“Do what?”
“You know, stop Messiah, save the world, that whole thing?”
“Oh, um… Well, I’m sure that we have a chance.”
I went to ask her how much of a chance then stopped when I realized that she’d probably give me an exact number that I would definitely not like.
“Simpler question then,” I said as I ducked around a corner, “you think we’ll find the next portal?”
“That one I am sure of, and yes, I think we will. Though I’m not entirely sure when.” Quinn replied somewhat ashamedly, “I’ve been analyzing the data I scanned from the last one and I’ve concluded that I should be able to find it based on this sort of… radiation it gives off.”
“Cool, so we can track it then?”
I think Quinn shook her head at that, or did whatever her version of that was, before realizing that I couldn’t see her and letting out a flat “No. It’s less metal detector, more Geiger counter.”
“Ah, I get you.”
“Heh, no you don’t.”
I smiled at being caught out, “No, no I don’t. How far…ck…” I muttered as I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with what must’ve been at least a dozen lower-level tree men and a brute.
“Eddie? I’d run if I were you.”
“Mmhm…” I breathed as my hand gently squeezed the grip on my rocket launcher, “Or-”
“Eddie. Run.” Quinn ordered.
That’s right about the time they started shooting.
LOTS OF RUNNING
“Take a right at the next intersection!” Quinn shouted in my ear as I did my very best to dodge the constant barrage of laser fire being sent my way while at the same time keeping the hefty rocket launcher on my shoulder in place.
“Where are we going!?”
“You’ll see, just keep running!”
I was really hoping that she wasn’t sending me toward the bridge, I sincerely doubted I could handle whatever was waiting for me up there, but I was also starting to force myself to be more confident in her abilities as a navigator.
“Just keep running straight.” Quinn said in quieter voice as the sounds of shooting died down the further we got from my last turn.
We’d reached a long hallway, and I mean a long hallway, and our pursuers weren’t far behind, “Are you sure? I don’t know if I’ll be able to-”
“Trust me, they’re not going to be able to shoot you.”
I didn’t respond immediately, deciding to instead take some time to see how much I trusted her against my will to live.
It’d been something I’d already had to do when we’d started the whole running thing, but we weren’t running down half-mile long corridors with people shooting lasers after us.
“Alright.” I finally replied, somewhat begrudgingly, then closed my eyes.
There’s no real good reason for that, running blind I mean, only that it sort of gave me the illusion of teleportation in that I’d open my eyes after a few seconds and be way further than I’d expected I was going to be.
“Stop shutting your eyes and watch where you’re going!” Quinn snapped, “Last thing we need is for you to run right into a damn wall.”
“Hey, I don’t appreci-” I stopped with a yelp as I almost did a standing face-plant.
“See?”
“Alright, so maybe you had a point,” I said before turning to face the squad moving my way, “where to now?”
“Hold on, I’m working on that.”
Needless to say, I was not impressed.
“What do you mean ‘hold on’? I’m about two seconds from being turned into… I don’t know, some kind of human bark chips for tree people playgrounds.”
The good news was that they weren’t exactly crack shots, the bad news was that that wouldn’t matter when they were eating my face, which looked like it would be happening in the following few seconds.
“Just wait, okay?”
I think that it was at that point that I started to regret grabbing the rocket launcher. Don’t get me wrong, every part of me wanted to use it, but there was something inside my head telling me that was a bad idea.
That something, in case you didn’t know, was Quinn.
“There,” Quinn finally said right as the tree people got within a hundred feet of me, “I’ve just shared some of the code with you.”
“What!? What am I supposed to do with that?”
“Uh, maybe snap your fingers and open that massive door behind you?” Quinn replied like I was supposed to know.
I grumbled for a moment, then pushed my thumb and middle finger together after I’d figured out what she’d translated in my head, “And why didn’t you just do it?” I asked before snapping my fingers, causing a spine-tingling rush of air to shoot up around me in the form of a fine mist as the door opened.
“Because I think that it’s important that you know how to do it,” Quinn bit back matter-of-factly once the tree people had ground to halt after seeing what I’d done, “I figured it’d give me the time pressure I needed to force myself to translate.”
“Well thanks for playing a game of chance with my melon.” I snapped before remembering that I was trying to be a better partner and taking a calming breath, “What’s behind me anyway? Some kind of airlock or something?”
“Not exactly.” Quinn said with obvious excitement as the tree people quickly formed a firing line, “You may want to get ready to fire that big thumping gun of yours.”
With that titillating all clear being given, and before Quinn could take it away, I dropped to a knee and aimed the rocket launcher at the cluttered group of enemies who’d started shooting again, though at an exceptionally lessened and more targeted way.
“Now, be careful,” Quinn warned, “the ship’s… well, one of the ship’s reactors is behind you.”
“How could I possibly damage it?” I asked arrogantly as it finally became clear to me why the tree people were being more careful.
“I’m just saying, be caref-”
Quinn was cut off as a laser bolt hit me in the faceplate, briefly knocking me off balance before I turned back to them with a fire in my eyes that may or may not have been because my face literally felt like it was on fire.
