To the side of the pile, Sheri spied Cameron Mills pulling back Olivia McCarthy, whose eyes were wide with fascination. Then, some meters before the mass, a second stood, seemingly awaiting. Sheri watched while they merged, an effortless combination that found the two mysterious masses grow into a larger whole.
“Sheri!” Cameron called out.
Her head snapped from the mass to her fellow crew.
“What is this thing?” he shouted. His voice took on an echo as the space had cleared, all but for the four Berserker One lieutenants, two to the mass’s right, two more to its rear.
Before anyone had a chance to guess, a third mass came zipping down from the left, equal in size to the original two. On its tail, Sheri spotted her captain, Gil Graves, hobbling as fast as his bum left leg would permit.
With all the Berserker One personnel in attendance, they witnessed the forming of an even larger mass as the final piece was collected into it. The void lifted itself, as if standing upright, a tear in reality that stood sixteen to twenty feet between them, and some five to six feet wide.
“Captain,” Sheri called out. “I’m guessing that was Evan?” The red lights flashed across her face, twisted in consternation.
“You’d guess right,” he replied, winded. He stared into the center of it, watching it hold position, uneager to eat them the way it had General Hardy. “I don’t suppose anyone’s tried shooting it yet?”
“No,” Sheri replied.
“I don’t even have my gun on me,” Cameron replied.
“Alright then,” Gil said, pulling his pistol from his hip and taking aim. “If it gets very angry, I’d rather it be with me than any of you. Just be ready to run.”
“Captain--” Sheri began a protest, but was cut off by the clap of a round fired into the void.
The bullet disappeared into the mass without going through, and no response was given. The void mass simply stayed.
“Figured as much,” said Gil, holstering his gun. “By now, everyone’s escaped CC to their respective ships.”
“Any reason we haven’t done the same?” Cameron shouted.
“This thing is a threat to the Fleet,” Sheri replied.
“Bingo,” said Gil. “Problem is, we’ve got no way of stopping it.”
“And the longer we stand here, the higher the probability of it eating us like it has the handful of others,” Ian commented. He hunkered closer to the ground, bent knees ready to spring with any sudden movement from the mass standing between them. When it finally did, instead, he faltered and fell over. The mass squeezed into itself and shot upward at a speed that caught the rest of the crew off guard, too fast for reaction. It hit the ceiling high above, then fanned out like a sheet and raced along out of the Observation Deck, into the ship.
“Shit!” Ian shouted.
“Where’s it going?” Olivia questioned.
Cameron plucked a small, makeshift device of his own creation and lifted it into the air, towards where the mass had been seconds prior. He watched the screen light up and reveal a surprising number.
“What is that?” Sheri asked.
“A little invention that measures energy.”
“What’s it telling you?” Gil inquired, stepping forward to meet Cameron in the middle of the room.
Cameron wiped sweat from his forehead and corrected his glasses, sliding them up his oily noise. “It’s, it’s insane. I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen something else I never would have believed before it. Basically, this thing is packed with energy. An amount of energy that should be impossible. That should, really, have ripped not only the ship apart, but the fleet, the planet, the star of this solar system, maybe a whole bunch of stars, I don’t know. That’s how off the charts the reading is. It’s astounding.”
“Energy,” Gil mumbled, stepping away, scratching at the underside of his chin, staring up at the lights where the mass had made its path along the ceiling. They flickered in and out, the red glowing, pulsating, then dying. It revealed a path towards the core of the ship, the very heart of CC, where Gil knew there to be the powerhouse that interconnected the entire IURF.
His bottom jaw slowly lowered in a slackjaw expression. “Oh boy,” he muttered.
“What is it?” Sheri asked, having stepped up behind him.
“It’s an entity made of raw energy, which congeals itself into a more powerful whole. It’s aboard a state of the art ship, where, prior to becoming a void mass, it demanded to see its leader.” Gil turned, staring into Sheri’s eyes. “We need to get off this ship, Sheri. Then we need to destroy it.”
