Chapter 16: The Waverider Under Siege
The Waverider groaned, a metallic shriek of protest as Vandal Savage's fury slammed into its temporal shields. Outside the viewport, the timestream, usually a swirling vortex of blues and greens, was now a violent canvas of black and crimson, illuminated by crackling arcs of dark energy emanating from Savage himself. He floated in the void, a figure of pure, unadulterated rage, his eyes burning with an unholy light, his hands unleashing torrents of destructive magic against the ship that dared to defy him.
"Gideon, evasive maneuvers! Full power to shields!" Rip Hunter roared, his voice strained, his hands flying across the console. The ship lurched violently, trying to dodge the incoming blasts, but Savage was relentless, anticipating their movements with a terrifying precision.
"Shield integrity at seventy percent and rapidly falling, Captain!" Gideon's calm, synthesized voice reported, a stark contrast to the chaos engulfing the bridge. "Structural integrity compromised in sections three and four! Temporal displacement field fluctuating!"
Adam, strapped into a console seat next to Sara, felt the impact of each blast reverberate through his bones. The ship shuddered, alarms blared, and sparks rained down from overloaded conduits. This wasn't a skirmish; this was a full-blown, no-holds-barred assault. Savage wasn't just trying to stop them; he was trying to annihilate them.
'Holy crap. He's really, really mad. Like, 'destroy the entire universe because I stubbed my toe' mad. And he's bringing the full force of his newly amplified magic. This is way beyond anything we've faced on the ground. This is like trying to fight a cosmic hurricane in a very expensive, but increasingly fragile, tin can.'
"Ray, get to engineering! See if you can reroute power to auxiliary shields!" Rip commanded, his face grim. "Mick, Snart, prepare for potential boarders! Jax, Professor, be ready for Firestorm integration if he breaches the hull!"
"On it, Captain!" Ray yelled, already shrinking and zipping towards the access panel.
Mick just grinned, pulling out his heat gun. "Finally. Some real fun." Snart, ever cool, merely nodded, his cold gun already in hand, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen, assessing the threat.
Adam, however, didn't wait for orders. He could feel the Waverider's shields straining, the energy flickering. He knew the ship's internal layout, the conduits, the power flows. He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing his telekinesis, not just on external objects, but on the very fabric of the ship's energy systems. He visualized the shield generators, picturing them reinforced, shoring up the failing energy.
He extended his hands, pushing his mental will into the ship's systems. A faint blue glow emanated from his palms, spreading across the console. He felt a surge of power, a connection to the Waverider's core. He could feel the strain on the shields, the points of weakness. He pushed, mentally shoring them up, redirecting power, reinforcing the failing nodes.
"Shield integrity stabilizing at sixty-five percent, Captain!" Gideon reported, a hint of surprise in her voice. "Anomalous energy signature detected, reinforcing primary shields from within!"
Rip glanced at Adam, his eyes widening slightly. "Mr. Stiels, what are you doing?"
"Just giving the old girl a little… telekinetic boost!" Adam grunted, straining. "Think of it as a psychic duct tape. It's not going to hold forever, but it'll buy us some time! He's hitting us hard! I can feel the magic trying to bypass the physical shields!"
Indeed, Savage, sensing Adam's interference, intensified his assault. Dark, tendril-like magical energies began to snake around the Waverider, bypassing the failing shields, seeking weak points in the hull. They slammed against the viewscreen, causing it to crack, sending fissures across the reinforced glass.
"He's trying to breach the bridge!" Sara yelled, drawing her staff. "Everyone, brace for impact!"
A massive magical blast, imbued with Savage's full fury, slammed into the bridge's main viewport. The glass groaned, then shattered, imploding inwards with a deafening roar. A vacuum immediately tried to suck everything out into the timestream. Alarms shrieked a new, more terrifying warning: "HULL BREACH! HULL BREACH ON BRIDGE!"
