by Alex Guerra
“Parameters set. Would you like me to refer to you as Arthur Holland?” asked Dotty.
I was taken aback upon hearing my name but quickly brushed it off. There was no reason to believe it wouldn’t learn my name since it had ample time to poke around my brain. It would know every other fact and detail about me—which was entirely unsettling, knowing I had zero privacy now.
“Art is fine, or Arthur,” I answered, looking around the room. “Well, you can also call me Captain if you’d like, since I will be on this ship for some time it seems,” I added with a smirk.
“Variations set, Captain,” said Dotty.
A grumbling in my stomach reminded me that I had not eaten in some time, so I followed the directions Dotty gave me to the galley. Unfortunately, what food was available, was not your typical meatloaf or hamburger. Dotty explained to me that the food was harmless with my biology, but we needed to tweak the flavor first. The A.I. helped me to customize an order and I managed to make a very poor imitation of eggplant parmesan made into a yogurt protein bar—a far cry from the basic strawberry I had been trying for.
It would require a lot of trial and error.
Dotty set the ship on course to our next destination in search of a core. The faster we got the ship running at full capacity, the faster it could be of use to the conglomerate, and the faster I could go home. Hopefully, I wouldn’t reach a premature end in doing so.
On the way back to the bridge—during what Dotty and I had established as an “evening” aboard the ship—I decided to experience what going through hyperspace was like. The calculations had begun and took approximately fifteen seconds before opening a tunnel off the bow of The Pillar. Dotty informed me that this was a “starlane”, and we would use a few of these to jump from system to system to reach our destination. Inside was a lightning storm in a tunnel—shifting, striking, a changing of colors. We slipped quickly into its mouth, and the portal promptly closed behind us, completely enveloping the ship. Despite our incredible speeds, which were faster than light, it would still take us days to reach our destination.
I always knew space was huge, but seeing it so up close, really opened my eyes to its grand scale.
FOUR
I spent the next few days learning how to use some of the smaller weapons aboard the ship and getting used to the matte black combat suit—which the ship tailored to fit my physique. I was hoping it was just a precaution and not a guarantee that I was to run into a fight. While Dotty knew where we were going, it didn’t know what we would encounter once we got there.
The weapon I hefted around was a meaty sidearm with a cylinder—like a revolver back on earth. It didn’t have a hammer and held only a few more rounds than your typical six-shooter back home. Inserting an energy pack, the size of a double-A battery, into the center of the cylinder and locking back into place, it fills the chambers with energy, allowing you to shoot up to ten times before the battery was depleted. These shots—not rounds necessarily—were on another level, however. A tenth of the energy spent to sling one of these shots was enough to put an expanding hole in targets the size of a grapefruit.
Dotty classified it appropriately as a blaster.
This was a completely different high, despite being a gun enthusiast and using my fair share of weaponry through the years. It could even be said that I was almost starting to have fun, as far as distractions go.
The ship entered Versha Prime, a system with a bright, red sun. Our destination was Harkloon, the fourth planet from that sun. Dotty placed the ship into orbit and activated the ship’s stealth capabilities. The A.I. explained that the ship’s weaponry was currently offline due to our having minimal energy. Hopefully, this trip would rectify that and maybe even get me home. I suited up and grabbed some equipment, including the blaster, giving it a once-over before holstering.
Dotty guided me to a hanger in the lower deck, where a smaller ship was parked. A thin line of viewports adorned the front of the dark-gray, triangle of a ship. Storage space and additional seating were available in the rear. Based on its shape, I dubbed it Dagger.
I had no experience in space, besides the quick jump I made through the portal, bringing me halfway across the Milky Way. Hell, I had never even been to space camp when I was a kid! Then again, there was no way to prepare for something like this back on Earth, even with the flight simulators they gave kids today. Had I gone when I was still young, I probably would have just been given a tour around Kennedy Space Center and watched a few old documentaries on space travel. Thinking about the portal jump gave me a sense of smug satisfaction, though. I technically beat every known record on Earth concerning speed, distance, and time—all with a single half-dead jump through a portal, after all.
With no choice but to trust Dotty to pilot Dagger down to the planet, I fought the urge to puke on the craziest roller coaster drop I had ever experienced in my life. Once we hit the atmosphere, the A.I. corrected the ship’s angle, allowing the heat to dissipate along its underside. We stayed in that position approximately three minutes before leveling-out and going full speed to our destination out in the rolling dunes. A small settlement was nearby, seen during our descent—meaning a relative thirty miles or so—according to the A.I. anyway.
When we arrived at the site, an ancient war zone was all that remained with several ships broken and torn, half-buried in the dunes. No single vessel stuck out as the one we would be investigating. Not that I knew what I was looking for. None of them had the same aesthetic qualities that The Pillar had from the get-go.
Dotty landed the small ship on the most level area among the dunes. Clouds of sands blasted away from the site as the A.I. powered down the engines.
