by Justin Bell
Chapter Three
It's a strange sensation. I hear nothing and feel no inertia so my mind can't accept that the jettison pod is moving forward completely out of my control. As I watch the warship grow larger on the view screen by the second, I resign myself to the fact that this is exactly what's happening.
Soon the massive starboard perimeter of the spacecraft fills my entire view, rows of windows and small ship-to-ship cannons scattered throughout the rough hewn metal texture of its thick hide. Just ahead a large side cargo bay door slides open, separating in the middle and spreading apart like a waiting mouth, ready to chomp.
If you listen to my mom, the Bragdon are reptilian creatures, lizards that walk on two legs. I’ve never met one in person, but they also have a mouth full of needles, and slime-slicked flesh, a species of repugnant water-breathers that hide in the darkest depths of their own planet when they’re not slinking around Athelon or Reblox doing the dirty work of the highest bidder.
I don’t recall my mom talking in this much great detail about them, but somehow I know it and remember it, a distinct memory lodged inside of me, probably in the same place as that schematics drawing and my ability to fly a jettison pod like it was a state-of-the-art star fighter. Somewhere in those dark recesses I’m a wizard mechanic, ace pilot, and have first-hand experience with mercenary Bragdons.
What in the mother’s name happened to me while I was unconscious after that shuttle explosion? I don’t feel any older. I don’t think I look any older. But for no reason I seem to have this vast sum of experiences that I didn’t have a couple of hours ago. Do the Bragdons have an answer?
As the jettison pod floats in through the opened cargo door, I’m surrounded by the distinct purple plasma of the tractor beam, guiding me through the door and into some kind of air lock hangar. At this point I don’t care of these lizard guys have the answers, I want to get the heck out. I don’t even know if they are lizard people, but my mom seems to know these things. Glancing out through the front window I can see people walking into the air lock, covered head to toe in dark blue jumpsuits with sleek, black helmets pulled over their heads. In their full trappings I can’t tell what kind of creatures are underneath, I’m working to keep my nerves steady as the pod lowers inch by inch towards the grated metal floor below, as if being set down by a child who doesn’t want to break his new toy.
I count four of them. Wrapping my fingers around the control sticks I steady my heart and breathe, in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to stay calm.
There’s only four of them.
The jettison pod jolts with a banging echo as the belly hits the ground, and the light from the tractor beam flashes off, releasing me and my aircraft from the cold energy. My eyes open and I flash to the cockpit release, then flash back to the four figures in jumpsuits walking towards my pod. Each one of them has a silver weapon in their hands, rectangular with two contoured grip handles. They don’t match any weapons I’m familiar with, which doesn’t necessarily surprise me. Different civilizations have always developed different weaponry, and Quadrant Yarda is no exception.
Their legs buckle and bend as they walk, adding some weight to my mom’s description, and their limbs are long and narrow, bending as they clutch the weapons to their slender torsos. These strange invaders are like walking trees, narrow trunks with spindly limbs, half stepping, half stomping towards my jettison pod, those shiny silver two-handled weapons ready. How am I going to play this?
I’m not even sure what atmosphere is in here, but these four chumps are still wearing sleek black helmets, so I flip a switch down below the console and activate some rudimentary systems within the pod. It’s a long way from being able to take off or fire weapons, but there’s enough residual juice to do some air quality checks outside the ship.
The oxygen and nitrogen mix looks right. It should be breathable, at least to me.
My fingers hover over the canopy release as the four Bragdons step closer, the two of them in front raising their rectangle rifles, pointing the blunt ends up towards the cockpit, holding them firm and steady, prepared for anything. I don’t think they are truly prepared for anything.
I don’t think I’m prepared for anything. I’m a teenager. A school kid. I was deciding what color eyeliner to wear this morning for the love of the mother!
I spread my fingers and slam my palm down on the canopy release, bringing my knees up and coiling my legs in the pilot’s seat. As soon as the clear dome windscreen pops and raises up, I’m tensing and leaping from the seat, out of the jettison pod.
