by Logan Jacobs
“There,” I said as I pointed at it.
“Fuck,” Aurora said.
“Okay,” I began, and I ran my fingers over my head to get my sweaty hair out of my face, “screw the fuel shit. If we get the reactor back on line we teleport out of this hellscape nightmare, right?”
“Yes,” Aurora said as she thought about it. “Good call.”
She went back to a desk she had rifled through just a few moments before and yanked out a large piece of paper that looked like a schematic blueprint of the ship. Her slender, alabaster white finger traced a few of the lines on the paper and then tapped it hard.
“There is a small maintenance shaft that runs from the bridge directly to the main reactor room,” she said and showed me on the blueprint. Sure enough, it showed a straight diagonal corridor that ran from a panel behind the captain's chair to the engine room.
We both rushed over, and Aurora yanked the panel off with adrenaline and Shriike fueled strength. I sighed. The ‘corridor’ was actually little more than a three foot by three foot shaft of darkness. We had about two hundred feet of absolute blackness to shuffle through.
“I’ll go first with my shotgun Equalizer at the ready,” I started as I changed mags for the gun. “You keep your senses stretched out as far as you can like sonar. Can you detect those things?”
“Faintly, and it takes a lot of concentration, but yes,” she replied.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in nine minutes,” computer voice said over the comms as if to say “get on with it already.”
“Let’s do this,” I said and crawled into the pitch black shaft. I felt Aurora squeeze in behind me and the tingle of her Shriike senses as they reached out ahead of us.
It was hard going since we were hunched over, and I had to keep one hand on the smooth metal of the shaft wall to keep balance in the dark. My right hand held a firm grip on the contoured wood handle of the Equalizer which was at eye height and slightly ahead of me. Soon my shoulder ached from the effort, and I could hear my heart beat heavy in my chest. All around us were the faint sounds of what I assumed were those monsters that would have made the aliens in Alien run crying home to mama as they shuffled and moved about the ship looking for prey.
“Come out to space, we’ll get together, have a few laughs,” I Bruce-Willised under my breath in an effort to quell my rising fear. Being stuck in absolute darkness was nerve racking enough on its own. Throw in freaky teeth wraith xenomorphs and a ticking clock of doom, and it was enough to send my flight response into overdrive. “How you doing back there, Aurora?”
“They are all around us, Marc,” she said low, “but there are none that I can detect in the shaft which… is about to end.”
Just as she said ‘end’ I felt the tip of the Equalizer hit metal and a second after that I banged my head into it.
“Ow,” I muttered. “Remind me to teach you the concept of ‘heads up’ when we get back.”
Aurora squeezed in next to me, and we very carefully removed the access panel. Blue-green light flooded into the shaft and after my eyes adjusted to the light, I looked up at a monster that subverted my capacity for all rational thought for at least five seconds.
It was a version of the other silver-black-skinned creatures only thirty feet tall, with four legs and arms the length of two school buses. It rested with its massive shiny belly on top of the main reactor that looked like a giant Duracell AA battery on its side.
Hundreds of the hairless grizzly bear horror aliens scuttled about around the giant one. They were everywhere. On the walls. The ceiling. They crawled all over the reactor core. I heard some gut churning crunching noises and saw a group of the beasts as they huddled over a mass of bloody limbs that I assumed had once been champions.
“Looks like we’re late for the party,” I said in as hushed a voice as I could muster and motioned toward the massacre.
“Thankfully,” Aurora said back. “Marc, look, there.”
She pointed, and I saw a small control panel on the side of the reactor. It blinked red in a heartbeat rhythm. A digital display that blinked in time with the light read “Reset”. It was fifty feet of creature littered floor away. It may as well have been on the other side of the fucking universe.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in five minutes,” computer ticking clock said.
“Marc, what do we do?” Aurora said. The icy fingers of panic tinged her sultry voice.
“Give me a second,” I answered as those same icy fingers caressed my mind.
