by C. S. Harte
Meomi looked up as she examined her memories. “The sky was a light blue, like on Earth. Two huge moons orbited the planet. I don’t recall seeing any animals. I have a space marine background, not a xenobiologist’s. I can’t tell you much about the plants.”
“Did you experience anything unusual while you were there?”
Her first reaction was to laugh at the word unusual, but she suppressed the urge. “Captain Thorne, everything about the experience was unusual. You will have to be more specific.”
“Ensign Manalo noted your Security Officer…” He glanced at Inoke. “Lieutenant Laurine Remy… Her body was found quite a distance from where you woke.”
“Correct.” She decided not to elaborate further.
“And Lieutenant Remy was dead when you found her?”
“Also correct.”
“Do you have any ideas how she could be so far separated from you or how you and Ensign Manalo survived the fall but she didn’t?”
Meomi understood she was being interrogated, but she didn’t know why. She wondered if her Fleet Captain competence was on trial after the death of her Security Officer or if he was trying to solve the mysteries of Nocia. “I have no logical explanations for any of your questions.”
“Is it possible that the fugitive traitor killed Lieutenant Remy and dragged her body away? Did you find clues as to where he might be?”
“We lost track of him after we fell into the canyon. I have no clue where he could be or if he even survived the harsh conditions of Nocia. I find it hard to believe anyone could have survived on that for long.”
Thorne turned to Inoke who nodded at him.
Meomi observed Thorne’s lips moving, but he wasn’t speaking out loud.
“In your report, you mentioned you saw a cubed artifact. However, Ensign Manalo claims to have not seen this object. Is that the story thus far?”
“Yes.” The line of questioning made Meomi suspect the interrogation was not about Laurine’s death but the strange artifact. “At some point, I would hope you would give a captain-to-captain courtesy and tell me why you’re here and why you’ve taken over my ship.”
Thorne finally broke eye contact with Inoke. “I have my orders, Captain Hana.”
“Which is?” She perked her ears.
“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”
Meomi pinched her lips together. “When can I get command of my ship back? The entire Commonwealth is dealing with an alien invasion, and you’re wasting my time.”
“Captain Hana, believe me when I say, I am fully aware of this Mimic invasion and more terrified of it than you could possibly imagine. We are on the same side. At least, I hope we are…”
She scrunched her forehead, unsure what Thorne could have meant. They’re both wearing Fleet uniforms. The war was between humans and the shape-shifting aliens. “What do you mean by your last sentence? Are you calling me a traitor? Because I couldn’t find the traitor?”
“Sadly, there are many enemies within the borders of the Commonwealth.” Thorne sighed. “Worse, their numbers are growing. They hide their identities extremely well, and they are proving rather elusive to unmask.”
Meomi scoffed. “Well, you won’t find any traitors to the Commonwealth on this ship.”
“I sincerely hope I do not.” He feigned a smile. “Just a few more questions, Captain Hana.”
“Hurry and ask them.” She grumbled. “Let’s get this over with.”
“What do you know about the CMS Endurance?”
Meomi shrugged her shoulders. “Never heard of the ship.”
Thorne glanced at Inoke who hasn’t moved much since they’ve entered the briefing room. “Have you been in contact with other Fleet Captains?”
“Of course, we’re planning a war,” she said in a defensive tone.
“Have you specifically talked about Fleet Marshall Mathias Klopp with the other captains?”
“His name comes up considering he is the Fleet Marshall.”
“Have you discussed Marshall Klopp in a negative light with the other captains?”
Meomi stared at her hands. “I wouldn’t say negative.”
“Please clarify, Captain Hana.”
“He’s inexperienced,” she blurted out the words as if she had been dying to speak them. “None of the other captains know who he is.”
Thorne nodded. “One last question. Regarding Gosi Prime...”
“Captain Thorne, I’m under strict orders not to discuss Gosi Prime without approval from Fleet High Command.”
“I’ve shown you my orders from High Command.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I’ve read those orders from beginning to end. It does not mention Gosi Prime anywhere.”
