by Mark Tufo
When I awoke and saw Dee standing guard over my bed, I knew something bad was up. When he told me, I convinced the doctors to shoot me up with the alien go-go juice, and then I made Dee break his promise to Tracy and allow me to follow her. I entrusted my flesh and blood in the form of Travis to Dee’s care, and then I went in pursuit of my tough-as-nails wife, who somehow found a way to battle the warring brutes.
I was dropped off in the shell of L.A. Although, to be honest, it sort of looked the same as it did when it was standing. I was never a fan of that city, and my initial contact with the inhabitants was seemingly not going to change that feeling. The world is at war, barely holding on, I’m doing my best to at least die by my wife’s side, and I get fucking waylaid by a street gang. Just your garden-variety street gang, or so I thought. They didn’t outright kill me, which was good. When the leader recognized me for who I was, he decided to allow me to throw in my lot with them. Sure beat a bullet to the head. The surprises did not end there. They’d been busy building a huge wall against the advancing Genos. I did not know then how they could have known where the Genos were coming; I’d learn that soon enough. When we saw the expanding ribbon of the advancing army, my heart sank. There was no way my wife’s unit could have survived that. Nothing could survive that. Though my heart was black and bleak, I was going to make the Genos pay in blood. It would not quench the thirst of my dry heart, but it would help.
Then the gang-leader, BT, surprised me again. They pulled out these railguns that looked straight out of a science fiction movie. He was very evasive in his answering of where they’d got them. I didn’t give a shit, I just wanted to shoot one; he wouldn’t let me. It was a slaughter. From our high vantage point, and a longer weaponry effective range, we didn’t just paint the ground in blood, we saturated it. For the first time since they’d gone on the move, we’d stopped them. (It was a short-lived victory, as they would change tactics the next day, but it was a victory nonetheless.)
Then, what I didn’t think could happen did, we realized that someone was harrying the Genos from behind with some seriously large guns, tanks, and rocket grenades to be exact. I knew without a doubt it was Tracy. It had to be. I would have known if my soul mate been ripped from my side had she passed, I was positive of it.
If I could have gone through the Genos to find out for sure, I would have, but a reunion would have to wait. As the Genos came after us with everything they had, BT once again pulled a magic rabbit out of his hat in the form of a bomb that was most certainly of alien technology. It laid a devastating blow to the Genos, stopping them, at least for the time being, literally dead in their tracks. If nothing else, the Genos are relentless. The next day, they came again and again, crashing against our wall until we capitulated the ground. BT and I barely escaped our full on retreat. Once the tide of Genos passed, we came out from our hiding spot. After my so sweet meeting with my wife, the real problem reared its ugly head.
We knew the Genos were heading for the fighter factory, and we needed to get there and warn them of the impending danger. Rut, Tracy’s crazy driver, took us there with a speed that nearly finished off what Paul, Beth, the Genos, and the Progs had been trying to do…which was kill us, if I didn’t make that abundantly clear. The factory was a ruse; it was set up to look like it was functioning, but it was all an elaborate trap. For what purpose we did not know until a thermonuclear device was discovered hidden in a storage closet. That was all the convincing I needed to get as far away as possible, yet we couldn’t as there were towns in the blast zone and we had to warn them. We had mixed results—some believed us while others wanted us dead. Rut paid the ultimate price, BT was wounded and out of the fight. We were most certainly staring doom in the face, and then, as if it couldn’t have gotten worse, it did. This came in the form of the Stryvers, technically our allies, or (more likely) enemies of our enemies. On my worst acid trip, I could not have imagined that such a thing existed as every fiber of my being was repulsed by them. I was torn between wanting to run and blowing large holes into their hairy, multi-armed bodies.
The shock when I’d first seen the Genogerians had nothing on what the Stryvers ripped from my psyche. It is still unclear to me at this point who started the flashpoint with the Genos. Could have been my old buddy Paul, who, when I saw him next, was at least going to receive a black eye and a potentially busted fucking nose. He wanted the Genos gone, and inciting a riot would have given him the clearance and justification to eradicate them. Beth was still a suspect, maybe not directly, as I don’t think she had the clout to pull it off up front, but I’m sure she could have twisted Paul’s knots hard enough to get him to do it. The reason, you ask? Why, to get my beautiful bride up on the frontlines while I was busy elsewhere. That would be more than enough reason for her.
Maybe I could give the power couple matching broken noses, the satisfaction would be beyond respite. I still had to contend that there was a discontented contingent in our quote-unquote allies: the Progerians that had defected. They gained the most by an all-out Geno revolt. Or, quite possibly, it was my newest set of friends, the Stryvers. The nightmare creatures were hell bent on destroying the Progerians at the cost and expense of all and everything around them. Planets, people, civilizations, meant naught to them. As long as Progerians died, that was the ultimate goal. And what of this being? The fear they induced just looking at them made everything within me quake in response. They only spoke through telepathy, and by some stroke of misfortune I could pick up on multiple frequencies. So, when they thought they were only communicating amongst themselves, I was listening in. On one side, when they “spoke” to us—myself, BT, and Tracy—they professed their desire to help, but when I delved into their deeper conversations, they talked about killing us, or at least my traveling companions. If I was to believe them, then Paul had departed to parts unknown, and the Progerians were moments away from invading our airspace. I guess that made me a general, or shit, I was now emperor of the world, and what a world to inherit.
