MARSA1-Part A Mar-Sa The Ultra-Girl Book One/Part One The Girl of Tungsten Steel by Jim Robert Bader August 21, 1997 (First Copyrights Only) 00000000 000 000 000 vvvvvv 000 000 VVVVVVVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVVVV 000 000 VVVVV 000 000 VVV 000 000 V 000 000000000 MAR-SA, The Ultra Girl by Jim Robert Bader Book One. The Girl of Tungsten Steel Chapter Two. Soft Landing "How severe was the fire, Jo-Na?" "Bad enough, sir," the Security man reported, "We have managed to contain the blaze, but the primary explosion took out most of the laboratory and much of the secondary equipment. Casualties were surprisingly light for our men, three of whom sustained injuries, two not accounted for. We have no accurate assessment on the full extent of the damages, nor on the status of Councilor Kar-Tor himself, though initial reports confirm that he was hit at close range with full force stunners, so there seems no way that he could have escaped the explosion or the fire." "And there is no indication as yet what these rebels were about?" Dev-Or asked. "As yet no, sir," Jo-Na replied, "But there may be enough evidence left in the cavern for our Science teams to work up a reasonable analysis. It will require some rotations, but we will be thorough in our investigation." "Carry on, Lieutenant," Dev-Or said before turning to face the robed figure awaiting his report. He very self-consciously straightened out his uniform before addressing the man and soberly reporting, "Your grace, I fear that there has been a serious breach of security here. Kar-Tor was prepared for us, and I fear it will be some time before we can retrieve any useful data from the wreckage." "I take it that there is no trace of Kar-Tor himself among the remains?" Dar- Kem asked in mild resignation before sighing, "Of course not, there never is. He is far too clever not to have provided himself with his usual exit." "You believe that he survived the explosion, sir?" Dev-Or asked of his mentor, "I confess that I find it amazing that stun-bursts could cause the kind of cascade explosion that occurred here, but surely nothing human would have lived through the resulting inferno..." "Remind me to acquaint you with some of our most classified records concerning former Councilor Kar-Tor," Dar-Kem snorted in disgust, "This particular rebel has a long history of misdirection and evasion, and he has been reported as officially dead more times than you could seriously credit. He is a master of escapes, and quite brilliant in his own twisted way with a knack for survival that defies all rational explanation. We must act on the assumption that he has eluded us again and concentrate instead on discovering what he and his followers were attempting. His heretical work here is no doubt a threat to the security of the state and must not be allowed to escape the confines of these caverns." "My men will do their best, sir," Dev-Or replied, "We will work in shifts to clear away the damages in order to get at the evidence that we will need. If there is a threat to public order in his work, we will discover it through an analysis of the device that our people have discovered." "You are authorized to employ whatever means you feel is necessary to achieve this purpose," Dar-Kem told his son and heir, "Whatever manpower or resources you require will be made available on request. Find out who else was working here in secret to assist Kar-Tor in his latest enterprise. I expect results with your usual prompt discretion." "You may rely upon me, sir," Dev-Or assured the elder Council member, "I will not rest until I can provide you with such answers as you require." "Good," Dar-Kem remarked, almost to himself as he added, "I fear that we will all soon discover the worst of our suspicions. I must inform the Council that the mentor to She-La is at large yet again and has once more flouted our authority, and that this time he may well have struck at the heart of cherished dogma. Such a serious breach cannot go unchallenged, and by the memory of my ancestors, there will be a reckoning when the truth is fully uncovered." "Sir?" Dev-Or asked of his elder, "Surely this matter is not so grave as all that?" "You could not be more mistaken," Dar-Kem said gravely to his heir, "If I am right and what I suspect is true, then it could potentially mean the end of everything, which is why we must get to the bottom of this at once before matters go beyond our control, possibly even beyond the point of retrieval, in which case...desperate measures will need to be taken." "Then we shall redouble our efforts, Sir," Dev-Or replied and turned back to give instructions to his subordinates to intensify their investigation... She fell through infinite space with no discernible borders, numb to all sensations as an emptiness welled up within her bosom. Her pain was not so much of the body as it was the mind and spirit at the shattering memory of her mentor's execution. The savagery of the attack left her devastated, alone, cut off from all that was familiar, and a lifetime