Gil stepped past Sheri towards the rest of his crew, now huddled around Cameron as he showed them his little trinket. Ian lifted his head. “What’s the move, Cap?”
“Run.”
Ten.
Lights Out
____________________________
The five of them fled the Observation Deck, paying no attention to the unprecedented view it provided of a flurry of pods jettisoning out from Central Command towards the surrounding vessels. Their legs carried them down the hallways that led to the Docking Bay, where Berserker One remained stationed. They raced into their ship as the flickering red lights and high pitched siren behind them suddenly went out, replaced by darkness and an eerie silence. The lieutenants made their way to the bridge while Captain Gil Graves disengaged with CC and closed the door between the two ships. As he did so, a furry, welcoming body greeted him by rubbing itself against his bum leg.
Gil looked down into the orange face of Alexander, who purred as he peered up at Gil. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Gil spoke to the cat before pushing away from the wall and heading back up towards the bridge.
He took his seat, facing his crew, situated atop the clear floor above the engine as it glowed to life beneath them.
“Let’s put some distance between us and CC, Ian,” he said.
“Sure thing,” Lt. Ian Lucas replied, pulling up controls on his console that permitted him to guide Berserker One away from CC.
Gil turned around to the window facing the fleet before him. “Hm, let’s see…” he muttered, rubbing his chin and staring at the buttons beneath the window. He pressed one and above all the ships in view, a green title appeared naming them. “There we are,” he continued to speak to himself. He searched the field until he found the name he was looking for. “IURF Neptune,” he read aloud. It was the second in command in the Fleet hierarchy, a battleship with heavy defenses, and the place Commodore Reid would be located. Or, General Reid, rather, as Gil considered. He fought back his emotions for the fallen Peter Hardy as he commlinked with Neptune. Before him, a little square of video appeared, featuring the flustered, reddened, puffy face of Jim Reid.
“Commodore,” Gil spoke. “You need to sever all connectivity between Central Command and the Fleet.”
The confusion upon Jim’s face was apparent. “I’m sorry, Captain Graves?”
“The entity aboard,” he explained, “is going to merge itself with the controls. It’s going to take over the ship, soon as it figures it out.”
“That’s absurd!”
“As absurd as watching a black hole tear its way out of a human suit and erase our general without any difficulty?”
Jim grumbled. “If we kill the matrix, every ship goes down, you know that, Gil. We’ll be in the dark!”
“Exactly,” Gil replied. “In the dark as opposed to being tied to that thing. You need to cut it. Now. Understand?”
Jim shook his head.
“Jim,” Gil urged.
“You’d better be right about this, Graves.”
The window with the sweaty, red face disappeared, and a moment later, all the ships in the space around them went dark. Lights went out, and Gil watched as they turned into a collection of metal hulls, floating with a cargo of terrified humanity, confused, no doubt, as to what was going on. It was better, Gil thought. To protect it, he had to put it to sleep, where he and Berserker One could
face the nightmare alone.
In the quiet, Gil and his lieutenants watched Central Command, its massive body floating out before them. Ian positioned the ship at a distance, but kept the enemy in sight, waiting.
Suddenly, it came to life, the windows lit with a powerful surge of light, bursting through, rays evaporating into space.
“It’s in,” Gil commented.
“I don’t understand,” Sheri said.
“It must’ve found a way to merge with the ship,” Cameron stated. “Putting it in control of one of the most powerful ships known to mankind.”
“After watching what it did with those onboard,” Olivia spoke, her voice shaking, “I can only imagine what it wants to do with that.”
“We need to fire on it,” Gil said, spinning around. His lieutenants stared up at him aghast. “We have to lure it away from the fleet. They’re entirely defenseless, whereas we still have firepower. We engage, then run, leading it away.”
“Then what, Captain?” Sheri inquired.
“Then more inspiration will strike, Lt. McBride,” Gil replied. “Until then, fire up the cannon.”
