“We’ve located the package.” Jack said once they had finally found the research lab buried four levels deep. “Unfortunately, it isn’t quite in one piece and we are still hot.”

“Fine, get it reassembled as quickly as possible but pull out if necessary.” Hawkins replied.

Not wanting to remain in an active firefight for too long, Alec and Warren got to work putting the engine back together. Luckily, it was mostly casing that was removed and not individual parts. If it had been, they would simply have to steal it as is and hope that the AHF could rebuild it on the ship.

Knowing their place wasn’t on the front line of this fight, Jack and Thea went to work copying as much information from the alien computer system as possible.

“Warren, we have our suits connected to the device. What now?” Thea asked the busy Possessor.

“You let me work both here and in there with no questions.” He said irritably, eyes flashing with indigo light as he possessed their equipment. “Now, don’t move for at least five minutes or the transfer will be corrupted.”

“Y’all need to hurry up,” Dave said, “I cant hold barriers all day.”

“Yes, holding a barrier against enemies that have yet to test it in the first place must be so tireing.” Nessa added as she tore through another pair of charging Oteric.

“Your getting too confident.” Jack said flatly, casting his senses out and watching another group coming for the room. “four more incoming.”

“Got it.” Diago answered.

As they turned the corner, the creatures were met by a pair of threads commanded by the Binder. With minimal exertion of effort, he commanded them to tighten, squeezing off airflow before cutting through tissue and bone like a living garrote.

“At this rate there wont be anymore left in the building for us fight.” Diago laughed, the adrineline of battle not allowing him to comprehend the grizzley scene before him.

“He’s right. These might just be the equivellent of brainless grunts.” Thea said.

“But it wont be now. Five more.” Jack informed.

The Oteric turned the corner and charged, making it about halfway before being cut down like the rest.

“Hey Jack,” Dave started, “You sure you counted that one right?”

“Yeah, you got them all.”

“Then why am I seeing a big ol’ sucker that looks like he was dipped in old oil?”

At the end of the hall, a sixth Oteric approached. Unlike his bretheren, its skin was as black as the space between stars and it just looked… wrong. It didn’t charge like the others, but rather slowly walked, unbothered by the massacre it walked through.

“I got this one.” Candice said, sending out a pair of threads to encircle the creature.

Instead of binding it, each thread broke the moment they touched its skin. The more she tried, the more the too-toothy smile grew as it continued to slowly walk toward them. Noticing the problem, Diago joined her in trying to restrain the beast but suffered similar effects.

“Jack?!” Dave said in alarm as he construced a series of barriers in the hall.

Alarmed at the tone in the normally unflappable country boy’s voice, Jack connected a thread to Dave and watched. To his horror, the barrier only stopped the creature long enough for it to place a hand on the surface of the blue field and walk through as if it weren’t there at all.

Nessa began shooting at the creature. Round after round struck it’s target, but not a single one of them slowed it down in the slightest. A bright flash of red filled Dave/Jack’s vision, signifying that Cecile had poured a large amount of energy into her explosive sniper round.

It hadn’t slowed the creature at all.

Trying his hand at restraining the beast again, Diago send out a pair of threads to bind it. Unlike last time, the threads didn’t break on contact. The binder allowed himself to hope for a moment until he noticed that the pair of threads that connected them had turned black. All light had been syphoned from his attack and now reflected the same incandescent sheen of black as the creature.

With a yank, it pulled Diago toward it. The safety feature that would normally allow the threads to be broken were rendered inert by whatever ability or technology the fiend possessed.

Trying to save his friend, Dave threw up barrier after barrier. Each one being destroyed in succession as the Binder was pulled to this new enemy. As he drew closer, it began to change. Reforming itself from the small unassuming shape of an Oteric into a tall, gangly creature with no face to speak of other than the two rows of teeth that appeared to be smiling evily.

“Warren, how much longer?” Jack yelled, still refusing to move from where he was placed.

“Too long. You have to do something to help Ortiz!”

Ripping cables from the computer, Jack ran to the corridor. Diving into the Light spectrum, he tried to find anything that would be of use. Everything was normal, like always, Light touched every part of existance. Frequencies that were supposed to reflect, reflected. Frequencies that were supposed to penetrate, penetrated.

Except in one place.

Staring at the creature, Jack saw that every thread of light touched this creatures body but in a way unlike anything else he’d seen before. No frequency of the visible spectrum bounced away like they should, and not one frequency from the invisible spectrum came through the other side. It was as if the creatures skin absorbed all light, reguardless of frequency.