of stoicism was shattered at the very concept of such isolation. Kar-Tor had been much more to her than a guardian and a teacher these past few cycles, he had been the nearest thing to a friend that she had ever known, and the very thought of his death caused her more grief than the more remote deaths of her parents. Deprived of all familiar sense, her mind turned inward, and in so doing she felt memories begin to rise up unbidden as though she had triggered an access code for something deeply buried. Her vision filled with the face and presence of Kar-Tor as he always appeared when giving a lecture. His eyes had that deep compassionate look she knew so well, and emotions flooded her entire being while her body remained still and her attention raptly focused upon each syllable he uttered. "My dear," he began, "If you are recalling this, it means something went wrong and you have survived to activate these memories that I have implanted for just such a purpose. This particular information file could only be accessed if you have undergone the transportation process and have either arrived at your destination or are somewhere in transit. I had intended to assist you directly, but now you must fend for yourself and not despair. Things are not always what they seem, and I have held a great deal back for the sake of your own personal safety. "But that must end now that you will need to know more about this world to which I am sending you, so I will provide such answers as you will need, trusting that you will show the same courage and resourcefulness that drove your mother and father in their quest, with hope that yours will be a happier fate than what befell them. "In all honest truth, I envy you where you are going. I have done all that I can to prepare you for this mission, but only you can make my dreams a reality. You are going beyond the frontiers of everything we have known for countless millennia, and there is no limit to the possibilities that you will face, the wonders that will await you. An entire world is yours to explore, and with the borrowed memories that I have given you it will not be an unguided visit. "The Council has forbidden travel to other worlds, using the excuse that we are bound inextricably to this world when we were born to the stars and belong to the Universe itself. They have enslaved our people and persecuted everyone who dares to question their authority and judgment, but you are the child of two of the greatest rebels ever known to our society and are thus the perfect instrument of their undoing. Your family was once a proud and noble lineage, and I know that you will live up to your heritage and will triumph over such obstacles as await you, putting the lie to everything we have been forced to believe since we surrendered authority to the Keepers during the time of the great Disaster. "You will not be alone in your quest, nor are you going unarmed to this world whose life-giving energy is so much greater than to what we are accustomed. You will be our emissary, the advanced scout for reestablishing the ties between our respective worlds, uniting two long-divided halves of the human race and showing them the benefits of our knowledge and technology so that they will be able and ready to one day join us as brothers. Make a good example for our sake and they will one-day welcome you into their society, and that will be but the first step to building a bright new future. "I leave you to this fate in the hopes that what I have given you will be sufficient for your basic needs. Avoid contact from the High Council and any agents they might send to retrieve you, should they succeed in discovering the process by which you have escaped them. They would rather see you dead than allow knowledge of what we have accomplished to become commonplace throughout the city-states of Wolframa. You are their mortal enemy, have no doubts of it, and in violating the most cherished taboo of the Keepers you have earned their full wrath and they will stop at nothing to destroy you. "But you have resources at your disposal of they cannot imagine, and that ignorance will prove telling in the end. You will discover new limits, new possibilities undreamed of in millennia, and the word impossible will shortly cease to have any meaning for you as you will redefine the boundaries of what it means to be human. My research has proven this, so have no doubts of your ability to survive and prosper. "If you need further clarification of your implanted thoughts, seek the council of Mark Daniels, or some other native who will be able and willing to help you out, but do not be in haste to trust those whom you meet in positions of authority of this new world, for you will have to earn their respect and trust before they will acknowledge your value. There is a history of suspicion and distrust where you are going, and deep skepticism that will have to be overcome before they will believe the reality you represent by your very existence. You will make them believe, and win for yourself more than you