Here's the beginning of my new Epic, Exosphere:Invasion...
It may be a little difficult to understand if you haven't read my short story called EXOSPHERE, in the Short Stories Forum.
Please review at the review thread, Exosphere:Invasion Review Thread.  More importantly, please PM other people to tell them to read it, if you want.  I'm thinking of getting some of my non-Bionicle work published, so I need good advice.  (Kirilin take heed...)  

Review here.



PROLOGUE

One and a half solar diameters out from the nondescript sun around which Mata Nui orbited, three specks of metal- envelopes of life, floating in the void- shimmered into being.  Gateways of energy into a shimmering realm of bizarre colors and sights that would drive a sentient being mad snapped shut behind them, flaring out excess energy in the form of photons as the ships closed the gaping rents in space-time had slipped through.  Upon closer inspection, they were revealed to be ships.
A ship is an interesting thing, as such a vessel is designed to traverse a realm completely hostile to life.  Primitive vessels traverse pits filled with liquids-water- that strangle all land life which enter it, eventually cutting off metabolism.  More advanced ships- such as the elongated spines of metal drifting, as if derelict, in the void- sailed across realms that could kill a living being in five or six different ways within seconds.  But some- those with experience- would say that the beings in these tiny- but in fact quite large- slivers of metal were even crueler than the void itself.  The sigil on the side of each vessel- never before glimpsed by the inhabitants of the world that they now descended upon, drives flaring violet- was that of a nest of tightly coiled serpents wrapped tightly around the rim of a black orb, a starless sky.  The symbols burnished on the insignia burmed with a cold light.  To those able to read them, they proclaimed loudly that the ships now lumbering into the upper atmosphere of Mata Nui belonged to the most tyrannical organization in known space: the Exosphere.  



CHAPTER ONE

Crystal components clinked together gently as Nokama gazed deeply into the burnished silver cylinder she held before her.  On the outside it was a nondescript tube of silver metal like a scout scope from Ko-Koro; even the deep black hole on one end followed this illusion.  But the blackened prongs arranged in a circle inside the maw of the cylinder crushed that particular idea; and the arrangement of crystalline keys on the other end made it quite clear that this was not manufactured by that icy village.  Even the series of notches around the center, designed to be held by a hand like nothing on Mata Nui, were like nothing Nokama had ever seen.  
She glared in frustration at the tiny component, which had proven resistant to all of her inspections.  It- along with a near-identical twin- had been recovered during a bizarre incident nearly four months ago, when the Toa Gali and Lewa had investigated a meteor impact near the Ta-Koronan lava fields.  An enigmatic silver crust had been found spreading around the impact zone, apparently constructed by a similarly silver liquid- which upon closer inspection seemed to be made of thousands of tiny components.  It had also proved to extremely caustic, even to thick armor that compromised the skin of the Toa.  
The cylinders were weapons taken from the hulks of two tiny spider-like beings, which had scuttled about inside the crust with no apparent ill effect.  When the spider guardians had held them, they released verdant green lightning bolts- devastating weaponry like nothing ever seen before on Mata Nui.  The Toa’s Hau-mask shields- similar to ones that the guardians possessed- had proved to be resistant, if not totally so, to these bolts, and the guardians had been taken care of quickly.  The Toa had sighted other beings among the wreckage of some sort of metal hulk, but they had vanished into the sky on what appeared to be gigantic arrowheads!  Nokama just shook her head and gently placed the component down.  It was all too confusing; if it had been any other Toa, she would have been suspicious of the report, but Gali was completely reliable in matters of observation.    She looked up at her silent companion, who gazed into the other cylinder with a perplexed frown.  “Any progress?” She directed the question towards the short being- an interpreter and scout named Matoro- who crouched next to Nuju, her compatriot and friend from Ko-Koro.
A few gestures passed between them, and Matoro shook his head.  “He finds it as enigmatic as you reported.  He cannot explain any of the occurrences; there is nothing in the prophecies about them.  Except for Shabren’s fifth…”  
Nokama snorted.  “And we all know how reliable that particular prophecy has been in the past.”  She whirled about and took two steps to the balcony of the hut looking out over the calm waters of Ga-Koro.  “We’ve made no progress on these.  At first I thought we could use them against the Bohrok…but they don’t even make a sound!”
“Perhaps they are missing components.”  This came via Matoro again.
“How?  They’re completely unbroken cylinders, except for that maw.”
“We should attempt to open one.”
“And risk damaging it in the process? From what I’ve seen, the only thing that could break them would be an Onu-Koronan cutting torch!”
“Lewa guessed that they were made of the same material as the guardians.  That crumpled, although not easily, under the Toa’s blows…”
“The guardians have vanished!  We can’t even find their wreckage! How can we be sure?”  
“We can’t.  Perhaps we should risk it anyway.”  
Nokama sighed.  “Very well.  Get cutting implements here and have someone start.  I’ll want to watch.  But I have a feeling that we won’t get anything out of this.”

Pohatu’s gangling, long stride was completely different from Kopaka’s nimble, calculated step.  But the two of them navigated the rough bluff that sloped down to Ga-Koro with equal facility, both stumbling once or twice.  “So what do you think of all this?” Pohatu asked his silent companion.
“All what?” Kopaka replied, although he knew certainly well.  “Be specific.”
“The mysterious hulks.  The silver glop.  The lightning from a salt shaker.”
Kopaka winced at the singularly unspecific wording of Pohatu’s adjectives.  “I wouldn’t describe it as a salt shaker.”
“It looks like one.”
“You’ve never seen one.”  
“I saw the paintings they were distributing.”
“And since when have you had an eye for detail?”
Pohatu shot an offended glance at the stern Toa of Ice.  “Can’t I get anything out of besides responses to my questions?  You know, I bet I could get you to laugh to this joke.”
“You lose.”
“Blast-hey, wait, I haven’t told it yet.”
“And you won’t.”  
“Yes I will.”
Kopaka’s sword, a near-integral part of his arm, gently tickled Pohatu’s throat.  He would have gulped, but he didn’t want to risk it.  “Spoilsport,” he grumbled.
“Your idea of sport has come close to driving me mad on many a previous occasion.  Puns that force themselves onto my brain, trying to put out my life.  Jokes that waft through the air like toxic gas, strangling all life they come upon.”
“They die because they’re laughing so hard.”
“I can feel myself blacking out.  Your stale wit is putting a stench into the air.”
Pohatu snickered.  The two constantly bickering Toa were friends, despite themselves, a friendship forged by the war that had raged over Mata Nui since their arrival.  At first, the Toa had been near-enemies; only barely willing to work together- except for the wiser Gali and the more sociable Pohatu-but by now they were all firm friends.  Even if some of them were loathe to admit it.  Kopaka’s ice-hard control almost faltered at actually saying that he didn’t mind being around Tahu.  Even if it was true.
The steep bluff- which they had only negotiated with the powers of their speed and levitation masks- leveled quickly out to a sandy beach, bringing a wince from Pohatu, who hated water.  In fact, he was quite squeamish about even venturing out onto Ga-Koro, which was composed mostly of feather-light leaves of adamantly hard plants bred for generations by Le-Koronan masters, floating on the water.  Cleverly erected barriers around the mouth of the bay dampened out the worst of the storm waves and made it difficult for the constant Gahlok hordes to reach the village. Even as the pair of Toa squelched across the beach towards the gate- guarded by a pair of disc and spear wielding sentries- cutters made of similar durable leaves and other materials plied the water of the bays.  Onu-Koronan engineers perched along the lengths of the sleek craft held spears or Madu-Kobolo berries to use as improvised depth charges.  The defenses had been devised by the Toa and Turaga in a hasty council a few months ago, near the beginning of the Bohrok menace.
The pair of Toa reached the gates and the scrutiny of the guards.  “Sorry about this,” one of them commiserated as the Toa leaned over and pulled their masks off.
“Not a problem,” Pohatu assured them, and threw the pair of nervous guards a roguish wink.  “Until the next drills come around.”  
Kopaka just stood there in staid silence as the guards went through the necessary procedures.  Lehvak had been known, of late, to use acid to hollow out masks and slip krana behind them.  This latest precaution was necessary, even though none of the Toa particularly liked to remove the masks in times of war.  The guards gave a nod and the Toas of Ice and Stone slapped the gold-gleaming masks back on,  then ducked under the gate and marched up the causeway towards the center of bustling Ga-Koro.  The greenish plant gave only slightly under their footsteps.  The place was rich with the scent of spiced fish and other alluring products, but neither of the Toa were truly interested in food.  It was necessary for their survival, but less so than for a Matoran. “Really, what do you think?” Pohatu queried as they dodged through crowds of merchants and warriors.  
“I found it to be all a little fantastic,” Kopaka admitted.  “Cylinders of burnished crystal raining lightning?  Massive metal arrowheads that fly many kios in the blink of an eye?  Creatures that look like many-headed, many-armed snakes?  Perhaps that slight tremor at the beginning of the whole incident-”
“From Gali’s account, it was quite serious-” Pohatu butted in.
“Perhaps the quake did knock them all the way off that cliff, and the entire episode was the product of their injured minds and a slight concussion.”
“Then how do you explain the lightning rods?”  Pohatu questioned, gloating slightly.  “Looks like I’ve overturned your logic for once?”
“Products of some Ko-Koronan tinkerer, long dead, which were left in the area,” Kopaka dismissed.  His mask-eyes narrowed as he stared at Pohatu.  “Surely you don’t put any credence in this whole thing?  Perhaps even that silver crust was a strange lava upwelling, delivering hallucinatory gases.”  
“Hal…oosy? What in Mata Nui’s name are haloosy gases?” Pohatu elbowed the Toa of Ice, eliciting an annoyed glare.  “You know I can’t keep up with your vocabulary.”
“Vapors that might cause them to see things that weren’t there,” Kopaka explained, with a derisive snort.  “Which reminds me, did you ever take that intelligence test those Ga-Koronan scholars were proposing.”
“Nope,” Pohatu replied.  “And I’m happy without having numbers tied to my brain, thanks.”  Kopaka was just about ready with a snappy retort, but the door to Nokama’s hut loomed ahead.  

As the Toa slipped into the hut- which had had it’s roof courteously raised since the Toa had arrived, two years ago- the pair of Turaga and group of Onu-Koronan engineers and Ko-Koronan scientists in the hut offered deep bows.  Pohatu launched an elaborate bow which nearly ended him spread-eagled on the floor- but he had quick reflexes, and Kopaka just gave a cursory but respectful nod.  “Turaga, how are you?” he asked quietly, showing more respect to Nuju than he did to most people.  
“Nuju is overjoyed to see you,” Matoro explained.  “He has a great mystery for you, Toa of the people of mysteries.”  
Pohatu snickered. “I know some mysteries about you Ko-Koronans,” he proclaimed loudly.  “Like how you stomach that revolting stuff that passes for food.”  Kopaka ignored the jab and most of the scientists threw Pohatu riled glares before remembering who, exactly, they were glaring at.  
“What is it?” Kopaka asked, bypassing the formalities and getting straight to the point.  
“This!” one of the scientists exclaimed, and placed on the table before them the most magnificent set of jewels either Toa had ever seen.

CHAPTER TWO

Kopaka blinked frantically at the thing.  All his well-laid theories about the lightning-rod incident were blown to dust in an instant.  For one thing, the jewels were well-arranged squares of crystals piled inside a ragged sheath of silver metal.  They formed a double helix around a tube of dark grey ceramic, completely unbroken, that formed the maw of the shattered rod.  He broke off his examination for a moment.  “What happened to it?” he asked, stammering slightly, followed by, “What is it?”
“When all else failed,” wiry Nokama explained, “we used a cutting torch on it.  It broke, but only after a while, and only with difficulty.  Kopaka stared back at the lightning rod.
The crystals would be unseeable from the outside, as the front-outside the end of the dark tube- was covered in silver metal.  But the crystals, where they came nearly flush with the outside of the rod, each had a small wire attached, trailing back in a bundle to a small black box nestled behind a large spherical jewel.  That jewel, in turn, was partially melted onto a flaring silver cone, which fit snugly onto the internal end of the barrel of the lightning rod.  


To be continued...(when I get the time..)

This post has been edited by HauNuva: Dec 12 2002, 08:42 PM

More and more for this wildly unpopular story.  I'm getting the feeling that I'll only be able to get any reviews if I forge my signature as 'Kirilin' or 'Kanohi Akaku..'

The crystals would be unseeable from the outside, as the front-outside the end of the dark tube- was covered in silver metal.  But the crystals, where they came nearly flush with the outside of the rod, each had a small wire attached, trailing back in a bundle to a small black box nestled behind a larger slate-grey rectangle, covered in red highlights, which was welded securely onto a large spherical jewel.  That jewel, in turn, was partially melted onto a flaring silver cone, which fit snugly onto the internal end of the barrel of the lightning rod.  
He started as Nuju gave him a little nudge.  “Your mask powers,” Matoro explained.
With a shrug, Kopaka narrowed his eyes at the lightning rod.  Lenses on his mask whirred momentarily and he gave another strangled gasp.  “Both of the boxes-they’re full of energy!”
“What do you mean?” Nokama asked quietly.
“The rear one is filled with a sort of tingling, like lightning in a box. But not greenish, so I wonder if it isn’t the weapon itself.  The second box is full of a strange green glow, almost like the first box, but different.”
“Plasma,” one of the scientists muttered.  “The accursed thing fires plasma.”
“Pla-whaat?” Pohatu asked.  “Speak in Mata Nuian, please.”
“What the sun’s made of,” Nokama explained.  “Very, very hot.  And I suppose the crystals along the barrel channel it so it stays a beam, not a spray.”
Kopaka winced.  “Then it makes quite a weapon.”  
“Indeed.”  
“Well, I’ll just smash this thing open and see what opens,” Pohatu suggested, reaching for the red-highlighted box.
“No!” Kopaka, Nuju, and Nokama chorused.  Pohatu recoiled as if stung.
Then a sharp beep filled the room.
Instantly the two Toa dropped into a combat stance, glaring around furiously.  
Another beep sounded, accompanied by a flash of light from the device.  A small shower of sparks rained across the table, sending a scientist leaping back.
“What’s it doing?” Kopaka asked nervously, eyes filled with foreboding, as another beep sounded.  The noise seemed to grate on his very bones and nerves.  
Moments later, their answer came.  A pair of loud thunderclaps split the air outside and suddenly the sound of screams wafted into the hut.  The two Toa leapt through the door, followed quickly by the Turaga.  Below them, villagers huddled in corners, hands wrapped tight around heads.  “What happened?” Nokama shouted.
Maku glanced up, then her eyes widened.  “Turaga!  It’s coming back! Look out!”
Moments later, a burnished silver arrowhead, larger than the biggest hut in the village, soared lazily across the visible sky, banking slightly to port.  The water or plant below it rippled, and villagers were smashed to the ground and held there by some unseen force.  The two Toa leapt off the building, masks flashing, and began a rapid ascent towards the low-flying aircraft.
“It’s one of Gali’s arrowheads!” Pohatu shouted.  Moments later, a blackened cylinder fell from a slot on the bottom of the arrowhead as it streaked away north.  Two lines of elemental fire slashed through where it had just been as the two Toa unleashed a futile fusillade.  “Too fast,” Pohatu mumbled.  
Then Kopaka slammed into him from the side, followed by a tremendous thunderclap and rush of air.  He realized dazedly that the cylinder had exploded in the water, savaging the edge of one of the farther huts and sending it listing.  Steam rose from the impact point and a slight mist fell from the sky.  A greenish after-image danced across his vision.  “Sorry,” Kopaka muttered as he stabilized himself.  
The two Toa hovered on jets of flame a few hundred bios above the village, dropping quickly.  They leveled out at fifteen bios and waited.
“The beeping must have signified a homing device,” Kopaka stated grimly as the growling noise of the arrowhead’s passage grew again.
“Whaddya mean?” the other Toa asked distractedly, scanning the skies with rapid side-to-side motions.  Using his Akaku he could see trails of heat and ionization across the sky above them.
“I mean that the lightning rod somehow told that arrowhead where it was,” Kopaka replied, and looked as if he was about to continue, when a blurred form screamed overhead and two lightning-crackles of green energy flashed out to catch each Toa in the chest.  
Their Hau rune-fields crackling, the pair of hovering Toa were shoved backwards as if by an enormous hand.  Kopaka skidded through the balcony of Nokama’s hut, raining debris everywhere, and vanished.  Pohatu was flipped backwards and slammed painfully onto the ground.  He scrambled frantically away from the water lapping at his heels and took Kopaka’s hint, using one of his minor mask powers to become invisible.  Villagers were running, screaming, towards cover, and Pohatu noticed that another hut had been blown apart and was sinking rapidly.  “Gods, how do we beat this thing?” he wondered, and just then the burnished silver arrowhead popped into view above them, decelerating rapidly.
It was glowing slightly from air friction, and was even larger than it had initially seemed.  It rolled slightly, as if to peer at the village below, and Pohatu shuddered when he noticed alien forms- twisting serpents and strange limbs- through the strip of crystal that came into view.  The craft banked slightly back the other way, began to speed up, and suddenly that slot on the bottom folded open again.  Pohatu braced himself, preparing a probably useless shout to the villagers, stomach churning-
And just as he caught a glimpse of a small cylinder clamped into a metal cradle descending from the bowels of the craft, a flicker of green lightning sprang up from Nokama’s hut and flashed into the bay.  
An actinic burst of white light flashed across his vision, and just as Pohatu began blinking furiously, cursing the ill luck that had him staring right at the explosion, a tremendous hand slammed him down into the slightly giving plant-fiber below him.  A roaring filled his ears, greater than any avalanche in Ko-Wahi, and heat scorched his spine.  “Why does this happen to me?”  he wondered aloud, perfectly miserable, as the plant-fiber pads around him began to smolder slightly.  
Ice-fire rained down from the shattered balcony above him and the fires snuffed out.  Kopaka dropped nimbly besides Pohatu’s prone form.  “Are you all right?” he asked, trying to sound unconcerned but utterly failing.  
Pohatu shook his head and pointed to his ears.  “It’ll go away,” Kopaka said, praying hurriedly that it would.  
“What happened?” Pohatu croaked.  “I was going to warn the villagers away..then the sky blew up.”  
“That was the arrowhead exploding, not the sky,” Kopaka explained grimly.  “I figured out how to turn on the second lightning rod- when the arrowhead came near, a patch on it started to glow.  It was the activation key.  I used my Akaku too hit the bomb before they could drop it, and it went off inside the arrowhead.”  
“Nice job,” Pohatu muttered, and then slumped over, completely unconscious.

