The fireball winks out, along with the circular collection of symbols. Another one appears, spiky edges encasing a rather flowing middle. A minuscule needle of blue ice appears in the centre, the white fog wafting from the small thing the only reason she can actually see it. “What syphons the energy states down to a level where the water solidifies? Or rather, where are you pulling all those exothermically materials from. Did you separate the water into oxyhydrogen?”
“Oxyhydrogen?”
Startled at the sudden interruption of her thinking aloud monologue, it takes Evot a few seconds too long to work through her suddenly racing heart. “The thing you did attracted water, right? I saw it stream from the leaking Histaff slime into the fireball you made. Did you electrolyze the oxygen from the hydrogen?”
“Electrolyze?”
Although she is now prepared for the sudden and harsh reply, she does not expect Douglas’s face to be a mere ten centimetres from her own when turning to look at him. Gulping down another sluggishly flowing burst of adrenaline and nerves, Evot tries recalling what she knows about basic chemistry. “Water is H2O, right? So did you use electricity and some cathodes and anodes to create oxygen and hydrogen?”
"Electricity?"
Rubbing her eyeballs, Evot wonders if she truly has to dredge up her middle-school level amount of chemistry knowledge to get anything useful out of the dumb piece of walking calcium.
Chapter Ten – Again of Endings and Beginnings
Fienak is still recovering from the shock of suddenly warping when she notices the shaking of the ship again. She just spent an unknown amount of time frozen in time as the bubble of space around her sped through the galaxy. Yet despite possibly having spent centuries in warp-induced stasis, time waits for no one. Once the massive amount of energy feeding the warp-engine is cut off, it immediately resumes its inexorable flow once more.
“Going sublittoral.”
Fienak tenses her muscles. A sub-type ship is capable of atmospheric flight, while a littoral-type ship is proficient in an atmosphere. The sublittoral call-out means that the ship popped out of warp just outside an atmosphere, and immediately dove right in. Her body shakes a bit inside her suit as the meaning of what just happens truly hits home. She might have a couple of dozen lifetimes of experience stuffed inside her brainpan, but this is still the first time she has ever knowingly left the place where she was born. She had lived her entire life in the same slum before she got kidnapped. Letting the feelings of dread fall away like she has done to so many memories now, she breathes out slowly. Everyone she has even known is probably dead of old age all of a sudden. Good thing she barely remembers any of them, she can’t help but think.
“Initial scans show low Histaff activity. Atmospheric depletion is pretty much complete, so expect them large and dug in. Landing in six.”
Once again, Fienak doesn’t have a single clue as to what those terms mean. Only now does she realize that in all of the lives she lived, she has never flown a single vehicle. Only no does it sink in that her exposure to some facets of everyday life, and the universe in general, might be extremely limited. Seeing some very obvious flaws in the way Ancheevi is trying to pump out independent specialists, she goes over what she knows about the Histaff. She recalls that it’s supposed to be a rather hard to contain infectious semi-sapient necrotic instinctual bioweapon. One of her few scholarly lifetimes had done a little bit of research on the subject, but had never come across much useful data. She had found more information in children’s books than in reputable journals and other official publications.
Then it hits Fienak. The moment one of her memory bundles starts screaming at her, the rest follow suit. The ship had warped, and had immediately after entered an atmosphere? By all conventional science and wisdom, that was either suicidal or impossible, depending on who you asked. Leaving warp bubbles should be done far away from any warped gravity fields. Emerging near a planet — no, even emerging inside a star’s outer asteroid belt — requires exponentially more precise calculations and even more energy to properly perform. Emerging outside a planet's atmosphere at the correct elevation, altitude, speed, vector, and who knows what else is like shooting a grain of sand to the other side of a standard pattern livable planet, and expecting to land it with femtometre precision.
Fienak sees that this realization slowly dawns on more and more people. The new recruit — private Gildaa, one of her personalities with eidetic memory reminds her — is looking around with eyes bigger than saucers. Even the affable Kee and the irritating creature sitting next to her are all staring at the team lead with hard eyes.