could ever possibly desire. "You are like the daughter that I have always wished that I could have, and it has been a true honor watching you grow to maturity. One day we will meet again, but until then fare well, Mar-Sa of Ninjarma, noble descendant of my beloved She-La. Be safe, and remember..." The voice and face faced into memory, leaving her once more adrift in the formless voice that was her entire being. Aloud she whispered his name, and then the pain welled up anew, and in turmoil she cried out, "Kar-Tor! Damn you! Why did you have to die? I...loved you...?" The last words left her wrenched and confused, for what had caused her to phrase such concepts when the very possibility of men and women associating intimately had long been forbidden by the Council? Her confusion was absolute, yet-oddly- her mind was beginning to clear as true consciousness slowly returned to her, leaving more questions than before, though all sense of this was drowned out by a new set of sensations that caused the dull ache of her body to fade from her awareness. In its place came a new awareness that she was somehow alive, and that she felt more than alive, she felt suddenly very different. She struggled to regain focus, to reorient herself to recognizing these sensations that were flooding into conscious reality as she fought to make sense of it all. Her head felt as though it was about to explode and she was having difficulty drawing breath. There were noises everywhere, whines and buzzes both low and high pitched and so loud that she thought that she would drown in the cacophony. There was a taste like acid on her tongue, and the coppery smell of blood in her own nostrils. She started to open her outer eyelids... And almost instantly regretted such an action! Painful, blinding, intensely brilliant light pounded down upon her, erupting inside her skull while threatening to seer her retinas. She covered her eyes with both hands and gasped in horrified amazement at the contrasting sensations of heat and cold that poured down upon her. She tried to roll over in order to better shield her face and found herself sitting upright in the midst of an overpowering assault of sounds, tastes and smells more intense than anything she could ever recall having experienced. It was all so...overwhelming! And yet, in spite of it all, she realized that she was not truly injured, that in fact she was perfectly fine in spite of the sensory overload, and that-if she concentrated and relaxed for a moment-she could adjust to the high pitch and acrimonious orders by mentally tuning them down using Biorelaxant methods taught to her during her Academic training. Taking slow, regular, deep breaths, she slowly opened her eyes again, discovering that she could indeed cope better with the light if she gave her eyes time to make the proper adjustment. She found that, by taking it slow and easy, she began to make some coherent sense of the flood of information that she was receiving, and that gradually she could learn to cope by lowering her inner eyelid and staring at the ground rather than the intensely blue sky with its astonishing white ball of incandescent fury. She began to take stock of her surroundings, finding herself in some sort of ditch-like depression. She discovered by slowly turning her head to look that it was large and roughly bowl-shaped and that she sat at the very base in a slight trough that had been dug into the soil, which was very brown and slightly moist, signifying the presence of under-surface moisture. The air felt very thin, and breathing took longer as a consequence, yet somehow she did not feel as though she were suffering from the lighter atmosphere. In fact, she did not seem to be suffering at all, nor could she ever remember feeling as good as she did in that moment. It was not exactly light-headedness that she was experiencing, she realized, it was a genuine lightness about her whole body! Almost she seemed to be floating rather than sitting on hard ground, and if she kept her breathing slow and easy she had little difficulty at all in moving, let alone sitting upright. What a very strange place to find herself in upon awakening to a whole new planet. The air had an indefinable quality that smelled of natural substances that she could not identify but which were almost pleasant to sample. The blue sky had clouds of water vapor gently drifting on the horizon, and while the sun remained overpowering it was beginning to almost feel natural to her, as though she were being warmed from within by its soothing radiance, and after several moments of just sitting and looking about she began to realize that she was not feeling any adverse effects that could discernibly be noticed. She decided to get to her feet and begin the exploration of this Earth in earnest. Her first attempt at doing so, however, netted its own astonishing surprises. "Whoah!" she cried, finding the lighter gravity was causing her to overcompensate, and where she had meant to merely stand up she instead found herself tumbling forward to a