Page 14 of The Plasma Shadow


  Chapter 11

  Gerran knew it would not be long before he received another report of a Vortak invasion, so it was hardly a surprise when the report came in. He had half-expected two or three separate attacks, perhaps as an effort to drive his forces apart, but apparently the Vortak were sticking to their previous strategy of a concentrated battle on a world Marnax could not afford do just abandon – in this case, the mining planet Malistor. Fortunately, Anacron had retreated in the right direction, and it looked like they were going to be able to assemble there before the Vortak would be able to begin the assault. Not that it would be the end of the world if some ships came in late; Malistor was well-defended and could probably hold out for a few hours if reinforcements were slow. But Harvey had decided that if they were going to guarantee a shot at Dread Phoenix, they had to have enough ships there to present an undeniable target. Marnax did not exactly like having his armada thought of in that way, but he understood Harvey’s meaning. Pitiful as it might seem up-front, the fact remained that Anacron was theoretically on the offense this time. It was just a matter of making sure Dread Phoenix stepped in the trap in exactly the right way.

  As before, the hours between the alert and the battle melted away with dreadful speed, and once again Emperor Marnax found himself fighting for his life. His ships, fighters, and the planetary defense systems presented what should have been more firepower than any force could ever need, but somehow it was still not enough to keep the Vortak swarm from descending on them. Dread Phoenix did not immediately appear, so for the moment everyone was focusing on the kind of battle they were familiar with: dangerous and costly, but manageable overall. In fact, if anything Marnax felt like his forces were doing better here than they had early on at Zhentyris. “Where is it?” he asked out loud as Galactron’s gunners destroyed two Vortak warships simultaneously.

  As important as it was to get the mission underway, though, Ned could tell that Mirana was content to let Dread Phoenix stall. Standing still at the back of the pricom, Mirana was letting Ablithra handle Nemesis, and although Ned supposed this had to be their first battle aboard this ship, the crew seemed to be doing just fine. Even the starfighter-class vessels were having a hard time keeping up with Nemesis, and when they did force battle they were generally rewarded with swift destruction at the hand of the ship’s lasers or missiles. And every once in a while, an eerie green particle beam would lance out from one side of the ship or the other, usually puncturing a weakened shield in a single hit and relieving the Anacronian fleet of another target. If Ablithra’s job was to make up for lost time at Zhentyris, she was off to a good start. Of course, the fact that her enemies could not see her gave a certain advantage.

  “There it is,” Jenzo reported earnestly, and Dread Phoenix appeared on one of the viewscreens. “Major Harvey is ordering all ships to open fire.”

  “Get there,” Mirana ordered. “We want to be the first ship to take that beam once it’s charged.”

  “Shall we give them a little help charging it?” Bortis asked.

  “Lasers only,” Mirana said. “Keep the cannons charged until you can knock out the shields with a single pass.”

  “Here we go,” Ablithra said as she brought Nemesis in for a close pass. Even with standard lasers, Ablithra made the enemy’s shields glow as they flew past, striking the target what seemed like ten or twenty times for each shot that they took. Ned glanced at a shield readout and saw that Nemesis’s shields were actually under two-thirds full, but Ablithra did not seem to be in a defensive mood. She took out another Vortak ship as she completed the pass, but the rear lasers were still tracking Dread Phoenix. “Another direct run?”

  Mirana nodded grimly. “Do it.”

  As they flew past again, Ned could see the red veins on the ship glowing with absorbed power, but he could feel nothing; the Shadow field blocked his sense of everything outside the ship.

  “Can we contact it?” Ned asked suddenly. “I wonder if someone would answer us.”

  “I have nothing to say,” Mirana said simply. Ned thought he understood what she meant, but still he felt it would be nice to know something about whoever was running that ship.

  Between the Shadow field and the ship’s enhanced shielding, Ablithra seemed quite confident to continue striking Dread Phoenix from what felt like point-blank range, and soon the odd red material was glowing as brightly as the lasers streaming from the ship.