The creature had their squadmate by the throat, not one of the protective barriers slowing it in the slightest. Lifting the soldier into the air, Diago fought for all he was worth. He fired round after round into the creature from point blank range to no effect. When the rifle was ripped from his hands, he pulled his combat knife and tried with everything he had to cut through the arm and free himself.

With a scream that sounded like a screeching violin, the creatures free arm split into a writhing mass of jagged tentacles. The newly formed appendages wrapped around the binders head, the brave curses changing to screams of pain in a heartbeat.

They watched in horror, unable to hurt this creature as it squeezed harder and harder. A cracking sound signified the faceplate on the soldiers helmet shattering from the pressure. The screaming protests increasing in volume and fear more and more until suddenly, it stopped and dark red liquid dripped from the encapsulated head.

Reacting out of fear more than anything else, Jack tried to connect a thread to the creature only to find resistance like he’d never felt before. Knowing that he had found something, he dropped all other connections and pulled with a herculean effort in an attempt to drag just one frequency of Light out of the creature.

The moment he saw the Binder get captured, Warren dropped everything he was doing in order to save his friend. It wasn’t talked about much, but the Vis-HUD’s that the soldiers took for granted had a feature known only to Possessors. Not wasting a second, he connected to Diago’s AI and demanded an emergency information dump.

Only the Possessors understood the true reason for why the AHF demanded each soldier wear the Vis-HUD day in and day out. True, it was a convienient way to relay orders and establish standard communication, but the truth was that they were so much more.

After thirty days of wearing the accessory constantly, the users mind would be fully mapped by the tiny subdermal probes that so innocently held it in place. Every memory, every skill, and every desire was stored in the tiny computer attached to their faces. Essentially, it stored what made a person who they were, it stored consciousness.

Althought he couldn’t save the body, there was a chance that with skill and a whole lot of luck, he might just be able to save his friends mind.

Jack fought harder than he ever had to this point in his life. Pulling on that thread of Light felt like he was pulling an entire planet toward his body. Just as he thought his mind could take no more abuse, the thread was secured.

It felt odd, more alien than light had in a long time. Almost as if the Light was not that at all, but instead it was like its owner in that it sucked in everything around it. The power tore at his mind, wanting to be free from the Optic’s grasp but completely unable to break the iron hold.

“Neilson, Kill the bastard!” He cried, tears running down his face from the pain.

His team didn’t waste the valuable window of opportunity, Cecile fired a round that was at least seventy percent of her maximum. The high powered round impacted the creature right between the eyes. The second volley came from Alec, who release a barrage large enough to destroy a small army.

Unlike the previous attempts, the projectiles hit full force. Rounds that had previously been absorbed into the creatures skin left massive, undeniable wounds. Alec’s barrage turned it into a pin cushion, while Ceciles simply blasted a fist sized hole through the mouth and out of the back of its head. Leaving nothing to chance, Nessa dashed in behind the barrage and decapitated it with her Light blade.

“Thea! Hurry!” Jack yelled into the lab with panic in his voice, “It’s Diago, he’s been hurt!”

The Phantom ran to Ortiz, the green light of the craft already dancing on her fingertips. Before she reached him, she knew he was dead. It was obvious to anyone, but the eyes of a phantom could see the crushed bones and severed blood vessels.

Private Diago Ortiz, Binder of the the Advanced Human Forces, was dead and there was nothing that could be done to change that.

“Same him!” Jack screamed in desparation.

“Jack…” Thea said softly.

“I don’t want to hear that you can’t. I need to know that you can.”

“Buddy, we cant do anyhting for him now.” Dave said putting a hand on his friends shoulder. “But we can move forward with the mission.”

“Fine.” He spat, “But any one of those aliens that come through that tunnel need to be put down quickly and efficiently. No playing around. Warrnen, if the engine ready to go?”

“Yeah, but the Washington is having trouble locking on to our signal.”

“Could you do it?” Jack asked.

“Yeah, but I’m not up there.”

Wordlessly, Jack opened his eyes to the Light spectrum once more. With barely a thought, he pushed a thread into the location with the most incoming and outgoing power. Once attached, he connected another portion of the strand to Warren’s mind.

“Your connected to the ship, If you need the thread moved, let me know.” He said, voice still icy with rage. It was an application of his power that hadnt been explored since his days on Algol, but if there was ever a time for a long shot to work, it was now.

