Awakening

by Ell Leigh Clarke

  Back on the Geburah, Amroth moved back and forth, wringing his fingers. Thinking, thinking, thinking…

  Legba was powerful. They had to be cautious. But time was running short, and nothing was turning up. He diverted his attention to Frostbite Four, still slowly circling Legba’s ship. He thought about it for a second more, before opening the channel again.

  “Frostbite Four, move in. Slowly. Legba may be on his ship. He was here, and he didn’t leave. We find Legba, we find the sword.”

  “Uh… sir?” came back the voice of the leader. “It’s gone.”

  Amroth raised an eyebrow.

  “Gone? What’s gone? The ship? I thought I told you to keep an eye on it! How could you miss a…”

  His voice trailed off as he looked at the onscreen display at the space where Legba’s ship had been seconds ago. There was nothing. Just the blackness of space staring back, mocking him.

  "Well, he has to be using a cloaking device," Amroth decided, tapping on the control panel, hoping to get some sort of reading.

  “No, sir. He just disappeared. No warp signature, no cloaking radiation. The ship didn’t move. Or hide. It’s just… gone.”

  Amroth slammed his hand on the control panel. It looked like he had failed. Again. Switching his com channel, he spoke.

  “Frostbite One, what’s your status?”

  "Nothing here, sir,” came the reply. “The top level is as empty as the rest. This ship is abandoned."

  Amroth was about to slam his hand on the control panel, when a realization hit him.

  “No,” he replied, suddenly sounding calm. “There were energy readings there. Someone was screaming...”

  Rapidly changing com channels, he rapped out orders to the different units. “Frostbite Two, go help Frostbite One. Frostbite Four, go take Frostbite Two’s position.”

  “Affirmative!” came in the voices of his men.

  The footsteps of the Frostbite Two unit thudded on the stairs as they came into view.

  “What part hasn’t been checked so far?” their leader asked, aware that they were running out of time to fulfil their orders.

  “Searched most of it, just skipped a couple of rooms that didn’t seem worth the trouble” Emerton replied, then looked around “Why don’t you start with the medical bay...”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Medical Bay, Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  The girl shifted awkwardly in her hiding place in the medical cabinet. She tried to breathe as quietly as possible, listening attentively for any signs of movement in the room beyond. The intruder alarm continued to blare, causing her head to ring, and making it incredibly difficult for her to focus, or know how loud her breathing was.

  Fuck… she thought to herself, wriggling to move some of the weight off the arm she was lying on. She could barely feel her fingers. A slow pain that had started in her spine had already moved its way up to the rest of her body, like a thousand fire ants slowly marching in formation. Sweat had started dripping down her back, making her shirt stick to her skin along her back.

  Plus, something inside this closet smelled of plastic.

  Having to share the space with a sword almost as big as her made matters worse.

  Leaving it behind had been a tempting idea. And she almost had. But it seemed to call to her: the strange symbols etched to its beautiful blade somehow making it clear that it was her responsibility to protect it. Even though she was pretty sure that the sword was what the troops outside were looking for, the dead man’s words haunted her.

  Protect the sword with your life. You and the sword are now one.

  “A little closer, and the sword and I will actually be one,” she muttered, glancing at the sharp edge of the sword, just inches from her face. Being this close to the heavy sword made the thumping in her head louder.

  She shifted around an inch, looking for some kind of pain killer. There was nothing that she recognized.

  Not that she would have been too keen to take any medicine inside that cabinet anyway. It clearly hadn’t been used… or stocked… for quite some time. There was a whole row of bottles with their labels torn off. A small container filled with red sludge that once might have been a syrup of some sort, next to a bottle of nose drops with a broken needle tip. Clearly, the people who lived on this ship never got sick.

  She felt it before she heard it. Perhaps it was the hairs on her arm suddenly standing on their ends, as if sensing something. She froze, her heart suddenly going into overdrive once again. She couldn’t see it, or hear it. But she knew that she was no longer alone in the room.

  She just felt it.

  Apparently, the feeling was mutual.

  Outside her hiding place, the leader of Frostbite two looked around the medical bay.

  Empty.

  Just like the rest of the ship. Unused and unkempt. Except…

  He hesitated just inside the door, weapon poised to shoot anything that might move. He sniffed the air, checking. A quick glance at his men confirmed his doubts. They felt it too. Raising his hand, he cupped his ear, telling his men to stop and listen. Carefully.

  Seeing the command, the heavily armed tactical unit turned to stone. Not a breath came off the whole unit. Just a few meters away, a thin door protecting her from the glares of the team, their prey stayed just as still. Any pain she had been experiencing was now completely forgotten. She didn’t realize that she had stopped breathing. Or that her pulse had suddenly doubled in speed.

  For what seemed like an eternity, the hunter and the hunted remained in perfect suspension. Waiting for something to happen.

  The leader of the unit raised his hand higher than his shoulder, palm to the front, and swept it forward, making the team spread out in its usual precise motion.

  It took a whole ten seconds for the unit to search the room, before the leader decided to break silence. “Sir, we found something.”

  Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest. She’d been discovered!

