by Bryan Nyaude
“Come with me,” someone whispered, grabbing a hold of my hand and leading me somewhere.
It was a child, and by the looks of it, the boy I had stunned half dead. His grip was strong and heavy like he wanted to crush my hand. I just hoped he held no grudges against me. But where was he taking me?
“Where are we going?” I stopped moving.
“Look,” he replied quickly, looking back at me with such knife-like eyes; it was like he could see right through me. “My sister told me to take you to your armor. I personally don’t like you and think it’s a bad idea to work with you, but I will listen to my sister, for now. Screw up and I will personally take you out.”
Good to know, I guess making mistakes was also out of the option. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing. What was my role in this new operation? The boy led me to this room where their entire armory was. My eyes wondered in every direction, filled with utter fascination. Such remarkable technology was way beyond belief. I had never set my eyes on such well, crafted weapons before. No wonder the world saw Ras as a threat. High level weapons like these were classified as contraband, and anyone seen with this stuff, would probably be jailed. Well, that was on earth, of course. On this planet, those rules didn’t apply. I shifted away from the boy and slid far more into the armory for a better view. I looked left and right, absolutely excited beyond belief. Carelessly, I took one gun and examined it up close—it was light and smooth and ran on some sort of external energy source. I unclipped the cartridge to examine the bullets carefully. Unexpectedly, they were made of an unknown fiber metal. The residue inside the bullets was almost a clear crystalloid liquid. What could it be? A tinge in my neck told me to put it back. I listened to that feeling and placed the gun by the metal table. These weapons were too valuable, and too dangerous to be messed around with. In the wrong hands, a whole city, perhaps, even an entire country could be destroyed within mere weeks. I couldn’t let that happen. If opportunity presented itself, I was going to destroy this whole base. My new allies didn’t seem to be trustworthy. They had another exterior motive behind their words of alliance.
“Get what you need and get out,” the boy commanded and leaned against the door, watching me.
“Someone is a little bit grouchy today,” I said, joking around lightly. “What’s the matter? Didn’t get enough sleep? Did someone take your whittle toy?”
The expression in his eyes changed, I could tell he was getting angry with me and I needed to stop. Before things could get out of hand, his sister walked into the compartment and said nothing. There was a gauche silence for a couple of minutes as none of us had any friendly words to say to one another. Oh well, I just couldn’t keep my big mouth quiet for that long.
“I see your brother is doing really well. Who knew we would meet again so soon?”
“It’s no thanks to you,” she replied and picked out a few things from the armory before leaving. Wow, the tension was already building up. I really felt like we were not going to get along at all.
“You have less than two hours, Earthling,” she whispered before the door shut off.
What did she mean by two hours? Was she talking about the mission? That was barely enough time to prepare mentally and physically. I was already unaware of what my objective was, and why I was even helping them. My mind had not yet wrapped around the idea of what was happening before me.
“So, are you also going, too?” my gaze turned towards the little boy, who was still watching me, leaning on the wall.
“Don’t be stupid,” he replied rudely and closed his eyes. He tilted his head against the wall and folded his arms perfectly. “Everyone is going and we will be watching your every move to make sure you don’t betray us.”
Again, good to know! At least someone was going to be watching my back, although not in the same way I would like. I guess one can’t have everything in life. I placed my arms up and let out a brief yawn. It was possible I had a good nights sleep; none of my muscles ached at all. I had no idea what time or day it was, but one thing was certain: time was not my friend. Quickly, I picked up my armor, which seemed to have been repaired and remodeled again, and began putting it on. It took me about fifty minutes to suit up and pick up suitable weapons from the armory. The whole time, the boy kept a close eye on me, like I was a thief, hoping I would screw up and do something stupid. His glaring eyes sort of freaked me out and felt rather uncomforting. They were the eyes of an avenger, eyes of someone bent on revenge. He looked like he wanted payback on someone. Oh yeah, me. After what I did to him, to save Rick, I wouldn’t blame him. Speaking of Rick, I wondered where he was, and whether he had managed to regroup with his sister. By now, they were back at the main ship, and were probably sipping drinks with Ali or fighting each other. Man, I wished I was with them right now. Being amongst these aliens/Rasians was rather aggravating and downright frightening. I just hoped Rick and the others wouldn’t consider leaving without me. The thought of being stuck of this planet with these guys was utterly unbearable. I hated to think about it; however, the odds of it happening were far greater than I would like. I put the matter aside to concentrate on the most important task at hand—stopping another dimensional warp!