The roiling heat coming from Dagger’s fuselage and engines was evident as it spread across the desert, towards brown and red mountains off the horizon. I checked my Heads-Up-Display or HUD, which showed me a compass, a radar, and heart rate monitor, amongst other options—all of which I could summon into view within my visor. As of right now, the weather was at one hundred sixteen degrees Fahrenheit. The suit I wore regulated the internal temperature to an even seventy-five and quickly dissipated any prolonged heat quickly, which was the only reason I was managing the ambient temperature so well. I wondered about the upper limits the suit could handle before becoming damaged or beginning to cook me alive inside.
I set off in a direction Dotty marked for me on my HUD and started what turned out to be quite the calf exercise on the soft packed sand. As I crested the last hill, I came across the remainder of the crash site—a dump hit by a twister.
Where do I even start? I wondered.
Dotty found the general area of the supposed power core, but it would take a little longer to hone in on the exact location. I hadn’t seen any satellites on the way in, so this was not based off GPS, rather a frequency emitting from the core itself or perhaps, another pocket dimension hiding it.
From my inexperienced eye, it was still apparent that someone had stripped most of the valuable electronics and parts from these crashed ships. I was sure that the insides would be in a similar manner. Most of the parts left were either damaged beyond use or way too large to bother taking it in one go. I don't think anyone wanted to bother stripping these down and trying to reassemble them wherever they hauled them off to.
“Dotty, can you make the frequency audible? It will help me once we get closer,” I asked. The A.I. put a strobing pulse in my helmet, its spacing far apart.
I trekked on.
It had been a while before I heard any change in the beeping. The gaps shortened as I kept my heading until it had held a near solid tone. I signaled Dotty to cut the noise, but there was one problem: I had veered away from the original crash sites we saw on the way in.
There was nothing around. Looking back at my footprints, they were fading with the hot breeze filling in the impressions from the loose sand.
“Dotty, is this thing buried? It’s not anywhere near your original projection” I asked,
looking down at my feet and searching for anything remotely uncovered.
The signal is resonating from another eleven feet below the surface.
“And here I was thinking I wouldn’t need a shovel,” I said. I leaned over, grabbing a handful of sand and ran it through my fingers. Even with gloves on, I could tell it was light and fine grain. “Bring Dagger to our position, Dotty.”
I will be unable to land Dagger here, Art.
“I’m not looking for it to land, just need it to hover,” I said. “I want you to blast the sand out with the engines. It beats digging for hours,” I explained.
The A.I. followed the command and we waited.
Dotty commanded the dropship to throttle up once it arrived and the sand before me swept away from the site in all directions. I hunched over, taking shelter beneath my cloak as strong wind and sand continued buffeting me. The top of a hulking ship emerged, having a similar dark, almost stone-like design on its fuselage, like The Pillar. The dropship had kicked up a dust storm and checking the progress after a time, I shooed the aircraft away. Dotty piloted the aircraft to land at the closest area to the site, which still seemed to be a way off, as the craft disappeared into a dot on the horizon.
Laying exposed along one of its sides was an access hatch. Using my hands, I pushed the rest of the sand aside just enough to gain access. The door slid away with a creaky, grainy yawn. My visor switched to a filter, allowing me to see clearly in the low light situation. The interior was left in relatively good condition from what I could tell.
“Alright Dotty, do your thing,” I said. The ship had a similar layout to The Pillar in its design, although, it may have been slightly wider.
Unable to comply, ship’s systems are too damaged for me to gain access.
The condition of the ship had led me to believe the contrary. It wasn’t until I explored some more and saw otherwise. Holes were completely torn through the ship with piles of sand sitting in coned piles like the bottom of an hourglass. Heading towards what would have been the stern on The Pillar, another wall of sand impeded my progress. Something cut off the entire stern! I thought.
“Please tell me this broke up in orbit before crashing. Or is there something out there that can cut through a ship like this like butter?” I asked.
Too little information is available. By the shape of the damage, it would appear the ship fragmented upon landing. Data inconclusive.
“Can you lead me another way to get to the power cores?” I asked, looking away from the wall of sand.
Yes.
Dotty led me through the pitch-black ship, which upon further investigation had confirmed my initial hunch that the ship was indeed wider. There was a steeper angle at the deck than at the entrance from damage. It was to the point where I had to use my hands to get a good grip during my descent. Another two doors slid away before I was in a familiar area. I went down the stairs and found a few cradles like those of The Pillar’s.
What I found was disappointment. The remaining power cores here were all empty and devoid of their silver flame within.
The trip was a bust.
“Dotty is there anything we can do with these by chance?” I asked.
No, these cores have no use to us. I will begin a new search for other possible power cores once we are back on the ship.
“Damn…alright then. I guess it would have been too easy to get what we needed on the first try, right?” I said with a sigh and turned to leave. On the bridge, I paused before making my exit. “Is there anything else you need from here? Do you guy’s use black boxes by chance?”
A quick pause.
Yes, there is the equivalent to such a device here. Please check behind the Captain’s chair. There, you will find the device. I may analyze it once we are aboard The Pillar again.
