by Aaron Dennis
“We’ll just have to use the F.T.L. or some other crazy scheme that’ll get us killed in the process,” O’Hara replied, nonchalantly.
“Oh, this is rich,” Nandesrikahl remarked.
“We have a fighting chance,” Franklin said.
“That’s something,” Adams added.
“More than we’ve had lately,” Day agreed.
“Roger that,” O’Hara said.
“Okay…so…are we all set, Captain,” Day asked.
“Admiral Lay? Captain O’Hara. Copy?” he called into his comm. link.
“Go ahead, Captain.”
“We’re set to go. Do we have clearance?”
“Clear on my end. Good luck, Captain. Lay, out.”
“He’s so chipper,” Fitzpatrick joked.
“We’re set, Miss Day. Power the propulsion systems,” the captain ordered.
“Roger.”
“O’Hara to ground crew, unseal the hangar door.”
“The door is open, Captain. You may proceed,” a soldier answered.
Day hovered out of the hangar. Flying the Lokian was just like Mittens, if a little less responsive, more stiff. She saw the scientists and military officials gazing. Finally, she reached so high, the hangar was but a speck.
Beyond Eon, and completely out of the Gemini system—a ploy to create a safe distance from the effects of the space-time puncture—Day engaged the subatomic, condenser organ, causing the surrounding space-time continuum to collapse into itself. As soon as the hole was punched, the ship was inevitably sucked into a void.
Readings registered as flashes of glowing symbols, shapes of impossible designs, and colors without names. Simultaneously, readings on the monitor suggested the Lokian automatically sealed the area behind the entry point like a spider plugs holes with webbing, only there were no physical means at work.
“What is this?” Day muttered.
Everyone was equally bewildered; the monitor’s display broke down into blips, dots, little more than waves and sounds. They cast glances at each other, then Day.
“Holding up,” the captain yelled.
In response, she gave a thumbs up. Grunting, she was trying to regulate speed, but in subspace, speed had no meaning; the ship simply went, as guided by the antennae, wherever the surrounding reality pushed it, or pulled it, as coming and going also held no meaning. To her, the membranes swirling around were chaotic, infinite tubes interconnected to infinitely more tubes. Although there were no tubes—only oscillations of energy, which rendered navigation impossible—their destination was a point of origin, so no guiding hands were required.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered over and over. “Entering subspace is strange. Each dimension is a sort of doorway, and subspace is like…like a giant hotel or something. We all enter into the same tube because we’re entering from the same dimension regardless of where in that dimension we are… or were…. So weird.”
“What tubes?” Adams asked with furrowed brow.
“Apparently masters of inter-dimensional travel can enter subspace from various dimensions and invariably different tubes.”
“That really doesn’t answer the question,” Franklin muttered.
“I don’t know—the damn tubes—you have to see what I see!”
“Yeesh….”
Laughing, O’Hara stated she was probably having a hard time working the ship and paying attention to them wasn’t her priority. The agents shrugged. As much as Day wanted to explain what she was seeing, it was simply ineffable.
With his back to the wall, and his arms crossed over his chest, O’Hara maintained an askance view of his helmsman, but his mind was wandering. Then, finally, something cleared up. He understood the explanation given by the traveler when they first met.
O’Hara knew that everyone he had met, every step he took, every decision he made led to their current outcome. He also understood the Lokians were not just a galactic threat, but a threat to every dimension, every, possible, reality existing separately or unified, because they were located in subspace; they weren’t creatures of a single dimension, space, or time, which meant carrying out his plan to destroy the Lokians affected everything.
Logically, there must be some universe, some dimension, out there negatively impacted by the destruction of the Lokians. It doesn’t matter, though, he thought. Every choice I’ve made has led me to this one. No second guessing…there really is no choice; I’m just here to act.
“Captain,” DeReaux asked.
“What?”
“She’s starting.”
“Running systems cover, Captain,” Day stated.
