maneuver to hit his target. He struck the large metal object, cutting it in two pieces.
The Three came close to one another now and Baruk warriors could be heard outside the one door to the chamber, but they could not get through Kales kinetic bubble or open the doorway to help their masters.
'Have you already summoned help for yourself, Lucin?' he asked sarcastically.
Lucin did not answer him. The Three came together, touching, their forms beginning to change before Kale's eyes. The human forms melded with one another, increasing their size to roughly three times their individual size. They congealed into a monstrous form.
'If it is a physical battle you desire, you shall have it, Barudii,' scolded Lucin.
GROD and Tiet were able to see the massive containment chamber from their perch. They had climbed beyond the walkway toward the mechanism to avoid any Baruk warriors that might be happening by during the course of their duties. They climbed quietly along the structure toward the conduits above the chamber. The pipes were huge. It would take a throw of multiple spicor discs to get through those conduits without being instantly covered in the coolant flowing within. There appeared to be a minimum of personnel in the area at the moment. There was no time to waste.
Tiet removed three spicor discs from his vest. He and Grod moved to a catwalk that would give them an easier escape route. Tiet stood for the throw and targeted three separate conduit pipes to prevent any rerouting of coolant to the containment system, as Kale had suggested.
With deadly accuracy he sent the discs away to their targets. The discs exploded as they impacted the pipes, leaving huge holes in each one, and bluish colored coolant vapor spewing forth from them.
An alarm immediately sounded throughout the ship, as they began to make their way down the structure again to escape through the transgate. Baruk began to clamor into the containment system area. Then they spotted the pair. 'Saboteurs!!'
The Baruk began to fire upon them as they ran down the catwalk. Projectiles clattered around them like rain as Tiet tried to block them with a kinetic field. More warriors began to approach them from the other end of the catwalk.
Tiet drew his kemsticks as Grod targeted the group with his data-scope lens. Suddenly a strike of plasma energy burst over the kinetic shield, arcing into the approaching Baruk. The warriors tumbled over the side of the catwalk as the energy hit them full fury.
More warriors were mobilizing already, but they didn't have time to draw out the fight; according to the wailing security alarms, this ship would be imploding in seven minutes.
KALE deflected several tentacles flying at him from the Lucin's symbyte form. The creature screeched as his blade vaporized some of its morphing tissue. Lucin couldn't get past Kale's defense. Then the ship's warning system went off.
'Evacuate ship, seven minutes to containment meltdown, evacuate ship,' sounded the alarm.
The symbyte creature reeled back from the fight as Lucin realized the imminent destruction of the ship. He turned his attention to opening the door and breaching Kale's kinetic force field. Kale moved in to strike again, trying to keep it occupied and imprisoned until the containment field collapsed completely.
The creature spun on Kale and sent him flying backward with a burst of mental energy. Kale wondered if Lucin had now stopped expending his power coordinating his troops to concentrate on saving himself. Kale regained his stance and flung his blade at the creature. The blade struck and rebounded under mental control to his hand.
Lucin howled at him and held Kale in a mental grip that instantly fixed him frozen to the floor.
He knew that he would not get through the force field until Kale removed it. Lucin's monstrous form came at Kale and smashed a hardened appendage across his body that sent him into the ground and his blade spinning out of his hand across the floor.
Kale could hear the warning system stating that only four minutes remained before containment meltdown as the creature stood over him and began to pound away at his body. He could feel his bones shattering as Lucin desperately tried to remove Kale's mental focus on the shield that prevented his escape from the room and the doomed ship.
Kale was in terrible pain, but he blocked it out as much as possible as he continued to focus on keeping the field up across the chamber door until the last possible moment. Blow after blow pounded across his battered and bleeding body.
Kale could barely hear over the ringing in his ears. The warning system sounded a muffled cry of three minutes. Kale felt like his life was beginning to slip away and his body was numb; yet he continued to focus all his energy on the field.
GROD and Tiet leapt away from the catwalk and landed where they had ventured out of the corridor leading to the transgate. Several Baruk warriors met them, but Grod blasted them with plasma energy on their way through.
They ran hard for the transgate and did not encounter any other warriors along the way. The ship's warning system sounded out again at four minutes to meltdown as they reached the transgate and ran through. When they came into the domed chamber at Nagon-Toth, Tiet immediately asked the technician monitoring the gate if Kale had already come through.
'No. You are the only ones to return,' said the technician.
Tiet turned back to the gate as Grod caught his arm to prevent him. 'Don't go back, Tiet.'
'He's my brother!' snapped Tiet. 'I have to go back!'
Grod looked at him urgently, showing concern in his eyes.
'Keep the gate open as long as you can,' he said and Grod released his grip on the young man's arm. He ran back through the gate and was immediately within the flagship again. He had no other way to find Kale except his mind.
Tiet felt for him and found him nearby. Several Baruk were working on a damaged door to the chamber; he could feel Kale inside and in horrible pain. He blasted the Baruk warriors with his mind before they even realized he was upon them.
He sent them into the wall with such force that none of them moved after they hit the ground. He could sense a force field that Kale held over the chamber door and the screeching of some animal was heard from within.
Tiet pulled a hand full of spicors and flung them into the wall, blasting a hole to access the chamber. As he entered the room a monster peered up at him. It was a horrific-looking creature and Kale's bloody beaten body was lying beneath it. The creature tried to attack him mentally as he flung a handful of spicors at it.
He was knocked down by the attack as the spicors sailed into their intended target and erupted all over the creature's large body. The symbyte flailed backwards away from Kale and writhed upon the floor, trying to reorganize its form.
He took the opportunity and grabbed Kale's battered body up in his arms; supporting his limp form mentally as he made his way back out of the chamber to the transgate. The warning system sounded again, 'One minute to containment breech…'
ESTALL shifted in his captain's chair as new information began to come across the view screen. 'Sir, there appear to be a large number of escape pods jettisoning from the flagship,' said one of the scan techs.
'Ranul, what's going on?'
He ran more specialized scans of the vessel. 'I'm picking up some sort of gravitational flux on board. It's difficult to pinpoint behind their shields, but there is something else odd about it.'
'What?'
'The other ships are beginning to drift from their protective positions around the flagship.'
'Are they running?'
'No, it just looks like they've stopped calibrating their position, like someone is asleep at the wheel. Wait a minute! The waveform I've been monitoring has discontinued.'
'Can we break through?'
