'Grod-' Tiet started and then thought better of protesting.
Grod stared into his eyes and he knew that the Horva general would not be persuaded otherwise. He glanced over at Wynn and could see a look of understanding on his face. It would be alright; a little close for comfort, but they would survive.
LUCIN pored over the data coming in from his forces as they made their way to the Nagon-Toth area. He had originally planned on assimilating the king, but the boy had youth to his credit and he had all but overwhelmed the two older Barudii during his trials.
Putting an Angelic seed into humans was not ideal; they were strong willed and difficult to control. But if such noble spiritual beings like himself were to be cursed to this disgusting physical prison, then mankind would suffer.
Why had God separated him from the other angels that rebelled? It wasn't fair, to be singled out; when they had at least been given forms that transitioned between physical and spiritual realms. They had rejected him after; even though he had been the greatest and brightest. God had done it; imprisoned him in this disgusting, putrid form for leading the others in the rebellion. He would have revenge; propagate his seed. Lucin would rise again.
One hundred squads of soldiers were currently en route to the destroyed Horva compound. There would be no escape for them now. He saw their coordinates to be near Nagon-Toth at the impact crater where the boy had conducted his trials. It didn't make sense; they were easy targets down inside the crater.
Lucin had quickly become accustomed to the human mind and one thing he had learned about a Barudii warrior was that he would not knowingly put himself in such a situation without a plan of action. The Barudii were very cunning warriors indeed; they had to realize that they were being tracked; the only conclusion was that they were planning some sort of trap.
TIET helped his son out of the transport and through the hidden door in the crater wall. Grod went ahead of the group, powering up the lighting systems and leading them through the winding tunnel as they descended deep below the surface.
Mareb and Jael remained at the transport ship; they had to set the first defense. Mareb keyed through the command sequences in the transport's computer and set the fuel cells for a command detonation. He set the command frequency as Jael set the detonator frequency on his display. They completed the sequence adjustments and ran out of the transport to assume positions on the crater wall near the underground bunker's entrance.
The Horva soldiers carried large tripod mounted rapid fire blasters and set them up at their respective positions. They had plenty of rock for cover and would hopefully be able to take out a large number of the symbytes before retreating into the bunker themselves. The warriors were each looking forward to a lot of payback today, but now it was time to sit and wait.
When the rest of the group finally descended to the lowest level, Grod keyed in a code on the wall pad. The large metal doors unlocked themselves, like a huge vault, and the treasure inside was finally revealed to their eyes. Tiet and the others gazed into the large chamber beyond.
'My friends, I give you the Equinox,' said Grod somewhat grandiosely.
The entire hangar bay lit up around the magnificent ship. It was a cruiser class ship by appearance, large enough for general housing quarters for twenty people and deep space travel.
'We don't have time for a formal tour, but if you will all get on board I'll prep the engines and the gate and we'll be on our way.'
Tiet helped Kale into the ship with Mirah following close behind, while Wynn helped a recently conscious Emil into a harness behind the main cockpit area. Both of the boys looked like they were barely able to stay awake as their bodies fought against the parasites. Mirah stayed close to them, monitoring their vitals and the organisms struggling for control of their bodies. She could see a distinct difference between her son and Emil.
Something about his Horva physiology was causing the symbyte within to shrink in size. His body was fighting it and winning, but Kale was struggling just to keep the organism at bay by mental power alone.
Grod worked at the helm controls, bringing the engines online while Wynn and Tiet went after supplies and weapons that Grod had instructed them to retrieve. The engines came to life obediently and Grod soon passed by on his way back to the transgate compartment.
Once inside he followed the manual's instructions that appeared on the display and proceeded to prep the gate for the jump sequence. He set the target coordinates for the planet Kosiva. The planet itself was one visited before by the Vorn military scientists who had either built or stolen the transgate technology.
It was reported on file as a hospitable planet with a peaceful, friendly and intelligent race. The Vorn military regime had apparently been surveying for future conquests; fortunately, they weren't around to fulfill those plans.
After the prep sequence was set and counting down toward jump readiness, Grod left the ship to set the bunker's self destruct control sequence so that he could trigger a timed delay from the ship's transmitter.
Wynn and Tiet made quick work of the supplies that Grod had requested, the bunker had an ample supply of weapons, and the best of all for the Barudii warriors was a cache of old Castillian weapons including several Barudii blades and kemsticks. They scooped them up quickly and loaded them onto the ship.
MAREB'S handheld scanner began to sound a warning. Ships were approaching. He took a moment to send a hand signal to Jael forty feet across the wall at his own position.
A swarm of troop transports sailed over the crater rim and descended to the crater floor near the stolen ship their group had used to get here. They remained crouched in their positions as the symbyte troops began to file out of their ships and surround the transport.
They scanned the ship in vain; the hull's materials were designed specifically to block such intrusions into the military vehicles. The soldiers began to approach the transport carefully and gained access quickly into the main compartment.
Lucin looked on from his own transport as his troops made their way inside.
'Commander, did you find the boy?' asked Lucin over the com-link.
Suddenly the transport exploded in front of him in a massive concussion wave and fireball. It shattered the windshield in his transport, killing the pilot.
Lucin emerged quickly from his damaged transport's main troop compartment to find many of his symbyte soldiers lying dead on the ground around the blast site. Others were filing out of their own transport ships, weapons at the ready as a wave of pulse laser fire began to rain down upon them all.
Jael and Mareb began to cut down as many of the enemy soldiers as they could with massive amounts of rapid pulse blaster fire from their respective perches in the crater wall.
The symbytes soon returned their fire and the rock around them began to crumble as hundreds of symbytes soldiers began to advance upon their positions. Realizing they couldn't do anymore out in the open, the two Horva quickly retreated under fire to the bunker entrance in plain view of the enemy. As they passed through the rock door they broke into a sprint downward toward the lower level that housed the Equinox; the symbytes followed quickly as expected.
'I want all the levels searched!' shouted Lucin, as the soldiers filed through the entrance, 'Find the boy at all costs and kill the others!'
The bunker contained ten levels in all, housing various military and scientific technologies, along with living quarters. The symbyte soldiers dispersed at each level while the next group of symbytes proceeded to each successive level to continue the search.
Lucin proceeded downward toward the base level with a squad of his own. He tried to sense where the boy might be as he attempted to communicate with the organism within him. He was getting closer, he knew it; only a little further and the boy would be with them finally.
JAEL and Mareb came running through the hangar bay's only door and proceeded up the loading ramp to the Equinox. They tossed their smoking guns to the compartment floor as they entered the flight chamber where the others were already strapped in waiting for them.
'Let's go! They're coming in right behind us!' shouted Mareb as they found available flight chairs and