  “I’m dropping the Shadow field,” Mirana announced. “Put us right in front of them. Dare them to fire.”

  It felt like every ship in the Vortak fleet was firing at Nemesis, but Ablithra brought the ship up right in front of the forward weapons array. As he looked at what he assumed was the barrel of Dark Viper’s newest weapon, Ned could feel the Plasma burning out there. Memories of Venom rushed back to him, and he had to consciously steady himself.

  And then the beam fired, and the forward viewscreen image disappeared in a wash of red.

  “Field on,” Mirana announced, and Ned felt the Shadow field block out his sense of the energy beam.”

  “Our shields are still dropping!” If Bortis was not frightened, he was clearly at least shocked. “We’re below sixty percent!”

  Mirana squinted in disappointment. “It must not be just Plasma.”

  “My turn,” Ned declared. The moment he felt the Shadow field go, he reached out to the Plasmic transducer and sent the Shield Plasma surging around the ship. The red light on the front viewscreen turned instantly blue.

  “Shields are… draining more slowly,” Bortis said, looking visibly relieved. And then the beam died.

  “Shields it is,” Mirana said, and her armor materialized around her. “Keep it together.” With that, she dashed out the pricom door with Ned just a few steps behind.

  Ambelshack Devorion was in the middle of rescuing a group of surrounded cruisers, but he pulled out of the fight the instant he saw that Nemesis had appeared on scanners. There was no way anyone would have suggested he wait the battle out inside the ship’s launch bay until Ned and Mirana were ready for him, but he wanted to be there the instant they decided to leave. As it was he had to keep his distance a bit while the Nemesis crew conducted their battlefield experiment, but then he got the signal from Mirana that they were ready. Its shields taking a constant stream of fire from at least ten enemy vessels, Nemesis sped away from Dread Phoenix and actually dropped its shields for a moment while it “scooped” Ambelshack’s fighter up in its launch bay long enough for Ned and Mirana to teleport aboard from somewhere Ambelshack could not see. When Mirana had confirmed that they were in a spare missile compartment aboard his fighter, he sped back out into space. The moment they crossed the static warp shell that marked the border of the Plasma shield, he saw the exterior of his fighter disappear.

  “Whoa,” he said to himself. It was a bit unnerving to not see the wings and nose of the fighter he had relied on through years of piloting, but he forced his attention to the task at hand. That task, though, was also a little unnerving. As he came about and angled toward Dread Phoenix, he had to consciously will his fingers not to touch the firing controls so he could keep his location secret. As he sped in closer, he noted that this was the first time in longer than he could remember when he had approached an enemy ship without weapons firing. Soon enough, he told himself.

  When he was almost on top of the ship, he signaled Mirana, who dropped the Shadow field while Ambelshack did a very hurried flyover from bow to stern, sticking to its underside to stay out of range of the beam emitter on the main weapons platform. When he had passed the ship, he saw the exterior of his fighter vanish again.

  “I can definitely sense something,” Ned called. Both in front and in back. I’m not sure what it means, but it’s probably worth trying to put a mine in the warp core.”

  “Sounds good,” Ambelshack acknowledged. He moved to a position a predetermined distance from the drive section and pointed the nose of his fighter at where the warp core should be. ??
?All set,” he called.

  “Be ready,” Mirana called back, sounding tense.

  There was no need for the reminder; the danger in this plan was evident enough. Ambelshack saw the exterior of his ship reappear; Ned could not teleport anything from within the Shadow field. Almost immediately, shots began slamming into Ambelshack’s fighter, and Dread Phoenix began to pitch, trying to open a line of fire for more of its weapons. His fighter’s maneuverability was a match for the larger ship’s turning speed, though, and he managed to hold his relative position in spite of the damage he was taking from the incoming weapons fire.

  “It’s not working,” Ned said in obvious frustration after a few seconds. “There’s something interfering with the Plasma over there. I can’t use it.”