The tendril of smoke growing erratic with each additional pair of eyes staring at the person, Achnuu doesn’t move at all. The moment a heavy thump shoots through the ship is the moment it stands, gesturing towards the swiftly opening ramp door.
“You heard smoky. Let’s bag these sods.” The tone coming from the bird-beaked and mesh-encased merc is almost wistful, Fienak notes. Standing with perfect grace and measured elegance, she starts walking towards the cockpit door. “Where’s your gear?”
Unable to ignore a question directly aimed at her, she walks back to her seat and pulls the standard issue rifle pack from under its seat.
“You’re taking that shit? Where’s your own gear?”
“I have no gear,” is her direct answer. Fienak might not have seen his specific race before, but she does recognize his jolt of surprise at her answer.
“An op with an Eflec, a warp directly into sublittoral, Histaff threat… Who wants me dead? Ay, mama.” Pulling a rather mean looking glowing sidearm from his complex suit of wires and metal fibres, Haknu pulls the slide back and kicks the door to the cockpit open. Fienak looks back in a trained habit, covering their backs while entering a new space. She sees the rest of the team milling around the back of the ship, hauling gear and loading it on vehicles. Black shapes are being lowered from the overhanging ceiling above the exit ramp, and Fienak recognises military spec hoverbikes. She looks at the soldiers and mercenaries as they split into two squads, each group a collection of heavy and light mounted infantry. The hoverbikes are all standard models, large Ancheevi signs painted on their sides and bottoms. They are the customizable types, she sees. Some are equipped with additional armour, tech, or armament modules that are pulled from shelves and storage compartments. The sleek looking transports remind her of those highly dangerous two-wheeled fuel burners the natives of her last mission used to use. Snapping those thoughts back into the mental space where they belong, Fienak enters the cockpit.
The hard and utilitarian lines of the many seats and stowing areas of the crew compartment are replaced by flowing dashboards, integrated displays, and hidden holographic projectors. Two humanoids are sitting in cushioned seats, strapped in and unable to move. Having entered from the sides, Haknu is hiding the live pistol behind a dashboard, ready to fire at both pilots in front of him. Both humanoids look startled, their eyes open wide a they look around frantically. Three facets of her mind have had medical training, and they all chime in with the same news. Both humanoids are showing obvious signs of warp-madness, their eyes bloodshot, their bodies uncoordinated, their health falling fast. The closest one is a lanky frame with a big head, while the pilot in the back looks rather round and soft.
“Report!” snaps Haknu.
“I’m the bloody captain! Who dare spe… huh?” The closest one replies with an air of gravitas at first. A man used to commanding, and used to having those commands followed to the letter.
“Yes, Captain. Apologies, Captain. Please, sir. What is going on, sir?” Haknu acts perfectly, following the steps in the military handbook to the letter. He slides into his new role as the captain’s subordinate without fault, and salutes the very confused captain in a pilot’s body. Fienak just slowly slides her gun from her pack, sticking the knife to the inside of her arm while keeping an eye on both pilots.
“I’m Captain Stek. At ease, son. We are done, then?” The
skinny pilot sinks back into his chair, a weary and tired cast to his movements.
“Yes, sir!”
“Great. Now, I need a drink. I sure as hell am not looking forward to meeting my wife. I retired before her, after all, and I will need all the help I can get before facing that fu… What is going on with my body? Report now!”
Instead of standing in salute like before, Haknu is now typing away at the display that was previously hidden behind the complex wires of his armor. “Captain Stek Haldane, sir?”
“Yes, that’s me. Why am I in a standard template body? Did something go wrong with my retirement hibernation?”
“No sir. You retired then, sir?”
“Yes, son. I do believe I did… Then I saw those blue things, though. That was odd. Then there was this enormous lass. I think she chewed on me for a little bit, that might be why I feel so off. It was terrible. I can’t even remember how terrible.”
