The second barge pours on the speed, making its way quickly towards Captain Deloso and his team. The three Altaran Women still aboard take pot shots at Burgurk, while the slaver trains its weapons on Elsie. While the explosions are spectacular, none of the weapons hit close enough to do any damage, but the heat can certainly be felt.
Jace continues to rush the first barge that Jingu is trying to down, shooting wildly to keep its attention, but his shots are to no avail.
Jingu strikes swiftly to try and finish off the reptilian pilot.
Hanging here is probably not a great idea. If their bloodlust is greater than than their survival instinct, I won't be too hard a target.
If any of the three let him hold them up instead of falling, he'll send them a telepathic message, ●Drop your weapons to the ground. Harm me all you'll all drop.●
Jingu launches himself up from the barge, into the night sky. Heading for the other barge, he tries to activate another layers of protection.
Seeing Jingu strike down the first target, Josiah takes aim at the second one.
"Shield is down on the second barge!
Time to pound it!"
Jingu retaliates against the great Slaver and cuts into its demonic flesh, wounding it severely and causing it to lose control of its barge. It starts to veer towards the ground. The Altarans onboard grab on to whatever they can in order to save themselves from falling off, but with help from Jingu, they manage to stay in the air. They look at him, confused for the moment.
Meanwhile, Josiah targets the second barge with a blast from Elsie and its power brings down the shield temporarily, the Slaver and the women aboard vulnerable for the moment. The feedback from the blast recharges the weapon quickly and Josiah is ready for another shot.
"Blazing Lightning! Got a charge already! Eat laser, slug face!"
Josiah targets the barge again, this time trying to draw a bullseye on the massive shape of the splugorth.
●I have prisoners. Please send someone to my location to help me secure them. Jace, perhaps?●
Moving forward through the blast, you can almost see the look of anger and frustration on the slaver’s face as the barrier starts to reform around it. Mystical blue energy starts to coalesce around its huge hands as it points the staff it is wielding at Elsie. Firing off a powerful blast, it strikes the side of the vehicle, backed up by a strike from the creature’s arm mounted weapon. Even as the two beams light up the side of the truck, it only rocks the vehicle from side to side, leaving naught but scratched paint and a few scorch marks on its side. The armor holds, for now. The three Altarans on board target a running Jace, who at full speed, is difficult to catch.
Jace hears Jingu’s request as it is translated through the comms. ”Copy that little guy, I’m almost there.” He continues to run, moving just past the careening barge as it crashes into the ground, sending up a wave of explosive magical energy. He keeps his pistol trained on the three women in Jingu’s grip.
Burgurk will keep hammering away at the same barge. He's not sure why his blasts aren't getting thru, but he's hoping he's whittling away at some kind of force field shield.
= 8, a Raise
Doing :
= 4, a Success
Doing :
= 37
= 9, a Raise
Doing :
= 30
Over where the first barge crashed, Jingu and three Altaran woman float high above the battlefield with naught but Jingu’s will to hold them aloft. At first the women try to aim their forearm weapons at the flying bug, but looking down, their sense of self-preservation kicks in. Jingu can see on their faces and feel their thoughts as they struggle with the commands of the other slaver.
Jingu continues to hold the women aloft, knowing that he's got only another 10 to 15 seconds before his Strength gives out, and he has to either left them down gently, or drop them.
He sends them all an image from his memories, that his friend and mentor, a person that meant a great deal to him, was in fact a rebel Altara, and was willing to die to avoid being sent back to the spluggorth. He follows that with an image of them dropping their weapons and being lowered slowly to the ground, and then of them raising them to fire and simply being dropped.
With these images, as he has no powers capable of blocking the thing's control, he tries to give them enough will to resist the control of their master, actually bolstering their spirits.
If any raises her weapon, he drops his Telekinetic hold on them.
The three floating women wrestle with the commands of their master and the requests of Jingu. They do not remove their weapons, as they are attached to their arms, but they do lower them and their heads in abeyance.
