The ELI Event B007R5LTNS

smiled slightly. Lucinda smiled back, weakly. Whatever it was, it was done.
    One of the soldiers looked at the glowing, active console. “Going somewhere?” he asked sarcastically, and leveled his pulse rifle at the console.
    “No!” shouted the squad leader, but he was too late. The soldier fired and the console behind Lucinda exploded in a hail of glass and metal, shards flying across the lab. She jumped at the shot but stood firm. Some of the console pieces struck her back and singed her tunic, but caused her no pain. Glancing at the console, she saw a gaping hole where the destination monitor had been.
    “Imbecile!” the squad leader cried. He drew his laser pistol as if to shoot the impulsive soldier, but hesitated. Instead, he raised his arm and viciously brought down the butt of the weapon on the man’s head, so hard that the blow cracked the soldier’s helmet and shattered the pistol. The soldier stiffened, then slumped to the floor, unconscious.
    The squad leader threw the useless pistol away and motioned roughly to Pan-Li. Calmly, hands still clasped, Pan-Li walked over and stood beside Lucinda. The leader looked the two of them over and, satisfied they had no weapons, sent the remaining three soldiers scurrying back down the hallway. The woman stepped forward, past Lucinda, to examine the damaged console.
    “I am Squad Leader Sazar,” the man said. “And you are my prisoners. Please excuse the intrusion, but this place,”—he indicated the lab with a sweeping arm—“this place was a bit hard to find. Are you all that’s left, just the two of you? How sad. What are you called?”
    Pan-Li and Lucinda stood stock-still and mute.
    “Oh, come now, there’s no need for melodrama. I simply asked your names.”
    Lucinda defiantly raised her chin. “Why should we talk to a lackey like you?” she asked haughtily. “Is Lokus too cowardly to join in the hunt himself?”
    Sazar glared at her. “The Vice Governor is engaged in more important matters than dealing with malcontents such as yourselves,” he replied.
    “So you admit you are a lackey.” Lucinda laughed humorlessly.
    Sazar was unfazed. “Rank and position are no concern of yours. What should be of concern is your immediate health and well-being, which I assure you will go downhill rapidly in Regional Penitentiary.”
    Lucinda gasped involuntarily. The stories she had heard of Lokus’s dreadful prison, if only half true, would terrify a strong man.
    Pan-Li regarded Sazar with calm blue eyes. “I think not, young man,” he said casually. “I’m sure the Vice Governor himself will want to speak with us rather than let you incarcerate us with thieves and murderers.”
    “He might,” Sazar admitted, “but only if you’re reasonably cooperative with me.” He adopted a relaxed, at-ease stance in front of the pair. “When we came in, you were clearly in the middle of an outbound transmission. I really only have one question for you: Who or what did you just relocate?”
    No reply.
    “Answer that one question and I can guarantee you an audience with the Vice Governor, who might— might , I say—show lenience. Refuse and I promise you your next stop will be Regional.”
    Silence.
    “Last chance. Who or what did you just send upstream?”
    Nothing.
    “Very well,” Sazar sighed, “have it your way.” He turned to the woman. “Jalin—anything?”
    “No, sir,” Jalin replied, turning from her examination of the damaged console. “I had hoped it was just the display, but no such luck. The transmit console is completely wrecked. No trace of the destination, either temporal or spatial.”
    “Well, do you know what they relocated?”
    “Sorry, sir, no again. There’s no way to tell what was in the chamber—the subject retention stores are completely fried. The whole console is useless.”
    “Damn. Can you at least tell me if it was a person or an object?”
    “Unfortunately, sir, I can’t. I thought perhaps I could get that much out of this mess, but I just checked the low-level particle sensors, and there’s not even a residual molecular signature. Frankly, I don’t know if it was animal, vegetable, or mineral.” She nodded toward the empty chamber. “All we know is, whoever or whatever it was, it’s gone.”
    Sazar turned toward his prone trooper, now just beginning to regain consciousness. “So, no clues at all as to what was going on here. Do you hear that, Trooper Talok?” he shouted. “No clues whatsoever!