I crawled onto the chair in the rear center of the bridge, reached behind, and pressed a digit into a depression. An audible pop and hiss came from the chair, and a hatch opened. A triangular pyramid the size of my palm popped out. I brought it to my visor for closer examination. Its faces were smooth and mirror-like, much like the bulkhead of the ship, as if carved out of obsidian. I took one last look around the bridge and noticed that there weren't any bodies around. Perhaps they were able to escape, I thought and placed the pyramid in a pouch hanging off my thigh, making my exit.
There was no way of telling what we would find on the device, but perhaps it would shed some light on past events that maybe Dotty could piece together.
The wind had picked up, whipping loose sand against me, making the gusts flow around my cape, bending it to its will. Slogging through the sand once more, I began making my way back to where Dotty had landed Dagger. It would take me forty minutes to get back and then another twelve to get to The Pillar in orbit.
Making my way through the snaking trail I had previously come from, a loud thump in the distance just beyond more wreckage of ships caught my attention. Turning my head towards the sound, there was a momentary pause before an eruption of thumps and thuds followed.
“Hostiles?” I asked.
Unknown. It is too far out to determine without line of sight.
“Maybe it’s a scavenger?” I suggested.
My memory traced back to the previous times I had been in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, hearing the rattle of enemy fire. I checked my HUD’s radar, seeing a cluster of red blips at the two o’clock position just over one hundred yards away. I debated going the long way around and ignoring whatever trouble was nearby. Or perhaps, a space rat or something similar had startled someone, I hoped to myself.
Then again, I doubted so many people, or things, were put together for a rat extermination detail, with the number of different weapons I could hear firing. Now, I was all new to the space gun scene, but I could at least tell some of these weapons were rather large. A peek wouldn’t hurt, if I’m not spotted at least. I’ll see my first live alien perhaps and just wait until they leave.
“Dotty, is the ship in danger of being spotted right now?” I thought to the A.I., not wanting to make any more noise than needed.
No, I have activated the ship’s cloaking field. No one is near it.
I made my way up to the wrecks and peeked around a corner, the shots becoming louder and more severe. A group of sizeable humanoids with toad-like features, clumped together behind cover. The creatures had broad faces and no necks. Atop their large skulls were two huge eyes and their shoulders started at a very low point, almost at where a rib cage should have ended. Their legs, while strong in appearance, spread unnaturally wide. Their ducking posture further accentuated this, as they continued shooting up at something, or someone a little further up. They took cover where they could, barking guttural commands at each other. They snapped fire up towards a position that had become increasingly thinned out from the barrage. A few of the toads were strewn out on the desert floor, their blood quickly absorbed by the sand.
My visor zoomed in on where the toads had been firing. I could see a hand quickly popping over cover and firing a few shots, but it was clear whoever they were, they were losing the upper hand and getting pinned down.
Do you have any information on these toads? I asked.
They are Patrassi, a highly aggressive pack race. They are known for their physical strength and overwhelming numbers. However, they lack much intelligence. The smartest of which will act as pack leader.
Any idea who they’re shooting at? I asked, not liking the one-sidedness of this conflict.
Unknown, I estimate a sixty-eight percent probability that the Patrassi may be showing strength due to territorial disputes—
A sudden pause came from the A.I.
Incoming transmission over local frequency, Captain. Would you like me to patch it through to you?
I swallowed hard. Is it directed at me? I thought. Someone knew I was there. I ducked back behind the wreckage.
Put it through, I thought back hesitantly.
A static and heavy brea
thing came over the speakers in my helmet. “—Dokhat! Ari ta galeshka Patrassi-da!?”
“Dotty, translate it in real time,” I said, possibly into the open channel.
Parameters set.
The A.I. played back the audio. “Hey, you! Are you going to let the Patrassi kill me?”
“Will you translate my words to them?” I asked Dotty.
Yes.
Peering around the corner, the toads had the individual pinned down. “This is not my fight. How do I know they’re not justified in doing this? You could have murdered their family for all I know.”
“I didn’t do anything like that—they are Patrassi, idiot! You’ll just let them kill me then? Help me or I will point them to your direction and make you help,” said the voice through Dotty’s help.
Whatever they did, it was clear that the toad men were past the point of wanting to give them a trial, and I couldn’t allow a group to beat down on a single person.
I pulled back my cape, revealing the blaster on my hip. I rested a tentative hand on the grip and undid the clasp holding it in place. Dammit! I clicked my tongue. I might as well do this now, while I have a good position. I brought up the blaster, sighting in on the nearest toad.
I squeezed the trigger, and the blaster bucked hard in my grasp.
Fwoom!
A hole the size of a fist tore through the small of the toad’s back as it went down with a bloody gurgle. I switched targets and let off another two shots in quick succession, one hitting the enemy in the leg, tearing it off, the other hit its shoulder from the side, coring them completely. I managed to drop one more before a few noticed me and turned to fire. I ducked back into cover as the corner of the ship tore apart from the counter-attack. I squeezed my eyes and gritted my teeth with the incoming fire.
In Afghanistan, when shots were coming at you, they sounded like branches snapping. Out here, with this type of weaponry, you could feel the pressure waves zooming past. My HUD recorded the increased ambient temperature raised by the continual fire.