The two Bragdon in front adjust their aim and fire their weapons, releasing blunt blasts of pink light. They look like the plasma used in stun torpedoes.
Both shots sear underneath me and splash across the surface of the jettison pod, scattering into tiny pink feathers of light, and I’m tucking my knees to my chest and flipping through the air, another one of those weird things that I couldn’t have done two hours ago. I arc my back, clearing the first two enemies and landing in a low crouch on the metal floor behind them, bracing my fall with one hand. One of the lead creatures swivels, turning his weapon on me, and I move closer, slapping the gun aside, pull back and drive my foot deep into its stomach. The second Bragdon steps forward, his own weapon training on me, but I swivel and block his arm twisting his weapon away, flipping it around in my hands, so it’s pointed back at him. I squeeze off one quick energy blast, which slams him straight in the face, and I turn back towards the other who is starting to recover. His weapon is also up and I step to the right, letting his stun blast fly clear to my left I fire twice with my own, striking him in the chest with both shots. He topples backwards, slamming his head on the metal floor, which cracks the black helmet and sends it scattering into pieces.
Yeah. It’s a lizard. I withhold my natural girl instinct to screech and climb on a chair, not that there’s a chair around here, anyway. And jeez this lizard is like six feet tall.
Narrow, oval shaped head, wide, yellow eyes perched on each side, thick, scaly skin etched across its face, mouth prying open into a pained sneer. I notice for the first time that it only has four long fingers on each hand, just as they snap open and release its rifle, sending it spinning to the floor.
As I turn away to face the next two, I feel the weight of a leaping Bragdon strike me from the left, leaping and tackling me, sending me sprawling. As I fall, I twist and lift my knee, slamming it under the chin of the lunging creature, but when my back hits the metal, my muscles all seem to relax at once, fireworks of white pain dancing in the darkness behind my eyes. Rolling over, I struggle to find where my dropped rifle spun away to, but just over my shoulder I see the last Bragdon stepping towards me, its rifle raised, and just as I touch my fingers to my dropped weapon, the last creature unloads with his, baking me in a bright, reflective pink light, all of my senses are firing at once, I taste ozone in the back of my throat, and darkness swallows me.
I HAVE NO IDEA HOW long I’ve been out, but that bitter, smoky taste catches in my throat. Sitting up from this hard bed, I twist around and cough, trying to bring up and spit out whatever that nasty feeling is, but it stays where it is, coated on the lining of my throat, sitting there to remind me of how awful that stun blast felt. A dull, thudding head ache has started at the base of my skull, and grips the sides of my head like a huge hand, squeezing, paying the closest attention to my temples.
My brain is too full of this new information. Too crammed with things I used to know and new stuff I didn’t always know and the mix between them is not a good one. It’s an oil and water situation, churning within my head.
I’m in a small, square room with no windows and a single, metal door, more or less a prison cell. On something that’s a bed in name only, more like a concrete slab with a thin, cloth blanket spread over it, something developed to make someone only barely comfortable. Outside the door, the distinct, uneven thumping footsteps of the unstable gait of these creatures emerges down the
hall, banging from the floor. For as skinny and spindly as these things look, they seem to have some serious weight to them.
Fumbling with the door rattles the metal, and with a screeching squeal, it eases open revealing one of the Bragdon in their full glory. He (at least I assume it’s a he) stands framed in the door, tall, sloped shoulders and his smooth head down turned, eyes glaring out at me from behind snapping eyelids. His lipless mouth splits open and a narrow pink tongue flicks out, slipped past narrow, sharp teeth. At the ends of his angular arms are hands with four plump fingers, hanging low by his knees. As my mom told me, his legs are bent at the knees, making him taller and revealing a webbed foot of six toes pressing tight to the smooth floor.
“Welcome to Freighter Floxam,” the creature tells me, his voice less of a hiss than I thought it might be, and more of a low, graveled murmur.
“It’s not a cruise ship, handsome,” I reply.
