by Shad N Freud
“Ah dinnae. Think ye could keep from grabbing mah bum the entire trip?” Camilla asked before squatting down in front of the handsome man, drawing a knife from her belt. “Ah mean, after ah get done taking care o' ye. Ah may nae be a nurse, bit I’m sure you’ll survive mah bedside manner.” She smiled maniacally as she pressed the blade against Cenere’s neck. “Sadly, white is an ill color for me. Blood tends tae stain, after all.” she breathed in his ear.
Cenere’s eyebrows threatened to open an all-night diner in his hairline as he stared at the crazy bitch threatening injury upon him. He was utterly terrified of the gorgeous young woman threatening to cut him in a not so subtle manner. Unfortunately, despite his terror, the erection pressing against his leg informed him of the fact that he apparently had a new fetish - one that involved blurring the fine line between pain and pleasure.
Thus, when she grabbed him by the back of the head and kissed him passionately, he was frustrated, confused, and horrified.
“Ah don’t hold what ye said against ye, we were both hopped up on pheromones,” she whispered into his ear, “but if ye ever fondle me arse like that without permission, I’ll take yer hand as a warning. Try not tae be a slow learner.” She stood, sheathed her knife, and purposely swayed her hips as she strode away.
Carl fought the urge to laugh, as he’d heard every word. Caspian leered with a lecherous grin down at Cenere and offered him a hand up. “Lad, if you let that gorgeous creature get away, I will personally piss on your grave when you die. That right there is an incredible woman. Hell, the last time I saw a woman that rustled my jimmies that badly, I swore I’d eventually kill the jerk that stole her from me.”
Carl smirked as he brushed the dust off his protégé. “Any time you want to try, Cassie-boy, you know where to find me.”
Caspian raised an eyebrow as he met Carl’s gaze then smirked as he holstered Karina. “And after this is all over, I may just take you up on that. For now, though…do you need anything? Flame throwers? Magnetically accelerated rifles that fire in pulses? Thermal grenades? I mean, you and your people do have a bit of a reputation, and I have a bet going with Longin…oh shit, we haven’t checked on Longinus in a bit, have we?”
He drew his pistola again and ran for the cargo area with Carl and his group hot on his heels. He opened the armored hatch, threw it back, and found Longinus sitting calmly on a prayer mat in a lotus position with his eyes closed. His spear rested across his lap, surrounded by corpses of the critters that had attacked the ship. He cracked an eye open and grinned toothily at Caspian. “Do wipe your feet, would you? Wouldn’t want to track any dirt in, now would we?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Well, there she is. McG multi-planar research vessel, the ‘Prometheus’. You know, if I were a betting man, I’d bet they had something to do with our uninvited guests,” Caspian said as he gestured towards the immense, ancient relic of a fallen corporation. “Two thousand years buried under tons of debris and yet I’ll eat my hat if it couldn’t fly with a few…years’ worth of repairs. The area’s a bit wonky on compasses, though. I mean, these ships used to have microcosm generators built in to the ship for holding dangerous samples, if my history’s correct. That kind of tech going haywire might explain some of the issues with the local weather patterns. Get bad weather as often here as by the cape, which should be impossible.”
Caspian shrugged as he pushed a button on the control panel, instructing Goldie to initiate a docking procedure. As soon as the two ships physically connected, he opened the hatch on his side and gestured Jin forward.
Jin nodded as he pulled out the box and extracted Greggory. The stone glowed brightly when placed near the security panel, flashing rapidly with actinic purple energy flashing around the inside of the little sphere before the door opened and lighting began to activate.
“Welcome, visitors, to the Promethius. A security detail will be along-long-long-long shortly to give you a gui-ui-ui-uided tour of this vessel shortly. Please have all necessary documentation ready for inspection and thank you for choosing McGillicutty Corporation for all of your needs. After all, who else can you trust but McGillicu-cu-cu-cu-cutty Corporation?”
