Chapter 8 – Discoveries and Desperation
The hammer fell, and the corridor was bathed in brilliant orange and blue light as a spiraling streak of fire erupted from the revolver’s barrel. The fire grew, splitting into a trio of intertwined trails of flame that took on a serpentine visage, each roaring down the corridor as they spun about one another, the sound more intense than even Kaylee’s launcher. The shamblers were consumed by the flames, melting away into puddles which were in turn seared into dark stains on the floor and wall panels. The flames stretched the length of the corridor, Shi’s sights having been aimed toward the door at the far end.
The spirals of arcane fire struck the far door, roaring again as they exploded in a pulsing fireball that rebounded backward into the corridor, reaching halfway back down its length. As the fire suppression system kicked in, the flames were already dying out, but for the moment, nothing moved in the corridor but the swirling gray mist trying to extinguish flames that were already gone.
Kaylee whistled. “Holy…was that a literal dragon’s breath round?!”
“Something like that, yeah,” Shi said, lowering her big boy as the amplifier turbines spun down, steam rising from the barrel as the last of the energy dissipated. Her vison wavered a bit, and she felt light headed for a moment, but the adrenaline pumping through her helped it pass quickly. “Alright, double time, let’s move!”
Murissa was off like a shot, Kaylee a couple steps behind. Shi urged Briar to go ahead of her, “Why didn’t we try that in the lower corridor?” Briar asked as he jogged forward.
“Way too tight,” Shi replied, holsting her special revolver as she looked behind them, hearing movement in the stairwell, but for the moment the black rubber seemed to be keeping its distance. Shi followed Briar, fighting off another bout of nausea. “Back-blast would have cooked us.”
“Couldn’t you have lowered the amount of power, though?”
“That was lower power,” Shi said. “I didn’t give it enough time to charge to full.”
“Oh…” Briar said, eyes wide as he clutched his holy symbol close to his chest. “I…had no idea that gun was that powerful.”
“Full power…it can probably reach something equivalent to a ship’s cannon with the proper round,” Shi said as they ran, wiping sweat from her brow. Briar hadn’t actually been on a mission where Shi had to fire the weapon before, just seen her practicing with low-power practice rounds back at the firing range. “That would take a lot of energy from me, though. Even that shot took something out of me.”
“When the commander wants something blown up, she’ll make sure it happens,” Kaylee said, laughing as she swung her big gun to cover an open doorway, though her face turned serious quickly. “I’ve got movement in here, but the stuff is staying away for the moment.”
“Keep moving, if it’s not coming at us, ignore it!” Shi said, and Kaylee continued onward, looking quickly at other doorways as she passed, but not lingering on any in particular. Shi glanced into the room as she passed by it. She slowed, then stopped, tilting her head at what she saw. Sure enough, there was plenty of the black stuff inside, coating the walls and floor, writhing around the edge of the door where her flames had burned it away. Deeper inside, probably where Kaylee’s human eyes couldn’t make out all the details in the darkness, Shi saw a trio of humanoid forms, glistening and coated in a skin-tight layer of the black sealant, their features hidden but for the vague outline of eyes and ears and the shapes of their bodies, indicating male or female. They were clustered in the corner of the room, writhing and squirming, an occasional muffled groan coming from them. The more striking detail of their predicament, however, was that while they were coated head to foot in black rubber, said rubber had also shaped itself into restraints. Each form had several distinct straps wrapped around their bodies, their arms were crossed in front of them or behind them as if they wore straitjackets, their feet were angled downward and held in en-pointe positions, and wide collars had formed around their necks, holding them like cervical braces.
Shi’s eyes widened as she realized what the stuff was: Seal-Tech! This stuff was Seal-Tech! But what had caused it to behave like this? Why was it on a DSM ship? Had it…mutated somehow? Been taken over by some kind of alien intelligence? Had someone created some kind of trap aboard the ship? Had the dark elves made some kind of move against DSM? Her mind raced with possibilities and questions, but no answers.
Murissa’s angry snarl drew Shi’s attention just as the ferakatian kicked the blackened door at the far end of the corridor with a solid metallic thump. “Locked!”
“Hang on, I should be able to bypass it,” Kaylee said, going to the panel beside the door. “Uh…cover me…” she said, pausing as she started prying the panel open. Readying herself, she eased it open, hesitantly peeked inside, then fully removed it, apparently seeing nothing wiggling in the tight space. She reached in for the wires and started pulling at them while she fished out a folding knife from one of her pockets.
Shi moved to join her companions, but two doors further down, something else drew her eye and she paused again. The door was only partially open here, singed by the backblast from her shot, still-smoking remnants of the Seal-Tech along its edge and inside on the floor. Though she couldn’t see anyone else restrained inside from the narrow opening, the red glow of a mostly uncovered monitor was plainly visible. On the screen, streaked with the mysterious rubbery substance that was Seal-Tech, Shi could make out some details of the images, specifically a partial schematic of some kind of device with a tubular chamber attached with multiple warnings flashing elvish script, stating ‘Rampant Replication Detected!’, ‘Extreme Power Consumption!’, and ‘Containment Breach!! Evacuate Immed-!’ The rest were illegible beneath the Seal-Tech that covered the screen.
