by Isaac Hooke
Tane watched the liquid stream forth into the voided hangar bay, forming a beautiful spray as it became mist a short ways into the hangar. Momentum swept the mist outside of the ship, preventing it from gathering in the bay.
“You think they shot me on purpose back there?” Tane asked while he waited for the passage beyond to drain.
“No,” Lyra said. “It had to be an accident. I should have probably given you my shield generator.”
Tane held out a gloved hand, placing it into the liquid gushing past in front of him. “Go ahead.”
“I still think they’re more likely to shoot at me, than you,” Lyra said. “If that changes, I’ll give you my generator. But until then, Jed and I need all the protection we can get. My shielding was close to failing, too, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Mine failed,” Jed commented.
“But you have power armor,” Tane said.
“True, that,” Jed said. “I did take a few good hits though.”
Tane examined the metal armor with its glowing runes. “Looks fine to me.”
“You see that armor rating when you look at the stats of your suit?” Jed said. “When you take a hit, the rating goes down. Sometimes all the way to zero. But when you have regenerative armor, it goes back up.”
Tane shook his head. “Regenerative armor, too. Why do you get all the best stuff? Wait, don’t answer that.”
He watched for maybe a minute before the gushing began to subside, becoming a drizzle until he was able to peer into the airlock without issue. Only a small amount of mist trickled from the gap formed by the half circle he had cut into the inner hatch with Lyra.
The Volur stepped to the hatch. Tane made to join her, but she waved a halting hand. She stabbed her energy blade into the crystal where she had left off, and slid the weapon downward, forming an elongated ellipse that would fit a man. When she reached the bottom, she curved the path upward again, connecting with the gap Tane had made. It took her all of three seconds, now that there was no worry of releasing too much of the liquid. She left the top piece intact so that there was only a small connector still holding the large elliptical cutout in place.
Lyra retreated into the hangar and beckoned toward Jed.
The Bander withdrew his energy pistol and charged into the airlock. He kicked down the inner hatch and vanished from view in the corridor beyond.
Tane glanced at his overhead map and watched as the blue dot representing the Bander moved partially down the passageway.
“Seems clear,” Jed said. “The dwellers realized what we were doing and evacuated the neighboring passageway.”
“Let’s go,” Lyra said, leading the way inside.
Tane followed her into the airlock and stepped through the far cutout into the passageway beyond. He activated his shield and checked the levels.
Shield strength 87%.
Not too shabby. Still, it had taken about two minutes to get back to that level from five percent. He definitely needed to upgrade his shield to something that recharged faster whenever he had the chance.
The black crystals continued to compose the passageway here, with the pulsing blue veins in the bulkheads providing the only light. He half expected to feel drawn to those crystals, but thankfully he experienced nothing.
The corridor itself was wide enough to fit two spacesuits abreast. Though Jed wasn’t currently visible, his full battle armor would easily fit with room to spare, unlike the cramped passages of the Red Grizzly. Still, for the dwellers, the corridor would provide about the same level of discomfort as the Red Grizzly did humans: Tane doubted the aliens could fit here without drawing in their legs and crouching low, especially if forced to wear their environmental suits.
That’s one commonality shared across species, then. We design our ships for efficiency, rather than comfort.
Jed flickered into view ahead. He had taken the lead, and held his sword in one hand and his pistol the other. The sword expanded, transforming into a ballistic shield as Tane watched.
“Stay behind me!” Jed said before vanishing from view.
Lyra adjusted her position so that she was standing directly in the center of the passageway, and so did Tane, who was following a meter and a half behind her. He wanted to stay behind the cover provided by Jed’s ballistic shield, so that if anything got through, it would have to penetrate Lyra’s shield before reaching Tane.
Because of the timing of the pulsing blue veins, there were moments when the passageway fell into complete darkness, though it only lasted for a few seconds. Each footfall made no sound, because of the voided atmosphere. It was eerie as hell.
The passageway matched the strange layout Tane had seen on the map, and often doubled-back upon itself, branching off at a two hundred and seventy degree angle. Tane didn’t entirely understand the reasoning behind it. On the blueprints the passageways often turned back like that, zigging and zagging before reaching any adjoining compartments. Tane guessed the strange design might serve to buttress the hull, and perhaps reinforce hull integrity ship-wide. Then again, these were aliens, after all. Their thinking would be entirely unlike that of a human’s, as would their ship design.
According to the map, the trio were heading toward the closest cargo bay Lyra had marked off, about two hundred fifty meters ahead, past several zig zagging corridors and two smaller compartments.
Tane glanced over his shoulder often to make sure there were no aliens sneaking up behind them. After a few glances, he realized Lyra didn’t seem to share his concern about pursuers: she never looked back. That seemed strange to him, because according to the overhead map there were multiple passageways leading to that particular hangar bay. And it wouldn’t take much for the aliens to suit up and pursue them.
“You know your spacesuit contains a rear camera, right?” Lyra said at one point.
Ah.
Tane examined the suit user interface on his HUD and found the “rear view mirror emulation” feature. He activated it and a video feed representing the view from behind his helmet appeared in a horizontal bar along the top of his vision.
