Planet Hero- Civilian

by M. A. Carlson

“For New Haven, no, that’s actually pretty strong for a Tier 1,” Mitch said with a shake of his head. Then as if he just realized he was answering my questions like I was an idiot, he asked, “Shouldn’t you already know this stuff?”

  “My head got messed up a while back,” I said. “Lost a lot of information.”

  “Oh, right, I think I heard about that,” Mitch said. “Anyway, anything else you want to know, or can I open the door now?”

  I had so many questions. So much about this world that I just didn’t know. Still, this was neither the time nor the place. “You’re right, we should get this moving along. Go ahead and open the door.”

  “Right,” Mitch said, putting his keycard to the pad next to the door. The door slid aside revealing a very nervous looking Sam.

  “What took you so long?” Sam demanded, rushing inside.

  “Sorry, Mitch and I were having a serious philosophical discussion regarding the meaning of life, the universe, and everything in it,” I said, knowing she wouldn’t get the reference, and neither would Mitch for that matter.

  “Well, you can do that later, right now, we need to crash this fortress,” Sam said.

  “Woah,” Mitch said in response. “Terry is really not going to like that.”

  “No, I don’t imagine she will,” I said. “For now, it’s nap time Mitch.”

  “Okay, just let me lie down first. I heard about this one henchman that fell and hit his head so hard he woke up thinking he was a sidekick,” Mitch said, moving into one of the corners and sitting down. “Okay, go ahead.”

  What an odd henchman! Anyway, I popped a Void Burst and sent him into dreamland.

  “Right, so I need you to start with blowing out some of the rear thrusters,” Sam said, looking out the monitors. “We need to slow her down but not stop her. Once she begins to backslide, the thrusters are the only thing that will reduce impact.”

  “Okay, tell me where to start,” I said, mentally preparing myself to start imploding some engines.

  32

  On the bridge of the flying fortress, Terminus glared angrily at the woman in charge of keeping the fortress flying. There was another shudder as something distantly exploded, “What the hell is going on, Captain!”

  The Captain, an older woman, much older than Terminus, stuttered out an answer, “We . . . we don’t know ma’am. Several engines have been destroyed stalling our forward progress.”

  “I can see that,” Terminus snapped angrily. “I want to know how. How is this happening? None of the heroes can even get close, not with my negation field in effect. So please, enlighten me?”

  “It . . . it seems to be . . . sabotage,” the Captain stuttered out another answer.

  “Where are my security forces? Why haven’t they put a stop to this?” Terminus asked angrily.

  “They are still in the hangars, waiting to deploy into the city,” the Captain answered, only realizing too late that was not what Terminus wanted to hear.

  Terminus snarled. She couldn’t blame the captain this time. It was her plan that put her security forces . . . her soldiers there. “Fine, then get me Kidnap, right now,” she snapped.

  The Captain turned swiftly to the communications office, “You heard her, open a transmission with Kidnap.”

  “Yes, Captain,” a young man replied.

  Kidnap’s voice came through the speaker on the console a moment later. With an angry hiss, he asked, “What?”

  “Kidnap,” Terminus said, her voice icy. “Where are you?”

  “On the ground,” Kidnap answered.

  “Why are you on the ground?” Terminus asked, suddenly confused.

  “Because that freak Dr. Portal blew open the hangar doors and vented us into the atmosphere,” Kidnap answered, angrily.

  “How the hell did he do that?” Terminus demanded.

  “He can still use his Abilities,” Kidnap replied. “I don’t know how or why, but he can.”

  Terminus snarled. That didn’t make sense. The only way he would have been able to use his abilities was if he was more powerful than she was. And the only way he could be more powerful than she was, was if . . . he still had the power amplifier. Then she urgently asked, “Did he fall out with you?”

  “No, he teleported inside the van, it kept him from being sucked out. Ransom fell somewhere nearby, but And managed to grab ahold of the fortress. If he isn’t already inside, he will be soon,” Kidnap replied.