As a group of medics rushed out from the local militia hut and fanned out through the debris, Kopaka crouched and pushed off, then ascended to two hundred bios and looked around.  A trail of rapidly fading smoke led off to the north-east until it intersected with the water a kio or so away.  “So you’re still out there,” he muttered, and went to find Nuju.


CHAPTER THREE

Cold, controlled rage ran through Gali’s veins as she kicked through the water off Ga-Koro.  The thrice-cursed serpents had dared to attack her village!  She was going to make them pay for all fifteen injuries and two fatalities, and the destroyed Giko family home.  
The water around her glowed red as she used her Akaku to scan for heat.  It was cold and dark down here; she’d have to watch for Tarakava.  They loved this sort of place.  The current from her kicks knocked silt from the muddy bottom to swirl around her.  Normally she’d enjoy swimming like this, but glimmers of heat ahead showed the trace of the crashed arrowhead.  At first it had seemed as if the arrowhead had exploded, but there wasn’t enough debris- according to Nokama and her divers- around Ga-Koro to account for the arrowhead ship, so it followed that it hadn’t been totally destroyed, but instead had crashed.  She had immediately set out to look for it.  She wanted to make sure the serpents suffered, and she wasn’t going to leave it to someone else.
I’ve got you.  Ahead, the water glowed dim cherry, and pieces of debris were strewn across the bottom.  She reached down and gingerly picked a slice of metal up.  Half of an insignia was burnished across its silver face.  She glanced at it and shuddered.  A black orb, surrounded by tightly coiled serpents, glared back at her.  What a grotesque thing, she thought, and shivered violently.  Perhaps it was the coolness of the water…but perhaps not.  She tossed the metal aside and kicked powerfully, continuing on.  

Mere minutes later, she had found them.  The arrowhead was a burnished silver, flattened cone, angled sharply near the front.  The rear was still glowing faintly, and bubbles trailed up occasionally.  Then her eyes caught on something, and she stopped short, paralyzed by horror.  Oh dear gods, no, not here.  A silver liquid was creeping slowly from a tear in the ship’s hull.  Where it splashed across the seabed, a silver crust began to widen and congeal into a hard carpet.  She knew from experience what it would do if she cut it open- spurt caustic liquid into the entire area, then heal up quickly.  More importantly, it would spread rapidly.  I-we- have got to stop this, she decided, and kicked slowly up past the tear, along the side of the arrowhead, towards the front.  
The thing was smashed and banged and dented, but not leaking too heavily.  Gali crouched, cat-like, against the hull and switched on her Akaku again.  She narrowed her eyes at the metal and suddenly she was seeing right through it.  She shivered instinctively.  Two long, thick snakes with a pair of arms, and whose necks branched off into a writhing coil of eight or nine snake-heads, lay slumped on the floor of the craft, breathing but not awake.  Water dripped over them.  Another two were barely visible towards the rear.  The inside was filled with blinking panels and doors which seemed to be towards storage.  The rear bulkhead was striped heavily with red and orange.  The front had controls- probably for piloting, she reasoned.  The atmosphere was slightly hazy, and water covered a twentieth-bio of the floor and was slowly increasing.  
The two near the rear of the craft were both wearing rigid hoods that looked extremely grotesque, covering their heads and sealing upwards on their bodies .  Hoses branched off them and onto two cylinders attached to the sides, but the front of the hoods were open, for now.  For water-breathing, like my mask?
One of them seemed to be fishing another pair of hoods out- for their unconscious comrades?- and another was opening a hatch into the floor by pressing a series of glowing panels.  As she watched, the first quickly fitted the hoods onto the sleeping serpent-beasts and rushed back to help with the hatch.
 “What are you doing?” she wondered aloud, and shifted a little to get a better view.  
Her elbow brushed slightly against the hull and a surprisingly loud grating sound suddenly rang through the water.  She froze as the two nightmarish serpents jerked up in surprise and stared at the ceiling.  One reached convulsively for a glowing panel near the side of the craft, but the other grabbed it’s arm and began a heated debate.  Gesticulating wildly, they argued for perhaps half a minute.
Then they seemed to reach a consensus.  One went back to the hatch and continued to work it open- it looked quite heavy- while the first slid open one of the access panels.  She stared down, her emotions mixed between horror and curiosity.  They tilted sharply towards the latter when the being pulled out a pair of large boxes by handles.  They were covered in angular, unpleasant writing in vicious red.  More importantly, when the thing set them on the floor, they slowly unfolded.
And a pair of metal spiders stepped out.  Both bore silver cylinders on overhead attachments and a variety of blinking lights and lenses. Guardians!  She remembered clearly the little scuttling forms that she and Lewa had fought in that valley near Ta-Koro.  She had no doubt she could handle them, but the serpent-beasts could be another matter.  
A thought struck her.  The guardians traveled through the silver crust…
She looked over and cursed quietly.  The silver puddle had spread across the seafloor, nearly fifteen bios.  She glanced down again.  The hatch was opened- and it looked out upon murky water and silver crust.  What?  Why does the water not flood them?
Air pressure, perhaps- Lewa had explained the concept to her, once.  She tensed as the spiders dropped out of the hatch, floated to the bottom, and gracefully burrowed into the silver gunk.  Time to fight like a Toa.  
She twitched a hand and water roared up through the hatch, slamming into the two beasts and smashing them into a bulkhead.  One clawed frantically for the panel it had gone after earlier, but she flicked a finger, almost laughing aloud, and it was brushed away.  “You may have gadgets, but the world is on my side!” she admonished.  
Both beasts slammed down their hoods and fumbled with the front of the rigid helmets.  Moments later a jet of bubbles spurted out of their helmets and the water in their suits drained, leaving the heads- now visible through a translucent helmet- gasping for breath.  The unconscious ones began to twitch as they drifted.  Their helmets, fortunately for them, were already shut.  
Gali narrowed her eyes and the water formed into a terrible whirlpool.  She couldn’t let them get to the gadgetry they had in the ship- so she sucked the water, and them with it, out and the hatch and rammed them into the bottom.  And again, and again.  She was mad.  “Enough, I suppose,” she muttered as the unconscious ones came awake and began to look around with utterly alien expressions.  
She pushed off from the ship and drifted down towards them, looking around warily.  Where had the spiders gone?  A flicker of motion out of the corner of her vision caught her eye and she whirled about, hands shooting out.  A jet of current caught the poor kalo-fish and sent it whirling, looking very dizzy.  She muttered an apology and continued her descent.  
One of the serpent-beasts looked up and its eyes widened.  Its mouths moved frantically as it began to beat on the silver crust beneath it.  Has it gone mad?  Then, suddenly, the silver bulged below her, precisely the one spot she hadn’t been watching.
And two spiders lunged at her.  
She would have been dead right then, for her Hau didn’t cover unexpected attacks, and the spiders were firing wildly with the silver lightning rods- plasma guns, as the Ko-Koronans had called them.  But the water in front of them burst into bubbles and steam and became very hot, and the greenish bolts of lightning slowed and dissipated just in front of Gali’s very startled chest.  The water was limiting their range!
 The serpents clearly hadn’t counted on that.  They swam madly away, a most curious motion.  She was busy, though.    
A gesture and all the water in the area crushed in on the two guardians.  They fired again as their defense shields flashed, but they couldn’t take the weight of ten Kane-ra sitting on them, and they crumpled in a shower of sparks and drifted away, hulks of metal.  The twin bolts of lightning, much weakened by the time they got to her, plowed through their own cloud of superheated bubbles and steam and slammed into her defensive Hau field.  She barely even noticed. Gali caught one ball of guardian-wreckage and slung it over her shoulder, using some loose cable as a strap.  Then she raised her arms and called down the powers of water.  Moments later, the silver liquid was little more than pulp.  
Then, whistling happily, she spent the next three very enjoyable hours chasing the serpents down, stalking them, and one by one, knocking them out.  


“She’s back!” cried Maku as a head, clad in a golden mask, popped out of the water only a few hundred bios away from where she had been sitting for the last five hours, watching intently for the return of Gali.  A clawed arm, aquamarine blue, reached up and gave a brief view, then both vanished.  Moments later, Gali climbed nimbly over the edge of the plant-fiber pad, spurning the diving chamber that she could have used.  Kopaka and Pohatu, faces dispassionate but curious and friendly but curious, respectively, burst out from the Nokama’s nearby hut and sprinted over.  “How’d it go?” Pohatu asked breathlessly.  “Did you find them?”
“That I did,” she replied, smiling grimly.  “Good to see both of you.  Now, I’ve got a little present.”  

She turned and dipped her hooks under the water.  Her mask glowed briefly as she engaged the Pakari function.  Then she hauled a dripping, slimy net out of the water, borrowed from some long-forgotten fisher’s cache, and single-handedly dumped the mass on the pad.  A quick slice of her claws and the net fell open, revealing the tangled forms-still dozing- within.
The village froze.  Far, far distant, a bird could be heard, calling eerily into the setting sun.  To the villagers, the cries seemed eerily distorted, like words of prophecy.
Doom…doom…doom…

More for Exosphere: Invasion.  PLEASE REVIEW- it's on page 8!  I've gotten practically no views...(sob)

Deep in the jungles of Le-Koro, a forest-green figure paused for a moment as an eerie tingling sensation ran up and down it’s spine.  Lewa’s distraction caused him to lose his grip on the vine he was dangling from, and he plummeted earthwards for a few moments before his mask glowed and he halted, floating in midair on twin plumes of energy.
“Did you feel that?” he asked the group of Le-Koronan hunters dangling from nearby vines, in the process of moving to another group of trees.  
The lead hunter’s face showed nervousness that could not be attributed to the dark, dank forest and the thunderstorm broiling overhead.  “I did, Lewa.  What was it, I wonder?  Felt like a ghost crawling up my spine.”  
Lewa shivered.  “Bohrok, maybe?”
Then his attention was arrested by something else.  The air itself was beginning to tingle, now.  He cocked his head and listened to the woods around him.  His glowing eyes widened as just a tad of fear washed through him.  “The birds…are going silent…” he muttered, and gulped.
Then he heard something else.
The hunters stiffened, spears and discs held ready, as a low thrum-thrum-thrum resonated throughout the woods.  It grew steadily louder, and was soon accompanied by a rushing of air, like some leviathan Nui-Rama was hurtling towards them.  
“What in Mata Nui’s name?” Lewa, the lead hunter, and most of the rest of the group gasped, and then every one of their mouths fell open and their eyes widened to possibly the widest they had ever gone.
Spots of light were playing across the jungle around them.  They were coming from above, as evidenced by the shadows of trees projected in harsh relief by their whitish glow.  Lewa glanced up in awe.
And up.  And up.
A huge bulk blocked out the fading twilight.
It just sat there in the air, twice as large as Le-Koro, thrumming with massive power, sending waves of tingling down there spines.  It was a colossal spine of metal, perhaps a kio long, conical at both ends, with huge pods, large enough to comfortably fit half a thousand Tohunga, slung around the spine in organized intervals.  Lights glowed along its length, clear signs of life, and the rear glowed eerily- as did strips along the bottom, which faded and glowed in time with that terrifying thrum.  Glaring searchlights probed from the glistening silver hull, and to Lewa’s unending terror, he realized that they were searching for them.  
Or perhaps not.  As the searchlights began to play, the ionization in the air doubled, then tripled.  The braided bits of cloth on the hunter’s tunics crackled with ionization and flung apart, charged with static electricity.  On the terrifying massive above them, which held them all paralyzed with fear, three spots along the bottom irised open.  
An inferno raged within, green fire and terrible fury, more horrific than any legendary ####.
Tongues of lightning as thick around as a tree whiplashed out of the ports, and for a moment, there was no sound- just long enough for Lewa to signal the hunters to grab onto the nearest solid object.
Then Mata Nui’s terrible wind blew around Lewa, accompanied by an indescribably loud roll of thunder.  The boiling hurricane roiled around him, but he was unharmed.  A halo of elemental force warded the raging wind away from Lewa.  He blindly continued to keep up the barrier, thanking the fates that he hadn’t been looking directly at the whiplash of energy.
He knew what it was.  The serpents were back.

When Lewa dared to open his eyes again-seemingly an eternity later, but only perhaps half a minute- the arrogant bulk still eclipsed the sky, just hanging there.  The hunters lay, unconscious, sprawled over the tree ledges they had fled to.  “This has to be a nightmare,” he told himself, and glanced down at his beloved jungle where the three whiplashes of energy had converged.
It was gone.  All that was left was a two kio-wide hole in the trees, a three-kio wave of toppled trees, and scorched and flaming trees outside that.  In the center of the hole was a crater, perhaps two hundred bios deep, of glass.  And Lewa realized, rather vaguely, that the ship- for that was what it had to be- was descending into the hole.
“That could have been Le-Koro!” he gasped, and in what he reflected was later not a wise action, got very mad.  The thought of his beloved village being smashed with such careless ease and lack of compassion, in the span of a few seconds, was infuriating.
He called upon the power of the wind and slammed every bit of air in the surrounding kilometers into a shell around the ship.
An egg of rainbow energy popped into being surrounding the ship as the terrible wind reached it.  Lewa maintained enough oxygen in the surrounding area to keep breathing, but otherwise, all his resources were dedicated to destroying that ship.  His head began to throb.
The shield-barrier began to glow dull cherry red.
Lewa’s head ached and felt as if someone had stabbed it.
Orange and blue crept into the egg, as miniature tornadoes whirled around it.
Pain lanced through Lewa’s body and his vision blurred.  “Can’t…stop…now…” he grunted, wondering exactly why he couldn’t stop.
The ship obviously had to put all power into it’s shielding- there was nothing left for weaponry to smite down this little bug attacking it.
The egg began to glow violet, as Lewa’s vision tunneled and began to shrink into a black field.  It light up the sky like day.
A terrible flash of light burst across his vision and lines of flame raced across the ship’s hull from one central point as the field generator fused into a hulk of slag.  The egg vanished and the elemental fury reached to crush the ship.
Lewa fell, limp, in mid-air, and only fortune and an intervening branch prevented him from falling to his doom.  All the air that had surrounded the ship rushed back to its proper place with a tremendous thunderclap.
A few minutes later, a burnished-silver arrowhead nosed through the trees, slamming them down when necessary with lines of green fire, and collected the scattering of limp, unconscious bodies, sprawled on nearby tree-trunks or branches.    
“Mata Nui, we have a problem,” muttered Kongu from his vantage point in a nearby tree- where he, unfortunately, had been able to do nothing for his unconscious friends and Toa, owing to the fact that they were obviously being watched by the serpent-heads- and turned to swing, hurriedly, back to Le-Koro.  His statement, as it turned out, was quite correct.

