Animalis

by John Peter Jones

The inside of the cargo hold drifted by: textured metal floor, flashing lights. There was silence within the space suit, except for the air moving in and out of his own lungs. Jax thought there should be a sense of doom coming over him, a pit forming in his stomach, but there was nothing.

  Jax rode the pyramid like it was a comfortable porch swing. His legs dangled over the edge of the bottom beam, and he wrapped his arm around one of the four vertical beams. It was actually pleasant, the pyramid keeping him company. The blue glow of the Earth filled his vision, spreading out over the horizon, once he finally floated out into space. Rippled, swirling, vivid clouds gave a depth to the globe that felt close enough to touch. Even the stars felt within his reach.

  What would Grimshaw do with the rest of her life now, without him? Living by her side for the two months with the Animalis, Jax had wanted to pretend it could last forever. But what would life be like if they had tried to join their lives together? Would he wait until his commitment to the military had expired, visiting her a few times out of the year? Would he continue to build a career? Would they have had a child together: Hodge and Grimshaw taking care of the baby while Jax spent far too much time working? He didn’t even know what Grimshaw did for her income. It seemed like it was something she never thought about, like her life was a series of adventures. Jax’s heart burned with the desire to experience all of those adventures. Whatever their life could have been, it wouldn’t have been normal. But he wouldn’t have had it any other way, if she had felt the same way.

  Hank’s body was slowly coming closer. Maybe he had already died, overcome by the thralls of the painful drug. It wouldn’t matter in the next few minutes anyway.

  A white star caught Jax’s eye, hovering just beside Hank. It could have been right next to him. In the vacuum that surrounded them, there was no haze from the atmosphere to scatter and blur the light coming off of it; clarity made the distance hard to distinguish. It was solid, and pearly white. But it wasn’t really a star …

  It was a plane.

  It was moving toward them, growing in size. In just a few minutes, it would be on top of them. And it filled Jax with hope.

  Chapter 23

  Collision

  The Atticus was getting closer. Hank was getting closer. Narasimha’s plane was drifting away behind them. Maybe this wasn’t the time for Jax to die after all.

  Hank started to move—he was alive! A crackle sounded inside Jax’s helmet.

  “Hello? … Hello?” Hank said, still sounding groggy, but at least he had managed to turn on the suit’s communications.

  It crossed Jax’s mind that whatever was said could be transmitted to the plane they had just escaped from.

  “Hank. I’m sorry, it’s hard to explain. How are you feeling?” Jax asked.

  “Who-Who is this?” Hank said.

  “This is Jax. I’m floating behind you. Can you see that plane in front of you? It’s the Atticus, Hank!” Jax realized he was speaking to Hank as if he hadn’t just felt like he had had his insides ripped apart.

  “Jax?” Hank sounded confused. He hadn’t he lost his memory, had he? “Where’s the pyramid? The lioness.” He choked with what sounded like an echo of the pain.

  Jax breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve got the pyramid. We made it out. It was Moxie. Somehow she followed us and made it onto the plane with us,” Jax said. “She’s in your suit with you. I’ll have to tell you what happened when we make it back to Earth alive.”

  “That’s Grimshaw … coming toward us?” Hank asked.

  The plane was getting big now. In reality, they were all cruising around the Earth at nearly the same blistering speed: the Atticus, Jax and Hank, and Narasimha’s plane. The relative difference between the movements was subtle, and felt like a slow-motion ballet.

  “To the rescue,” Jax said.

  “I might be able to shift channels to communicate with her plane over the headset. Do you know how to do that?” Hank asked.

  “I don’t have my retina monitor anymore. I don’t see a way to manipulate the suit,” Jax said.

  “There’s a pad on the back of the helmet; it should link to your brainwaves for controls. What does it say in the heads-up display?”

  “No, I don’t see anything.” There was no HUD. The helmet must have been malfunctioning somehow.

  “Alright, I’ll come back to this channel in a minute,” Hank said. There was a pop, and the soft hiss from Hank’s microphone went silent.

  Jax was alone in his head again. Narasimha had probably gained control of her body by now. What would she do when she found out they had taken the pyramid out into space with them? It was possible that her plane, or at least she and the warthog, had weapons. Would they turn around and come after them?

