Nereid made up her mind. She wanted to experience freedom for real and not just by reliving old memories from McDowell, and getting Pierce back to his ship was the key to making that happen. She swam to the central palace and took one last glance at the city before she entered, musing if she’d ever see it again. And if she did, will it be a city of a spacefaring species her people once were during the age when the goddess was alive to guide and protect them.
Inside, she paid no mind to the many Undine guards that hovered next to the various hallway entrances she swam through. She arrived at an armory deeper inside, and used her clearance to gain access to a stage two Voelika. Voelika’s resembled a long staff outfitted with cybernetics that enhanced the psionic gifts of the user. Both ends of the staff were decorated with green translucent ornamental sculptures that resembled the wings of a dragon. The sign of the goddess.
The Voelika began to emit orange light as she held onto it, and then strapped it to her back. Her legs and arms furiously stroked and kicked through the waters bringing her body to the holding cell where Pierce had been for the last two days. As she got closer, she noticed several guards swimming through the halls, their heads moving about with a sense of urgency, searching for someone. Probably searching for her she figured, since she ignored all telepathic communications directed to her, and now suddenly arrived at the palace while still refusing to speak with anyone.
To her surprise two guards stood watch over the entrance to Pierce’s holding cell. Two guards that swam over to her holding their Voelika staffs in both hands, obviously ready for combat. “The elders have been looking for you,” one of the guards said telepathically.
“I’m busy,” Nereid said, and tried to push past them.
The Voelika’s of the two guards crossed, forming an ‘X’ in front of Nereid, blocking her path. “They insist you see them at once with your report,” the guard said.
“Later, I must talk with the human,” Nereid said.
“We have orders to arrest you if you resist. You must report in at once.”
“I don’t have anything new to report.” A lie of course, Nereid hoped they would be stupid enough to believe it. “I may, after I speak with him.”
“You are a poor liar,” said another telepathic mind behind her.
Nereid spun around and saw another Undine guard swim closer to her along with an Architect soldier outfitted with undersea armor. The presence of the Architect forces inside was confirmation that the Architect considered her and Pierce to be top priority in its plans. And it was confirmation that the first engram orb she submitted might have had traces of McDowell’s memories on it after all. And if that was the case then they knew she had critical knowledge of Earth, but with most of it locked away.
“Do not let the human poison your mind with its lies,” the third guard said. “Report everything you have discovered with us at once.”
Nereid looked at the Architect soldier, its breathing apparatus provided it with fresh air to breathe into its helmet. Architect soldiers were always confusing to her, inconsistent. Some didn’t require any breathing devices such as the ones who routinely patrolled the city, while others like the one in front of her, armed with his spear and shield, did require air.
Her unmoving composure forced the third guard to draw his Voelika, while the Architect soldier hid behind his shield and extended the tip of his spear next to her. There were four targets, four weapons pointed at her, and only two options for her to handle the situation. Give up and accept their terms and throw away freedom like the elders had been doing. Or take a stand and fight, as a human would do.
She held her hands out, her Voelika flowed into the palms of them via her telekinesis and a quick and decisive underwater psionic battle ensued. The Architect soldier and the guard with him were pushed backward into the hallways, their bodies becoming slower as she slowed the particles inside of the water around them, causing it to crystallize and freeze. The two remaining guards were dealt with via shattering the barrier protecting Pierce’s cell. It was a calculated risk as rushing water gushed into his place of sanctuary for the last two years. However, the sudden and unexpected flow of water rushing backward into his cell and draining out from the halls threw the two guards off balance. Her psionic barrier prevented the rushing currents from taking her away, her body lunged forward into his cell as the raging waters began to fill it up and wash the two guards around. A telekinetic pull yanked Pierce toward her and into her barrier, seconds before the waters swept him up for good.
She battled her way outside into the city, her psionic powers doing most of the work. Lucky for them, most of the psionic Undine had been assigned to defend the elders, so the battles easily swung in their favor. The tradeoff was, however, the hordes of Architect soldiers from above descending toward them. All of them heavily armed, all of them ready to make her suffer like past Undine that tried to rebel. None of those Undine however had been a Nereid, she was about to find out if her enhanced psionic powers combined with Lyonria modified human genes were enough to fight for freedom.
The intensity of the fight caused Nereid to piece together more fragments of McDowell’s memories. She vaguely began to remember the wormhole he, Pierce, and Kingston had traveled through when they first arrived on this world. Someone that went by the rank Master Chief had contacted him when her mother had psionically mind-controlled McDowell, putting him in a trance.
Time moved slower outside of the time dilation field and therefore the Master Chief should still be on her way to them, trying to follow in their footsteps. Nereid used the might of her mind to move her and Pierce’s bodies through the ocean, up toward the edge of the time dilation field and toward the shallow region of their ocean world where the wormhole resided.
She sensed the temperature of the waters around them increase to extremely hot levels. Hot enough to cause her barrier to flicker as roaring bubbles appeared from the corner of her eye. She looked back and saw the reason why. Architect grunts were behind and closing fast, their lasers were capable of underwater usage and had the effect of heating the temperatures of the water where the beam traveled to a boil. Returning fire at them was not an option. Their escape relied now on her ability to keep the psionic barrier up and her telekinesis pushing them forward and past the blockade of ships above them.
They crossed the barrier and their bodies began to adhere to the new rules of the passage of time, rules that the rest of the universe did. The ships that looked as if they had been in suspended animation began to move swiftly, and their weapons ports opened and took aim at them. Nereid held onto her Voelika tight as it glowed orange, infused with psionic energy, energy that escaped out from the Voelika into her body, enhancing her psionic brain activity. She prepared her barrier for an attack and hoped her brain was up for the new challenge.
22 WILLIAMS
ESRS Carl Sagan, Sickbay
Entering Sirius C system