“I was afraid you would say that.” He nodded at Inoke.
The Entrent rose from his chair. His eyes changed to a soot black color.
“What… What is he going to do?” Meomi tried to stand but found her legs unresponsive.
“Please don’t resist, Captain Hana,” Inoke said in a quiet, delicate voice.
Leather straps suddenly sprung from Meomi’s armrests. They twisted around her limbs, binding her to the seat.
“What is this?” She tried to pry the straps off with her teeth. “HELP!” Meomi yelled in the direction of the door.
“I’m sorry in advance. This might feel very uncomfortable,” Inoke said as he placed his hand on Meomi’s forehead.
6
The walls of the Cerberus briefing room shattered into thousands of shards. Each piece melted into droplets of gray liquid draining into an invisible grate. Meomi opened her mouth to scream, but her voice evaporated on her tongue. She looked up to see pinpricks of light filling the darkness above her, quickly escalating into a starry night sky. Thorne and Inoke vanished from her sight with Inoke’s rainbow irises the last to fade.
Cool air flowed over Meomi’s face as the whirring of her suit’s rebreather kicked on. Her HUD display became active. The mission objective hovered in the top right corner of her visor.
1. Defend the city of Silverhold.
2. Kill all hostile invaders.
She looked down at her gauntlet hands to see a Mattix Armory-35 light machine gun, the preferred weapon of Wolf Company, Meomi’s first unit as a space marine.
“Let’s go, Boney! Let’s go!” yelled a voice over suit comm.
Meomi recognized her former company commander’s voice, Major Webb, and the nickname that only members of Wolf Company used to call her. “Sir? Where are we?”
Someone pushed from behind, steering her toward a crumbling building. “Why are you standing there like a stupid ape, marine?”
“Major...” Meomi held out her hand and grazed her former commanding officer on his arm. “How… Are we on Gosi Prime? Is this Silverhold?”
“WHAT?” roared Major Webb. “Boney, get it together. This is not the time to be sucking your thumbs, marine!” He repeatedly tapped her helmet as he spoke.
Loud screeching sounds penetrated the building from above.
Meomi tilted her head up and gazed through the partially collapsed roof. What was once clear skies were now completely covered in darkness as black Mimic spheres, and dark clouds blanketed the heavens. “This invasion… It’s happening again…”
The shadowy spheres separated into smaller ones, like cells dividing during mitosis, as they streaked through the night. In seconds, one globule rapidly became dozens, multiplying, overwhelming all hope in the hearts of Wolf Company marines. Ghastly wails filled the city, creating a deafening dome of terror over the capital as tens of thousands of ships shredded the air above.
“It’s happening again…” Meomi's hands trembled. “I don’t want to be here…”
“FALL BACK! FALL BACK!” yelled a male voice over suit comm. An avatar popped on her screen belonging to Private First Class Murry, Meomi’s squadmate. She zoomed in on her mini-map. The blue dots corresponding to her squadmates flashed out as red dots overpowered her
screen.
“Boney, you have three seconds to get your head straight, or I swear you won’t have to worry about these gooey aliens, I will shoot you myself. DO. YOU. GET. ME?” He reloaded his rifle with a new battery pack. “We’re coming, Murry! Hang in there!”
Meomi held onto Webb as he made his charge toward the Mimic horde. “You can’t, Sir. You can’t go out there. We’re outnumbered thousands to one. We have to retreat… You have to order the entire company to retreat!”
“Dammit, Boney! What do I always tell you? It’s not the size of your opponent that matters, only the size of your balls!” Webb pushed Meomi away and ran toward the roar of death and gunfire.
An explosion near Meomi blasted dirt and debris into her makeshift shelter.
She wrapped her helmet in her arms as she shrunk herself into a ball. “Am I really here?” Meomi asked herself. “Is this a dream? Wait… I remember…” Her eyes burst open. “Inoke… The Entrent. He touched my forehead.”