“Right, sir… Waking from hibernation will do that to a person, sir! Please, allow me to administer you a medical supplement that will help your situation.” Haknu is back to his prim and proper self as he acts like a nameless medical worker.
Fienak knows what will come next. Warp madness is well documented, as the effects and the trajectory the patients will suffer before dying is well understood. The reason why it happens is a complete mystery to the galaxy at large, though. Their pilots were obviously not warp certified for this jump, and it’ll be a mercy to put the poor fellow out of his suffering right now.
“That sounds just fine,” is the confused reply of the closest pilot. He doesn’t even react as Haknu administers the hypo directly to his arm. The universal poison might not kill him immediately, but it will put nearly everyone with a biological constitution into a quickly onset slumber. “Just fine. Please tell my wife that I wi…”
“And you, sir. Please report, sir!” Haknu turns to the other
The fat pilot doesn’t move for long seconds. Then words start flying from his mouth like a waterfall, and everything goes wrong. “Override Alpha Vertigo Triangle Leaf Lap-”
A switch is pulled inside Fienak’s mind. She had been passively observing the situation, preparing for potential threats and keeping an eye out for threats. The moment those words started flowing form the fat pilot’s mouth, that forcefully changes. Some training or conditioning she forgot a long time ago is triggered, takes over, and wrests all control from the conscious part of her mind.
Haknu is quick, but Fienak is quicker. Running on instincts she did not know she had, her arm snakes forwards. Before her wire-clad colleague can lift his energy blaster, she slaps at his arm. Her attack lands on metal that winds itself into a solid surface. The second captain’s head snaps back as Fienak kicks at the wire-clad bird.
“-dance Forty-”
Entirely unable to control the facet of herself that is now in charge of her body, Fienak doesn’t bother helping with the fight. Forged in the most dire of circumstances and the most gruesome of training regimes she has experienced, she had nearly forgotten about the otherwise silent slave soldier lifetime she had gone through. Haknu slams an elbow backwards, and Fienak barely manages to prevent her head from being taken clean off. Serrated metal wires cut deep grooves into her skull, sending black spots dancing across her vision.
“-seven Slice Tomat Lev-”
The energy gun goes off, melting a large portion of the dashboard. She feels the thought process the slave soldier inside her goes through, and watches with muted interest as that part of her executes the decision-making process drilled into her. Judging the smoke resulting from the burning metal and synthetic materials to be a softcover of sufficient quality, Fienak disengages from Haknu for long enough to finish aiming her weapons at her impromptu opponent. Immediately resuming the struggle for control of the lethal energy weapon in Haknu’s armored hand, she tries slapping at the mercenary. She throws another elbow at its shooting arm, nudging the next ear-rattling and eye-searing energy shot a few centimetres to the left. The green energy pulse disappears into the fog, briefly lighting up the smoke-filled interior with blinding brilliance. She then manages to press her own pistol against the bird’s head. Pulling the trigger, the first shot smashes into the instantly formed weave of protective wires. The second automatic shot loosens a few strands from the tight mesh, and the third shot of the three burst manages to penetrate, sending a single drop of green liquid splattering against the low ceiling.
“-el Circle.”
Fienak feels herself thumb a trigger she had not seen on her pistol before and aims the glowing weapon downwards at the bird’s lower beak.
“No, he-”
The gun explodes in her hand as it is forced to fire, even though it is severely overheated after that maximum power burst of three shots. Haknu’s words are cut off as his partial facial mask only stops half of the molten shotgun blast that results from the exploding firearm. Fienak throws her other arm forwards, her mind internally shouting at the pain. She launches her knife into his face, her injured ears unable to hear the meaty thud with which it lands, as she is thrown backwards. Her own armored weave barely holds together, her firearm holding glove and hand shredded, and her mask splattered with molten alloy.
She slams into the wall. Then a white wall of foam explodes around her, cooling her overheating suit immediately.