Rip, quick as a flash, slammed a button, and emergency force fields snapped into place, sealing off the breach, but the damage was done. The bridge was a mess of shattered glass, sparking wires, and freezing cold air.
Through the flickering force field, Savage's enraged face was visible. He was screaming, but his voice was lost in the vacuum and the ship's alarms. He raised his hands again, preparing another, even more devastating attack.
"He's going to overload the force fields!" Rip yelled. "We can't sustain this!"
Adam didn't think. He saw Savage, saw the raw power building, and knew they couldn't take another hit like that. He also knew they couldn't fight him in open space. They needed to escape. He had to create an opening.
He pushed himself out of his seat, ignoring Sara's cry of "Adam, no!" He staggered towards the shattered viewport, towards the flickering force field, his hands outstretched. He focused all his telekinetic energy, not on the force field, but on Savage himself. He pictured a massive, invisible wall slamming into Savage, pushing him back, disrupting his concentration.
"Hey, Savage!" Adam screamed, his voice raw with effort, amplified by his own rage. "You want to play? Let's play!"
He unleashed a massive telekinetic pulse, a focused wave of pure mental force, directly at Savage. It was like nothing he had ever done before, a desperate, all-or-nothing gambit. The invisible force slammed into Savage, who was caught completely off guard. The immortal tyrant roared in surprise and fury as he was violently pushed backward, his dark energy blast scattering harmlessly into the timestream. He spun, disoriented, his concentration broken.
"Gideon, now! Emergency temporal jump!" Rip yelled, seizing the moment of Savage's disorientation. "Anywhere! Just get us out of here!"
"COORDINATES RANDOMIZED. INITIATING EMERGENCY TEMPORAL JUMP IN THREE… TWO… ONE…"
The Waverider lurched violently, the familiar, disorienting sensation of temporal displacement washing over them. Adam, utterly drained, collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath, his head pounding. His nose was bleeding freely, and he could feel a sharp pain in his chest, a new injury from pushing his powers so far. But they were gone. They had escaped. Barely.
When the ship finally settled, the alarms slowly subsided, replaced by the groaning of damaged metal and the hiss of ruptured pipes. The bridge was a wreck. The viewport was still sealed by the flickering force field, but the rest of the room was a scene of devastation.
Rip, looking utterly exhausted, slumped against his console. "Status, Gideon?"
"SEVERE STRUCTURAL DAMAGE. PRIMARY SHIELDS OFFLINE. NAVIGATION SYSTEMS COMPROMISED. TEMPORAL DRIVE SUSTAINED CRITICAL DAMAGE. WE ARE TEMPORALLY STRANDED IN ANCIENT EGYPT, 1700 BCE. APPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR UNTIL COSMIC CONVERGENCE. REPAIRS REQUIRED IMMEDIATELY."
Adam pushed himself up, wincing. His regeneration was already working, but the sheer exhaustion was profound. He looked around at the damaged ship, then at his team. Ray was already zipping towards engineering, Mick and Snart were assessing the damage, and Jax and Stein were unmerged, looking pale.
Sara rushed to Adam's side, her eyes wide with concern. "Adam! Are you okay? What was that? You just… pushed him away!"
"Yeah, well, he was being a bully," Adam wheezed, managing a weak, blood-flecked grin. "Someone had to tell him to back off. And honestly, it took everything I had. My brain feels like a scrambled egg, and my chest feels like I just wrestled a very angry badger." He touched his chest, feeling the new bruise already fading. "But we're here. We made it. Now we just have to, you know, fix the ship, find the meteor site, and kill an immortal supervillain before he kills us. Easy peasy."
Sara just shook her head, a mix of relief and exasperation on her face. She helped him to his feet, her hand warm and steady on his arm. "You're insane, Adam Stiels. Completely insane."
"It's my charm," Adam retorted, leaning on her slightly. "Now, about that ancient Egyptian sun. Think it'll be as forgiving as a British winter?"
The Waverider was a wreck, but they were in the right time, the right place. The final gambit was on. And they were going to win. Or die trying. Probably both.
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