War of the Spheres

by B. V. Larson

  It was as I was reaching my hand toward the touch plate that activated the mess deck access door that an unwelcome tickling began inside my skull.

  The tickle made my left eye twitch. I didn’t like that, and liked the input streaming into my skull even less.

  “You’ve broken your connection, Gray-man,” Big Al said in a monotone thought-voice.

  Thinking he must be nearby, I turned around, eyes wide and searching. There was no one in the passage.

  My hand reached up to touch the spot where that patch had been on my skull. There, I thought I felt the skin swollen, just a little. But it could have been my imagination. It felt like a vein was under the skin, squirming at my touch.

  “Big Al?” I said in a low voice. “Can you hear me?”

  “At last, the beast responds!” His voice was stronger now, different than it was when I saw him in the flesh.

  “I’m no beast, Al. I’m an intelligent being, like yourself.”

  “Yes—minion describes you better.”

  “Where are you, Al? Are you aboard Viper?”

  “No, simple creature. I left long ago. My tools boarded your ship to rescue me.”

  To me, it seemed like Al was the tool, but I didn’t bother saying that to him. He probably wouldn’t have gotten the joke.

  Looking around, I couldn’t help but check over my shoulder as I took rapid steps toward the bridge.

  “You seem to understand our language better now,” I said, wanting to keep him talking.

  “We’re using a superior means of communication. We’ve had time to process your grunts and warbles. Communications via expulsions of gas… such a disgusting process, this speech of yours.… This suits us better, and even you are more comprehensible when employing it.”

  “Right…” I said, deciding that Al’s insults and posturing were designed to get a rise out of me.

  “Where are you, if you aren’t here on my ship?”

  “I am disappointed but amused at the simulated idiocy. I’m aboard my own ship, Gray-man. As I always have been.”

  “I see…”

  Big Al seemed to be important. He was leading this mission against us, and I’d had him in my hands at one point. His commandos had plagued us for months. I sincerely wished I’d throttled him when I could have.

  He hadn’t stolen the engine yet, but he was amazingly persistent. He’d sent his henchmen to my ship from his, and he’d established a direct connection with me.

  That connection in my head concerned me greatly. Could it be removed? Or was I permanently tagged and connected via an alien communications grid? It was like having a cellphone in your head you couldn’t remove or switch off.

  Then another thought occurred to me. Since I could hear Big Al again, I figured he must be close—or at least, one of his troops was.

  “You’ve got your commandos aboard Viper again, don’t you?” I asked.

  “Of course, Gray-man. You destroyed a few as they closed with your ship, but not all. They got close enough to cross the void before you were able to flash away and escape.”

  “Right…” I said, thinking of those missiles—they were perhaps single-man personnel carriers.

  We’d destroyed three of seven. That meant there was a maximum of four hostiles aboard right now.

  It was a chilling thought.

  “What are your plans, Al?” I asked.

  “Again, you disappoint me with your lack of basic cognitive skills. My purpose should be clear.”

  “Sorry about that. I’ve got plenty of theories. I’m just asking for confirmation so I know which one is correct.”

  “Ah, that’s encouraging, and I will reward you: we desire your drive. We don’t need your lives, or your ship—just the drive.”

  “Okay…” I said. “I can work with that. Let’s cut a deal.”

  “There’s no need. We’re taking the drive now. I’m contacting you for purposes of thanks—consider yourself honored.”

  A cold hand gripped my guts. The situation was an odd one. I’d been sent to make sure the drive got to the Sphere and beyond—only to find an enemy ship waiting to steal it. That seemed too coincidental. Could Al and I be working on the same side? What if the Watchers wanted me to get the engine out here, so Al could steal it?

  If that’s what they wanted, they should have been more clear. I’d succeeded in my mission, so I was free to do as I saw fit now.

  After these fleeting worries, I focused on the matter at had: Were they stealing the drive right now? If they’d already managed to get it off the ship… We’d never be able to cross the barrier again and get back inside. We’d be trapped forever out here, exposed in a wide open universe we barely understood. We’d be at the mercy of every alien who wandered by for as long as we lasted.

