The Ghost of Sephera

by J. D. Tew

  As I gazed on in wonder, there was no denying it; the substance that was miraculously helping my crew at this pivotal moment were Dietons.

  How? I thought.

  The mass of orange-hued energy settled on the harsh ice field, flowing into a definitive monstrosity—a fifty-foot tall replica... of me, Theodore Crane.

  Everyone was shocked and horrified at the giant creature that stared down at the Exogens, now challenging them on much more evenly matched terms of engagement.

  The Exogens started to retreat, but the gigantic Dietonical Theodore crashed its fists downward on the ice. As multiple colossal cracks developed outward, one of the Exogen troops flew at least twenty meters from the mini-quake reverberating through the icy tundra. The Rangier soldier ejected from within the torso of the fallen Exogen, and ran into Zigon’s crevasse on foot to escape. The remainder of the Exogens panicked before the newly formed horrific being, and fled. Only a Theodore-shaped anomaly could have scared them off like this.

  The threat was gone.

  The monumental Theodore replica kneeled down on the barren ice surface and bowed, indicating its deference to us. I was overwhelmed and awed by its show of power and its servitude to me personally.

  ‘Who are you?’ I yelled through the ship’s speakers, then facing away from the intercom, I gave last-minute instructions to my crew to tend to the injured crewmate immediately. ‘Sustain Dan, now!’

  ‘We are the Dietons you freed from slavery on the planet Karshiz!’ the enormous monstrosity bellowed. I was covering my ears because the giant culmination of Dietons was unbearably loud. ‘Freedom is not just for the living, Theodore. You can attest to that.’

  ‘Why are you doing this for me?’ I asked, screaming at the loudest volume I could reach. ‘I thought Dietons had no feelings!’

  ‘We do as we are meant to.’

  I asked, ‘What is that? I mean, what are you meant to do?’

  ‘Protecting those who are in need is our mission now.’

  ‘Thank you!’ I shouted, signaling to ED to take the ship away. ‘I have to go before the Dacturons attack us! And I’m sure the Council wants our heads, too! Will we see you again?’

  ‘We will be with you to the very end, Theodore.’

  As Freebird pulled away, soaring toward the exit to the overhead ice roof, I watched through the observation window as three Council vessels soared over the top of the ice plates, determined to kill us. The giant Theodore ejected laser beams at the vessels as if they were target practice; these were Council motojex fliers. One by one, they exploded ignobly in the air into a fiery crescendo, crashing sickeningly into the inhabitable ice tundra. They were no match for the Sepheran miracle.

  ‘It’s the Council!’ I shouted. These doomed three flying vessels were Council jets, accompanied by five Rangier Exogons in flight configuration. Freebird took off, that much closer to the giant hole in the ice ceiling.

  The giant Theodore propagated its particles into the space around itself, and thus disintegrated so that it no longer presented a visible target to the enemy. In an effort to snag victory, two Exogons deployed a mobilized electro-magnetic pulse unit. We were to escape before it could impact us, but ED had warned us, ‘Theodore, the Exogens have launched an electro-magnetic pulse! We must leave!’.

  “Go!” I hollered, stricken with fright at this weapon which was devastating to equipment and monitors.

  As I took one last glimpse through the giant screen on the ship, the warm orange aura from the Dietons presence disappeared, as the Sepheran disassembled in retreat.

  Thankfully, we were strapped in, because ED didn’t take my order lightly. We were in maximum overdrive, and I felt as if my brain was plastered to the backside of my cranium, while we soared through the open ice cavern toward Zong. As I gazed down through the mile-long hole, I saw the reddish-orange fury of a huge blast within. We had left just in time. In fact, I was most thankful to the ice barrier; it probably shielded us from the ship’s controls becoming forever incapacitated.

  ‘ED, place the ship into autopilot! We need you in the infirmary, for Dan! We need all hands to the infirmary!’

  “My heart was pounding so hard it could rattle my uvula. It was at that moment, I realized the victory of saving Liam could be nullified by the death of Dan.”

  16 THEODORE: LIFE OR DEATH

  Three hundred and twelve days, fourteen hours, twenty minutes, and fifty-three seconds. That’s how long I’ve been in this prison. Plus, another ten seconds for the thought that just passed by.