Sheri obeyed, gritting her teeth, but the enemy had already taken action. The ship already began a clumsy lurch forward to the nearest Fleet vessel, a ship less than a quarter in size, floating to the right and just underneath. The entity steered CC in a harsh downturn, aiming its nose at the helpless target.
“We need to fire,” Gil said.
Lt. McBride wiped the sweat from her brow. “I’m working on it, Captain.” She awaited her console’s message that told her the cannon was loaded as she took aim. It was too late. The nose of CC collided with the middle of the smaller vessel, snapping it effortlessly in two. The metal point ate through it like a predator. The twin halves emitted sparks and bursts of fire that choked out in the vacuum of space as the metal scratched along the sides of CC. Gil watched in horror as fleetfolk shot out from within, pulled into space, made lifeless by the cold. The jagged silver edges of the torn ship ripped holes in the belly of CC, but without personnel on board, and a creature at the helm with no apparent need for oxygen, there was no stopping it. The lights within buzzed brighter, flashing, in various colors, as the entity continued to learn.
“Damnit!” he yelled.
“Firing!” Lt. McBride shouted. A red ball shot through space towards CC and collided with its side, still not protected by a shield.
“Direct hit,” she relayed. “It hasn’t figured out defensive systems yet.”
Gil watched then with anticipation, hoping his plan worked. The ship twisted in place, its thrusters firing off, twirling the massive body in a haphazard fashion, but unmistakably towards Berserker One. “Yes,” Gil quietly spoke, squeezing his fist. “Alright, Lt. Mills, fire up shields. Lt. Lucas, trace us a route out of here, far away from any trace of IUR space. I want to drag this bastard into deep space.”
“Already on it,” Lt. Ian Lucas replied. His eyes peered through the screen that appeared before him, holding a steadfast gaze despite the sweat threatening at his brow.
Captain Graves watched the once friendly ship twist in an awkward fashion through the wreckage of its first victim. Like a beast, it chewed through the ship. Graves felt confident its behavior would be predictable. He was less confident that was enough to survive the day.
“Got it!” Lt. Lucas called out.
Gil watched through the window as the cannon at the head of CC began to glow, a red dot growing in size to a bright red payload.
“Go! Now!” he commanded.
The thrusters beneath them rumbled in time to force Berserker One upward, out of the line of fire. As the bottom of their ship lifted above the top of CC, the round flew beneath them, shooting out into the depths of space.
“Miss,” Lt. Mills relayed.
“Fifteen seconds to warphole.” Lt. Lucas began the countdown.
“Captain,” Lt. McBride called out.
Gil already knew her concern. “Not yet.”
“Without it locking on--”
“I know.”
“Then we’ll be leaving it here--”
“We can’t wait.”
“Ten,” Lt. Lucas updated.
Gil watched the screen before him, a series of stats regarding their enemy scanned by Berserker One’s intel systems, none of which noted a lock. That would update CC when Berserker One left through a warphole. It would tell their enemy where they went. “Come on,” he whispered, pulling at his chin hairs.
“Five seconds.”
A red light came up on the screen, a reticle symbol that brought with it a wave of relief for Captain Graves and Lt. McBride.
Then everything went black.
They travelled through the warphole and arrive in deep space, an unknown distance, as Lt. Lucas had accepted the first available space pocket out from Reuthra and the vulnerable Fleet. They found themselves at the edge of the galaxy, not far, contextually speaking, from the belt where this all began. Still far enough, however, to find themselves in the middle of essentially nowhere.
The ship began a sharp decline, the nose dropping as stars passed upward in front of them.
“Lucas, what’s going on?” Captain Graves inquired.
“Gravity,” Lt. Lucas replied.
Before he could explain, Captain Graves saw for himself. The glowing, grey curvature of an object came into view, reflecting the light of some star behind them. Berserker One was hurtling in towards a planet they had arrived within the pull of.
Eleven.