That’s better.
“Seems strangely quiet in here,” Tane said.
“Shh!” Jed said over the comm.
The lull before the tempest.
Tane was the first to spot the dweller in the passageway behind. It was wearing a protective suit. The legs of the suit were tucked in close, and the alien crouched low in the passage, barely fitting. But that didn’t stop it from carrying an energy launcher.
Tane activated his Essence Energy Sword and spun to face the alien. It released a shot, and Tane used his training to deflect the bolt into the bulkhead beside him.
He spotted more of the dwellers in the crystalline corridor behind the first, visible past the creature’s outline. They formed a line. There were at least three of them in total that Tane could clearly pick out. The dweller just behind the lead creature was aiming its energy launcher between the gap formed by the first alien’s carapace and the bulkhead.
Tane tried to deflect the shot that came, but his timing was slightly off. He still could only deflect two out of three on a good run.
His shield took the brunt of that blast, and it flashed in complaint.
Shield strength 3%.
“Get behind me!” Lyra said.
Tane shut down his shield to allow Lyra to squeeze past the corridor beside him. She took up a position between him and the aliens, and he reactivated his shield, as did she, no doubt. She launched several Essence Missiles at the dweller. Its armor held up to the first few blows, but the force of the impacts sent it plowing into the aliens behind it.
Lyra glanced at him. “Keep moving!”
Tane continued after Jed, using his overhead map to ensure he followed the invisible Bander closely.
“Maybe they’ve changed their mind about capturing me after all!” Tane said.
“Maybe so,” Lyra said.
Looking at his rear view mirror, Tane sa
w that she had her back to him, and was following just behind. The dwellers in the distance were all down, and the protective suit of the leading creature was torn apart.
Jed led them past a tight bend. No, not a bend. A T intersection. That was a first, and almost seemed a little incongruent given the designs of the previous corridors.
Jed took the leftmost branch, and the corridor quickly ended in a crystalline wall.
Tane checked his map. That wall wasn’t supposed to be there—the passageway was supposed to continue toward a compartment farther down.
“Breach seal,” Jed said, his power armor flickering into view. He remained visible, now.
“So these aliens use breach seals, too,” Tane said.
“Of course,” Lyra said. “It’s a universal ship design. Though in the more advanced vessels, especially those used by Volur, the seals are more semipermeable membranes than anything else, allowing qualified crew members to traverse them with ease while keeping the atmosphere contained.”
“I know, Volur are the best,” Tane said dryly.
“Let me pass,” Jed said.
Tane and Lyra squeezed against the bulkhead to allow the big man through. Jed took his place at the rear, positioning his ballistic shield to provide as much cover as possible for himself, Tane and Lyra.
“Tane, with me,” Lyra said.
Tane deactivated his shield and stood beside the seal with Lyra. They engaged their Essence swords in unison and began to cut. Yellow mist gushed from the gashes they formed.
“Easy!” Lyra said as the mist became liquid. “You’re moving too fast!”
“Sorry,” Tane said. “Guess I’m a bit anxious.”
Without warning the crystalline seal opened upward of its own accord.
Tane was swept backward by the torrent of liquid hydrocarbon atmosphere that swelled forth. He shut off his weapon so that he didn’t cut himself in half with it.
He smashed into something hard and bounced upward. As he was swept away, he realized it was Jed whom he had crashed over. The Bander seemed firmly rooted to the deck. Good for him.
But not so good for me.
Tane slid past the T intersection he had passed earlier and continued down the passageway, dragged onward by the raging river. The feeling was somewhat similar to giving himself up to the Essence, except with the latter he didn’t have to worry about smashing into crystal bulkheads. His teeth were jarred several times as the liquid steered him about.
The fluid began evaporating around him, so that by the time he rolled to a stop, only a fleeting yellow mist remained in the passageway.
No, not passageway. He had been swept into a rather large compartment.
He was surrounded by dwellers. At least twenty strong. All clad in protective suits.
And all carrying energy launchers.
30
Tane glanced at his overhead map. Lyra and Jed remained near the breach seal. How they had managed to secure themselves, he didn’t know.
He didn’t have time to ponder it, not with dwellers surrounding him, each and every one of them ready to fire.
Could they tell that his shield was deactivated? He decided that turning it on would be considered an aggressive action, especially considering that twenty energy launchers would easily penetrate.
So instead he held up his hands, hoping the creatures understood the human gesture for surrender. He gripped the hilt of his energy sword firmly in hand. The blade was deactivated. For the time being.
A dweller beckoned to another nearby; that particular alien secured its energy launcher to a large holster on its suit and stepped forward. The other dwellers kept their weapons trained on Tane.
He searched their ranks, looking for a bigger dweller that might be the Graaz’dhen, but they were all the same size. Too bad.
The approaching dweller’s energy shield flickered, and Tane thought the creature had just turned it off. Sure enough, one of its tentacles shot forward a moment later.
Screw this.
