Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone by Jonathan Wedge Read Free Book Online

onto their guns, firing aimlessly and on fearing the ricochets of their own lasers, they threw themselves to the floor, covering their heads with their hands. The protectors saw clearly through their light-sensitized visors as the bhurkas struggled to regain their bearings. The four of them ran past the eye-stung beasts with ease and out into a corridor.
    Spectrum gave the order. "Let's find this Jonas and get out of here! Goldheart with me. You two—that way!"
    The two pairs ran their separate ways in search of Jonas. A little way down the corridor, Menace and Cortex slid in behind a tanker as a squadron of wardens ran towards the alarm of the landing bay. Menace looked at Cortex and made a nod up to a control room across the corridor at the top of some stairs—the door was open. Without a thought Cortex ran. He tackled the stairs three steps at a time and burst into the control room with his pulsar-blades at the ready. The room was empty and Menace kicked him inside.
    Cortex hurried over to the controls with no idea of how he'd work the alien system in front of him, "You keep those overfed flea balls out of here - I'll find the mark," he said, full of confidence to Menace.
    "I didn't know you could read, Lucas!" Menace joked, as she picked off the bhurkas that spotted her and attempted to scale the stairs.
    "There's a lot you don't know about me, Reeka…" Cortex boasted, swiping through the holographic system to change what he thought might be the language settings. "And you never will!" he promised with his usual wit.
    "I'll hold you to that!" Menace smiled, blasting away at the growing number of wardens shooting up at her.
    Cortex swished frantically through the system, throwing images and words aside through the air and pulling new ones into view. "Where are you hiding Jonas?" he muttered to himself.
    Menace slid her blasters into their holders and switched to the rifle which she grabbed from the sheath on her back, opting for accuracy over quantity. "Hurry up Lucas, I need you out here!" she shouted, without looking away from her targets.
    Cortex couldn't take his eyes from the system. "You're doing a great job!" he called across to her.
    Cortex activated his communications sleeve with a touch to his forearm and speaking into his wrist he said, "Spec—this Jonas, he's in block A54, cell 159."
    Spectrum's voice came back through the speaker on Cortex's arm, "There are too many wardens. We'll never make it!"
    Cortex knew that Spectrum was always right when it came to weighing up the odds of combat. He played on with the system, thinking there must be something he could do. Shifting through screens and navigating around the menus with hands that orchestrated the system like a musical master he finally found the something he was looking for; the option to open all cell doors. He selected "YES".
    "The wardens have got more than us to worry about!" Cortex said into his transmitter.
    The prison rumbled. A ruckus in the walls made the place seem alive as if the place had been dead for a century and life had been gifted back.
    Spectrum's voice came back through the comms. "Cortex, never, ever make a decision by yourself, ever again! Get to block A54, now!"
     
    Menace gave a blank look to Cortex as he ran over to help with shooting his pulsar-blades down the corridor. "You never fail to astound me!" she said, with a look that contradicted her words.
    "I am pretty astounding!" Cortex mused, smiling as he blasted away.
    The corridor was flooded with a gruesome selection of reptilians, insectoids, beasts, and organoids, all mixed in amongst some other strange-looking beings which couldn't possibly be classified. Claws, hands, feet and alien limbs were battling with the bhurkas as Menace and Cortex made a move, fighting through the chaos of the corridors. Cortex spun his swords and chopped his way through a pack of rodents that moved to stop him and Menace sent a flow of laser blasts into anything that was too much of a threat.