Success!
"Hey, my blasts aren't getting thru to the southern barge, it may have extra protection on it. Can one of you mages or psionics try dispelling it for me?"
Going on Hold until someone can try.
"I could rig somethin' up for ya, boss, but it wouldn't have much range. You might'n be able t'push it a tad further with that brain-juice o' yours. Gimme a minute and I'll try and get it rigged up for ya."
Jace continues to watch the three women that Jingu has in custody. His itchy trigger finger slips from ready to fire to tactical back to ready to fire fifteen times in the space of a breath.
The barge that is still hovering changes tactics. Seeing that its companion is down doesn’t seem to bother it, but the fact that it is fighting by itself does. While its shields are still up and fully charged, , it starts heading towards the location where the first barge went down. This time, it targets the flying Melliferan, but not without having the Altarans take a few shots at Burgurk on the way out. None of its shots manage to hit anyone however and it continues to bear down on Jingu.
"Private, take the wheel and get me close to that barge; and don't ding the fenders!"
The young soldier rises to the occasion and does a pretty good job maneuver the rig.
"Here's good. Don't want the bloody thing falling on us."
As they come up near under the barge, Josie takes aim and activates his dispelinator.
Jingu pulls the captured Altarans up behind him, trying to shield them from the attacks, and then tries to Summon up the strength to form a defensive shield around them.
Struggling to keep himself afloat, you watch as the barriers suddenly drop on the barge. While it doesn’t fall out of the sky yet, it is vulnerable.
Jingu takes immediate advantage of the loosed power and draws it around himself and the Altaran women, keeping them from being slaughtered by their master.
= 19, a Raise
Doing
= 34
= 9, a Raise
Doing
Once the shields drop on the barge, Burgurk senses his moment. He had been trying for what seemed like eternity to rip one of the barges out of the sky and finally, finally he gets a hold of it, his frustration fueling his mental strength. The unmistakeable sound of metal being wrenched apart echoes through the night air as the Slaver, its barge and the women upon it go crashing in a fiery ball to the ground. More than likely, none of them survived the crash.
Jingu, his link to the women with him still active, senses a pall of sadness wash over the ones he has in his mental grip.
Enkidu, reaching the point of exhaustion, and seeing the battle over, lowers himself and his captives to the ground. He still have his psi-blade and his shield, and having seen him take down the spluggorth, not to mention holding them aloft and creating the shield, the Altaran's have sufficient cause to believe he might still be match for the three of them. Once on the ground, with Jace as backup, he'll again indicate to the women that they are disarm.
●Drop your weapons and disarm. You will not be harmed. Be assured my aim is to allow you to choose your own fate, not merely enslave you to a new master.●
To his side he sends, ●Nice shooting sarge. Nicely done Josiah. We have prisoners. Bellarephon and I are securing them.●
As Burgurk sees the barge fall from his attack, he whispers "Yesssss!!!" under his breath.
Jace keeps his pistol trained on the women. He had encountered them before, but they always fought back, and he always survived. This was different. He knew little about their culture and taking them prisoner, especially since they didn’t have the facilities to maintain them, let alone the CS troops they still had, this felt dangerous.
”I hope you know what you are doing, Jingu. This could become more of a mess than we want it.”
The women remain silent as they remove what weapons they can. They are wearing simple jumpsuits but you can tell that some of their equipment is physically attached to their skin somehow and can not be removed without surgery.
Meanwhile, the rest of the platoon starts looking for survivors of the two wrecked barges, cautiously approaching them with rifles drawn. It doesn’t look like they will find anything though.
Looking at the new prisoners and back at Jingu, Jace shakes his head. ”I hope it’s worth keeping all these new mouths to feed. Pretty as they are, they did just try to kill us. Or capture us. Not sure which is worse.”
