by Isaac Hooke
“The external bay has pressurized,” Cub said. “Dwellers are entering already. I count five. Eight. Twelve. All of them are equipped with weapons. I am receiving a transmission demanding that we open the ramp.”
“Then give them what they wish for,” Lyra said, once more her voice the epitome of calm. “Open the ramp.”
Now that the battle was imminent, Tane felt a clarity like no other. His hands stopped trembling, and he knew what he had to do.
He cleared his mind with the ease of one who had spent many years Siphoning, and whispered a quiet thank you to the unknown man whose brain dump had given him the ability.
With his mind emptied of all thought, Tane readied himself to touch the Essence through the sword hilt.
The ramp began to lower. Yellow liquid gushed inside from the cracks along the edges. Jed drew his power sword and his armored body vanished from view.
The liquid quickly filled the cabin up to Tane’s waist, and as the ramp lowered further, in moments he was completely engulfed by the liquid. He could still see through his faceplate: the environment around him had turned a yellow hue thanks to the liquid, and his movements became slow, unwieldy.
Jed must have been venting oxygen from his suit, because when the ramp was three-fourths open, the sword appeared again, moving rapidly forward. Jed himself momentarily flickered into existence, holding the sword, and blasted out past the opening ramp with a sudden burst of speed.
Lyra followed just behind her Bander, also venting oxygen behind her as thrust. She held one gloved palm out in front of her, the other upside-down, index fingers pointing outward.
Tane Siphoned the Essence through the hilt, activating his energy sword with a burst of near blinding white light. He hadn’t been sure it would work in the liquid environment, and was glad to see that it did. He received the usual 18% Siphoning bonus notification for drawing through the hilt.
He kept his perspective inside himself for now, as there wasn’t much room for a third-person view inside of the shuttle. It did make the sword badly occlude his vision, but he held it out of the way to the side as Lyra had taught.
He cranked the servomotors to full power and found the oxygen release area on the suit’s user interface, and vented it through two nozzles near his lower back, thrusting forward. Too high: he was going to smash his helmet into the shuttle’s overhead. He quickly adjusted the thrust direction but his protective shield still nicked the overhead of the shuttle, causing a translucent quarter sphere to flash into existence above him as the shield absorbed the blow and redirected his motion downward.
Shield strength 87%.
Off to a bad start.
Tane further adjusted his thrust direction so that he was headed down the ramp, then he cut off the outflow.
Lyra was a short distance in front of him in the liquid environment, and beyond her he saw only a commotion of tentacles and thick legs. To his right, two other alien craft were docked in the hangar beside Grizzly Cub. They were dark, arrowhead-shaped shuttles, like large black diamonds.
A dweller dropped toward Tane from above...
29
Because Tane’s suit servomotors were operating at full strength, he was able to move his arms just as if he was in an atmospheric environment, and the Essence blade easily traveled through the liquid hydrocarbons to intercept the enemy. The weapon split that sideways-opening maw right in half. The Dweller plummeted into Tane’s shield, causing a half-dome to momentarily flash into being, then the large body bounced off and continued its lifeless descent, a quivering stream of black blood oozing from its head.
Shield strength 75%.
Tane threw out the lifeline of Essence Sight and his vision snapped to third-person perspective behind him. He fired a quick burst of oxygen from a directional nozzle on the right side of his body, and that spun him toward Lyra, swiveling his viewpoint so that she was in sight. Jed’s blade flashed in and out of view beside her, taking down three dwellers that towered over them. The maimed bodies simply floated in place, no longer moving.
Lyra’s chest meanwhile erupted in bright flashes of light as she launched Essence Missiles that tore through the liquid. Dwellers split apart instantly when struck, their pieces plowing into other aliens behind them.
Tane spotted a dweller positioned near the far corner behind the shuttle. It was lining up an energy launcher with Lyra’s back.