I rebooted my armor’s control to my personal preference and recalibrated the power to maximum output. It felt different and much smoother. These guys had done superb work on it. What great allies! They even added some more modifications to it and I couldn’t wait to test them out. Perhaps, later, I would bake them a hot cake or something. Well, that was if I survived long enough. I don’t know how they managed to take it off me before, but I wasn’t complaining. The nuclear core that once fueled the suit had been replaced and substituted with another unknown source of power. It was strange and yet exhilarating. I practiced my movements in the armor, testing out all of my new abilities and internal time limits. The boy stopped me and signaled me that it was time to leave. We walked through the long, narrow floors for what seemed like half an hour. Suddenly, an alarm came on; and it was so loud, the walls were trampling. I raised my arms and closed my ears to drown out the sound. Something strange was about to happen. Was this the final signal for their mission? It appeared that way, because many people began to storm through the halls, running in one direction. They were geared up with pseudo battle armor and weapons like they were going to war. What had I gotten myself into this time? I had a hunch this wasn’t going to end well for me.
“The first phase of the mission will begin now,” a voice spoke from a loud speaker—from somewhere I couldn’t tell. “Commence with the first phase of Operation Uprise.”
Crap, I still didn’t even know what the assignment or my role was. Just what was I supposed to do or go? Oh well, it didn’t matter to be exact. My agenda for joining them was not exactly to destroy the dimensional gate. The real objective was to find my captured crew and escape this horrible planet. I had no intention of getting caught in an alien civil war—no sense in getting myself killed over someone else’s fight. What am I saying? There was chaos inside my heart as I tried to figure out what I really wanted to do. I mean, if I helped them, I could stop the terror beasts' invasion on earth and save a lot of people. But what if they were making this up? Darn! I really wished I knew what to do, or someone tell me the right choice.
“Let’s go, Wet Pants,” a familiar voice said; it was the girl who captured me in the forest. “My sister has given us a special mission and it is very important we leave now.”
“What is the mission?” I turned my head towards her, whilst readjusting my lens.
“You don’t need to know yet,” she replied and bolted after the others.
Bummer! At least I gave it a shot. It seems, these guys weren’t going to tell me anything any time soon. I sighed and followed behind, in the same direction. A whole legion of men and women alien warriors rushed left towards a hatch exit. I didn’t follow as I went right, with the girl. What she said bothered me more than anything. I was getting anxious an
d worried at the same time. Everything she said felt like a load of rubbish and there was something fishy about all of this. I could bet a nickel these guys were playing with me. A secret mission, yeah right! Soon, I began to see the outside again; it was a gentle blue and brown color, filled with debris and ash. I could smell the ash and the strong scent of melting metal coming from every direction. For a bunch of rebels trying to keep a low profile, they sure hadn’t done a lot to conceal this mess.
“Come with me,” the girl dashed towards the small carrier ship and jumped in.
I boarded the ship and it took off quickly, a few seconds after. Things were starting to play out slightly out of my control. I had no idea where I was going, only a matter of time before I found myself in a bottle of hot lava. Hope not! Hope not! Think positive!
“Listen carefully,” she began, showing me a com link map of the kingdom through a visor. “We are the ace line of attack, the entire squadron in here is going to infiltrate the kingdom and take down their defenses from the inside.”
