Chapter 322: Stasis Grenade
The members of Mann's squad were like tigers among a flock of sheep.
Dorio's heavy punch, combined with a combi-weapon explosion effect, sent a Klingon soldier flying, armor and all, with a single blow.
Valerie and Jack, relying on the advantage of their power armor and precise shooting, quickly cleared the flanks; Falco moved like a phantom among the rocks, taking out enemies with precise short bursts.
The most shocking was Mael.
Her Sandevistan system activated instantly, leaving an afterimage in place. In the next second, she appeared like a ghost behind the Klingon commander who was loudly barking orders.
A cold sonic blade, vibrating at high frequency, was steadily placed against the opponent's thick neck, its sharp edge almost cutting into his tough skin.
"Don't move." Mael's cold voice sounded in the commander's ear, causing his raised bat'leth—a Klingon curved sword—to freeze instantly in mid-air.
The battle became one-sided in just a few dozen seconds, with most of the Klingon soldiers quickly knocked down or subdued.
However, just as Mann's squad thought they had the situation under control, another unexpected change occurred!
In the chaos, two Klingon soldiers who had originally been chasing the Vulcan child successfully grabbed the child under the cover of the confusion.
One tall Klingon tightly clamped his thick arm around the child's neck, pressing his disruptor against the child's temple with his other hand. The child struggled, but the disparity in strength was too great.
"Federation dogs! Get back!" the Klingon soldier holding the hostage roared in broken Basic, his eyes fierce and... carrying a kind of almost fanatical certainty. "Otherwise, I'll kill this 'weapon'!"
Kirk immediately raised his hand to signal a ceasefire, and the members of Mann's squad also stopped their attacks, but their weapons remained aimed at the enemy.
"Weapon? What weapon? He's just a child!" Kirk tried to placate the opponent while his brain worked rapidly.
"Don't try to trick us!" the hostage-taker roared. He glanced down at the struggling child in his arms, his eyes a mix of fear and greed. "We scanned it! His body contains the same energy signature as this planet!
He is the ultimate weapon secretly researched by your Federation! Capable of creating planets, and also destroying them! Hand him over to the Klingon Empire!"
Akira's crimson optical lenses instantly focused on the Vulcan child.
High-precision sensors fully activated, and sure enough, they detected a faint but intrinsically highly special energy fluctuation. It originated from the same source as the Genesis planet's environmental energy field, but was more... condensed and internalized.
A... living carrier of Genesis energy? This discovery made even Akira's logic core tremble.
This far exceeded any of his previous expectations.
Carol was also stunned, muttering to herself, "Impossible... The 'Genesis' energy should permeate the entire planet. How could it be concentrated in a single individual? Unless..."
Unless the birth of this child was itself an unexpected, even unnoticed consequence of the 'Genesis Project'.
The situation reached an impasse.
Mann's squad had the ability to instantly kill the hostage-taker, but couldn't guarantee the child's absolute safety.
The Klingons mistakenly believed the child was a planet-destroying weapon. They were highly emotional and could harm the hostage at any moment.
Kirk faced a difficult choice: should they risk a forced assault to rescue him, or attempt to negotiate? And who exactly was this hostage Vulcan child? What intricate connections did he have with Spock and the Genesis Project?
All the mysteries were focused on that thin, small figure with an energy weapon pointed at his head.
Facing the Klingon soldier's savage and fanatical threat, and the disruptor pressed against the Vulcan child's temple, the hearts of Kirk and the Federation crew were in their throats, while Mann's squad was already calculating the risk of a forced kill.
However, Akira's crimson optical lenses merely swept indifferently over the hostage-taker. His internal processor didn't even open a dedicated high-priority thread for this situation.
In his cognition, originating from the Warhammer universe, this kind of inefficient stalemate relying on the threat of biological emotions was simply an insult to the word "efficiency".
He didn't even bother with verbal negotiation or tactical deployment.
While everyone—including the Klingon hostage-taker—was focused on the tense standoff, a nimble auxiliary mechanical arm silently extended from Akira's massive mechanical body, its fingertips pinching an inconspicuous, dark gray oval device.
Without warning, without any sign, as if casually discarding a piece of trash, he accurately tossed the "grenade" toward the hostage-taker's position.
"Akira! What are you doing?!" Kirk's shocked and angry voice rang out almost synchronously with the throwing motion.
He could not understand why this otherworldly Magos would escalate the situation during a hostage crisis!
The Klingon hostage-taker was also stunned. He had anticipated the Federation personnel would back down, negotiate, or perhaps risk shooting, but he never expected the other side to throw a suspected explosive directly at him and the hostage!
He instinctively wanted to pull the trigger, but his brain experienced a momentary stall due to this completely illogical action.
In this split second, the "grenade" silently "exploded."
There was no deafening explosion, no scorching flames, and no scattering shrapnel.
Instead, a ring of light blue energy, rippling like water, rapidly expanded from the center of the explosion, accurately enveloping the hostage-taking Klingon soldier and the Vulcan child in his arms.
The next second, the scene within the energy field became incredibly bizarre—all movement came to an abrupt halt.
The expression of mixed astonishment and ferocity on the Klingon soldier's face solidified. His finger pulling the trigger halted mid-air, and the gathering energy light at the muzzle of the disruptor also seemed frozen.
The hostage child, with eyes wide in fear and a slight struggling motion, was also pressed with the pause button.
They seemed to become a lifelike sculpture, trapped within an invisible amber.
The wind outside the energy field still blew, the light still flickered, but the space-time within the field was already completely still.
Dead silence fell over the entire area.
Everyone was stunned by this unimaginable scene.
The members of Mann's squad slightly lowered their muzzles, showing surprise; Kirk and Carol were dumbfounded; even the Klingon commander subdued by Mael widened his eyes behind his mask, emitting unbelievable guttural sounds from his throat.
Only then did Akira's steady synthesized voice slowly ring out, as if he had just done something trivial: "Stasis grenade. Upon detonation, it generates a localized space-time lockdown field, halting the flow of time within it. For the duration, all internal activity falls into absolute stasis."
His understated explanation struck everyone's cognition like a heavy hammer.
Stopping time?! This technology, which only existed in theoretical fantasy, was used so casually by him, simply to solve what he perhaps considered not a troublesome "minor problem"?
"Now," Akira's mechanical arm pointed to the static energy field, his tone devoid of fluctuation, "you may go retrieve that Klingon and... that special individual.
Note, do not touch the boundary of the stasis field, to avoid triggering unpredictable space-time disturbances."
Kirk recovered from the immense shock. He took a deep look at Akira, gaining a deeper and more awe-inspiring understanding of the technology possessed by this otherworldly Magos and his behavioral patterns.
He quickly ordered: "Quick! Valerie, Jack, carefully get that child out! Mann, restrain that Klingon!"
The crisis was resolved in a way no one had anticipated.
Akira used the most direct and efficient means to show the inhabitants of this universe what a "solution" from the Dark Age of Technology truly meant.
And that Vulcan child harboring Genesis energy was finally out of danger, but his body clearly concealed an even greater secret.