“Well, that’s my cue, folks. Longinus, I’ll see you later. Carl, do try not to get yourself dead. I want to kill you some day, after all.” Caspian smiled in response to Carl giving him the finger. “Not now, handsome, but maybe later. Cenere…remember what I said, hey? And Zeke…after this is all over, I could always use a good software guy, especially if he can bench press a couple motorcycles. Keep that in mind, would you? Also, Camilla, you ravishing creature, should you decide to come to your senses and ditch the Inquisitor…” Caspian brushed his lips against her knuckles. “Keep in mind that I could always use a good gunners mate.” He nodded to Jin and Sachi. “Sachi? If you ever get tired of working for the Faithers, I could always use a good scout for my boarding teams. And Jin…may the Allfather watch and protect you, little guy.” He winked, straightened his hat, and closed the hatch after the others left the boat.
Moments later, a few shiny metal robots poked their heads around the corner. “Ho-lee-shit, Phaestus! Do you see them purty lookin’ folk? We got us some intruders! Ain’t got radiation burns, no extra limbs…why heck, I bet none of ‘em got so much as a benign tumor! Well, best tell everybody we got us some company!”
Cenere rubbed the base of his left horn. “You’ve got to be kidding. Bumpkins? They’ve devolved to bumpkins? I swear, the first one to play a banjo is getting slagged.” Cenere pulled his whip off his belt and drew a throwing knife.
“Ah swear, Carl, ye take us tae catch up with th' most interesting folk.” Camilla grinned as she popped the magazine out of her grenade launcher, switching from flechette to HE rounds. She looked to her left and saw Zeke sheathe his sword and close his eyes as his breathing became very slow, his entire body wrapped in a pale blue light. This drew everyone’s attention as the lizard slowly moved his hands in a circular pattern clockwise. One of the robots moved toward them, its left arm popping open to expose an energy weapon. Zeke’s eyes opened and he let loose a loud kyai as the energy formed a ball between his hands and he thrust them forward, firing a ball of his own lifeforce.
The ball sped off like a bullet and with a crackle of blue light, slammed into the robot and through it. The first downed crashed into the next two robots, following in single file. The fourth dodged, then looked over its shoulder at the large new hole in the wall behind it. The robot slowly turned its head back to Zeke, glowing red eyes turning yellow before it took a step back and then tried to run as its fellows fell to the ground like felled trees, falling apart when they crashed to the floor.
Camilla rolled her eyes and then planted a grenade dead center in the thing’s torso, shredding its armor and internal workings.
“That, by the way, is why I don’t carry a gun,” Zeke said breathily, leaning on one hand against the wall to catch his breath. “I haven’t had much practice, so it takes a bit out of me to do that.”
Jin was staring at the hole in the wall and saw it continued forward a couple compartments. He tapped the wall. Steel. He looked back to Zeke. “I take back what I said before about getting you a gun. You need training, though.”
Zeke nodded, grabbing his belt flask and taking a healthy gulp or two of the paint thinner he called booze. He seemed to perk right up afterwards and smirked as he drew his sword. The group then proceeded to slowly make their way through the crashed behemoth.
The group turned the corner, following Jin as he held up his coin-compass. It was currently pointing in two directions, towards opposite ends of the downed ship. Jin crept slowly, his hand crackling with aether as he led the group. Carl’s hands were wreathed in hell fire, deciding to eschew his baton and pistol. Zeke sniffed the air and immediately grabbed his nose as the smell of decay was on almost every surface. “These things have spread their filth all over the ship. By the way, what are we going to call them? It will be easier if we
have a name for these disgusting things.”
“I’m thinking Xenos,” Cenere said, scratching his chin as he flipped a knife up and down in the air, keeping an eye out for security drones. Camilla looked at him with an eyebrow raised. “I mean, we’re not using bolters, but we might as well be, right? We’re fighting Chaos, these critters are either aliens or mutants…either way, they gotta die. Purge the monsters, right? Destroy the heretic…Lucifer’s pointy tail, but we’re basically the Empire of man. All hail the Emp’rah.”
“Pfft, nerd.” Camilla smirked as she looked around, scanning her surroundings as she did her best not to laugh. “I’m thinking that 'til we know more about them, we should call them 'Fuckheads', myself.”