Unchosen Battleground
____________________________
“What sort of spiral is this, do you reckon, Lt. Lucas?” Gil questioned, watching the surface of the grey planet come into view. As they dove headlong into it, he hoped it was a docile sort of place, a grey, rocky surface with little atmosphere to it. Instead, as they neared, he saw the grey surface to be swirling clouds, instead of its actual surface. “Please don’t say it’s the death type.” Alexander waltzed across the window, a golden coat against a dreary backdrop.
Lt. Lucas swiped the back of his crippled hand across his forehead. “I should hope not,” he answered. “A bit of drag before we hit its first layer of atmosphere would be helpful.”
“Not something we really have control of,” Lt. Mills commented.
“There must be something we can do, surely,” Lt. McCarthy added a dose of optimism into the discourse.
“Surely,” Captain Graves repeated, but feeling less and less confident in that assertion.
“Siphon off some energy from the thrusters to me,” Lt. McBride chimed in.
“Are you nuts? The thrusters are all the drag we have,” Lt. Lucas chastised.
A grin crept across Gil’s face as he plucked the feline from the lip of the window and turned around to face his crew. “Do it.”
“Oh, sweet momma,” Lt. Lucas muttered as he obeyed. A bar of power drained from his console.
Another bar lifted on Lt. McBride’s, which she put to use in the front facing cannons. She readied them as they watched heat of the exterior rise in degrees shown across the bridge display.
“Alright,” she spoke to herself, “how’s this for inventive?”
She hit fire, while simultaneously taking the cannon offline. A loud noise rose up in the bridge, the charging cannon in the underbelly of the ship were at payload capacity, their propulsion pressing against the red spheres held within, but not permitting them to exit. The temperature skyrocketed on the screen before them, but the ship gradually decreased its velocity, a second layer of darker clouds coming into view as they pierced the thin higher altitude clouds.
Lt. Lucas braced himself in his seat. “What’s happening?”
An equally wired, yet less fearful Lt. Mills explained, “She’s using the cannon for drag.” He turned to Lt. McBride and laughed. “I can’t believe it!”
Lt. McBride allowed the smallest hint of a grin to tease the corner of her mouth. Then it promptly disappeared
. “We’re not out of this yet. Once we come in to land, we have to deal with the overloaded cannon we’re all presently sitting on.”
Gil clicked his tongue. “That’s true. And unfortunate.”
For a moment, Berserker One drifted through the planet’s atmosphere, a clear layer existing between two weather fronts, one higher, one lower. The planet’s star was setting for their location, and a brilling pink hue filled the clear air and cast itself across their faces. It was a momentary respite before Berserker One plunged into the menacing clouds beneath it, dark, thick, and electric, bolts firing within.
The bridge rocked back and forth, the captain and crew holding themselves in their seats as the ground beneath finally appeared. A viciously rocky surface greeted them, and Captain Graves lamented a decision or two as he imagined them crashing into its jagged edges. The expanse of ground beneath was nearly black in color, and glistening with the rain that showered over it. In another context, it could have been beautiful. Hell, Gil thought, it was still beautiful, even if it might prove his killer.
“Alright,” he said, “McBride, let’s empty those cannons, shall we?”
“Captain, they’re offline and full.”
“Yes,” he admitted, “but what if they were overfull?”
He saw through her eyes that her stomach sank, but still she took to her controls and pushed more energy into the cannon, watching as it flashed a red warning on the screen between their faces. As their eyes met through it, they felt the ship shake, then watched as one of the cannons fell past them, red hot metal glowing with a massive payload inside. Gil watched it over his shoulder as it burst into a massive fireball. Berskerer One continued through the flamed, on a path towards the surface.
“One down,” he said.
Then they second cannon fired, an elongated red orb that seemed to spin, two sphered conjoined, pulling one another to and fro. It zipped through the rain and curved outward, swiping through a piercing rock formation and bursting into a blinding explosion a half mile to their right.
Fallen Fleet (Berserker One Book 1) Page 7
