by Lace, Lisa
“Kenna,” I said softly. “I need you.”
KENNA
I had been watching from the lounge when I had heard Dar’s voice coming from my comm unit. I took off running. There was nowhere I would rather be. Especially since this might be the end of everything. It was too bad that he hadn’t remembered me completely, but I still wanted to be with a part of who he was.
I snuck on to the bridge covertly, trying not to disturb anyone. Thank goodness Dar was at the back, out of the way of everyone who was working. I didn’t ask what was happening. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to disturb their concentration. Instead, I took his hand and tried to soak up some comfort from his touch.
“Mo,” Jakk said, quietly. “Status on their attempts to transport.”
“They’re attempting, sir. We’ve kept them off so far, but I’m not sure how much longer we can evade them. They change tactics and they’re so damned fast.”
“Keep it up as long as you can, Mo,” Jakk said. “Let me know if they get through.”
“You’ll know when I vanish.”
We all watched in silence as the ships closest to the miniature black hole got pulled in. It was both horrible and wonderful to watch. The mighty ships crumpled, blew up, and disappeared.
“Earth,” came Jakk’s voice. “Status report.”
We all strained to hear. The connection was terrible. Maybe the wormhole was affecting our communications.
“There are reports coming in from all continents,” the voice said. “Earthquakes, floods. A volcano has sprouted in the middle of North America. There are no death counts coming in yet, but I imagine there will be soon.”
The person on the other end of the line’s voice was full of anxiety and I didn’t blame him. We were playing with fire.
The tension was thick. I could see the fear in Elara’s eyes now. She glanced at Jakk and then back to the view screen. Jakk met her eyes and began watching her instead of the view screen. He had complete faith in her, never questioning her decisions or second guessing her choices.
They made a good team.
“Susohn, come in,” Jakk said next. “We need a status report.”
“There has been considerable seismic activity on the planet. Three volcanoes have erupted and there looks like there’s a fourth pushing up. No deaths.”
“Thank you,” he said. At least Dar’s planet wasn’t being torn to bits yet. Earth was closer to the black hole.
Just then Mo’s voice came on. He was practically screaming.
“We have been breached. They got a lock and fifty people are gone!” he yelled.
“Fifty. Shit. We can’t lose any more. Can you keep us protected a little longer, Mo?” Jakk said calmly, his eyes on the screen as the flow of destroyed ships accelerated.
“I’ll try my best, captain. I have one more trick up my sleeve,” he said.
“Jakk,” Elara said so softly that I could barely hear her. “We’re going to be reaching the point of no return soon.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “Where do you need me?”
She blushed but I don’t think anyone else noticed.
“I need you to get as close as you can to the wormhole without compromising the integrity of the hull. You’ll have to monitor it closely. It won’t be easy,” she said apologetically.
“Easy is boring,” he grinned. “You should learn one thing about me right now, Elara.”
“What’s that?” she said.
“I like a challenge,” he said, tapping on his console.
DAR
Kenna squeezed my hand until it hurt. We all stood still as Jakk piloted the space craft closer and closer to the wormhole.
He had to get close enough to deploy the equipment that would reverse the destabilization — but without getting sucked into the wormhole itself or having our ship crumble in its gravitational pull. It was easier to unleash chaos than it was to stabilize it again.
Most of the alien ships had been destroyed, but the ones that remained were still trying to get a lock on us. The droids never gave up and they didn’t care how long it took to get us. They weren’t worried about dying the way a biological crew would have been.
“Jakk, what if we sent an electromagnetic pulse to crash their systems and buy us some time,” I suggested, the thought coming to me out of the blue. He didn’t look up from what he was doing.
“Elara,” he said.
“I’m already on it,” she said, pulling up a console and tapping furiously. “I don’t know why Mo didn’t think of it before this.”
“How did you think of it, I wonder,” Kenna murmured beside me. I had no idea.
There was nothing to see but suddenly we heard Mo’s relieved voice.
“Thank The Three, they’ve let up.”
“We only have a few minutes, Mo. Hopefully it will be enough to restabilize the wormhole.” Elara’s voice trailed off.
“Elara,” Jakk’s voice was tight. “Thirty seconds.”
She nodded and sat down at her console. “Got it,” she said. “Twenty seconds till initiation of restabilization procedures.”
As we got closer to the wormhole, which was slowly turning into a black hole, we began to feel the effects of its enormous gravitational pull.
“Reverse engines,” Jakk said. “Maximum power.”
As soon as he gave the order, the ship began to rock and shake. Our footing was unstable. Kenna and I grabbed for the nearest console and held on tight. She looked at me, eyes wide, not saying anything.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too.”
Now I could die with no regrets. I just wished I could remember her.
We were jarred as the ship bucked and fought the pull of the black hole.
“Elara.” Jakk said, his eyes never leaving his console. “How much longer?”
“Beginning restabilization procedures,” Elara said, her eyes scanning her console and her fingers tapping. “Keep us there, Jakk.”
