Spark of the Rebellion Chapter 6: Crimson Pulse Part 2

RECAP: After meeting Adrian in his place of exile, Jim triggers a failsafe called Crimson Pulse that forces Adrian to become a Secronium bomb. After Emily, his wife defuses it with an EMP, Jim awaits Adrian to awaken to seek out the truth behind the Congo Massacre.

In the royal palace, Troy and his siblings agree to investigate the evidence they have gathered on the Scorpion (Adrian) and the reason for his reappearance. 

Jim stared into the depths of space. The abandoned rock he was now chained to lacked an artificial day-night cycle, disrupting his circadian rhythm more than expected. The perpetual darkness of space beckoned him to sleep, his body responding to the darkness with waves of melatonin. He'd discovered one spot on the rock where sunlight managed to peek around the hulking mass of Iassor, offering brief respite.

Regarding his own safety on this forsaken rock, Jim had made his position clear to Emily and Lena: if he went dark, Duncan would notice immediately. His status as Duncan's representative granted him diplomatic immunity, even while consorting with an exiled enemy. His death would trigger an early war between Iassor and South Africa—and inevitably, between the Belt and Earth.

The reality? He was not in contact with Duncan. His transponder maintained a signal to a remote, abandoned Alliance base, and Duncan was completely unaware of Adrian’s existence. Hollow threats that neither Helena nor Emily had time to test.

He refused to let Adrian out of his sight, while Helena remained equally vigilant over him. They were all trapped on this desolate rock until Adrian regained consciousness, taking shifts to maintain their guard. Emily had warned them that Arthur knew Adrian's exact location—they should expect a strike force soon. Though they could control official channels, Adrian's presence had spread through whispered conversations like wildfire.

Emily had set up a wall of cover that was about waist height. Spare energy shields is what she told him when he asked where she’d magically conjured up military-grade barriers from. It’s not something one keeps in their closet. Jim presumed there was a hidden passage somewhere around the house that he’d been attempting to find. No luck.

Helena’s soft footsteps caught Jim’s attention. He swung around to see her equipped with a stock-standard auto-rifle. The one she’d personally detached from his possession.

“Aww… Can’t believe you kept it,” Jim said, flashing her a hollow smile.

“Don’t get sentimental. It’s the only one that works,” Helena snapped.

Jim shook his head. “Beltian quality, I tell ya. Never lasts like these buggers.”

“If not for the fact that we need every hand we can get for the approaching attack, I’d test this on you.”

Jim gripped his pistol a little tighter. “Approaching attack?”

A plume of vapour appeared in the distance. The tremors began to shake the ground of the asteroid, rattling Jim's teeth. The rumbling grew louder and louder as it echoed through the hollowed-out rock, causing small rocks and pebbles to jump about like frightened animals. A dust cloud formed around the barrier.

“That attack,” Helena said, yanking Jim to his feet. “Get to the house!”

He nodded. Jim’s heart raced as he rushed towards the house and flung the door open. "They're here!" he yelled down the hallway of the house.

Adrian was lying on the couch in the living room and still unconscious. He had a slow, pulsing red light in his eye. Still steady breathing.

“Fuck,” Jim muttered. Their strongest asset was taking a nap. He checked his pistol, noticing that he only had a few charges left. Four or five at most.

“How many?” Emily asked, not lifting her gaze from her husband.

Helena entered with her rifle loaded. “Not sure. Judging from the rumbling, it’s a lot.”

Emily pulled out her link and remotely activated the shields. A neon-green energy field with steel borders shielded the front of the house, the glow penetrating the windows.

Rhythmic rumbling. Jim listened closer. Almost like a walk. But not that of a soldier. No, quadrupedal. Like a…

“Cannon!” he screamed, his voice being drowned by the bang of the quadrupedal artillery.

The explosion threw Jim off his feet and sent debris all over the house. The very shields they had counted on to protect them shattered sending the steel frames hurtling towards them like shrapnel. Emily let out a primal scream. She dragged Adrian behind a large cement beam that had fallen from the ceiling.