rather rude landing. Her second surprise came in the discovery that she did not feel as much pain as she would have expected from landing on her face. Granted that it was hardly pleasant to get a face-full of dirt for her troubles, nor had she meant to taste the soil to determine its organic composition, but such results were hardly unexpected from a anecdotal trial basis. She decided to try a different tact and instead pushed her way up gradually, amazed at how easy it was to resist the pull of gravity as she carefully balanced her weight on hands and knees, then gradually found her way back to her feet, having adjusted to compensate for the exaggerated effect of her movements. Incredibly she found the experience of standing upright as exhilarating as it might have been for a newborn. This world certainly had more than its share of surprises, but nothing quite matched the sense of sheer power she felt, the incredible sense of vitality that filled her from head to toes with a sense of her new potential. Of course, it also made her consciously aware of her state of underdress, for somehow she had lost her outer robes and had found herself in nothing more than her undergarments. It was as if the lighter material had been torn away to leave only the tougher, more resilient fabrics that alone kept her from feeling and being totally naked. At least her cape had survived whatever forces she had been subjected to by the transportation process. No, wait, that was not quite right. It dawned on her that the pit she was standing in was not a natural depression. The dirt had been pushed up in all directions by some great force that she alone had withstood. That was when she looked down and noticed for the first time that there was a body-shaped impression in the soil where she was standing. Said impression matched her own general dimensions, but the ground had been packed solid at the base, which meant a great deal of kinetic energy had been expended in order to create this effect, such as a fall from a great height that should have naturally killed her. That she was far from dead only heightened the mystery, and she began to wonder just how far up she had been when the materialization process had deposited her in this strange planetary system. She did some rapid mental calculations, then slowly looked up and came to an astounding conclusion that defied comprehension. She had fallen a very long way indeed, and had struck down with the force of a meteor, yet somehow had survived intact with every scrap of disposable cloth removed by the sheer force. Her hair and skin had not been damaged, nor were her bones pulped and broken, and all of her vital organs seemed to operate as intended. Yet the sheer volume of dirt that had been moved indicated a far greater force than could logically be withstood by anything human. Which left her with the conclusion that she was definitely a lot tougher than she could ever remember being. Even the slight nosebleed she had been suffering before seemed to have utterly vanished, along with any aches or pains that would normally accompany even a less rude landing. Kar-Tor had warned her that she would be endowed with certain advantages upon coming to this world and being subjected to its intense field of Biosolar radiation. She had listened to his theoretical espousal without having seriously credited that he could possibly have been right, yet the proof was all around her. What other explanation could account for the way she felt, or the fact that she felt so much stronger and in every way better than before? And yet, she reluctantly concluded, she was beginning to suspect that even Kar-Tor had only the barest inkling of what her expanded potential might mean, and now she had a mystery on her hands to learn what other effects might result from such an intensification of the human life aura. The mystery only intensified when she took a tentative step forward, noticing how her foot sank into the soil as she fought to maintain her balance. Another step was more successful in keeping her upright, so she decided to climb slowly up the side of the pit in order to determine the extent of her new limits. Once she got to the edge, however, she stopped and stared at what lay beyond her impact crater. There were trees everywhere, actual cellulose-fibered plants that were all but extinct on Wolframa, where the only existing specimens remaining were kept in special hydroponic enclosures. These looked rather tall and sturdy, even granted that those nearest to her had been tumbled over as if by a massive explosion. The fallen trees all pointed back towards the pit as if accusing her of arranging their downfall. Further on the trees were not as badly damaged with those in the interim leaning on their more upright brethren, until an actual standing forest could be seen roughly five hundred meters away, a living, breathing ecosystem entirely natural to all outward appearance. Mar-Sa had to take stock of the fact that she was responsible for so much devastation, a fortune in lumber that would