“Tahu,” Onua explained with almost infinite patience, “the reason we came here is to talk about defending Mata Nui.”  
“Well, can’t we do that somewhere else?” the Toa of Fire grumbled as he waved his sword about in the air in front of him.  The ice and snow around his feet melted to steam, but his sword was more pale than usual.  Ko-Wahi was getting to him.  
“I know, I know,” Onua sighed.  “If Kopaka likes it, you don’t.  Why don’t you two ever admit you’re friends and get it over with.”
Tahu muttered some protest, which sounded vaguely pathetic.  Then he gave a sigh.  “Ah well, I’ll do what I can with what I’ve got.”
“You’re learning patience,” Onua said approvingly.  Just after they had arrived on Mata Nui, he had have received a glare and a hot-tempered retort about being patronizing.  Now he got a feeble glance which was supposed to be malicious, but just made them both chuckle.  
“He’s not so bad,” Tahu admitted, and got a shocked glance.  “Sometimes,” he added hastily.  
“I was wondering if you were going to let it come out that easily,” Onua laughed, and clapped Tahu on the back, nearly knocking him off his feet into the snow.
A beam of crackling ice energy slammed into Onua and sent him flying into the rock face of the frigid canyon they were trundling down.  
“Ohhh……” he muttered, in obvious pain, at the same time Tahu shouted, “Bohrok!” and sent a wash of inferno-fire from his sword back up the side of the cliff.  
A figure writhed up on the crest for a moment, then tumbled down, emitting high-pitched clicking which grated on both Toa’s nerves.  Onua picked himself up, groaning, and turned to face the Kohrak that tumbled down the face towards them.  Two more popped up at the top of the cliff.
The first Bohrok, incredibly resilient, slammed to a halt and unfolded itself.  One arm was missing and it was dazed, but nevertheless, it sprinted forward, sending crackling waves of ice at Tahu, who ignited his sword and crouched into a guard position, his Hau field crackling in front of him.
The second pair of Bohrok were even less lucky than the first.  As they prepared more ice salvos, a wave of earth slammed into them from behind.  One’s head was smashed by a rock and it sprawled out, flat, on the ground.  Onua toasted its krana with a bolt of elemental energy.  
The other rolled to a stop in front of Onua and had barely time to get up before Onua was on it, claws ripping and tearing.  But this Bohrok had a strength krana, and it parried with its own razor claws, then went on the offensive.  
Sword clashed on razor-blade as Tahu and the first Kohrak sparred.  Tahu feinted straight ahead, then kicked out low with one Pakari-enhanced foot.  The Bohrok blocked with one shield-like hand, then brought the whirling razor-blade on its other hand slashing in from the side.  Tahu flicked his blade across, forcing the Bohrok’s own razor-hand up, then jerked it in.  A hiss of agony sounded as the limb fell to the ground, and the wound was instantly cauterized by the flaming blade.
But he’d left a hole in his defenses- Hau and normal- and the other razor-hand sliced a line of freezing agony across his midsection.  He barely restrained a agonized cry into a bellow, and kicked out.  His foot jarred to a stop as the Bohrok skillfully blocked, then riposted with a low thrust.  
His Hau-field crackled and the Bohrok took two steps back, wavering.  Its defenses were down just long enough for Tahu to whip his arm forward.
His sword whirled through the air like a meteor and stuck, twanging and quivering, into the Bohrok’s head shield.
It slumped to the ground, krana transfixed by the masterful throw.  Fires raged inside it.

The clang of metal on metal sounded as Onua blocked blow after blow by the aggressive Kohrak.  They were well-matched in strength and stamina, but Onua had the advantage of his Hau.  He pushed off into a Miru-aided flip, claws raking over the Bohrok and scoring gashes all across it.  Beams of ice coursed across him in retaliation, and he gave a wavering gasp at the cold.  His Hau blocked the majority of the blast, though.
“Very well,” he said to the Bohrok, “I won’t play your game any more.”  Then he blurred into motion, far faster than the Bohrok could manage.  His mask glowed with the Kakama function as his blows rained fast on hard.  It kept up well, cunning and skilled, but it couldn’t match Onua’s speed and strength.  Eventually a clawed punch slipped through and shattered the Bohrok’s head-shield, crushing the krana. The vicious thing sprawled over.  

“We had best move before more come,” Tahu suggested as the two weary Toa crouched beside each other in the canyon, thoroughly winded.  
“I think it was just an isolated patrol,” Onua said.  “But what bothers me is that they usually travel in eights.”
Tahu frowned.  “They would have all attacked at once, I think.”
“Certainly.”
Disturbed, Tahu activated his Miru and pushed off hard from the canyon floor.  He coasted to a stop above the lip and looked around.
Sprawled across the ice was one of the most bizarre, terrifying sights he would ever see.
Five Bohrok lay, smashed, on the ice, components strewn everywhere and krana dead.  Near them lay two sprawled, black forms, their heads a nest of serpents.  They clutched silver cylinders.  Both were bleeding black ichor, but their wounds seemed to be healing unnaturally quickly.
“Dear Mata Nui,” Tahu whispered.  “They didn’t have armor or the elements.”
“And they took down five Bohrok.”

Two days later

"You misunderstand me," Matau grated, his voice full of anger and frustration.  "Le-Koro is under seige."

"I'm sure you can handle a few Nui-rama," Vakama replied, trying to keep his increasingly angry friend under control.  "But we'll send reinforcements if you want."  
         "They aren't Rama," Matau hissed, sending an angry glare along the table.  Each and every one of the Turaga flinched at the sheer anger- and, perhaps, fear- in his eyes.
         "They're metal, and huge, the size of a Ga-Koronan leafpad, or bigger.  They fly, hurl green lightning, and are quite capable of devestating an entire squad of my Kahu!"
       "That's preposterous!" sputtered Vakama, unable to comprehend what Matau was saying.  "They're Bohrok illusions!"
          "No," said Nokama, who had been silent the entire meeting.  "I've seen one."  
         "Whaaat?"  The shout of astonishment was almost simoultaneous from every Turaga around the stone table.  
       "I was meaning to bring it up after Matau's plea," she grimaced.  "One attacked Ga-Koro.  I've already sent messengers to your villages to warn you.  Kopaka defeated it with one of the lightning cylinders from the previous crash."
        "Crash? What do you mean?" asked Vakama, sounding a little frightened.  
        "I mean that these beings don't come from Mata Nui, or even our world," Nokama said firmly.  "That thing was some sort of a....ship for carrying them here from there home."


-Sorry I couldn't finish, but I'm being dragged off to school.

Apologies about all the errors in that last post, I was a bit rushed.  Some more:

       "They come....from another world?"  Onewa croaked after a brief silence.  "How...what...why..."  
       "I can answer the last question only," Nokama said.  "They want the protodermis.  And us for slaves, of course."
      "How do you claim to know that?" Whenua asked, frowning heavily.
       "Because they're already heading for Onu-Koro.  My scouts saw two arrow-ships driving north towards Onu-Koro yesterday.  We must presume this means they are going to invade.  Second, we've analyzed some of the silver liquid and metal used in much of the serpent-head's construction.  The Ko-Koronan scientists say it has a terribly high protodermis content."
       "This is all well and good," Onewa groused, "but what are we going to do about it?"
       "We're going to arm ourselves with the serpent-head's weapons," she replied firmly.  "Matau, have they begun setting up a town where your scouts reported that huge metal abomination?"
        "Yes," he said, sounding rather surprised.  "How did you know?"  
          "Lucky guess," she muttered, waving his question aside.  "I'm going to send the Toa to retrieve weaponry from that base.  I expect all of you to send a contribution from your military.  Then seal up and get on a war footing.  We'll come with the weapons when we can."
         "That's quite an audacious plan," Nuju interrupted. "There are so many things that could go wrong."
         "Then we'll have to trust in Mata Nui," she shot back.  "And, more firmly, the Toa."

"Ah, but therein lies the problem," Matau said sadly.  "Lewa has been captured.  We got a report from one of our scouts who saw him being taken inside one of the serpent-heads vessels."
     "WHAT?" cried Nokama  "And you hadn't told us this!"
   "I'm sorry," Matau muttered, eyes downcast.  "I could hardly bring myself to believe it myself."
    "Than he may be dead," Nuju said grimly.  "But perhaps the Toa will be able to find out."
    "That may not be as heard as you think," Matau said, a brief tinge of relief washing over his face. "Lewa burnt out the ship's...bubble.  The closest thing I can think of is a Hau-shield, but immune to all attacks, up to a certain point when it overloads."
    "Then perhaps we can get inside," Nuju suggested.  "And retrieve Lewa."  
    "They will try their best," Vakama assured the others, and the meeting broke up.

     The jungle was strangely silent.  Except, far in the distance, a harmony of multiple deep thrum-thrum-thrum noises, and a strange tingling that ran up the spine of the commando team approaching that quite artifical forest clearing deep in Le-Wahi.  
    "Ten meter spread.  Ahead fast, no noise," signaled the Ko-Koronan commander.
         The group of Matoran elites behind him spread out and nearly vanished in the foliage.  Green and brown paint was smeared across them, blurring them into the foliage with unnerving precision.  
   Behind them, five pairs of larger footprints advanced through the woods.  This was the only sign of the Toa accompanying them.  They had come from the meeting in Ko-Koro, knowing they were the only hope for the success of this mission.  
     The commander dropped behind and spoke to empty air.  "Your masks are functioning?"
     "The invisibility masks are working perfectly," acknowledged a strong, deep, but muttered voice from right next to him.  "We approach the clearing?"
      The commander nodded an affirmative and vanished back into the foliage, clutching his razor-honed disk. The Toa and the elites forged on ahead, wary of the far-seeing capabilites the Serpents seemed to have.
       "I hope Lewa's all right," a basso, gentle voice sounded from the back of the line.  "He always seems to get in trouble.  The infected mask in the Nui-Rama nest, the krana, and now this."
       "And you helped him every time," a gentler but no less deadly-sounding voice echoed from in front of him.  "He'll be fine, Onua, and my bet is you'll be the one to find him."
       "Keep quiet," came another voice, hardened to a precise edge as deadly as his sword.  Then it softened somewhat.  "Although, I hope he is all right, Gali."  
      Kopaka- the speaker- broke out into a hesitant chuckle, a sound that he was not accustomed to making.  He said, very hesitantly, "It would be awfully quiet without his Trihunga joke."  
     Pohatu started to choke.

     "Dear Mata Nui," said Tahu, very, very quietly.  The sight before his eyes was one of the most astonishing of his short life on Mata Nui.  The other Toa could only agree.
      The entire clearing was now covered in silver crust, which advanced slowly outwards.  The trees they were now concealed behind- with the Matoran Elites scattered about, disks at the ready- were crusted with silver and were slowly eroding.  The caustic stuff had already cleared out an area equal to that of the original clearing cut by the ship's beams.  That ship was sitting, scorched and blackened, in the middle of the clearing, crouched imposingly like a mother bird over a brood.
     The 'brood' was series of small, rectangular metal huts in the center of the silver pool.  The largest one at the center was surrounded by a shimmering bubble of force, and emblazoned with cruel red symbols which imposed a sense of danger upon it.  Other similar buildings were slowly growing out of the crust, a process which mystified all of them.
     "That has to be the arsenal," the commander muttered from behind them, pointing at the central structure with his spear.  "Nothing else would have so much protection."  
     "Kopaka, are you ready?" Tahu asked quietly.  The Toa of Ice, being judged the best shot of all of them, had been issued their one plasma rod, as the Ko-Koronan scientists had dubbed it.  
    "Affirmative," he intoned coldly.  His golden Akaku whirred briefly.  "I have picked out the target most likely to cause a disturbance.  Those cylinders near the armory seem to be dangerous.  One of the arrowhead craft is parked next to them; perhaps they contain fuel for the vessel.  It is likely explosive.  I hope to disable the armory shield and the arrowhead with a single strike."  
    "I'll take your word for it," Tahu chuckled.  "Gali, have you talked to the elites?"
     "They're in position," she reported. "They have orders to only fire to cover our retreat. I've issued the carry-slings out to Onua and Pohatu.  They should be able to handle a full load and still retreat."
    "I can't believe we're doing this," Pohatu griped from behind them.
   "What?" Gali asked curiously.
   "Treating this like just another Bohrok nest," he replied.  "We've never fought these things!  Gali handled a few underwater, and Tahu and Onua saw a couple near-dead ones in Ko-Wahi.  We don't know anything!"
   "Too late to stop now," Tahu snapped back.  "Kopaka: go."
   The Toa of Ice cloaked himself with one of his mask powers and took two steps out onto the silver crust of the clearing.  The other Toa could use their Akaku to see him raise the cylinder.  His mask whirred and focused.
    And the lights on the arrowhead snapped on.  The thrumming in the area increased tenfold as the ship's antigravs (the Toa had no idea that was what they were) rushed up to full power.  Another arrowhead-ship could be heard rushing towards the clearing.  
   Serpents started boiling out of the square huts.  All of them were clutching longer versions of the plasma rods and wore dark armor.  And guardian-spiders started bursting out of the crust right in front of Kopaka.
    He kept his cool.  A tendril of green lightning speared through the warm air and slammed into a pipe linking two of the red tanks.  His aim was true as ever.  A fiery explosion blossomed across the Serpent camp, tossing shards of metal into the air.  A violet flash of light heralded the downing of the armory hut shield, and moments later another explosion burst from the place where the arrowhead had been powering up.  More metal and flame crackled down amongst the serpents, who dashed for cover, shouting in a sibilant tongue.
   Lightning flashed from the ground before Kopaka.  He was hurtled backwards and slammed into the foliage wall at the edge of the clearing.  Tahu heard one groan and then silence.  "For Mata NUI!"  he screamed, and moments later a boiling whirpool of four elemental energies crackled and lashed from the Toa's position as they strode forward from cover. Guardians flashed, crackled, and burst in argent washes of flame.  More lightning crackled from the camp, splashing off quickly dimming Hau-field, and disks whirled through the air in return. Battle was joined.  All-out war had come to Mata Nui.