There was a horrible groaning sound and Jakk looked frantically at his console, trying to figure out where the hull was beginning to disintegrate. His fingers flew and the groaning noise stopped. I was glad because one thing I never wanted to hear was the sound of a spaceship’s hull being breached.
“Earth reporting in. There are massive earth quakes being felt around the globe. Supervolcanoes are protruding from every single continent. The electric grids are down in all major cities due to seismic activity and there is widespread panic. What the hell are you doing out there?” a voice demanded.
Jakk grunted, keeping his focus on what he was doing. No one else responded, so I answered.
“Restabilization procedures have been initiated for the wormhole. Earth, you should see a decrease in seismic events soon.” Kenna was watching me with a smile on her face. “Susohn, have you got a status report?”
It took a moment but someone finally replied.
“Susohn, here. We have major emergencies all over the planet right now. There has been so much seismic activity that it’s affecting the winds.”
The winds were everything on Susohn. All of our cities were built to be sheltered from the winds. If they began to blow the wrong way, it would be a disaster.
“They have switched direction causing widespread destruction across the entire planet. Super volcanoes have already destroyed settlements that were built nearby. It’s crazy down here.”
“Copy that, Susohn,” I said. “Restabilization has begun and you should feel the effects soon.”
“Thank The Three,” the voice said.
All of a sudden, Jakk spoke up.
“Elara, I can’t hold it here much longer. We have sixty seconds until the hull completely disintegrates.”
“Captain.” it was Mo again. “The aliens are back online and they got a lock — twenty more people are gone.”
“Shit, hold them off, Mo. Not much longer,” Jakk said, through his teeth. He kept his eyes on his monitor.
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“Elara,” he said, the strain in his voice apparent.
She didn’t respond and only kept working on what she was doing. The groaning started again. We thought the ship was dangerous before, but it became really unstable now, pitching and tilting so that people started flying in all directions.
I saw Jakk and Elara strap in without taking their eyes off their consoles. Anyone else who had a belt was already strapped. The rest of us headed for emergency seat belts that had popped out of the wall. Getting there was easier said than done. The floor was now at such an angle that we had to climb up.
Abruptly, the ship shifted and we were rolled the other way. Kenna grunted as she hit the wall, hard.
“Are you okay?” I said, trying to get to her. She nodded but her eyes looked unfocused.
The ship moved again. We fell down to the floor and hit hard. I lost track of Kenna.
“Elara,” Jakk shouted above the noise. “Ten seconds.”
“Almost there.”
I felt my body flying through the air and my head hit something.
I lost consciousness.
KENNA
I was sure by now that Jakk and Elara were going to get us all killed. Not only the people aboard this ship, but the whole galaxy as well.
The space craft was bucking and rocking and people were flying everywhere. It felt as if the hull were about to be ripped apart.
I couldn’t see Dar anywhere as my body was flung about the rapidly shifting space ship. I tried to remember a prayer, any prayer to any god, but couldn’t think of anything.
“Jakk!” Elara screamed over the deafening noise. “Get us out of here.”
There was a lurch like I had never felt in a space ship. I could actually feel the force of the acceleration pulling on the skin of my face and making it tight.
As suddenly as all the madness had started, it stopped. The floor straightened out and the space ship flew smoothly again.
Jakk sat back from his console and closed his eyes. Elara leaned forward and buried her face in her hands. I wondered if she was crying.
I picked myself up off the floor and checked my body. It seemed intact, though I was sure I was going to have some bruising tomorrow.
Now, where the hell was Dar? Other people who hadn’t been strapped down were getting up, some with bloody noses or bad scrapes. Some were holding their heads or their stomachs. Some were still lying on the floor. But where was Dar?
I walked quickly around the bridge and finally found him in a corner, on the ground. He was unconscious.
Here we go again.
I knelt beside him.
“Dar?” I took his wrist, carefully feeling for a pulse. It was weak but it was there. He was alive, thank God.
Jakk was beside me in an instant.
“Is he okay?” he said, concern filling his handsome blue eyes.
I shrugged.
“He’s out cold, I guess.”
Just then Dar moved. I glanced at Jakk. Then he moved again and moaned.
“Dar, are you all right? Talk to me. Come on,” I said, not wanting to touch him any more in case he was badly hurt.
“Kenna?” he said, his voice rough.
“Yes, yes, it’s me,” I said. “You must have got knocked unconscious when the ship was moving around so much.”
He blinked slowly and looked at me. Then he smiled and his eyes were filled with such love and…oh my God…recognition.
He’d seen right into my heart. He’d always seen me. The Kenna that no one else saw. And he had always thought I was so amazing for reasons I never quite understood. I hadn’t seen him look at me like that since he’d been thrown by the alien. Since he’d lost his memories.
“Dar?” I whispered.
“Yes.” His eyes were filled with joy. “I’m back.”
“Back?” Jakk said. “From where?”
“Never you mind, you scandalous flirt,” Dar said. “I saw how you were looking at my sheeranla.”
“I was not!” He did a double-take. “Wait, did you call her your sheeranla?” Jakk said, eyes widened in surprise.
“I did.”