  Ambelshack saw the exterior of his fighter vanish as Mirana reengaged the Shadow field, and he pulled away. His shields had taken a lot of damage in those few seconds, but the operation was still far from over. “What next?”

  “Let’s try boarding the ship close to the front, but in a less-critical section. The Plasma wasn’t as strong in the middle.”

  Ambelshack let out a deep breath. They had decided previously that if they could not take out the warp core quickly, it would be better for Ned and Mirana to make their way to the beam emitter and find out what was there, since that was where they would most likely find the source of the ship’s Plasmic abilities. But that was also the most dangerous place for Ambelshack to ‘park’ his fighter. If Ned could have teleported the whole fighter through the shield, it might have been possible to find cover in the irregularly-stacked plates that composed the hull, but flying inside a ship’s shield bubble was a quick way to become smashed if the crew decided to pull the shields inward.

  Instead, he maneuvered around the laser shots flying to and from other vessels until he was underneath the ship near the very front, out of range of the weapons platform but still offering a relatively short distance to someone traveling through ship’s interior. “Ready,” he announced, and the Shadow field dropped again. Dread Phoenix immediately trained its weapons on him again, and this time it was harder to hold position because the ship only had to roll on its primary axis in order to bring the weapons platform toward him – a much quicker operation than the pitch or yaw it had to attempt when he had been behind the ship. His shields dropped steadily as the seconds ticked past, and all he could do to defend himself was to try to take out the missiles that were mixed in with the laser shots. His fighter’s many-angled weapons were able to take out many of them before they struck him, but some were fired from so close that it was impossible to escape the blast radius. Finally the homing signal Ned was transmitting stopped, indicating that he was no longer aboard Ambelshack’s fighter. He sped away at full power, making sure that his rear cannons took a piece out of Dread Phoenix’s shields as a matter of principle.

  When Ned and Mirana exited the Plasma vortex, everything was silent. They were in a corridor several decks above the bottom of the ship, but beyond that there was little to provide orientation. There was almost no light, and no doors were visible in the small section of corridor that was visible before it disappeared around the curvature of the ship to either side. The most striking thing about the ship’s interior was the insanely high temperature; Ned’s Shield Plasma immediately erupted in a protective aura, but his suit’s readout reported the heat with a clear warning. Ned’s first concern was for Mirana, who had vanished the instant the teleportation had completed.

  “Are you okay in this heat?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “The Shadow Plasma actually helps, since radiant energy is redirected around me. Let me know if you want me to hide you too.”

  “Alright; I’m okay for now. Let’s see if I can sense anything first.” He reached out into the ether to get a sense of his surroundings and to store energy for whatever lay ahead.

  “Wow.”

  “What?”

  “There’s definitely something up there, several decks above. But the Plasma is active all around us, too. Sort of like on Venom.”

  “So whoever’s up there knows we’re here.”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “Let’s get moving. If we can find a lift shaft, we can take out the gravity and use it to get to the upper decks. Unless you want to teleport again.”

  “I’m not sure it’s safe to jump around in here, where someone else might interfere with the Plasma before we’re safely through. We can do it if necessary, but there’s a risk each time.”

  “On foot then. This way.” A dot appeared on a heads-up map indicating the direction Mirana wanted to head.

  Ned’s heart was pounding as he headed off down the corridor, holding his laser carbine a little tighter than was probably necessary. He had been in similar situations before, but it had been a few years – plus, as Mirana had frequently pointed out, he was not really trained. But the adrenaline of being in the middle of an actual mission mixed with the euphoria of using the Plasma for an actual purpose, and he soon lost himself in the task at hand.

  As if to further solidify his focus, the tremors of unmasked footsteps soon began to reverberate through the floor.

  “Get ready,” he heard Mirana call, and he slowed a bit, carbine held ready.