Even as the battle progressed, the outcome was uncertain. More and more of the guardians kept pouring out of the silver crust, which was heaving and rippling as if alive.  The guardian-spiders seemed to have no trouble keeping their feet, but the Toa were having trouble aiming and staying up with the heaving of the semi-ground beneath them.  Worse yet, the ship above them was coming alive.  
       As he gritted his teeth against the pain of sending blast after blast of roaring flame from the tip of his sword, Tahu could see no less than three turrets containing what appeared to be heavy plasma rods beginning to blink into life and turn towards them.  
      But on the other hand, the Toa's elemental energies seemed to have dazed the serpent-heads.  The arrowhead that had been rushing towards the clearing- Tahu's Akaku had shown it clearly about a kio off and closing fast- had veered off when the three of them had started tossing elemental power about madly.  The serpent-head troops were staying low and firing rarely, because there was a meteor storm of rock and pumice pelting down around them.  
      Pohatu and Onua had tossed an entire cliff face into the air and Tahu had set it alight.  It was now flaming down among the serpent-head camp, setting several fires, and pelting the serpents who had survived the initial blasts set off by Kopaka's plasma rod fire.  
     "Gali!  Cover Onua and Pohatu!" he shouted hoarsely as he crouched behind yet another rock that had fallen from the sky, sending a boiling wave of infernal fury over another pair of Guardians.  Their shields snapped and crackled but held and he bellowed as more green lightning washed over him, some leaking through his Hau-shield and burning his torso painfully.
     "Get to the armory hut!" he cried, as loudly as his parched, burned throat would allow him to.  "Get weapons and arm yourselves.  I'll deal with the ship!"
     He gritted his teeth and flicked on his mask.  His form blurred as the Kakama did it's work.  He barged forward, shoving over both of the spiders and crushing them with the Pakari, then charged over the heaving silver crust at lightning speed.  
    Two serpent-heads loomed out of the haze of dust and smoke ahead of him.  One gave a surprised hiss.  Lightning flashed past him and a thunderclap of super-hot air scalded his side.  He spun, sword flashing high and low, and heard the crack of metal on armor.  One serpent was laid low, unconscious, and the other took the fringe of his sword-flame in the face and slumped to the ground, reaching with one grotesque arm for a whining pack of metal on the ground near him.  Tahu wasn't cruel enough to deny him his healing herbs, or whatever was in that pack, and he sprinted onwards, through the shattered ruins of the camp.  The bulk of the serpent-head ship loomed before him.  
      A lashing tongue of lightning carved a crater in the ground next to him.  The ship was powered up!  He caught a brief glimpse of the other three Toa, deeper into the camp, elemental fire raining down from them over a group of serpent heads.  Gali was in the midst of that group, leaping and twisting, green fury lashing by her as if she weren't there.  Every so often a claw would lash out with incredible accuracy and knock a serpent out of the fight.
    "I don't think we've killed a single serpent this entire battle," he grimaced as he dodged to the side, his Kakama letting him slip out of the way of plasma fire with unnerving speed.  "Well, perhaps in the explosion.  But didn't Gali say non-lethal was always better?"  He chuckled, hoarsely, trying to keep his spirits up, and ran on.
   Ten bios...leap!  Mud and caustic liquid splattered over him as a another bolt crackled past and into the silver crust.
   Five bios...I'm there!  he thought triumphantly.  The turrets could no longer depress enough to follow him.  He leapt for the hull.  A hatch began to slide open a few bios to his right.  He sent a roaring tongue of flame down it and the serpents inside ducked back, singed badly.  
    He raised his sword, heated it to glowing intensity, and slashed it along the hull, there, there, and there.  It was too deep!  He angrily slashed again, kicking aside a guardian who popped up at him.  A brief glimpse backwards showed the elites hurling disks into a mass of spiders who boiled around the edge of the clearing, firing madly.  Two elites were down but they seemed to be doing fairly well.  
  Finally!  A chunk of the hull slammed to the ground in front of him, revealing a dark, forbidding, somehow wrong interior.  He took one last glance around, saw the other Toa besieged at the door of the armory hut, resisted the urge to go to them, and leapt into an entirely alien world.

He was just in time.  As he rolled into the corridor, wincing at the pain of his wounds slamming on the hard deck, a shimmering, opaque field of blue-black force sizzled into being over the hole in the hull.  "Yeesh," grumbled Tahu as he picked himself up and looked around.  "What'll they have next?"
    Jabbing the field with his sword produced a slight ripple and shimmer.  Tahu felt confident he'd be able to blow it down with elemental power, if necessary.  
    The corridor he was in was circular, lit from the bottom by singularly dull purple-gray light strips which seemed to make light out of nowhere, without even lightstones. The walls were silver and roughly textured, as if they had seen heavy use.  Strange noise floated through the corridor- the sounds of an alien environment he'd never experienced.  
    Also, the walls were covered in panels of blinking lights, arranged on geometric patterns.  Above most of these was a rectangular or triangular screen of some sort of crystal or quartz.  Tapping on the lights produced a string of characters across the screen, always the same.
   "So I don't have access," Tahu muttered as he stalked off down the corridor.  He had to get away from the site of his entry before security teams came.  Wait...
   He looked about carefully.  And there they were.  Stalks of metal, similar to the ones the guardian-spiders used to sense, were placed along the corridor in even intervals.  
  "Ha!" he shouted into one of them, chuckling to himself.  "I've got you figured out!"  
   Tahu levitated, pushed off the floor of the corridor, and slashed the stalks apart with a quick swing of his sword.  "I can do this," he muttered to himself.  Feeling slightly confident, but more scared and confused, he activated his Kakama and sprinted off down the corridor.

Tahu soon discovered that using the Kakama here was certainly a bad idea.  It was too enclosed, and even with his Akaku, he didn't have the reflexes to avoid slamming into walls.  So, acutely aware that this place was making him very uncomfortable, he grimaced and tried another tactic.  He reached out with his mind, picked one of the life-sparks he felt through his mind control mask at random, and seized it.  
       Darting through neural pathways, he flicked a synapse here, opened a neuron there, and soon had a picture of what the terrified serpent-head was seeing.  Jackpot!
        He winced at what he saw.  Lewa was slumped against a rough metal wall, only slightly beaten, but looking very exhausted.  A series of wires pierced the back of his neck, making Tahu wince sympathetically again.  Another pair of wires entered his arm just below the shoulder, pumping in a mix of foul liquids, presumably to disorient him. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be sleeping fitfully, and the serpent-heads, including the one he was know controlling, were gathered around a screen nearby, into which the neck-wires led.
       How far was it?  He called up a mental map that the serpent-head had stored handily away.  Lewa was two levels up, near the core of this module.  He had been lucky, very luck.  Tahu smiled grimly as he wiped memories of the intrusion from the dazed serpent-head's mind, then released him to sag to the floor.  Hopefully it'd be taken as a sudden disease or ailment.
      Hang on, Lewa, I'm coming, he thought, then started off down the corridor, sword held ready.  Tahu cloaked himself in an invisibility field, but still he smashed silver stalks whenever he saw them on the walls.
      The first problems began when he reached an open atrium where three corridors joined.  Two serpent-heads crouched behind a silver metal plate, both clutching lightning rods and wearing black armor that flexed and bent with their motions.  Their heads weaved and dodged, looking every which way.
     Tahu winced and took a few careful steps into the atrium, realizing quite suddenly that the door in the wall behind him was the one that would lead him to the level where Lewa was being kept.  So he'd have to deal with the serpent-heads.
     He grimaced, because he was in no mood for any more fighting, and also because if these two went down no doubt the rest of the ship would no where to focus its efforts.  
     Tahu activated the mask of Telekinesis and gave a mental shove. Every button on the quartz grid next to the door depressed quite suddenly, and it hissed open.  
      The two serpent-heads turned half their heads to watch.
      Mata Nui! Tahu cursed, and decided to take advantage of the situation anyway.  Fire washed out, revealing him, but at the same time melting and crushing the three silver watch-stalks spaced around the room.  He refocused his efforts, sending flame jetting from his sword towards the two serpent-head soldiers.  They crouched behind the barrier, which deflected his flames neatly, blackening the walls of the chamber.
     Tahu snarled as green lightning crackled off his already-weakened shield, reducing it to a bare soap-bubble shimmer around him.  One of their shots was equivalent to being trampled by a Muaka!  
    Fire snarled and snapped from from his sword as he darted aside from another stream of lightning bolts.  He curved it around the barrier, slamming into the warriors, but their armor held long enough to hit him again and send him sprawling, painfully, into a wall.
   An entire group of Tahus pulled themselves to their feet.  Green lightning lanced out from behind the barrier, where the two battered warriors tried to make sense of this sudden development.  Two, then three more of the images shimmered and vanished.  
     The real Tahu leapt forward from where he'd snuck around behind them, cloaked with invisibility, and slammed the flat of his sword down on one warrior.  A quick twirl and the other warrior was down, too, both sleeping soundly.  
    Tahu strode over to the door, slammed it open, and fell into a pit.

This was originally longer, but my connection failed so I lost it all.  I'll do the second half next time I post.  


"What-" Tahu snarled as he began to fall.  He twitched a portion of his mind, and his fall halted as he snapped to a stop on twin flickering jets of crimson light.  
His brief inspection of his surroundings- more wonderful and terrible than anything he could have imagined a few weeks ago- revealed a tube, curving upwards and out of sight. Apparently it followed the curvature of this section of the ship.
      Then he realized he was moving upwards.
     The walls were shooting by at a leisurely jog.  He looked below him and saw nothing, not even levitation jets.  He'd unconsciously shut them off when he felt something that felt like a stone wall below him.  
      "What?"  He'd been saying that a lot lately.  Shaking his head, he flicked on his Akaku and looked at the walls of the tube.
      Surrounding the tube were rings of silver metal.  These encased complicated nests of machinery, which in turn contained a thin sliver of purple energy, tracing around and around and around the inside of the ring.
     These rings emitted an energy which converged in a disk right below him.  It seemed to be supporting him and moving him up.
      Only rings at a level just below him were active.  As he moved upwards, past disks shut off and new ones became active.
      Tahu frowned at a new thought.  As the tube curved, as it was doing, why wasn't he spilled off?
      He braced himself as the tube took a thirty-degree turn inwards.
      Then he gasped, because the disc below him still seemed to be straight down.  They had some way to change gravity so that he could still stay standing straight even when off the vertical plane!
      Tahu looked around again, fighting against nauseau.  How was he supposed to get off?
     An iris hatch loomed ahead, at exactly the right spot for the second level- where he prayed Lewa was.  It was rimmed by a green strip, and green circle was applied to the wall opposite the hatch.
    As he began to pass by, Tahu reached out and frantically hammered on the hatch.  I won't leave you here, Lewa!  LET ME IN!
   One of his blows caught the green strip and the hatch hissed open.  The invisible disc ground to a halt.  The way before him was open.
   There was just one problem.  The hatch was on the ceiling.

After his first few seconds of disconcertment, Tahu snorted at his predicament.  He couldn't help but chuckle.  He was standing sideways, perpendicular to the ground, yet the lifting-disk below him still felt like down.  Yet to reach the ground- or more accurately, floor- he'd have to walk down the wall.  "And I bet it'll feel like I'm walking flat all the way down."  
       He could levitate, but he thought it might attract attention, and he was curious.  So he took a few cautious steps forward, through the iris hatch, and onto the wall.
        Immediately his stomach fluttered strangely.  It felt as if he'd stepped over a curb, then as if he was on a flat surface.  As he walked down, it felt as if he was striding over a perfectly smooth plain, not down a curving wall.
       When he reached the floor, he re-cloaked himself and reached down to pat it.  It was solid.  He laughed at himself, again, and looked around.
       He was in a small atrium, made of that same roughened silver metal.  Near the center was a horseshoe-shaped console facing a door on the far wall.  Two other doors flanked the central door, which was limned in red and black striping.  That same horrendous symbol- a nest of serpents and a starless sky- was emblazoned on the door.  Despite his fierce temper, Tahu shivered when he looked at it.  
       Then the central door burst open.
       Tahu crouched to the floor and snapped his sword out to a guard position before he realized he was invisible.  Have I revealed myself somehow?
      Two serpent-heads carrying long plasma rods and wearing the same blackened armor that had proved so resistant to damage slithered out of the doorway.  The walls around them burst open and guardian-spiders slipped out, clutching plasma rods.  
      Tahu gulped, nervously, but as softly as he could.  They didn't know they were here, did they-
      Then he realized that he'd been betrayed by his lack of knowledge again.  One of the stalks on the walls was following his motions.  They could sense him, even when invisible.  
    Tahu leapt for the door, flame whipping and crackling from the end of his blade to smash spiders into whirling chunks of metal and twisted circuitry, face twisted with rage and fear.  
   Halfway there, his path was intercepted by a swarm of crackling verdant-green lightning.  He slammed into the far wall, screaming in agony as lightning leaked it's way down his spine and traced over his torso, leaving terrible burns.
  He gritted his teeth and raised his sword.  "You are NOT keeping me from Lewa!"  
    Lightning slammed into him and his crumpling shield, but he stood tall against the barrage, fire blazing from his sword.  The light and the heat seemed to go on forever.  He concentrated on the wash of flame, snapping and writhing like something alive, flushing out the agony by sheer stubborness and anger.  That was the way Tahu was.  
     By the time he raised his eyes, a smattering of debris and two unconscious bodies covered in hunks of melted, smashed armor were all that was left of the serpent-head's force.  
      Such was the power of faith.

      Tahu raised his sword again, exhausted, and slashed the sensing-stalks off the walls.  Then he cloaked himself, smashed down the central door, and ran down the corridor, fearing he was too late.  If Lewa was did because he had not come in time, then he would never forgive himself.  He shied away from that line of thought.
      He burst through another door and into a high hall.  On each side were rows of cells, the entrances blocked by the same shimmering field of force that protected guardian-spiders.  
    In the third-farthest cell sprawled the limp form of Lewa.

"Lewa! LEWA!"  Tahu sprinted down the chamber, feet pounding off the rough silver-black surface.  He skidded to a stop in front of the cell- Lewa's axe and mask leaned up against one side- and looked in.
      Lewa was breathing, but he didn't look in good shape.  He was slumped on the cell floor, face-down, unconscious or-worse- in a coma, and looked completely exhausted.  He was unwounded, but still looked as if he'd been through a terrible ordeal.
     With a wince, Tahu realized what it was.  A crown of needles was implanted in the top of Lewa's head, all of them trailing cables which led to a small, blinking metal box at the back of the cell.  More needles- or plugs, or whatever they were- were plunged into his spine down its entire length.  
   "I'm sorry, Lewa," Tahu gasped.  "Oh, curse it all..."
   He plunged his sword into the forcefield, gritted his teeth at the sudden shock that ran up his arm, and began to heat the sword.  After nearly thirty seconds of medium heat, the forcefield sputtered and snapped off.  The generator bars on each side of the room went dark in a shower of sparks.  
      Tahu gently stomped into the cell and crouched down.  He winced at what he had to do, then reached down and pulled the first plug out of Lewa's spine.  
      There was a tiny spark as the plug was removed and Lewa gave a small twitch.  Tahu grimaced and began to pull plugs out as quickly as he could.  He slowed down when he realized that all these electric jolts might send Lewa into a seizure.
      After two agonizing minutes, the plugs had been removed and were scattered on the floor of the room. Tahu sent a burst of fire up the wires, and the machine on the far wall exploded in a small shower of sizzling sparks and chunks of metal.  
     "Lewa!  Lewa, get up!  We've got to get out of here!"   Tahu barked, shaking the Toa of Air as gently as he could.  "Curse it!"
     He reached to his makeshift belt, rarely used, and pulled the potion he'd been saving from a small pouch.  He rolled Lewa over- wincing even more- and poured the electric-blue potion down his throat.  At once Lewa began to cough, then rolled up in a ball and began to hack furiously.  Tahu stood back, grimacing.  
     Finally Lewa rolled over.  "Tahu?" he said, a tinge of gratefulness showing through the pain in his voice.  "Took you long enough..."
     "Here, have some water," Tahu growled, trying to sound angry, but failing utterly.  "That was some fool stunt, trying to destroy the entire ship..."
      Lewa grabbed the vial of water from his hands and drained it in one gulp, then held it out.  "More," he demanded, grinning.
       Tahu broke down.  "It's good to have you back," he said, trying to restrain a huge smile. "Grab your axe and mask, and we'll get out of here.  The water can wait 'til we get to Gali, and so can explanations."
       Lewa got up, dizzily, staggered out of the cell, and did a few bizarre stretches.  Tahu recognized them as ones Gali had recommended to the other Toa for after-battle fatigue and cramping.  They were effective, to say the least.  When Lewa straightened up, he grimaced, but seemed to be in much better shape.  He slammed his mask onto his face and gripped the axe tightly.  "Oh, by the way, where on Mata Nui are we?"
      "That ship you tried to destroy," Tahu said gruffly.  "Speaking of which, I think we've got company."

The door to the prison block hissed open and guardian-spiders began to clack in along the walls, floor and ceiling with equal speed.  Tahu crouched inside Lewa's cell as the Toa of Air sprang past him into cover.  "What's going on out there?" he muttered.  
    Two patches of ground on the floor irised open to reveal a pair of pedestals emerging from the ground.  As they settled in placed, both unfolded plasma rods.  Energy crackled a verdant green around the mouths of the weapons.  
   "Uh-oh," said Tahu, and sent a whipping tongue of flame roaring down the chamber to smash into the nearest turret.  It raged off a glowing field of force and left a blackened stain on the floor and wall around the turret.
   "Uh-oh," echoed Lewa.  
   Green lightning flashed and whipped past them from the spiders.  A pair of the shots- weak, but still damaging- flashed off Tahu's shield.  Lewa crouched around him and raised his axe.  A gust of wind roared down the chamber and sent spiders hurling, the kinetic energy transferring through their shields.  
   Tahu's eyes widened as the two turrets fired, and he braced himself.  One arms-width bolt of ravening energy slammed into Lewa's Hau-field and tossed him backwards to the far wall of the cell.  Tahu winced as Lewa gave small cry.  He still had open wounds on his back.  
   The other bolt smashed into the floor in front of Tahu as he levitated, sending a wave of heat rippling over him.  Sparks flew and showered off his Hau-field as he stood his ground- or air, since he was floating- and sent wave after wave of fire into the crawling nest of spiders and the two turrets.  
  Energy spalled off his shield and he went hurtling backwards to slam into the ground.  He hear Lewa screaming something over the roar of energy.  "-just get yourself killed!"  
    If the situation didn't change rapidly, that was exactly what was going to happen.

