by J. N. Chaney
“That didn’t last long,” said Abigail.
“There’s too much interference,” said Dressler.
“The image is gone,” interjected Sigmond. “However, the scans are still populating. I am receiving them now and relaying them to Titan for Athena’s analysis. The drone’s signal is diminishing by the second, but—”
The rift flashed with a sudden bolt of lightning, taking us all by surprise. From inside, a solid object appeared, growing as it bulged from within the vortex, expanding into our reality. It was metallic and gray, rectangular in design—at least, at first. A moment later, another section of it emerged, diagonal from the first, giving the object a shape not unlike a sideways Y.
“What the hell is that?!” I balked.
“Is it a ship?” asked Verne.
“What else could it be?” asked Octavia.
“Siggy, get another drone close to it, quick!” I ordered.
Before I could even finish the sentence, a video feed appeared on my display, showing another drone moving from inside the chasm, towards the middle of the rift. In less than ten seconds, we had an up close and personal view of the object, but it still wasn’t enough to definitively say what we were looking at.
The object continued to move its way out of the tunnel and into the open air. I expected there to be more to it, like thrusters near the rear, or perhaps another section.
Instead, the drone accelerated above and around the object, giving us a closer look at the whole of it, revealing a broken section near the rear, severed in two with debris floating all around it. A snapshot glimpse showed multiple layers inside the open, sundered area, pieces of furniture and—
Verne made an audible squeamish noise, raising his arm over his visor as three corpses floated near the aft section of the Y-shaped vessel. They were albinos, with white hair and strange clothes—red and black uniforms, by the look of them.
“Are those Eternals?” whispered Abigail, unable to hide the shock in her voice.
Dressler pushed herself up from her crouched position. “Sigmond,” she said, quickly.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Can you calculate the trajectory of that ship once it’s free of the tunnel?” she asked.
Everyone looked at her, but no one said a word.
“Processing,” said Sigmond. “Based on current momentum, gravity distribution inside the core, and the shape of the craft, I estimate a probability of 98.7% that the vessel will crash here.”
The map pulled out and a small section lit up in red to indicate what was about to become a very large crash site.
And we happened to be standing right on top of it.
“Everyone get to the ship!” I shouted, leaping to my feet.
Abigail and Alphonse were the first ones out of the corridor, followed by Dressler and Octavia. Verne lagged behind them, fumbling with his weapon as he tried to keep up.
I hooked my hand around his arm and jerked him into a run. “I said move, godsdammit!”
Right at that moment, the feed from the drone showed the rift suddenly close, evaporating into thin air the same way it had appeared, wide sparks of green lightning lingering in the air for a few seconds longer.
Sigmond had the ship’s engines primed as soon as we were at the door, filing inside as quickly as our bulky suits would let us. I squeezed up front with Alphonse and, without waiting for the door to close, placed my hand on the control pad and brought us off the ground.
The object from the rift dipped towards us. It moved slowly at first, but then began to dive, accelerating by the second as it plunged to our position.
Our thrusters ignited into a full blast, taking us away from the platform with such speed that I felt myself press into my chair. Unable to move from the acceleration, I caught the other ship out of the corner of my eye, spiraling to the place we’d just left.
I watched the crash from the drone’s perspective, magnified from a distance, but it was catastrophic. The vessel slammed into four large towers, breaking them apart like sandcastles while still maintaining the ship’s basic shape until it finally struck the ground.
Waves of orange fire swept across the cityscape in apocalyptic fashion, consuming everything. Dust blew into the air so high above the ground that it dwarfed the towers below. Thick clouds extended far into the open air of the core, floating and forming a hue of gray shine as the fire’s light danced within.
I could hardly believe it. The atrium. A sixth of the city. All of it destroyed, along with the ship and the Eternals it carried.
Except…
“Sir,” said Sigmond, breaking my attention. “I believe I have something else you may want to see.”
“What is it?” I asked, still transfixed on the mass destruction of the crash.
“I’m detecting multiple ships across the city, each one originated from inside the crashed vessel.”
“Inside?” I asked. “Are you talking about escape pods?”
“Unknown, sir, but that does seem likely.”
“Escape pods?” asked Verne. “What do we do?”
Abigail looked at him like he was stupid. “What do you think?”
Alphonse nodded. “No matter their intent, we need to control the situation, which means gathering survivors and questioning them.”
He was right. Even if they turned out to be our enemy, we couldn’t let them go about their own business. For all any of us knew, there was a superweapon somewhere down here, and these people knew the key to activating it. Hell, they might even try to reactivate the trilobites, and I sure as shit wasn’t having that again.
“Siggy, pull the rest of those spare drones you brought,” I ordered. “Have them monitor all of the pods and any survivors. If it moves, I want it tracked. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” said Sigmond.
“In the meantime, get Athena on the line and tell her to send us a batch of ships, and get a security squad on each of them. Their job is to find anyone lucky enough to survive this mess.”
“What about us? What are we doing?” asked Verne.