“We don’t have a second,” she shot back.
The panic tightened its grip on my brain. Made it hard to think. What should I do? What options did we have? Fuck! Aurora and I were going to die on this ship. That was all there was to it. I had failed. For all my one-liners and snappy comebacks and bravado I had failed. We were going to die.
I spiraled into a fear loop. My brain spun. Precious seconds ticked by. Then I heard a gentle voice in the back of my head like a ghost.
“Any choice is better than no choice, son,” my Great Uncle Joe said to me like a silent caress. “Just make one.”
And just like that the panic was gone. I knew what we were going to do. Good or bad it was all we had left.
“Aurora, you still have the dagger, right?” I asked as I searched my battle harness, found the familiar round, softball sized shape clipped to my hip.
“Yes,” she answered and unsheathed it. It looked dull and unassuming. “But what good will it do us? There is no sunlight.”
“Not yet there’s not,” I smiled and showed her the sunflare grenade.
“Will that work?”
“No fucking clue,” I answered. “But it’s all we’ve got. I’m going to need you to fly out there and draw those things attention while I try to get as close to the reboot switch as I can. You get up on Godzilla’s shoulders, and I’ll detonate the grenade. When the dagger activates, stab smiley, and I’ll hit the switch.”
“Are you out of your damn mind?”
“Baby, I sure as shit ain’t sane,” I replied with as much swagger as I could manage. “It’s either this or we fuck like minks until we die in a massive fireball.”
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in three minutes,” computer voice said as if to drive home my point.
“I don’t like being rushed,” Aurora said, and I saw her eyes flare, “let’s go kill these bastards and fuck like animals when we get home.”
“Deal,” I growled and drew my other Equalizer and ran out of the shaft both guns blazing.
Aurora flew out at my side, and I swore I heard the ship’s speakers blast “Bonecrusher” by SoulHat as we did but then again, I was clearly crazy and that could have just been in my head.
The creatures looked genuinely surprised as incendiary rounds smacked into several heads and dark energy bolts threw them into the air to clear a small path toward the button for me.
I pumped my legs as hard as I could and tried to ignore the howls of the creatures, and the sound of their monstrous jaws clacking closed all around me. One tried to take my head off with a massive swipe of its flesh tearing claws, but I twisted and rolled as I shoved the shotgun Equalizer into its belly and pulled the trigger. The beast flew away from me and landed four feet away. I came up on my feet and continued to run toward the reboot switch.
Aurora soared high into the air on her disks of dark matter, her arms flung bolts of the stuff in every direction. She had to weave through the air like a wasp as creatures leapt from the walls to try to bring her down. Blue energy coursed through her tattoos as she ran them through with another dark matter lance she had extended from both her hands. Their blood landed on the ground and sizzled.
I was about fifteen feet away from the switch when the room shook as a roar that would rattle the foundations of hell itself tore through the air.
We’d woken Xeno-Godzilla. And it was pissed.
The force of the roar sent me sprawling to the g
round. Even the beasts stopped and gazed up in terror as big papa began to move.
Its knees cracked loudly as it shoved up and crashed into the ceiling of the room. Silver-black blood splattered from the twenty smaller monsters that had been crushed in between.
Xeno-Godzilla’s mouth opened again, and another roar shook the ship.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in two minutes,” computer voice answered like a smart ass.
I got to my feet and pulled the trigger on my left handed Equalizer as fast as I could. There were so many targets it was as if the Ar’Gywn got overloaded. Beasts yowled in pain as their insides burned but still more came at me.
I heard Aurora yelp as she bounced off a wall and fell ten feet through the air before she got her disks under her again. She glared at the Xeno-Godzilla and flew right toward it.
