from the planet's heart

(continued, albeit via altered sequence, here.)

We had located the Dazdi factory in a remote location in Siberia. There the coven harnessed the technology they had stolen from a lost ship centuries ago and enhanced it with their traditional enchantments. Objectively, I would describe the site as an automated facility perched on a geothermal vent, guarded by dozens of metal tripods that bore a distant resemblance to the legendary hut of the coven's founder, Baba Yaga. Bloodwing had a more colorful description, "an abomination sinking its greedy fangs into the heart of Tera herself!"

 The assault team was composed of Bloodwing, Xavael, Ash, Koen and myself. Dr. Mason coordinated the attack remotely from New Babbage. tesseracted into the heart of the facility to catch them off guard and quickly disabled the support systems. As one, the tripods keeled over and crashed into the permafrost. It seemed almost too easy. A scan of the energy readings in the site's reactor core soon confirmed this.

"This was a trap," I stated as I looked up from my scanners a second time. "They intended for us to destroy this facility. A weapon detonated far below us where the shaft meets the Earth's core. The output from the core has increased exponentially."

"Qli," Dr. Mason's communicator hissed and popped from static, "are you saying there is no way to block or divert the rise of the heat? What sort of damage are we looking at to the surface?"

"If it was only the surface!" I removed my faceplate so Dr. Mason and the rest of my family could see gloom that was gathering in my eyes. "This venting of the core will shatter the tectonic plates. The Earth's surface will soon be unrecognizable. Combined with the burning away of the atmosphere..." 

"The End of Days?" whispered Xavael.

I nodded. "We are six hours away from an extinction level event."

 "NO!" Koen stared at me with a determination that was uncharacteristic, but almost reassuring. He pointed at Dr. Mason through the view-screen we had hastily assembled.

"Dad! Remember when you blew up the Foundation building by accident when you fired up the engines on the Gygax? The only difference between an engine and a weapon is the direction of energy!"

Dr. Mason gestured frantically at the young intern holding the imaging unit for him on his side to keep still. "I don't have any invention that would consume that much power at once!"

"Yes you do, Dad...we've got two of them right here! Divert the energy to Qlippothic and Ash's Galvanic Tesseractors. Our wake won't even be felt in this dimension as we take the grand tour through hypertime!"

My brother Ash and I stared at each other, calculating the infinitesimal chance this plan would save the Earth. The chances of us actually surviving such a shift were too low to calculate. Bloodwing crossed his arms. As our living ancestor, he had the final say.

 "We are listening, Koen."

 TO BE CONTINUED