Dimension

by Shay Zana

  "What the hell!?" Boone yells, his voice barely audible through the sounds of hell.

  At last, the pressure lifts and the shaking calms, allowing them to scramble back to their feet.

  "It is another ikamanu!" Kitera breathes, pulling herself back up. "With the UEU. We do not have much time."

  Another rumble knocks them, but they are prepared this time and manage to stay on their feet.

  "We need to get out. Altair is managing to fight back but it was taken by surprise. This ikamanu is larger, stronger and has more light energy... we do not stand a chance."

  "Abandon ship? And go where? We still haven't even reached the outer rim yet!" Deo barks at her, steadying himself after yet another pulse of movement.

  A cyan explosion erupts from the nikita walls, sending Altair’s entity washing through them and now back through the symbols on the walls, hurrying to protect it from the foreign entity of the other ikamanu.

  "Anywhere but here!" Kitera barks back, collecting herself and running to the exit of the room.

  "Get your vitasuit on and make sure you're fully loaded!" Mazayus instructs Deo as he sprints down the halls after Kitera. Boone and Natheus follow, while Deo quickly strips, suits up, and arms himself, swearing under his breath repeatedly.

  The glowing symbols throughout the halls flash and fade rapidly as they run through them. Sirens blare, whirling in a summit of pitches. Their heartbeats pound within their chests, sending blood soaring through their veins, powering their muscles to push harder, willing their bodies to run faster as their beloved vessel cries beneath their footsteps.

  Once they reach the life pods, they get to work straight away at activating them, checking life support systems and communication relays.

  "Deo! Get that ass MOVING!" Mazayus shouts over his shoulder as he finishes activating his pod. He turns to see any glimpse of the man running down the hall. He sees nothing, just flashing light and flooding entity.

  Kitera turns back to look too, her heart skipping a beat as Altair shudders and its interior groans in response. "Deo!" she cries as something ruptures inside Altair, spewing blue flames from navigation and creating a flash fire down the hall, heading towards them with hungry intensity.

  In a split second, Kitera's eyes are filled with a view of searing blue-green fire, but before she can even close her eyes in preparation of death, a dark hand is clasped around her vision at an undetectable speed. Mazayus shields her with his entire body, stepping in front of her and turning her away from the fire. The two are cocooned in an intense amber entity shield as Mazayus pulls the energy from himself. His vitasuit is set alight with glowing golden veins, and his eyes gleam with equal yellow luminosity. Once the flame dissipates, Mazayus removes his hand from Kitera's eyes and releases her, his entity flowing back through his pores.

  The Cipher just stares in astonishment, her eyes fading back to a pale silver, and her mouth slightly open, though no words come out. Boone and Natheus let their entities cascade back within their bodies too and glance at Kitera and Mazayus, relieved to see they are both intact.

  "You ok!?" Boone shouts to Kitera over the loud noise of chaos, who nods back wordlessly.

  At the other end of the hall, a figure emerges, glowing in red veins as his entity is active and shielding him from multiple blasts of heat. Deo sprints through the carnage, stumbling and struggling to stay on his feet as the organic vessel rocks in agony. A blast adjacent from him does the job of knocking him to his knees, his entity straining to breaking point. "Go! Go! Just go!" he roars to them to leave without him, knowing that his entity cannot handle another explosive blast. Its hues have brightened to a burning yellow just like the Sun, on the verge of bursting like a supernova.

  Kitera watches him in despair, her mind pulling her one way, but her heart pulling her the other. She pushes Mazayus aside, hesitates, and now explodes into a sprint before Mazayus can stop her, a fierce adrenaline rush bursting through her blood, her protective spirit defeating her common sense.

  "Kiya, no!" Boone calls, sprinting after her as the explosions continue throughout the vessel, the danger increasing by the second.