Tane released a rearward burst of thrust, sending him straight toward the alien. His aim was perfect.
Now I’m getting the hang of this.
He caught the surprised creature off guard, and it struggled to redirect the weapon toward Tane. He wondered if the alien would actually fire if it got him in its sights, or if it would realize who he was at the last moment and avoid pulling the trigger. He also wondered if his shield would absorb the blow, or allow it through.
Tane decided he wasn’t going to test either scenario.
He increased thrust and rapidly closed the distance, swinging his sword at the same time. This creature was shielded: a half-dome of energy sparked into existence when the Essence blade struck. The weapon cut right through the shield and the underlying body itself with nearly no resistance whatsoever.
Tane bounced off the lifeless body as he got close enough for his own energy shield to kick in.
Shield strength 61%.
Damn. He should have reverse thrust at the last moment, rather than allowing his shield to cushion his impact.
Tane fired a side nozzle to swivel back toward the main fighting: it was faster than trying to swim, something he didn’t know how to do anyway. Once more he felt a tinge of regret for not picking up the skill when he could have.
The hangar proved far taller than Tane had originally supposed, and more dwellers were firing at Lyra and Jed from above. The pair must have had incredible energy shields, because so far the devices hadn’t failed, and Tane watched the half-spheres constantly spark into existence as the energy launchers unleashed.
Two more aliens were swimming toward Tane, but when he rotated himself toward them, and flaunted his energy sword, they backed off. They weren’t firing, he noted.
That hypothesis has been proven, then.
Jed momentarily blinked into existence. He was thrusting upward, heading toward the dwellers overhead, and then disappeared once again. Meanwhile Lyra continued to deal with the four remaining aliens that were firing at her from near the airlock. Those dwellers seemed to be using the extensive bodies of their dead comrades as cover against her Essence Missiles. She was releasing the bright works rapidly in an effort to tear those remaining bodies apart, but she succeeded only in causing stacked body parts to ricochet off of one another, or sometimes from the shields of the four dwellers behind them.
Tane released a rear burst to travel toward her, and he positioned himself to protect her back from the aliens who were approaching from behind. He placed his body just beyond the combined shield distance of Lyra and himself, leaving a little over a meter clearance as Jed had taught him to do. The incoming fire upon her unprotected side ceased once he moved into place.
“Tane, get back!” Lyra said. “Your shield can’t take more than a couple of bursts at full strength!”
“They won’t shoot you while I’m here!” Tane said.
Above, several dwellers skirted to the side, avoiding Jed’s blade as it sparked into view. The furtive aliens made their way toward Tane and Lyra.
Tane slid his arm behind his head, and snapped his perspective back inside of himself to target one of the aliens.
Before he could align the virtual reticle, an energy bolt struck him and his shield flickered.
Shield strength 5%.
Crap. The next hit would pass right through his shield, and likely the armor underneath.
Tane fired a burst of rear thrust, intending to dive for cover beside the Grizzly Cub. He threw out his lifeline and switched to Essence Sight.
Lyra abruptly spread her hands wide. Tane saw it though
his back was to her because of his third person perspective.
A spherical shockwave erupted from Lyra. It passed through Tane, and sent all of the dwellers in the compartment flying outward, away from her. Their bodies hung motionless in the water, tentacles trailing behind them: it was obvious they had been stunned at the very least.
And then Tane found himself pulled inexorably backward. He realized that the hangar bay door was open, because soon he was being sucked out into the void of space. The shuttles remained glued to the deck behind him, no doubt in part because of the artificial gravity.
The liquid desublimated and vaporized into fine crystals all around him, forming a yellow mist. Meanwhile squirming dwellers froze beside him, and floated past lifelessly alongside the maimed body parts of their brethren.
Tane’s stomach was doing somersaults out there. He had never experienced weightlessness before, and it made him sick to his stomach. He felt like he was going to vomit.
He released the Essence and deactivated his sword.
