by Joshua James
The impostor AIC fighters that had fought and helped take out the Perseverance were melding together like drops of mercury. They became a smaller version of the large, churning liquid metal sphere in the distance. What was worrying about that was that around the smaller sphere, orbiting it like satellites, were the missiles that those fighters were typically equipped with.
“That can’t be good,” said Morgan out loud to herself. “HUD, call Ben.” She turned around and ran back to the Lost. Retrieving the wrench suddenly became a whole lot less important.
“Got some good news for me?” Ben said, sounding out of breath. “We’re close.”
“Not really. You guys need to hurry up. Like, run back here. I think we might be in trouble.”
“We’re definitely in trouble,” Ben said. “You have no idea.”
“Yeah, well,” Morgan said, “I can see this damn orb thing in space, and—”
“It’s bigger and closer,” Ben said, cutting her off. That aggravated the hell out of her. “We know.”
Morgan had a welding torch in her hand, so she couldn’t exactly send the gesture she wanted to up to the heavens. In lieu of the wrench, and due to the fact that time was getting very, very short, she’d decided it’d be easier just to use a welding torch to cut off the electric and fuel lines to the clipped wing, then fuse them shut. It wasn’t ideal, but it would have to do.
“Fine,” she said, gritting her teeth. Morgan didn’t need goggles or a welding mask. Her artificial eyes didn’t need the protection. “It also looks to be pointing lots of missiles at us. But I’m sure you know that, too.”
Ben was silent. Hey, looks like you don’t know everything, smartass, she thought.
“We’ll be there in two,” he said curtly, and ended the call.
Three
When they reached the docking bay, Ben saw that the Lost’s systems were all already activated. Morgan was cycling the engines, making sure those that remained were functional.
Ace rushed up ahead as Ben heard a gasp from the group, and turned around to see Francesca clinging to Ada and Tanisha with her hand over her mouth, looking terrified. Even Tomas was shaking his head. Only Ada continued forward into the bloody minefield of the docking bay with a grim look of determination.
She nodded over Ben’s shoulder at the Lost. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Ben said.
“Will she fly?”
“That’s the plan.”
Morgan was standing at the base of the extended loading ramp. She nodded at Ace, and he headed up the ramp.
“We can take off,” she said. “I think. Not sure about ever landing again.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we have to,” Ben said.
“And when will that be?”
“When we get to Vassar-1,” Ben said. “We ran into one of those Oblivion bastards, and he said that’s where it all begins.” He saw the look on her face. “Whatever the hell that means.”
Ada, Tomas, Tanisha, and Francesca followed up the ramp as Morgan watched. She said nothing, and Ben again found himself impressed with her ability to compartmentalize and focus. In her shoes, he’d have a million questions. All she did was nod and say, “Everybody find somewhere to park your ass and put on a safety belt,” as she pointed to the main level of the gunship, then smacked the button closing the loading ramp.
Morgan headed for the cockpit after Ace. Ben followed. He noticed Ada up ahead, heading for the cockpit too. “We got three seats up there. Stay back here with your people. Once we’re out of here, we can all make more formal introductions and figure out what the hell we’re doing.”
Ada nodded. She was a private, so Ben assumed she was used to following orders, although recent events had clearly changed the dynamic. She was a natural leader, too, but this was still Ben’s ship. She was going to have to live with that. She dropped back, clearly not happy about it.
When they got to the cockpit, the door had to be manually shoved open. “Not working,” Morgan said.
Ben and Ace exchanged a look. Ben settled into the captain’s chair. “Get us the hell out of here, Morgan.”
“Uhh,” Ace said, looking over the information panel next to his seat. “I got no data.”
“Yeah,” Morgan said. “Not working.”
Ben realized his was dead too. But Morgan’s, at the pilot’s nest, was working. That would do.
“Well, how do I, you know, fire our weapons?” Ace asked.
Morgan laughed. “Weapons,” she said. “You’re funny.”
She slammed the thruster arm forward. Nothing happened for a moment; then violent shaking started to run through the superstructure of the ship.
Ben again glanced over at Ace, who looked even more anxious than before. But that might just be the thought of not having any weapons available, even though, as Ben recalled, the Perseverance had stripped away most of their offensive capabilities anyway. For Ace, it must be like remembering that you were naked.
“So shouldn’t we be lifting off?” Ace said.
“Give it a minute,” Morgan said. “We have to bounce it.”
“What does—”
“Hang on,” Morgan said. She released what Ben assumed was a magnet hold on the deck, probably something she’d clamped on during repairs.
The ship lurched upward, but started to almost instantly drift sideways. Rather than correct, Morgan slammed the stick over hard and the right thruster assembly, which was dead, smashed hard against the deck, bouncing the ship more or less straight again. It shot forward like a hovercraft on an uncertain surface. But just as it looked like the non-thruster side of the ship was going to slam into the deck again, she reduced the thrust in the other assembly and swung the stick back the other way.
They lost height quickly, and Ben heard the panic-inducing sound of metal scrapping against metal from the back of the ship, but then they cleared the lip of the docking bay floor and slid through the plasma shield exit. Once in space, Morgan fired the thrusters again and the ship, while not exactly flying straight, was more or less under control.