Sorry, have to stop, my little brother is ranting and raving and wants to get on.  He'll claw me if I don't let him...
   
    "

Lewa waved his axe over Tahu's ringing head and another gust of air picked up a group of spiders and slammed them into the far wall.  They were pinned there, waving their mandibles helplessly, as the gust of pressure crushed their shields and flattened them.  
Serpent-heads in blackened armor began to pour through the door, firing madly in their direction.  Tahu glanced behind him at a grinding noise- and realized the Exosphere was apparently quite paranoid.
 The wall behind him was sliding forward, pressing them out of their cover.  
   Black-clad serpent-heads, their necks bobbing and weaving wildly, advanced along the wall, firing madly.  Energy crackled of Tahu's weakening shield and he winced.  Another pair of huge bolts from the turrets dug up the floor behind him and sent a gush of liquid into the air like brief geyser.  
    Tahu and Lewa hurled everything they had out.  Tahu  despaired as sensor-stalks saw through their illusions and invisibility, shields deflected spitting, whipping tongues of elemental energy, and his Akaku was jammed by all the plasma in the air.  
      Behind him, Lewa moaned as more lightning crackled off him.  "I can't take much more of this."
      "Neither can I," Tahu agreed through his parched throat as he chased a pair of too-bold serpent-heads away with a wash of flame.   One question rang through his mind:  was this the end?  
       Lewa tapped him on the shoulder and Tahu glanced back.  Lewa indicated his mask and cried, "Mind control!"
      Tahu's eyes widened.  Why hadn't he thought of that?  
      He turned about, seized the minds of two of the serpent-heads, and delicately flicked a few areas.  
     Moments later, the pair of troopers turned, hissing and began to fire into their own troops.  
     More joined them- up to the limit of the masks, about five each- giving Lewa and Tahu time to move.  
    Tahu noted the wall behind them had slid so far they were almost out in the open.  "We need help!" he cried despairingly, although loathe to admit it.  
    By Mata Nui's grace, it showed up.
    The wall at the near end of the prisoner's hall blew open and sunlight streamed in.
   The Exosphere troops were skilled. he had to give them that.  Immediately two whip-tongues of verdant green plowed through the opening.  
    Gali ducked and they went streaming out into the sunlight to slam into the arrowhead that had just come to firing position behind them.  
    The ship was damaged, but not heavily.  Pouring out noxious smoke, it listed to port, whirled about, and was gone on a streamer of plasma.  
    Gali, levitating and firing jets of rock-solid water, shouted something over the roar of battle as Tahu and Lewa contributed their firepower to their dwindling supply of mind-controlled troops.  "-on!"
    "Go, Lewa!" Tahu hissed.  The Toa of Air had no time to argue as the wall pushed them out into the open.  He sprinted for the opening, took a hit just as he reached it, and plummeted out of the opening.  He was just conscious enough to slow his descent with is Miru.  
   Gali plunged after him as Tahu backed quickly towards the door.  He leapt back, tripped, and tumbled over the edge and into thin air.  
   Blindly he called on his Miru and jerked to a halt.  He was halfway down one of the main cylinders on the ship.  As he looked, the gaping hole above him sizzled and crackled as a force-field popped into being over it.  Exosphere troopers came to the edge and began to fire.  
    As Tahu ducked and darted away, relishing the sensation of flying, a disturbing thought came to mind:  how did they fire through shields?  He had to find out; it might be critical.  
    A whistling behind him alerted Tahu as an arrowhead flashed past, plasma rods blazing.  The pressure wave from one bolt tumbled Tahu head over heels and he began to fall again.
    A quick pulse on the Miru rectified that.  He wheezed through a scorched throat.  "LEWA! GALI! ANYONE!" he screamed, pointing to the roiling elemental storm clouds above.  
   He saw Gali, crouched over Lewa, who was sprawled on the ground, raise one crackling claw.  
  A bolt of lightning burst from their storm- elemental air cover- and shattered the arrowhead as it came around for another pass. Shards of metal and burning chunks of something plasticy rained through the air around him.  Tahu winced.  What a way to go.  
    Suddenly, a salvo of verdant green energy whistled up from the forest he was fast approaching, whistled over the now-ruined Exosphere camp, and splashed around the forcefield-sealed gap in the hull.  They were inexpertly aimed, cluing him off to who had fired.  The Elites had gotten their hands on  plasma rods!  Unfortunately, they were no good with them.
     Tahu activated his mind control mask and bellowed into the minds of everyone- he was amazed to see nearly two-thirds of the elites were gone- "Retreat!  We've got to get out of here!"  
     They did.  Fast.  The Toa used their Kakama to remove themselves from the clearing faster than they had ever left a battle-zone before.  There were few enough elites left that the reunited six could carry them.  But Onua and Pohatu both had slings full of perhaps two hundred plasma rods, and the Toa telekined along crates containing perhaps a thousand more.  The Matoran now had a fighting chance.  
    But Tahu couldn't shake the feeling of dread hanging over him

I finally got my password, and I'm back! More Exosphere is coming shortly. I've also 'injected' an epic between Invasion and Backlash: Exosphere: Void. Anyway, I don't have time to write right now, but I'll post the next update soon.

The commando team's exit from Le-Wahi was a terrifying medley of alien energies, argent fireballs, and the eery tingling of the arrowhead's flying fields. Pohatu grimaced as another screeching projectile streaked over their heads and slammed into the jungle somewhere ahead. A brief fireball wafted up from the jungle floor. Another steaming crater to jog through; well, at least it was something like Po-Wahi.
"What...are...those...things?" Onua panted from his position several strides behind Pohatu. He was carrying several members of the strike team on his back, along with a sling of plasma rods, while simoultaneously telekining a group of crates along. He didn't look happy, but, being Onua, he wasn't complaining.
"Arrows propelled by a chemical reaction," Kopaka whoofed. Even he sounded a little out of breath. "I think they can see us, somehow."
Pohatu shook his head, a little dazed. "Sure. This must be from those haloosy gasses you mentioned earlier."
They were jogging along the rough jungle floor, Gali lugging Lewa along, having to make do without their Kakamas. They'd tried them earlier- but somehow the serpent-heads had found them from that, and they'd been surrounded by a rain of exploding metal arrows and strafing arrow-heads. Two of the elites had been hit by shrapnel. They had done their best to heal them, but without some of the salves kept at most villages, the elites risked infection on their wounds, or worse.
"I think we're getting out of range," Lewa muttered, from his position bouncing on Gali's back. He had been awakened by a spray of shrapnel, not the most pleasant thing he had hoped for. "I can't sense the air currents from the arrows any more."
"'Bout time," Pohatu grunted, slowing slightly and shifting his sling of plasma rods to the other shoulder. "You know, I think a Le-Koronan tracker could do a better job of finding us than they did."
"I think the illusions helped," Tahu mused. "They can't tell the difference without the sensor stalks on the spiders."
"Ideas for later," Kopaka said, kneeling to catch his breath. The warm environment was hard on him. "How are we getting out of here?"
"There's a flight of Birdriders out of Le-Koro waiting to pick us up and shuttle us to the council at Ko-Koro," Tahu explained, waving them ahead. "Speaking of which, Lewa, I'm worried about Le-Koro. If the serpent-heads decide to attack, that's going to be the target. We've got to get them out of there."
"As if the Bohrok weren't bad enough," Lewa moaned. "Half the villagers are under Bohrok control anyway." His face was a picture of misery, and Pohatu realized that his village had been hit the hardest by the Bohrok...and now another menace was here to stay.
Next to him, Onua was looking dubious for a completely different reason. "We've got to fly? Can a Kahu support a Toa's weight?"
"I've done it before, and so has Lewa," Gali reminded him. "It's not so bad. And we have to get to the council fast. Other Kahus will take plasma rods to each town for defense."
Onua sighed pathetically. "I'm not fond of flying. But if it's necessary..."
At that moment, they burst out of the jungle into a brief clearing. Pohatu heaved a sigh of relief to see the Kahus were there, browsing on the undergrowth, and surrounded by a bunch of very-worried Le-Koronans. Frowns deepened at the sight of Lewa draped over Gali's back.
"We're okay," Tahu announced brusquely. "We need to get moving. Load these crates on the cargo slings, and when you fly, stay low. Watch out for the arrowhead ships."
The clearing burst into activity, eerily silent. The Elites broke into groups and strapped themselves in on the smaller Kahu, while Onua, Gali, and Kopaka helped load crates onto the cargo slings. It was all done in the ultimate stealthiness.
Pohatu edged through the frenzy of activity to where Lewa had been propped up against a stump. Tahu was patting mud - handily whipped up by Gali from jungle loam - onto a cake of grass and applying it to his wounds and bruises. They weren't so bad, except the deep punctures on his head and along his spine from the wires that Tahu said had been in him. He also had a series of deep slash marks from when he'd hit the ground, and later where he'd taken shrapnel.
Pohatu grimaced at him, then broke into a grin. "How ya doin?" He barely restrained himself from clapping Lewa on the back.
The Toa of Air grinned, then grimaced. "It's good to see you, Pohatu. All of you. This keeps happening to me, you notice? First the Krana, then these serpent heads..."
"It's your natural bravery," Pohatu said, grinning furiously. It faded, quickly. "Stop doing that! We keep thinking we've lost you..."
Lewa tried to push himself up, but Tahu, wearing a concerned look that did not do his 'callous' image much good at all, shoved him back down gently and continued with the poultice. Lewa rolled his eyes. "Don't get maudlin, like Momma Tahu here..."
Pohatu broke out laughing at the expression on Tahu's face.



Two days later...

The Kahu flared gently, coasting down into the glaring snow and ice of Ko-Koro. Brief flashes of light from below showed the lightstone marking the landing point. Pohatu stopped looking down and stared at the pilot's back, taking several deep breaths. The Kahu was flapping up and down nauseatingly, the normal beating motion of the wings exaggerated by the crates hanging on the cargo slings. And it was a long way down. Thank goodness for Mirus...
"Want off?" the pilot shouted over the wind whipping past, gesturing towards Pohatu's mask. The Toa of Stone shook his head furiously and clutched tighter to his cured leather straps. The pilot gave an amused grin, then yanked on the reins and banked the Kahu towards the landing stone.
The stone was normally just a beacon for mail drop, but the cargo in the crates was too fragile to offload- precious plasma rods, perhaps the Matoran's only hope against the serpent-head onslaught. During the frequent stops during the flight here, he'd seen smoke rising from Le-Wahi, and saw, during the night, green flashes over the horizon. He had no doubt that they'd have to accelerate the timetable for evacuating Le-Koro. He grimaced at the thought that most of the outer outposts had probably fallen already.
Pohatu's stomach climbed up into his throat as the Kahu gave a sickening lurch and touched down, skidding on the ice. The pilot yanked on the reins and the Kahu, cawing insolently, dug its claws into the ice and lurched to a stop.
There was a group of Ko-Koronan children across the square, watching the touchdown in awe. Pohatu was mildly annoyed to see them laughing at his expression, but he joined in anyway. His booming chuckle sent the children scattering, not exactly the intent, but still good.
Pohatu dismounted, waved to the pilot, and sprinted off down the main street and took a quick turn into a magnificent hut- Nuju's meeting ground. He was very late.
He skidded through the anteroom, waving to one of the spear-wielding guards, and galloped into the meeting hall.
And came to an undignified halt, mouth hanging open, heart temporarily stopped. Sitting between Nokama and a singularly disgruntled Tahu at the conference table was a serpent-head.


The review topic is still valid, the link is on the first page. Please review!-

This post has been edited by HauNuva: Dec 12 2002, 08:32 PM

"What in Mata Nui's name is going on here?" Pohatu asked, his voice two octaves too high. "You know, that thing is not friendly!" He reeled back into a combat position, energies snapping around his chest. Two rocks levitated from the corner of the room and dropped into his hands
"Actually," Nokama said, beckoning for him to sit, "she is."
"She?" Pohatu queried, his face quite openly puzzled. What's going on here?
"Her name is Ssrinsautha'kemnor-ssraal," Nokama explained, lowering her trident from where she'd raised it to shield the passively sitting serpent-head. "Call her Ssrin. She's a...defector, sort of."
"Sort of?" Pohatu snapped. "Shouldn't we be a little more...sure?"
"We're sure," Nokama explained. "Nuju, Onewa, and I have tested her several times. She's had a chance to kill me and escape, but hasn't taken it. She was one of the crewmembers of the arrowhead ship- which we should be calling a Predator, by the way - that Kopaka shot down. The others are resisting, but she seems to have recognized us as her new...well, I don't know how to explain it. Onewa?"
"She seems to think that since we've had the capability to kill her, but haven't, we've accepted her into a sort of extended family," Onewa said slowly. "I'm not sure I understand totally, but since these creatures are born from eggs, it seems that each batch of eggs-produced en mass, by what I'm not sure, but not the sort of serpent-head we've seen - forms a clan of sorts. The temperature and conditions that the eggs matured in decide what they specialize in. The one's we've faced so far aren't actually warriors...they're miners."
Pohatu sucked in a breath as he plopped down in the seat. "Are there any warriors on their ships?"
Vakama nodded grimly. "Yes. According to Ssrin, there's a batch maturing on one ship right now."
"Wait," Lewa said from down the table. "I thought there was only one ship."
"No," Vakama said, sagging visibly. "There is another one in orbit."
"Orbit?" This from Pohatu.
"Circling the world above us, flying," Matoro explained, interpreting Nuju's rapid hand motions.
"What are they going to do with the warriors?" Tahu interjected, glaring at Ssrin.
"Use them to pacify resistance," Ssrin said in a hissing, thin voice eerily resembling Nokama's. "You cannot withstand them. They are vicious fighters, and quite skilled."
Pohatu nearly fell out of his chair, thoroughly surprised. "She can talk! Mata Nuian!"
"Via this," Nokama said, tapping one of Ssrin's throats, where a small package nested over what could have been a voice box. "Some sort of translator."
Pohatu just shook his head. "That's...astounding."
"You do not use fulltalk," Ssrin said. There was no hint of emotion in her voice, which was still a close duplicate- except the hissing- of Nokama's. "It is very difficult to communicate with you."
"What is fulltalk?" Gali asked, curiously. Tahu shot her a glare.
"Head motions, many-head speech," Ssrin explained, looking rather patronizing. "I do not understand how you do without."
"Let's hold the language lessons," Tahu growled. "What's the other ship going to do?"
Ssrin hesitated, then said, "It is larger than the biolab ship in your jungle. The mining vessel will descend and stink your island dry of what we came for."
There was a pause. "Which...is?" Onua asked slowly.
"Protodermis," Ssrin said.

This post has been edited by HauNuva: Dec 16 2002, 06:31 AM

Onua stood up quite suddenly. "They'll be going for the great mine!"
Ssrin showed her assent with a complicated writhing of her heads. "Your village is in danger."
"Whenua," Vakama snapped, "take one of the Kahus and get back to the village immediately. We'll mobilize the guard with the plasma rods. Matau, how is Le-Koro?"
"I have not visited treebright home for some time," Matau explained. "But the serpent-heads had begun attacks on the outer outposts."
Vakama cursed. "Anything else?"
Mata continued, a note of puzzlement in his voice. "They have also been seen taking animals from downtree and bringing them to their ship. I do not udnerstand the purpose."
"Harvesting," Ssrin explained tonelessly. "The Exosphere seeks no creatures to be engineered as workers and beasts of burden, or to sell on the interstellar market."
Onewa blinked. "I missed half of that, but one salient point: your people's name is the Exosphere?"
Ssrin made the head-twining motion of assent again. Pohatu shivered, and tried to convince himself it was the crisp Ko-Koronan air.