  Mirana must have gotten farther ahead than Ned had realized, because the instant the first few Vortak appeared around an intersection in the corridor, laser shots from behind them threw them to the ground in front of him. Ned caught just a glimpse of them in the darkness as he ran past and turned the corner. They were colored a dark red, and to Ned’s surprise he saw that they wore no armor. Somehow, their exoskeletons were resistant to the heat.

  Mirana was firing again, her position exposed by the lasers appearing from empty air and by the enemy shots that occasionally struck her invisible armor. This time there were enough of the Vortak that Ned had time to fire his own weapon before the group was down. A sick feeling threatened to well up in his stomach as he callously dispatched several Vortak, but again the intensity of the situation forced him to focus. These creatures were probably all around him, just seconds away and probably feeling no hesitation at all about attacking him.

  “Go,” Mirana prompted, and again Ned hurried ahead.

  He had only taken a few steps, though, when he stopped. “Wait. There’s something there.” The corridor intersected another ahead, and off to the left he could feel something. He approached cautiously and peered around the corner, realizing as he did that Mirana had most likely already checked the corner. But what he saw forced the thought aside.

  “What is that?”

  Ned was not sure. A hard, faceted band of glowing red crystal reached diagonally across the corridor, nearly blocking the passage like a huge tree root through a dirt tunnel.

  “It seems to go right through the metal of the ship,” Ned commented out loud. “The Plasma feels dense inside it; I bet this is what blocked me from opening a vortex inside the warp core.”

  “If the light is any indication, I’d say that Plasma beam is nearly charged. We should hurry.”

  Before Ned could continue on, though, laser fire struck him from behind and caused him to stumble forward. Acting on instinct, he let go of the laser carbine with his left hand and reached back, sending a blast of blue fire into a Vortak while Mirana took out a few more. There had been nothing back there a second ago. But there was no time to lament having been snuck up on; he turned and ran, hearing more Vortak approaching from up ahead.

  They appeared from two cross-corridors at once, and this time he and Mirana were both caught by repeated shots as they stood their ground. Again, Ned was surprised as he was hit several times from behind. Looking back, he realized with alarm what had happened: the Vortak they had dispensed with before had risen from the ground and were attacking again. He fired missiles this time, averting his eyes as the explosions consumed everything within a few meters.

  “The lasers didn’t stop them!”

&nbs
p; “I know. Run.”

  As they dashed down the corridor, they passed two more bands of the red crystalline substance. Again it seemed to be reaching through the ship without regard for its layout, branching out along the walls, ceiling and floor. Just as they were passing the third, Ned felt the Plasma rush through the substance, flowing toward the rear of the ship; as it did, the glow dimmed steadily. “I think they just reinforced the shields,” he said, firing a missile at a pair of Vortak that suddenly opened fire from an intersecting passageway.

  They turned a corner and followed the corridor to a T-junction, where Mirana stopped before a door; according to the map display, they had reached the lift shaft. Mirana appeared as a black silhouette, evidently not wanting to waste energy on hiding when any enemies could just track her weapons fire, and blasted a hole where the door had been. Before she could go about whatever preparations she had been planning inside the shaft, though, dozens of Vortak appeared from both sides of the corridor and from doors partway down each. Ned and Mirana were instantly surrounded.

  Ned began firing immediately, but there were so many Vortak rushing forward, heedless of the attacks streaming into their midst, that some of them made it through. Ned went down, covered by two or three Vortak who began hacking at the Shield Plasma even though bits of their exoskeletons broke with the impact. Ned dropped a pair of grenades, which detonated around him and again cleared the area. He could feel the power drain on himself too, though, so he took a moment to draw whatever power he could into himself as he looked around. Mirana was invisible again, as evidenced by the fact that several Vortak took turns flying through the air or crumpling to the ground; without projectiles marking her position, they had no idea how to guard themselves. Ned had lost hold of his carbine, so he used the Plasma to fire back at the Vortak where were shooting at him now. As the blue light struck them, Ned thought he could sense Plasma within them, but with the constant flaring of the Shield Plasma against the laser shots and the heat, it was difficult to focus on a single spot.