have been of incalculable value in Ninjarma. The fact that she was responsible at all was more astonishing even than the fact of her survival. It fully confirmed her tentative hypothesis that her fall had been literally astronomic, for only outside of a planetary atmosphere could she have gained the velocity needed to cause this much collateral damage. Outside of the atmosphere? Again she looked up and tried to imagine how far she had fallen. Perhaps as much as several hundred kilometers up where the air would be so thin it would almost be hard vacuum. That meant she had arrived above the Earth and had fallen into its gravity well while she was unconscious, experiencing her vision. Hardly surprising that Kar-Tor might fail to get a proper alignment before hastily sending her on her way, given the distance between their worlds and the relative motion of such widely spaced heavenly bodies. There was indeed some mercy in the fact that she appeared to have blacked out when deprived of Oxygen, yet even unconscious she had proven too tough for re- entry to harm her. Only the chain-molecular fibers of her durable undergarments had withstood the forces that she had been subjected to, along with her cape, which was composed of similar material. Effectively she had proven herself nearly indestructible, no doubt caused by being subjected to the intense Biosolar radiation that existed outside the filtering effect of the atmosphere, which must surely have lessened the effect to some degree, she reasoned. Incredible but true, she was now superhuman. One thousand times the energy that she was accustomed to receiving was charging the cells of her body through her pineal gland, filling her to bursting with the life energy of a thousand Wolframans. This realization prompted her to test this theory further, and so she cast about for some method by which she could confirm the reality of what she now only suspected. A short leap appeared in order, so she bent her legs and tried springing forward... And took off at such a rate that she found herself tumbling through the air to yet another rude landing! She spat more dirt as she got back to her feet, calculating the distance covered as she glanced back the way she had come and determined that she had just vaulted a hundred meters and had landed near the opposite edge of the crater. She softly cursed herself for not taking the low gravity into consideration, then decided on a slower means of learning what she could do, spying a boulder a short distance off that would more than suit her needs, especially in light of the fact that it was only partially buried. She eased up to the boulder with hesitant steps, then felt along its surface with her gloved hands before bending over to search for a purchase. Her fingers almost seemed to merge with the stone as she pressed them firmly into the rock until she had the handholds that she needed, and then she tried to heave the thing up and found it gave with greater ease than she would ever have imagined. She pried it loose from the soil, then gripped it firmly in her gloved hands and heaved it upright with such effortlessness that it felt as though its greater mass were being floated on a grav-lift. By all logic it should have overbalanced her, but instead she found herself heaving the huge object as though it were hollow, heaving it up to the level of her head, then pushing away from her with force enough that it traveled several times the length of her own body, landing with a solid thump that sent up clouds of dust before rolling to a standstill. Exhilarated by her new discovery, she turned to pick up another, smaller stone, which she balanced on one hand before casually tossing it into the air, watching it arc over her head then begin to fall as gravity reasserted itself. Mar-Sa watched it arc with a strange fascination before impulse took over and she drew back her hand and balled it into a fist. It was not a normal reaction for her, but her newfound sense of power was so exhilarating that she had to affirm for herself her true potential. And so her fist shot forward as she threw the first punch that she had ever even attempted in her life, her fist connecting with the boulder with such force that it literally exploded into pieces. Surprise as much as miscalculation almost caused her to overbalance, but she caught her weight again with a greater ease than before, then balanced on the balls of her feet, feeling the urge to spring about like a small child in a playful scamper. In fact, that was very much what she felt like doing, even though it had been years since her basic physical conditioning program had made such gestures second nature. In truth that had never been her strongest subject during her academy training. Now she felt as though she could do anything, pinwheels, somersaults, leaping vaults the like of which no one had ever even imagined possible, and the only reason she did not was that a new sound reached her ears just them, one very different from the virtual symphony of organic noises that were all