It was a program to disguise all other programs, except the original, Lokian runtimes. After that, she released a signal, indicating the ship had found a civilization. Since data transfer between Lokians was instantaneous, as soon as she fired off her message, she received transmissions from headquarters.
“Whoa, they’re fast,” she whispered.
“What is it,” O’Hara asked.
“Data was downloaded and spread to surrounding Lokians.”
Many other ships, some of a monstrous magnitude, traveled from subspace to standard space-time. They whizzed by Day’s vision, frightening her, but everything was working out as planned. She allowed the ship to drift a moment. Suddenly, the transporter lurched. A painful flash of light forced from her a cry.
“What happened?” O’Hara yelled in darkness.
Everything was out, and the helmsman was totally disconnected. “Uh…it’s a systems lockout. The ship shut off life support and pressure,” Day gasped.
The crewmembers scrambled to put on their headgear. Day groaned, saying she had to relinquish control in order to put her headgear on. Her lack of communications posed a problem.
“We’re blind, Captain,” she complained.
“Don’t worry about it…we’ll figure it out. Get your damned helmet on!”
When they clicked on their gun lights, DeReaux huffed, “You know these helmets should have headlamps…I mean, really.”
Slight vertigo brought them a sense of disorientation, but it quickly passed. Then, they were vaulted into walls, from which they bounced off before floating aimlessly without gravity. O’Hara closed his eyes and relaxed. He allowed the situation to unfold, knowing that an opportunity was going to present itself.
“Nandesrikahl, access the display monitor, see if you can understand what’s going on.”
“Good thinking,” Swain said. “It has its own power supply, but make it quick.”
Nandesrikahl propelled himself off a beam, reaching the display. “Let’s see, here,” he huffed impatiently. The monitor just warbled incomprehensibly. “It’s…uh. One second,” He grew quiet. A portentous series of hisses and clicks were embedded behind the data. Nandesrikahl heard the Lokian runtimes and attempted to translate. “We have hard dock, Captain,” he said, surprised.
“What? How,” Day inquired.
“We were hit by a tractor beam of sorts. Shhh.”
There was a moment of silence. Nandy’s gun light was rolling about; the rifle strapped to his shoulder was free floating. When he didn’t say anything, the captain whispered.
“Can we access the airlock and step onto the queen’s quarters?”
“I have to ask for permission,” Nandesrikahl whispered back.
“How? Day’s lost the connection.”
“Irrelevant, Captain,” Swain chimed in. “Nandy can route runtimes through the nanobots, which essentially are the ship’s awareness.”
“Can you ask permission without giving away what we’re doing?”
“I think so,” Nandesrikahl responded.
He then translated the program into English before feeding a request back to the computer, which in turn was translated into Lokian. Information went through the nanobots, which carried the Intel along with the creature’s neurons straight to the queen. Nandesrikahl also stated an anomaly in the ship’s programming was causing it to perform ce
rtain actions outside the norm. One of those actions just happened to unseal the airlock. The queen attempted lockout of all base functions, momentarily killing the Lokian ship.
“I’ve tricked it. Wait,” Nandesrikahl stopped as he listened. “Okay, it’s working as predicted. She’s starting a scan. Now, yes, the circuit program will engage, causing an infinite loop. That’ll buy us some time, but we have to move.”
“You heard ‘im,” O’Hara said. “Let’s go!”
Chapter Twenty Seven
While the queen was busy with an endless loop of nonsense, the crew took a moment they desperately needed to step out of the airlock. All eight men and women stared aghast at an enormous hangar, which although alighted by amber luminescence, seemed to span on indefinitely. The airlock then shut behind them with an echo.
“Fuuuck,” Fitzpatrick breathed.
“Yeah. Just as a heads up, we might not be able to get back on board after we’re done,” O’Hara said as he ran his hand over a bulbous, barrier of chitin.
While there was no gravity, there was an external pressure pounding the crew from every direction. It allowed them to walk with little difficulty, though it was disorienting.
“Hmm, like being underwater,” Swain commented.