Brow furrowing, Shi considered those warnings. They implied that DSM was experimenting with the stuff. So far, nobody in known space had managed to crack the mystery of Seal-Tech besides the dark elves that had created it, and if they had, they weren’t talking about it. The stuff had become one of the great mysteries of modern times, and trying to decipher the secret of what made it function as it did had consumed the lives of many arcanists and techies alike. It was arca-tech, that much was for certain, but nobody outside the dark elves knew why it worked as it did, regenerating itself from nothing once it was applied to someone, its ability to reshape itself seemingly at the whim of ones who controlled it, and most importantly, negating one’s ability to use magic once it was fully ‘installed’ upon them. That added an entirely new level of threat to what they faced, certainly, especially to her and Briar.
Shi herself was among the ranks of those arcanists who had devoted some of their arcane studies to Seal-Tech, and she was no closer than anyone else to breaking its secrets. It behaved like curse magic in how it couldn’t easily be removed, but nobody had managed to figure out how to break the curse, at least not for long, its magic-negating properties preventing even holy magic from affecting it for long, even those spells meant to break curses. Some had theorized a quantum-level encryption method of some kind that would keep the magic in place until it was cracked, tied to some mysterious system on the dark elven homeworld, but nobody had managed to discover the encryption method, if there even was one. Like regular latex, Seal-Tech could be formed into almost any shape or color when applied, and according to recent reports, could reshape and change color while worn now. It could be peeled away or burned or frozen off, but it would inevitably regrow itself; over the centuries it had been in use, the rate of regrowth had increased significantly, from a few days to a few hours at most. With what they had seen inside the ship, it was now growing much faster, reforming in seconds. What had DSM done to it? Had DSM done that, or was this some new iteration of the arca-tech? That power consumption warning…was it…it had to be!
The Seal-Tech was somehow drawing power directly from the ship itself! That’s why the power cores had been shut down, to stop the spread, and it explained why it had come alive when power had been restored. But how was it growing? Was it related to whatever device it was in that schematic? How could it keep regrowing itself? Was it consuming things within the ship, like their spacesuits, or was it growing itself in other ways? Was it…alive? Was it somehow sentient?
“Commander, what is it?” Briar asked.
Sparks flew from the panel where Kaylee worked on the wires, and she spat a curse. “Heh…black wire fell out there, thought it was that shit…” she muttered a moment later, shaking her head.
Shi saw the Seal-Tech around the door start to writhe, no longer smoking. She turned to look down the hall as she stepped away from the door and saw more patches beginning to move within the corridor. “We don’t have much time. How’s that door coming, Kaylee?”
“Almost there…just gotta get the power right here…” Kaylee chewed at her bottom lip as she worked the knife into another wire.
“Hurry!” Murissa said through clenched teeth, looking tensely down the corridor, tail raised and waving back and forth.
“I am hurrying! You wanna get your big mitts in here and poke around?” More sparks shot from the open panel. Kaylee pulled her hands back with a yelp, blew out her breath and wiped at her brow. She immediately went back to work.
At the far end, Shi could see more of the shamblers oozing up the stairwell. She adjusted her grip on her regular revolver and heard Murissa’s warning growl. She backed toward the others, keeping herself between them and the shamblers. “Briar, the moment that door opens and we confirm it’s clear, get in there and make sure the suits are space-worthy.” Shi didn’t say it aloud, but she was worried about Murissa; standard procedures aboard ships were stated to have at least a couple larger emergency suits onboard in each airlock, but with DSM’s elf-centric attitudes and general corporate mentality, she wasn’t entirely certain they would follow conventions. If they didn’t have a suit for Murissa… No, there had to be a suit there that would fit her; there had been larger suits in the airlock they’d entered, Shi was certain she had seen them.
Tendrils of Seal-Tech started worming their way out of open doors and through wall panels along the corridor. The stuff was reforming itself quickly. Moving a few feet away from her companions, Shi used her free hand to trace along the scorched wall to their left, speaking arcane power words as she did. Glowing runes formed where her finger touched. She repeated the process a few more times along the floor and opposite wall, staggering the clusters of runes every few feet. It wasn’t much, but hopefully her improvised wards would slow the Seal-Tech monstrosities down long enough; if Briar could assist once they were suiting up, it should be enough…
“Got it! Door’s opening!” Kaylee announced after a few more sparks, quickly stepping back and hefting her big gun.
Shi looked over her shoulder as the pressure doors opened, Murissa and Kaylee at the ready. None of the Seal-Tech dripped from the doors, and the prep chamber beyond showed no signs of the stuff. The suit lockers were sealed, and Shi saw the suits waiting through the windows on the locker doors. Thankfully, there was at least one larger suit. “Briar, get those suits ready! Kaylee, Murissa, guard the door, but don’t go beyond those wards. I need to prepare a barrier spell for when we suit up.”
“Yessir!” Kaylee and Murissa took up positions on either side, their attention back the way they had come. A half dozen shamblers were in sight, and more were starting to form as the Seal-Tech began dripping from the ceiling and coming up from the floor at the far end.