Jack felt as Warren’s mind followed the Light pathway he’d built up and into the Washington. The feeling was strange, as if the two frequency ranges of light were the same even while he knew they were fundementally different.

“I’m in the ships main switch.” Warren mumbled, “If you give me a moment, I will be in the Gate computer. From there I should be able to use this trail to get a lock and open the Gate.”

“Good job,” Jack replied before addressing the rest of the squad, “Alright guys, it looks like Warren will be out of commission for a few minutes while this is taken care of. Better yet, I’m still having a hard time recovering after that last fight.”

“So we’re blind?” Nessa asked, more cheer in her tone than he suspected.

As if in answer to her question, another wave of Oteric came from around the corner. Just like before, when they saw the piles of dead they became enraged and charged at the human invaders.

“Your little squid friend shouldn’t have killed mine.” Nessa said coldly, forming a blade in one hand and a pistol in the other. Screaming in rage, she lunged for the nearest creature and struck with a horizontal slash that left the creature devoid of legs. Spinning to avoid a javalin, she unloaded three rounds in the forhead of the first’s replacement.

As the only outlet for their grief and anger, the rest of spier squad wasted no time tearing through the waves of alien creatures one after the other. The more that died, the more crowded the hall became until it was like defeding a small mountain pass rather than a large hallway.

Flashes of orange came in continuous bursts as their Dragoon targeted the any enemy that tried to run from Nessa’s blade. As for the few that managed to flank the breaker, they were met by either a blast of crimson energy from Cecile’s rifle, or the binding threads from Candice. The unfortunate few that managed to get beyond that point were quickly cleaved in two by the glowing blue broadsword weilded by Dave as he maintained the barrier to the lab.

“Get the fuck out of my way!” Warren yelled, flaring his power and forcibly shoving the soldier overseeing the Gate out of the computer. Like an annoying gnat, he felt as the soldier in charge of maintaining the connection pushed at his mind in halfhearted attempt to reclaim he machine.

As a safety measure, Warren sent a message to the shipboard soldier telling him about the situation on the ground, and how imperitive it was that he be able to work without intteruption. Annoyed that the message even took a moment of his focus, he accessed the guidance system that would tell the gate exactly how to open.

A few moments later, the far wall of the laboratory bubbled outward momentarily before snapping into place. The customary zone of broken glass easily giving away its location. Takeing a few more seconds to set the timer, Warren backed out of the system, returning to only the first level of possession rather than the third.

“Thea! Help me roll the machine through!” He yelled, slamming a shoulder into the back of the engine. Even on wheels, the massive sublight drive was incredibly difficult to move. The approach felt like it took a lifetime, each moment agonizing as he was forced to listen to his friends fight while he did nothing.

Almost as an afterthought, he sent a series of commands to a crawler that had been set to copy every byte of information from the computers just in case either of the other two didn’t manage to get a clean version of the information. If the past year had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that a tech must always have a bacup of his backup.

The pushing continued, every step made all the more audible from his armor’s servo’s whinning loudly under the strain. Eventually, the front of the machine began to shatter as the gate transported it up to the Washington.

“We need to get his body as well.” Warren said, turning to his friend with steel in his tone. “Can you help me?”

“Of course.” Thea replied as they stalked through Dave’s barrier and into the warzone beyond.

“What are you guys doing? You need to be securing the package!” Jack yelled over the cacophony of sound from the repeated attack.

“Package secure, we are retirving Ortiz.” Warren replied as he and Thea dashed into the fray.

Cursing, Jack raised his rifle and continued with the effort of holding back the nearly endless supply of Oteric that charged them. Still effected by the mental strain of subdueing the strange creature, he didn’t have much left to give, but he would do what he could.

Reaching to his shoulder, he pulled bad idea number one from the socket where it waited. With some effort, he quickly charged the incindiary grenade to a point where it would cause damage an buy them time, but not trap them in this underground bunker.

“Grenade out!” He shouted so that Nessa could get out of melee range to avoid the blast. Tossing the weapon as far as he could, it landed on the ground at the end of the hallway near where the Oteric had been coming in. The next group of enemy soldiers didn’t even notice it as they ran past, triggering its proximity release and creating a ten foot wide fireball of destruction.

With the hallway cleared of enemy soldiers, at least for the moment, Jack helped as Warren and Thea retrieved their fallen ally. It was heavier than it looked, the armor easily adding three hundred pounds to the muscular body inside. Eventually though, the three soldiers managed to fall back into the lab as Dave sealed the door to create the illusion of safety.