  “Is the source still up there?” Mirana called out to him. Ned ducked his head inside the gaping hole in the lift shaft and focused power upward. “Yes, it’s there. The lift shaft looks like it goes high enough, if we can make it up.”

  “Try firing downward. It might take a while to disable the gravity.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Come here. And you’ll need to drop the Shadow field.”

  “Why?”

  “You really want me to explain it?”

  More Vortak were pouring into the corridor, and now shots started firing from up above as Vortak crawled into the empty lift shaft. Mirana appeared next to him without a word; Ned supposed that she was getting a taste of how the rest of the world felt on missions with her.

  “Hold onto me,” he said. “We’re going to jump.” She must have trusted him, because she locked one metal-clad arm around his armor from behind, even while laying down cover fire with the other one. The Vortak were massing in all three corridors and looked ready to rush them again. Before they could get the chance, Ned leaned back and sent himself and Mirana plunging down toward the floor several decks below. As he fell, heedless of the shots glancing off the Shield Plasma around him, Ned focused all of his energy upward, as far into the shaft as he could.

  “Ned…”

  Just before they hit the ground, there was a quick flash of light, and all of a sudden they were rising instead; Ned’s vortex had not only pushed them higher into the shaft but reversed their direction, so the momentum they had gained on the way down was now propelling them toward the top. Ned frantically refocused, and when they peaked in their climb, he teleported them again, this time into a corridor that was empty except for several veins of red crystal. When they were clear, Ned bent over to catch his breath.

  Mirana let go of him and looked around. “That was… insane.”

  “We’re not all the way up,” Ned said. “But everything was happening so fast I didn’t want to risk another spontaneous jump.”

  “Good idea.” Mirana sounded almost grateful.

  “I think… someone’s coming. The power I sense above is moving.”

  “Can you get us to the right deck? I’d rather not have to climb, or fall again.”

  “Actually, I think whoever it is is coming down.”

  The ground shook a little.

  “We should move,” Mirana said, fading to black again but remaining visible. “The corridor isn’t the best place to make a stand.”

  “Wait,” Ned said. “This red stuff is obviously on ‘their’ side. Maybe we should distance ourselves from it if we can.”

  “Can you sense an empty spot?”

  Ned focused for a moment. “It’s a little less concentrated back toward the hull. But not much, as far as I can tell.”

  Mirana paused, and Ned took the time to absorb some of the Plasma around him, reluctant as it was to come.

  Then Mirana was moving again. “There’s an open space back this way a bit. Let’s try to get there.”

  The Vortak did not appear as they hurried down the corridor, but Ned could feel the source of the power approaching quickly as well, possibly on the same deck now. As Mirana approached a door a short distance ahead of Ned, it slid open automatically. Mirana paused for Ned to catch up, and then they both walked through.

  Mirana had been right – the room was huge. It was a least five decks tall, with person-sized alcoves at regular intervals all over the walls, horizontal metal bars lining the spaces in-between, and doors leading out at several points, with ramps leading down to the floor. They were at the top of one of these ramps now, and they started down. Ahead, three wide columns rose from the center of the room in a triangle formation, covered in the same bars, and platforms led out from them to the walls. Veins of red light spread out from the walls here and there, but overall the room was as dark as the rest of the ship.

  Mirana vanished, and Ned reached the floor and moved toward one the pillars, still taking in the room. “What in the…”

  “It’s a nest,” Mirana said.

  Ned supposed it was possible; he could certainly imagine a hundred or so Vortak crawling up the walls and into those alcoves to sleep, although the thought made him shiver. In any case, the room was abandoned for the moment.

