Invaders: The Chronowarp

by Vaughn Heppner

  “So much for silent maneuvering,” Jenna said in a small voice.

  I could hardly believe we were watching this. Deep in the Arctic Ocean, under the ice, the Galactic Guard torpedo struck the Swordfish. It was a direct hit, and it caused a massive explosion.

  The Swordfish broke under the blast. A mass of bubbles wobbled upward for the Arctic surface. The stricken submarine broke into two uneven halves. Both began to sink. Metal and other things tumbled from the open halves. As the bubbles decreased, it became apparent that bodies and other enclosed substances shot toward the surface. The bodies that rose fastest were wearing life jackets.

  I glanced at Jenna.

  She’d become white-faced and tight-lipped.

  I didn’t want to say the obvious. If the Eshom could enter a body that was shooting for the surface, it might be able to ride the body to the upper world. Could the creature transfer while in water? We had no way of knowing.

  Jenna hugged herself, shaking her head. “No,” she whispered. “That means…that means…”

  “It doesn’t mean jack,” I said. “It means those poor souls are dead. That doesn’t mean we’re finished.”

  She stared at me. “You’re delusional.”

  “No. We’re down here. This is a Polarion base. It’s just a matter of figuring out how these instruments work.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know that if I give up, you’re right. If I try and I succeed, you’re wrong.”

  She blinked several times before turning back to the screen.

  The Guard ship cruised closer to the Swordfish wreckage.

  Captain Bright had to be dead, and Mouse, and everyone else on the submarine, too. That pissed me off in a fundamental way. I’d felt this way before. Who were these aliens coming to our planet and acting like lords, like we were dirt under their feet?

  “This isn’t over,” I said hoarsely.

  Jenna regarded me. She took a step back and hugged herself again. It almost seemed as if she was scared of me in that moment.

  Our screen wavered.

  I cursed under my breath, looking at the control wall helplessly. I was getting sick of not being able—

  “Logan. Look.”

  I looked up and saw Kazz’s grinning face staring at me in the screen. The Neanderthal looked as unpleasant as ever with his wide face and splayed nose. He showed off his horse-like teeth.

  “Logan,” he said. “So, you’re alive.”

  I was too angry for words just then.

  “You were stupid enough to board that relic and try to hunt us down?”

  I forced myself to speak in the interest of humanity. Kazz controlled the Guard ship. Maybe he’d want to help us kill the Eshom.

  “It got away,” I said.

  He turned from me abruptly, speaking to someone off-camera. That someone spoke in a higher pitched voice.

  Kazz moved aside. A second later, Philemon appeared.

  Jenna made a face upon seeing him.

  The proto-human with his chimp’s face regarded me with shrewd eyes.

  “Do you mean the Eshom?” Philemon asked.

  How did the Homo habilis know about the Eshom? Since it was obvious he did, I didn’t bother asking how.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I mean.”

  “You let it out?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why?” Philemon asked.

  “For kicks,” I said.

  “That was worse than foolish.”

  I shrugged.

  The little Homo habilis studied me. “No,” he said. “You made a mistake. One of the humans must have gotten too near its tube. An Eshom can control weak minds.”

  “Why didn’t it control you then?”

  Philemon grinned wider. He reminded me of a chimpanzee I’d seen once. I’d been a kid on a trip to Canada. My parents had stopped in this city. I have no idea where now. Anyway, it had been long ago when the world was less PC. The trainer gave the chimpanzee a cigarette and lit it for him. We all watched spellbound as the chimpanzee smoked the cigarette. Halfway through the stunt, the ape grinned at us as if it knew we were all morons. That’s how Philemon grinned at me.

  “You seek to provoke me,” he said. “It is useless. However, it is good to know where you are. If and when we need you, we will transport you onto the Guard ship.”

  “Listen, you idiot. For your own good, you need to kill the Eshom.”

  “That is not so easily achieved,” Philemon said.