“A dream? No, not quite,” said a young male voice from behind.
Meomi spun around and pointed her rifle at a teenage boy with rainbow eyes wearing white clothing. “Inoke?”
He nodded.
“You have no right to do this!" She flared her nostrils. "Return me to the Cerberus!”
Inoke waved his right hand.
The world faded to black. Silence replaced every note of fear and violence.
“What’s happening?” Meomi asked in a soft voice.
With a snap of his fingers, Inoke restored colors and light. The two stood across from each other in a cramped alleyway. Red and blue neon lights flashed intermittently from signs above, casting a soft, warm glow over Inoke’s face. “Do you remember this young boy?”
“What young boy?” Meomi felt her gun doubling in weight. She peered down to find a disheveled, malnourished child with missing front teeth in her arms. Blood oozed out a wound in the back of his head. Two of the fingers on his left hand was missing. “I… I'm not sure if I do. He looks familiar, but I can't place him.” Meomi searched her thoughts. This scene and the little boy did not exist in her memories.
There were many horrors during the Battle of Fallen Midnight that Meomi would love to have erased from her consciousness — the screams, the wailings, and the cries for help were too sharply etched in the foundations of her mind. “That boy is you, isn’t he?” She lowered the younger version of Inoke onto the ground. He vanished as soon as his feet touched pavement. “You grew up to become an Entrent?”
Inoke nodded. “In a way, yes. I owe you my life, Meomi Hana. That is how I know I can trust you…” He turned around as if expecting someone to appear.
“Trust me with what?” Meomi moved closer to him.
“A secret. The War. Everything.” A knowing grin flashed on his face.
“What secret? What war? Against Mimics?” She clenched her jaw. “Kid, I want to help you, but right now you’re just pissing me off. Help me understand.”
Inoke nodded. He snapped his fingers again.
The sides of the nearby building peeled away as if pasted on like wallpaper. Gray granite flooring bubbled to the surface. Wooden beams snapped into place. Stones and clay tiles fell from the sky to form a vaulted ceiling. A massive stained glass window, depicting a passage from the Hashan bible, ascended from an invisible pocket in the ground, completing the walls of their new enclosure.
Meomi spun around as she observed her new surroundings. “I’ve never been here before. Is this the Hashan church in northwest Silverhold?”
Inoke approached the altar next to the stained glass wall without answering her.
“I was supposed to meet the remaining members of Wolf Company here. I never made it. The Mimics tore through the city too quickly…” Meomi looked for signs of her fellow marines as she talked. “Why are you showing me this?”
Inoke pressed a series of stones on the back wall of the church. “Please stand back.” The altar slid forward revealing a spiral stairway underneath the church.
Meomi gasped. “What the…” She followed him down the stairs and into a stale, moldy corridor lined with rusted metal walls and crumbling bricks. Every ten meters she noticed a repeating symbol — a pyramid with a hammer floating in the center inside a gearwheel. “Is this an Excog repository? I didn’t realize there were still worshippers of the Grand Engineer. I thought they all died off hundreds of years ago. Why did you bring me here?”
He held his index finger to his lips. “We must be quiet, or they'll hear us. We’re almost there.”
Meomi narrowed her eyes at Inoke and scoffed. She turned and looked for the who that Inoke referred to before following him deeper into the tunnel system.
They stopped in front of a massive, floor-to-ceiling metallic silver door.
Inoke placed his hand on a console to the side. A horizontal blue light slid up and down, scanning his palm print. Once finished, a second red right light examined his eyes.
Air rushed in as the door opened, revealing a vault with only one item sitting on top of a stone pedestal.
“The shiny black cube!” Meomi cried. “Wait, can you see that cube too?”
Inoke nodded.
“I’m so confused.” She wrinkled her brow. “Is that what I’ve been seeing or is it a different cube?” Meomi grabbed Inoke’s shoulders. “Do you know what it is?”
High-pitched wailings echoed from behind them.