around her. In point of fact, it sounded like the whine of something mechanical. A lifetime of caution suddenly recalled her back to her present situation and she looked around, trying to focus upon the source of the strange sound, and by gradual measure she determined the direction, and that it was approaching steadily, judging by the changing pitch which-by Doppler estimation-she made to be in her direction. Of course, it was harder to determine the speed, considering how sound was affected in this thinner atmosphere, but it was academic anyway as the most prudent course for her to follow would be to seek the nearest available cover and make further observations from a reasonably safe distance. Her path thus decided, she turned and fled from the scene of the crater as fast as she could safely manage, moving past the fallen timber to where it was still standing, finding each step much easier to take than the last as she discovered that she adapted quickly to her newfound strength and agility. The lighter gravity enabled her to move with increasing rapidity until she was almost gliding over the ground, and any obstacle that came in her path were easily vaulted. In this manner she covered enough ground and was able to take cover behind a natural barrier of trees and boulders. Only then did she turn look back the way that she had come, amazed to discover the distance that she had traversed in what seemed like only a few score heartbeats, and with so little apparent effort. Then the object making the sound appeared, flanked by two others exactly like it, a trio of black shapes moving through the air by means of whirling inclined planes that looked like something out of historical technical files, what were once called propellers. The fan-induction principle was easy to grasp, and by the sound of the motors she deduced that they worked upon a crude chemical reaction system based upon the turbine system, something that had not be used on Wolframa in thirty generations since the depletion of hydrocarbon reserves. The system was an inefficient use of a valuable resource, and it told her a lot about the state of progress for the natives of this planet, but what interested her more was the way the vehicles landed with the two in the rear depositing heavily armed men in an obviously military fashion that confirmed her initial suspicion that her landing had been tracked in some manner by this planet's natives. Hardly surprising that their security forces would send teams to investigate an intrusion into their territorial airspace. But that posed another problem since she realized how it might seem from their perspective if they were to find her in the area, clearly not a native of their planet. Incarceration for interrogation and study would be the least that she could expect. They would want to know how she had survived without a craft of her own, and she was not ready to reveal her new abilities to such people when she was only just discovering them for herself. There was no telling how they would react to discovering comparable life from another planet, let alone life that could withstand the kinetic force of that kind of crash landing. Still curiosity caused her to remain where she was, watching as two strangely dressed men left the first vehicle, their behavior demonstrating that these were men in authority in that they did not need the heavy vests and weaponry that the other men sported. One of them appeared to be talking into some manner of portable communications device as both men scanned the area, then one nodded to the other and they both turned to one of the uniformed men and spoke to him directly...and it almost seemed as though she could make their words out from the background noise of the still-whirling engine and blades, though she did not immediately comprehend their meaning. The sounds did seem familiar, though, so she tried to focus her newly enhanced hearing on targets farther removed from the whine of those rotors, and found herself drawn to a pair of soldiers scanning the ridge of the crater, one of whom-it surprised her to note-had the higher pitch of a woman's voice, which meant that these forces were integrated in more than just gender, because she could plainly see differences in height, build, hair color and complexion among the various other soldiers. "Some type of meteor?" the words suddenly jumped out at her with a clarity that was startling, and their meaning suddenly fell into place as the other soldier replied, "I don't think so. They usually burn up in the atmosphere. Something like this had to hit with the force of a miniature A-Bomb. See the spread of those trees? It took a lot of energy to push up this much dirt. Something solid did that, solid enough not to break apart before impact." There was a momentary pause, as if both were listening to a third voice less audible than their own, and then the woman reacted, "Negative, sir, no sign of whatever it was that did this. Negative on the Rad count. If it was a satellite that did this, it wasn't powered by an atomic