  Jax pushed his awkward, suited body around to get a view of the plane. It was only about twenty yards away. The cargo hold was still open, with the warning lights still blinking. If it slowed down, just slightly, it could scoop them right back up into its terrible belly.

  The sound of breathing came back into Jax’s helmet.

  “Alright. Well, we’ve got some backup coming,” Hank said, sounding more alert. “When she saw us get captured, she got a hold of Captain Hernandez. Sounds like he is coming to intercept us!”

  “Hank, I’m worried we don’t have much time,” Jax said. “When we got out of the plane, I was able to hit Narasimha with a shock stick. But she has to have gotten movement back by now. She might even be listening to this now. Can Grimshaw, I dunno, bump us away from the other plane?”

  “I’ll tell her,” Hank said, and was gone again.

  Jax got in a position where he could look back and forth between the two planes. Grimshaw was very close now. He could see little puffs from thrusters that maneuvered her plane while at the edge of space. Jax looked back at the militant plane. It was closer, much closer than before.

  “Hey! I see you! Grab my hand. Jax, get me!” Hank shouted like the sound of his voice was separated by the physical distance that their bodies were. Jax looked around. Hank wasn’t in front of him anymore.

  “I’m just under you!” Hank said.

  There he was, floating a few feet below the pyramid. Jax clenched his legs around the base beam he had been sitting on, and swung down to reach him. His hand stopped just four inches away from Hank’s. Jax loosened the grip on the pyramid with his legs, and tried to hold on by squeezing his calves against it.

  It worked. Jax clutched Hank’s hand. Hank’s face looked gaunt, the strength sucked from it, but his eyes grew excited, looking past Jax, to the pyramid.

  “Pull me in!” Hank said.

  Jax moved to get a better hold on the pyramid, getting ready to pull Hank up with him.

  “Hurry. I just need to be inside it,” he almost pleaded.

  Jax stopped. Hank wanted to use the pyramid so desperately. It made Jax uneasy. Hank was losing control of himself, forcing them to peruse the pyramid in an obvious trap, hiding Jax from the captain. Jax could feel a cold dread, and kept his arm straight, holding Hank at a distance.

  “Jax?” Hank looked at him, confused and angry.

  The view below Hank changed. The blue and white and green of the Earth were being covered with dark metal. The cargo hold of the Animalis plane was swallowing them again.

  Grimshaw’s plane was so close; the white reflection filled the glass of Hank’s helmet. The two planes were going to collide, with them right in the middle.

  “Hold on!” Jax yelled.

  Silently, the nose of the Atticus smashed into the tail of the other plane. Pieces of metal crumpled and drifted away. The open bay began to move again, shifting up and away with the impact. The floor came swinging up at them. Jax could hear the sound of the impact first through Hank’s microphone picking up the vibrations that it sent through his suit. Then Jax was hit. The two of them were pinned between the swinging door and the pyramid. The pressure was intense as the momentum of the pyramid was redirected.

  When the edge
of the door finally released them, the situation reversed. The door had hit them like a baseball bat, flinging them out into space. Jax’s grip on the pyramid was slipping as it pulled away in a crazy spin.

  “Hold onto me, Jax!” Hank gasped.

  The weight of Hank’s body, moving at a different angle from the pyramid, was ripping his hand away from Jax. The fabric of the gloves slipped, and Hank fell away, disappearing as the pyramid spun Jax’s view away.

  The pyramid rotated away from where Hank had slipped off, taking Jax with it. In a moment, when the pyramid rotated back around, Jax might be able to reach him, but the pyramid was starting to slip away from his grip as well.

  Jax fought the centrifugal force, hugging his body to the beam of the pyramid. The muscles in his arms burned with the effort. He pulled himself up on the beam, climbing toward the center of the pyramid. Finally, the force pushing him out decreased as his center mass came into alignment with the pyramid’s. He pulled his body into the center of the pyramid where he could relax his muscles.

  He wanted to close his eyes; the Earth, stars, and planes were spinning around him. Until something stopped him, he would keep flipping head over feet. After a moment, the Earth came into view and he watched what was happening to the planes for a few seconds. Then the stars rotated back around and it was back to watching space.

