by Gentry Race
“Invade?” Vorian laughed again. “I wasn’t invading Oyria. Our moons lack the resources some planets are rich in. We use the Invidian bugs to scavenge for us.”
She thought for a moment. “Then why take me?”
Vorian walked closer to the glowing bars, and Hastings could make out every pasty scale on his face. His jaw sported a large, hinge-like muscle that protruded from the sides and defined the shape of his head.
“We need a human like you—one that can withstand our tests,” Vorian said, slipping the sharp talon out once more. He rubbed the serrated edge, playing with it like a toy.
“Like me? What do you mean? What kinds of tests?” Hastings asked in rapid succession, showing her confusion.
“You really don’t know?” he asked, looking sharply into her eyes.
Frustration grew on Hastings' face. Why is this lizard-brain pestering me with riddles? “Quit pussy-footin' around. Why did you imprison me?”
Vorian laughed again. “Imprison you? I saved you.”
“You didn’t save shit!” she fired back, more annoyed than ever. She couldn’t help but notice him fondling the talon. “And why the fuck do you keep touching that thing?”
“A battle is coming,” Vorian said.
“Yeah, take these cuffs off, and I’ll show you an ass whipping,” Hastings said.
“You really don’t know, do you?” Vorian said.
“Know what?!”
“We Acedians are asexual. We like to lay eggs during battle,” he explained. “That’s when surviving comrades will spray their hormones, propagating the species.”
“That’s fucking disgusting. And where do you even see a battle?” Hastings pulled her face back, noticing a small, oblong egg squeeze out from under his tail. The egg was blotched a purple and gold color, like tie-dye from the 1970s.
An alarm rang out, and the room dimmed to a crimson red. Vorian finished his lay and smiled at Hastings. “See, I told you. They’re coming. You just sit there and think about something new.”
"New? …Uh, you forgot your baby egg," Hastings called out, but he was already gone.
She tried to suppress her thoughts, knowing what he was getting at. She was valuable to him because of her mind's eye—her forethought.
Hastings looked closer. The egg jiggled, like a hatchling ready to break free, but then stopped. She couldn't believe she was smack dab in the middle of a fucking alien movie. If a face-hugger popped out of there, she was gonna make sure she bit down, Lorena Bobbitt style.
Two filaments jerked from the base of the egg. Hastings crawled away from it, watching the entire thing jerk in stop-motion, stuttering towards its kill. The filaments were close.
She looked back at the egg. It hatched as she watched, revealing a reptilian infant with eyes as black as night. What Hastings thought was a slight smile turned out to be inflection. The filaments reached up and gripped each side of her head, and she felt a calm overcome her. It was a peaceful place where all ideas came together and imagination flowed in her mind.
Commander Nathan’s cruiser broke from subspace when calculations populated an error across his screen. To his side, a golden Drækonian dressed in similar armor pressed the console button frantically.
“Something’s in our way,” the reptilian crewman spit out.
Nathan watched his entire fleet drop speed as they, too, were released from warp. The Drækonian co-pilot motioned for Nathan to look ahead.
“Well, I’ll be damned. We caught ‘em before they could land,” Nathan said, grabbing the cockpit controls. “I see the large container in the lead. Leave that one to me. The rest of the fleet? Destroy it.”
The Drækonian Empire unleashed a firestorm of laser pulses that lit up the yellow atmosphere of Gigantica in shades of orange-red, but the Acedians performed maneuvers Nathan had never seen in battle before, as if they knew the calculations of the firing.
One Acedian ship dropped a few feet, narrowly missing a blaster cannon shot as it released two large wyverns from its outer hull. The four-legged dragon entities puffed in their masks, gathering the fury they were about to deliver.
Nathan pulled the ship back, missing a wyvern that was dive-bombing its entire body towards his cruiser. “Evasive maneuvers! These puppies want to play!”
His co-pilot smiled in anticipation.
Lasers blasts shot across the bow of Nathan’s ship, bucking it up and to the right. "Jesus, was that a laser?"