●They are genetically engineered, cloned, indoctrinated, enslaved, and then mind controlled. They were given no choice in their lives or actions. Free of the Spluggorth's controls Altara can be brilliant, decisive, and passionate. The woman that trained me was one such. I owe her a great deal, and for that I am willing to take a chance on these prisoners. They will need to be monitored, and it is likely they will require some intensive debriefing, but once done, they could easily join the top tier of Tomorrow Legion soldiers, and the loyalty of such converts is often fierce.●
Jingu opens his mind to the women, sharing with them feelings and emotions, as is more in line with his natural mode of communication. He sends feelings of compassion and protectiveness, tinged with a touch of reasonable wariness, like trying to care for a wounded lioness. He shares images of them being cared for, being given food and care, and safe places to rest. He shares an image of Spluggorth being fended off, and they hidden and safe, protected by Jingu and his allies.
He finds them a place to rest where they are semi-secure, but still in view of the other team members. He gestures to them to sit with them, and breaks out his water and rations to share with them, even offering them a bit of his royal nectar (an alcoholic spirit distilled from mead).
To Arsenio he transmits, ●Captain, I've secured the prisoners in the hollow near base camp. Requesting we contact HQ for a transport to have them moved for debriefing and deprogramming.●
Jace spins the pistol in his hand and then stalks off. Jingu seemed to have things well in hand.
The women, for their part, are nervous, but strong. They sit next to each other and the psyhics among the group can sense that they have put up a barrier against further mental intrusion other than communication. It seems more of a survival measure than anything. They refuse the nectar, but will drink water.
Captain Deloso looks at all the captives. ”Didn’t realize we’d have so many after that. Splugorth usually capture or kill everyone, right? Something tells me they will send more after their property.” He pauses, rubbing his chin, and then motions to one of the Junior Legionnaires. ”Get me HQ, quick as you can. With that tower up, we should be able to get a signal through. As soon as you hear back, let me know.” Turning back to Jingu, he says, ”I am a little bit scared of how easy that was. Do you think our people back home can get them to work for us? They have been indoctrinated for who knows how long. Still, at least there we have less of a target on our backs, but I have a feeling that HQ will want us to bring them home personally rather than send someone out. We are a bit outside of home turf.”
Looking around, he then points to the two CS Troopers captured earlier. ”See what you can get out of those two. Doctrine dictates we treat them fair and all that, but I have a feeling they are more dead weight we don’t need.”
Turning back to Jingu, he says, ”I am a little bit scared of how easy that was. Do you think our people back home can get them to work for us? They have been indoctrinated for who knows how long. Still, at least there we have less of a target on our backs, but I have a feeling that HQ will want us to bring them home personally rather than send someone out. We are a bit outside of home turf.”
●Was that easy? The fact that we didn't lose anyone doesn't mean it was easy, merely that we did the job well. I for one was operating rather close to my maximum output. Though to be fair, I was not injured either, though it was at times a close run thing.●
●They are indoctrinated, but the Spluggorth don't usually do things the subtle way. Chances are, they have never before been allowed to make a choice for themselves. When given the opportunity for free will, change can happen rapidly.●
"I say we treat them as a strong threat until we know otherwise. Round-the-clock, multiple heavily-armed guards."
Captain Deloso rubs his chin again, this time furrowing his brow. ”Agreed. We are still in the middle of nowhere and until we know for sure, we can’t trust anyone. Post them with guards and keep them separate from the CS soldiers. Last thing we need is a fight amongst the prisoners.”
Soon, the radio operator comes back with a handset for the captain. ”This is Captain Deloso... Yes... No, ma’am... We lost a few, but we’re still holding out. We have a handful of prisoners that need transport back to base… Yes, ma’am. Understood… Will do. Captain Deloso Out.”
Turning back to the rest of you, he hands back the headset. ”HQ is going to send a unit to pick them up, but we have to meet them halfway. There is an outpost about two days from here. We will take them there and then hand them off and then,” he pauses, not so much for effect, but to gather his thoughts. ”Then we have a new direction. I’ll brief you on it after we relieve ourselves of the prisoners. Questions?”
"Sounds like a plan, sir!"