  “Blood. Fresh, by the looks of it,” he said, speaking into his ear-piece, while crouching down next to the overturned stool.

  Realizing that they hadn’t found her, she tried to calm herself. I swear they can hear my heart pounding from out there, she thought to herself, feeling the desperation still rising.

  “No bodies. If there was one, it’s gone,” the voice of the unit leader reported.

  One of his men dropped on one knee beside him, examining the blood.

  “But dead bodies can’t exactly walk away,” the second voice responded.

  Another voice. “Sir, just look at the amount of blood in here. Either the person who was bleeding wasn’t human, or…”

  His voice trailed off, unable to find an explanation.

  The leader of the unit looked down at his subordinate. He was still a boy, almost. Sure, there was no explanation to this, but the kid was going to learn that half the things that happened in this line of work barely came with a well written description attached to it.

  Just then he felt the temperature of the room drop. An eerie fear settled over the group. The leader staggered to his feet, anticipating what was to come. A moment later Commander Amroth wafted into the room, his boots clunking and black cape billowing like death itself around him.

  “Report!” Amroth demanded.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t think… I thought you were on the Geburah-”, the team leader stuttered, mindlessly.

  “Clearly I’m not,” he responded, irritated. “Report.”

  “We errr… we haven’t found anything yet, sir. Still working on it.”

  “I am surrounded by idiots,” Amroth said quietly. Clearly he was seething though, despite his controlled demeanor. Somehow the force of his will forced the lieutenant to stumble back into a rack of equipment, slamming it into the wall.

  “I’m sorry, sir, please… please…it’s not my fault…”

  Amroth glared at him, his temper barely under control. He stood for a moment deciding what he was go
ing to do. Slowly his hand reached up for the locket he wore around his neck. His hand clutched around it to make a fist. Amroth closed his eyes as if getting control of the bubbling rage within.

  The officer’s body jolted as if he had been hit by a bolt of lightning. His mouth fell open and his eyes opened wide, frozen in a look of sheer terror as he faced the penalty for failing his commander. His eyes rolled back in his head as his lungs constricted, the air being sucked from them like a powerful vacuum. His heart ceased to beat in his chest, and his head lolled to the side. From his mouth, a white mist began to roll, drifting toward the locket around Amroth’s neck.

  He tried to scream, but there wasn’t enough air in his lungs. He only managed a gurgling sound from deep in his throat. The tension dropped from his body and he collapsed to his knees. A second before the soul was sucked completely from the soldier’s body, Amroth reluctantly opened his eyes and released his grip on the locket. He sighed and watched the body collapse in front of him.

  The unit leader gasped loudly as the white mist of his soul drifted back into his body. He grabbed his chest and groaned when the dark magic wrenching his heart suddenly let go.

  His heart began to beat again in his chest. The air flowed freely in and out of his lungs. He sat on the floor for a moment with one hand over his heart and the other covering his eyes, so his commander would not see him cry.

  “Get up, fool,” Amroth ordered without offering his hand. “Consider my mercy a one-time gift. You will never receive it again.” The anger seemed to have left his face, leaving only boredom and perhaps mild irritation at how badly their search was going.

  “Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” the team leader muttered breathlessly as he struggled to his feet. “I’m sorry I failed you, sir.”

  Staring into the human’s teary eyes, Amroth began to regret that he had not finished what he had started. He lived for the day when he could leave this world behind and never have to deal with humans again.

  Such a pathetic, weak species. What was their Creator thinking?

  Perhaps that was why He abandoned them millennia ago. They were too much of a disappointment for their namby-pamby god to bear.

  “Lieutenant, go to the bridge and start the ship’s self-destruct sequence,” Amroth instructed calmly, the anger still tingeing his voice. “I will join you on the bridge when I’m ready to leave. The rest of you, finish checking in here.”

  “Yes, sir,” he responded, unable to hide the relief in his voice that he was still alive. Quietly he ordered his terrified men who had been watching to continue the search, and had one of them accompany him out to the bridge.

  Amroth started to follow them out but then he stopped and stood in the doorway for a moment, letting his eyes wander slowly around the room. Finally, his gaze settled on the pool of Legba’s blood and he smiled.

  “Ah, Legba, my old friend, where did you go? And what did you do with my sword?” He stayed taking it all in for a moment, while his soldiers continued their silent, fearful search. And then, satisfied that there was nothing else he could learn by being there, he turned and headed out of the room, his distinctive footsteps pounding back down the corridor.

  Moments later the room seemed to warm up leaving just an air of frantic activity. Another voice took over giving instructions of what to scan and where. “Scan that cabinet too,” he instructed.

  A soldier reached forward and carefully opened the door of the precious hiding place allowing the dim light of the outside to seep in, painting the dark cabinet in its odd glow.

  Her heart in her mouth, she felt a shadow fall right in front of her. Big, dark, terrifying. It was as if the devil himself had stepped out into the light to pass judgment. Her heart beat faster, almost choking her, thumping with its rhythmical sledgehammer like sound. A whirl of questions flew around her head as she tried to curl herself into an even smaller ball, somehow managing to find a way to tuck her arms and feet closer to her body.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the soldier. “Why does everything here smell of plastic?” he muttered, wrinkling up his nose.