We were just digging out from under our latest assault, we were at war on the ground with the Genogerians and the Progerians in the air, our new friends could not be trusted, and so it goes on…
Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE – MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 1
We’d been flying for what seemed like hours, impossible to tell as there was no timing mechanism that I could discern. BT was in a fitful sleep, tossing and turning as much as his restraints would allow. Tracy was next to me, nearly in a stupor. The Stryvers had a way of psychically suppressing our fight-or-flight reflex or possibly the fear response; maybe both if they are different things. From time to time one of the things looked over at me with what I figured was a look of confusion. I tried my best to act calm, but I was as nervous as I’d ever been, and I think they were picking up on that.
I tried to think of as many happy thoughts as I could and then I’d catch a glimpse of a wiry haired leg or some other body part as they moved past me. It was like trying to be calm after your stupid self was leaning too far over and fell into the lion pit and now they were just walking around you debating how tasty you might be.
“Where…where are we going?” I asked, hoping that by talking to them I could allay some of my fears, although all of our speech was done telepathically.
For clarification purposes, I will bold the text I think was meant for me and italicize that which I don’t believe I was supposed to hear. Another thing I have to note is that they weren’t speaking in English, not in the traditional sense. It’s hard to explain, but they seemed to have the capacity to talk in images that my brain could then decipher into something I could understand instead of a useless jumble of pictures. My hope was that nothing too important was being lost in translation, like, for instance, I might think they want to talk strategy and they’re actually asking if I go nice with a Pinot Grigio. Why their sub-speech wasn’t cloaked in some form of crypto-pictograph I could not understand, I don’t know. I just don’t have that answer.
As alien beings I’d never encountered, I could no sooner decipher what they were about than I could a dinosaur.
“He knows…his body is reacting to our presence.”
“Kill it and be done,” another responded.
“I care not for the species, but this one has proved an unusual talent for killing the Progerians. We should let him keep doing that.”
“We seek the Progerian vessel your Earth commander left with.”
“And then?” I knew the ship had been heavily damaged in our fight. This ship I now found myself in, though small, probably had the firepower to finish it off.
“Are we not friends?”
I made sure to hide my derision as far down inside as I could. To call this thing a friend made me want to throw up, chew that vomit into smaller morsels, and swallow it again. Yeah, that’s how repulsed I was by that thought.
“Sure, we’re friends.”
“It is not our friend, it will kill us if we do not kill it.”
And then the leader must have been pretty damn astute as he asked, “Are we not friends as long as Progerians and Genogerians rule your planet?”
Yup, I swallowed down that bile heavily. “I guess then we are. What are your intentions after?”
This he did not answer. He didn’t have to, as his home world had been destroyed along with countless others in a war that spanned galaxies. If this planet survived the oncoming onslaught they were going to take it.
“One problem at a time, I suppose.”
“Yes, one problem at a time.”
It may have smiled, but rabbits being thrown into a wood chipper would have been more heartwarming.
“Can you find a ship in open space?”
“Much like a vessel traveling in water, it will leave a faint wake. Once we find that, we can follow, yes.”
“Find the Progerian vessel, put these things on it and destroy them all, Inruk!”
“In time we will kill them all. For now they are our tool. I will hear no more about this.”
How screwed up was this? If I could have possibly been brought in front of the Progerians I would beg them for an alliance against my new friends.
“The man with the broken leg will be healed soon,” the one who had been tending to BT spoke.
I looked up quickly, thinking he had been talking to me. I hoped my acting skills were up to par. Pretty sure I played it off as smoothly as if I had been staring at a particularly large set of mammaries and the woman who possessed them had caught me looking. He didn’t say anything to me or the others for that matter; I could only hope that he did not know that I could hear him.
“Can I approach?” I asked the “doctor”, for lack of a better term. If he had been my general care practitioner, it would be safe to assume I would rather operate on myself, without anesthesia, and with dull, rusty tools.
Maybe he thought it was coincidental and I had wanted to see my friend. That was what I had to grasp on to. I was given a great advantage, and I needed to hold on to it as long as possible. I’d cracked their code, so to speak. Countries spent millions in materials and personnel attempting to do exactly what I had done, albeit mine had been achieved most likely with a cocktail of illegal drugs and booze, but any way to good was good, right? BT was stirring as I approached.
“You alright?” I asked aloud. The doctor thing seemed to shy away from the vocalization of my words. They did not appear to be overly keen on sound. I wondered if it was just that they found human voices particularly grating…or would any noise irritate them? It definitely explained the development of the railgun and that bomb, neither of which had caused very many decibels in operation.
“I feel better. Where are…”
His question trailed off when he caught sight of our hosts.