  But that didn’t count the two days I had been in a concussion when I first arrived at the prison. How many hours would that be? Assuming I was brought here after a three hour, nineteen minute, and ten second journey, the total would be three hundred and fourteen days, eleven hours, and fifty-three seconds. Wait… add another twenty-four seconds for that last calculation. So that would be…

  Oh, my head.

  No release from this prison in my future.

  I set the tablet down for a moment. I tilt my head toward my left shoulder eliciting a few comforting cracks, relieving a kink and stiffness from my string of endless anecdotes.

  Placing my hands against the wall, I lean into it, lightly banging my head against it out of frustration; I feel like giving up. The speaker system crackles, indicating someone is preparing to speak to me from the outside.

  “All right, just stop already!” I shout.

  “What the hell did you say, prisoner!”

  “Nothing! I—I am just taking a short break. I’ll get back to it!”

  “That’s right, you better get back to it, or you will see what it’s like to have the end of this electric prod shoved down your scraggly throat!” The new sergeant is crazy. The slightest wisecrack leads to a threat of punishment.

  I start my account again quickly by saying, “Our ship was on an emergency course for the barter town of Zong, in order for me to grab the next available ship to Sephera to meet Lincoln. I was very much in doubt of this mission, because of what happened to King Trazuline’s troops in Booyang. Nonetheless, with nothing more to go on, we would have to seek the king, and I had some ingenious ideas on how to find him. Pritok told me to come here just before he died, and I was going to honor his last wishes.”

  While I was vastly relieved that we had just barely escaped the Council’s electromagnetic pulse explosion, we were very concerned for Dan’s severe injuries. Often, great victories throughout war are matched by depressing failures.

  I shouted, ‘ED, Dan isn’t waking up!’ expending all of the air in my tired lungs. Mariah appeared immobilized upon the sight of Dan’s blood gushing out, her eyes glossed over like smoked glass and her face a pale olive tone. I yelled, ‘Mariah, snap out of it!’ causing her to scurry toward the medicinal supply cupboards to assist ED.

  Dan’s blood was splattered and smeared like Jackson Polluck graffiti against our gear. Beads of sweat glistened on all of our foreheads.

  ‘Is he gonna die? Because if so, I don’t think I can handle that,’ Liam said in a husky voice. He ran off to pilot the ship.

  ED grabbed Dan’s feet, and I frantically shuffled my feet toward the infirmary, with my hands cupped under Dan’s armpits. Along the way, I noticed a trail of Dan’s blood up to the medical bay. The soles of my feet left prints of blood behind me after each step. We gently set Dan on the operating table. I started heaving, placed my hand on the framed metal entry to the room to support my weakened body, and delivered my stomach acid upon the floor. The ample puddles of blood were too much to handle for me. I was seeing stars from my violent puking. I had already lost Lincoln to the war, and Dangling Dan was threatening to join him.

  I quickly wiped my face clean, returning to the catastrophe. I was only trained at the basic level of medical emergency response. ED was assessing vitals, but Dan was still registering a steady pulse.

  ‘Wash your hands, Theodore,’ ED said. After washing my hands, I found trouble placing the saggy gloves ove
r my wet fingers; I grabbed one size of gloves that was too big.

  I kept dry heaving. My tears and sweat stung my eyes. Immediately, I grabbed a dressing and bundled it into a ball, holding it firm on Dan’s wound. The blood saturated the wad I had pressed firmly into the gaping wound, and flowed over my fingers, as my tears and sweat were lost in the red. From ED’s chest, a robotic appendage exited and extended toward Dan’s left leg, inserting the needlepoint of a syringe.

  ‘Do we need to tourniquet?’ I asked in dread.

  ‘No, we’re not at that point. I gave him a coagulant, which should slow the bleeding,’ ED said. ‘At this stage, it will take more than dephlocontis. His tissue is destroyed in some areas. He needs surgery.’

  I removed my pressure on Dan’s leg, as ED took over in a surgical role, which was beyond my expertise. The color left Dan’s face, fading from a peach tint into a grayish hue. I brought my eyes from his still face back towards the wound.