  “It’s not a matter of things being easy. It’s a matter of your own personal safety. As long as the Eshom is alive, you’re in danger.”

  “No. We’re not in danger on the Guard ship. Besides, we’re not going to stay on this planet long enough for that to be a problem.”

  I wanted to tell Philemon to teleport Debby here. I didn’t want her with those two. But I didn’t want her to die, either, trapped in this underwater Arctic complex.

  “Why did you destroy the submarine?” I asked. “They couldn’t do anything to you.”

  “There is an old saying on your world. That is for me to know and for you to find out.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” I said.

  “Threats,” Philemon said. “Threats mean nothing.” He gave me his huge chimp smile one more time.

  “Listen,” I said.

  “Your time is up, Logan. I have more pressing matters to attend to.”

  “Wait!” I shouted.

  It didn’t matter. The screen went blank.

  -23-

  Jenna and I were trapped on an alien base of undeterminable age deep under the Arctic pack ice. No one except for Kazz and Philemon knew we were down here. The Swordfish was gone. Tony and Mouse were dead—

  I walked away from the screen angry, puzzled and demoralized. I started shaking my head. I remembered being stuck in Greenland at the bottom of an icy crevice. I’d had no chance then, either, but at least I’d had an alien beam weapon.

  I faced Jenna. She was watching me. I wanted to throw my hands into the air. I wanted to shout with rage—

  “Now what do we do?” she asked in a small voice.

  “That’s a good question,” I forced myself to say.

  I hated to admit it—least of all to myself—but I was so pissed off at our terrible luck that I just wanted to sulk with rage. Yet, how would that help us? It would only make me feel better for a few minutes.

  I exhaled, almost making the hiccupy kind of sound a kid does after he’s been crying for a long time.

  “Positive,” I said quietly. “I have to stay positive.”

  I squared my shoulders. Hunching them wasn’t going to improve my morale. I raised my chin, too. Posture had stupid importance with people. Sit like a loser and soon you’d feel like a loser. Strut around like a winner and you’d soon feel like you could kick the world’s butt.

  I needed some butt-kicking attitude about now.

  “We’re not beat,” I said.

  Jenna watched me, and she didn’t look too hopeful.

  “We’re alive,” I said. “If we were dead, we’d have a reason to just lie around.”

  “We can’t dive into the pool and swim to the surface.”

  “I’m not interested in what we can’t do,” I told her. “What can we do?”

  She shrugged.

  “We can explore the rest of the base,” I said.

  “That didn’t help before.”

  I realized something with a start. “Of course it did,” I told her.

  “How?” she demanded.

  “Are you kidding me? If we hadn’t found the Eshom, and if it hadn’t escaped, you and I would have returned to the Swordfish. You and I would be dead because of the Guard ship’s torpedo. So, you can say it was our good fortune that Tony released the Eshom.”

  “That’s perverse and egotistically self-centered.”

  “No way, baby,” I said, slapping my hands together. That made her jump. “We’re here. We’re alive, and
we’re probably the only ones on Earth who know a terrible alien menace has broken free.”

  “If the Eshom survived—”

  I spun around, heading for an untested hatch. My action must have surprised her. She quit talking in mid-sentence.

  Instead of the right-hand hatch, I tried the left-hand one. I almost ran into it, because it didn’t swish open as I neared.

  “That’s weird,” I said. “All the other ones open.” I waved my hands before the hatch. Nothing changed. I moved my hands along the entire frame.

  “Try the other one,” Jenna suggested.

  I saw that she’d moved nearer.

  I tapped the closed hatch. “This is the ticket out,” I said. “I don’t know that, but I wonder why the builders didn’t attach the proximity opening device to it.”

  “If you can’t open it—”

  I whirled around and practically put my face against hers.

  “Listen, lady, if it’s the last thing I do, I’m getting through that door.”

  That might have sounded like a vain boast. It wasn’t, although I had no idea how to break through. What it did, though, was propel me to greater action.