  There was not much time to study the surroundings, though. Ned could still feel something approaching quickly, and his fists glowed in anticipation. Then the presence reached the door. It stopped for a moment, and then the door flew apart as red light exploded into the room and continued down the ramp so fast Ned was not sure what he was seeing. When it cleared slightly, he could see the form of a man crouched near the bottom of the ramp, clad in some kind of red and black armor. The air immediately around him was so hot that it distorted Ned’s view of him in a short-range heat wave, but the helmet curved over the man’s head in a clear bubble, so Ned could see the twisted expression behind it. If the man was intimidated by Ned and Mirana’s presence, the feeling was hidden behind a look of utter loathing.

  In the second it took Ned to register all this, the man rose to his full height and extended his hand with his fingers clawed, as if grasping something. Red fire swirled outward toward Ned in a long tunnel of light. Ned was ready for the attack, and the blue energy that erupted around him deflected the fire. Ned was not really surprised to find that the Plasma he was deflecting felt alien to him; unlike the energy Kayleen Rax had directed at him, this Plasma refused his attempts to absorb or control it.

  Again Ned’s reaction cost him some initiative, but after a moment he dashed to the side and away from the attack, scattering blue light all around him to hide his exact position. The decoy gave him a second before the fire tracked over to hit him again, and in that time Ned charged up an attack of his own. Extending his hand with his fingers splayed, Ned sent blue light forward, pushing against the wall of swirling flames. He was able to hold the attack back a bit, but the two colors swirled and stabilized only a fe
w meters in front of him.

  Then a line of dark energy pierced the red light that surrounded the new Plasma Master as Mirana sent a Shadow beam directly into him. This is it, Ned thought in anticipation. She’s got him.

  The fire lashing out at Ned weakened a bit and Ned’s blue light gained some ground, but Mirana’s Shadow beam deflected as red energy gathered at the impact point. Maintaining the cyclone of fire he was hurling toward Ned with one hand, the man extended his other hand in the general direction Mirana had struck from and sent out a wide swath of fire. The light vanished where it struck Mirana, but Ned could see the shape of her body being thrown back to the ground.

  Perhaps his hope that she would be able to cut through this man’s power as easily as she could through Ned’s had been naïve, but at the moment Ned felt nothing but rage, just as he had when he had seen Laina attacked. He sidestepped the red flames as his opponent’s attention was turned, then simultaneously sent Blast Plasma along several twisting lines of light though the air and floor. The man looked back in time to block some of them, but the rest converged on his position and burned into the same shielding he had used against Mirana. Missiles from Mirana’s suit followed instantly, and this time the concussive blast knocked him to the ground. The flames from the explosion, though, seemed to freeze in the air at their widest point and then swirl around the man, mixing with the red light that surrounded him as he slowly but confidently regained his feet.

  Fixing his gaze on Ned, the man spread his arms and shouted defiantly, “Is this all you have brought against me?”

  Ned was already panting from the sudden exertion of the attack, so he decided that talking for a moment might give him a useful chance to recharge and maybe learn something.

  “You have attacked the invincible Shield Master,” Ned shouted back, his voice gaining a certain authority as his helmet distorted it. “Dark Viper fell at our hands, and your attack on Anacron is at its end. Identify yourself.”

  The man simply laughed. “Dark Viper fell? You defeated him, did you? You fools should have killed him when he lay wounded before you, but even in victory you were too shortsighted to see the real meaning of the Plasma. You and your Crystal. A crutch. A toy. I am going to teach you the real power available to those strong enough to seize it. I am Nakmar Dren, the Flame Master… And I am about to kill you.”