  She braced herself, knowing she was about to be discovered. Maybe she could convince them that she was crazy. Maybe they’ll let her go. Maybe they were the good guys. Maybe she could give them the sword and everything would be fine.

  Maybe…

  Maybe she was crazy. After all, curled up inside a medical cabinet with a longsword because a holographic old man told her to, wasn’t quite the picture of sanity.

  She wanted to cry, swear, run. Nothing that happened in the past minutes since she came to made any sense. The old man dying in front of her, the giant sword, a whole army boarding a spaceship. It all seemed illogical. Bizarre. Like she was in a very bad dream. But it wasn’t a dream. She knew it. She had already tested that theory.

  Suddenly, a scanner was thrust right in front of her face. She held back a scream, her body taut with anxiety.

  The hand right in front of her was clad in some form of black leather. Definitely military. A little to the right and her face would be in the way. She knew she had a better chance of avoiding the hand with her eyes open, but she couldn’t help it. Closing her eyes, she tucked her head down, waiting for it to be over.

  The hand pulled out, and the shadow slid away.

  “Nothing. No readings. Nothing sir.”

  The door to the cabinet was still open, and she could hear the sounds of the other troops reporting back, with their empty findings. She couldn't believe that she hadn't been found. It seemed impossible that she had been so completely missed.

  Maybe they were just messing with her?

  “Self-destruct is set,” the new voice reported, presumably relaying the information from the bridge. “Twenty minutes.” A pause. “Everyone out.”

  Never before had she understood the phrase 'from the frying pan into the fire' as well as she did now. She had no way of knowing if the troops were still in the room, their eerily quiet ways didn't give away anything. But right now, she was itching to get the hell out of there. Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes. Wait. Was it twenty?

  What if it was two? No, that couldn’t be. No one could get out of this ship in two minutes, right? Right?

  Shit! I’m gonna die in here.

  Calm down. Calm down.

  Wait, no, don’t calm down. The whole place is about to blow with you in it.

  But panicking won’t help. It’ll just make things worse.

  Every one of her instincts were telling her to move her ass out of the cabinet. But she had never heard the troops leaving the med bay, even after someone had given the order to clear out.

  Maybe they left when I wasn’t paying attention?

  If they are still around, I'm dead.

  But if you stick around here, you're dead anyway.

  Another precious minute wasted arguing with herself.

  "Oh, fuck it," she muttered, pushing herself out of the cabinet.

  Uncurling herself from her cramped position brought out all the pain she had forgotten. Her limbs stung and she felt as if someone had dropped a weight on the base of her neck. Her suddenly weak limbs made her fall heavily on the cabinet, knocking over a couple of bottles. The sound of the glass clanking on the hard steel shelf bounced around the room.

  But she couldn't care less. There was no time to be worried about noise. With a good amount of effort, she pulled herself out of the cabinet and dropped onto the cold floor, panting as she worked the strength to stand up.

  Now to get the hell outta here!

  Once again, the sword, ungraciously stuffed in the cabinet, seemed to call out to her. It wanted to go with her. It demanded it.

  "Couldn’t just have been a small portable hand-held something, could you?" she muttered, speaking to the sword. "You just had to be a massive-ass ton of metal."

  It was bad enough having to escape a soon-to-be blown ship. Carrying around the sword with her would just make everything a lot more complicated. Ignoring its demands, sh
e slid up to the entrance of the medical bay.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Outside the Medical Bay, Aboard the Chesed, Klaunox Sector

  She crept out of the sterile med bay as quickly as she dared. Each step she listened carefully for any sound of movement around her. Scouting space ships wasn't exactly her field of expertise, so it only took a matter of seconds for her to decide that she was lost. Following her nose was one option, but there had to be a better way.

  "Okay. Think. Think. What do I know?" she asked herself. "This is the top level, and the airlocks are generally at the bottom."

  Right. Downwards. Downwards should lead straight to the bridge…

  She arrived there several minutes later, sweaty and panting. Maybe it was the constant bursts of adrenaline she had been getting in the past hour or so, but normal things like running down a bunch of stairs suddenly felt exhausting to her. She leaned up against the curved entrance to the bridge and looked beyond.

  And quite an odd bridge it was. Everything required to run the ship seemed to have been squeezed into the corner, while the rest of the room remained empty and open. Almost as if the people who built the ship had forgotten that a control room was necessary. Everything here was either black or a glowing blue with spots of gray here and there.

  But if the control room had been built in hindsight, the tech inside it definitely was not.

  To her left was a command deck, raised several feet above the rest of the room. Slightly crooked and shooting off at an angle from the floor. The stairs leading to it were a matte black, with two thin strips of glowing blue light running around it. A certainly grand place, one which automatically assigned anyone who stood on it the title of captain. Or king.

  Right below the command deck was a table, empty, with a striped gray top and a plethora of holographic projectors running along its edges, letting everyone know that it was more than just a mere table. All around the small control area were panels, emitting a bright blue light, showing various statistics of the ship. The engine, it's heat levels, how the airlocks were doing, and a bunch of other stuff which looked like important gibberish.