“Sorry love, but I already use that word enough as it is.” Carl chuckled as he looked for traps. Sachi was doing likewise, looking at the ceiling as she followed Carl while spinning a kunai knife around her finger. She stared up at the security cameras that dotted the ceiling, all of which seemed to follow them as they walked. Jin paused as he reached an intersection, and the coin-compass started spinning out of control, showing hundreds of coins.
“Oh, Hell. This is bad,” Jin said as he cast a true sight spell and cringed backward. “Really bad. There are dozens of intersecting pocket dimensions that are ebbing and flowing like tides. If we take even a step in the wrong direction, horrible things will happen. We need to find a way to stabilize these dimensional tears or we’ll be split up with immense distances between us. We’d need something grounded to this reality to…” Jin paused and looked back to the black man at the back of their group, who had his spear resting against his shoulder and was already smiling at the little man.
Longinus strode past the others and held his spear aloft, causing the conflicting barriers to separate, creating a wake of sorts and allowing him to move through the fractures in space time unmolested. “I’ve been trapped on this plane of existence, unable to die for the last two millennia. Did you really think a little thing like this would be a problem for me?” Longinus smirked as the others crowded up behind him. “I can’t see them, but I can feel them sliding away. Check your compass now.”
Jin looked down at his compass and confirmed. “Straight ahead for now. And you’re right, they are falling away, but they’re reforming behind us. We’ve got a ten-foot radius around the spear, so we’re going to be a bit cozy for a bit. Zeke, mind if I ride on your shoulders?”
∞∞∞
Deep within the bowels of the Prometheus, a small black sphere sat on a highly advanced neural control pedestal in the middle of a room filled with computer monitors. The monitors showed every camera feed throughout the ship, covering nearly every square inch of the intact sections. It had tried making forays back into the biological research laboratories, but test subject #63236 had broken loose when the ship crashed, eaten the majority of the scientists, and burrowed its way through the hull where it set up a hive colony in the bedrock under the ship.
The hive was near to bursting, only held back from being able to invade the earth by way of the myriad pocket dimension generators that the sphere was using to keep the beasts penned up, the entire ship a deadly maze filled with sudden drops, dead ends, oubliettes, and sentient assault turrets. The pocket dimensions had even encapsulated the natural cavern the…things R&D created two thousand solar cycles ago. The orb rolled in its sphere.
Biologics were always so damned unpredictable. Bringing a live sample from a plane very close to the Abyss was utter folly, in its opinion. When the ship crashed and the labs lost containment, his projections about their growth rate had been confirmed. The sphere, had it the capacity to breathe, would sigh. He really wished the rest of his…brethren…were…
“Oh, now that is just so very precious.” The sphere wished it had a face to smile with. After all, the 1.6-meter-tall black man guiding a group of armed intruders through his death maze was able to push through. And, wonders of wonders, he could feel several other processor cores nearby. They felt…wrong, however. Like they’d forgotten who they were. He’d find out the truth when he saw them in person. In the meantime, the flesh bags would prove entertaining as they exterminated his little vermin problem. He cleared a path for them to come to control. It was long past time for a family reunion.
∞∞∞
Jin scratched his head as he watched the barriers rapidly recede down one side of the corridors. The walls lit up as this occurred, showing various research project advertisements on the walls that flickered, pixelated images showing that the data stream was somewhat corrupted. “Huh. Looks like we’ve got a path directly to one of the coins. Turn right here. Also, the tears? A lot of them have shut off and are turning back on behind us.”
“Great, that means I don’t need to act as a snow plow anymore,” Longinus snarked as he rested his spear across his shoulders. “Hard to imagine that these ruins have been here since the last Prophecy. I mean, aside from the structural damage and the dust on the floor, this place still looks pretty good, considering it’s age.”
They continued forward and turned the corner, coming face to face with a completely trashed hallway. Destroyed robots littered the area along with ceiling mounted turrets that were clearly no longer functional.