Wait what? That sounded like the most stupid plan I had ever heard—and that’s coming from someone who had experience with making stupid decisions. Were they trying to throw their lives away? From what I could tell, this kingdom was way too advanced and it would take an entire army to take them down. No! I could say it was impossible, even with an army of skilled soldiers: definitely suicide. Just what were these fools thinking? Putting their lives in danger so carelessly and then having the nerve to bring me into this mess.
“No way, if you think I’m crazy enough to walk into a trap, then forget it,” I said and folded my arms, closing my eyes.
I felt the smell of metal, directly on my nostrils, and opened my eyes, in time to see a barrel of guns pointed on my face by everyone on the ship. There was a serious expression on all their faces. They were not playing around. Apparently, I had no choice and mutiny was not tolerated.
“Okay, that is convincing enough,” I gulped, putting my hands up.
Just how did I keep getting myself into these situations? The ship shook violently like it was hitting some major turbulence and knocked me off my seat. I slowly got up and shook my head, while stretching my aching back. A small beeping noise erupted constantly through the screen. We were hitting some major turbulence as the air currency worked against us. Something like this only occurred if there was a severe weather storm, hurricane or tornado. But it was impossible on this planet, unless we were not traveling above ground. So, this was their plan? Infiltrating the kingdom from below, using a special assault mobile ship—it was brilliant and yet flawed. An attack from below was something an opponent always considered, when building their fortress. Meaning we were speeding directly into a trap.
“We are getting close to the first checkpoint,” one of them said and I quickly hopped in back into my seat, strapping in hard.
For some reason, the ship was not slowing down; instead, it was speeding up and going even faster than before.
“Why are we not stopping?” I asked, holding on tightly to my seat.
This was starting to get dangerous. I honestly thought being a space biologist would keep me away from assignments like these; but, apparently, I was mistaken. Life was just unpredictable and funny like that. The ship shook violently, causing my heartbeat to sky rocket. Calm down! Calm down! The last thing I wanted was another panic attack.
“You might want to hold on even tighter,” an alien woman I had never talked to said, clutching her gun firmly.
I honestly did not see the reason for her to smile; however, I kept my comments to myself. The less people I angered, the better it was for me in the long run.
“Entering the first grid line, it might get a little bit bumpy but it’s all good.”
The intensity kept rising with each second. One small mishap and that would be the end of us. The ship’s controls went haywire from some sort of electromagnetic pulse interference. Undoubtedly, the enemy’s first line of defense against underground threats. So I was right, it appeared as if we were trying to break through a pulse shield generator: a rather brave and stupid attempt on our part. During the last Great War, countries used these devices to fortify their defenses to ensure nothing would get in or get out. Anything inside the shield was destroyed and reduced to ash within a matter of seconds, which I could say was not good for us.
“I don’t suppose you have a plan to get us out of this mess?” I asked, barely able to hold onto my stomach contents. All this vibrations and sudden loss of control rotations were giving my stomach a really bad ache.
“This is the plan,” the girl commented, forcing a smile at me. “Just sit tight for a few seconds and try not to die.”
Well! I could try, but it was going to be tough to recover from this, especially on my heart. “Speed it up to 100000 meks,” the girl said, talking to one of the pilots. “We should be able to escape this shield with minimum damage.”
Minimum damage, really? Was she out of her mind? Getting our organs rearranged or being disintegrated into small molecules was definitely not minimal damage. Strangely, it started getting a little bit hot and misty inside. Crap, the ship was falling apart terribly. This was not happening, was it? No! No! No! Not exactly how I pictured my life ending. Times like these make me wish I had listened to my father. Being a doctor would have saved me from going through this entire ordeal. What am I thinking? I caught up with reality and thrust my head around quickly. It was a matter of seconds before this entire ship was blown up, along with us in it. I am positive these guys had a plan or something to get us out of this dilemma. And I just hoped they would initiate it immediately before my heart gave out.