  There was no time for Ned to react to the familiar last name; as Nakmar finished speaking, he spread his arms and sent a wave of fire outward in an expanding sphere. Ned braced himself to punch through it, but again the fire revealed Mirana’s location, and this time Nakmar turned his full attention on her. Both hands reached forward, directing a steady explosion of red light that flared all around the ball of black energy that appeared where a moment ago she had been invisible. Mirana’s voice sounded worried in his ear. “We have… a problem…”

  Ned did not need to be reminded; he was already dashing toward Dren, power building again. He fired missiles, which Dren managed to detonate before they struck him without relenting on his attack on Mirana, but then Ned was almost on top of him, and Dren had to face him. As one red-gloved hand came around trailing flames, Ned fired a missile into the floor near Dren’s feet, and shards of metal from the blast mixed with the pressure wave to throw the Flame Master to the ground. This time Ned was ready with a follow up attack, hammering Dren’s position with Plasma. Again he tried to absorb some of the red light that was now all around him, but even with Dren distracted, the Flame Plasma resisted him.

  Then Dren was on his feet again, focusing the red fire around him to deflect the next wave of attacks that Ned and Mirana sent. Ned was anticipating that Dren might cast the fire off in another dual attack, but the next burst of Plasma came not from Dren, but from the crystal veins in the metal cavern. Red lightning lanced from each glowing surface to Dren’s position, and the light around him intensified.

  Ned tried another missile, but this time the red light detonated on the warhead the instant it left the reach of the Shield Plasma, and Ned was the one thrown back. Dren then turned and sent out a wave of fire that again pinpointed the Shadow Plasma, but now it was everywhere, revealed in several pockets near where Mirana had last been standing. She had apparently scattered the black energy as a decoy, and it seemed to have worked. The black silhouette of the Shadow Master cut though the aura of red fire immediately around Dren, and Ned saw Mirana’s black silhouette strike Dren’s helmet in a downward blow from her armored fist. Dren stumbled back but was quick to lash out with a quick flame attack. Again, though, he was caught off guard as Mirana, who had somehow crouched low ahead of the flames, delivered a sweeping kick to the back of the knees. As he fell, Mirana grabbed his shoulder and again slammed her fist into his helmet.

  Ned ran closer to help, but he could hardly tell what was happening at this point. The two were locked together, with the red and black fire struggling against each other. This should not be happening, he thought futilely. Especially at close range, the Shadow Plasma should cut through any other Plasma.

  Then with a roar, Nakmar Dren rose to his feet, and Mirana’s dark form was tossed aside in an eruption of fire. Dren’s helmet was shattered, and his face was bleeding in a few places from what looked like glass cuts. But other than that, the Shadow Plasma seemed to have left him unaffected. Not to mention the heat of the room. This was not good. Ned rushed him, but a focused beam struck Ned in the face and threw him off his feet, and by the time we was up again, Dren again had Mirana pinned down, the barrier of black energy just barely fending off the red fire.

  “Ned... the suit can’t take much more of this heat. It’s right on me.”

  Ned choked in sudden panic. He had always looked up to Mirana as his superior, and yet now she had not even the strength to fight. In his mind’s eye Ned could see what threatened to happen next – the black light overcome and Mirana vaporized right in front of him, killed by an enemy that Ned had not even managed to weaken. So my time really was wasted, Ned thought, guilt burning through him. This is my fault. But thinking like that was not helping; there had to be a way out of this.

  In desperation, Ned fired blue Plasma as fast as he could, but Dren blocked all of his shots. Just like Markan had. Impossible to touch. Except that Ned had defeated Markan Dren, in a sense. Actually, it had been the Vortex Crystal itself that had defeated him. When it had been destroyed.

  And now there was only one Plasma Crystal left.

  “Dren! Stop!”

  The flames did not stop, but the Flame Master did turn to look at him. “I know what you want,” Ned persisted.

  “What is that?”

  “Ned… hurry…”

  Ned held up his hand, and blue light flashed briefly in his palm as he displayed a glowing stone. “The Shield Crystal!”

  Dren’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “You are obviously more powerful than Dark Viper himself was when we fought him. You should not be working for him. With the power of the Shield Crystal, you would be the master. But you have to let Mirana go.”

  Dren actually stopped his attack on Mirana, although a faint red glow remained around her, marking her position. “Stay,” he said, pointing a condescending finger, then turned back to Ned. “You can’t give up a Plasma Crystal. They bond to their Holders.”

