Across a Sea of Stars

by Michael E. Gonzales

  "Don't do it," Cris warned, but the man yanked the pistol off his belt and was dead before he could bring it to bear.

  Cris turned now toward the throne, determined to kill Caval Du Mal, but the throne had lowered into the floor and was gone. Cris had turned just in time to see the door close over it.

  ○O○

  The mysterious substance that departed Cris's body and entered the ship's propulsion system had, at last, worked its magic deep inside the sequestorial fusion engine's main particle separator. The congestion and coagulation of subatomic particles at the micro splicer caused the semi liquid suspension to cavitate. The resulting explosion caused the sympathetic detonation of the fusion plants in proximity; onboard computers automatically shut down the engines. The force of the explosion had pushed the great ship into an orbit that was quickly decaying. To compensate, the computers ignited the secondary drive systems.

  The Sorgina's ship, wedged tightly into the vent, caused pressure to build up to a point where it backed up against the port side plasma accumulators. As the pressure grew, the anticipated reaction occurred, and the volcanic release of unrestricted propulsion plasma, looking like a solar flare, pushed the ship into a lateral rotation and accelerated its plunge into the atmosphere.

  As the massive ship began to rotate, centrifugal force created a false gravity. Slowly, inexorably, it felt as if the ship was being laid over on her port side. She was not, of course. Her clockwise, flat rotation caused the effect.

  Suddenly, the port wall of the dome became the floor. The floor had become a wall, and the slidrath was now dangling from its harness in the new gravity several meters above the side of the dome on which Cris and Tattie now stood.

  The tubes that were providing the sedative to the creature intravenously had been pulled out and it was becoming conscious. At the same time, Cris could see the ship was rapidly heading for the atmosphere of the planet and a fiery re-entry.

  "Cris," Tattie said as she removed Cris's restraints, "we have got to get out!"

  Cris looked around and could see only three possible exits: the door through which they had entered, the hatch down which Caval Du Mal had escaped, and the opening from which the slidrath rose from the floor. All were closed and far out of reach. There was one possibility.

  Cris took careful aim at the harness supporting the slidrath. He allowed for the new gravity and the rotation of the ship and fired one shot. The round struck the spool where the cable attached to the harness was wound and the entire thing started to unravel; the hideous creature headed toward the side of the dome that was now their floor. It was unhappy, and by the looks of things, hungry. Once down, it began to move toward them in much the same manner that a walrus moves.

  "Cris, how does that help?" Tattie screamed.

  Cris fired a shot at the beast. Its hide seemed to absorb the ball of energy without effect. Cris ran as far up the dome as the centrifugal force would allow, this gave him a flank shot. The beast was still headed toward Tattie, and thus, bouncing up and down.

  Cris shouted at it. "Hey!"

  The creature stopped to look up at Cris, who instantly fired a round into the window in the creature's side.

  The clear barrier shattered, and the slidrath's stomach acid poured out onto the floor all around it, the monster threw its head back and let out a bellowing scream. Its own stomach acid acted on it like salt on a slug. Very quickly, it stopped moving; its body was melting into the acid.

  Cris realized that soon there would be no way to reach the harness strap hanging down from the structure above, as it would be surrounded by a pool of deadly acid.

  Cris leapt up and ran toward the dissolving carcass. He jumped up, landed on the slidrath's head, then instantly leapt again to grab the strap. The bottom of the strap had lain in the acid, and was now parted. Cris climbed the strap a couple of meters, then pressed his feet against the wall and walked sideways toward Tattie. "Grab the rope and climb!" he shouted.

  ○O○

  Tattie took perhaps two steps, and bounded into the air; she grabbed the strap a meter-and-a-half over Cris's head. "What do we do at the top?"

  "Just climb," Cris responded.

  At the top, they both climbed into the metal harness support assembly. Tattie watched as Cris studied the opening that allowed this mechanism to rise. There was just space enough to see around the edges of the base of the structure.

