Slowly, Chevallier managed to break her arms from the deathly grip of the creature's tail. Her body was still bound but not for long as the enhanced strength her suit endowed her with had just enough power to grab hold of the long tail wrapped around her and squeeze hard. Hard enough to make the creature groan in pain and release its grip, its physical grip at least. Its follow-up psionic attack was another story.
Chevallier stood, bringing her head above the surface of the rippling lake, and backpedaled to create distance from her attacker. She felt her body become numb and forcibly drawn in closer to the creature, only to get knocked back hard via a vicious slap from its tail. It was like a game of baseball, only she was the ball and its tail was the bat. Whatever psionic powers it had it was limited to telekinesis and draining her shield’s power, which now that she thought about it, was a new skill that neither Hashmedai nor Radiance psionics had.
Chevallier was pulled in again as the creature primed itself to smack her again with its tail. She countered with a well-placed elbow to its face as it tried to slap her again. The blow sent the creature to the bottom of the lake, its mind dazed by the sudden blow, rendering its psionic powers ineffective until it came to. It was the break she needed, she faced the opened wormhole wading and splashing through the shallow waters and crossed over onto the new planet beyond.
She heard the creature from behind rise from the waters she had sent it into. A telekinetic pull would force Chevallier back through the wormhole and into the creature’s grasp again, she had doubts her armor could take a prolong beating without its shields. Looking down she saw cracks form across her chest plate and arms, the tail slaps were doing a lot more damage than she thought. They were quite possibly enhanced by its psionic powers to deliver a robust deadly blow with reduced damage to the sender of said blow. Another new psionic trick.
Chevallier strafed to the left of the wormhole knowing that whatever psionic powers that came through would miss her as she was out of their line of sight. She quickly splashed her way behind the wormhole, shocked at what she saw next. She saw the landscape that was behind the wormhole on the other world, including her rifle, floating away. The wormhole worked both ways, entering it from behind would place one behind the connecting gate. She leaped back in as her adversary leaped through the gate on the opposite side to chase.
Chevallier pulled her soaking wet rifle out from the water and aimed it toward the mouth of the wormhole wondering if the creature would follow her behind the gate. She found her answer seconds later as it came into view, her rifle welcomed it back into the fight with a hail of bullets that turned the shallow waters it swam through a murky red.
Norauk was long gone at that point and given what she had experienced with wormholes thus far, they automatically shut after a while. If it closed on her she might lose her chance to find out what happened to the rest, and if she entered it would probably close, trapping her on the planet beyond. She made her choice and stepped back through, over the body of her now dead adversary. She glanced upward at the unfamiliar skies and the large brown dwarf. The oceanic planet orbited Sirius C. Then she realized she was beyond the domes on the other planet that was blocking all transmissions to, and from, the Carl Sagan.
She began to quickly send a distress signal and hoped the damage done to her helmet wouldn’t be an issue. Bad enough that a signal sent from her current location would take an hour or longer to reach the Carl Sagan, depending on how far away they were. With the message for help sent she began to follow the source of McDowell’s signal through the shallow waters. She tried to forget about the fact the wormhole had shut behind her, effectively stranding her on another alien world until help arrived, if it did.
She found the source of McDowell’s signal, his helmet and combat armor along with Kingston’s in the waters below her. She took a few steps back after realizing it was close to a steep decline on the surface where the shallow waters became deep very quick. Whatever story Norauk had told her had some truth to it. If those mermaids . . . those Sirens had taken the three men away, it would have happened right there.
She circled around the area having discovered that the shallow section of the water didn’t extend far beyond the wormhole, confirming that she was truly trapped on what was really just a tiny isle partly submerged in the ocean’s water. There was nothing left for her to do, she found their signal and she sent a transmission to the Carl Sagan. There was nobody around her that needed to be rescued other than her.
She began to scan the horizon with her HUD in hopes that there might be a small island she could swim to, the results from the flickering projection came back negative, just the surface of the ocean as far as the eye could see, except for . . . she zoomed in after receiving new critical data transmitted to her HUD. Waters in the distance were raging and quickly began to arch upward blotting out the view of Sirius C.
A towering tsunami approached, and it was poised to wash her away. She used the max zoom function of her helmet, the imagery, and data she got back wasn’t promising. The tsunami was nearly sixteen stories tall and growing. Eventually the towering, churning waters obscured the visible sky including the huge crimson moon, most likely the source of the gigantic title wave in conjunction with the planet’s proximity to Sirius C, or was it because of the combined gravity from Sirius A and B? Chevallier had no idea exactly, that was Pierce’s job. And boy, did she wish his brains were here to help her survive what was coming.
Chevallier had no idea how to work the wormhole and swimming at this point wouldn’t do any good as the tsunami would still pick her up and running? Fuck that she was stuck on this partially submerged isle.
“You got to be fucking kidding me . . .” were her last words before the tsunami hit and dashed her body out into the ocean.
16 WILLIAMS
ESRS Carl Sagan, Bridge
SA-139 orbit, Sirius A system
May 21, 2050, 09:43 SST (Sol Standard Time)
Williams started the day by reviewing all newly collected data about the system. As much as he wanted to return to Sirius B with guns blazing, he knew even with the reduced mass of the ship and increased maneuverability they were going to need a better idea of what they were going to be up against in their search and rescue operation. The probes launched in Sirius B were still transmitting their data, a good sign as it meant either the aliens didn’t detect them or didn’t care about them.
“Commander, please join me on the bridge,” Tolukei’s voice said via Foster’s office intercom.
Williams traveled one level up onto the bridge and joined Tolukei at his station. “What’s up, Tolukei?”
“I’m not sure. I’m sending you the location on the planet’s surface, something of importance is there.”
Williams looked at Tolukei’s screen on which there was a place of interest highlighted within the region where the hurricane was still devastating. The same data populated Chang’s navigational computer screen.
“Want us to check it out?” Chang asked Williams.
“Might as well since we’re here.”
Chang broke the geostationary orbit and had the Carl Sagan travel toward the northeastern ridge of the landmass where the hurricane spun. There was a large tropical rain forest that had just been enveloped by the thick clouds, strong winds, and heavy rainfall covered by the darkness of night.