reactor." "Wait a minute," the other soldier said, "Sir, I've got footprints, repeat, there are footprints going up this side of the crater. Somebody must have gotten here before us." "Somebody big and heavy," the woman noted, "Look how deep those impressions are, and they're moving away from the center, not towards it. Anybody else see impressions on the other sides?" Another pause, then the man said, "Affirmative, sir. Moving in to investigate. C'mon, let's check it out." "Units Twelve and Seventeen proceeding to the center as ordered," the woman said, and together they both moved over the edge, handling their long-barreled weapons as if they expected the ground itself to erupt into danger. Mar-Sa considered using the moment to retreat, but perverse fascination held her rooted to the spot as she waited with anticipation to hear their reaction to their discovery, and when it came she was far from disappointed, even a little amused at their evident confusion. "Holy...I don't believe this!" "Control, this is Unit Twelve," the woman said, her voice still audible in spite of the baffled acoustics, "Confirm that impact zone has a definite impression, but get this...it's recognizably human." "Affirmative, Control, I second that," the man complied, "Impact is distinctly human in outline, less than two meters long and about nine centimeters deep. Outline is...um...well, kind of shaped like a woman." "Repeat that, Seventeen?" one of the non-weaponed uniformed men asked, "It's shaped like a what?" "A woman, sir," the man in the crater repeated, his tone oddly nervous. "Yes sir," the woman said, "I confirm that the impression has a distinctly hourglass figure, but I cannot confirm the sex of the subject. Whatever did this was definitely not a satellite." "You can say that again," the man said in a tone of evident dismay, "And it got up and walked out of here on its own power. You don't think...?" "No, I don't think, you idiot," the woman snapped, "And you'd better save your impressions for when we're alone before you voice them on a secured channel." Other soldiers had been gathering at the edge where the first had discovered the footprints, and now one was saying, "Check it out. Length of the stride indicates the height at about two meters or less, moving off in that direction." "Look at the size of those footprints!" said a second soldier, "Big and heavy..." "You think maybe it was carrying something heavy when it made those?" suggested a third. "Negative," the first replied, "Impressions look natural, as if the subject were attempting to walk normally..." "There's an interruption, like someone stumbled and rolled, but I confirm that, Control," said yet another man as these four soldiers turned to face in Mar-Sa's general direction. She had decided at that point that she had learned enough and that it was time to vacate the area before these soldiers discovered her. The woods seemed an excellent means of avoiding further detection and possible capture. Now that she knew that she could comprehend the language of these natives, she wanted to explore the rest of what she could now do, and a curious sensation awoke in her at the thought of escape, a sense of freedom from containment. Freedom...the word suddenly came to the fore in her mind, a concept altogether unfamiliar, but which held all sorts of possibilities that heartened her to discover its actual meaning. Breaking cover was a risk, but to remain where she was meant certain detainment. Now that these men knew she was alive there was bound to be a chase, but she felt confident that the edge would be with her. After all these men needed their aerial conveyances to arrive upon the scene and would hardly expect someone to move about as swiftly as she could now do, which gave her a distinctive advantage. It was a good time to learn just how fast she now was, for a few heartbeats later she heard the sound of the rotor blades starting up, and a few moments later she knew that the strange craft had become airborne. She would need to go father into the thicker part of the woods to avoid being spotted from the air, and there was ground pursuit to consider, so rapid movement was of paramount importance. Her heart was beating quicker as the chase began, freedom already becoming as dear to her as life itself as alien thoughts gained familiar ground and awoke in her a thrill at the discovery of her new potential. She wanted to know more about the things that she would never be able to discover if confined, for the future suddenly seemed a whole lot brighter than before and whatever surprises she would face, she would fight to preserve her independence, no matter what the cost or obstacles that she would face in her desperate dash for freedom... (First Copyrights Only) (First Eleven Chapters) -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If you wish to check out my other works, Please check out my Fanfiction webpage at: http://s11.sexshare.com/~jbader/jimbader.html All related chapters of this series can be found there along with my other works.