items and I really like the wolf design.

  "There is one thing strange about this gun," Arri pulled it from the holster and handed it to Galdan, "the mercenary Lucian had one that looked exactly like it."

  "It has a nice balance to it, looks to be mostly mechanical. A small amount of technology but no reason it should allow your other technology to work." He handed the gun back to Arri.

  "Maybe I'll get the new tech guy to take a look at it, his training commanders rated him very highly. What do you make of the unstable floor?" Arri asked.

  "There is a vast drop, perhaps into the depths of the planet maybe into hell itself. The floor panels that dropped don't appear to be hinged, so it would appear this tunnel is becoming unstable. I don't feel comfortable in this place."

  "Me either, let's make our way back, keep your eyes open for what caused those webs. Oh and watch where you step," Arri said.

  They retraced there steps walking back with great care to the top of the tunnel. The floor remained stable and no sign of the web-spinning creatures.

  "What now?" Galdan asked looking at the empty space where they had left the transport. A lightning storm raged in the distance seemingly moving in their directio
n with each ground strike.

  "We need to take cover back inside from that storm, time to break out the rations."

  Arri placed the small square cube on the floor an equal distance between them, as he removed his hand he pressed the side. A flame erupted from the top of the cube producing both heat and light.

  "Portable campfire..." Galdan said.

  "Fancy something to eat?"

  "I'm ok, thank you."

  "Fine, I am going to have this rationed beef," Arri turned the silver packet over, "just place into the heat, like so and wait five minutes for delicious food. Good to know."

  Arri rolled back the sleeve on his right arm and examined the large bruise that had appeared. Blocking metal arms came at a price. The walk up from the chamber below had also been challenging, the slope that helped on the way down really hindered on the way up. He sat legs stretched out in front of him watching the camp flames dancing with reds and yellow.

  "Tell me a bit more about that armour and how it is working here," Arri said.

  "It belonged to my grandfather, a great knight of our people. My father followed him joining the ranks and while he never reached my grandfather's heights he was still well respected. For as long as I can recall they pushed me in the direction of the knighthood."

  "Sorry, I don't have access to the overlay so am not entirely sure what the knighthood is."

  "Knight protectors to give them their full title, I guess they would be closest to your police officers. We collect the evidence to put people in prison and protect the vulnerable when needed."

  "I take it you weren't happy with the idea?" Arri said.

  "I wanted to see the stars, so when I came of age I jumped on a cargo ship and travelled. Eventually, I signed up and after training joined the Orion."

  "So how does the armour work in the dampening field? You seemed so sure it would work" Arri asked.