The Eilte Guard had arrived. Jim thought they’d come only to investigate the disturbance but it seemed that they were well aware of Crimson Pulse and the fact that it was triggered.

Adrian remained unconscious on the floor, seemingly undisturbed by the blast. Emily glanced at him for a moment before turning back to the window, her pistol raised.

Jim peeped his head over their makeshift cover. Their enemy was still shrouded in a smokescreen. Silhouettes lit up as a result of the energy bolts piercing the cloud.

They laid down suppressive fire. No one was leaving that house. Their cover was slowly chipping away as well.

Jim hauled himself up beside Emily, breathing hard.

“What’s the plan?” she asked. “The beams aren’t going to hold for long.”

“Stay alive,” Jim snapped. He scanned for exits. They’d need one soon but the gunfire wasn’t letting up. They were firing blindly to remove as much cover as possible.

An explosion ripped through the front wall. The blast threw them back.

Jim hit the ground hard, coughing through the dust. The room was wrecked. Marble shattered. Silver wisps crept up from the wreckage. Those weren’t normal rounds. Those were gas rounds. They were forcing them out.

“How long?”

“Two minutes tops!”

Emily gritted her teeth. Adrian was getting paler. The enemy was closing in. More gunfire. More chaos. The past clawed its way back into her mind. She shoved it down. No time for that now.

They had to move.

“Damnit it Adrian,” she hissed. “Should’ve just stayed put.”

“Where’s Helena?” Jim shouted.

He spotted a limp arm under a pile of rubble followed by a fading groan. Did he really need to save her at possibly the cost of his life? The fire was heavy and unrelenting. He wouldn’t be able to make it to her without sustaining a graze at the minimum.

Jim didn’t think—he moved.

Bullets tore past as he sprinted for Helena. The heat, the smoke, the thunder of gunfire—it all blurred together. He hit the ground beside her, heart pounding.

“Helena! Can you move?”

A faint groan. Blood streaked her face. He didn’t wait for an answer. He hauled her up, muscles screaming in protest.

But getting back was impossible. The enemy fire was too heavy.

“Emily—!” Jim called, but another explosion swallowed his voice. Smoke billowed, creeping toward the house. The Elite Guard  were advancing.

A door splintered beside him.

An enemy burst through—Jim’s gun was too slow. But Emily wasn’t.

A shot cracked past Jim’s head, slamming into the guard’s chest. He crumpled at Jim’s feet, eyes wide in shock.

“Keep moving!” Emily barked.

The gunfire stopped. Then the gas hit.

Jim coughed violently, each convulsion rattling his chest as his vision blurred with tears. His limbs felt heavy and unresponsive, his lungs ablaze. Yet Helena stood beside him, unaffected, as if the toxic air had no hold on her. Secronium—the word echoed in his mind with grim realization. The gas was laced with it, a substance deadly to ordinary Earthers, but to supersoldiers like Helena, it was merely a mild irritant.

Summoning every ounce of willpower, Jim forced his sluggish body to move. He staggered into the open air, the world spinning around him while dragging Helena along with him. Emily was still trapped inside.

He couldn’t leave Helena out in the open. She’d just get shot down. There wasn’t any cover other than the rubble of the house. Then again… He was here for Adrian. He was here for information. Even if he couldn’t save Adrian, there’d be something he could gain from saving Emily.

He groaned. “Ah, Fuck it.”

He sat Helena down behind the rear wall of the house. Her hand gripped his ever so slightly. That was good enough.

“Don’t die on me just yet,” he muttered.

A weak groan answered him. She was stirring, but barely. He turned and rushed back into the house. Smoke clawed at his throat. He coughed hard, his eyes burning. Tears streamed down his face. Through the haze, he saw her. Emily. She was slumped on the floor, unmoving.

He stumbled toward her. His legs felt like lead. Every step was a fight. The heat pressed in from all sides. His lungs screamed for air. He reached for her, his fingers brushing her arm. Then his legs gave out. He crashed to his knees. Pain shot through his arms. His body was failing him.

