The Forever Gate Ultimate Edition

by Isaac Hooke

  “Where are we taking it?” Klay transmitted over the comm.

  Hoodwink indicated the cutaway view of the decks ahead. “Once we’re inside, we take every turn we can coreward.”

  “How do we know which direction is coreward?” Klay asked.

  “Use the directional indicators in your aReal,” Hoodwink said.

  They reached the lowermost border of the steel valley and entered the open passage at its bottom. There was no gravity inside, so they floated onward. There was no light, either: they activated their headlamps, the cones of illumination reflecting from the icy steel walls.

  Hoodwink took a downward branch in the passage, heading coreward. He halted before a breach seal that had closed to protect the compartment beyond.

  The plan was to use the explosives to open such blockages. When those became exhausted, the landing party would switch to the cutters.

  Hoodwink planted the charges. While he did that, the rest of the group retreated a safe distance and positioned themselves flat on the deck.

  Hoodwink rejoined the others. He checked that a) the laser cutters were tied down, and b) the mounting magnets glued the nuke to the deck. Satisfied, he lowered himself to a clear area and activated similar magnets in his boots and gloves. He felt his body press into the surface.

  “Everybody ready?” he asked.

  A chorus of affirmative replies came over his helmet speakers.

  He triggered the remote detonator with his aReal.

  The deck shook. He saw the shockwave of the released gases from the charges, but it quickly vanished, replaced by the greenish water that gushed from the breach. The liquid boiled and desublimated almost instantly, forming a cloud of fine, frozen ice pellets similar to mist that swept rapidly over the party. If his fellow astronauts hadn’t been glued to the surface, that mist likely would have carried them away.

  Hoodwink could hardly see through the thick fog. He did, however, hear the impacts of the tiny pellets that continually assailed his suit. It reminded him of the sound of snow hitting the windows during a blizzard on a cold winter night in Severest. That life had seemed so long ago.

  He thought of Ari on the Inside, and prayed she was all right. Tanner had sworn to protect her, but he had already betrayed that promise. The last time he spoke with Tanner, the Child had been on the surface of Ganymede, trying to get into a flyer that apparently contained Jeremy.

  Javiol. Hoodwink couldn’t believe the Satori had followed him all the way back to Ganymede. Hoodwink had hoped Javiol died in the nuclear explosion on Earth. No such luck, apparently.

  Hoodwink supposed Tanner hadn’t completely gone back on his word, because eliminating Jeremy would protect Ari in the end. If Tanner showed the alien mercy for whatever reason, then Hoodwink would simply have to do the murderous deed himself. A creature like that, one hell-bent on vengeance, one who wouldn’t think twice about destroying a world to achieve it, couldn’t be allowed to live. Yes, Hoodwink would set things right when he got back.

  Assuming he actually returned, of course.

  An object abruptly appeared in the thick mist and drew his attention back to the present moment. He thought it was made of metal, though he couldn’t be certain. As the explosive decompression sucked it past, he caught a glimpse of a steel tail smashing into the deck just in front of him: it tore a wide gash as the owner struggled to find purchase, and then it was gone.

  That was a Satoroid, of course. A robot built in the image of the satori.

  Another Satoroid appeared in the flowing mist.

  “Watch out!” Hoodwink said.

  The robot flew past before he could even finish the words. There wasn’t much he or the others could have actually done to avoid the thing anyway, not when they were all glued to the deck.

  The boarding party waited several more moments like that, and finally the mist abated. Some of it lingered in the passage, eerie testament to the water that once existed in the area beyond.

  The party released the magnets that held them in place, hoisted the nuke from the surface, and floated onward.

  Beyond the breach, the passage widened. Pockets of green mist remained inside. He spotted another Satoroid. It slowly revolved in place, its tail occasionally twitching, its rotors useless in the vacuum environment.

  “Give it a wide berth,” Hoodwink instructed his companions.