Briar hurried inside and went to the locker with the larger suit first, pulled it open and activated the suit’s startup sequence to begin an integrity and systems check, then moved to one of the regular-sized lockers to do the same.
Shi holstered her revolver and stepped into the middle of the doorway, steepling her fingers together as she closed her eyes and concentrated, beginning another spell. She could create a temporary wall of pure arcane energy in front of the door; the airlock chamber should only have one entrance, and should be completely sealed otherwise. All they had to do was delay the Seal-Tech until they could get inside it. If Briar could create a protective barrier as well, then they should-
Briar shrieked in absolute terror.
The spell died before it reached Shi’s lips, her eyes popping open as she and the others whirled around to look behind them. Shi’s eyes widened further as she saw Briar struggling to pull away from one of the suit lockers, thick tendrils of Seal-Tech trailing out of the lock, stuck securely upon his shoulders and calves. Only this Seal-Tech wasn’t black. It was mostly gray and white, its surface still retaining the distinct shapes found upon the outsides of spacesuits, though distorted from stretching and with a distinctly shiny sheen to them. It almost looked like arms had reached out of the locker and seized him.
“W-wh-what the fuck?!” Kaylee shouted, fear coloring her voice. “They can do that now?!”
Murissa snarled behind Shi. “They’re learning…camouflaging themselves…” Her voice was strained, like she was struggling to keep herself under control. She hadn’t sensed the danger inside; that was troubling, but neither had Shi.
Noticing that neither of her companions had moved to try and help Briar, just too shocked to move in the moment, Shi came to her senses first and began another quick spell, fingers moving rapidly. Briar screamed again as the spacesuit-like form shambled out of the locker, maintaining its grip upon him as it closed the distance between them. It was starting to darken and losing its features, becoming like the other shamblers, though it loomed larger, still retaining something of the shape of a spacesuit. Briar’s body was slowly being covered by the Seal-Tech as well, spreading down over his shoulders, already upon his chest, and already covering his feet and moving up his thighs.
Was this stuff like regular Seal-Tech? Was it ‘locked’ upon someone only when it was fully in place, or was it already too late? It had to be consuming Briar’s clothes already, but maybe they could still get it off of the priest.
Shi flung her fingers forward and uttered her power words, thread-thin lines of arcane energy whipping from her fingertips. The blue-white threads filled the space between her and the Seal-Tech mass, slicing into its limbs just inches from Briar, then through the main mass, ripping it into smoking pieces that fell to the floor and started to melt into a puddle.
Briar kept screaming, though, shaking his arms and kicking wildly, trying to fling the Seal-Tech off of him in his panicked state. The inky black kept creeping over his body, though.
“Briar, calm down!” Shi shouted, stepping into the room. She was really starting to feel the drain upon her that all of her recent spellcasting had caused, blinking away sweat as she pushed through a sudden feeling of fatigue and blurred vision. Shi could try to get the stuff off of Briar, but he had to stop flailing around first.
“It won’t come off! It won’t come off!” Briar screamed, letting out a frightened whimper as the stuff started up his neck. He lifted his hands, balled into fists, and shook them again, his eyes somehow widening further. “I can’t move my hands! They’re stuck!”
“Stop moving, damn it, I’m trying to help you! CALM DOWN!” Shi snapped, using every bit of authority she could muster.
Briar blinked, but stood there shaking, gulping fearfully.
“Now stand still and breathe. This might be a little uncomfortable, but I promise I won’t hurt you, okay?” Shi approached Briar, held up her hands and uttered another power word, her hands erupting in blue-white arcane fire. “Hands!”
Whimpering, Briar did as ordered, offering his balled up hands to Shi.
Shi reached for them, concentrating on the intensity of the fire she wielded, and carefully moved her own hands over Briar’s. She didn’t touch Briar, rather kept the flames a few inches away, only moving them close enough to burn the Seal-Tech. Shi recalled having done something similar before, though not in this lifetime, just a fleeting image and a few familiar sensations, but the memory remained mostly ephemeral.
Briar winced and whimpered again, blinking away tears, but held as steady as he could manage. The Seal-Tech melted away from the intense heat, dripping onto the floor. A few seconds more had Briar’s hands free, and Shi started moving up her arms. The Seal-Tech had stopped growing, at least while it was being assaulted by the magical fire.
“Commander, they’re almost to your wards,” Murissa said then, voice tense.
“Hold the line,” Shi replied, her voice more calm than she felt, her concentration fully on getting the stuff off of Briar before it consumed him.
Shi was concentrating so intently on Briar’s arms and chest, being careful not to burn him, that even Shi’s kerryn ears didn’t hear the other lockers opening behind them.
Seal Tech! Those nefarious dark elves, what have they done now? Or was it DSM’s experimentation on the stuff that caused this mess?
Backed into a corner, how will the remaining Red Team members get out of this one? Can Shi manage to save Briar? What’s coming out of that locker?!
Stay tuned for next week’s chapter to find out!
Until then, Urban out!
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