Omnigalactic

by Christopher Conner

  “YOU INSOLENT FOOL! ACCEPT YOUR FATE!”

  “Shut your filthy mouth and accept yours!” I yelled.

  I tugged and pulled. Something started to give as its eyestalk began to tear at my feet. I took a deep breath, and with one last tug, I ripped the stalk free. Shen'roth screeched, and I felt him move. The meaty floor beneath me shifted upward, and I fell against the rows of teeth, slashing cuts into the back of my jacket. The sizzling bile splashed all over me and burned my exposed skin and clothes.

  Then, there was light again as I tumbled out of Shen'roth's mouth and onto the sand. I frantically ripped off my boots and jacket. Something grabbed me by the torso and pulled me away from the flailing daemon.

  “We must get outside the Pentacle!” I heard Glennsworth say. He set me aside and knelt just near the edge of the Pentacle, then screamed, “SHEN'ROTH KAAR N'YORR SHI'NABB! SHEN'ROTH FIL NORT ICKTH'NAER NAAK THAL'MIIR AZAAR'SHNA!”

  White and black beams of light fired up from the sand and out through the top of the dome. They blared in five dissonant pitches, like a cacophony of horn instruments. Shen'roth's tentacles slammed against the side of the dome, as if in a fleeting attempt to escape. The glasteel cracked a bit more with every blow. Quickly, the dissonant tones shifted, lowering and raising in pitch until they were in complete, beautiful, five-part harmony. The beams of light shone with what I could only describe as divine brilliance, and Shen'roth was gone. His reign of terror over Melville had ended.

  I slumped to the sand, completely and utterly spent of energy. Glennsworth inhaled heavy breaths of air and fell next to me. “I… I did it. The banishment ritual works…”

  “Not bad for your first time.” I laughed weakly. I winced as pain shot up my arm. “Please, tell me you have more of that mystical, green paste.”

  “I'll have to make more,” he said and rose to his feet. “Not too shabby for a man of your stature.”

  “The credit's all yours. I was just a fly, shitting on Shen'roth's picnic.”

  Glennsworth gave a nice, loud, belly laugh. Then, he leaned over and put his hand out to me. “Let us leave this place, Fly Cadel.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Fish Food

  Before I even got to my feet, there was a loud series of cracking sounds from across the ruins. The glasteel Shen'roth had stricken repeatedly was giving way under the weight of the ocean. The metal support beams whined as they bent inward. There was already a constant spray from other parts of the dome that created wide, long, shallow pools about the ruins. The cracks continued to splinter and chip the dome. Small streams poured down and around us. The moistened sand became thick between my bare toes.

  “I get the feeling that dome isn't going to last much longer,” I said as I clutched my broken arm.

  “I concur,” Glennsworth said. “Come; back up the tunnel we go.”

  Rainwater poured down the tunnel like a miniature waterfall. The vicious storm above must have intensified even further. As I walked toward the mouth of the tunnel, my feet splashed in a pool of ankle-high water. I could only begin to imagine how bad the storm had gotten. Some of the water tasted salty, as if the tides had risen and begun to drain into the ruins, as well. I pointed this out to Glennsworth, whose blue robes looked about two times heavier when drenched.

  Cool water splashed against my body as I tried to walk up the smooth, wet, metal floors of the tunnel. My feet slid backward. To avoid hurting my arm any further, I twisted onto my back and buttocks as I fell, slid down, and landed in the shallow pool like it was a theme park water slide. Glennsworth maintained a steady pace for a little longer, but was eventually overcome by the slick, steep gradient. We glanced at one another and sprinted up it this time. We made it a tad further, but quickly slid back down. Another go, same result. The pool was rising slightly higher by the second. Now, it was up to my shins.

  “How are we supposed to get up there?” I asked. “No way we're going to climb two-hundred feet up if we can't even make it twenty feet.”

  Glennsworth stood there silently, as if in deep thought. A sudden group of whines, cracks, and pops made me jump up and look behind us. The dome still held, but there was no way it would have continued to hold. I looked back at Glennsworth, who walked toward the tunnel. He produced the metal rod from his dripping robes.

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  The sand swirled between my toes as I stepped closer to hear his plan. “What are you thinking?”

  He held the rod out in front of us. “Hold onto this. I will try to levitate us through.”

  With my one good arm, I grabbed a hold of the metal rod. My hand and arm felt weird at first; that the same pins-and-needles feeling from back at the Hub. Together, we were lifted into the air. Glennsworth's feet graced the top of the growing pool of water, while my legs dangled below me. We sped up and flew through the flooded tunnel. Water splashed against my clothes and face. I squinted my eyes to protect them and tightened my slipping grip.

  We made it halfway through before the flowing sound of the water amplified. Through my squinted eyes, I could see a turbulence in the water. It looked thick, and it scraped against the walls of the tunnel like sandpaper against metal. All remaining light escaped and left us in pitch-darkness.