  Terminus turned swiftly to the captain, “Find And, find him now!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Captain said, snapping off a salute.

  Then something else occurred to Terminus. “Did you say, he teleported?”

  “Yeah, he can teleport, and create some kind of explosions. Suddenly, the freak has all kinds of abilities he never had before,” Kidnap said just as another explosion shook the fortress.

  “He’s sabotaging my fortress!” Terminus screamed. “Kidnap, you and Ransom need to get back up here immediately! Captain, get those soldiers out of the hangars and find that bastard and kill him! Now!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the Captain said.

  Terminus crossed her arms, her jaw clenched tightly shut. All her plans were falling apart all over again. And once again, Dr. Portal was at the heart of it. “When he’s dead, I’m going to mount his head over my office door.”

  33

  Encircling the fortress’s two bottom levels were staggered engines designed to keep the fortress moving but also giving it the ability to turn and rotate as needed. It was slow to move as these engines were not the most powerful engines . . . then again, the fortress was considerably larger than a commercial airliner back on my world, so my sense of scale was probably off.

  Around the rear third of the fortress, the goal was to take out twelve engines, six from each of the two levels. I needed to take out two engines at a time, as near to simultaneous as I could get. Unfortunately, it was at this point I learned that I could not open more than one portal at a time. As such, that meant traveling through the air ducts once again. The idea being that once I was in one location, I could open a portal to drop a Void Burst at another location while I dropped a Void Burst at my current location. According to Sam, it needed to be done this way to prevent the fortress from rotating.

  Once those were out of commission, I needed to do the same to the underside of the fortress. Thankfully, Sam seemed to know exactly where to target.

  “Okay, four more and we’re done,” Sam said just after I appeared back in the gunnery room.

  “Great, I just need a minute to catch my breath,” I said, leaning back against the wall.

  “Hurry up about it,” Sam said. “If we don’t take out those engines in the next twenty minutes, they might be able to compensate with the remaining engines.”

  I groaned. It would take almost fifteen minutes to fully recover my energy levels. I was literally getting tired of this. It was a lot of teleporting with very little time in between to recover.

  The loudspeaker suddenly came to life, the mechanical voice shouting, “Warning! Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert! Warning! Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!” The loudspeaker kept repeating itself then added a nice loud siren and red flashing lights to go with it.

  To top it off, the speaker on the gunnery console crackled to life as well. “All stations report in immediately with appropriate id numbers and locations.”

  “Okay, rest time is over,” Sam said.

  I was about to Teleport when I felt an explosion shudder through the fortress, this one not caused by me.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “It felt like it came from the front of the fortress. Did someone destroy an engine up there?” Sam asked.

  Rather than guess, I opened a series of keyhole portals searching through the front of the ship.

  “What if someone did?” I asked, seeing but not quite believing what I had just seen.

  “It will throw off my calculations. It could put us into a spin or crash us in
to the city instead of the wilds,” Sam answered.

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Okay, um, I don’t know how to say this, but And is back and he looks . . . angry,” I said. Angry might have been an understatement. Apoplectic with an all-consuming rage might have been more accurate. From what I could see, it looked like he ripped one of the forward engines out of the fortress from the outside, basically making himself a door. And now he was destroying everything in his path. Whether by accident or on purpose, I didn’t know.

  “You need to stop him,” Sam said urgently as another shudder ran through the fortress.

  Sure, good idea. I agreed completely with her. I just had no idea how to stop the rubber man. “I’ll happily do so if you can tell me how to stop him.”

  “I don’t know,” Sam snapped. “Push him back out the hole he came in through.”

  Right, I supposed that could work. “Okay, wish me luck,” I said, teleporting up into the ventilation shaft to begin worming myself across the fortress. As I got closer to the engine room And was destroying, I started to feel the pull of the depressurization. I had a feeling that with the engines I’d already destroyed and now And’s rampage, it wouldn’t be long before the entire fortress depressurized. And with our current altitude above the city, that could do bad things to a person’s body.