“You didn’t tell me.” There was accusation in his voice.
“So what? If I had, you wouldn’t have flirted with her?” Dar said.
“Oh, I would have flirted with her. I just wouldn’t have done it right in front of you.”
Dar laughed then. His old laugh. He was back. I could see the confident set of his head and the look in his eye that meant he knew exactly who he was. The questioning, unsure Dar was gone. Or maybe he was in there somewhere. It didn’t matter. I had Dar back. My Dar.
Jakk gave him his hand and we helped him sit up and then stand. There didn’t seem to be any injuries. The concussion that had given him his memories back seemed like such a miracle, it would hardly do to call it an injury. We held hands and he whispered as we walked.
“We have some unfinished business, you and I.”
I drew in a deep breath. We did?
“I have something to ask you, later.”
I had no time to wonder what he was talking about before we got to the middle of the bridge. Elara was staring out the view screen as we walked slowly over.
“Well, we did it, Elara,” Jakk said, flashing her a saucy grin and clapping her on the back.
She didn’t notice and she didn’t return the smile.
“What’s wrong, Elara?” I said, worried again.
“This isn’t over,” she said.
“What do you mean?” Jakk said, frowning. “We did what we came to do.”
She gestured towards the view screen.
“Most of the ships have been sucked back in but there is one remaining.”
“We’ll have to capture and eventually destroy it.”
“The wormhole will take at least three weeks to stabilize. Ehron just ran the model again and the model predicts that as the wormhole restabilizes, Earth and Susohn will continue to experience disaster after disaster.”
“So we were wrong about our predictions. We’ll have to deal with it. It’s better than the alternative. It’s okay, Elara. It’s over,” Jakk said.
“There’s also the little matter of that,” she said and gracefully pointed to a small dot on the view screen.
Whatever it was, it was going really fast and getting bigger as we watched it.
“What the hell is that?” Jakk said, confused. “It doesn’t look like a ship.”
We all watched as the dot enlarged. As it came closer, the ship’s cameras were able to enlarge the image, and we were able to see what we were dealing with.
No. It couldn’t be.
“If I had to guess,” Elara said in an emotionless voice. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, and I’m speaking scientifically, of course. I’d have to call it a fucking enormous space squid.”
She turned then and she faced the room.
“It’s headed right for us.”
Part 5: Dilemma
KENNA
I couldn’t believe it.
There was not a space squid heading right for our ship. Was there? First terrorists. Then alien slave ships full of droids. Now a space squid?
This was getting ridiculous. I felt myself waver a little bit and Dar looked at me and frowned.
“Are you okay?” he said, concerned evident in his face.
“Space squid?” I said, weakly. “Is that like a land shark? Are you kidding me?”
He helped me to sit down before I fell.
“So, I guess you’re not ok,” he said, accusingly.
“Maybe I hit my head a little harder than I thought.”
We grinned at each other when I said that, thinking how fortunate it had been that he had hit his head.
“I missed you,” I said.
“I missed me, too,” he said and we grinned again.
“You remember everything, including what happened when you didn’t have your memories back?”
He nodded.
“Everything okay, Dar?” Jakk said. Interrupting our little reunion.
“Yeah, Kenna’s a little woozy, that’s all.”
“The wormhole didn’t destroy all the ships. There is one ship left that was suspiciously out of range, almost as if someone knew where it had to be to avoid being pulled into the wormhole. Our best guess is that the creature is from the remaining vessel.”
He glanced at Kenna apologetically.
“I’m sorry, but the doctor is not available right now, Kenna. We need all hands at their stations, since we lost seventy crew members during the destabilization. But as soon as we deal with this space squid, we’ll get everyone checked out by the ship’s doctor, okay?” Jakk said. Kenna nodded.
“No worries, Jakk.”
We watched it approaching.
“This animal is massive. Do you have any ideas, Dar?”
“You were always the idea guy, Jakk. I just followed you along.”
Without taking his eyes off the view screen, Jakk snorted.
“I suppose it was my idea to sneak into the girls’ camp to wake up Millaree and Vovavnu?” he said, looking innocent.
“Midnight canoe ride in the oasis,” he said, filling me in. “Nothing happened. The counselors caught us when our canoe bottomed out. It was the dry season. Not my best idea ever,” he told me, shrugging. “As for what to do about the squid? Don’t you have weapons?”
Jakk looked at him with astonishment in his face. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“What if it comes in peace?” Elara said out of nowhere. She had been listening to the conversation but had not spoken until now.
“Are you serious, Aritza?” Jakk said, looking at her in disbelief.
“I thought you were a peaceful race,” she said referring to the Susohnnan culture’s aversion to violence.
“And so we are,” he stared at her for a moment longer, until she blushed. Then he turned to the ensign in charge of communications. “Ensign, please hail the squid in as many languages as the computer knows, including squidish.”
Kenna and I smiled at each other.
“Tell it we come in peace and mean it no harm.”
The ensign nodded and went to work. A moment later a gob of slime hit the camera of the view screen. As we watched, acid in the slime began eating away at the device, melting it.