Disaster came faster than they could have expected. Whenua made it home just in time to order a complete evacuation of Onu-Koro. That night, as the last stragglers lugged their baggage out of the tunnels into the fading sunlight of Po-Wahi, something streaked through the atmosphere far above.
"What in the world is that?" Onepu asked curiously as he and Whenua stood near the tunnel exit. He gestured towards a growing star, moving quite rapidly. Perspective made it difficult to judge the direction.
Whenua froze. "I would call it the coming of something new, but I know better." He sighed. "They are coming."
The fireball arced towards them, turning onto a new course as no natural phenomenon should have done. It slowed, and the sheath of argent plasma around it began to fade. It had previously appeared huge and egg-shaped, but it now revealed a colossal spider-shaped craft, lumbering down the gravity well towards them.
A central disc of silver metal spread out colossally, eclipsing the sunlight. Lights shone across it, like fireflies clustering on a plate. Above the disc was a rising pyramid, covered in even more lights, coming to a peak that glowed with barely restrained energy. Spreading around the disc were tapering, slightly downward-curved legs of burnished silver, eight of them, ending in the same glowing tips of energy. It was a fearsome sight, and it grew rapidly.
The bottom of the 'legs' glowed, hurling out plasma and ions, helping the ship decelerate. The central cavity in the disc was not an engine, but a void, like a creature's maw.
Whenua and Onepu stood in astonishment and terror as the tremendous thing hovered over the mountains of Onu-Koro, electricity playing between the engine legs and the ground, just waiting.
Then the tips of the legs shone like stars- and eight beams of ravening light swept down to contact the ground over the cavern of the great mine, neatly slicing and circling.
Whenua reeled back, hands over eyes, thinking, My village! How can we withstand this... He was half-blinded by the display, and had no wish to see the destruction of his home and life. No...
A tremendous wave of compressed air slammed into the two of them, hurling them to the ground. Sound washed over them, a tremendous drumroll beating and hammering at their ears like a thing alive. Whenua curled into a ball, his drill abandoned next to him, clutching at his ears. The terrible roar continued.
The plasma beams left trails of molten rock behind them, filling out a complete circle of rock. The disc of cut stone began to collapse inwards, but more beams of light, spreading outwards from a point, caught the rock before it could colalpse and yanked it upwards. As if they were the hands of Mata Nui themselves, they hurled colossal chunks of stone away from the hole over the great mine.
The ship began to descend. More beams played out to hold up the edges of the hole. The plasma beams finished their cutting. The mine was gone - the elevator systems, the huge mine shaft, everything. The plasma beams had cut through stone deeper than any Matoran had dreamed of- and revealed a gigantic cauldron of silver protodermis, roiling and crackling.
The spider-ship descended like a feeding creature into the hole, the legs flexing slightly to lodge themselves into the stone walls. Grapplers extended from the main body to hold the massive vessel in place.
Onu-Koro was gone, annihilated by the cutting beams. Lying in the dust of Po-Wahi, much of it from the ruin of his dreams, Whenua began to sob.

This post has been edited by HauNuva: Dec 16 2002, 07:05 AM

Pohatu knocked gently on the door of the Po-koronan hut. It was an old hut, abandoned but large, on the edge of town. Onua had been using it since he'd come here to be with the refugees from his village's destruction.
The door swung open and Onua peered at, blinking at the sunlight. He did not look well. "Oh, hello, Pohatu. I was just getting ready to come out."
Pohatu stepped inside and swung the door shut. "Onua, are you quite all right?"
He blinked. "Yes."
Pohatu gave him a piercing glance, a trick he'd learned from Kopaka. "No, you're not."
Onua sighed and sat down on the stone-carved bed. "It's so...unfair. We defend our villages from the Rahi, the Bohrok, nearly sacrificing our lives in the process, but helping to guarantee a future for these Matoran. Then a bunch of alien miners with power we can't imagine descend from the skies...and destroy everything we've worked for in a few minutes. Just because they want..." he shuddered and put his head in his arms. "...protodermis."
Onua whirled around and put a fist through the side of the hut. Pohatu blinked, then put a hand on his shoulder. It was shaking. "Listen to me. Everything will be all right. We can fight these...thing. I overheard Ssrin being interrogated by the Turaga last night, and they've got a plan. We might be able to undo some of the damage that's been done."
Onua turned around and gazed at him with a rather fearsome expression. Pohatu couldn't help but taking a step back. "Then tell me what I can do."
Pohatu grinned. "That's my Onua." They went out into the sunlight.

The six Toa were gathered around Nokama, who was coughing and gagging on the dry, dusty desert air, and the other Turaga, who showed varying degrees of comfort. Also present was the leader of the elite commando team and a group of Ussalry from Onu-Koro. Boxor vehicles were lined up against the far side of the square, shining dully.
"We don't have to worry about the Bohrok any more," Nokama announced, a glint of relief in her eyes. "They're on the defensive. Last night the Bohrok attacked the mining ship and the encampment it's been setting up." Whenua shivered at that and put his head down. "They did damage. I heard reports from our scouts of an arrowhead - sorry, Predator - being shot down by flying Bohrok. But they were overrun by a new type of serpent-head, probably the warriors we heard about. Then a group of Predators bombed the nearest Bohrok nest to pieces." She smiled grimly.
"Ssrin has been a huge help. She has been given several test, including a mind-dredging via mask, and seems completely loyal. There's something about being able to kill her, but not, that has put her loyalty with us." Nokama frowned. "Although I get the sense there's something besides that."
"Anyway," Vakama interjected. "we have another mission for you, a little...different."
Nokama glared at him. "As my friend has said, we need you to go to the mining site on the flanks of the mountain the mining ship is within. There is one hut, according to Ssrin, where there is a stored a bluish cylinder, perhaps an arms-length high, and a group of grey boxes which flip open. Get the cylinder and the boxes, and we may be able to understand some of the Exosphere's plan. Secondary objectives include disrupting their mining and searching for anyone left behind and still alive."
Lewa raised his hand. "I thought the Exosphere's plan was to mine all the protodermis on Mata Nui, then leave."
Nokama shook her head. "Ssrin says they've been going about the process all wrong. Predators are constantly flying out from both ships and scouring the landscape, as if searching for something. We need to know what that is...so they can't get it."
Lewa nodded. There were no more questions, and the operation began at once.

Pohatu crouched behind an obsidian-black chunk of rock expelled from the ruins of Onu-Koro, and stared up the slope at the hive of silver-black buildings and the huge mining vessel looming over them.
"Ummm. Gali, do you think this is such a good idea?"
Gali chuckled from her adjacent hiding place behind a large slab of congealed magma. "Do I think this is a good idea? No, but I can't think of anything better to do."
Pohatu shrugged, his eyes scanning the blackness over the crater for the tell-tale flare of light. "Have you considered that there might be reparations?"
She sobered considerably, and Pohatu caught a faint noise of uncertainty from the adjacent rock. "Yes. I think, quite frankly, that they'll raze a village if we go through with this."
Pohatu stiffened, horror coursing through him. "What? Why in Mata Nui's name are we here?"
"Trust me," she snapped. "I know. Shabren's prophecies."
Pohatu sighed resentfully. "If we weren't friends, I'd be tempted to wring your neck. You and your prophecies..."
"Come over here and try," she said cheerfully, and emphasized the point with a rock that came flying straight towards the eye-slit in his golden Kakama. Pohatu knocked it out of the air with a blast of stone-controlling power, but just in time.
"I get the point. Look!"
A brief geyser of fire had just shot up in the night, farther down the rim of the crater. Pohatu cloaked himself with his mask and began to pick his way up the slope towards the Exosphere's camp.

Pohatu's Kakama surged and in a few moments he had arrived at the edge of the Exosphere camp. As he reached the edge of the silver crust, which was still slowly expanding, he levitated slightly. He didn't want to make Tahu's mistake and alert the spiders in the crust. "Oh, curse it."
There were two serpent-heads in armor at the end of the lane he was approaching. One held a small tablet which tapered off into a sensor-eyestalk similar to that on the guardian-spider. It jerked it's heads up and raised the plasma rod it clutched.
Pohatu waved an arm and a the rock just in front of the pair of guards rose nearly half a bio, tossing them off their feet and spraying them with silver, caustic fluid from the tear in the crust. One shouted in that hissing language and randomly fired a shot. It crackled by Pohatu and sizzled into a boulder behind him.
I don't want to be the one that wrecks this operation... He swopped towards them with his Miru, seeing no way to keep them silent except by knocking them out thoroughly.
All sound in a globe around the two downed guards stopped. Pohatu bit out a cheerful curse and turned to find who had saved him from Tahu's rather certain wrath.
Lewa crouched just over the crust, a finger to his lips. He'd used his air control to stop sound vibrations. As Pohatu watched, he went back invisible. Pohatu gave a silent wave of thanks and continued into the camp. He paused at the door of the huts on either side of the alley and used his Akaku to look inside. No blue cylinder here...
A brief scan of the nearby huts caught no sign of their target. Pohatu continued in, dodging a few serpent-heads walking suspiciously towards the site of the brief disturbance. None of them held sensor-stalks.
Two Predators screamed overhead, and Pohatu ducked, his mid-air passage knocked off course by a brief wave of wind. One Exosphere soldier looked his way curiously, and Pohatu quickly moved. That was close. Far too close.
As he moved, he caught sight of another figure, not a Toa, walking down the street adjacent to his. As he scanned another cluster of huts, he realized he recognized the figure. It was Ssrin! He glided down an alley, dodging a pair of spiders digging into the crust, and glided alongside the rogue serpent-head.
She held a sensor-stalk. One of her heads looked back over her shoulder and motioned no. She held up a small tablet, similar to the one that Pohatu had seen earlier, and tapped at it. Lines of script- in Mata Nuian- scrolled across the screen. Greetings, Pohatu clanfriend. Nokama assigned me to this mission.
I am going to have words with that little Turaga, Pohatu thought. What if the serpent-head wasn't as loyal as the Turaga of Ga-Koro seemed to think?
The Exosphere does not expect our clan to have knowledge of them, Ssrin continued to type. I provide an element of surprise.
Pohatu nodded and reached out to the keypad. I'm going to keep looking for this little...cylinder.
One of Ssrin's heads gave a sharp nod and she continued to stride unconcernedly along. Pohatu veered off - and caught sight, via his Akaku, of Lewa and Onua hovering before a large, low building, looking rather stumped. The blue cylinder was inside, but it was swarming with soldiers.
Pohatu glided towards them. "There's a problem," he muttered.
"They don't seem to have sensor-stalks," Onua whispered back. "I think we're OK. How will we get them away?"
"A distraction," Lewa whispered. "I've got this all figured out."
"Don't get cocky," Pohatu reminded him softly. "They're smart. I don't think they'll fall for that."
"Well, let's give it a try," Lewa murmured, and before Pohatu could stop him, his Akaku-outlined form had swooped off down a line of buildings towards the central crater.
Pohatu looked up, to the huge metallic presence looming over them. From the bottom of the ship extended seven huge, flexible metallic pipes, which dropped down into the crater where the Great Mine had been.
As he watched, one twisted, roiled, sparked, and ripped. Pohatu caught a brief glimpse of a green form hurtling away from the pipe before a gush of protodermis spewed out of the breach and obscured his view. Crackling with electricity, it began to spill down into the crater.
Alarms began to sound throughout the camp. Most of the soldiers at the black building rushed off down a street, upwards towards the mining ship's edge. There were only six or seven left.
Tahu came up behind them. "Was that Lewa? He's going to get himself killed again!"
Pohatu nodded dumb agreement as three Predators screamed by overhead towards the breach. "I think they think it's an accident."
"Plenty likely when handling Protodermis in that quantity," Onua interjected. "Still, they're going to need manpower to fix that. Speaking of which, why didn't the sensor-stalks pick him up?"
"Our serpent-head friend," Kopaka explained from behind him, and Pohatu jumped. "She's been distracting their computer systems via a terminal down that street. She had to stop, though - I hope Lewa got out of the way." He frowned. "She headed off another street. I wonder what she's up to."
Gali showed up. "What are we waiting for?" she hissed, and glided forward. The others followed, and Pohatu heaved a sigh and chased after them.
There was a brief flurry of blows and green lightning spalling off Hau-shields, and by the time it was done, the guards were out cold. Onua, however, was nursing a rather serious burn.
Pohatu slammed open the doors, ducked in and looked about. It was a crowded warehouse, full of trinkets he couldn't identify. In one corner, he caught sight of a small, crystaline blue cylinder next to a stack of grey boxes. He picked them up with a sigh of relief and tied them onto his belt, where they bounced uncomfortably.
There was a brief noise outside, as of a cry cut off. Pohatu looked out the doors, and froze.
The other Toa stood in a semicircle, surrounded by monstrous apparitions. They were huge serpent-heads, covered in lines of black chitin and bone, their heads larger and more alert- looking. Spikes covered their lims and long blades of what appeared to be bone grew from their wrists. They clutched plasma rods in unnerring grips, quite clearly sighted on the Toa. There were at least twenty of them.
Two Predators loomed over the street, green glows playing through their plasma ports. The Toa were quite clearly trapped.
Pohatu didn't see how they could get out of this one.

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Even as Pohatu watched, the silver crust at the feet of the warrior serpent-heads buckled and rippled, and at least two-score of the spider guardians crawled out. The Toa, exhibiting varying degrees of fearfulness (ranging from Kopaka's icy calm to Tahu's barely restrained rage) were now surrounded by enough firepower to level an entire village- as far as Pohatu could tell.
Pohatu swallowed, fear coursing like ice water down his spine, and began to summon up the powers of his Golden Kanohi. Green elemental fire played around his hands. It would be better to go out trying to free his friends than submit to the tortures Lewa had described. He raised his hands and concentrated.
His trance was abruptly broken as one of the Predators exploded.
There was a breef flash of green lightning across his peripheral vision, then a rain of what looked like flaming arrows. Pohatu reeled back into the warehouse, thoroughly bemused, and temporarily deafened by the thunderclaps of whatever was going on outside.
He caught a vague glimpse of the other Toa being knocked to the ground by an invisible shock of air, shouting to each other. The Predator overhead had been limned by an actinic white flash as it's shielding failed, then it began to move. It had barely made it up ten bios before the final of the flaming arrows- which obviously weren't arrows- slammed into it's rear. A brief argent fireball blossomed from the craft and it began to consume itself in a blaze of flame. Two serpent-heads lept from the front to drift downwards on jets of flame.
The warrior-serpent heads were hissing orders. Several raised their weapons and sighted them on the stunned Toa.
Pohatu blasted one with a sizzling line of elemental energy. It crackled over it's natural armor, sending it reeling, but otherwise doing very little. The Toa of Stone's eyes widened, astonished, and he began to call the stone in the area around them to join the fight.
With amazingly fast reflexes, two warriors snapped off plasma shots. They richocheted off his Hau-field but still sent him tumbling backwards. Meanwhile, the other warriors had recovered from the surprise attacks.
At about the same time a storm of elemental fury burst from the Toa in the center of the square, the guardian-spiders turned about and began to fire at the warriors.
Pohatu blinked, dazed, as a series of thunder-claps sounded. Two warriors went down, temporarily incapacitated by the plasma crawling over their armor. He had no idea as to why the spiders had turned on their masters, but he decided to accept it for the blessing it was. He sent a rain of stone hammering down upon the serpent-head lines.
They fired into the mass of spiders, sending components and sizzled bits of spider flying. Brief fireballs bloomed up from the ground as spiders lost their shielding and exploded. Some shots richocheted off the Hau-fields of the Toa. Pohatu caught a sight of Onua yelling for him, so he sprinted from his cover and across the square towards them.
There was an explosion overhead and the other Predator reeled away, trailing smoke. It quickly dwindled away over the encampment. Something else took it's place.
It resembled a predator in it's arrowhead shape, but came out four or five times as large. It looked capable of holding a crew of ten or fifteen for a long time. Two pods extended from the sides of the ship on thick metallic struts, and culminated in a series of nasty maws. These spat flaming arrows, screaming like banshees, onto the melee below. Plasma fire bounced off the thing's shielding.
The thing fell lower, bringing it's forward plasma rods into play against the warrior-serpent heads. It conveniently interposed itself between the sprawled, burned Toa and the still-lethal melee, and a ramp unfolded itself from the rear of the craft. Pohatu blinked as light spilling out from the interior highlighted a familiar form.
"Come!" Ssrin hissed, then vanished from the opening.
Kopaka opened his mouth to voice some suspicion, undoubtedly about a trick or something, but Gali grabbed him and dragged him up the ramp into the craft. The rest of the Toa followed. Onua waited at the top, beckoning to Pohatu.
He tore his eyes from the dwindling melee- which the warrior serpent-heads were winning, with only four casualties-and sprinted over to his friend. Since both of them were temporarily deaf, Onua gave him a breath-stealing clap on the back and they trundled up the ramp into safety.