  When I finally got to the vent opening just above the engine room, I took a minute to make sure I was good with the oxygen levels, I personally wanted to avoid hypoxia. But my breathing was easy enough if slightly labored, we must have dropped low enough now that the air was more breathable.

  Then I got another view of And. He didn’t look right. He was blue around the nose and eyes while the rest of his skin looked cherry red. That was the hypoxia I was worried about. Though it seemed like he had suffered much worse. His rampage now was probably a result of the associated confusion.

  I felt bad about pushing him back outside, but he would more than likely survive the fall, he was made of rubber after all. I opened the first Void Burst between him and the hole in the hull. It popped and he slid across the floor a few feet. When he stopped, And began looking around wildly for the source, which couldn’t be good for me. I quickly created a series of Void Bursts, sucking him rapidly back toward the hole, his hands scrambling to grab onto something, anything. Just as I was about to eject the more advanced henchman, he surprised me.

  And started sucking in air and not stopping. He inflated like a balloon until he was large enough to block my planned exit for him.

  “I see you,” And said, breathing out slowly and deflating for a moment before he sucked in more air to re-inflate himself.

  I didn’t have much time to teleport out of the ventilation system and into the hanger when his two inflated fists slammed into the airduct I had just been using. I appeared back in front of And and he grinned, letting the air out.

  “I know you . . . I don’t like you,” And said, his words slurring, the hypoxia still in effect.

  “No, what are you talking about? You and I are buddies,” I said, using my calming doctor voice. The one I generally used to try to get tweakers in the ER to calm down long enough for me to sedate them properly.

  “No,” And insisted as he continued to deflate. “You hurt brothers,” he said, then looked around in confusion. “Where? Where did they go?”

  “They are waiting for you upstairs. They sent me to get you. They know you’re sick,” I said.

  “No, you lie!” And shouted, his elastic fists flying at me rather suddenly. I teleported away.

  “I see you. You can’t trick me,” And said, redirecting his fists.

  I teleported again up onto a catwalk that ran between the engine rooms and the fists followed a moment later, though it was far enough away now, I could shift out of the way. Then he surprised me again, he grabbed ahold of the catwalk railing and slingshot himself up and tackled me. We both fell. Worse, he kept his grip on me so I couldn’t use Teleport to escape the fall.

  I landed hard on my shoulder and thankfully he let go. I wish I could say I took that moment to Teleport to safety, but when I felt my shoulder crack and pop, I knew with just a glance that it was dislocated and my health bar dipped a little bit lower as the damage began to accumulate. I looked for And, but he was gone. Or I thought he was right up until he hit the floor a few feet away from me and bounced like a misshapen basketball.

  And bounced a few more times before he bounced to a slow stop. His complaint of “Owee,” was mostly ignored as I was in too much discomfort to care that much, Hippocratic Oath be damned.

  I was just glad to find out the henchman could feel pain. Hopefully, that would keep him down for a minute. And speaking of pain, I needed to get up and move and then I needed a wall. I was a bit slow to get up, but once I was on my feet, I ran. Straight to the closest wall. It took a couple of really painful hits to force my shoulder back into the joint. And let me just say, this is another thing Hollywood got wrong. Does it work, sure, but there are better ways, which are a bit slower but much less painful.

  “You hurt me,” And said, finally climbing back to his feet.

  “You hurt yourself . . . and me,” I said, holding my arm immobile. I could use it if I really needed to, but it was going to hurt.