  Mazayus and Natheus stay where they are, preparing their entities for long range protection in case the three need it, although they would be rendering themselves vulnerable. The vitasuits are equipped with kinetic light energy shield generators linked to the wearer’s datakey, just like any other soldier in Serenity, but because of the entities, the shields have to be deactivated to allow the particles to escape the body and be manipulated. For a Paragon, kinetic shields are a backup option when they have exhausted their organic shields.

  Deo was cursing at Kitera and Boone the whole time as they sprinted down the hall to help him, but it did no good as the louder he yelled at them, the faster their pace seemed to quicken. Kitera reaches him first and grabs him by an arm, helping him up and putting all her effort into dragging him with her, and now Boone catches up and grabs him by the other arm, surprised by Kitera's speed. It is evident that Deo is fatigued by overuse of his entity, navigation must have been hell while he was in there.

  Eventually the three reach the life pods and Deo is set down next to his SSP, weapons slung on his back, his vitasuit holding them in place with morphed holsters. He had time to arm, at least.

  There are mixed emotions amongst them all as they rush to climb into their SSP's. Feelings of hesitation, haste, desperation, anguish. The inevitability of this calamity sinks in, and they soon find themselves secured in their pods with hardly any clear memories of how they got there. Cries of pain echo within Altair, and they start to feel the subtle vertigo as the atmospheric field begins to dissipate. The stellarium is distorting from the observation room as fragments of images flicker, joined by strange auroras filling the evaporating air. Soft hums are heard and felt, and now intensify swiftly and they are all suddenly launched from Altair, encased inside their coffin-tight pods.

  Ricochet, marines call ejections from ikamanu. They are never smooth.

  As they are individually propelled away with rapid velocity, they glance back and watch as the creatures battle, any sounds they may be making swallowed by the void of space. They look like vicious machines that hunger for each other’s blood, though neither of them contains blood. They bite and tear each other, though they have no teeth, horns or claws. Rigid vessels, moving like fluid whales, slamming against each other, surrounded in their entities. The blue-white entity of the attacking ikamanu, against the cyan of Altair’s entity, smearing through each other like dry lightning cracking through a weightless sea. Entity explosions rip at their flesh, shockwaves push at them, sending them ricocheting end over end until they master their weightless environment again. Until finally, they are engulfed in a blue, almost green, flame-like entity. There is no cry or explosive sound to be heard in the vacuum of space, and the escaping crew watch in horror and painful loss as they escalate away. They all vow silently for Altair’s sacrifice not to be in vain as it and the other ikamanu disappear from view.

  Drifting in the nothingness, they feel even more driven with determination now, an even stronger and vigorous motivation stirs and burns within them. Their task must be completed... but how? The singular Star Shift Pods, or SSP’s, are only capable of star shift II, and at their current distance from Scattered Planet, travelling at this mere speed is not an appropriate option for them, but they have no other options. Without Altair, they cannot reach their destinations before their bodies or the galaxy dies.

  Our mission has failed.

  WE WALK THE SHADOWS

  Like a consciousness trapped in a never ending nightmare, we are entombed in the midst of intergalactic space, the sea devoid of life. There is no escape, no light in the dark, no voice to guide our way. Just damp echoes exist now, memories wasted, broken beings without a purpose.

  Five slim pods drift in the pitch black, slowly gliding together, closing in over a great distance. Once each pod is exactly one metre from another, they lock
in place with the help of several auxiliary thrusters. The five pods now operate in unison, their rudimentary control systems connected through a hosted network.

  Inside the SSPs, the space is very compact, like a sleek oblong coffin. The singular star shift pods were designed as single occupant escape pods with the capability for automatic entry into atmosphere. They are almost fully constructed of nikita, though the outer is of grown ikamanu hide which is used as an ablative coating.

  Silence permeates the comm network between the five people. No one has spoken since launching from Altair. There is nothing to say, or at least nothing to think of saying. They all know they have failed, it was something that could have always happened, but there just was no way of preparing for this, no way to prepare for the deaths of millions in the event of their downfall. There is nothing left to do now but wait for the end to come.