"Displacement blasters," the co-pilot reported.
Nathan dipped the controls back, swinging the cruiser vertical toward the enemy fire. The sensation was amazing as he flipped the craft around—no constant force from one angle pulling him down, only the centrifugal forces holding him snug in his seat.
The Acedian ship was now in front of them. "Fire!" Nathan ordered.
The co-pilot licked his reptilian lips and squeezed the trigger. The enemy ship ignited into a puff of light, only to be extinguished in the cold of space as debris splattered onto their cruiser. Nathan looked out the side window and witnessed the thousands of blue and orange laser pulses shredding from one ship to the other.
"I’ll bank down, and you fire on those Acedians," Nathan ordered, pulling the controls downward.
The enemy fleet seemed to be crowding together, like some kind of ancient Roman tactic, linking to one another.
"They’re grouping!" the co-pilot warned.
"What the hell does that mean?" Nathan yelled.
With each ship now tethered together, Nathan recognized a blue energy amassing at the backs of the hulls. It was Voxelight, and the energy was brighter than the reflected light of Gigantica itself. The blinding blue radiance was enough that Nathan needed to use his hand to block his sensitive white eye. When he took his hand away and looked up, all he saw was a giant beast, but not like any he’d ever seen before. The six arms of Ira held a fire burning hot in one of its hands, with a mace and large hammer two others. Horns crowned the devilish creature, and it became apparent to Nathan that it was the perfect hybrid. How had they combined them?
“What in the hell is that?” he mumbled, watching as the beast angrily eyed each small ship.
“I don’t believe it,” the co-pilot said.
Laser blasts seemed to tickle the creature, exploding in small puffs just short of its skin. The beast threw the burning ball of fire into the closest ship, smashing it to pieces. With one graceful twist, the creature spun hard, swinging the well-polished gold hammer and mace. One swing destroyed half the fleet, sending them spiraling into the blackness of space.
Nathan was awe-struck in that moment, just as he’d been in his first battle with the Syndicate, and he froze, not knowing what to do. On both sides, he watched ship after ship and wyvern after wyvern get decimated by the hybrid creature.
"Drækonians, pull back! It's a goddamn massacre!" Nathan ordered, pulling his ship back and turning around. "I repeat, retreat!"
"Psychonautz don't retreat, sugar,” a familiar southern voice said over his comms.
“Fery?” Nathan asked, looking out the window.
He saw four fully Voxel-suited Psychonautz riding a large tank-like rocket that was obviously of Beightol’s influence. They split apart, assuming their natural, paneled-suit form to float in space in front of Nathan’s ship.
He looked at all of them for a moment, smiling inside. “I’m glad to see you guys. We need your help.”
Switch drifted forward. “Nathan, we have the goo. We can take this thing out.”
Nathan felt a moment of relief. That suicidal goo would eat anything made of Æther. He just hoped it worked on Voxelight, but they couldn't use it right then.
"No. Hastings is on one of those ships," Nathan said.
“Which one?” Fery said, assuming the leg-locked position around Beightol’s neck that allowed her to connect to him. “We’ll find her.”
A fireball of energy shot into Nathan’s ship.
BOOM!
The ship broke i
nto pieces, imploding on itself as the resultant fires were extinguished in the thinness of space. Among the wreckage, Nathan could feel that his body was still together. Thankfully, he’d been held together by his suit, but the panels of the Drækonian armor had been ripped off him and were drifting into space. Pain swallowed his leg, and he looked down to see that it was twisted around in an unnatural way. He tried to move it, but there was nothing but blinding pain, and he was thankful for the Voxel suit that held onto his leg like a splint.
He looked back at the 'nauts, feeling helpless and knowing he could get clubbed at any moment by the giant hybrid beast that had put him in his current predicament. He felt a tingling sensation deep in his leg, like a thousand tiny ants were crawling on his skin, and looked down to watch as the broken limb began to heal, twisting back into a normal position.
What is happening?