  They crossed that passage and reached another coreward seal. They breached it in a similar manner, endured the resultant decompression, and continued onward. Eventually they ran out of explosives and switched to the laser cutters. The actual breaching proved slightly more difficult, as Hoodwink had to mount himself to the bulkhead right beside the seal before applying the cutter. Mist would stream out until he had carved a big enough hole for the internal pressure to tear the rest of the seal away. When that happened, he had to hunker down and wait until all of the water boiled and desublimated, hoping the whole time that any robots didn’t strike him with their tails as they were dragged out.

  As the boarding party proceeded deeper, the steel yielded to mummified coralline, which had accumulated on the bulkheads. The Satori purposely grew it to give their artificial oceans a more homey feeling.

  While Hoodwink breached one particular seal, the mist outflow abruptly ceased. He finished cutting out a rectangular portion of the door, and peeled it back to reveal a fatty portion of flesh blocking the passage.

  It could be only the giant body of a Xeviathi that plugged the hole, one of the slave classes. That meant he was close to his goal.

  Hoodwink took his laser rifle and fired twice at the organic blockage. The insides of the beast gushed outward in succession, turning into a sickly green-red mist that soon subsided. With the third rifle shot, that misty gore continued unabated, and soon the Xeviathi was pulled entirely through the hole as its innards turned inside out, sucked into space through the wound Hoodwink had created. Bones smashed into the surrounding bulkheads, nearly striking the party members a few times.

  “This is disgusting, Hood,” Zak said.

  “I won’t disagree,” Hoodwink told him.

  With the Xeviathi gone, the water within was free to mist through. Several minutes passed, with the party glued to the deck nearby, waiting for the outflow to end. Twice more the hole became plugged by a Xeviathi. Twice more Hoodwink removed the blockage with some rifle blasts.

  When all the water finally boiled away, the group entered what proved to be the vastest cavern yet. They purposely kept close to the lower deck as they advanced.

  They hadn’t gone far when Zak spotted something.

  “What the hell are those?” Zak said.

  Hoodwink zoomed in and saw the head-sized robots crawling along the deck. They had the elongated, tentacled bodies of squids, with crab-like claws on the underside that allowed them to latch onto surfaces.

  “Defense robots,” Hoodwink said. “Another variant of Satoroid. Small, deadly things.” He slid the laser rifle down from his shoulder. “Don’t let them latch onto you. One of those breaches your suit, you’re dead.”

  Hoodwink and Klay fired at the squid robots and disabled them one by one. At first the pair had ample time to target the next squids, but as the enemy numbers increased, they found themselves struggling to keep up.

  Whenever a squid got close, it pushed off from the surface and vented water to propel itself toward the party members. Hoodwink had three close calls so far, and he began to wish he still had some explosive charges left.

  “Look up!” Zak shouted.

  Hoodwink spotted other metal squids descending from above, where they had crawled, previously unseen, upon the distant overhead.

  “Retreat!” Hoodwink said. “We have to turn back or we’ll be surrounded!”

  And so they grabbed the nuke and vented propellant, retreating toward the passage that led into the cavern. Hoodwink and Klay occasionally paused to shoot at the squids.

  When they reached the broken seal, the party members piled thro
ugh.

  “So what now?” Myerson said.

  “We continue forward,” Hoodwink replied. “And find another path.”

  “But they’ll chase us the whole way!” Myerson exclaimed. He was staring into the breach, obviously terrified. “They’ll block our retreat.”

  “No one ever said this was a mission we would survive,” Hoodwink said softly.

  “Uh,” Zak said. “Look.” He pointed down the passage.

  Up ahead, more of the squids had appeared. Hundreds of them.

  The deadly things completely blocked off all forward advancement.

  57

  Choking, Tanner felt like some rag doll that two kids were fighting over in the schoolyard. Jeremy’s Satori body had wrapped itself around Tanner; those appendages squeezed so tightly he could barely inhale. The tentacles around his torso pulled in the opposite direction to those encasing his waist and lower body, threatening to tear him apart. Barbs on those tentacles pierced his suit in three places, and the toxic water flowed inside. So far none of the stingers had actually touched his skin underneath: he had a feeling he wouldn’t survive very long if that happened.