  I panicked. I couldn't see anything, not even my hand in front of me. A wall of sand, shells, and dead twigs slammed into us. My shattered arm radiated with sharp pain. The sand rubbed my skin sore and raw. I shut my mouth and held my breath, in case I was about to be buried alive.

  Glennsworth's floating rod was no match for the sheer force of the flooding sand, and we were pushed back down into the base of the dome. Floodwater piled the sand in a giant mound in front of the tunnel, like we were trapped inside the bottom end of an hourglass. The water level was now at my knees.

  “Got any more magic tricks in that book of yours?” I asked, while I held my arm steady to avoid any more jolts of pain.

  He flipped through the pages for a minute or two, running his fingers up and down them. Then, he slammed the book shut and looked at me. “Unfortunately, I am all out of ideas. We will have to use more conventional means of escape.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I pointed to the spraying cracks in the dome. “Because that's not getting any better.”

  “What if I break a section of the dome, and we swim out?” he suggested.

  I shook my head. “No way. We'll drown before we get to the surface.”

  “I was under the impression Anurans could breathe underwater. Did you not evolve in an extremely wet biome?”

  “We can only breathe underwater when we're children, before we hit puberty. And besides, we could only breathe freshwater. We'd choke to death in the ocean.”

  “That is a shame,” he added. “It may be our only choice at the moment, given the circumstances.”

  “I'm sorry; I just escaped being eaten by an Elder Daemon,” I said. “I've been through too much to drown. There has to be another way out of here.”

  We were both silent for a time, searching and thinking of a way to escape drowning to death. We went to the flooded temple to see if there were any hidden passages or compartments, but there was nothing.

  The dome started to shake, as if struggling against the tremendous weight and power of the ocean. With a loud shatter, shards of the glasteel dome plummeted toward us. Glennsworth and I leapt under a crumbling pillar to protect ourselves from being lacerated into ribbons. Hundreds of gallons of water dumped into the dome, along with aquatic life and the occasional school of fish.

  Quickly, our bodies rose with the water level. We floated closer and closer toward the top of the unbroken dome, where a temporary air pocket had formed. A sort of undercurrent was created as the water poured in, dragging anything under that swam too close to it.

  Despite my objections, I was certain I was going to drown. The air pocket diminished with every passing second. I couldn't keep myself afloat with just my one arm a
nd my already-exhausted legs. The water rose overhead as I sank underwater.

  Glennsworth grabbed me be the shirt and pulled me up. “Don't tell me your people are bad swimmers, as well?” he joked.

  “It's not that easy swimming with one arm,” I said through a mouthful of seawater. I spit it out and looked around. There was no way out. Even if I tried to swim for the opening, I'd be pulled to the bottom by the undercurrent, where I'd spend the rest of eternity. Little fish and crustaceans would peck and pluck at my rotting remains, filling their bellies with hunks of Anuran flesh.

  I looked Glennsworth in the eyes. “Thanks for showing me a part of the universe that I didn't know existed. It's been one damn exciting week of my life. Nice knowing you — while it lasted, anyway.”

  He furrowed his brow. “What are you saying?”

  “I don't think I'm going to make it out of here alive. You might have a chance if you leave me here.”

  “No need to give up now, Sai,” he said. “We shall get through this yet.”

  “Look at me; I'm useless,” I said. “You should go on without me. I'll only get you drowned, too.”

  “No,” Glennsworth said as he shook his head. “You could have left the planet like a coward and allowed everyone to die. But, you stayed and helped me defeat Shen'roth. I refuse to leave you behind. Not like this.”

  “Just go, Glennsworth. I'm fish food.”

  The water was up to our necks. We had only a foot of air left before the pocket and the rest of the dome would be completely filled.

  “Take a deep breath!” he yelled and gulped a lungful of air. He snatched my arm and dragged me under. I tried to fight him off me to give him a decent chance of getting out alive. But, my one weak limb could do nothing to stop him, and he wrapped his arm around me tighter. With his other arm, he held out the metal rod, and we floated upward toward the surface. Below me, I could see the shattered dome and the completely-flooded ruins slowly fading into the darkness of the deep.

  I looked back up once the dome had disappeared. We were hardly any closer, and I felt my precious oxygen supply depleting by the second. When it became too much to hold my lungs any longer, I slowly exhaled the now-spent, poisonous gas. Bubbles trailed behind us as we hopelessly floated toward safety. My vision started to fade, and my lungs begged for another breath.

  A flash of white light came from above and blinded me. I resisted the urge to close my eyes, since I knew I was dying. I guessed that was what it felt like. Not the worst thing ever. It beat being digested alive inside Shen'roth's stomach acid. The light came closer to me, as if to say, “Come this way, little one. No more suffering for you. Welcome to eternal paradise.”

  The light shrank to a multitude of small circles. They looked like they were attached or fixed to some kind of structure. A glass orb was above them with a frightening, dark figure inside.

  Shit, it wasn’t paradise. It was damnation.

