“Careful now, boys!”
Elksia seemed way too chirpy considering what was going on. The Life Goddess ship “Yisini” had fastened itself to the side of the Diamond, the Voidborn mothership, and she and Elkay had just cut a large hole into the side of said mothership, allowing them entry into the dark depths below. All of them were using a telepathic link to communicate, keeping anything vocal to a minimum, but Elksia kept on forgetting that.
Once the hole had been cut, Elkay, Akah and Tenuk, all disguised as Voidborn soldiers, complete with temporary, Voidborn-sounding fake names, leaped down into the darkness. They put on a golden, antlered mask each, completing their disguises and inspected their surroundings. Each of them carried a heavy satchel, filled with explosives. The explosives had been created by a food generator machine in the Life Goddess ship, with Phovos and Teekay hacking the generator to create an edible explosive, which they had then packed into bars, ready to be placed.
Pretty much everything inside the Voidborn ship was pitch black, but small, diamond lights were scattered across the floor, almost like stars. They didn’t offer any useful light, but they did provide a sense of direction. The three of them checked around for any signs of life, before signalling for Teekay and Elksia to land behind them.
“Numbers, Teekay?” Akah silently asked.
Teekay’s telepathy wasn’t particularly strong, but he excelled at picking out signs of life, and, since he was in contact with the Diamond, he could do so better than Litvir could, since Litvir was on a completely different ship, keeping everyone connected together in general. Teekay closed his eyes and scanned his surroundings.
“Zero north, zero east, zero seven south, zero west.”
“Understood.”
Akah, Elkay and Tenuk all quickly had a quiet conversation between each other, glancing at their holographic maps. After some thought, Akah headed north, towards where a large power core was supposed to be located, Tenuk headed west towards the Voidborn respawn pod system since he was the most capable when it came to shapeshifting, and Elkay decided to go east, avoiding the Voidborn soldiers Teekay had detected and hoping to edge around them to where a Voidborn armour machine centre potentially existed.
“Remember, you three, one click for thread alterations, three clicks for teleportation!” Elksia chirped, watching as the three disguised Decaylings all split up. She and Teekay remained where they were, keeping an eye, an ear and a mind out for any stray Voidborns that wandered too close.
Tenuk wasn’t really sure what to expect as he continued in a straight line. While the area was supposed to have been clear of Voidborns, Tenuk was being extra careful. Every so often, Tenuk would stop, pull a bar of explosives from his satchel and wedge it into a corner, somewhere low down where hopefully the Crystal Doom wouldn’t see it. Occasionally, he’d get a telepathic message from Teekay, telling him to not go a certain direction, but apart from that, Tenuk was working in silence.
That was, until he came across something large and glowy. And surrounded by Voidborn minions. Way too many of them. Tenuk wanted to ask Teekay for a headcount, but he also didn’t want to blow his cover, since none of the Voidborns had noticed him yet. Tenuk pressed himself against the nearest wall then very slowly made his way into the room, changing pretty much all his Voidborn-like Lanex plating to black as he did so. Tenuk slowly edged closer, trying to get a better view of what was going on.
It took a while to work things out, but Tenuk soon realized that the large, glowy thing was creating new Voidborn spirits. Or recycling them. Or something like that. A funnel far above was sucking in energy, forcing it through the glowy thing, before spitting out blobs of energy via a tube at the bottom. This tube led to a small platform, where five Voidborns were inspecting the blobs as they went by, before sending them off down another tube, where Tenuk assumed they’d be put into new Voidborn bodies.
Not wanting to venture too far in, Tenuk decided to use his incredibly limited telekinesis to start placing explosives around the area. He mostly stuck the sticks underneath things, tucking them away on corners and out of sight. He had no idea how effective the explosives would be, but Tenuk made sure to use quite a few packs before sneaking back out again, back the way he came. Thankfully, no one had seen him at all.
Once Tenuk was out of the room, he slipped down an empty corridor and opened up his holographic map. The map wasn’t particularly accurate, mostly because of the thick Voidborn ship walls, and the fact that the Thantir had gained very little data from their raids on other ships. A lot of this was mostly guesswork. Still, Tenuk had a vague idea where he was, and there seemed to be a second Voidborn respawn centre not too far away. So that was where Tenuk decided to go.
“Hey guys?” Tenuk telepathically asked. “I just laid out explosives at one respawn area and am heading to a second one. You guys doing alright?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, I think…”
Quite a long way off, Akah was getting concerned. He’d had to walk past quite a few Voidborn soldiers and guards. They had allowed him to pass without too much hassle, but he had also been forced to take a few alternate paths, and Akah wasn’t completely sure of his current location. However, just like Tenuk, he was certain he had found a target worth placing explosives at.
What Akah didn’t expect though was that he was basically one thin wall away from the outside of the ship. Beyond that wall, there was nothing but emptiness. And a gigantic engine. The engine, or whatever it was, just seemed to awkwardly stick out, with no safety railings or anything, jutting out into nothingness.
Really, Akah needed to get closer. He’d put down some explosives already, mostly just covering his trail. But where he was now, he didn’t know if his explosives would do much, and this meant that Akah had to essentially step outside.
Feeling rather unsafe, Akah decided to use his ice powers to make some safety railings of his own. The moment he stepped outside, he could feel… something, not winds but some sort of pressure, something trying to nudge him out into the darkness. Sure, the icy railings Akah had created did make him feel slightly better but it wasn’t enough.
Akah started moving more slowly. Much to his displeasure though, the closer Akah got to the engine port thing, the hotter things got, and the more Akah’s ice powers began to fail him. He quickly gave up on making his own icy railings and stuck to staying close to the walls, using his scythe to make holes he could cling on to. Once he was right by whatever was producing heat, Akah made some holes nearby and shoved some explosives into them, close enough to do some damage when detonated, but far away enough that they wouldn’t trigger on their own. Once he was satisfied, Akah cautiously made his way back.
Once Akah was on stable ground, he took a moment to reorientate himself and calm down. As he did so, he leaned on what he thought was a flat wall but was in fact a button. The button clicked, then fell silent. Where Akah had just been, a series of safety railings appeared.
“Of course…” Akah sighed to himself.
Unfortunately, pressing that button also seemed to attract the attention of a Voidborn technician. The Voidborn stared at Akah, aggressively but silently asking him what he was doing there. Akah shrugged, then pressed the button again, forcing the railings to retract. Again, the Voidborn stared at Akah, before drawing a weapon and charging at him. Akah shrugged again, iced up the floor beneath them, then moved to one side, tripping the Voidborn up. They fell, slipped across the ice and disappeared off into the darkness outside.
Not sure what else to do, Akah checked his map. If he headed south, he might find another large engine core thingy. But if he went north, there was apparently a power core that was inside the ship, not hanging outside.
“Team, explosives have been planted at whatever this main target is supposed to be. I am heading north to a secondary target…” Akah sent a telepathic message to his fellow Decaylings.
“Understood. Tenuk, Elkay, status?” Teekay hissed.
“Am fine!” Tenuk replied.
Teekay waited for a response from Elkay. When he didn’t get one, pretty much everyone got concerned.
“Elkay?” Teekay repeated himself.
No response. At least not at first.
“Sorry. Need to stay quiet. Lots of traffic. Approaching objective now.”
Elkay’s telepathic voice trailed off. The tense feeling among the other Decaylings got worse.
“Teekay, do you want me to check on him?” Tenuk eventually asked.
“No. Stick to the plan…” Teekay sighed. “Just get those explosives planted and get back to the ship. I’ll keep a mind out…”