His eyes shut against the sting of the smoke. The tears didn’t stop. His arms throbbed. His head spun. The world was slipping away. Darkness crept in. He tried to hold on, to reach her, but his strength was gone. The fire roared louder. His mind faded, barely kept conscious by the pain.

A hand grabbed him, dragging him out of the house like a corpse.

At some point, the gas faded and the environment around him changed from a crumbling house to the same barren wasteland he’d been staring into just a few minutes ago.

Five Elite Guards came into view. Three with high-poundage energy bows. Two with standard-issue pulse rifles. Behind them, the quadrupedal cannon held Jim’s gaze.

Jim and Helena lifted their hands. Surrender was their only option.

“Search the house,” one of them said. “Crimson Pulse is alive. I’ll handle the others.”

Through the misty, green gas an even brighter green twinkle shone. The silhouette of a hulking man standing before the five guards. Jim recognised that green glow anywhere.

Adrian stepped forward. His mechanical arm was fully exposed and the digital mask he wore over his face to cover his scars began to glitch, flickering from skin to charred flesh.

“Kneel.”

The guards collapsed under his gaze, limbs twitching, struggling against an invisible force. Their eyes filled with blood.

“Who sent you!” he barked.

"Never..." the guard said, gritting his teeth.

“Last chance, bastards!”

This time, there was no response—only a searing glare of hatred and a faint, taunting grin. The guard remained silent, silent defiance in his eyes, knowing full well that Adrian would not get the information he desired.

A final pulse. The guards convulsed—then went still. Bloodshot eyes that stared as if they’d seen the angel of death. Saliva dripped from their mouth. Their bodies dropped to the ground, limp and contorted by a neural overload.

Silence.

A communications device rolled out of one of the guard's hands. The transponder flickered, sending an SOS on a secured channel. Adrian crushed it with the heel of his boot.

“Emily?” Helena groaned. “Where is she?”

Only now did Jim notice the tear line running from his left eye. He was a Sec-user. He was immune to the tear gas.

"Adrian!" Helena barked. "Where is she?!"

Adrian turned away sharply, his shoulders stiff with rage. He raised his forearm to his eyes, wiping away the tear with his sleeve. The dim light that peeped through the shadow cast by Iassor caught his face. 

“Whoever is behind this...They’re all going to die,” Adrian hissed. “Every last one!”

***

Troy sat down adjacent to his father at the dinner table. The room was quiet, save for the faint clink of silverware against plates. The air between them was heavy, the kind of silence that spoke louder than words. Neither of them looked up, their focus fixed on their meals, though neither seemed to be eating much. The tension was familiar, almost routine.

Arthur’s link buzzed in his pocket, the vibration sharp and insistent. He paused, fork hovering mid-air, then set it down with a quiet sigh. Pulling the device from his pocket, he glanced at the screen. His expression didn’t change, but his jaw tightened slightly. He answered the call, his voice low and clipped.

“Yes?”

The voice on the other end was urgent.

“I apologise for the interruption, my Liege but we received an SOS from the Elite Guard originating from the Southern Outskirts.”

Troy’s head snapped to Asher across the table who also lifted his head upon overhearing the message. Essie nearly dropped her fork.

The flightpath document. It stated the first report was at the Southern tip of Iassor. The Scorpion had killed the Elite Guard.

Arthur remained silent for a few moments. "Who authorised their deployment?"

"I-I am not sure, your Highness," the voice stammered on the other end.

"Up to their usual bullshit," Arthur muttered under his breath. "Bastards. Get me a meeting with the Council ASAP."

"Yes, My Liege!"

The link cut. Arthur sighed deeply. Troy remained confused as to who was up to their usual bullshit but a worried look from Mom told him that it was a problem. Another problem to add to the plethora of problems his parents had to deal with. A problem that just killed their most skilled and elite unit. Either he had a squad of his own, or—scarier—he was a squad of his own.

Questions (If you want to ;) )

1. Do you think the coming of the attack was too abrupt? Some build-up required?

2. Can you follow how the action scene progresses? Spacially and sequentially? If yes, what parts did you lose track of particular characters?