“Mimics!” Meomi reached for his thigh pistol. “Get behind me.” She stepped in front of him.
The clattering of thousands of legs grew louder each second.
Meomi’s face turned ashen. Her hand shook uncontrollably. She was trapped in a confined space with her only exit blocked by a wave of insect-like monsters bearing down on her position. “Stop this… whatever this is that you’re doing.” She nudged him. “Get us out of here! Now!”
Inoke stared at Meomi with a blank expression, not understanding her words or the direness of the situation.
“Kid, if you don’t stop this, I swear…" She pointed her gun at him. "I will kill you first before I fire one shot at the Mimics.” Her eyes blinked rapidly as her shoulders tightened.
The screeching grew louder, the sound piercing through the insulation of Meomi’s combat suit.
Inoke covered his ears with his hands and scrunched his face.
“Hey, I wasn’t seriously going to shoot you.” Meomi’s voice softened as she lowered her weapon. “But you have to stop this.” She dropped to one knee. “Inoke, what’s wrong? Why aren’t you stopping this, whatever you're doing?” Meomi wondered if it was possible to die in here. Much was still unknown about Entrents and their telepathic abilities.
Blood dripped from Inoke’s head again. He retreated further into himself and curled into a ball.
“Crap.” Meomi exhaled a deep breath. Her eyes darted toward the black cube then back at Inoke. “Do I use that? You want me to touch the cube?”
The screeching amplified by the narrow walls of the tunnel tore into Meomi’s ears, inflicting incredible pain. She disabled her external mics. A health warning message flashed on her visor screen as her heartbeat raced past 200 beats per minute. “Inoke… Stop this…”
7
Waves of Mimic reapers, scorpion-like creatures the size of Earth tigers, were less than a hundred meters away from Meomi and Inoke.
With both hands gripping her pistol, Meomi emptied her entire clip into the charging horde. Each shot tore into their gooey, viscous skin but had little to no effect on the onrushing swarm of creatures. The air permeated with a putrid stench as the murderous tide advanced. She quickly reloaded her last clip. The idea of shooting herself and Inoke crossed her mind. Meomi could not scrub the terrifying screams of her squadmates from her brain as the alien creatures devoured her unit alive. Death would be a mercy.
“Hey… Inoke…” Meomi pulled him up from his cradled position. She held him steady as his entire body shivered. “Is there another way out? Can we at least
close this vault door to buy time?”
Inoke's skin became pearlescent as warmth and color drained from his body. His irises matched the paleness of his flesh. In whole, Inoke was as light as the Mimics were dark.
“I don’t want to do this, Inoke…” Meomi held her gun to his temple. “Trust me, it’s better to die this way…” Her finger looped the trigger.
Inoke closed his eyes as a sign of the acceptance of his fate.
The screeching suddenly stopped.
Silence surrounded Meomi. She spun to see the Mimic horde had stopped dead in their tracks ten meters from the vault entrance. They appeared frozen as if time had forgotten them.
Meomi released her held in breath. She found herself stuck in a moment of stillness like the space between lightning and thunder, expecting a deafening roar. Every part of her body froze with her Mimic monsters. She dared not stir for fear that a tiny twitch or minute movement would disturb them to wake.
Inoke walked past Meomi. Color, however little, returned to his complexion. His eyes were once again a full spectrum of color.
“What are you doing?” Meomi whispered as she grabbed his arm.
“It’s OK,” he said with a playful grin.
“You are witnessing my memories because something happened to yours.” He stood in front of a reaper with its claws less than a centimeter from his face.
“Inoke… You’re too close to them.” She gestured him back. “They could…”
“This was an extraordinary day for me." He seemed oblivious to the dangers so close to him. "I have spent years deciphering the events that occurred here.” His eyes changed to a dark yellow shade. “I too, thought we would die here together.” Inoke tapped the head of a frozen reaper. “They stopped by themselves. I didn’t understand why at the time.”
“Kid, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re crazy. You know that?” Meomi lowered her handgun.