  He wished he had a strength-enhancing exoskeleton to fight back with, but Hoodwink and the pilots had taken all of the ones that were compatible with spacesuits. He only had what little strength he had left, and his wits. Both were proving futile at the moment.

  The phosphenes of hypoxia spotted his vision, and he felt himself close to losing consciousness.

  Black out and you die.

  And just when he couldn’t take it anymore, just when he was sure either his suit, his body, or both must tear in half, or that he must lose consciousness, the alien loosened its hold, apparently growing tired.

  Tanner took a deep breath. The phosphenes cleared. He spotted the tentacle that held his blaster. Before the alien could squeeze him again, he vented propellant from his suit and hurtled himself through the water toward it.

  The appendages that enwrapped his body followed loosely for a moment. One of the barbs pulled free.

  The weary Satori suddenly realized what he was doing and tightened its hold, but the alien was too late.

  Tanner tore the blaster from the Satori’s grasp and spun it toward the beast. Before he could fire another tentacle shot out and pinned the weapon to his chest.

  Dammit. So close.

  Tanner struggled to free the weapon, but it may as well have been glued to his body. The alien squeezed him tighter than ever.

  He forced the weapon upward, millimeter by millimeter, and fired at a nearby tentacle, severing it.

  The alien drew him closer to its main body. The motion shifted his weapon slightly, so that the aim was clear of his suit. He fired.

  The plasma bolt tore into one of the Satori’s limbs, amputating it as well.

  The alien responded by squeezing harder and curling all its free tentacles from view.

  Tanner fired again, and that time the blast struck the bulkhead. He was hoping for a penetrating shot, or at the very least a ricochet, but as before the alien metal merely absorbed the blow.

  He couldn’t breathe. His vision was once more nearly consumed by phosphenes. His feet were soaked to the ankle in the burning liquid that had flowed through the gaps in his suit.

  Then he saw it through the phosphenes: a portal of some kind. He could see the stars beyond.

  Why hadn’t I noticed that on the outside?

  If he could just aim the weapon a few centimeters higher...

  Feeling the veins pop out on his forehead, he strained against the Satori’s hold. No use.

  Perhaps...

  Via the aReal in his helmet, he vented propellant from the back area of his suit. The tentacles blocked most of the egress ports, but apparently some were free, because his body tilted a few degrees.

  He fired.

  The energy blast struck the portal dead on.

  It didn’t penetrate. The portal simply absorbed the blow like the bulkhead.

  In desperation he tried again. Again. One last time.

  The fourth shot did it.

  The portal melted away.

  As the water violently evacuated the chamber, Tanner and the alien were dragged toward the blast hole. The Satori wasn’t small enough to fit, nor was it big enough to seal the hole entirely. The alien thrust out its tentacles, releasing Tanner to grab onto whatever it could.

  In moments all the water had vented and the expulsive force ceased. Tanner and the alien descended to the bottom of the flyer.

  Above him, the Satori flopped its body about violently. Those motions became less animated with each passing moment, until they ceased entirely. Its body had turned gray and white.

  And so ends Jeremy.

  Tanner slid himself out from underneath the stiff tentacles. One of them broke off.

  Because of the depressurization, his epidermis had been sucked into the tiny perforations the barbs had made in the suit, and the skin formed temporary, painful seals. He would have a few bruises, later. Not to mention vacuum burns.

  Via the sweat collection ducts in the heels of his boots, he vented the toxic fluid that by then had reached to his lower calves. The stuff formed green crystals as it evacuated beside him. While that was ongoing, he retrieved the suit repair kit from the cargo pocket of his leg assembly and sealed all three perforations. His skin throbbed painfully in those areas where it had been severely pinched and exposed.

  He waited for the last of the fluid to vent, then he wiggled his toes, just to assure himself that they hadn’t been burned away. While his feet burned almost as badly as the pinched areas of his skin, everything seemed intact.