The other creatures threw themselves at her like shrapnel but she was possessed, leaned forward, arms held back at her sides like a downhill racer. She evaded them all as they crashed around her. Xeno-Godzilla shook its tank sized head and tried to chomp her from the sky with teeth as tall as light poles. Its jaws snapped shut just behind her as she sped through its mouth, curved up into a flip and dropped onto its neck. With one hand she drove a dark matter hook into its hide as the beast tried to shake her off. I saw her other hand flash out with the dull blade of the dagger held high.
I holstered my guns, pulled the sunflare grenade from my belt, and launched it as high as I could in the air in a massive hail Mary.
“Eat your heart out, Tom Brady!” I screamed as a creature slammed into my back and drove me to the ground not six feet from the reboot button.
The grenade flew into the air and seemed to hang for an impossible second before it detonated.
One second the grenade was there, and the next, it was replaced by a yellow ball ten feet in diameter that burned like a sun with roiling seas of superheated ions casting light into every corner of the room.
The beasts shrieked in torment, and their skin burned.
The dagger in Aurora’s hand blazed silver bright like the blade of holy vengeance. She screamed as she brought it down into Xeno-Godzilla’s neck with all her might.
There was a mighty crack, and the creature turned to ashes. Aurora, momentarily stunned, fell.
I tossed the smoldering and stunned creature that had landed on me off my back and jumped into the air. Aurora crashed into my open arms, and we smashed to the floor.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in ten seconds.”
I looked around frantically. I was still five feet away from the reboot switch, and the creatures were starting to recover from the sunflare’s blast.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in eight seconds.”
“Marc?” Aurora looked up at me. I hugged her tight.
“Don’t look, Aurora,” I said as I cradled her with my left arm, and she shoved her head into my shoulder.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in six seconds.”
A rumble began toward the back of the ship, and I felt the first heat waves begin to emanate from the boiling fuel cells.
The creatures began to close in. Saliva filled jaws opened and closed. Claws flexed and scraped the ground. And I had one round left in the shotgun Equalizer.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in four seconds.”
“Don’t worry, Aurora,” I whispered to her as I saw a beast rise to full height five feet away from me.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in two seconds.”
Right in front of the reboot switch.
I pointed without looking.
“Fuel cells will reach critical temperature in zero seconds.”
I pulled the trigger. The beast flew back into the reboot switch.
A heat like none I’d ever felt washed over us.
And then we fell out of the teleportation tube in the Hall of Champions.
Safe.
Alive.
And not roasted.
“Yes!” I pulled Aurora to her feet and kissed her. She kissed me back, hard, as tears streamed down her face.
“Marc,” she gasped when our lips parted, and her eyes burned with desire.
“Suck on that you alien fucks!” I yelled in victory and then saw Grizz as he stood right before us. His face was a mask of fear and dismay.
That’s when I noticed that Artemis and Nova weren’t there. In their place was the diminutive figure of Baba-Tadao.
“Where is Artemis, PoLarr, and Nova?” I asked and let go of Aurora.
“Irrus took them,” Grizz said. “There was nothing I could do to stop him. Unless you turn yourself over, Marc. They will die.”
Chapter Seventeen
“By the Spear of Damnation I tried everything I could to stop them,” Grizz pleaded. The hulking hologram had sunk to his knees one hand to his face, the other balled in a fist, beat at his leg repeatedly. “Curse this impotent ghost existence! Had I been flesh and bone I would have laid waste to them, you must believe me, Marc.”
I rushed to where the mighty warrior had fallen to the ground in his grief and took a knee next to him. I wished with all I had in me that I could put my arm around the great hero. But I could not.
“Grizz,” I said quietly, “I believe you. You are not to blame. Irrus is.”
“I am so sorry, Marc,” he said, his voice full of pain and anger. His eyes full of holographic tears.
“You have no apologizes to make, son of Ar-X’an-Oturi,” I said firmly. “Now stand up and tell me what happened.”
My voice must have held some power I hadn’t yet experienced because he did. Grizz stood to his full six foot six inch height and wiped away his tears. Aurora came up next to him and placed her hand in where his would have been.