“See,” she said, taking a deep breath. “Easy.”
“Yeah,” Ben said, releasing his vice grip on his armrests. He was pretty sure his knuckles were white. “Easy.”
“Shit!” Ace shouted, pointing at the viewscreen.
Before Ben could look up, or even regrip the armrests, Morgan shoved the Lost’s nose over and dropped height. Ben finally looked up just as something hurled past.
“That was a missile,” Ace said.
“That’s a lot of missiles,” Ben said, now seeing the waves of incoming projectiles.
“Like I said,” Morgan replied.
Ben nodded. Like she said.
With the ship so crippled, it was a challenge for Morgan to dodge anything. She gritted her teeth as she slipped past one missile that came very close. Ben didn’t have data on his board, so he didn’t know how close. Without any remaining shields, if it connected, that would have been the end of the ship and its passengers.
In silence, Ben watched the destruction of Sanctuary Station 33. It would take hundreds of missiles to destroy it, but it didn’t seem that whatever was firing them at the station was hurting for firepower.
The churning sphere either didn’t see the Lost or didn’t care about her. Its full focus seemed to be on destroying the station, and for that, Ben was silently thankful.
Then he saw something that made his blood run cold.
Four
Lee Saito sat on the couch in his apartment, back in Annapolis.
What is this? How am I here?
His hands on his knees, he stared forward at a wall, also made from his memories of home. Sitting next to him was a creature who’d taken the form of his dead wife, Beverly.
Saito turned his head and looked at his wife. Blank-faced, she stared forward. Then she turned her head and looked at him. Her brilliant green eyes were almost the same, but there was something missing. A spark. A soul
. That was what he’d fallen for so many years ago.
“I want to make you happy,” said Beverly. Her words and smile seemed genuine, but they rang hollow.
“I know.”
“So what can I do, Lee? What would make you happy?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything you can do,” answered Saito. He turned back to the wall, trying to wrap his mind around what this was.
He jumped a little when he felt Beverly’s hand on his thigh.
“I know that I’m not her, your wife. I’m a collection of memories you have of her. I’m the version you see in your mind whenever you think of her. I can’t replace her, but I want to be better than just some…impostor. I want to be the next best thing. I want to be your peace, Lee.”
Lee lifted her hand off his leg. “Only Bev could do that.”
The impostor wife stood and placed herself right in his line of sight. “Look at me. Am I not the woman you remember? Touch me,” she insisted. She grabbed Saito’s right hand by his wrist.
“Stop it,” whispered Saito, but he didn’t pull away. He liked the warmth of her touch. He felt a wave of guilt rush over him.
“There’s nothing to be guilty about,” she said.
Something about the matter-of-fact way she said it registered with him. He felt his features harden as he pulled his hand away. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” Beverly said.
“Read my mind. Shit, did you read my mind?”
“Of course,” she said, then seemed to realize that was the wrong answer. “I’m sorry, I…I’m still learning. We all are.”
Saito wasn’t sure what to make of her genuineness. “Your kind…can you all…?”
“No. Only the more...evolved of us. Those born after the Ruin.”
What in the hell is “the Ruin”?
“That’s a story for another day, Lee. We should wait until you’re more comfortable.”
“Please stop reading my mind.”
“I’m sorry. Of course I’ll stop.”
One of the walls of Saito’s faux apartment opened up. In walked his doppelganger. Beverly suddenly stood at attention, like an obedient soldier.
“How are things going in here?” asked the other Saito, the imposter Saito, with an easy smile under his perfectly-groomed mustache.
“We’re making real progress,” answered Beverly.
“I’m not speaking to you. I was speaking to our guest.” He turned his eyes to Lee.
Looking into the eyes of himself was uncanny. He looked perfect in every way. It was like looking in a mirror whose only purpose was to make you feel self-conscious and inadequate as yourself. Lee shook his head, but said nothing.
“I understand,” the imposter said. “All of this, it must be overwhelming and frankly a bit frightening. But it’s my hope, our hope, that you’ll be able to settle in.”
“Settle in?” Lee said. “What the hell is this? What are you expecting from me?”
“It’d probably help if you didn’t have to look at yourself every time we talked,” the imposter Saito said, again seemingly reading his thoughts. But this time, after talking to the imposter Beverly, Lee suspected it wasn’t just a feeling. This imposter really was reading his thoughts. Maybe all the aliens could.
“One moment, please,” imposter Saito said, stepping back a little bit. His clothes stayed as Saito’s UEF dress whites, but the form inhabiting those clothes shifted and transformed into a pale, bald man, with no eyebrows and all-black eyes. “Is this better?”
“There’s nothing better about any of this,” Saito spat.
“I understand,” the Pale Man said with an irritatingly condescending tone. “Now, if you would be so kind as to follow me, it’s time to start our great work together, Lee.”
“Do you want me to join you?” asked Beverly.
The Pale Man waved her off. “No. You stay here. I’ll let you know when to plug in and help him out, but for now, stay.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Saito said.