“Release,” comes the muffled sound, a rather tired voice at the verge of coughing its lungs out.
The foam holding her up immediately loses cohesion, dropping her to the floor. Fienak is feeling far from great, and doesn’t interfere as the slave soldier fragment of her psyche controls her body. One arm a broken and burned mess, Fienak feels some admiration for the portion of herself as she stands straight in a salute.
“At ease. Report.”
“Sir,” her mouth snaps out.
“So? Report!”
“Sir!” she shouts out loud now.
“Wait… That code should have overwritten this guy too, but it only worked on his armor? Then you must be…”
Feeling piercing eyes rove across her body, Fienak allows the slave soldier inside of her mind to keep control. The fact that she just lost total control has her shaken to her core. She is used to pulling personalities to the forefront now and then, but those facets are still part of herself. Those random words this man started yelling forced her to move, to act, to fight. It was all outside of her control, and she is fighting very hard to prevent the fact that she is freaking out from showing.
“Sitrep.”
“Sir! Eflec Specialist Fienak. My Eflec training was interrupted by an emergency end scenario protocol. I received a massively redacted briefing in this vehicle. Evengi and current team assigned to the mission being the only useful information.”
“And then?”
“Sublittoral followed immediately after warp. Specialist Haknu and I were commanded to take care of the warp-mad pilots.”
Fienak idly studies the ceiling for a few more minutes, her head pointed directly at the featureless mass of painted metal.
“At ease.”
Lowering her head into a neutral stance allows her to see the small man that is the ship’s second pilot. The sharp and piercing eyes in the soft and doughy face are wrong. Every single personality in her head agrees: those eyes belong on a predator, not some fat pilot.
She watches him as he looks around, running stubby fingers across his bald head. The man then takes a very deep breath, closes his eyes, and smiles. The transformation happens in front of her eyes, yet her mistreated brain refuses to see what is happening. The insane wolf that lurked behind those small eyes retreats with grace, like a stalking hunter hiding in the bushes.
Fienak is honestly getting pretty worried at this point. Her upbringing, or the lack thereof, might have made her oddly suited for her current career. Surviving and growing up in the seedy underbelly of a planet-sized capital city turned out to be great preparation for the mental rigors of pressure cooking. The sheer
adaptability and versatility needed to scavenge the highly explosive fuel cells from wrecked hover cars has served her well so far. The acting and digital acumen needed to infiltrate reality dive bars, scavenging for food right under the nose of the hypnotised patrons has proven to be invaluable to her mental survival so far.
But now she was forced to kill the teammate she met not minutes ago through some random string of words. She has just left everything she has ever known behind for, as far as she knows, the very first time. This man, who looked like the most dangerous entity she has ever come across, transformed into a friendly smiling grandfather right as she was looking at him.
Leaving her body under the control of her rather broken slave soldier fragment, Fienak wonders which of the bundles of personality in her mind is the source of these thoughts. They do not have the cold and pragmatic feel of the latest mantle she created, the ruthless corporate businesswoman whose life she was so abruptly woken from hours before. Neither do they contain the rigid structure of routine discipline common to her military backgrounds, nor do they have the intuitive leaps of her research lives. They do remind her of a forgotten past. She barely remembers anything from that time, only scenes now and then. Dark tunnels dripping with condensation and bright streaks of high-speed traffic unreachable above. Heists and jobs she pulled off just right, her belly full for the first time in months. Or the memorable few minutes of blinding brilliance when the sun managed to reach down where she lived once every cycle or so, rare and unforgettable.
The fat pilot, a soft looking man whose uniform is three sizes too small, keeps opening and clenching his fists while staring down. “So, warp-madness. And then there was this statu-” The fat man stumbles back, a brief look of helpless outrage on his face, before visibly gathering himself again. “My life, quantified through measurements not my own.”
GalaxSec: A Sci-Fi LitRPG (Skeleton in Space Book 2) Page 12