  "Watch out!" Cris shouted, and fired a plasma ball at the seam. The result was a hole about forty centimeters in diameter. Cris fired again and again and again. At last, there existed a hole big enough for them to squeeze through.

  "Let's go," Cris shouted at her and reached for her hand. He guided her and assisted her climbing. She had no more gotten in and turned around than the platform to which the metal framework was attached came loose and fell out of the opening. It was stopped four meters down when a last metal cable held. Cris managed to hang on, but just barely.

  He was out of reach, so in her desperation, Tattie started to climb out.

  "No, wait!" Cris shouted, and looked to his left, where the end of the strap hung. He made two attempts to reach it, failing each time. This act rocked the platform, causing an already overstressed cable to fray. Tattie saw this. "Come on, Cris!"

  Cris made another grab at the strap and missed again, this time they both heard the twang of the strands of the cable breaking. He swung out again and, this time, grabbed the strap. Using one hand to hold onto the cable, and the other to grab the strap, he drew up some slack and tossed the strap up to Tattie. She caught it. There was nothing to tie it to, so she backed off, braced her feet against the lip of the opening, and hung on.

  "All right Cris, come up!" she cried.

  ○O○

  Cris let go of the cable in favor of the strap and started to climb. The cable was coming apart faster now as the spin of the ship increased, thus increasing the centrifugal force. Cris heard the cable straining. He knew that when the cable broke, Tattie would not be able to support his weight and that of the metal frame, and so both would plummet into the pool of acid below.

  Cris placed his foot against a part of the support and pushed himself up. Just as he grabbed the lip of the entrance, the cable snapped, and the platform fell. The strap was yanked from Tattie's hands and she heard the heavy piece of equipment fall.

  "Cris!" He heard her panicked scream. Looking up, he saw her rush to the edge, where she saw him hanging on to the edge of the doorway by his fingernails.

  Tattie reached down, grabbed him, and pulled with all her considerable strength until he climbed over the edge and fell, exhausted, on top of her.

  She looked up at him and whispered in his ear, "You have the worst timing."

  Cris smiled at her and stood. Helping her up, he breathed, "We need to run."

  Chapter 27

  The Rapna

  Cris and Tattie both turned to look down the tube they were now standing in. It was about twenty meters long, and dark; at its end, the light from the room beyond showed the way. Originally, the tube was an opening in the ceiling of the room they now gazed into. There was a three meter drop onto what was the port bulkhead. Another of those round hatchways led into a passageway where the floor was now the ship's port side pressure hull.

  A run along the hull of three hundred meters brought them to a sign that Tattie read aloud. "Escape pods – starboard side." It pointed toward a corridor that was now a pit, straight down, of a considerable depth. Like all the passages they had thus far encountered, this one also had the handrails along its length to facilitate pedestrian zero gravity movement. These rails would now serve Cris and Tattie as a ladder to facilitate their descent down the passageway.

  ○O○

  Capek located escape pod number 1,337, C and carefully floated Tarnus and Epney down the hallway and into the pod. He had just secured them into their seats when he heard voices.

  Peeking out of the hatch, he detected the voices of several men, perhaps a platoon-siz
ed element of the enemy; they were yet around the corner of the intersection, and were undoubtedly examining the bodies of their dead comrades. Two of them appeared around the corner and spied Capek, who ducked quickly. Two shots rang out, both striking very near the hatch; he then heard the two soldiers call out an alert to their fellows. He heard the excited and angry voices approaching from around the corner.

  Capek reached for the control panel in order to close the hatch and launch the pod. Outside in the hallway, the enemy was within a meter of his open hatch.

  When the first explosion jarred the ship, everyone not secured was tossed violently into the upper port corner of the hallway. Capek found himself in the upper portion of the escape pod. He was not surprised by the explosion, as were the troops in the hallway. He quickly jerked himself back in front of the panel and closed the hatch.

  Capek sat down in the pilot's seat and adjusted the controls. He pressed the emergency launch command and the pod blasted through the thin, protective membrane separating the pod from space, and shot out away from the great battleship.

