Twinks in Space: Fantastic Voyage - Part Two - 23. Chapter 23 - Aboard the Deathian

Quigley and Phentrom were in the Stealth Witch’s airlock. They were both armed with multiple blasters and ready to sneak onto the Deathian, but the bounty hunter paused before they disengaged the destroyer’s exterior door. He turned to Phentrom. “We didn’t have much time to plan. Let’s run through it all once more.”

“Good idea,” Phentrom said with a nod, “we need to deactivate any vicinity controlling weapons, like power syphon cannons or magnetic beams, anything which would make getting away impossible. We also need to open this ship’s hangar so the Cometskipper can escape.”

“Right,” Quigley replied, “and we need to drop the destroyer out of hyperspace, which will immediately alert everyone onboard that something’s up. Also, should we split up and try to rescue everyone and take out the ship’s systems all at once?”

Phentrom shook his head. “I think the two of us need to deal with whatever we can before heading down to the prison level.”

Quigley conceded. “Yeah, you’re right.” He paused with an idea. “Phentrom, as a synthetic, is there anything you can do that might be helpful?”

“What do you mean?”

Quigley thought for a moment. “I know you were designed with an A.I.P. as the main part of your brain, but what does that entail? I guess I’m asking if you’re able to do anything a non-synthetic can’t?”

Phentrom perked up, “Oh, I see what you mean now. I have sensors which register that we’re moving through hyperspace right now.”

“You do? What else can your sensors detect?”

It seemed to Quigley that Phentrom went through a list in his head. “I can see into the ultraviolet and infrared spectrums. I can hear into audio frequencies which most sentient species cannot. I can produce bioluminescence from my eyes.”

“You can see in the dark?”

“Well, not exactly, my eyes can make their own light so I can see when I’m in the dark. I can also create audio vibrations in controlled frequencies.”

“Interesting,” Quigley replied, “light and sound.” The bounty hunter steeled himself. “Are you ready to save your friends and my family?”

Phentrom set his jaw. “Let’s go get them!”

The external airlock doors of both the Stealth Witch and the Deathian opened, secretly connecting the two ships, and Quigley and Phentrom entered the destroyer. The bounty hunter pointed at the Deathian’s interior door release mechanism, and he aimed his blaster. He nodded and Phentrom hit the button.

The door whooshed open.

The hallway on the other side was empty.

“Lucky,” Phentrom whispered.

Quigley smirked. “I suspect everyone onboard feels totally secure that they are undetectable and untouchable in hyperspace. Little do they know…”

“They’ve been infiltrated,” Phentrom finished for him.

“Also,” Quigley added as the two of them made their way deeper into the massive destroyer, “since this ship can’t use its airlock while traveling at a power of light speed – and most ships can’t – the crew erroneously assumes no other ship could possibly access it. I think that’s why this whole section of the Deathian was left unguarded. Eleithon’s vampire ships are something else. She’s a techno-goddess!”

The two men came to a stairwell.

“Up, right?” Phentrom asked.

Quigley accessed the map of the ship on his device. “The prison is three levels down, and yes, the controls are up.”

They began to climb the stairs.

The door to the landing above swung open, and Phentrom responded faster than Quigley ever would have expected. The mandroid fired his blaster, and although his aim was not perfect, his attack was effective. The guard’s stomach exploded, and he collapsed.

Quigley rushed up the stairs and pulled the door, pointing his blaster into the opening, but the guard was alone. The bounty hunter yanked the corpse out of the door’s way and sealed it again. Quigley pointed up, and he and Phentrom continued.

When they arrived outside the entrance to the ship’s control center, they paused. There was no way to see into the room, and they could not hear anything through the door.

Phentrom shrugged and Quigley nodded. The mandroid pulled open the door, and the two rushed inside.

Three soldiers were seated at computer terminals. Two of them ignored whoever had just entered the room, but the third turned and managed to get out the words, “What the…” as the screen next to him exploded with a blast from Phentrom’s weapon. The other two soldiers turned in alarm and drew their own guns, but Quigley was ready and pulled the trigger of his hand-blaster, and one of their heads exploded. Phentrom’s second shot hit his target, and the man’s words became a scream. The blaster bolt ripped through his shoulder and took off his entire arm. Phentrom finished him with a third blast. The final soldier managed to fire his weapon twice, but his shots were off-target and collided with another computer and an empty chair. Quigley ended the man with a projectile through the heart, and the space fell silent except for the crackle from the ruined electronics.

Quigley and Phentrom looked around at the control center room, now in disarray.

“I hope all this commotion went unnoticed throughout the rest of the ship,” Quigley whispered.

No alarms were ringing in their vicinity.