Without saying another word, I squeezed the ‘trigger’ and watched as the pulsing ball of energy rippled through the hallway, arcing beautiful blue electricity all the way through as it flew toward my enemies before, in a brilliant flash of light, they were engulfed by the explosion.
… Okay, so maybe that didn’t happen.
No, what really happened was much, much more disappointing and embarrassing as, and this still shames me deeply, I squeezed the trigger and, to my dismay, discovered I was holding the weapon the wrong way around.
I managed to take out one of them though, the unexpected force that was exerted from the other end of the launcher having ripped the hefty weapon from my hands and sent it spinning right into some poor schmuck’s face.
“What did you do?” Quinn asked in horror as I pulled myself up off the ground.
“Apparently I used the gun wrong, sorry.” I replied with an insincere tone before noticing that the tree people were scrambling back down the hall, “Where are they all running off to?”
“My guess is from that.”
I went to ask what ‘that’ was, but was cut short as a cacophonous explosion rippled throughout the ship and I was knocked to the ground again.
“What the shit?” I asked before looking over my shoulder and seeing just what the shit it was.
I, in my absolute genius, had somehow managed to not only fire my weapon backward, but also directly into the reactor.
Luckily though, with all my years of experience as a hacker, I knew how to close the door.
Kind of.
It took me a few tries.
Point is, after some frantic clicking, and more than a few instances of me opening and closing every door in the hallway, I managed to close the door, protecting me from
any further harm.
“I’d say we have maybe five minutes before this entire ship’s torn apart?”
“What in the Sam Hell did you just do soldier!?” an unfamiliar and overly macho voice barked in my ears before I could respond, “You were supposed to hijack that ship, not destroy it!”
“I…” I trailed off confusedly, “I’m… sorry?”
“Well sorry ain’t gonna cut it! Ugh, get to evac Echo ‘fore you get yourself killed. General Lundersberg out!”
Quinn and I stood silently for a while after that, waiting for me to be scolded by the General again as the ship continued to rattle and explode in various places.
“Uh… General?” I asked hopefully, “Where’s evac Echo?”
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get a response.
“Maybe if you ask nicely?” Quinn mocked, “Anyway, I’ve got something that might make this all better.”
“Oh yeah? And what would that be?”
There was another explosion somewhere else in the ship and all the lights went out, then went red, leaving me to quietly piss myself.
“Maybe only a little better.” Quinn finally responded somewhat concernedly after leaving me to hang for a while, “I found the portal.”
“Really? That’s awesom-” I started excitedly before stopping after I’d processed her whole sentence, “Why would that only make things a little better?”
“Well, you’re not going to like where it is.”
I BLEW UP A SPACESHIP
“What do you mean ‘that way’?” I asked without bothering to mask my irritation, “You know you don’t have hands, right?”
“Oh, yeah, hold on… Fifty feet that way.” Quinn said before making a giant yellow arrow point toward the right wall.
“There, was that so hard?”
“Hey, I’d have said left or right, but you wouldn’t stop looking around.”
“Why is the fact that it’s fifty feet that way a problem?” I asked, ignoring the fact that she had a point, “More guards or something?”
“There’s nothing.”
“What do you mean nothing?”
“I mean there’s nothing, beyond that wall is the hull,” Quinn replied then paused as another explosion and a disconcerting siren started to blare a few floors down, “and beyond that is the vast nothingness of space.”
“Oh… Hmm, that does present a bit of a problem, doesn’t it?” I said before starting my run back toward the elevators, stepping around the extremely dead guy with my former weapon wedged firmly in his chest cavity, “So I should find an airlock or something, yeah?”
“And do what? Go for a little spacewalk?”
“Well… yeah, why not? I’m sure this suit is outfitted for at least a few minutes outside, or at the very least airtight enough that I won’t have my eyeballs sucked out of my head before I make it to the portal.”
“And you’re really willing to bet your life on that?”
I hesitated in answering as I genuinely didn’t know, before giving a confident nod and rounding a corner, “Mmhm, besides, the other option is either exploding or getting to some evac point that could take us to the next mission which, in case you didn’t know, would be a very bad thing.”
Quinn let out an annoyed sigh, “I s’pose you’re right. What’s the plan then? You’re not thinking of using the elevators, are you?”
“You know I am,” I replied, making a show of rolling my eyes as I arrived at the elevator, “and why shouldn’t I be?”
“A, I didn’t, I’m making an effort to not share your thoughts as often because I know it makes you uncomfortable.” Quinn said, effectively warming my heart, before quickly jumping to her next point as I pushed the elevator return button, “And B, because you’re not supposed to use those things when there’s a fire, let alone while you’re on a ship that’s exploding.”
“I think it’ll be fine.” I replied confidently as the doors slid open, “I’m pretty sure the rules are different when it comes to interstellar craft, it’s not a mall.”
I wasn’t trying to be an arrogant tool, promise, it was simply that I was kind of sort of freaking out about the possibility of having my adventure end with me being atomized in a massive explosion that had nothing to do with Messiah.