Not going to throw up. Not going to.
He couldn’t see Jed or Lyra anywhere within that spreading mist. He glanced at his overhead map and the blue dots indicated they were still aboard, inside the alien hangar. He was surprised he was still getting a signal, though he supposed without any bulkheads in the way the range would be much enhanced. Plus their signal would piggyback on the mixnet node in the shuttle.
He swallowed three times, trying to dispel the nauseous feeling in his stomach. It wasn’t really working.
Focus. Get back to the ship.
He voided his oxygen canisters through the rear nozzles of his lower back, and thrust back toward the ship. Though he soon left behind the dispersing yellow mist, he didn’t seem to be making much progress.
“Don’t waste your oxygen,” Jed said over the comm. His voice digitally distorted. “I’m coming for you.”
“Okay.” Tane stopped the oxygen venting. On his overhead map, the blue dot representing Jed moved away from the ship, toward Tane.
The stars were rotating slightly around him, and Tane realized that could be contributing to his queasiness. He vented some oxygen from the side vents and arrested his rotational motion. Yes, that seemed to help.
He felt well enough to ask: “By the way, did you do that, Lyra?”
“What, open the bay doors?” she said. Her voice was even more distorted than Jed’s. “No. I guess the dwellers decided they didn’t want us aboard after all.”
“At least not some of us,” Jed said. “But we’re not going to give them the pleasure of denying our company.”
Tane spotted one of the alien shuttles heading toward him. The craft must have launched shortly after he was sucked from the bay.
“Uh,” Tane said. “I think I understand what they were planning now. Eject us from the bay, and retrieve the one they want…”
“I see it,” Jed said.
The black, diamond-shaped shuttle continued to approach. Still feeling slightly sick, Tane was able to touch the Essence through the hilt. When the sword powered up, he held the weapon slightly behind him and attempted to line up the targeting reticle with the incoming object.
He released a shot, but the Essence bolt missed. He would have to lead the target.
Some AI assistance would be nice here!
He remembered Lyra’s training on the subject.
“The bolts move faster, the higher your skill,” Lyra had said. “And the more Essence you’re capable of Siphoning into the weapon. For example, the bolts launched from the Essence Lance of a starship travel at close to half the speed of light. But for you, drawing from a small Chrysalium hilt, with level zero skill, you’ll have to lead any moving targets.”
Tane tried again, but missed. The ship shot something at him. It looked like a net connected to the crystal ship by a long cord.
Tane issued side thrust to slide himself out of the way. Once again he felt his gorge rising.
A moment later a blue sword flashed on top of the shuttle and drove through the hull, cutting a long gash. Then it disappeared and the ship drifted away.
“Deactivate your shield, Farmer,” Jed said.
Tane did so. He also released the Essence, and his energy blade vanished. He secured the hilt to his utility belt.
Jed appeared in his glowing power armor, coming in at high speed from the side. The Bander grabbed Tane and then thrust back toward the ship.
The motion made Tane’s tender stomach do another flip, and he nearly threw up right there.
The alien vessel came up quickly, and when Jed crossed the threshold, the artificial gravity took hold.
The Bander flipped his legs down to land upright, releasing Tane, who simply crashed to the deck on his side.
The impact caused Tane to void the contents of his stomach. White slime streaked down his chin and onto the faceplate.
He felt better immediately.
Tane scrambled to his feet and dusted himself off. “Well.”
“I would suggest not vomiting inside your suit again,” Jed said, apparently noticing the white stain on the lower part of Tane’s faceplate. “You could clog your regulator.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tane said.
“Remind me to take you on a weightlessness tolerance evolution sometime,” Jed said.
“Sounds like fun,” Tane commented. “Tell me something. When you go invisible like that, is that a skill, like Sneak or something? Or is that the armor?”
“More the armor,” Jed said. “Though a skill is involved, yes.”
“Jed, make sure the aliens can’t close those doors again,” Lyra said.