  And shook his head in denial. It didn’t last long before he was back on the attack. I teleported again, but my aim was off. I was in too much pain. I appeared in the air a foot off the ground and facing the wrong way. I hit the ground and rolled forward, right over my recently dislocated shoulder, stunning me with pain for a moment. It provided more than enough time for And. One of his rubbery legs extended and kicked me, hitting my already bruised ribs and lifting me bodily from the ground. I was sent tumbling across the metal flooring, rolling over my already injured shoulder several times in addition to having the wind knocked out of me. I would have bet I had several cracked or broken ribs now as well, but I wasn’t in a position to check beyond a glance at my health bar, which had depleted quite a bit further.

  I barely had my breathing back to an almost normal state when I heard And chuckle. It confused me. He sounded almost gleeful, which worried me more. I was hurt, but after hearing that sinister chuckle, I focused in on the rubberized man. “You push me out, I push you out,” And said, already running at me.

  Only then did I realize where I was standing. I was right in front of And’s makeshift door.

  “I got you now!” And shouted, his hands splayed out as he was reaching forward to push me as he ran headlong at me.

  I didn’t have time to think, he was about to push me out and I couldn’t be sure I would be able to safely Teleport back or open a Portal or find a way to land safely. So, I blindly used Teleport, aiming for somewhere nearby. I could barely focus but I didn’t need to move far. Just a few feet to my left or right. I was suddenly no longer looking at And running at me.

  I look left then right before I saw the villain. I watched as And’s head turned to look at me, even as he continued running forward. He ran right out of the fortress. He cried out in shock before his voice was swallowed up by the wind and he was gone. Just like that.

  I dropped to the deck. I was in so much pain. I was so tired. And I still wasn’t done.

  I didn’t know how long it had been, but I needed to get back to Sam and then deal with the last of the engines.

  Once my energy bars were both back up over half, I took a few deep breaths trying to refocus. I couldn’t afford to mess up a Teleport now. I teleported into the torn open vent in the ceiling and began a very painful trek across the fortress. Until I dropped boneless into the gunnery room . . . an empty gunnery room. Sam was gone. Mitch was gone.

  “Well crap,” I said with a groan.

  The speaker crackled to life behind me. Terminus’s voice greeted me, “Hello again, Dr. Portal.”

  I closed my eyes and groaned. This was just not my day.

  Terminus then stated, “I have something that belongs to you. And you have so
mething at belongs to me. So, here’s my offer. I give you the woman engineer. You give me my working device.”

  Double crap!

  34

  I took a peek outside the gunnery room with one of my keyhole portals. There were at least a dozen guards, all with their rifles aimed at the door. After seeing that, I knew I wouldn’t be able to run through the fortress unobstructed anymore, or at least not going that way.

  “Come to my throne room with the device, we’ll do the exchange there. You have thirty minutes, or the woman dies,” Terminus’s voice echoed in my head as I thought back on what the mad woman demanded.

  Obviously, this was a trap. One in which the possibility of me dying was fairly high. If I went to her she would just kill me, then Sam, or Sam and then me. She would probably torture me first for information on the device I didn’t have. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what made her think I had the device in the first place.

  I stifled a groan as I teleported again through the airducts. I couldn’t afford to be heard now and get caught. I needed a way to even the odds. And without Sam to help me, I had no idea which engines to destroy to finally crash the fortress. Thankfully, I had a backup engineer . . . sort of.

  Finally, I teleported into the storage closet where Nick was still resting peacefully. I gave him a quick check over again and he was still out. I knew it was dangerous to even contemplate waking him, but I needed his help if I was going to save Sam.

  I tried shaking him gently at first, then not so gently, but all I got was a groan of pain and gasp of even more pain before his eyes fluttered for a moment then closed again.

  I cursed under my breath. I needed to wake Nick up. In order to wake Nick up, I needed to heal his injury, something I wasn’t able to do. But then I reflected on something I had been thinking about when I got impaled by the warp hunter. What if healing him wasn’t what I needed to do at all? What if . . . I could simply reverse the damage? Could I manipulate the cells and move them back in time, to a time before they were damaged?

  “You’re insane, Dr. Malory,” I mumbled to myself as I sat down and started reaching for my Nanos.