“I’d hoped I had dreamt that part.”
“Not so much.”
“What’s going on?”
“Well, my one time friend has taken off with the only thing that could possibly defend the planet from an interstellar slaughter.”
“The Guardian? He took off in the Guardian?”
I nodded before continuing. “Our new ally here is going to try and track him down.”
“For?”
The question was obvious enough: to destroy or help. I didn’t answer because, although the Stryvers weren’t fans of speech, they could hear it just fine.
BT grasped my hand in his and shook it once, looked me in the eye, then gave me the finger.
“What the hell, man?”
“Watch again.” He did the same routine.
“Friends or f...?”
He placed his index finger to his mouth and made a quiet shushing sound. I got it now; apparently centaur spiders from outer space didn’t understand charades.
“I get it.” I made a real cheesy grin, pumped my hand up and down, and then made a thrusting motion as if I had a knife. I then tried to remove the fake knife that had been stuck in my back.
“I thought so,” he sighed.
“What are you two doing?” Tracy asked, slowly approaching as if she were getting over a severe case of vertigo. “They keep doping me up so I won’t get scared, but it’s not working. How come you don’t seem so affected?”
“I’m braver than you.” I wasn’t really. Anyone that could endure birthing a child had me in spades, I just wanted her to stop the line of reasoning she was attempting to go down.
“You wish.” She had that look that we weren’t quite done talking about this subject. I looked at her as sternly as I could without her punching me. I shook my head as well. I don’t know that she fully got it, but that I was acting suspicious around the Stryvers was all the information she truly needed. “Are they going to bring us home?” There was a tremor in her voice. She wanted to know if we were ever going to see our son again.
“In a roundabout way. We’re looking for the Guardian.”
Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO – PAUL ABOARD THE GUARDIAN
“Sir, we have reports of at least a half dozen locations on fire.”
“Can they be vented?” Paul was wondering if they could be exposed to the vacuum of space, thus quenching the fires’ ability to breathe. “And shut the damn alarms off, I know we’re in trouble without them trying to split my head.”
The comms officer hit a few buttons and was able to get the klaxons to silence. The resultant quietude was immediately replaced with the panic of the personnel aboard the ship.
“Four of the fires can be, sir, with only a minimal loss of life and equipment.”
Paul had no choice but to sacrifice the equipment. He didn’t have the time to evacuate it all and deal with the other two fires that threatened to hamstring the ship. And in space, there was no one to call for help.
“Get anybody who is fighting those fires out of the area and have them go to the two that we can’t extinguish.”
“Yes, sir.” The comms officer sent the message over the ship wide system. Two minutes later, the ship shuddered like it was in its death throes as doors designed to keep out the desolation of space were opened.
Paul watched raptly on the big screen in front of him the representation of the ship and the areas that blazed in red light to signify fire. One by one they went out until only the two remained. Paul pinched the bridge of his nose between his finger and thumb, thinking about crushing the cartilage when he saw Beth heading his way. She’d not handled the attack, the retreat, or the damage control well; and she was not one to hold anything in. If she wasn’t up to par, then she was going to make sure no one was.
“How long is it going to take to get those other two fires out?”
“Maybe you should go down there and see,” Paul snapped.
Paul didn’t have to suffer the eye-daggers Beth threw his way for long.
“Sir, we have more problems.” The comms officer was listening to the ship’s engineer.
All Paul could think was that Beth had a twin sister and she had somehow found her way aboa
rd. Luckily, he kept his thought to himself. The real problem was worse, but only by a small margin.
“What’s going on?”
“Sir, it’s Grimmons from Engineering.”
“Put him over the speaker,” Paul directed.
“…the fire is spreading and the buckle engine coupling harness is in danger of—”
“Grimmons, this is General Ginson. Can you tell me what is going on?”
There was a cacophony of noise in the background, and still Paul could hear the engineer sigh and mutter that he’d have to repeat what was happening when time was of the essence.
“I was saying the fire has melted through three of the four coverings to the buckling coupler. We need to shut down the entire drive, NOW.”
“Do it,” Paul directed his helmsman. There was a low whine and another shudder as the ship slipped over into emergency power. “How long will it take to get the fire out and be able to turn the power back on?” Paul asked.
“That’s the thing, General. We can’t even get to the fire it’s burning so intensely. We don’t have the equipment to do so properly. I’ve got all the hatches sealed to the room so it will eventually starve itself out, but not before it melts all the components and gets into the coupling.”
“Then how long will it take to repair once the fire is out and everything is cooled down?”
There was a long pause. “We can’t fix it, sir.”
“Without the drive we are drifting around like space junk. How far can I get with the regular propulsion system on?” Paul was thinking that even being a captive on Earth was better than freezing to death in space.
“You turn that drive back on right now and we become a fireworks display for some nearby planet,” Grimmons replied.
“What are we going to do?” Beth cried. Paul placed his hand up to keep her quiet.
“Once the fire is out, sir, I can reroute functioning so that nothing is going to the buckle drive. We can have the normal drive back up and running in a few hours once I can get in there.”