“They attacked while you and Aurora were in the tunnel,” Grizz said finally when he had composed himself enough to speak. “Cats. Five of them. And several champions who hid their identities behind masks. No mask could hide the foul stench of one in particular.”
“Tyyraxx?” I asked.
“Yes, although I could never prove it,” Grizz said through clenched teeth. “He more than likely let them through the Hall’s security as well.”
“All our attention was on the match,” Grizz continued. “We were all enraptured when you and Aurora navigated the maintenance tunnel. The tension was almost unbearable. They snuck in like cowards and sprang their attack as silently as the creatures you battled. They deployed a Lothlorian nerve agent used to subdue Wooly Land Whales. Nova still managed to put up quite the fight, to my great pride. And PoLarr held her breath for three full minutes as she battled them. But they were no match for the cowards in the end. I tried to raise security but all our comms were jammed and then I swiped at them with my sword but it was no use. They just laughed and stole away with my loved ones, um, ahem, I mean Nova, Artemis, and PoLarr.”
I just nodded at him as I listened. I was very tired. And sore as hell from when the one creature landed on my back. But I felt a red hot fire spread through me like a plague of violent retribution.
“Moments after they left, Baba-Tadao arrived,” Gizz nodded toward the small rat alien who had a surprisingly calm and gentle face. There was danger in his eyes though. Swift and powerful.
“Fallon sent me to warn you all,” Baba-Tadao said with a deep, slightly Asian accent. He sounded so serene and wise that all turtle jokes died in my throat. “But I was moments too late.”
“Is there anything she can do to stop this?” I asked desperately.
“Alas, no,” Baba responded with a slight shake of his head. “Not yet. You must come with me, Marc Havak. Irrus has demanded you meet him at the Cage.”
“What the hell is the Cage?” Aurora asked. I could tell she was just as worried as I was but her reserves were completely depleted, and she struggled to even stay standing.
“It is an underground fighting arena that the gangs operat
e,” Grizz responded and spat on the floor. “An ‘alternative’ to the Crucible as they claim it. They pit fighter against fighter to the death. No weapons. Only fists.”
“Yes,” Baba agreed. “The Council of Nine No Ones uses it to settle scores without it turning into an all-out war. A council member can fight themselves or use a proxy.”
“How very Game of Thrones,” I snarked.
“Once you enter you may only exit if you are the winner or dead,” Baba said. “You can name a proxy as well, but they must accept.”
I began to take off my armor and guns. I’d had just about enough of the talking and wanted to get on with it.
“Irrus is desperate,” Grizz chimed in. “The rumors I’ve heard say that he has spent almost all of his credit reserves in trying to bring you down, Marc. He has also lost a tremendous amount of respect.”
“Yes,” Baba agreed. “Respect is almost, if not more, valuable than the credits. If the Council do not see him as someone who can hold true on his promises and threats they will take his seat and bequeath it to another. This is Irrus’ last chance to show them he is still worthy. He is as dangerous as he ever was or will be in this moment. He stands to lose everything.”
“I’ll be happy to help him fall,” I said as I grabbed some sports drink from our small gym fridge. It was like Gatorade on crack. Not Blue Betty levels but it would help rehydrate me and give me some fuel for the fight ahead. “Let’s go.”
“I’m coming,” Aurora growled as she stepped toward me.
“You can’t,” Baba sighed. “They will defenilty kill your friends if Marc doesn’t come alone.
“I can sneak in, and--”
“The security will see you,” Baba interrupted. “Only Marc can come.”
“Fuck,” Aurora growled, and then she gave me a hug and kissed me on the cheek. It was uncharacteristically sweet. “I will stay and make sure Grizz is okay. Exterminate the little stain.”
“Grizz,” I called to my fearsome trainer, “I will bring them home or die trying.”
“Marc Havak,” Grizz responded and held my gaze, “there is no one in this universe I would trust more to do so.”