  The two planes moved into view again. They were slowly moving together below them. Grimshaw’s plane was beginning to turn sideways, sending more chunks of debris drifting as its bottom dragged against the tail of the other plane. The Atticus was in a much better position to keep flying than the Animalis plane, which was drifting down with its nose pointed at the Earth. Then the stars were back into view.

  Hank was a foot out of reach of the pyramid now. But soon it would be two, and then four, and then a thousand, as the two minutely different paths continued to diverge.

  “Hank, I’m sorry! Don’t worry, Hernandez is coming. Felix and Maven will be here to pick us up,” Jax said.

  The view of the planes was swinging back into his vision.

  “And my Animalis will be here to meet them, Jax,” Narasimha’s voice growled in Jax’s helmet. “The pyramid is not something I’m going to give up easily.”

  Now Jax could see the planes floating above the Earth.

  “Jax?” Hank asked. “Who is that?”

  “The lioness,” Jax said. “Narasimha.”

  “I’m glad you remembered my name,” she said.

  Jax could see another plane approaching where the first two had collided. It was much larger than the Atticus and Narasimha’s plane.

  “It has significance to me,” Narasimha said. “Are you familiar with Hindu deities, human?”

  Why was she speaking to them like this? Wasn’t she trying to reorient her plane into a position to either come get the pyramid, or to escape?

  “There have been many incarnations of Lord Vishnu, the god of this world. But none has been loved by the humans throughout the millennia like Narasimha.”

  The Earth and planes were rotating back into view. The third plane was gradually getting closer, and now a fourth plane had appeared. It was sleek and black, with wings that ended in sharp points. The rear stabilizers were nearly as large as the wings—not one of their planes, so likely Animalis. Neither of the two most recently arrived planes looked like fat, weaponless, cargo planes. They were military. But Jax wasn’t paying attention to the planes anymore. Something small was floating above the planes now. He couldn’t see what it was before the stars were back in front of him.

  “Half man, half lion,” Narasimha went on. “He protects his faithful subjects who call on him for protection. My subjects are those who have been maligned by the belligerence of mankind.”

  The four planes came back into view. The thing above the planes was bigger now. It was moving toward Jax and Hank. A space suit? Was it Narasimha? Jax tried to keep the figure in view, but the movement made him sick and dizzy.

  “Hank? Jax? This is Hurley! Are you on this channel?” Grimshaw said over the headset.

  “Hurley!” Jax felt his heart leap at the sound of her voice. “We’re floating out into space, above the planes.”

  “Jax!” she said.

  “For every creature, Animalis or animal, which is killed by man, I will exact justice for the crime,” Narasimha continued.

  “Oh, who is that?” Grimshaw asked.

  “In the world to come, we will use the name ‘human’ as a curse.”

  “That sounds pretty serious. Jax, I’m not sure if I approve your choice of friends,” Grimshaw said. “Right there, Hodge. I see you, Jax. We’re coming to pick you up.”

  The Earth rotated back around. The floating figure was closer. It wasn’t moving very fast, but it was faster than Jax and Hank. And it wasn’t Grimshaw in the suit. Jax could see the face wrinkled into a snarl, golden yellow fur, and intense feline eyes. It was Narasimha.

  Grimshaw’s majestic white plane was maneuvering around now, starting to move out to them. Maybe she could bump the lioness and send her tumbling out into space.

  “Hello? Hello? This is US Border Patrol Reinforcement, Battalion 6 attempting to contact Catcher 6 Actual. Anyone one this channel? Catcher 6 Actual if you can hear me, please respond.” A new voice came into the conversation.

  “F-Felix?” Hank asked.

  “Yes? Who is this? Jax? Hank? Are you guys there?” Now Jax recognized the voice of Felix. Jax could see that the third plane was his company plane, the Hornet.

  “Yes, we’re here,” Jax said. “We are stranded in space suits. Maybe two hundred yards above where you’re at now.”

  The second Animalis plane was starting to arch up behind the Atticus. The Hornet fired a burst of machine gun rounds as a warning.