  Capek disengaged the autopilot and took command of the pod. He adjusted his monitor and looked back at Caval Du Mal's gigantic ship. Even with the speed of their ejection into space, it still took several minutes for the pod to get far enough away for Capek to see as much as half the ship. The stern looked normal, except for the ionized particle cloud that he could see in the inferred spectrum. He was also able to detect that the ship's trajectory had been altered.

  Now came the second blast as the plasma accumulators on the port side blew. The jet of super-heated plasma burst out of the hull with a blinding flash of light. The entire event lasted merely four seconds, but was powerful enough to start the great vessel rotating clockwise and down, the path it now followed would see it destroyed in the atmosphere in twenty-two minutes. There was nothing for Capek to do but wait to see if Cris and Tattie managed to make it to an escape pod.

  As Capek observed the death of the mighty behemoth, hundreds of escape pods began rocketing away as untold thousands of the sycophant followers of Caval Du Mal scrambled to save their own lives. One, in particular, caught his attention: a much larger escape vehicle which departed from near the bow of the ship.

  Capek turned on the communications device. "Cris, Tattie, are you there?"

  In response, he heard an evil laugh and a venomous voice said, "They did not survive."

  Capek ignored the voice. "Cris, Tattie, are you there?"

  ○O○

  Cris and Tattie climbed down the rails so as not to encounter any intersection that, at this angle, would represent a chasm they would be forced to negotiate.

  The climb was more arduous for Cris than Tattie, who was possessed of far greater strength and stamina then he. Cris would stop every fifth support rail to place his foot on it and take his weight off his arms. Tattie was below him, making great progress; she looked up and saw Cris wedge his body between the rail and the bulkhead, then lower his arms and shake them.

  "Are you all right, Am Eka?" she called up to him.

  "Yeah, sure. I just need to get some blood back into my arms." Cris realized that time was running out. "Honey—you go ahead, I'll catch up with you in a minute."

  Like an acrobat, Tattie sprang up the rail. "I am not leaving you; never ask that of me again."

  "Tattie," he said softly, taking her hand, "we're not both going to make it, but you can, if you go on alone."

  "Am Eka, I will never know love like that we share, how could I go on without you? If you can't make it, then I sacrifice my life for our love." She leaned over and kissed him gently.

  A moment later, there came a powerful jolt, and Cris was knocked loose from his perch. Tattie quickly grabbed his hand and hung on, Cris dangling below her. He felt his sweaty hand sliding through hers, so he reached for the rail with his other hand. He was sure he had it when his hand slid out of Tattie's and he fell. Without hesitation, Tattie jumped after him and grabbed him.

  Locked in each other's arms, they fell down the seemingly bottomless passage. Cris looked up at her just as she opened her eyes, and as she did, Cris fell again, this time into those eyes…and tumbled helplessly into the warmth of her love. He understood that she and he were now two halves of a whole, neither of which could live without the other. The warmth began to build inside them, and the light of their love engulfed the whole of the ship, of Nazer; indeed, its magnitude seemed immeasurable.

  ○O○

  When Tattie and Cris awoke from what seemed a long and terrible dream, they were in a strange place. All was quiet and very still. Both looked around, then at each other. As their eyes met, they began to feel motion, then heat, then the sound of stressed metal, collapsing bulkheads, and catastrophic decompression.

  They were inside an escape pod, and out beyond its still open hatch, the ship was coming apart. Tattie leapt into the pilot's seat as Cris closed the hatch. Tattie simultaneously hit the launch button and the sudden detonation threw Cris against the padded wall just under the hatch.

  The escape pod hurtled away from the ship. Instantly, Tattie saw that they were about to collide with the rear of the spinning ship. "Brace yourself!" she called back to Cris, and then fired her engine at full throttle. In her monitor, she saw the stern coming closer. The great ship appeared to be ablaze as the friction with the atmosphere increased. The G-forces on their bodies climbed to incredible proportions as Tattie pushed the little pod to get out of the way. It looked as if she were not going to make it. They had cleared the hull, but one of the extended engine housings was now headed right for them…a collision was inevitable. There were only seconds remaining. Tattie shouted over her shoulder, "I love you, Cris!"