“Look here,” Phentrom added, pointing at the remnants of the computer. “His shot took out their own plasma cannon array.”

A thin trail of smoke coiled up from the exposed circuitry.

Quigley seated himself in an empty chair and began punching commands into the computer. “I’ll see if I can access the ship’s cavitation engine and drop us out of hyperspace from here.”

Phentrom examined the other systems. “This ship is equipped with a magnetic beam as well as a gravitational controller.”

Quigley turned to the mandroid. “Take them both out.” He looked back at the screen in front of him and growled, “Dammit, can’t do anything to the engine from here. Oh, wait a second, there’s a report here about Fonith!” Quigley paused as he read. “It says she’s been sentenced to… compliance therapy? What’s that?”

“If it’s something to make her more compliant,” Phentrom replied with a scowl, “some sort of conformity reprogramming, then we need to get her out of there before it has any effect on her. Does it say where she is?”

Quigley scanned through more of the report. “Yes, it does, this says therapy room Beta.” He pulled up the ship’s schematic and pointed out the room on the map. “Here it is, two stories higher.”

They returned to the stairs and climbed, but as they reached the door to the hall that would lead them to the room where Fonith was being held, they heard voices.

Phentrom brought his hand to the hallway door’s handle, but Quigley had a flash of inspiration. He shook his head no and waved for the mandroid to move aside. The bounty hunter brought his palm to the door, nodded, and stepped back. Quigley’s mouth curled into a snarling smile, and he opened fire. A massive hole was punched through the thin metal paneling of the door, and Quigley kept pulling the trigger over and over, firing multiple shots into the opening. He kicked the door and raged into the space, taking out the last of whoever was behind it and managing to avoid the few blasts that were fired in his direction.

The bounty hunter waved for Phentrom to follow him. “I think there’s a pretty good chance they’re aware of us now,” Quigley stated. “Let’s get this done, fast! There’s the room.”

Without hesitation, Phentrom opened fire on the closed door, and it exploded. He and Quigley rushed in and found Fonith, drugged and clasped in a mechanical chair. Four unarmed scientists were standing over her. They were shocked, and their hands were raised in surrender.

“Against the wall,” Phentrom growled, stepping right up to one of the men and jabbing him in the chest with the muzzle of his blaster. The four complied and the mandroid kept them covered as Quigley tended to Fonith.

He reached out to touch the metal clasps over her wrists and received a low-grade shock. “What the gods?! They are actively electrocuting her?!” He spun and stepped up to the scientists. “Turn it off!”

Without awaiting a reply, Quigley pressed his blaster against one of the men’s palms and pulled the trigger. At such short range, the scientist’s hand was vaporized. The man let out a wail and fell to the floor, clutching the stump of his wrist. Quigley kicked his good arm, and as his one remaining hand was knocked loose, the bounty hunter blasted it off at the wrist as well.

He turned to the other three men and demanded again, “Turn it off!”

One of the other scientists pointed to the opposite wall. “The control panel,” he indicated.

“Turn it off!” Quigley screamed at him.

The man rushed over and deactivated the electricity to the chair.

The clamps on Fonith’s wrists, ankles, and torso released, and she fell to the floor. Phentrom went to her, and Quigley took the mandroid’s position guarding the scientists. He growled at the man by the control panel, “Get back over there.” Quigley kept his weapon trained on the three men in lab coats. Their handless companion on the floor had gone into shock and lost consciousness.

“Fonith, are you okay?” Phentrom asked her gently. He brought a hand to her shoulder.

Fonith groaned. She jolted to the side and vomited hard, spilling her guts onto the room’s floor. “Phentrom,” she murmured.

He helped Fonith to her feet, and she leaned against a table covered with instruments. She shook her head, began to take in her surroundings, and her fingers wrapped around the handle of a scalpel. Her eyes turned toward the three remaining scientists. Fonith was weak, but she was full of rage.

“Are you alright?” Phentrom asked again.

Fonith pushed away from the mandroid, stumbled over to Quigley, and mumbled, “Sorry about taking your family,”

“I get it,” he replied, and he glanced over at Phentrom. “I took one of yours.”

Fonith focused on the scientists. They began to protest what they knew was coming, but Fonith stepped up to one of them. She slapped away his hands, weak though she was, and she stuck the extremely sharp blade into his neck. He clutched at her wrists with his eyes bulging and his mouth agape like a fish, but she twisted the scalpel in his flesh, and his strength failed him. Fonith pulled the blade out, and a fountain of blood gushed onto her. The man fell to the floor, squirming and writhing as his life flowed and bubbled and gurgled.