“We were hoping you would come along a bit more willingly, young one.”
“Why would I do that?” I push myself back on what passes for a bed, pressing my spine against the wall, the sudden desire to be far away from this creature almost more than I can manage.
He narrows his eyes and cocks his head. “We are not your enemy, child. The Athelonian oppressors are the ones driving this conflict, not us. Never us.”
“Of course not,” I reply. “But keep in mind my father’s position in this oppression. They will be looking for me, and every second I’m here, you’re at the risk of planetary war.”
“You are precisely where you belong,” he growls, leaning in close. Hot breath bursts from his slits for nostrils, a thick wet mist that sprays my face. I stifle a gag and turn away, closing my eyes.
As I turn back towards him, he’s reaching out for my arm and placing his four-fingered hand on my left shoulder. For a moment his gray skin shifts to beige as his fingers tighten around my arm. His touch is clammy, with dozens of tiny needles from his fingers tickling my skin.
“Let go of me, you hideous beast!” I shout, drawing my arm away.
He sneers and draws his hand close to himself, clenching his strangely shaped fist. Veins emerge at the top of his hand and extend towards his arm, revealing sinewy musculature on his exposed arm.
“Jathus!” comes a voice from behind the creature. He reacts and turns towards the other.
“What is it, Krabex?” he asks.
“We have an armada escaping from hyperspace all around us! Interceptors from Reblox!”
“Reblox?” I shout, not being able to help myself. “What do they have to do with this?”
Jathus turns on me, scowling. “They’re all a part of this! Athelon! Reblox! They abuse us and use us and it’s time we fought back!”
“Well, maybe if you geniuses weren’t sitting out here in uncontrolled space—”
Jathus lunges at me, swinging his hand backwards, crashing it against my right cheek and snapping my head around. Pure white flowers bloom in my eyes right before the entire freighter rocks and shifts, lilting strangely to the left. I press my palms back against the wall, trying to stabilize as the entire prison starts to tip over.
“Are they attacking?” asks Jathus. “Would they dare?”
“When we went to retrieve the young one we drifted into their sector,” replies Krabex.
“What? By who’s command?” Jathus shouts, pulling away from me and allowing me a short opportunity to recover, placing a hand to my stung cheek.
“Does that matter? We need to get out of here!”
The next impact is twice as strong as the first. The freighter jumps and two loud bangs erupt deep inside, sending the transport lurching to the left, and above us there’s a sharp snapping, showering sparks and metal shrapnel down among us.
Without warning, a second loud snap blasts and a huge chunk of metal support breaks free, releasing a flood of spent fuel and debris, crashing down on top of Jathus and Krabex, who collapse underneath a pile of broken metal and splash of bright blue plasma.
I sit there on the bed, looking out at the pile of fallen machinery with the prone forms of the two Bragdon laying motionless underneath. I look around as if to check and see if anyone else might have seen what happened as if it might have even been my fault. Another rocking shudder moves the freighter the other direction, a series of muffled slams and I stumble forward, clamoring over the fallen debris, land on the other side and sprint down the hall, searching for some kind of escape.
Chapter Four
Another dull, echoing bang resonates from the starboard side and the ship lunges to the left, throwing me off my feet. The hallway ahead of me is at a strange slant, stranger still because I have always assumed that in space, every way is “up”. Clearly something is broken inside the Floxam. Unfortunately for me, it isn’t the gravity generator.
I see each hallway through a filter of acrid smoke that stings my eyes and nose as I run deeper into the belly of the ship. I have no idea where to go or how I’m going to get there, but there must be a way off. Not even these Bragdon savages would build a ship of this size with no jettison pods would they?
Back on my feet I can hear the ship straining, a lumbering, creaking pull of metal, and though it would be far easier to rend apart and scatter pieces into space it clings as one, for the moment. In my mind I can see the twisting bulkhead, flame and bent metal barely holding things in place as Reblox interceptors swoop in and pelt the large vehicle with potent plasma.
