Thread:FleetCaptainT/@comment-27324808-20180207000733

59

 Ice fog misted out from each of the yawning cryogenic pods.

 Intrepid, Rover, Blade, Tiberius, and Tiberius stared at the rows of them, expectantly.  Cyclone and Kate didn’t stop releasing Imagination.

 “Think someone should tell them they can stop now?” Blade hissed.

 “Wait,” Intrepid said, as the first person stepped out from cryogenic sleep.

 They were clothed, surprisingly, in a tattered jacket, pants torn at one leg, and a stained black backpack.  They also had a pointed quartz blade for a left arm.

 “Yeah, tell them,” Intrepid jerked his chin at the Nexus Figures while grabbing whoever was closest to him and jumping back, pulling Old Tiberius and Rover towards the door.  More Stromlings had exited the pods now.  Blade shouted Cyclone’s and Kate’s names while running towards them.  Cyclone opened one eye, then grabbed Kate.  The Imagination fire that surrounded them instantly shut off.

 Intrepid ushered them through the doorway, once they were out he shut the door.  Then he wheeled on Tiberius.  “You said-”

 “Rift!” Tiberius shouted.  “That’s what went wrong.  They,” he pointed at Cyclone and Kate, “couldn’t hold the dimensional connection in the necessary balance so chaotic forces have arrived and infected it all!”

 “No,” Old Tiberius shook his head, “it was a failure from the start.”

 “Couldn’t we disinfect them all, like you did for Cyclone?” Rover asked.

 “What did you say about chaotic forces?” Intrepid repeated.

 “The ship is still shaking.” Kate alerted.

 The door began to bend outward as the Stromlings hammered it from the other side.

 “I think we can divert the disinfecting solution into the ventilation system of that room,” Rover said.

 “No we can’t,” Intrepid shook his head forcefully, “because there’s now an Unverse rift open right above our heads, and I can assure you there’s Maelstrom coming out of it this second.”  He lifted up the briefcase.  “And we need to throw this in.  Tiberius, you’ve done nothing but waste my time, our time, the entire multiverse’s time.”

 “That’s not set in stone.” Tiberius seethed.

 “I’ll make it.” Intrepid swore.

 He spun on his heel briefcase in hand, about to dart down the ship’s hall to its exit, to climb up the stairs, to leave the house, to get up in a rocket, to fly the Unverse bomb into the rift, to go with it if it came to that.

 He would have if an Unverse Manipulated rift didn’t open in front of him, a foot above the ground,and several things were wrong.  First, the rift’s clouds were not their usual blue hue.  Their color was purple, an indication of Maelstrom infection in the surrounding Unverse.  Then Red jumped out, Evelyne in her arms.  Fast moving fog spilled out around them until the rift closed.  Intrepid leaned forward and spread his arms.  Red’s knees buckled as soon as she touched the ground and she pitched to the side, sending Evelyne tumbling.  Not that it would hurt her... Intrepid grabbed Red and eased her to the ground.  Her shoulders were cold to the touch and where his arms rushed her jacket he recoiled, it was stained purple in many places.  Intrepid flinched, then gingerly pulled up her sleeves. Her left forearm had a crystalline hue.

 “You’re infected,” he muttered.  “Breathe.”

 “I know,” she panted, “but you were expecting me, and Evelyne... I had thought, for once, maybe this plan would work...”

 “We both hoped.” Intrepid stood up, then swung to Old Tiberius.  “Get that disinfection chamber prepped again.”

 The old man nodded and turned to go, when Evelyne growled.

 Noticing her reanimated, Intrepid recovered from his double take and amended, “No wait, Rover, do what you said.  Rewhatevering the disinectiowhatever.”

 “It’ll take a few minutes,” Rover said.  His hand was instinctively reaching for his holstered pistol, but consciously he kept himself from pulling it out and shooting at the imminent Stromling threat.

 Intrepid glanced at the timer in the briefcase.  “You have five.”  He reached into his backpack, searching for something.  “Anyone have a stungun-”

 “I got this,” Blade slung off his backpack and sent his hands spiraling in.  They came back with a dark, chipped sword that he guided in a pattern around Evelyne’s Stromling form, but not hitting her.  On the third pass an energy shield surrounded the Stromling’s feet.  “Scimitar of Rooting,” Blade said with a nod, then he joined Rover at a computer terminal.

 “I’ll divert it through the entire ventilation system,” Rover said, “since that door aint gonna hold and we’d better get off the ship.  But it’ll take who knows how much longer...”

 “And,” Blade said, inspecting a radar reading, “there’s Maelstrom landing across the city.”

 “We’ll deal with them,” Kate said, cracking her knuckles and sending sparks of Imagination out with each pop.  Cyclone nodded.

 “Let’s move.”  Intrepid waved Cyclone and Kate, then the Tiberiuses, down the ramp.  Rover and Blade stepped around Evelyne, who remained rooted.  Blade gave Intrepid a pat on the shoulder as they departed.  Then Intrepid reached for the last remaining person, still seated on the ground and breathing quite heavily, but she shrugged away.

 “I stay on the ship,” Red said through grit teeth.  “I need dis...infection as much as Evelyne... as the others.”

 “It’ll take time to fill the atmosphere, you heard Rover.” Intrepid said.  “We can find a personal kit outside-”

 “Just go.” she ordered, closing her eyes.

 Intrepid left.

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