  “Koral did it. And I know more about the Plasma than he did.”

  “What are you doing?” Mirana insisted. “What’s your plan?”

  Dren reached up as if to scratch his chin, although of course his fingers were stopped by what was left of the helmet. “Maybe the Shadow Master could take it from you…”

  “No,” Ned insisted. “She goes free, then I give it to you.”

  Dren shook his head. “I’m going to kill you anyway.” It was a solid argument, but the fact that Dren was even talking to him suggested that he was hoping that Ned would give him a reason to believe in the possibility of taking the crystal.

  Ned knew he had to keep talking. “If you we
re so sure you could do that, you would be focusing your attack on me. I am invincible. I have defeated three Plasma Masters before you. And I was outnumbered one of those times. And even if you did manage to kill me, what is to say that the Crystal would survive? None of the others have. Let Mirana go, and I will give it to you. It will be over, just like that.”

  Holding the Crystal in front of him, Ned started walking forward. In fact, he was having trouble believing in the possibility himself. For Koral, there had been time to prepare. To decide. To plan. This was spontaneous, and if Ned went through with it, it would mean certain death for him. If only Mirana would just run now, while Dren was distracted. But somehow he knew she would not do that.

  Dren nodded as Ned approached. “You do have a point,” he said, then smiled. “Of the two of you, you are the more tempting target.” And with that, red fire exploded all around Ned, and Dren ran up to him, locking onto his shoulders. “Let’s just see if that Crystal survives your death, shall we?”

  Ned closed his eyes as the fire burned all around him. Even through the shield and armor, the Flame Plasma somehow felt hot to him. His plan had failed; even if Mirana pulled Dren off him now, Ned was out of ideas. There was nothing left keeping either of them alive except the blue stone he still held in his hand. The stone that had bonded itself to him and defined his identity during the years since then. It was a part of him. The most important part. No, there was no way that Ned could have given it up; he could never figure out how to release a Plasma Crystal.

  But he knew how to destroy one. He had done it twice before. He poured all of his power into that precious stone, forcing the energy to build until the blue facets glowed from the pressure. Demanding that the Crystal do whatever it took to protect him, Ned blasted it apart from the inside.

  Ned could not describe what he experienced when the Shield Crystal exploded. Time and space and life itself seemed to be ripped apart, and Ned lay motionless in the center of it all. Blue light coursed out of him, and he felt weak. He felt a weakness greater in magnitude than any strength he had ever experienced. For a moment everything was weakness and blue haze, and then he heard a voice. A yell. A scream.

  “Ned! NED! What happened?”

  Mirana’s voice brought Ned to his senses. The blue light was still everywhere, touching everything. Protecting everything. Everywhere. As it had happened when he had defeated Rax and then Dren, the seemingly infinite power of the Crystal had been released into the room, all at once. It was leaving, abandoning him, but he could still feel it. And suddenly, Ned knew exactly what to do. For what had to be the last time, Ned reached into the light and drew it toward him. All of it. As he turned on Nakmar Dren, Ned’s irises glowed blue with fire, and Dren backed away.

  Extending his hand, Ned fired the Plasma in a solid beam, and Dren was slammed all the way to the back of the room in the deafening roar of the blue light. The Shield Plasma protected him from damage, but still Dren lay there, stunned and out of range for a moment. Mirana was on her feet now, and Ned hurried toward her, already opening a vortex. His mind was reeling with all things he wanted to do with this last surge of power: find the beam emitter. Send Dren out into space. Breach the ship’s warp core. And maybe he could have accomplished any one of those goals in the seconds he had left before the power dissipated. But he could only choose one thing, and there was no question in his mind what it had to be. He had to save Mirana. He grabbed onto her and threw the vortex outward, past the hull and into space. Nakmar Dren’s next flame attack was already rushing toward him when he closed the vortex and vanished from the room.