The interior of the craft was sharply angled but very roomy. Corridors led down into the bowels of the vessel, but for now they were on the upper deck. The forward command section was open to the rest of the deck, with two oddly contoured seats for serpent-heads. Ssrin had dropped into one and was focusing her undivided attention on the controls. Pohatu noticed that her graspers were shaking.
The rest of the Toa were a bit oversized for the couches along the edge of the room, and the comical sight of Onua trying to sit down and being constantly shaken off by the ship's movements almost made him laugh. He stifled it into a small chuckle and grabbed one of the handles positioned along the top of the craft.
Blinking monitors showed the exterior view, highlighted in odd symbols. The warriors were mopping up the remaining spiders. One panel, which Ssrin had been fussing over, showed a schematic of a group of spider-guardians. Quite frequently, one would blink and vanish. Ssrin was now giving her undivided attention to the incomprehensible controls on front of her, guiding the ship gingerly out of the square.
Pohatu's grip was nearly torn off the rod as she tapped a head onto a set of glowing panels and the ship accelerated down the mountain, staying far too low for comfort. Gali muttered something to Ssrin, which Pohatu heard. "You're not a pilot, are you?"
Ssrin gave no response except to make a complicated twisting motion with three of her heads, which Gali apparently recognized as a negative.
Another panel gave off a beep. Two red dots appeared on a contour map behind them. Ssrin hissed vehemently and tapped at the thrust panel again. Another surge of acceleration tossed the Toa about. Pohatu rolled his eyes at Onua. If he'd even dreamed of this a few months ago...
About then, the first plasma fire began to ring off their rear shields.

Pohatu clutched onto the handle with terrified strength as the craft began to buck furiously. Sparks rained from a flickering conduit along the ceiling to splash over him. His stomach dropped out from under him as the craft dropped, jinking from side to side. A series of low thuds sounded from the back of the craft, and Pohatu fervently prayed that those weren't parts of the ship.
"Your Akaku!" Onua was screaming over the sounds of the ship bucking and the sizzle of the shields. Pohatu tried to stay on his seat, unaware of the straps dangling uselessly by his shoulders, and managed to look backwards with his Akaku. A brief glance through the rear of the craft showed two Predators firing continously from perhaps a kilometer back.
Their ship was uncomfortably low to the ground, the antigravs stirring up a sandstorm beneath them. Plasma fire whistled about them, but Ssrin's evasives weren't skilled enough to keep the occasional hit from splashing over the rapidly dimming rear shield.
Kopaka was shouting something at Gali, who was staring at the controls with her translation mask on. At about that time, Ssrin hissed something as a red flash blinked over one of the consoles. Pohatu couldn't make a thing of the collection of flickering lights, but the serpent-head punched at the console and a series of loud shrieks sounded from the side of the craft.
Pohatu looked over in bewilderment just in time for his Akaku to catch sight of perhaps fifteen or twenty flaming arrows descending from the end of the wing strut. They curved away and backwards, streaking off into the night. There were two brief flashes of light and a distant thud, and the two red dots vanished from one of the screens.
Ssrin sunk back into her seat, her necks going limp. Pohatu got the sensation that she had just done something that she'd never thought herself capable of. The serpent-head seemed rather distressed as she banked the craft out into the desert and towards Po-Koro.

They were there in minutes. Pohatu glanced fondly down at his hometown- and realized,slowly, it was empty. "What?"
"Good. Turaga Onewa followed my advice!" Gali proclaimed in satisfaction, and she muttered something to Ssrin. The serpent-head emitted a low hiss and the craft banked away, heading for the coast.

They touched down in Ga-Koro half an hour later. As Pohatu strolled down the ramp, favoring one leg which had been rather bruised in the brief aerial battle, Turaga Nokama and a retinue of scribes bustled up to the craft. "Hurry!" the Turaga cried, ignoring the Toa's exhausted state. "We've figured out what the Exosphere is after, and there's no time to waste! We have to move!"
Pohatu gave her a blank stare. "Slow down. What are they after?"
Nokama shot him an impatient glare. "The Vahi. And there's no telling what will happen if they find it."

"Wait!" Onua cried, his voice tinged with confusion. "I thought they were here to mine protodermis!"
Nokama stamped a foot with impatience. "They are, but that's not the real reason they came. We've just gotten confirmation from Nuju - he's been up all week translating prophecies."
Gali looked puzzled, even more so than Pohatu felt. "Nokama, we just went on that mission to recover your so- called memory core. I thought it was supposed to tell us what the Exosphere was doing."
"It'll be useful confirmation, but since none of the prophecies even mentioned the Exosphere, we finally turned to Shabren's Fifth Scrolls."
Tahu gaped. "Gali told me they were forbidden."
Nokama ignored him. "It took us awhile to figure out what it referred to, but finally we realized the Vahi wasn't just a children's legend."
Pohatu leapt into the confirmation. "This is great, but why is Po-Koro empty?"
Gali pointed to the horizon. "That."
The Toa of Stone followed her gaze and saw a flickering halo of light limning a certain point on the horizon. "Err...the aurora. So what."
Nokama sighed wearily. "We knew the Exosphere would begin reprisals when we attacked their mining camp. It was the best target."
"Target..." Pohatu began. Then he gasped. "Oh dear Mata Nui." He blinked away tears, turned slowly, and trotted down the causeway into Ga-Koro, leaving the other Toa sadly watching the light show that heralded the destruction of Po-Koro.

Nokama and Nuju crouched in front of a carved wooden table, watching Ssrin tap at a panel with her limbs and heads. The panel was in fact the input device for a small 'computer', and the memory core that had been stolen from the mining camp was plugged into it through a tangle of silver wires.
Ssrin gave a muted triumphant hiss and the screen blinked briefly, then the angular Exosphere writing was replaced by circular Mata-Nuian language glyphs. "Here." She lifted herself abruptly from the seat and walked out the door, leaving the two Turaga to pore fascinatedly over the Exosphere information.

Halfway to her adopted hut, Ssrin was intercepted by Gali. "Hello, Ssrin. How are you?" The irony of the moment struck the Toa of Water heavily, and she almost laughed.
"Greetings. I am...adequate."
"No, you're not. What's bugging you?"
Ssrin tilted her head. "There are no insects near me."
"Sorry. What's the problem?"
There was an awkward pause, and Ssrin looked like she was restraining herself. They ducked into her hut.
Ssrin collapsed into a chair, her heads drooped, and she began to shake. "I killed them. I killed my own people. Maybe even my friends." She hissed despairingly.
Gali blinked. She'd never thought of the beings inside the ships or the armor as being living things, only as the enemy, to be fought and defeated. "I'm sorry." She realized suddenly that the serpent-head was sobbing.
"Why did you join us, anyway? It wasn't that 'new clan' junk. Why did you...defect?"
One head bared it's fangs at her, and Gali took an involuntary step back, praying she hadn't said the wrong thing.
"I could not bear to watch anymore. I had been on three planets the Exosphere had occupied, and seen many natives killed or tortured for no good reason. This planet was unique, different. Its ecology and life is like nothing we had ever seen before. I argued that we should not occupy it - I was a high-ranking officer. I did not want to see another world oppressed and crushed. I was demoted, and as punishment, placed in charge of the initial survey teams. Then your Toa shot my craft down, and I had my chance to make a difference. So I took it."
All Gali could say was, "I'm proud of you."

Nokama turned to Nuju, a triumphant expression on her face. "We've got it!"
The Turaga of Ko-Koro looked ashen. Matoro interpreted, "Yes, but we must move quickly. If they get it..."
Nokama sobered. "Yes. That 'Backlash' thing."
"It is, quite simply, the end of the free universe."

Nuparu ducked in fear as a screaming silver shape hurtled overhead. The Predator - that's what Whenua had called it - banked away over the side of the mountain, its exhaust glowing dully in the night sky.
"All clear," the Onu-Koronan engineer hissed, and the three transport Boxors piloted by his elite engineers clanked out from the shadows. All the pilots clutched plasma rods in white-hot hands.
The scouts were on the flanks of the mountain that held the ruins of their old home, examining something curious one of them had spotted. It was a runnel of silver liquid, twisting down the mountain like a river. They'd taken it to be silver crust from the Exosphere camp, but it hadn't behaved like it.
Nuparu sprinted across the ground from the boulder field where they'd been hiding and knelt down at the river. He dipped his hand in and felt that familiar thrum. Protodermis. No doubt about it.
His miner's mind twisted around the facts and formed a believable idea. This was a river of pure protodermis that had escaped from their mining site, perhaps even the ripped pipe he had seen earlier. The Exosphere had no equipment to convert protodermis into useful form here - they were simply mining for it. But the Matoran did - the forging equipment in Ta-Koro and the even more skilled workers from Onu-Koro. An idea began to form in his head. They'd never been able to extract protodermis of this quality in this quantity without ruining it...but now....
He signaled to the Boxor, his heart beating with excitement at what they could make out of pure protodermis. They uncorked huge jugs and began to dip them into the protodermis.

Within the day, Onu-Koronans still mourning the loss of their age-old home had dug a tunnel beneath the shielding earth, routing the protodermis to an underground forge. Their hammers clanged and sparks flew as the most skilled smiths on Mata Nui worked to forge the protodermis into weapons and armor worthy of the island's last stand.

Shortly after the Toa's return to Ga-Koro, the Turaga of Ga-Koro leaned back over the display and began to tap gingerly on the controls of the recovered Exosphere computer, which, quite handily, Ssrin has translated into Mata Nuian. Screens flickered by, occasional prompts for passwords blinking up. Ssrin's code got those out of the way, and Nokama swiftly found herself where she wanted to be.
It was a three-dimensional black cube, studded with hundreds of tiny little white dots. One blinked red, and symbols floating by it read TARGET SYSTEM (MATA NUI?) As she watched, astonished, a timecode blinked into being on one side of the screen. It raced forward, and the red blinking turned to blue. A white line drew itself from Mata Nui towards another point of light, which began blinking. More symbols popped up, reading KHASS.
Nokama hesitantly touched the screen at the tip of the white line. An image of a small vessel, identical to the one the Toa had captured, blinked onto the screen. A visual cargo manifest scrolled down the side of the display. There was only one item within: the Vahi.
She turned wearily to Nuju. "So they get the Vahi, and plug it into this thing, which lets them...undo events?"
"Yes. They can travel in time."
Nokama's eyes lit up. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Nuju nodded slowly.

This post has been edited by HauNuva: Feb 10 2003, 06:37 PM

The Toa slept wearily, sprawled over various soft beds in their Ga-Koronan huts. The window showed the sheer blackness of a cloudy night. They had been through a lot over the last few days, Ssrin thought, but at least they hadn't slaughter their own friends.
She slithered silently towards Tahu, and with the swift grace of a well-trained Exosphere warrior, planted a small cylinder just below his collar. It blinked very softly, once, in a range of light the Toa could not see.
She moved to Lewa, tenderly avoiding the scars still covering his body, and placed another cylinder at the base of his neck. He did not move from his slumber.
She moved on, dropping cylinders carefully at the base of each Toa's neck. She gently reached down and dropped the last blinking metal canister on Kopaka's pale neck. Their was a sudden blur of motion, and she stumbled backwards as Kopaka shifted, grabbed his sword, and swung it with deadly precision towards her neck.
Ssrin fumbled in her pocket and clutched the command card. There was a brief hissing sound, and the canisters opened silently, pouring gas out in a brief grey cloud. Kopaka slumped back into his bed, and Ssrin saw the other Toa relax more, falling from postures of controlled relaxation to a complete sprawl.
She turned to wave towards her accomplice at the door- and something leapt at her from behind. She whirled aside, her own borrowed blade flashing up, to sloppily block Tahu's sword. His Kaukau was on. She realized, cursing herself for a fool, that the gas used a water compound - the Kaukau would not let Tahu breath it.
As Tahu, cursing her, swung low, the traitorous serpent-head briefly considered dropping her guard and letting the Toa kill her. It would be a fitting end, a good punishment for what she had done. But her ethics rebelled. She was helping people by doing this. It was the right thing. So she snapped her own blade up in a rush of silver and once again parried, being knocked back by his immense, Kanohi-enhanced strength.
Her accomplice clubbed Tahu as hard as he could on the back of the head with the flat of Lewa's axe. The Toa of Fire collapsed groaning, glaring daggers that promised immense pain up at Ssrin. She caught him and gently lowered him the floor, resting his head so the welling bump from the axe blow would not be pressured.
She and her accomplice picked up the Toa one by one and began to cart them out of the door.

In the grimy, shadowy, lava-lit depths of Ta-Koro, the immense, proud ranks of the United Guard of Mata Nui buckled on gleaming plates of protodermis and sheathed fine swords, discs, and plasma rods. Ussals clanked nervously and Kahu and Nui-Rama mounts hurtled through the sky above. Takua himself conferred worriedly with Vakama, crouching over several scrolls. The men and women- equally represented, as always, both equal in ability and desire to die doing what was right - of Mata Nui straightened and arranged themselves into neat ranks. The colors of the various villages was submerged into a gleaming sea of silver armor.
At the front of the huge assembly of manpower, the Turaga sat on their various mounts, clad in the finest, silver-gleaming Onu-Koronan chain mail. They grasped their weapons with practice ease, relaxing with the air of people knowing they were going to their doom for a good cause.
"Our people know?" Matau asked calmly.
"They know," Onewa affirmed. "We will have vengeance for all that has been lost. We will die. But oh, it will be glorious."
Nokama smiled grimly. "And we will save Mata Nui in the process."
They raised their weapons into the air and cried praise to Mata Nui.
The doomed last armies of Mata Nui raised their own weapons and cried their defiance to the stars.

Fifty-five Dominator assault transports dropped through the still night air over the crater of Mangai, and, like the bursting seed pods they resembled, came to a stop on the slopes of the great volcano itself. Ramps dropped open and serpent-heads began to pour out. Lines of troopers in black armor filed out of the craft as Predators screamed overhead, some patrolling for threats with keen sensor eyes, others hurtling up towards the crater, searching for their quarry.
Silver crust poured from vents on the bottom of the craft and splashed to the ground, where it quickly hardened. The living ground began to grow, forming puddles on the ground beneath the landing craft that reflected the starlight. Frost blew from the many mouths of the serpent-heads as they began to move into formations with practiced skill.
A brief comet of argent flame, tipped by a small black cone, slashed the dark night and plummeted into the gaping troop-bay of one transport. The ship's shields were still down from the troop offloading. Crates of power cells and volatile fuel burst in argent fireballs. Smoke and flame trailed out from the bay as the ship lurched and began to tilt. Then it blew apart in a shower of silver metal and flame.
A chunk of debris caught the transport next to the vessel on the edge of a stubby atmospheric flight surface as it rose off the ground. It banked, brushed the ground, and flipped over a boulder to collide with another transport. There was a flash and a boom of thunder, and within seconds, all was pandemonium.
Whenua grimaced. "And to think I was aiming for the ship next to it." He dropped the smoking launcher tube, made a gesture, and the rope tied around his waist gave him a sharp tug. He shot up the face of the cliff behind him, pulled by the rope, his silver armor concealed by black cloth, and hurriedly untied himself from the cord. The Turaga sprinted back from the cliff face, trying to look calm, and dived behind a boulder where his pulley crew was concealed.
The ground where he had so recently been standing disappeared under an apocalyptic rain of flaming 'arrows' and green lightning. As the Exosphere forces skillfully wheeled into a circular defensive formation, figures in silver armor seemed to materialize from behind rocks. Razor-sharp arrows and discs slashed into the Exosphere formation. Most bounced in showers of sparks off armor, but the massive fusillade took nearly fifty soldiers out of the fight by sheer quantity. The silver figures vanished again, melting into the shadows. What few shots the Exosphere soldiers rippled and cracked off protodermis armor- almost as effective at blocking plasma fire as the spider-guardian's shielding.
Near the quickening battle, a lone, forlorn serpent-head paced by her appropriated ship, waiting for the signal.

