Bestial Planet

Chapter 46: Third Time's the Charm

*****

Panzer screamed for help as Lancieta laid on the beach unconscious, blood poured from leg. The world slowed around him as he looked helplessly around him to see if anyone was going to come to his mother's aid but everyone else was bewildered and confused. Without thinking he dug his arms under her nearly lifeless body and ran back to Section 6. His hearing was nothing but a pulse in his ears as he looked at her unconscious face. The elevator doors opened, closed and it started moving without Panzer having to say anything. The doors opened and he ran to the medical bay. He looked for the cart that Roisin had been put on weeks ago and he tried to remember the inputs Lancieta had made to get the bleeding to stop. He stabbed at the control panel but kept receiving red blinks in response. The tears welling up in his eyes blurred everything then, hair thin, tentacle like appendages emerged from the cart and inserted themselves into Lancieta's open blood vessels. A red light started flashing but Panzer couldn't read what the words were saying through his tears. Lancieta's body lurched upward then dropped back onto the cart. It lurched again and fell, it seemed to go on forever lurching and going limp, lurching and going limp. Someone pushed him aside and started pulling at things on the cart and running around the room. He felt someone tug at his arm and he let himself be pulled away. The world around him was a blur and before he knew it he was in the elevator when his hearing came back.

"Mannie!"

"MOM!"

"She'll be fine. Roisin and Yora are taking care of her. We got another serious fucking problem. A few minutes before the missile came out of warped-space my guys found evidence of a burst transmission. That's how Lancieta was barely ready to intercept it. Someone's been talking with the Halgred from Earth. The other Ambassadors are already on call."

"You mean... one of us tried to sell us out?"

"In short yes. But I wanna talk about it in detail with the others."

They walked into the conference room and Jaina was the first to speak.

"How's your mother Panzer?"

"I... I don't know she's on the thing and..."

Panzer pointed behind him his eyes not focusing on anything or anyone in particular as he spoke.

"Focus!"

Catty punched him in the shoulder which hurt her hand like hell but it snapped him out of it.

"How about you guys? Did any missiles land?"

Kyung spoke in an exasperated tone. "No, but dammit! It's like they came from no where!"

Ade looked worried as he spoke. "How did they do what they did?"

The usually quiet Navigator Altruis walked forward from behind Jinrai. She gave him a short glance to which he nodded, she had the answer. "Illegal technology employed by the Halgred. The only way a weapon or weapons system is legally allowed to enter warped-space is while attached to a ship. Under no circumstances can a ship launch an attack upon an enemy combatant while in warped-space. This is due to a few reasons which I'll only highlight as we need to know. The first being that without a warp field generator a missile or other munition can wrap around the ship it is fired from and destroy it's occupants whilst In warped-space. Secondly, it seems as if all of Warped-space is deeply connected on an infinitesimal level, which means that if a weapon is fired in warp space and does not exit or destroy the ship it is on, it will stay in warped space and more than likely destroy the next vessel to open up a warp, no matter where they are in the known or unknown universe."

Mouths were agape and many were confused.

"Wait what do you mean 'it seems as if Warped-Space is connected infinitely?" Ioana asked almost immediately.