“More torque on the thrusters,” she commanded on the top of her voice, without any sign of panic in her voice.
From my point of view, this wasn’t their first time doing something this drastic and lived to tell about it. They knew what they were doing, and had probably prepared for this situation several times over. I looked around and felt a calm breeze, coming from all of them except from me. I was panicking and wanting to get out of this ship and back to earth. This whole scene was not in the job description that I had signed up for. I knew that for a fact; I had read over the contract a thousand times over. Pretty sure, I had not missed out on something this life changing. I felt the ship’s velocity increase, drastically, without delay—this was bad. The ship wasn’t in the best shape to pick up more speed. A drastic combination of increased velocity, plus uncontrolled steering motion was very dangerous. These fools were out of their minds. Oh no! My stomach whirled badly. I couldn’t hold it in anymore as I puked inside my helmet everything I had eaten before. Gross! Gross! Gross! My helmet visor was dirty with puke stains and I could barely see anything in front of me.
“Now that’s just gross, Wet Pants,” I heard a voice say, but didn’t know who said it.
I quickly took it off and wiped some of the puke from my face, in order to see what was going on. By far, this was the grossest thing to happen to me. I would die before I ever told anyone about this. I heard a loud bang and suddenly the ship spun out of control a few times and stopped completely. Every control system came to a dead silence. I listened to the silent echo as I groaned out in pain. Definitely not how I imagined my day playing out. I felt no movements from the others. Were they still alive? The whole thing happened so fast that I didn’t know what had occurred, and whether we had succeeded through or not. Well, I was still alive, so that meant I had survived. Some miracle! It was only a matter of time before my good fortune ran out. I felt disoriented and sick to my stomach like I had eaten something terrible. I wanted to vomit, but apparently, I had already puked out everything, a few seconds ago, making me feel more miserable.
“Is everyone okay?” I heard a voice ask; it belonged to one of the pilots.
“My leg is hurt, but I will live,” another man replied and suddenly it was quiet.
There was a loud noise as something was breaking through the hull of ship. I
t sounded like some sort of metal disrupting drill. There was a musty smoke simmering in through the ventilation system. It was too dark to see where it was coming from. If I had to guess, I would say it was coming from the synched metal hulls on the external part of the ship.
“Is Cathy okay?” another voice echoed.
No one answered. I heard a loud racket as if something was being moved out of the way. My breathing was starting to become shallow and hoarse. I coughed for a minute and placed my hand in front of my nose and mouth. Staying still in here was becoming dangerous. Every ounce of the thick noxious air was oozing through and threatening to suffocate me to death. To make it even direr, it was getting hot and uncomfortable really fast. I had to get out of here. Quickly, I put on my helmet and swallowed a large amount of clean air, mixed with a scent of puke.
“I’m still alive,” I heard a feminine voice speak and I quickly realized who it was.
I really didn’t know whether I should be happy that she was alive or disappointed. Maybe a bit of both! Harshly, I pulled myself out of the broken seat and crawled towards the clutches of freedom. I saw a beacon of outside light and followed it out to freedom. Once I was out, I stood up and sighed out heavily. How did I keep getting myself into these situations? My doctor had warned me to stay out of harm’s way to prevent my panic attacks. Sadly to say: trouble seemed to find me first. In front of me, the other guys stood with their gear in check and their eyes scanning around us. We appeared to be in some sort of tunnel, a few feet away from this giant force field gate. Now one thing stood between us and the kingdom. It was a great, two piece sort of gate that emitted unknown energy, at every five second intervals. Way too dangerous to touch, let alone penetrate through it. We were stuck with no way in or out. I looked at my allies and still felt a calming sensation amongst them, like they were still in control. One of them looked towards me and smiled confidently, moving a few steps ahead. These guys were definitely not amateurs. On second thought, perhaps, surviving through the force field generator was no mere fluke or spirit of luck.