“We’re already here, ain’t we?” I asked, cocking my head as I sent a command to our ship, ordering it to head to the nearest escape pod. “Let’s find out who these folks are and what they mean to do.”
TWENTY-TWO
The first pod we came to was also the biggest, according to our sensors. It was at least the size of the strike ship, if not a few meters bigger.
Smoke rose from where the pod had landed, having torn through a small building, leaving small fires in its trail. The same was true of all the rest, each of them finding the ground in a less than ideal trajectory.
I told myself it couldn’t be helped. Anyone with control over their ship wouldn’t bring it down like that, not if they valued their own lives.
There wasn’t any room for me to land, so I had to hover over a leveled section of the path. We opened the side of our ship and lowered the ladder, and I took the lead.
“Abigail and Octavia, you two are with me,” I ordered, deciding it would be better to have my best guns beside me, should anything go wrong.
“What about me?” asked Dressler. “I understand you need Alphonse to fly the ship, but I would prefer to go.”
“Sorry, Doc. Your skill ain’t with a gun,” I told her, unapologetically. “Things go south, I need you and that brain of yours to find a way to fix all this.”
“Do I need to ask why I’m not going?” asked Verne, slouching in his seat.
Abigail gave him a pat on the shoulder. “Baby steps. You did well today.”
Verne smiled at the compliment.
I climbed down a few rungs on the ladder, looking up at Alphonse, who had taken my seat at the helm. “Hey, Al, make sure you keep an eye on whoever comes out of that ship.”
He nodded.
“I’m serious, Al. Don’t you let me get shot, you hear me?”
I lowered myself down to the last rung in the ladder and hopped to the ground, followed s
hortly by Abigail, and then Octavia.
Abigail drew a rifle from her back, which Verne had been kind enough to give her, since she’d lost the other one to the trilobites. “Do you think these people are real Eternals?” she asked, checking the magazine and safety. “They could be similar to Verne and Karin.”
“Maybe,” I said, unholstering my pistol. I pulled the hammer back, readying myself. “Can’t know from looking at ‘em. We’ll have to have ourselves a nice, long chat.”
“Hopefully without all the shooting,” said Octavia, drawing her weapon.
I pressed forward, minding my step along the rough and broken path. It had, only a short while ago, been so pristine—sleek and almost new, with a metallic surface that was near kingly in its design. Now, all that remained was a stark contrast—ugly and cruel, a nightmare of crumbling buildings and smoke. If not for our suits, I wagered we’d be coughing our lungs out at this very moment.
Alphonse kept the ship above and behind us, giving him a bird’s eye view of the situation. It was the perfect view for cover fire, should things get out of hand.
I hoped that didn’t happen, not for my own sake, but for theirs. These Eternals, for all their power and strength, were in no position to make demands.
The camera on my suit fed what I saw directly to Sigmond, who ran an analysis on the pod. He lit up a small square of red light, marking it. “I believe that is the manual release, sir.”
“Good job, Siggy,” I told him, then waved at the girls to step clear and watch my back. They readied themselves behind a collapsed wall, placing their guns on the broken metal slabs.
I touched the ship at the place where Sigmond had indicated, and my tattoos lit up, causing the lid to flip open. Inside, a single handle waited. I took it, pulled, and turned.
There was a loud POP as the door snapped free of the wall and fell onto the ground beside me. I backed up, quickly, and raised my pistol.
Inside the opening, I saw shadows moving against a white light, vapor and smoke floating through them.
Whoever was in there, they were still alive.
I tried to swallow but found my throat too dry. I took a quick breath and edged closer to the ship again, making sure to keep my pistol aimed at whatever lay inside.
I deactivated my suit’s sound filter and cleared my throat. “Whoever’s in there, come out! Keep your hands where I can see them!”
I waited, tempted to get even closer, but remained in place. They’d have to eventually come out, and if they didn’t, I had a ship behind me to see that they did.
“We have your ship surrounded!” I shouted. “We don’t mean you any harm. We just need to see who you are and ask you some questions!”
The shadows continued to move, but there was no answer. I glanced back at Abigail, then again at the doorway.
“If you refuse to come outside, we have a ship that’ll blow a hole twice the size of this door,” I cautioned. “You wanna risk dying out of sheer stubbornness?”
“Akka le no sing!” called a voice from inside the ship.
I stiffened, looking again at Abigail. Her eyes were wider than I’d ever seen them. Holy shit, I mouthed.
She nodded, slowly, her mouth agape, and then looked again at the door.
“Say again!” I shouted.
“Boki na finke sri la!” the voice yelled back.
I switched over to the comm. “Doc, tell me you’re hearing this shit.”
“I am, but I don’t know what they’re saying. Verne says he doesn’t understand it, either,” explained Dressler.
“Don’t we have one of those translator devices?” asked Octavia.
“Pardon me, sir, but I’ve already been working on decoding the language,” said Sigmond. “The cipher is processing it now, but it requires more of the language.”
“Guess that means we need to get them talking,” I muttered, then flipped the comm off and took a breath. “Hey! Say something else!”
“Eddi na kalo? So bicki de rei!”