Jed went to the hangar bay doors, which looked like huge black crystals offset against the bulkheads. The Bander hammered his sword into the edges of first one door, and then the other, cracking away huge chunks. Then he turned around and said: “The dwellers won’t be closing these.”
Lyra was waiting next to the airlock.”Whenever you’re ready… Tane, I could use your help here.”
Tane walked toward her. Now that he had a few moments to properly observe his surroundings, he noted the odd make-up of the alien compartment. It seemed to be composed of a black crystal shot through with red veins. The deck underneath him was rough, with small octagons of crystal protruding at slightly different heights. It would be easy to trip if he wasn’t careful. The bulkheads were spidered with blue rather than the red veins of the deck, and some of those veins pulsed slightly, as if containing a hidden power; it was those pulses that provided the varying illumination.
Tane noticed a man-sized hole had been cut into the rocky bulkhead beside Lyra, and the surface had fallen away into the compartment beyond, its outline protruding from the deck there. No doubt it was the outer hatch of an airlock. In the alcove formed by that compartment, another crystalline bulkhead awaited on the other side—the inner hatch.
Tane realized Lyra was holding the hilt of an Essence Energy Sword in one glove, no doubt retrieved from her storage pouch.
“You had a spare,” Tane said.
“Of course,” Lyra said.
“What happened to, ‘the Essence is my weapon?’” Tane asked.
“It still is,” Lyra answered. “Though in some cases it’s more practical to use different tools. Help me cut through the inner hatch.”
“Shouldn’t we wait until our shields regenerate to full strength?” Tane asked. He checked his own. It was back to sixty percent—it continued charging even when deactivated.
“No,” Lyra said. “The longer we delay, the more time the dwellers have to come up with a counter strategy. By now they’ve realized we never had any intention of surrendering you. And we still have to wait for the atmosphere in the adjacent passageway to vent, so there’s no time to lose.”
“Should one of us stay here to protect the shuttle?” Tane asked.
“No need,” Lyra said. “We’re going to expose the surrounding decks to the void: the dwellers will have a bit of tr
ouble getting here. Besides, it’s you they want, not the shuttle. Now, if you’re ready…”
Tane retrieved his hilt and drew Essence through the Chrysalium, powering the blade. Beside him, Lyra activated her own sword. She entered the airlock, and assumed a position in front of the far bulkhead—the inner hatch. Her shield was down, so Tane was able to squeeze in beside her. Their weapons were completely silent in the void, the characteristic buzzing unnervingly absent.
“When you pierce the hatch,” she said. “The liquid atmosphere will flow through. It will seem a mist at first, but as the gap gets bigger, liquid will begin to flow forth, becoming mist at its tips. Finally, when the hole is big enough, that flow will become an all out gush. When we reach the gush phase, we’ll step aside and let the inner atmosphere void itself entirely, and only then will we finish our hole.”
Tane stabbed his weapon through the hatch, near the top, and it passed through smoothly. Lyra shoved her blade in beside his own. Together, they moved the Essence weapons outward in a circular pattern. Yellow mist erupted from the fissures they formed.
“Ease it!” Lyra said. “Don’t go too fast or you’ll be swept away by the outpour!”
Tane slowed his pace, doing his best to mirror the half circle Lyra was carving. As she promised, as he moved his sword down further, the fog began to make way for yellow liquid, though the tips of the liquid became mist that quivered like flames. Tane could almost believe that he was releasing some sort of constrained fire that licked at his suit.
As he brought his sword down further, the erupting liquid began to reach his suit, splashing past him. It became difficult to see. He turned his head against the flow, and gazed at Lyra, who had also turned toward him. He continued to bring his blade down, matching her pace.
“Okay!” Lyra said when the blades were halfway down the hatch. “Get back!”
Tane retreated back into the hangar proper, and Lyra did likewise. They took up a position on either side of the external hatch.