  "O2 reserves now at ninety percent," comes the feminine, electronic voice of Deo's SSP. He just clenches his jaw and pushes his head back against the gel-like cushioning inside the pod, though with no heavy impact due to the zero g-force. Everyone hears the announcement of his oxygen percentage and their hearts sink even lower, stomachs churning in harsh reality of all their fates.

  "Easy now, Deo, you need to limit your respiration," Mazayus' calm voice comes next over the comms. Even now he lives up to his leadership ways, even when death is staring right at them with a wide smile, waiting for them eagerly.

  Deo chuckles, a bitter, hollow sound. "I'd rather get this over with, no point in waiting it out."

  “Nobody wants to hear you suffocating over the comms and then have to lie next to your corpse for another couple of hours," Boone taunts as he tries to shift his position inside his SSP. "So just quit ya bitchin' and let us die in peace."

  A muffled growl is heard from Deo in response. "You're lucky we're all stuck in these things, otherwise I'd be kicking your arse right now, you little shit."

  "Enough! Both of you!" Mazayus commands, his iron hard voice dominating the comms link. "You're both acting childish."

  The comms are quiet again as the two are silenced. Deo and Boone never did get along, and Boone always has a way of getting on Deo's nerves, though that is not hard to do at all. The two would usually be caught bickering about something at least once a day, whether it be something minor like one of them taking the last piece of fruit in the fridge, or something more major like skipping a shift in duties or purposefully cooking something the other is allergic to. They are the youngest Paragons of the team, with Boone the very youngest at twenty three, and Deo at twenty eight. Mazayus is the oldest at thirty six, and Natheus is not far behind at thirty two. Kitera is the age of twenty four, which is a very inexperienced age for Ciphers.

  She lies now inside her SSP, silent, unblinking.

  "Let our passing be but a faint echo in the winds, may our suffering be minimal, and with us too shall the suffering of those whom we have failed to protect be minimal, for they deserve a peaceful departure, their innocence shall not be stained by our sins." Natheus prays to his gods quietly over the comms, his heart aching with pain for the inevitable loss of his wife, though he is doing his best to hide it, only a slight twinge audible in his voice. Everyone listens to him, his words calming. Even Deo is slightly calmed, something rare to occur, though Natheus often has that influence on people.

  The tranquil moment does not last however, as another announcement of O2 reserves decreasing to ninety percent fills the comms, this time for Boone’s SSP.

  "Damn it," he grumbles, glancing at the blue holographic readings along the top of the pod. They estimate at least eight more hours of oxygen supply, including the added amount from his vitasuit, which he has linked to the SSP for extra oxygen. Because the air inside Altair simulated Earth’s atmosphere, the change from seventy eight percent nitrogen, twenty one percent oxygen, and one percent of other trace gases to pure oxygen inside the pods is significant. The SSP’s and vitasuits cannot contain normal air because the low pressure would result in dangerously low oxygen supply to the lungs and blood, so pure oxygen must be used. The risk of decompression sickness is great with the sudden change, but luckily for them, no one seems to have succumbed to it.

  Boone shrugs as his body floats in the zero gravity, at least they will not have to deal with the guilt for too much longer...

  Hours pass by in almost silence. The scarce stars outside twinkle faintly, and they can occasionally see Scattered Planet when their pods rotate around enough. In all its glory, its inhabitants are clueless to their fate. The Zodiacs estimated only roughly ten years of life left in the galaxy on the day that they set out from the Milky Way. Again, the Zodiacs provided them with an indecisive answer, something unusual for them, so 'roughly ten years' is a very wide set probability. They may have far less than three years left to complete their mission.

  Kitera silently observes her oxygen reserves, ghosting her slender fingers through the holographic readings and watching as they interact with her movements, either bending around her fingertips or just distorting in the areas where there is no ability to interact. Because she has no environmental suit that she can link to the pod for an extra supply, her SSP has considerably less oxygen than the Paragons. While the synced display of their O2 levels averages at fifty percent, hers sits at fourteen percent. Though just because she did not receive the training of a Paragon, it does not mean she is any less prepared to die than they are. What her time spent away from her people has taught her is how to develop a close relationship with a little thing known as death.