Still though, I had already pushed the button.
“Wait!” Quinn shrieked as I went to step in, just barely saving my life as what would’ve been a metal coffin got engulfed by flame and sent me flying back as it got shot up through the ship.
My brain wasn’t quite aware of it at first, probably had something to do with the fact that I could still hear the gusty roar of the flames deep in my ears, but I’d hit my head and back in my tumbling and, as a result, couldn’t seem to drag myself out of the seated position I was in up against the wall.
“Hey… Quinn? What do you think the chances are that I’ve paralyzed myself?”
“Oh no, tell me you haven’t…”
“Well, I want to,” I muttered as I attempted to wriggle my toes and failed, “but it looks like I’d be lying. What do you suggest?”
There was a long pause before Quinn finally gave me a disappointed huff, “Looks like your only option is to crawl into the elevator shaft…”
“What!?” I practically squealed, “You mean the fire-fire death pit? Yeah, no thanks.”
“That’s what I’ve got.” Quinn let out sorrowfully, “Looks like the blast has blown a hole clean through the top of the elevator shaft and the hull.”
“Shouldn’t we be getting sucked out then?” I asked before quietly tensing every muscle in my body and preparing to feel like I was going to be ripped out of my skin.
“I thought that at first, but it looks like there’s some kind of energy shield around the ship that’s stopping everyone from being flushed out.”
A tree person screaming somewhere in the distance made me shiver for a moment before rolling onto my side and doing my best to start shuffling toward the empty shaft, “So, what? I’m supposed to just fall through it or something?”
“What? God no, that’s the last thing you want to do, it’ll… picture a fly hitting a bug zapper.” Quinn said, giving me all the more reason not to continue crawling toward the fire-fire death pit, “No, what you want to do is do that clicky thing of yours and shut off the shields when you’re in the shaft, too early and you’ll risk tearing yourself apart, too late and… well, the fly thing.”
“And how exactly am I meant to do that? It’s one thing trying to recognize the code for opening a door and something completely different for deactivating what I’m guessing is a pretty freakin’ vital system.” I grunted as I shuffled closer to the broken and sparking doorframe, “I’d need to at least look over the switch or console that controls it first.”
“Ugh,” Quinn groaned, “give me a moment, I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”
I got where Quinn was coming from, to her it must’ve been like teaching the town bully how to read so he could prevent a meteorite from hitting Earth, but at the same time it certainly wasn’t a picnic for me. Every time I tried to close my eyes and focus on the code for more than a few seconds I found myself melting my brain like a stick of butter in a microwave.
“You found anything yet?” I asked hopefully as I looked down the shaft and saw the fire at the bottom, “Maybe something to get rid of all this fire?”
“No, nothing yet…” Quinn replied, clearly dissatisfied in her abilities, “Crap! You’re going to have to climb into the shaft.”
“… You literally just said that you hadn’t figured out the code yet.”
“Yeah, and I still haven’t, but I assure you that you’re going to want a quick death over whatever those Lithrekians are going to do with you.”
Initially I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then I looked to my immediate right and saw a couple of bloodthirsty tree people standing maybe ten feet from me, “Ah… shit.”
They went to make a move for me, but I was too qui
ck, managing to pull myself out of harm’s way and then into the elevator shaft, directly into harm’s bigger brother’s way known only as ‘Certain Death’.
“I got it!” Quinn squeaked elatedly, “I’ll start the translation process now.”
“Quicker would be better!” I shouted as I tumbled toward my doom.
“But if I-”
“Just give me the damn code!”
There was a ringing sound in my ears and I started to worry that in forcing Quinn’s hand I’d set off the chain of events that would finally vegetablize me, but it quickly dissipated and suddenly I understood another aspect of the game’s code.
I was within spitting distance of the flames when I managed to snap my fingers, after which there seemed to be a moment of nothing, followed swiftly by a high-pitched screaming as I was ripped out through the top of the ship in what felt like less than a second.
“Well this is just dandy…” I groaned after fighting back the urge to puke as I floated uselessly in the vacuum of space, “Drifting away from the ship and, as luck would have it, my only Goddamn way out of this tree people Hell. Just fuckin’ dandy…”
“Hey, it’s better than being ripped apart by a bunch of Groot wannabes.”
Though I wanted to be impressed with her somewhat retro reference to pop culture, I found it hard to do so while being jettisoned toward who-knows-where.
Then I saw it.
“Is that the portal?” I asked, pointing down at the only identifiable object other than the ship.
“That it is.” Quinn replied happily, “And you’ll be glad to know that I’ve just figured out the propulsion systems for your suit.”
“Propulsion systems? Why does this thing have propulsion systems?”
“I’m guessing because it was built to do a whole lot more than simply beat people up on the ground, I mean, haven’t you noticed that you haven’t turned into a popsicle yet?”
“Heh,” I let out in amusement, “well to be fair, I’ve been a bit preoccupied with other issues. So, what’s the plan?”
“First things first, I’m going to get you in nice and close to the ship.”
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