Adams and Franklin carried the charges on their backs while Day and DeReaux took the rear. The captain eyed his photon rifle, silently wishing its firepower was sufficient.
“Hold up, guys,” Fitzpatrick whispered.
She closed her eyes, mentally scanning their surroundings. Her deep and regulated breaths sounded into everyone’s earpiece. As she focused, she saw what everyone else did, a dimly lit, interminable, empty space. The walls were exoskeleton, and the framework was a bony white. Mesh-like tubes lined the ceiling, pulsating subtle radiance.
Fitzpatrick then moved in her bodiless state. The hangar was filled with unknown boxes and canisters. They, too, were insect-like in their appearance with exo-skeletal bands.
“Okay, I don’t see any threats,” returning to a normal state, she heaved.
The rest of the crew was able to check the comm. units for directions. The course had been uploaded to their wrist apparatuses when the captain first pieced together the plan.
“Move forward, hugging the wall to our left for three hundred yards. Then, take the first hall on the left,” O’Hara ordered.
He and Swain took the lead with Fitzpatrick flanking their right. They moved quickly, boots clanking over the hard ground. The sounds were somehow distorted, elongated. O’Hara came to a halt as he peered down the hall.
“Fitzpatrick,” he asked.
Following a scan, she said they were clear. O’Hara motioned with his hand to move. Down the juncture, the corridor narrowed, forcing them into a crouched position. O’Hara checked his map display.
“About another two hundred feet forward. Then drop down a twenty foot pipe.”
He looked over to Fitzpatrick who nodded. She proceeded to use her skill to move through the floor beneath them. There, she saw another corridor running parallel to the one they were in.
“Clear.”
The adrenaline was coursing through their bodies. They grit their teeth, clenched their jaws, and stared into the darkness with wide eyes before duck walking to the dropdown. When O’Hara landed, he looked forwards and backwards.
“Clear,” he grunted. One-by-one, they all dropped down. “Next, we move in the opposite direction forty feet to a small compartment.” It slowly dawned on him that the home world was a living beast and the queen was part of it. Maybe the heart or brain, O’Hara thought. “Move out.”
At the end of the hike, they reached a hatch with a spiraling pattern of chitin. O’Hara and Swain stood on opposite ends. Fitzpatrick yoked it open, and they filed in at angles while DeReaux covered their center. Beams of light crisscrossed as they took their posts.
The next door was a mere twelve feet away. The size of the rooms and halls indicated that no large Lokians traversed the area, but they had to be on lookout for smaller scouts or repair drones, or whatever oddities Lokians had. Swain spotted several holes in the walls along the ceiling as he ran his light over the entire room.
“Captain, those little, football things might run throughout this place.”
“Copy. Keep your eyes peeled.”
The crew halted for a moment, awaiting orders. O’Hara looked to Fitzpatrick. She knew he was wondering what was on the other side of the door. A second later, she told them it was pitch black.
“Roger that. We’ll do this the old fashioned way,” he replied.
He and Swain took opposing ends of the door. The captain then nodded to Fitzpatrick. She reached for the door, but there was nothing to grab. Adams told her to touch it, and when she did, it fanned open with a hiss. Again, they moved in at angles.
The spec ops team pressed beyond more halls, through hatches, and into more rooms, creeping towards their final destination. Suddenly, the whole place lit up bright green.
“We’re found! Nobody panic, just move,” the captain ordered.
DeReaux spun backwards with eyes peeled for a rear assault. They heard a loud buzzing reverberating along the walls. An enormous, wasp-like creature burst through the hatch. The sniper sniffed once, focused his eyes, and took a knee. Not only did the buzzing slow, the Lokian practically halted, each wing sparkling green, and moving upwards and downwards; it was beautiful. He fired a clean shot between antennae.
The first bullet hit. Its impact moved through chitin like a wave. The Lokian was already falling by the time the second bullet blew its head to dust. The carcass, carried by its momentum, slid to his feet before the condensates froze the bug over. Time returned to normal.