The Pale Man smiled and nodded. Saito rose to his feet. He felt his eyes grow wide. He hadn’t moved, but he’d stood like someone else was commanding his body.
“That’s better,” the Pale Man said.
Powerless to stop, Saito followed the Pale Man through the opening in the apartment wall. They entered another room that looked just like a UEF war room. As they passed by, he saw rows of UEF Navy soldiers sitting and watching an officer present the details of a mission, but the officer didn’t talk or make a sound. Still, the soldiers wrote things down on their tablets and looked to be paying close attention.
If Saito thought the first room was weird, the second was downright mind-bending. It looked like a docking bay, only there were no ships. Instead, there were soldiers standing around spheres of floating liquid metal. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly what was happening.
“I see you’re confused.” The Pale Man stopped. So did Saito. “This is why we need you. Our information on your military, the United Earth Federation, it’s not as extensive as that of the Allied Independent Colonies.”
“You need me to tell you what UEF ships look like?” Saito watched as the orbs of floating liquid metal transformed into what UEF short-range fighters looked like; only they were off. Not by much, but enough for a veteran like himself to notice.
“Yes and no,” the Pale Man said with infuriating vagueness. He kept walking.
“Because I won’t,” Saito said. “I won’t help you with anything.”
The Pale Man turned, and smiled without stopping. “You already have.”
Five
Saito was compelled to follow as the Pale Man entered a room where there appeared to be no walls. There was only space on every side. It was strangely beautiful. Standing in the middle of the room was a familiar face.
“Captain,” greeted Commander Jake Rollins. He was clearly younger than when Lee had last seen him. Rollins stood next to a strange-looking chair. It was hard to describe what was wrong with it, other than that it was alien. It gave Saito pause.
“Why don’t you take a seat, Lee?” The Pale Man wasn’t really asking. He was instructing Lee to do so, maybe even ordering.
“In that thing?” Saito felt uneasy. For the first time, he felt like he had some control over his actions since this all started.
“Sorry.” The Pale Man looked at the chair. It changed into something more relatable; it became an old-fashioned barber’s chair. The same exact chair, in fact, that Saito’s grandfather had had in his barber shop in Tokyo. “Is that better?”
The instant that he recognized it, Saito felt compelled to sit down. He realized that his familiarity with the surroundings had something to do with the Pale Man’s control over him. It was something, at least.
The chair was smaller than he remembered, but then again, he’d been smaller when he’d last sat in it. Rollins stood over him. Calmly, he strapped down Saito’s wrists with bands that appeared out of nowhere.
“What is this?” Saito asked.
“Please, try not to panic. This is the best way,” said Rollins soothingly as he started with the straps around Saito’s ankles.
“The best way to what?”
“I’m sorry for the restraints, Lee.” The Pale Man walked over into view above Saito. “But we’re entering some uncharted territory in your memory, and control can become … an issue.” The Pale Man smiled lecherously.
“Having you simply telling or describing things to us is inefficient,” he continued. “We need to dive into your memories and see for ourselves. The human memory is unreliable when accessed by the person who owns them. Your minds distort things to fit narratives you build in your own heads. But your brain does record everything it sees, hears, and feels with remarkable accuracy when accessed by an outside party.”
“I’m never helping you,” Saito said.
“I wish you would reconsider,” the Pale Man said. “I really do. After all, we just want to see your ra
ce united and experiencing a never-ending age of peace. Look at these petty wars between yourselves. They fester and poison you against each other. Your race is further from harmony than ever. We want to rid you of this disease.”
“You must take me for quite the fool to buy into that,” Saito said, barely containing his anger. He wanted to scream and thrash in the restraints, but he didn’t see the point of that.
“I was really hoping it wouldn’t come to this, Lee. Truly. But I’m afraid we’ll have to threaten your remaining family if you don’t cooperate.” The Pale Man’s expression didn’t change.
Saito suddenly felt like someone was sitting on his chest. “What are you talking about?” he hissed.
“Your son, Benjamin Saito,” the Pale Man said, shrugging at the obviousness of it. “He’s out here looking for you. He was spotted on the station.”
Saito’s eyes widened. “But you destroyed the station.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” the Pale Man said, chuckling to himself. “We were very careful to make sure he made it away in time. We wouldn’t want to harm someone so important to you.” He leaned over close to Saito so he could whisper in his ear: “Not yet.”
He stood back up and patted Saito on the shoulder. “Rest assured, we have assets in place to introduce him to the Abyss at any moment we wish, but we don’t wish to do so. Instead we’d very much like to reunite the two of you. Would you like that, Lee?”
“You son of a bitch.” Saito tried to lunge forward, but the restraints hampered his attempts. “I swear, if you touch a hair on his head. I’ll kill all of you. Every single last one.”
“And I believe you mean that. Again, there’s no need for any of this to take place. Please, just sit back and relax so we can get started. This is so trivial for you. We aren’t asking you for anything top secret, Lee, it’s just a few cognitive exercises. Think of it as a game. And before you know it, we’ll have you and Ben back together again. Father and son, together.” The Pale Man smiled his hollow, mirthless smile. “Won’t that be wonderful, Lee?”