  Before I could figure out where I’d gone wrong in my life to warrant an eternity in hell, the dark figure came into focus. It grabbed both Glennsworth and me in its two giant claws and went soaring toward the surface of the water. Through faded vision, I peered into the glass orb and grinned.

  Glennsworth's banishment ritual had worked - Jord's mind was free again.

  We surfaced. I gasped and refilled my lungs with sweet air. Jord brought us ashore. The construction mech's clutch loosened around my body and dropped me onto the beach. I just lay there and took breaths as the cold rain hit my face.

  The orb hissed as it opened. Jord hopped out and ran to me. He grabbed me and shook hard. “Sai! Sai! Are you okay?”

  My arm stabbed with pain. “Cut it out! You're hurting my arm!”

  He wrapped his big arms around my head, pulled me in close, and squeezed. “Ha-ha! The little guy made it! I can't believe it!”

  “I'd tell you to stop,” I said with my face buried against his half-cybernetic, half-organic chest, “but because I love you like a brother, I'll let it slide this time.”

  “True love,” Glennsworth said, then hacked up a chest-full of saltwater. “How wonderful.”

  “How did you know killing that thing would free my mind?” Jord asked. “I mean, that was some stroke of luck.”

  I nodded over at Glennsworth. “Long story, but wizard guy over here said it might work. So, we did it.”

  “I owe you, man,” Jord said. He let me go and sat cross-legged next to me. Like a child at the beach, he played with the moistened sand, forming a mound between his palms. His mouth opened slightly, but he didn't speak. I could tell he was hesitant to say something, anything. Finally, the words came out.

  “Listen, Sai… I'm sorry about before. About calling your old man a con. And calling you a mindless drone.”

  I groaned as I sat up. The pain in my lame, shattered arm went from a sharp stab to a throbbing ache. I cradled it with my good arm. “I won't lie, Jord-o. It hurt a little. It was like having your best friend step on your gonads and grind them to a pulp.”

  “I was trying to get it through your big-ass head that you have what it takes. Not just because of a book, either.”

  “Yeah, but you were a bastard about it.”

  “And despite that, you went in there, anyway.”

  “Because if I didn't, I would've lost my best friend. You would've done the same.”

  Jord smiled, reached out, and rubbed my head. “You're damn right! C'mon, let's get that arm checked out.”

  The three of us walked down the beach with the rain at our backs, completely drenched. Jord leaned in. “By the way, you weren't really going to fire me, were you?”

  I socked him in the arm. “Let's just say, I reviewed your file and decided you're too valuable an employee. You're safe for now.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Loverboy

  In the days that followed the battle with Shen'roth, Jord, Glennsworth, and I stayed to help get Melville back in working order. We figured it was the least we could do after the near-complete destruction of the research site. It'd be bad branding for the company if we just took the fifty-thousand bitcreds and flew off into the sunset.

  Many of the staff had been killed and needed their next-of-kin notified to make funeral arrangements. Those who were maimed and wounded were in dire need of basic care. So, we helped Doctor Rupert in the infirmary, until the rest of the patients had been stabilized. I think she even took an interest in Glennsworth's green herbal remedy, since it had worked wonders on her leg. Heck, since he’d rubbed it on my arm, it was nearly done healing. In the meantime, however, I kept it locked in place with a tight sling.

  On our last night, when the waxing moon was high in the sky, the Melvillians decided to throw a little “thank you” shindig for us. It wasn't much - just a thing Humans call a “barbecue”. They caught a heap of crustaceans and fish and cooked them over a grill. One crafty guy fashioned a makeshift smokehouse underneath the sand. The fumes of woodsmoke and burning coals tantalized my taste buds, and my mouth watered. I sipped on a beer to keep my mouth and stomach occupied as I waited for the delicious meal.

  A few people brought me drinks, and shook my hand and whatnot. Some even called me a “hero”. Talk about a total transition from how my life had been a little over a week ago. I considered myself the modest type, but it felt really good.

  They say if you love your work, you'll never work a day in your life. I used to think that was total shit. Don't get me wrong; I loved flying and hauling stuff around the galaxy. Liberty Freight supplied me with that love for years. But now, I realized that I had been unsatisfied with my life. Sure, I’d had a decent job with decent pay, my own place, and plenty of my favorite craft beer. But it had been boring and safe, and left me feeling unfulfilled and useless.

  So, did I love my new job? I was coming around to it.

  Platters of smoky, char-grilled, sizzling food were slapped onto our table at what was left of the cabana. The storm had done
a number on it, but thank the Pantheon, the bar survived. The fish was flaky and hot with spices, while the shellfish was so tender, it required only the smallest effort of chewing.

  For the next two hours, we crammed our faces with succulent seafood and kept our drinks filled. When we had finished our feast, a much more sober Jord said, “You guys still haven't told me how you did it.”

  “Did what?” I asked. I took another sip, even though my belly felt like it was going to burst. I undid the top button of my trousers for more room.

  “How you killed Shin'ray.”