My hair drifts in my face again and I push it away, blinking through the smoke and wondering what all of this floating junk is going to do to my skin.
My skin? Seriously? I’m a kick-butt, super soldier chica now. I can't spend time worrying about my stupid skin.
Up ahead, the metal grid floor is buckling around a central column with ladder rungs running up the side closest to me.
As if on cue, the direction I’m running pitches downward while the rear jolts up and to my right, throwing me off balance, and I topple forward, trying to break my fall. I trike the floor with my elbow and tumble into a clumsy somersault, going end-over-unforgiving-end. Muscle and bone bang down with every uncontrolled roll. When I’m worried that I might keep tumbling all the way down to the nose of the freighter, I twist a bit to aim my momentum towards the contorted central column. My chest strikes the column; I grasp with both hands; but I continue to slide as the freighter proceeds towards its forward dive. Looking down I see nothing but empty air between the column and the next section down. That fall is sure to kill me, if I let it.
I slide and start to tumble, my stomach lurches as I skip out into empty air, hesitate for one brief moment, thrashing my hands out.
My fingers clutch one of the rungs of the ladder on the column, and my shoulder jolts, pulling muscle tight and straining ligaments. I groan as my arm argues, but my fingers hold tight and I keep myself still, holding my weight from cascading down empty hallways to the next column which would have at least broken my ribs, if not snapped me in half. I wince as debris rains down on me from the rear of the ship, broken fragments of super structure spiraling down towards me, bouncing off the column, crashing into the surrounding walls, but somehow missing my body. A limp and broken Bragdon cartwheels past me and I wonder for a moment whether it was Jathus or Krabex, or someone completely different.
I wonder if I should care and realize that part of me actually does. For the Bragdons? I’m not sure why.
Muscle strain pulls at my forearm and my fingers are aching. As I look down I focus on that next column, the one that sits at least two stories down, and try to figure out how to land that fall without killing myself. Two of my fingers pull free and I drop a bit. I could try to reach my other hand up... but no, I can’t get a position.
Then the freighter starts to correct itself.
Even in the vast emptiness of space I can tell as the nose of the Flaxon eases back upwards and the tail drifts down. The huge transport lilts starboard, as it works to straighten out, and slow
ly, I start to drift back the right way, hanging down towards the grid work floor, and no longer hanging over empty hallway leading down five hundred feet.
My fingers snap free and I drop about ten feet, a heck of a lot better than five hundred, and land on the metal floor, knees buckling, left arm screaming in muscle straining agony.
Outside, I can hear more pops and bangs as the freighter absorbs even more attacks, but for now it seems as if it might stay afloat.
“Hey! What are you doing out here?”
I recognize the tenor of that gravelly voice and I push myself upright as three Bragdon enforcers make their way into the hallway from a passage to my left.
“Back in your cell, young one!” all three of them are carrying the same silver, rectangular weapons that the ones in the air lock were, though there’s no way of knowing whether they’re stun weapons as well or something more potent.
“Don’t you jokers have more pressing problems?” I ask, pushing my back to the bent central column, trying to will myself invisible.
They don’t reply, they just advance. Two of them flank the column while the third holds back to provide cover.
Instinct takes over. I jump straight up, hook my fingers around the rungs of the ladder, and pull up into a reverse somersault. I land in a crouch against the column, holding myself there with my shaking arms.
The two Bragdon swing around with weapons raised, surprised to see I'm not there. I drop, tuck my knees into my chest, and land right on the both of them, driving them face-first into the metal grated floor.
The third reptile fires his weapon. Sure enough there's no pink stun plasma here. Neon green is apparently a lot more dangerous. One shot sears the column, leaving a divot of melted metal and scorch marks.
I leap to my feet, rounding to the other side. He adjusts and fires again as I take off, leaving the ground. My feet strike the railing on the side of the platform. I take four long strides, somehow balancing on the narrow cylinder of metal; I then throw myself from it, angling towards his blind side.