  Tanner retrieved the signal boosting briefcase and contacted Stanson. “Jeremy has been dealt with.”

  He expected a congratulations, or some other praise, but instead Stanson returned: “Craig and Lana stopped responding a while back. I sent men to relieve them. What they found wasn’t pretty.”

  Tanner felt dread forming in the pit of his being. “What did they find?”

  “The brutally stabbed bodies of Craig and Lana. There was someone else, too. The woman you found with Kade. Apparently she’d taken some kind of blaster wound.”

  “Kade and the others?” Tanner asked.

  “Gone.”

  “He’s back on the Inside,” Tanner said.

  “That’s the likeliest possibility, especially considering that violent deaths on the Inside have spiked again, centered on Kismet. We’ve already lost two other Children who acted as Keepers there.”

  Tanner plugged the wireless access port that was part of the signal booster into the provided slot on the abdomen area of his spacesuit. The corresponding connection within the suit telescoped into his belly button.

  “I need Ari’s position,” Tanner sent.

  “She’s still in Kismet,” Stanson returned. “But we can’t teleport you directly to her tracker. There’s some sort of shield in place.”

  Tanner tried to access the Inside via the wireless access port. It didn’t work. A message flashed on his aReal.

  Bandwidth requirements not met.

  He had to get back to the Hercules ship.

  Tanner disconnected the access port, leaped onto the dead body of the Satori, and hauled himself through the portal. He bounded across the hull of the flyer and onto the slippery surface of the moon beyond.

  Each step hurt his tender feet, but he didn’t care. Ari’s safety overrode any discomfort he felt.

  I’m coming, Ari.

  58

  Ari held her arm very still, panting. Any movement pained her. After Brute had finished skinning her arm, Amoch had returned to check on the creature’s progress. He had released his freeze on her avatar, and they had tied her to a stunted tree nearby instead.

  Amoch had instructed Brute to resume the flaying, and then returned to the bottom of the hill to continue his assault on the city. Occasionally a Keeper approached with reinforcements, but Amoch defeated them w
ithin moments.

  Brute had not resumed the torture immediately, apparently wanting to drag out her suffering for as long as possible. Instead the beast merely stared at her. It had been doing so for the past ten minutes, at least.

  “Just finish it,” Ari begged. She wished Amoch hadn’t disabled her ability to block pain, because the agony was unbearable.

  “Don’t listen to her,” Gemma told the creature. “Let the gol suffer. Nine must pay for the wrongs she has done against us all.”

  “I’ve never wronged you,” Ari gasped.

  Gemma lifted the dragon mask to look at her with her own eyes. “But you have, gol. How does it feel to be on the receiving end of everlasting pain?”

  Ari looked away. “Your brother is alive...” But she knew it was useless. The woman was unreachable. Why bother to even try? Gemma had seen her brother die. To her, the current reality was all there was, her brother’s death completely real.

  Brute approached Ari again at last. The beast took the skinning knife to her lower leg that time, cutting a circle around her ankle just below the cords that bound her so that the creature could carve away the skin of her foot.

  Ari gritted her teeth at the pain as Brute worked. She struggled against her binds but the movements only caused further pain.

  She forced herself to look at Gemma. There was no pity in those eyes. She saw hatred, defiance, and barely concealed disgust, the latter no doubt for the grisly mess that Brute was making of her body.

  She’s the only one who can save me now, Ari thought. I have to try to get through to her. I have to.

  “We’re on a starship right now,” Ari told her through the agony. Talking helped the pain somewhat, by distracting the mind. “A Hercules class. A generation ship. Meant for colonization. We escaped Earth during an alien invasion. The alien mothership hunted us down and we crashed on Ganymede. We managed to destroy that mothership with the help of a sympathetic member of their kind. But another mothership has come. It’s attacking us right now, from orbit. Your brother is helping us. He’s piloting a shuttle that’s carrying a very powerful bomb. He’s bringing it to the mothership. He’s going to save us all.”