Tane turned on his shield and the tentacle bounced away harmlessly. At the same time he touched the Essence and activated his energy sword, stabbing it downward with both hands into the deck underneath him. He twirled the weapon in a rapid circle as liquid hydrocarbons gushed upward.
He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t to go flying into the air as the unleashed liquid geysered upward. He was actually still standing on the small circular plug he’d cut out of the deck before he crashed into the ceiling.
He plunged along an arc toward one of the dwellers. He stabbed down with his sword, so that when he impacted, the weapon passed through the creature’s shield and split the dome containing that sideways-opening head in half. The enemy dropped underneath.
As liquid from the hole sprayed in all directions, Tane leaped at the next dweller. He cut its energy launcher in half, and his blade continued onward, biting through the shield, hewing off some tentacles, and carving a pleasing gap into the underside of its protective suit. Intestines literally burst forth, thanks to the pressure differential.
Tane spun to the left and extended his free hand, trying an Essence Missile. He wasn’t sure it would work, since he was only successful two times out of three with that particular Branchwork, but the Missile launched. It passed through the shield of the dweller he had targeted, and slammed into the translucent dome on the carapace, breaking it. The force of the impact ripped the dweller’s head inside right off.
He switched to Essence Sight and fought from the third person perspective behind himself.
He took down three more dwellers before an energy bolt struck him from the side.
Shield strength 0%.
The weakened bolt impacted his spacesuit and knocked him off his feet. His suit integrity remained intact, thankfully—the shield had been at sixty-five percent before the impact, so his suit didn’t have to absorb too much of the blow. His rib area was still blackened by the impact.
It was hard to see with all the mist spewing from the vaporizing liquid; but then two dwellers emerged from the fog, coming straight at him. Their shields must have been offline because their tentacles were outstretched toward him: they obviously intended to snatch him up now that his shield strength was zero.
Tane clambered to his feet and spun at the same time, cutting those tentacles right off.
“We’re coming for you,” Lyra said over the comm. Her voice distorted badly.
“No,” Tane said. “Get Sinive. I’ll draw them away and meet you there.”
“Are you sure?” Lyra said.
“Yes, I got this!” Tane said, feeling more confident than he felt. “They’re not shooting to kill.”
Not yet.
He was surrounded on all sides, with no path to the entrance. Energy launchers were quickly coming to bear; if the aliens weren’t shooting to kill before, they were definitely considering it.
Because Tane had Essence Sight active, he saw right away when the outflow from the deck diminished, and he sprinted toward the small opening he’d made with his sword. Yellow mist was still venting from it as he leaped through.
He landed in another wide compartment. This one seemed to be some kind of barracks, judging from the small alcoves set into the crystalline walls. Dwellers in suits formed a long line near the middle of the compartment, queuing to retrieve energy launchers from a rack near the entrance before leaving. Apparently they were collecting shield generators as well, because those in line were positioned too close together for any of them to currently have shields.
All the aliens turned to look at him at the same time.
Whoops.
He unleashed an Essence Missile at the closest, aiming for the center of mass. The impact tore into its carapace and shoved the large creature into the dweller immediately behind it. Yellow mist gushed from the tear in its suit.
Another dweller rushed him. Tane tried Essence Missile again. The Branchwork failed.
He swung his sword at the last
moment, slicing away those tentacles. Then he leaped to the side before the dweller plowed into him and opened a swath of gore across its carapace.
Tane ripped an energy grenade from his chest and threw it at two more dwellers behind him. The explosion tore into their suits.
He continued in that way, cutting his way forward through the defenseless creatures, tossing only one more grenade. Some of the dwellers tried to grab hold of him from behind, but because of Essence Sight, he saw them all before they touched him and he spun to slice the tentacles away. One did manage to make contact, but his shield had regenerated to ten percent by then, and the limb bounced away.
He occasionally switched to first person perspective to align the targeting reticle of his sword over an opponent, and released an Essence bolt. Though not as powerful as the Essence Missile, it was usually enough to disable a dweller by perforating the protective suit. And at least it worked every time.
In the space of thirty seconds he had felled almost all the aliens in that compartment. As he neared the entrance, he was met by dwellers wielding energy launchers, and he dodged to the side as they opened fire. While there was probably a general order to capture him alive, apparently these dwellers had decided self-preservation was more important.
Tane took cover behind a fallen dweller. He was feeling exhausted, mostly because of all the Essence he had been Siphoning, and found himself missing those Endurance rings Lyra had taken back. He didn’t think he could draw the Essence for much longer, not if he didn’t want to burn himself out, so he decided to conserve his energy. He released the raging cold inside of him and the bright blade vanished.
He secured the sword hilt to his waist and slid the D18 down from his shoulder. He selected the “smart targeting” feature, leaned past his cover, aimed in the general direction of the three armed dwellers standing near the exit, and squeezed the trigger.
The muzzle rotated in rapid succession, releasing bolts equally among the three targets, ten rounds per target, firing in a tri-pronged dispersion pattern. And though he had used up his full charge, the dwellers remained standing. Obviously they had managed to procure shields in addition to energy launchers, and his plasma bolts hadn’t penetrated.