A flash of light shot out from behind them as another cruiser was destroyed in the wake of the giant mace.
Nathan knew the tech could heal superficial wounds, but to reconstruct a leg that was more than likely mangled like a pretzel? No way.
Vix thrust her jets, catching Nathan’s floating trajectory.
Nathan smiled. "Good to see ya, Vix."
She smiled back, grabbing his suit and maneuvering effortlessly in the zero-gravity environment.
Fery and Beightol fired at the giant beast from afar, swooping up and blasting their thrusters into the blackness of space. Switch was cuddled into Beightol’s arms like a newborn baby.
“Is he alright?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah, he just got a bump on the noggin,” Fery said, eyeing Nathan carefully.
Nathan caught her look. “So, looks like you decided on a team?”
Fery smiled. “Well, maybe you should have fucked me.”
The shit she said was always like a shock-and-awe campaign. “Right.”
Another flash of light burst from behind them. Vix looked at Fery and then at Nathan. Nathan knew just by their demeanor that they were ready to fight as a team—ready to earn the suits they were currently just borrowing.
“How’re we gonna beat this thing?” Nathan asked.
Fery looked at Beightol, extending her hand to him. “Together, sugar.”
“Yes, like when apartment manager find Story, water girl, and need complex to help get home," Beightol said. "She need author."
Everyone was quiet while staring at Beightol in a dry manner.
"'Nauts," Nathan said and smiled, looking around at his team to see that Beightol’s obscure reference hadn’t registered, "to Story, the Lady in the Water. May she find her author."
A punching of knuckles led to a loud 'Oorah' that only the 'nauts could hear in their helmets, given the deadness of space. They looked at the seemingly holographic beast, glowing against the backdrop of the dark and blotted stars.
The beast took another sweep with the hammer, deciding the fate of the Drækonian army one blow at a time. More ships attacked, and more ships were destroyed. The Acedians were sheltered behind a large ship remnant, hiding from view.
Nathan couldn't use the goo, so his mind raced with solutions and possibilities. He knew it would take teamwork, and he knew they could beat it together, but how?
Together…
Nathan’s mind lit up with the answer. “‘Nauts, remember the Starcadians?”
Vix signed the word ‘Yes’.
“How could we forget?” Fery asked, shaking her head.
Using his strained muscles, Nathan readied his body and twisted his neck. “We need to link. All of us. Together.”
Nathan tried to remember the reference and shook the thought from his head, focusing on the path—the solution. “Just how Fery and Beightol link. Hell, even Fery and Tang did it.”
“That’s not all they did,” Switch mumbled.
Beightol and Fery were too consumed with Nathan’s idea to notice what Switch had said.
“To link together and dimension-collapse, you have to be on the same wavelength. It's either fight or fuck, baby,” Fery said.
Nathan thought for a moment about what united them all. “That’s it! We were all users at one time in our lives, which allowed Rockheed to fold in new grey matter. We need to work together. Semper Fidelis.”
Everyone was quiet, giving each other coy looks, which turned into grins. Nathan held the eye of each ‘naut in turn—Switch in his helmet with its skeleton-with-wings insignia, Fery and her Rainbow Brite hair, Beightol’s dimwitted stare, and Vix’s determination.
“Always faithful. We can’t make it alone. We need each other,” Nathan said.
Vorian watched his large hybrid creature with pleasure, thinking of the power to be obtained from that human. If she could combine the Dræk and Ira Æons, future possibilities were endless, even though he couldn't fathom them himself. Vorian placed his bluish-matte hands on the controls, pulling his fighter back and breaking from the fleet.
In an instant, the large Æon above vanished. Vorian smiled, not seeing a single enemy ship left. There was only an endless battlefield of debris floating in the dead of space.
"We’ve beaten them!" Volup said, turning to look at Vorian, unable to contain his excitement.
Vorian was silent, looking back at the Æther reserves. "No, our Æther reserves were almost depleted. Another small fleet and our fighting power would have been abysmal."
Volup quietly nodded in response.