  The moment Tattie looked back at her monitor, the heat from the reentry melted through the engine's support, and the entire housing broke loose and was pulled down into the planet's atmosphere. The escape pod then bolted free and into open space.

  "Cris—Cris, we are free!" Tattie screamed.

  "We made it? We're still alive?"

  Now, Tattie's voice was much more serious. "Cris, come here and look at this."

  What Cris saw on the monitor was the giant ship blazing a trail of smoke and debris through the atmosphere, then the remainder crashed into the sea, creating an explosion that cleared away cloud formations high into the atmosphere. The impact into the sea created three rings of tsunami waves. Then Tattie tilted the camera out into space. The remainder of Caval Du Mal's fleet, one at a time, was turning around and departing.

  Tattie smiled at Cris. He floated up and kissed her again. Tattie then turned on the communications device, and there was Capek's voice. "Cris, Tattie, are you there?"

  "Capek, we are here, I hear you!" responded Tattie. Cris rushed to her side.

  "Are you two safely away?" Capek asked. "Are you uninjured?"

  "Yes, we're away and we’re all right. How are the three of you?"

  "Tarnus is injured, I have lost my right hand, but it is Epney that worries me. He was hit in the side and the plasma stopped inside his lower abdomen. He has lost a lot of blood. I am headed for Emer Alda as quickly as I can."

  Tears began to form in Tattie's eyes. "We are not far behind you. Proceed with all haste. We will meet you there."

  "One last note, Mistress. It appears that Caval Du Mal managed to escape. I have the coordinates where his escape pod set down, and I am currently blocking his attempts to transmit a call for assistance to his fleet.”

  "All right Capek, transmit the coordinates and his transmission settings to me and proceed to Emer Alda as quickly as you can."

  Tattie ended the communications with Capek, then turned to Cris, who had floated next to her, and she began to sob on his shoulder.

  One hour and ten minutes later, they landed inside the crater where sat the city of Emer Alda. Capek's pod was already on the ground. As they exited their escape pod, they were greeted by a huge throng of people, all there to welcome them back as heroes. A m
an stood near their hatch that, by his manner and attire, must have been there in some official capacity. With Tattie on his arm, Cris grabbed the man and shouted over the noise of the crowd, "We have to get to the House of Healing now!" The man nodded. "Another thing—Caval Du Mal is still alive."

  The man stood shocked for a moment, then waved at another man standing not far away, this man also waved, and shortly a covered hover platform arrived.

  "This is my personal conveyance. It will take you anywhere you wish to go," the official shouted at Cris, who only nodded in response, then, with Tattie, he climbed onto the covered platform. Thirty minutes later, they were at the House of Healing.

  ○O○

  Capek sat in a waiting room. The stub of his injured arm had received treatment, of a sort, tubes had been pinched off and exposed, wires separated, and their ends wrapped with medical tape. The nurses here had no experience working with videkanica, they called him a "vide" for short. They possessed little more than a passing knowledge of things electrical, but they knew enough to perform these rudimentary procedures.

  Capek sat quietly, leaning forward, his handless forearm on his thigh, his head down. He looked for all the world to be in a sad and dejected state. The nurses wondered if, indeed, a videkanica could be sad. If so, why, then, could he not be happy, as well? If he could be happy and sad, what emotions were denied him?

  Cris and Tattie came running down the hall. Capek stood and nodded in their direction.

  Tattie threw her arms around Capek's neck and hugged him, and then she looked to his wound. She took his other hand in hers and asked, "Are you in pain?"

  "I am aware of my missing appendage. You might call the sensation pain, but nevertheless, I am functional. There is, however, a pain I am experiencing, Mistress. I must transmit to you unwelcome news, information that slows the synapses of my mind."

  Tattie held her breath. "What news, Capek?"

  "It has been reported to me that Epney's life force has ceased. His energy has bled away to join the great flow of energy in the universe. I am missing him already."