“I think more are coming, Sir! You keep moving. I’ll hold them off.”
“Right, catch up to us,” O’Hara yelled back.
They took off behind the captain as the sniper saw more wasps approaching. “Nique ta mere,” he said and fired. With the threat averted, he popped his neck and bolted to catch up. Hands yanked him into another corridor. “Whoo!”
“I got you, Frenchy,” Fitzpatrick yelled.
Both of them darted off to meet the rest of the crew just around the bend. Swain inspected a ribbed, culvert-like floor, which declined steadily into blackness. Nandesrikahl knelt and rubbed his fingertip against the ground. It was covered with viscous material.
“This will make moving a little difficult,” he said as he stood.
Probably some kind of flushing area, O’Hara thought. If where ever this is fills up with goo, we might be done. He checked his map again.
“We just need to run about a quarter mile down this corridor and take it to a raising platform. That places use directly underneath the control room.”
“Trouble ahead, Captain,” Franklin said, calm as ever.
Two brawlers came barreling from the darkened recess. They were made evident by their glowing, red, eye slit. A mechanical groan escaped their mandibles.
“No sweat! Big guns time,” Swain yelled.
He pointed the mini gun at the beasts and fired a flurry of bullets. The weapon pulsated violently as casings spilled from his portable, devastation device. The BEC ammo froze over after every impact, and the big man kept cheering, snarling, and grunting.
The Lokians stumbled from the ceaseless onslaught. Their shoulders, thighs, faces, everything froze over; cracking and gushing, ooze sprayed every which way. O’Hara ended it by pointing his photon gun, squeezing the trigger, and blowing the assailants to trash with just a few beams.
“That’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout,” Swain strutted around.
“C’mon, Swain, we gotta’ move,” O’Hara chuckled.
“Can I make a weapon, or can I make a weapon?”
“Go, lummox,” Fitzpatrick groaned.
Jogging onwards while the agents snickered and Day and Nandy made awed comments about the weapons, O’Hara spotted a dead end. It was something like a chitinous, bay door, ribbed, a
nd it spanned indefinitely above and out wide. He turned to the crew.
“What now,” Day yelped.
“No problem. Swain! Blow that thing down,” O’Hara ordered.
He stepped back and motioned with his head for everyone to get away. “Time to T.C.B., baby,” Swain yelled.
Adams and Franklin exchanged a look and shook their heads. A giddy Swain fired into the door. Chunks of it froze over. It was riddled with holes; frozen segments imploded with a puff of ice. O’Hara touched Swain’s shoulder.
It was evident that the barrier wasn’t going down easily, and no one wanted to waste too much ammo. The captain unleashed photon fury into the frozen portions, resulting in an opening the size of a dog.
“Okay,” he huffed and made to lift his leg.
Something jostled them, and he stopped with his foot at the hole. Fitzpatrick leapt into him, taking him to the ground. Deafening, metallic droning ensued; a steel claw grabbed at the opening from beyond the door, and tore it away with brain rattling crunches.
Before them stood a six legged juggernaut, a monster big as a house. All they saw was a crab-like torso mounted to a ball joint, which hooked the legs’ platform. The sheer girth of the beast was enough to stun them, but silvery cannons grew out of the back and shoulder plates.
Everyone scurried off in different directions, except DeReaux; he only stepped back and exhaled. The juggernaut was covered in metal plating. Vital tubes ran under the plates, exposing very small targets. The Lokian’s head was also armored, but there was a single, organic eye in its forehead. Unfortunately, there was a lens, something like glass, covering the black, beady, optic.
I got this, DeReaux smiled. He lifted his rifle, peered through the scope, and aimed for the lens. He fired, and the bullet smacked the optic, knocking the creature back a step, but it spun its torso, raising its clawed appendages. The sniper was unable to duck in time, and he went flying into Adams.
“Gotcha’, buddy,” the agent giggled.
He shoved the sniper away, rolled, and drew his batons. Before he struck, the juggernaut aimed at Fitzpatrick and fired an orange beam.