  I had no way of breaking down the hatch. Thus, I needed to find a way. The immediate objective pushed me better than a long-distance goal would have.

  I tried the middle door, and it worked just like the others. For the next several hours, Jenna and I explored the Arctic prison complex.

  Most of the base proved fruitless, as the majority of the complex was devoid of anything but space. In one area, I found various discarded items. One of those items was a heavy pole.

  I dragged the pole—it was eight feet long and heavy. I dragged it back to the closed hatch. First, I gathered my resolve. Next, I squatted, found a good grip and heaved the pole up as I stood upright. I backed up, fixed on the target and charged the closed hatch. While holding onto the pole, I battered the door.

  Both the pole and I bounced back. I almost dropped it on my foot. With a dexterous move, I whipped my feet out of the way. That caused me to sprawl onto the pole and thump my chest.

  I rose, rubbing my chest and checked the hatch. I hadn’t even dented it.

  “Now what?” Jenna asked.

  I glanced at her. Then, I returned to the pole, squatted, lifted it and charged the hatch again, with almost the same results. We bounced away, but this time I was ready for it. I dropped the pole, but far enough away that it missed my feet.

  “What’s that prove?” Jenna asked.

  I squatted again, battering the door again.

  For the next seven hours, with many rest periods, I continued to batter the closed hatch. I sweated badly, and I needed water. Picking up the pole took all my concentration. My vision had blurred. I trembled from exhaustion. Jenna watched. She’d stopped trying to talk me out of it hours ago.

  I continued out of sheer stubbornness. Maybe it was perverse. At that point, I didn’t care. I didn’t know what else to do. This was my plan. Until I could no longer hammer at the hatch, I would continue to do so.

  At the end of the seventh hour, I stared at the freaking pole. The hatch hadn’t dented or even shown a mark. I couldn’t conceive of metal that strong.

  Breathing heavily, I struggled upright, balanced the pole and charged as I had over a hundred times before. Instead of ramming and bouncing, the hatch swished up before me. I charged through, stumbling because I hadn’t been ready for this.

  I heaved the pole away from me and hit the deck hard. The pole struck and bounced. As it bounced, the hatch behind me swished shut, casting me into darkness.

  -24-

  I lay on the hard floor, exhausted. Why had the hatch swished open? Did that mean someone was watching us?

  I wanted to close my eyes and go to sleep. I’d done it. I’d gotten through. This was not how I’d expected it to happen, though.

  Instead of resting, I struggled to get up. On second thought, I got onto my hands and knees and crawled to the door. Then I stood up. I hammered on it.

  Jenna hammered back.

  I shouted and listened. I couldn’t hear her reply.

  She banged in a sequence. Was it old-time Morse code? If so, I had no idea what she tapped.

  Finally, she stopped tapping. I gave her three knocks before stopping myself.

  I’d managed to separate us.

  She didn’t tap anymore.

  I felt along the dark edge of the hatch. It was smooth. There was no mechanism that I could find that would open the hatch.

  I lay down, closed my eyes and slept for a time. I don’t know how long. When I opened my eyes, I tapped the hatch.

  Jenna did not respond.

  I crawled to the pole lengthways, discovering I was in a corridor. Then, I set out crawling. I had no plans for tripping over stairs and breaking bones.

  I felt marginally better than before. My stomach rumbled and I was thirsty. My hands were sore, but if I’d gotten any blisters, they’d healed already.

  Maybe that was why I was so hungry and thirsty.

  The corridor didn’t go far. I reached a hatch, which opened as I touched it.

  I exhaled with relief. Even better, ceiling lights began to glow. I stood up as the hatch swished shut.

  I must have half-expected Argon or some other Polarion to be in here. I felt cheated that I saw nothing but a bulky, rounded machine with a chair.

  The chamber was like a small office. It had no hidden compartments that I could find, just this bulky, rounded machine and the chair.

  With a shrug, I sat in the chair. The thing didn’t have any controls—

  I saw a small circular indentation. I examined it for a time and finally pressed my right-hand thumb against it.