  "O2 reserves now below ten percent. Resupply within the hour is recommended." Kitera just stares at the readings in acceptance as she listens to the droning announcement, her strange eyes now appearing dark and lifeless.

  "How you doing, Kiya?" Boone asks softly. "You ok? It usually gets harder to breathe when you hit below ten."

  "Would it matter if I was not?" she replies in a near whisper, her voice crackling over the comms link.

  Boone does not answer, knowing she is right, that there is nothing to do about it anyway.

  "If you believe in miracles..." Natheus starts, taking advantage of the silence, "then you could enter cryo-stasis, set a course to the nearest military strongpoint, and hope... A chance still remains that an ikamanu will find us before the galaxy perishes."

  A lengthy silence brings the comm network to a halt for a short time, everybody thinking about this thoroughly. Is there any point? Would, by some small chance, someone find their pods while they were in stasis? Is there even any chance at all?

  Mazayus activates his datakey and searches for the nearest Serenity military strongpoint from their location, the only locations to summon ikamanu. "Olympus. 87 million light years away, practically next door," he states sarcastically.

  "Damn," Deo hums. "At star shift II, that's forty three and a half million years of travel. There's no point, Scattered Planet will be long gone by then, and we'd just wake up to a dead planet, with limited O2, and probably die trudging our way in pitch darkness trying to find a military facility. Not to mention Kitera, who doesn't even have an enviro-suit. No starlight means subzero temperatures, no plant life, and no oxygen."

  "At least you would have a chance of surviving. When you get there, you can hail an ikamanu, and then redeem yourselves... and this mission," Kitera responds.

  Boone shakes his head. "Well why don't we just keep you in stasis in your pod, and then carry you to a facility and find an environment suit for you?"

  "Three things wrong with that," Deo says in protest. "One, these SSP’s have a fail-safe that automatically wakes the occupants from cryo-stasis once they reach their destination, plus with being in stasis for that long it would require considerable recharge time. Two, we have no idea how far out we could land from the nearest facility, and if we waste our energy and oxygen carrying something that weighs over one hundred kilograms we could all die before getting anywhere. And three, without light energy, nothing will be ope
rating. How is she supposed to repressurize?"

  Kitera nods her head slowly, knowing Deo is correct, and understanding his lack of sympathy; he never did trust her. "He is right."

  A mournful ambiance now chills the warm interior of each SSP as this realism settles deep in their guts. For some, death is just the beginning, a journey to another life. But for others, death is the end, period.

  "O2 reserves now at forty percent.” Deo growls lowly at the now irritating voice, thrusting his fist through the holographic readings in retort. Anything will be better than just giving up and lying here until death takes them. What the hell. "Are we gonna do this or not?" he now asks impatiently.

  Mazayus sighs and sets a course for Olympus with his datakey and now relays the co-ordinates to the other four pods. "We really have no other choice."

  They each set the same course to Olympus, and prepare their SSP’s for long term cryo-stasis. The SSP’s use liquid helium and hydrogen to place the occupant in a cryonic hibernation at a temperature of minus one hundred and fifty degrees Celsius. The study of cryonics caused a lot of upheaval within Serenity, as the methods used were at first thought to oppose the Zodiacs. For a human to be put into cryo-stasis for a long period of time, there needed to be a connection with machine and organism. For the process to be non-harmful to humans, the formation of ice must be avoided due to the damage caused to body tissue. The process of replacing body water with anti-freeze substances has been perfected, injecting these cryo-protectants throughout the bloodstream, and then hardening like glass without the damage of ice crystals. This method is much like the use of an umbilical cord, as a cryo-plug is inserted through the occupant’s navel and connected to several augmented blood vessels.