“A little more, sir,” said Sigmond.
“Shudo mal broken, odsi na help! We have no suddala for the wounded! Please, stay your weapon!”
“I believe the translator is functioning, sir,” informed Sigmond. “Speak when ready and they should be able to understand.”
“Did you just say something about wounded?” I yelled.
“Yes!” exclaimed a male voice from inside the ship. “Yes! Do you understand me? Please, if you do, don’t shoot us! We mean you no harm, but we have wounded and require medical attention immediately!”
I flipped my comm back on, then looked at Octavia and Abby. “It’s a small ship for all of us, plus their crew. If a fight breaks out, I’ll come running out, so I need the two of you to stay here and gun down anyone that chases me. I’ll give you a shout if it looks like it’s going that way.”
They both nodded.
I glanced up at the ship. “Get all that, Al?”
“Loud and clear, Captain,” he replied. “Steady hands and mindful eyes.”
I grabbed hold of the side of the doorway, propping myself up, but still making sure to keep my pistol free and ready.
As soon as my feet were planted, I was met by a man’s face a few meters ahead of me. He had both his hands raised, was dressed in a red and black uniform, and looked almost identical to the other albinos—white hair, blue eyes, and pale skin.
He also looked absolutely terrified.
* * *
“Please, whoever you are, we need help,” said the stranger in front of me. He looked at the gun in my mind and swallowed.
“First, you’re going to tell me who the hell you are and why you just crashed your godsdamn ship into my planet,” I told him.
“There’s no time!” he blurted out. He stepped to his side and planted his back against the wall, motioning to the rear of the ship at a woman lying on the floor. “Rika needs medical attention at once! Please!”
I stared at Rika’s strained face. Beads of sweat slid across her cheeks and forehead, no doubt from the gaping piece of metal sticking through the side of her gut.
I decided to take a chance and help her, finally holstering my pistol. I looked directly at the man in front of me and said, “Try anything and the ship outside blows us all to Hell. You understand me, pal?”
He nodded quickly, clasping his hands together. “Whatever you say!”
“Siggy, send all of this to Dressler and the others. If any of you see something, tell me,” I ordered, walking quickly to the other side of the ship. “Octavia, get your ass to the back of the ship and cover me. Keep your distance, though.”
“On it,” she replied.
I checked over the girl but didn’t touch her. There were several other people standing or sitting around her, all of them terrified. In the corner, near a torn open storage closet, lay the body of a small boy. I tried not to look at him.
Once Octavia was inside, I took a step away from the woman, positioning myself so I could clearly see everyone in the cabin. “Alright, Octavia. You still got your med pack?”
“I do,” she answered.
“Get over here and see to the girl,” I ordered. “Abby, take Octavia’s spot at the door. Keep your eyes open.”
They both did as I told them, taking their second positions while I watched the Eternals.
Octavia bent down near the injured woman and retrieved a small box on her hip. She gave Rika a gentle smile and said, “Try to relax. Understand?”
Rika nodded, her whole body shaking.
I motioned at the man who had answered my first call to come closer. When he was about a meter from me, I held out a hand to stop him. “That’s good right there,” I told him. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Leif Wisand, Second Lieutenant to the third Chair,” he explained. “And before you ask, it wasn’t our intention to come here, I must assure you. It was the opposite, in fact.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Our
team was stationed near the gateway for the time when the homeworld would reactivate the path. We’ve been monitoring slipspace activity for centuries, always on the run and in the dark. Truthfully, we didn’t know if this gate was even the right one. We—”
“Leif, you’re gonna have to slow down and start making sense,” I interrupted. “From my end, I don’t know who you are or why you’re here. I just know you came barreling through that slip tunnel on a busted ass ship that—”
“A space station,” he corrected.
“A what?” I asked.
“The ship you saw when we arrived was our station,” he explained. “As I said, we were studying the gateway, hoping to find a means of opening it to follow the path home. It’s all we’ve wanted for nearly a thousand years.”
“Captain, might I have a word with this man?” asked Dressler, her voice breaking in through the comm.
“By all means, Doc,” I said. “Siggy, put her through.”
Leif looked confused by my response, so I fanned a hand at him. “Got a friend who wants to talk,” I assured him. “Go ahead, Doc.”
“Hello, Leif,” said Dressler, her voice coming through the suit’s speaker device. “Can you hear me?”
He nodded.
“Excellent,” she replied. “From what you’ve said, it sounds like your arrival was an accident. Is this correct?”
“Yes,” answered Leif. “The gateway was far larger than we anticipated. Every other known gate is a fraction of the size, and we believed we were far enough away to avoid direct contact, but—” He looked at Rika and shook his head. “—Clearly, we were wrong.”
“Their station must have been partially inside the event horizon when it formed,” explained Dressler.
“That right, Leif?” I asked.
“I believe so,” he confirmed.
Dressler continued. “You were saying something about always running and living in the dark. What did you mean? Can you elaborate?”
His breathing seemed to quicken when he heard the words. “Y-Yes, I’ll tell you everything, but I fear we have little time to spare.”