The other two scientists begged to be spared and said they were only following orders, but their empty words were ignored; their pleading meant nothing. Fonith pointed the sticky crimson blade at the next man, who tried to pull away and caught the butt of Quigley’s blaster in the back of his head. He fell, barely conscious, and Fonith turned and spoke to the last man standing.

“Do you see this?” she asked in a weak voice. She held up the scalpel. “I’m going to put it into you. You are going to bleed. It will hurt, and you will die slowly.”

“No,” the man began to say, as Fonith brought the knife toward his stomach. He grabbed for her hand, but Quigley slammed his blaster against the scientist’s forearm, and Fonith’s blade made contact. The man wheezed as the tiny knife bit into him below his bottom rib. He attempted to fight back, but Fonith slid the scalpel a few inches through his meat, and the man seized. He tried again, and Fonith twitched the blade. The man coughed and blood bubbled from his mouth. Fonith pulled it out, and he gasped. He grabbed her arm, and she stuck the little knife into the hinge of his elbow, giving the handle a twist. The scientist shrieked. His arm hung worthless at his side, and Fonith repeated her action to his other elbow. He tried to flee but blood was pouring from the wound in his guts, and he fell to his knees.

On the floor, the dazed man pushed himself up in time to watch Fonith stick the scalpel into his fellow scientist’s left breast. The man’s body rattled as the blade sliced deeper through his muscle, but its tip became lodged in one of his ribs.

Fonith grabbed a metal flat-bottomed stand from the table beside her, and she slammed it against the scalpel’s handle, shattering the scientist’s bone and impaling his heart.

“Please, no,” the man his knees blubbered up to Fonith, but she grabbed a fistful of his hair and slammed the side of his head against the edge of the table. He collapsed, but he was not unconscious and tried to push himself up again. Fonith kicked one of his arms out from under him and he fell to his face. She forced him onto his back with her foot, climbed on top of his chest, and straddled him with his arms pinned beneath her knees. He squirmed but could not break free. Even when Fonith brought her bare hands to his neck and began to strangle him, the scientist could not get loose. He jerked and shifted beneath her, and he turned his gaze to Quigley with pleading in his eyes. Despair and hopelessness overwhelmed the scientist, and before Fonith managed to send him into unconsciousness, a wave of adrenaline surged through him, and he freed one of his arms from under her knee. He flailed wildly and knocked her to one side.

Fonith may have been too weak to block his desperate assault, but as he pushed himself up, she pounced onto him like a fierce blood-soaked animal. She grabbed his face with one hand, hooking several fingers into the side of his mouth, and she yanked his cheek like a fish caught on a hook and slammed his head against the floor.

He was barely conscious, and Fonith rose, but her knees were weak and Phentrom caught her as she wobbled where she stood.

Fonith looked at Quigley. “Strap him in that fucking chair,” she commanded, “and turn it on.”

Quigley obeyed. The voltage had been set low enough to cause Fonith only moderate discomfort, but it had been constant.

“Fonith, this says the cycle had been running on you for over four hours!” Quigley informed her.

She nodded and turned to the final scientist in the chair, who was twitching and groaning as the electricity pulsated through him. Fonith was grateful to be free, but she felt horrible, and she was exhausted. “They were trying to break me,” she stated. She leaned down to the man in front of her and informed him, “I’m going to cut your wrists and leave you to bleed out in this chair.”

The man was gritting his teeth and could not speak, but his eyes were begging her not to kill him.

With Phentrom’s help, Fonith approached Quigley. She was wearing a curious expression, and she was focused on something. “This’ll do,” she declared, drawing his very special sword from its scabbard. Fonith’s throbbing head made it difficult for her to focus on the weapon, but its blade was black.

Quigley smirked. “The blasterblade is gonna be a bit overkill for just slitting someone’s wrists. Be careful with it; the sword is…” but his words were cut off, along with the scientist’s right hand. In a single fell swipe, Fonith chopped it off at the wrist, but the blade was so powerful that its energies devastated half of his forearm also. The man screeched through his teeth, as Fonith walked around to the other side of his chair. She chopped off his left hand, destroying his other forearm as well.

She turned to Quigley and gave him back the strange blade, entirely ignoring the convulsing man who was bleeding out in the chair behind her. Fonith was curious about her fellow bounty hunter’s weapon, but she could barely focus. “How did you two get here?”

“Later,” Phentrom replied, “we need to free the others and get out of here.”

“They have Finnow and Riah,” Fonith told Quigley as he handed her one of his extra blasters. “They also have Suoki and Golvinte,” she added to Phentrom. She checked the blaster’s ammunition level, smiled at the green 100% on its display, and she growled to the other two, “Let’s go!”