"Order the fleet to return to Acedia for repairs. We need to replenish the reserves if we’re to take Drækonia," Vorian said while staring into space.
"Yes, sir," Volup replied quickly.
Catching movement out of his peripheral vision, Vorian focused in. Soon, he identified a small black mass coming from the wreckage. While humanoid in form, it was larger than any human he’d seen before, but he recognized the paneling. The suit it wore was like the girl’s he had in the back. As the thing got closer, it looked like a large robot of some kind. It stuck its hand out and manifested what looked like a large cannon on each arm, starting to spin at a high speed while an amber energy built in size.
"Sir, should we retreat?" Volup called out.
"No," Vorian said calmly. "We have their friend. They wouldn't dare fire on us."
In what seemed like an eternal standoff, Vorian pulled on the controls. "If these humans aren’t with us, then they’re against us. We'll show them the strength of Acedia."
Vorian fired up the Æther, Ætching a path and manifesting the raging hybrid beast that was at least three times the humans’ size. "On my mark, call off the fleet one by one."
"Sir?" Volup asked, obviously confused.
"You heard me!" Vorian yelled.
Vorian watched the human soldiers respond as they began to draw an orbit and Ætch a path into space. A light circled behind it, and a radiant beam shot behind its back from the suit’s large neck. A creature grew to meet the size of Vorian’s hybrid creature.
He smiled and moved into action. He swung the spiked mace down hard onto the human soldiers. Their large, Drækonian creature held two hands up with its golden hammer, blocking the blow. Vorian swung his own hammer, watching from his peripheral vision as his fleet—his friends and family—shot off to safety.
The human soldiers caught that blow, and this time sent the hammer straight for Vorian's cockpit. The hammer hit hard, smashing the window. The emergency systems kicked in, hailing widely with flashing lights. Vorian looked back at the reserves to see them rapidly fall to their lowest point before failing completely.
He spun the creature above his ship like a whirlwind force. This was his final move, the berserker rage that could keep the human soldiers at bay.
"Volup, get ready to warp out of here!" Vorian yelled, carefully watching his opponent.
"Ready, sir," Volup said.
Vorian looked back at the Æther, but it was gone. The human soldiers had struck the hybrid Æon, and it had blocked the blow just as it vanished from sight.
&nb
sp; "Now!" Vorian yelled.
Within the blink of an eye, Vorian's ship—with Hastings on board—was gone from sight. The Psychonautz floated in space, carefully noting the direction the fleeing ship had gone.
31
Hastings sat chained on the ship, more than likely left for dead, as it floated around the gas giant Gigantica. A small window port cast a yellowish-purple light into the rather dark cell. She inspected the golden amber bars in the light, not seeing a definitive edge. They were pure energy.
Thoughts of what that whole mission had been and what it had meant flooded her mind. To think that a new form of voxels could be formed. The Voxelight, whoever may have created it, was genius. Of course, voxels wouldn't differ from the building blocks of their universe. First, there’d been matter and photons, and now voxels and Voxelight.
She thought about the moons, their Æons, and how they were somehow embedded into the tidal forces of each distance moon. The egg was still in front of her, hatched, but the tendrils were now unhooked. What did they steal from me? Hastings dreaded the thought of the Acedians using her as a weapon to create some outlandish monster or entity.
The ship began to thrust, burning around the gas giant. She wondered what an Æon would look like from a planet. Planets had gravity and tidal forces, so why didn't they have Æons?
Hastings closed her eyes and circled her fingers, imagining a large entity she’d never seen before. She let her mind play, finding the contours of a beast so grand, so powerful, that only the strength of many could control it. Its skin was striated like the gas giant in front of her, and it held a large staff, fixed with grand axes on both ends.
She felt her neck warm, and a light crept from behind. Level Three was in full effect.
About the Authors
Gentry Race has worked as a VFX artist at DreamWorks, Laika and Evil Eye Pictures. He continues to follow his passion telling wild stories and exploring the creative aspects of life by any medium that allows him to.