  The scene was almost out of view, and Jax strained to watch. The Animalis plane fired a rocket. It flew through space at the Hornet. A flare shot out to it and the rocket exploded before it hit the Hornet. The hot point of light sent pieces flying in all directions, and the Hornet was pushed with the force of it. Then the scene spun out of Jax’s view.

  “Wow!” Felix cried. There was a sound of him bumping into something, being thrown with the impact. “What was that? Maven? You alright?”

  “Yes. I was clear of it,” Maven said. Her voice came over the speaker. “They shot a missile at us. More incoming.”

  “We’re alright. This bird could probably take a direct hit and still be alright. Wow!” Felix yelled with another barrage of noise. When the noise had settled, he spoke again: “Maven, did you hear Jax? Can you move to them?”

  “Maven? Are you in a pod?” Hank asked.

  “Yes. Coming to get you,” she said.

  The scene was coming back around for Jax.

  “Hurley?” Jax said. “You should get out of here. That black plane coming up behind you has rockets.”

  “We can handle ourselves,” Grimshaw said.

  The blue glow of a shock stick lit up in Narasimha’s hand. She was very close now. On the next rotation, Jax would have to face her.

  “Hodge, let out some drone mines,” Grimshaw said.

  Two dozen tiny balls floated out of a compartment that opened up on the bottom of the Atticus. Each of them had their own thrusters, and they spread out in a pattern behind the plane.

  A rocket shot out of the black Animalis plane. One of the mines moved and exploded in front of it, consuming the rocket in a second burst of light. The mines rippled from the radiating force of the explosions but the thrusters countered, and they flew back into formation.

  Blue spilled into the reflection on Jax’s helmet. He pushed himself away from it, hanging onto the beam of the pyramid. The shock stick strike barely missed. Jax felt the pull of the centrifugal force once he was out of the center of the pyramid. Narasimha grabbed onto one of the beams and joined the spin. She held on with one powerful arm and thrust again at Jax with the stick. He hooked his feet between two adjoining beams and escaped
the attack by drifting backward. Even with his suit on, the shock was designed to pass through thick Animalis hide, and could easily pass through the inch of insulation.

  The black Animalis plane fired more rockets—five, ten rockets—streaming out and flying at the Atticus. The field of mines came to life, moving into the paths of the rockets. Tiny puffs of gas propelled the rockets into unpredictable spirals. The first rocket spun and ducked but exploded with a burst of particles when it collided with a mine at the front of the mine field. Debris bounced off the next two approaching rockets that were swimming through space in parabolic waves.

  The mines moved like a horde of angry insects as the rockets began to break through the front lines. Another mine exploded with a burst of light and the surrounding mines were pushed outward from the perfectly spherical force. The next three rockets shifted and dodged and exploded. Mines began moving back to form a column of destruction with explosions erupting within it.

  A rocket broke free of the column and spiraled away, coming for the Atticus.

  “They’re getting through!” Hodge’s voice said.

  “Detach the cockpit,” Grimshaw said. “Send the rest of the plane back at them.”

  Jax saw a flash, and the front of the Atticus separated from the rest of the plane. Thrusters on the wings of the headless plane threw it backward at the oncoming missiles and enemy plane. Balls of light silently tore chunks away from it. Sparkling particles flew in every direction. The bulk of the plane remained, and the enemy was too slow to maneuver out of the way. The two planes crumpled into each other, sending the Animalis plane spinning in a new direction.

  Jax moved to avoid another strike. The stick sent a vibration through his boots when it struck the pyramid near him. Jax had to keep the lioness on the outside of the pyramid, where she had the disadvantage of having to fight to hold on as well. Her hind legs wrapped around the beam she was on. Jax kicked down on her gloved hand. She let go and snarled. The sound was mixed with the rest of the voices crowding the frequency.

  “Hank. I’m moving in beside you,” Maven said. Her pod spun and crept slowly up to Hank’s spinning body. The hatch on the side of the pod opened. “When you spin back around, you need to grab that handhold.” Hank did, and it stopped his spin. The pod readjusted to stop the pull of his momentum and they both straightened out. Hank climbed in with Maven.