  While I cleaned around Dan’s wound with a damp sponge, ED’s left metallic hand ejected something similar to a pliers: there was two total, the stainless steel objects were portable and he applied them immediately to the ends of the red and wiry vein in Dan’s leg. He referred to the instruments as hemostats. The blood leaking from the wound slowed from a pulsing flow to slow and viscous ooze. ED spoke out his actions as if he was verbally checking a list of tasks in predetermined procedure. Mariah brought over more bandages, darting back and forth in assistance of ED’s expertise.

  ‘I am isolating the artery now. Preparing to excise two meta meters at each end of the artery.’ ED’s unique monocular device extension ejected from his eye and he cleanly cut the two ends of the severed arteries with a laser. I wiped away blood near the opening, initially my right hand slipped across Dan’s moist flesh, but I regained control.

  ED said, ‘I am cleaning up the ends, prepping them for suture. I will remove this destroyed tissue here.’ After removing some dead and ravaged tissue, another rotary arm emerged from ED’s body and he began to sew the two ends of the vein together with delicate needlepoints. The flow of the blood slowed even further, and ED began to close the wound.

  ED shouted, ‘Hold out your hand!’ From his finger-like robot hand ejected a tack-sized point, to poke my right hand, which was shaking from the shock of Dan’s severe predicament. ‘You are not the correct blood type!’ He turned to Mariah, and also disregarded her consent by pricking her left shoulder.

  ‘Ow!’ Mariah protested lightly, holding her shoulder where it had just been pricked.

  ‘You are the correct blood type for Dan,’ ED intoned. Inserting a tube in Mariah’s arm, which cause her to wince even more in pain, he installed the other end into Dan’s leg. This vital transfusion of blood from Mariah to Dan was bringing the color back to Dan’s body; his status eased into normality. His color returned to a pink tinged peach tone.

  ‘I’m going to use deflicontis here, directly on the wound.’ ED tilted the vial containing the yellow slimy plant mucilage, known for its regenerative capability. The wound started to heal before our eyes and Dan started to come back to us.

  He moaned. Dan tossed and turned, ‘Holy shit. I feel sick.’

  I shouted out with glee, ‘It’s okay, buddy. You survived a missile blast just five feet away from you! You’re one strong dude!’ Turning to ED, I said, ‘We should give him more dephlocontis.’

  ‘Theodore, Dan is stable, and we should save some of our supplies for future medical emergencies,’ ED said, pleading for me to reconsider, as our resources were low.

  ‘I need Dan healthy for Zong. Besides, we could be attacked now, by the Council, Dacturons or even Zane’s troops,’ I said, while running down the hall to the lab to grab a vial. Upon entering the lab, I noticed a peculiar bag, which was rattling from side to side. Hearing voices within the bag startled me further, yet I had to get back to my friend.

  After returning to the infirmary, I administered the entire vial into Dan’s saline bag, which was intravenously linked to Dan. I waited for the typical glowing complexion that occurs when someone receives deflicontis. ED was scanning Dan’s thigh with his monocular X-ray vision, checking for signs of progress. No apparent internal bleeding was present, but ED injected Dan with an antibiotic out of precaution.

  ‘Is that the last vial of deflicontis?’ ED asked.

  I said, ‘Thankfully, we still have a few left. Is he stable?’

  ‘His body vitals suggest he is nearing a full recovery, Theodore.’

  ‘Thanks ED, please return to starship command and unleash the bots to clean. I want this place spotless. Mariah, Liam, and I will split shifts to monitor Dan. Dan, will you be okay with some bed rest until we reach Zong?’

  ‘No problem, dude.’ He sounded weak. Mariah and I transported Dan to his room on an automatic gurney. It drove itself; we were just ensuring that it remained on track. The gurney automatically lowered to the height of Dan’s bed and we helped him onto it. Mariah and I walked toward the cockpit; she seemed calmer.

  ‘Mariah, maybe you can show Theodore that cool addition to our group,’ Liam said, as he walked past us toward the infirmary. He was taking up his shift to watch over Dan.

  Mariah perked up, saying, ‘That’s right! I forgot all about them. They were in your pack the whole time!’

  ‘Them? Who are they?’ I asked.

  Mariah pulled out a small kennel fit for a guinea pig out of Liam’s pack. After pressing a few buttons on the exterior of the package, a small hatch illuminated and separated from the top surface, creating an opening. ‘Meet Philmai and Jchetski, the Piexon brothers! Watch out, they’re feisty.’