More flashes of green light and shrieking missiles streaked down from the mouth of a wide ravine to crash into the Exosphere force. Soldiers were tossed like dolls as the missiles exploded, and one transport crumpled under a concentrated nexus of plasma beams. This time, the Exosphere's computer-aided response was instantaneous and deadly.
Verdant green plasma bursts whipcracked into the ravine. A brief shower of sparks lit the night as small-arms fire connected with protodermis armor. The larger plasma cannons belched energy and reduced the ravine to a melted wasteland.
"Blast it!" Whenua hissed, and pulled a small whistle from his belt. A short blast would signal the beginning of the main engagement. He took one last look. The Exosphere force had formed up into an excellent defensive formation, but his Matoran were positioned all around them and severely outnumbered them. He knew this was only a delaying action for the Toa, and that they would all be certainly slaughtered, but he held some small hope for victory.
He blew the whistle.


As Ssrin paced dejectedly, unable to block out the images of every being on Mata Nui perishing in fiery cataclysm along with too many of her former friends, a brief gust of wind blew dust from the ground to patter against her armor. Two heads looked up.
A lone Kahu-bird swooped by her hiding place, a lightstone clutched by the rider flashing once, twice, thrice. Ssrin acknowledged with a light-burst of her own, then turn and ran up the gunboat's ramp. Timing was of the essence- if they didn't reach orbit fast enough, they would never intercept the Vahi's transport. Since they didn't know exactly where the Vahi was - but the Exosphere did - they would let them pick the Vahi up and flee with it. If the Matoran did their job right, there would be no ships spared for escort duty.
Which meant that Ssrin could tail the Vahi-ship all the way back to Khass itself, if necessary.
She sunk into the pilot pedestal and got to work.

Two hundred and fifty Boxor tanks, wrapped in protodermis armor, clanked out from behind concealing boulders or illusions projected by Matau. The Exosphere lines lit up as watching warriors fired plasma rods at the Boxor. The green streaks rebounded in showers of sparks, or played over the armor, leaving trails of scorched metal behind.
The Boxors opened up with heavy plasma rods and rocket launchers salvaged from Exosphere ships downed near Le-Koro (not to mention the raid on the supply camp in Le-Wahi.) The Exosphere lines began to fold backwards as the wedge of Boxors charged. Jala himself led the charge.
As the Exosphere generals martialed reinforcements and began to fire artillery-class plasma cannon into the fray, a cloud of Kahu-riders burst over the edge of the Mangai crater itself and swooped down into the havoc. More plasma fire lit up the night as the Kahu-riders fired their new weapons. Those without used bows or discs. One Exosphere artillery piece exploded, sending shards of shrapnel to ping off nearby shielding.
Two Boxor exploded under a barrage of heavy plasma bolts, their armor finally giving way under the tremendous energies. Whenua narrowed his eyes and looked towards the center of the silver crust, still puddling outwards. It was indeed rippling and bubbling, as if it had liqueified again. He prayed he'd been right that the silver stuff couldn't eat through protodermis.
A gigantic metal slab burst from the silver crust, heaved aside by the Matoran in the tunnel beneath. It was red-hot on the top. Whenua's Ussalry began to pour from the rent into the center of the Exosphere forces. Swords and plasma beams flashed as they charged into the rear of the lines.
He kicked his Ussal and charged off to join the havoc.

Nokama watched as a lone Exosphere ship, one of the troop transports, lifted from the center of the havoc. The others would not enter the air because they couldn't use many of their weapons to support the ground troops while in flight, but this transport wasn't going to fight. As she watched, its engines glowed and it hurtled itself away from the melee, plowing aside the few Kahus who weren't quick enough to get out of its way. It moved up the slope of the volcano and vanished into the crater - the volcano was not active at the moment.
She prayed Ssrin was in position. If not, this was all for naught, and they would die for nothing.
Nokama picked up her trident, gave her armor one last glance, and sprinted down the slope into the fight.

Onewa and Vakama led the infantry as they charged, reinforcing their brethren on Boxors. Nevertheless, their wedge into the Exosphere lines was being forced back as the Exosphere brought their overwhelming technological firepower to bear. Onewa winced as a Boxor exploded and sent shards of shrapnel bouncing off his armor.
His hammer was good, but not good enough to get through Exosphere armor, which was highly resilient to blunt attacks. After a few moments of panic as it bounced off Exosphere armor without leaving a dent, he had slung the thing over his back and was now using a magnificent protodermis longsword.
He leapt up onto a boulder and came crashing down on the surprised back of an Exosphere trooper beneath. A quick swing off the sword lopped the end off the creature;splasma rod, and the serpent-head hissed and tossed the sparking thing away. It hastily drew its own blade, a vicious spiked scimitar that seemed to be standard-issue.
Onewa slashed high, and the serpent-head easily knocked the testing blow aside, riposting with a vicious thrust upwards. The Turaga leapt aside and stabbed hard. The Exosphere trooper knocked it far enough aside that it skittered off the beast's black armor, sending sparks whistling into the night air.
Their was a brief, vicious swordfight. Onewa hoped that most of his troops were better with a sword then he was, as neither he nor the serpent-head could gain any advantage. He was more practiced with his sword and it was sharper, but the spikes on the thing's scimitar kept wedging his blade in place. He supposed that was the point.
The fight came to an abrupt end when Nokama rammed her trident into the nexus where the thing's necks joined into its body. Onewa gave her a thankful nod, and the Turaga responded by whipping her trident around and slamming him aside as she ducked low. A green plasma bolt whistled through the air where he'd just been. He turned in time to see the serpent-head outlined by a series of green flashes as several outraged Po-Koronans discharged plasma rods into him. The creature's armor overloaded and it collapsed, unconscious.
The fight swirled on.

Kongu yanked on the reins, trying to bottle in a scream, and sent his Kahu twirling to the left, rolling completely over and down. The Predator hurled by where he'd just been, plasma beams lashing out futilely. Kongu sighed heartily. And to think I could be back in treebright highhome, guzzling sweetwine and singing, he thought, then realized with Exosphere forces constantly testing their weak defenses, he couldn't be. So instead he picked another firetube from the pile next to him and trained it on the turning Predator.
A red dot flashed in the middle of a small crystal screen, and, as he'd been taught, he yanked at the trigger. The tube bucked, nearly knocking him off the saddle, as a trail of orange flame belched from its end and arced off towards the arrowhead ship, tipped by a small black dot. Cursed noflight Rahi-hugger serpent-head thing! Kongu pulled himself back into the center of the saddle with a manic grin on his face and signaled to his wingmate. They dove low, trying to stay hidden - their only hope against the arrowhead screechers.
Thunder boomed and green lightning crackled across the night sky. Kongu heard a scream and felt a puff of foul air across his face. He cursed loudly, saying a prayer for the spirit of the lost Matoran, and fought the urge to vomit. Instead he looked for the Predator he'd shot before. It was limping, heeling to the left and trailing smoke from a large tear in its hull. Kongu signaled to his wingmate and air hissed over the wings of their mounts as they climbed.
He snatched another long, black fire-arrow and stuffed it down the mouth of the launch tube, then raised it again and trained it at the Predator, which was turning, blazing green fire onto the fight below. Kongu looked away in horror and sympathy as two Matoran were incinerated into piles of flaming ash.
Screaming an incoherent curse, he yanked the trigger. His wingmate barked something and fired. As the fiery streaks lanced outwards, Kongu looked over to see another Predator rushing towards them. He dove, frantically. Heat washed over his back and he slapped at his flying leathers where they caught fire.
There was a dull wump as the target Predator exploded in a burst of argent flame. Bits of metal rushed by on a breath of hot wind. The second Predator rushed overhead, green fire stabbing out in fury. Kongu banked and missed it. There was a screech behind him, and a scream of pain, and his stomach lurched. NO!!!
The ruins of his wingmate fluttered towards the ground. His eyes narrowed, his pulse pounded in his ears, and he banked his Kahu right, following the Predator.

Takua tried not to think of the prospect that this was the end of his job. There would be nothing more to chronicle. At least, not after this thing.
Melted stone sprayed over his armor, sending him twitching aside. He was a Ta-Koronan, used to heat, but the green lightning...he'd never seen anything like it.
He sighed deeply as he trained his plasma rod. He hated killing, and hated this, but he knew that it was their only hope. A brief squeeze of the trigger sent killing lightning flashing out. A rock exploded, sending shards hurtling through the scorching air, and behind it a many-headed figure slumped to the ground, then began pulling itself away, emitting a low hiss.
Takua yielded to his nature and took pity on in it. "Why me?" he wondered aloud, and looked to his side in time to see the tip of a spiked scimitar punch through a Matoran's back. Takua's stomach rose. Dear Mata Nui... Imagined images of the poor woman's family rushed through is head as she slumped to the ground, screaming a battle cry, her own sword lashing out. Her attacker collapsed next to her, its blood intermingling with hers. Takua froze and simply watched the intertwined rivulets of blood dripping over the jagged stone.
His vision flashed, and he saw a river, a pure, clean waterfall. As he watched, blood began to tinge the river, first just a small trickle, widening and widening and widening until the entire river was engulfed in a torrent of crimson liquid. He tried to close his eyes, to turn away, but it continued, growing darker and darker before shapes began to move within the liquid. Snakes, feeding on the blood, gulping it down hungrily, growing larger and larger and larger and becoming...
Takua's eyesight flashed again, and the vision vanished. "Gaaaaah!" He slumped to the ground, breathing hard, as lightning flashed above him and the battle roared on.

Hafu growled in anger as rivers of green lightning blew apart another one of his cleverly concealed stone traps. In all the adventure books, the villain's army always fell victim to the hero's traps!
He waved his torch, mourning the loss of such carving (although it wasn't visible), signaling the Matoran on the ravine across from him. The boulder there teetered and fell, thundering down towards the Exosphere troops. Before it even got there, the silver crust over the ground rippled and formed a ridge. The boulder slammed into and rebounded, then started to sink into the ground.
They're eating stone itself!
Boxors slid out from the shadows around the ruins of the rock and fired into the Exosphere ranks. Shields flashed and crackled. Matoran in silver armor leapt down from the rocks into the Exosphere horde, slashing and firing. Hafu drew his own sword and hammer and followed.
He landed besides an Exosphere soldier who was busy pouring fire into a stumbling Matoran. The soldier's silver armor crackled and flashed as the plasma washed over him.
Hafu brought his hammer smashing down on the serpent-head's neck. He gaped as it bounced off the black armor in a shower of sparks. Two of the soldier's heads spun about and bit deep into his arm, their fangs plunging through the gap in his armor. Venom washed through it and it fell limp, his hammer dropping to the ground.
The mouth of the plasma rod swiveled towards him. Things did not look good.

Fortunately for him, his armor took the brunt of the blast, but the pain was still excruciating. Hafu bottled a scream as the Exosphere soldier lunged forward.
He got his sword up in time to knock the plasma rod aside, but the serpent-head lunged, heads snapping for Hafu's face. He parried with the haft of his hammer and stabbed with his sword. The shining blade screeched off the side of the serpent-head's armor, leaving little damage. A head bit into his shoulder, sending another wave of numbness pouring down his arm.
Something came flying through the night and slammed into the soldier's side. The serpent-head collapsed with a startled hiss, lapsing into unconscious in a graceful slump. Hafu looked up in time to see Takua pulling himself to his feet after an amazing leap. "Are you all right?"
Hafu tried to move his arm and couldn't. "To be blunt, no."
He suffered the indignity of Takua carrying him to the healers, but just barely.


Nuju did not appear it, but he was excellent with a blade. He had managed to last a long while in this battle, despite the prowess of the Exosphere's troops. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for the momentum of their charge. Their were no longer clearly defined lines - the neat battle had broken up into a huge, messy melee which the Matoran were losing rapidly. The Exosphere would crush them in minutes, and they hadn't destroyed nearly enough of their ships or troops to provide a sizable distraction. If the Vahi-ship had escorts, all was for naught.
Despair flooded through him as he leapt forward to spar with yet another Exosphere soldier. This one was a warrior, huge and quick, and Nuju barely noticed in time. The serpent-head fought with two of the vicious curved blades, and as Nuju crouched into a defensive posture, the beast launched into a flurry of quick blows.
Nuju only blocked perhaps half. The remainder bounced off his armor, some slashing through to draw blood. The Turaga was tossed to the ground, and stared up resignedly as the warrior lifted his scimitar to deliver the killing blow. A glimpse in his peripheral vision showed Matoro preparing to spring, but he would be too late.
The scimitar began to descend- and a colossal wave of flame washed over the warrior. It vanished in an instant, leaving a pile of ashes and melted black metal. Nuju looked over in surprise, his mouth opening to deliver a thanks to whoever had a brought a vat of magma along.
Six Tahnok sprinted past with typical vicious efficiency and poured flames into another knot of warriors. Plasma beams smashed one into unrecognizable jumbles, but the krana leapt out and affixed itself to an Exosphere warrior, which promptly began to fire at his comrades.
Matoro reached over and hauled Nuju up. "Turaga! What is happening?"
Nuju looked out over the battle zone. The colossal elemental might of the Bohrok Swarm steamrolled over the astonished Exosphere troops. Ships and artillery pieces exploded under lightning-cracks of elemental fury. It no longer seemed they were doomed. All these weeks of preparation, all this meditation before death - for nothing? They would win after all?
He sobered quickly. They might win this battle - but it was only a large fraction of the Exosphere's armed might. They still had ships and colonies on Mata Nui, and more and more Exosphere troops could come at any time. No, they were still doomed. But the longer they lasted, the better the chance the Toa had.
Nuju watched as a large blob of light rose from the crater of Mangai and into the night sky.

The serpent-head hissed in satisfaction. Inside a small blob of silver liquid- pure protodermis - an intricate orange mask floated, looking quite placid. The serpent-head rode a small antigravity platform, an ant beneath the might of the transport waiting above him. The ball of protodermis floated in the center of the crater, low enough that it was invisible to a watcher from the rim. Their sensors had easily found the temporal distortions around it.
She reached out and grabbed the silver ball, reverently placing it in a sample container. Then she seized the controls of the platform and rose back towards the ship. Moments later, as the Vahi was swarmed by technichians and scientists in the main bay of the ship, the transport rose like a blob of light and hurled itself into the night sky.

Amidst the ruins of the Exosphere army, the tattered remnant of the Matoran army faced the diminished, but still large, Bohrok swarm. There was no movement. Tension hung in the air like a blanket.
Finally, a single Bohrok stepped forward. Its krana glistened in its nutrient solution, bearing the convolutions and markings of a swarm commander.
"We bring tidings from the Bahrag," it hissed.
Nokama stepped uncertainly forward. "Yes?"
"This island has been changed beyond repair by the newcomers. Our primary goal cannot be achieved We must wait for more suitable conditions."
Nokama restrained herself from ramming her trident through the Bohrok's head - what she would have done a few months ago - and listened.
"We will return to hibernation."
"And we will return to our villages."
With that, the Bohrok returned to its ranks, and the swarms flowed away like a living river.
As dawn broke over the horizon, Nokama led the Matoran back to their villages, where they sat, martialed what defenses they could, and prayed the Toa would succeed.

In orbit, Ssrin stiffened as one screen blinked on, showing a flashing red blip accelerating out of the atmosphere. She let the vessel reach the edge of the gravity well before powering up their own engines and heading after it.
At some length, a rainbow ribbon of colors began to play down the spine of the Exosphere transport. Ssrin reached to another console and began powering up the gunboat's own subcontinuum drive.
The ribbon expanded to wrap the vessel in a sheath of shimmering colors, which quickly grew in intensity. The same happened to Ssrin's ship, and she reclined, knowing that neither vessel would be able to see the other through the interference caused by the subcontinuum drive.
Both ships twisted in some unimaginable way, and vanished into the subcontinuum, accelerating unimaginably to perhaps a thousand times the speed of light.
As the gunboat hurtled down a tunnel of rainbow colors away from Mata Nui, the transport a speck on the screen in front of it, the Toa began to stir.


The sequel to Exosphere: Invasion continues the stories of Ssrin and the Toa as the renegade serpent-head reveals their true mission, and they begin their last desperate quest to undo the damage to Mata Nui and prevent the Exosphere from ruling the entire universe.

Exosphere: Void, the sequel, can be found through my signature.

This post has been edited by HauNuva: Feb 19 2003, 08:07 PM