“What about those?” Steven gestured towards the two grenade-like orbs resting on A’luhr’s hip. “They seemed to blast those freaks pretty well.” Sarah had to agree, remembering how they had reduced the seemingly unstoppable Takers to helpless piles of writhing tentacles.
“These simply emit a high-frequency sound that temporarily disrupts the drones’ connections to the queen.” A’luhr ran her fingers over them. “It does not last long and each one is single-use. Hardly a solution with any sort of finality. Regrettably, I only have these two left after I lost my ship.”
“Y-your ship!?” Adam suddenly jumped from his seat, causing the rest of the group to flinch in surprise. “What do you mean ‘lost’!? You mean you LOST alien technology that is capable of FTL speeds!? Studying that would revolutionize humanity!” He ran his hand through his beard in frustration.
“Unfortunately, I was still exiting cryosleep when my vessel entered your planet’s atmosphere.” A’luhr replied in an annoyed voice. “I landed in the water. Did you know your planet is mostly water? Ridiculous. Needless to say, my spacecraft was not designed to be a submersible. I barely managed to get out and swim to the nearby shore before it sank down.”
Adam seemed on the verge of tears. She shifted her weight uncertainly, clearly not expecting this sort of reaction.
“It… it could be saved, I suspect.” She comforted him. “But we need to focus on saving your species first, or else there will not be any humanity left to revolutionize.”
“Why do you care about us so much?” Steven asked. “Why come all the way out here just to help a bunch of primitive humans?”
“Revenge.” She answered coldly, her ethereal eyes narrowing. “And to stop their plague-like spread once and for all.”
“Fair enough.” Steven gulped.
“So, how do you propose we go about defeating these things, then?” Sarah interjected. “You mentioned something called ‘starfire’? Can you elaborate?”
“I already explained it to you,” A’luhr sighed. “It is a mineral that glows brightly when put to flame. I am not sure how else to describe it. My sensor – now broken, by the way…” She held up a fractured device on her wrist and gave an apologetic look to Adam, who seemed about ready to pull his scruffy whiskers out. “My sensor showed a modest collection of the material in that nearby facility. Unfortunately, I was not expecting the entrances to already be covered in the Krinis’s domain… and, well, you know the rest.”
Sarah racked her brains trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. A mineral that burned brightly? She thought back to the flare gun she had used. Steven proved that it wasn’t the light itself that harmed the tentacles, and it didn’t seem to be heat either. Was it perhaps the compounds inside of the flare that had the effect…? She wasn’t a chemist, but she knew enough about chemical reactions to realize what A’luhr was referring to. It was one of the main ingredients in flares.
“Magnesium.” Sarah breathed, feeling as if a curtain had been lifted from her eyes. “Or magnesium-oxide, to be more precise. A’luhr – am I saying that right? A’luhr, your scanner tool must have picked up the traces of magnesium that our university keeps in the chemistry lab storage!”
“It sounds like you are familiar with starfire, then.” A’luhr nodded approvingly. “Or, ‘magnesium’ as you call it. Also, yes.”
“Mm?” Sarah was confused.
“Yes, you pronounced my name correctly.”
“O-oh!” Sarah smiled bashfully.
“However, knowing of the starfire and having it in our hands are two different things. I am reluctant to return to that building as the Krinis no doubt have it marked now.”
“Damn…” Adam kicked the wall. “Well how in the hell are we supposed to get a bunch of magnesium now, then?”
“We may not need ‘a bunch’,” A’luhr replied. “We only need one good hit on the new, gestating queen. If you have any available, it may be enough.”
“Well, unfortunately magnesium wasn’t on my shopping list when I was putting together this shelter,” Adam groaned.
“What do you even use it for?” Zoey asked, curious as always.
“Flares, for one,” Sarah explained. “It’s what makes them so bright and glow for as long as they do. But unless you have more flares kicking around…?” She looked hopefully at Adam who just shook his head. “I thought so…” She sighed.
They all seemed lost in thought for a little while, trying to figure out some sort of way to safely get back into the university.
“…Would fireworks have magnesium in them…?” Steven suddenly asked with a glint in his eyes.
“Sure.” Adam shrugged. “But I don’t have those either. I didn’t build this place with celebrations in mind.”
“I have some.” Steven suddenly began to fill with an excited energy. “In- in my backpack! The one I dropped in the street when we first got here!”
“THAT’S what you were carrying in there!?” Zoey shrieked. “Why did you even HAVE fireworks!? They’re ILLEGAL this time of year… I’m pretty sure…!”
“Hey, get off my case! I bought them back in July and planned to set them off for my 500k subscribers mark on my channel. I figured I’d bring them along as flares or distractions or something. I dunno. I had other stuff in there too! Jeez!” Steven crossed his arms defensively.
“A good thought.” Sarah nodded. “But they’re probably no-good now. After sitting out in the elements for a couple months, surely they’ve gotten wet and destroyed.” Adam began to pace back and forth, a look of realization on his face.
“I’m not so sure about that…” He mused. “The rain barrels have been emptying ever since day one. I don’t think we’ve actually had any rain at all in the time since the invasion started. Right?”
“Y-yeah…!” Zoey squealed. “I don’t think we’ve had any rain! It could still be dry out there!”
“These… ‘fireworks’ sound promising.” A’luhr pondered, her eyebrows twitching with a mind of their own. “I believe you said you noticed incoming precipitation earlier, however? Apologies, but I eavesdropped for a short while before making my presence known.”
“Fuck!” Steven swore, jumping to his feet. “She’s right! It looked like we were going to get rain today!”
“How far away was that backpack?” Adam hurriedly asked.
“Only about a block or two!” Sarah replied, also standing. “If we hurry, we can get there before it starts to pour!”
“Is that really worth going back out there for?” Zoey asked nervously. “The Takers are still wandering around, I’m sure.”
“That’s why we have these bad boys!” Steven shouted, running up to A’luhr and gesturing towards her two round weapons. She seemed surprised by his sudden advance and quickly grabbed him in a chokehold, smothering his face between her other two round weapons. He was shaken by this but didn’t seem to mind, much to Zoey’s look of disdain.
“Apologies.” A’luhr said, releasing him. “Do not approach me without warning. It is a reflex.” Steven took a moment before stepping away from her generous bosom and rubbing his neck.
“We can get away from the Takers with those things, though, right?” Steven croaked.
“Yes, but I only have two left.”
“Then let’s make them count,” Sarah said, already moving towards the door with a look of determination on her face.