  ‘Let me go, you filthy human.’

  ‘Yeah, let us go, you bald apes.’

  ‘What do you want from us?’ They both yelled, each with an escalating pitch overlapping the other, their voices like munchkins.

  ‘Will you shut up? It’s like I’m stuck in a cave with an echo of my own voice. Although it’s wonderful to confirm my greatness with your echolalia.’

  ‘Oh—you’re so great. Oh—look at me, my name is Jchetski and I’m a twit!’ Philmai shouted, mockingly.

  ‘I’ve got your twit right here! You, you son of a beast’s butt!’

  ‘You know all about beasts’ butts because you have your head all the way—’

  ‘Alright, you guys. That’s enough. Jchetski, is it?’ I asked, in order to interrupt their banter.

  ‘Yes, I am Jchetski and this fat frog belly is my brother Philmai. We are master Armizards from the Bilovian quadrant of the Cliguirox Galaxy.’ Bilovian Armizards were at their tallest around eighteen inches. Their hands were tiny and their fingers were evens smaller. The Piexon brothers, however, were twelve inches tall, with matching pink Mohawks, and by far, the greatest innovators of their craft, which was extreme weapon design. Their size was a drawback for the time it would take them to modify equipment. These guys were mini-weird nerds with funky hair. They were just my type.

  When my crew abruptly left during my meeting with Pritok, they decided to save these two tiny Armizards, Jchetski and Philmai.

  ‘Master. Hah! The only thing you’re master of, is cleaning up after I make all the necessary modifications!’

  ‘We could get better mods from a baby human! You twit.’ A mod was slang for modification.

  ‘Okay, okay guys,’ I said as I stuck my finger through an opening in their cage between them, in hopes of splitting them apart. Just as soon as my finger breached their space, they simultaneously bit it. ‘Ouch! What was that for, you little rats?’

  ‘That’s for keeping us hostage,’ Philmai said.

  ‘I hereby demand you set us free. Did you just call us rats? Speak of yourself, you look like a shaved chimpanzee,’ Jchetski said.

  ‘Yes, only a freak would keep us locked up. Don’t you have any ethical standards?’ Philmai asked.

  ‘I apologize for my friends, they acted rudely by taking you hostage. If I let you go, then will you stop figh
ting?’ I asked, feeling like a father resigned to continual chaos among his kids.

  The Armizards were laughing like Australian Kookaburra birds. I couldn’t help myself. I had to break it up. I said, ‘Alright, lollipop league! I’m in charge of this ship, and you’ll be free when you stop acting like a couple of teasing spider monkeys.’ I turned away, hoping to disengage myself. As I walked down the hallway, I could hear the Peixon brothers mocking me with taunting voices.

  ‘I’m in charge of this ship.’

  ‘Yeah, you’ll be free when you stop acting like spider monkeys.’

  ‘We’re already free, you twit!’

  ‘Yeah, twit!’

  ‘Will you stop copying me?’

  I sighed, feeling like a detached father more than ever before. ‘Okay, let’s make a deal. I will let you loose on my ship if you help me understand my gear’s new mods,’ I said.

  Philmai laughed and said, ‘Let me get this straight.’

  ‘No, allow me, Philmai,’ Jchetski said, after joining in the laughter and interrupting his brother. ‘You will let us free after we do something for you? Isn’t that a bit backwards?’

  ‘What is it with you guys? Okay, I’ll set you free.’

  Philmai and Jchetski looked at each other, looked at me, and started filling me in on my newest modifications. They were much more civil when talking about equipment.

  Let me just begin by saying these guys are the only people in the Galaxy that were good enough to touch a weapon that had seen a million years of use. I could testify to that, based on the intricacies of their magic touches.

  Jchetski said, ‘To experience Wrath is to know love. A sword that surpasses its own worth is a reminder that technology dictates many things. I have only met one other who has wielded the likes of this sword, Zane. Do you know its worth, Theodore? I give you the Armizardian update to the only sword that can be effectively used in a time where laser guns are king: Wrath. Yes, this gun blade’s molten hot flame was weakened during the battle of Jaakruid, which certainly was a product of poor weapon maintenance.’