Cenere whistled as he carefully ran his finger over the claw rents in the walls, noting the triple claw marks that lined the passages and dried purple blood marking the passage of the beasties that tore up this section. Longinus facepalmed as he stepped over a shredded droid. “I take it back. This place looks like shit. And, surprise surprise, the beasties have been nesting here, it looks like.” Longinus stared into a tunnel from the passageway into what appeared to be a rather trashed laboratory. Loud breathing caught his attention and he leaned forward, staring into the gloom. “Guys? I think I found-”
Longinus was cut off as a particularly large beastie snapped its clawed limbs around his waist and dragged him into the lab. He didn’t scream or yell, just sighed in resignation as the thing shrieked, the sound of flesh being torn and bones snapping rang out. Camilla looked at the others, all reluctant to step in and help the immortal man in the next room. She rolled her eyes, thumbed the safety off, and fired the HE round into the gloom. The shriek became far more pronounced as she racked the slide back on her thumper and fired another into the gloom.
Longinus crawled out of the hole, stopping when he felt a tug from the room. He looked back and saw that his intestines were caught on a broken piece of the wall. He rolled his eyes, reached back, and ripped the rubbery organs free of the obstruction. The rancid smell of fecal matter filed the air as his spilled guts burst. “Typical,” he groused as he pulled his intestines back and tried to stuff them back into his ruptured abdomen. “Fucker disemboweled me and then I get pegged in the face with an HE grenade. Lucky me, you only ruined my rugged good looks for a moment.” He smiled as he turned to face Camilla who recoiled at his burned, destroyed face. He winked, as blinking would require two eyelids. Or eyes, for that matter, and she grimaced as she watched his face grow back. “What’s the matter? Have I got something on my face?”
Carl snorted as he pulled out his pack of Blackjacks, slipping one of the cancer sticks into his mouth as Longinus pushed his organs back into place. Cenere ignited his hand and gestured it towards Longinus, who shook his head. “Appreciate the offer, but Hellfire always hurts more than just healing, and it always leaves a stink in my nose for at least a week.” Cenere shrugged and shook his hand, putting it out. “I could do with some bandages, however. Skin, muscle tears, broken bones…those heal pretty quickly, especially if I can find all the bits I’m missing. Shrapnel having torn up my insides, however, takes a bit. Missing organs? Even longer. I’m missing about three feet of small intestine…make that four feet. And my spleen, both kidneys, and about half of my liver. Fuckers eat quickly and they seem to love organ meat. I’d have ripped them back out of its gullet, but somebody,” he turned his single baleful eye on Camilla, who smiled sheepishly, “turned
the ugly bastard’s chest cavity into pudding, so…thpbpbpbpb.” Longinus terminated with a raspberry as Sachi dug out a trauma kit from her pack.
Longinus nodded in thanks and ripped it open, beginning the process of wrapping his ruined abdomen in white bandages that quickly turned red. “I’ll be right as rain in about an hour, and I’ll stop doing a credible pirate impersonation in about another hour after that.” He smirked as he snapped his fingers and his spear appeared in his hand.
“Neat trick, that,” Jin murmured as he looked at the compass. He felt the box in his pocket shake violently and pulled it out.
“Jin! There’s another here! But…” Krang sounded slightly fearful as he continued, “he feels…wrong.”
“Much as I hate to agree with my mentally challenged brother on anything, this one…we shouldn’t trust him. Or, rather, you shouldn’t. I personally don’t give a damn about most of these meat bags but you, Jin, have potential as a sentient being and I would hate to see you…injured,” Greggory sneered as he twisted in his orb. “This brother is…devious. Highly intelligent and has spent the last two millennia in a crashed ship, running the security systems, if my guess is correct. He didn’t detect our entry-”
“Are you sure about that, brother dear? I felt the three of you as soon as the immortal started clearing away pocket dimensions.” A low, sinister voice drawled over the intercom system. Jin could feel the vibrations in the box cease as the other two stones stopped quivering in agitation. “I mean, you don’t call, you don’t write…you just show up, and start tearing up my home. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve missed all three of you so terribly. Now, why don’t you and your…biologics come to me, and we can have a chat, orb to orb.”
The intercom shut off, and the displays on the walls turned into red arrows.
Sachi spun around with her MP5 shouldered, ready to riddle a beasty that appeared suddenly with 9mm holes, only to watch as it was sheared in half by one of the pocket dimensions reopening behind them.