  The machine whirred inside, giving me a start. Then a section in front of me slid up. That made me half rise out of the chair.

  I leaned forward, finding a circuit with taps or discs on it. I picked up the circuit. It was cool and metallic. It seemed like some kind of crown.

  Gingerly, I set the circuit on my head until the discs pressed against my skull.

  The machine whirred with greater sound. Heat began to radiate from the circuit. I felt a hot sensation against my head. Was I killing myself? Did the circuit and discs pour gamma rays into my gray matter?

  On impulse, I closed my eyes. That’s when the visions started:

  I seemed to stand on an empty plain. The plain had waving grass of uniform height. It was green, but a brighter green than I’d ever seen before, the quintessence of green. A gentle wind blew the bright green grass, causing it to wave. I looked down, noticing I was wearing a silver suit. I couldn’t see what I looked like, but I had a strong body. I began to walk, delighting in the aroma of the—

  I stopped in the vision, looking up at two suns. The first was small and intensely bright. I looked away. The second sun was huge and orange colored. Together, they granted the planet sunlight.

  I rotated, looking all around. The green grass blew gently. I felt peaceful and—

  The vision vanished. In its place was a rocky world. I couldn’t see a sun. I saw harsh red light. It came from a giant lava lake in the distance. I began to walk. Fire flickered up in vents. Steam rose from others. I was hot and uncomfortable.

  I looked at myself. I wore the same silver suit. Steam rose from the soles of my boots.

  As I advanced toward the lava lake, the flickering entity that we’d freed from the stasis tube approached me. The creature flared like a cobra upon sight of me.

  I drew a pistol I hadn’t noticed I’d had. I beamed the creature. It froze. I advanced swiftly, unhooking a capsule-like device I hadn’t noticed I owned until then. Using a thumb, I pressed a switch, activating the device.

  I stepped up to the frozen energy creature. That hardly made sense. But that was the best way to describe it. As if the device were a mini-vacuum cleaner, I sucked up the energy creature.

  I looked at a monitor on the device. It blinked green, and I knew that
was supposed to mean something.

  The second vision vanished. The third began as I tumbled end over end. It seemed as if I traveled through a void. I grew cold and weary. I flicked on a suit switch. Coils in my pack heated the rest of the suit. I saw a bright light in the distance. That meant—

  I tumbled toward that light. I realized—hurriedly, I switched off the heating pack. The light neared, growing bigger and bigger. At the last moment, I righted. I could see the void all around the light.

  Through the light was a tropical beach with palm trees, white sand and a great expanse of water.

  I went through the light, stepping onto the sandy beach. I took several more crunching steps, delighting in the sunlight.

  I turned then, spying a rocky circular device. It shimmered with power in the center area. That area was taller than me, although not by much.

  I turned away from the rocky device and looked up at the sky. It was hazy, almost as if some kind of force field was in play. That meant something, too. I was sure of it.

  In fact, the vision—

  Before I could try to figure it out, it, too, faded from view.

  I stood in a white sterile room. In fact, it looked as if I was looking down on myself. I sat before the bulky, rounded machine with the circuit around my head.

  A voice began to speak to me. The voice seemed familiar. I recognized it finally. Argon, or some Polarion, spoke in a stern way. I couldn’t understand the words. They seemed terribly important, though.

  I listened as carefully as I could. As I listened, I saw cuneiform writing flashing before me. I realized at that point that I’d seen cuneiform writing on the rocky circular device that held the bright light, the portal.

  “What are you saying?” I asked.

  The talking, unseen Polarion continued to speak in his stern manner. I could not understand—

  Wait a minute, a few thoughts seem to make sense. Yet, how did that work? If I couldn’t understand the Polarion language, why did a few nebulous concepts begin to gather in my mind?

  One thing became clearer than anything else. The Eshom would use the portal to bring more of its kind to Earth. The Eshom had told me it had arrived on our planet via spaceship. That was not the only way to travel through the void.