  Already, I was wondering if we’d run out oxygen, fuel or water first. My bet would be on fuel as we ran from various aliens, all of them intent on stealing our secrets.

  Chapter 43

  Captain Jessup wasn’t far behind the rest of our engineering crew in figuring out the math of the situation. Even as I climbed out of the cockpit and began scrambling toward the hatch to access the engine itself, which was on Fairweather’s lowest deck, I could hear him talking to Hughes and her team.

  “Let’s pull together,” Jessup said. “I’ll let bygones be bygones. You’ve proven your drive can work. You’ve also proven you have a modicum of control over these jumps—enough to be useful.”

  I could tell Jessup was trying to stay calm and keep his voice pleasant. He probably wanted to scream at us for hopping his ship around at random without asking, but at the same time he knew he couldn’t get home alive without us.

  “Thanks for the kind words, Captain,” Hughes said evenly. I wasn’t quite sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

  “You’ve earned them,” Jessup told her. “Now, to formalize our relationship: We can’t have two captains on board one ship. As it is, one of us has been deciding independently when to jump, while the other has his ass on the line to be responsible for doing everything else.”

  He paused to let this sink in. It wasn’t entirely accurate, but it showed clearly what he was thinking.

  “So,” he continued loudly. “How about this? Allow me to give the jump command, and you can execute it as best you’re able with your limited control over this experimental drive. I’ll just give you a destination, and you can do your best to get us there. Do we have a deal?”

  “In principle, yes,” Hughes agreed in a guarded tone.

  “Excellent. Here’s our first trial in this new alliance: Please jump again, as soon as you’re able, and take us back inside our home Sphere!”

  “We’re trying to do that now, Captain. Unfortunately… something seems to be wrong with the drive. You’re not cutting the power again, are you sir?”

  That was my cue. I was still struggling with the hatch that led down into the engineering sub-deck, but it was locked. Even my bulging arms couldn’t turn the wheel to open it.

  “Hughes!” I shouted harshly. “Let me through this hatch.”

  “Negative, Gray,” Fillmore snapped. “The subdeck is sealed for good reasons. For one thing, the drive emits deadly radiation bursts when it’s activated. Do you want to fry us all?”

  “Someone is stealing it!” I shouted at them over my shoulder. “Let me get into this thing—the wheel is frozen.”

  “Stealing it?” Hughes said in alarm. “Are you crazy, Gray?”

  “Open this damned thing before it’s too late!” I shouted.

  “Fillmore, help him,” Col. Hughes ordered.

  The soft man grunted as he unstrapped himself and crawled toward me clumsily.

  “It’s locked, not frozen, fool,” Fillmore said, slithering into the tight compartment beside me. The ceiling was only a meter or so above us.

  At this moment I wished Fairweather had been built a little larger, as it was cramped with two men in the forward compartment struggling with a single h
atch on the floor.

  “Approved fingerprints must touch here, and here,” Fillmore said, slapping my hands away.

  I applied my hands to the points he indicated—but even when I applied enough force to break a standard lock, the hatch remained sealed.

  “Let me do it,” Fillmore said, panting. “You must not be on the security recognition list.”

  He put his hands on the wheel, and it instantly started to come free with a vacuum-suction sound.

  Fillmore and I glanced at one another.

  “It should be pressurized down there,” he said.

  “Visors down everyone!” I shouted to the crew. “We’re going to lose our air for a while!”

  While they scrambled to obey me, I spun the wheel and the hatch opened. It wasn’t easy, as the hatch was manually operated and the hinges were stiff. Even worse, we had pressure on our side and the other side was a vacuum, so it strongly fought against me. I had to put my shoulders into it.

  Fillmore helped somewhat, puffing and yanking to break the seal.

  At last, it came up and a howling surge of air blasted over us and out into space equalizing the pressure inside.

  The engine compartment was thus revealed. The interior was dark and lifeless. Responding automatically, our helmets turned on headlights to reveal the scene.

  To our joint horror the chamber was empty. There was nothing but dangling power leads.

  The engine itself was missing.

  “How is this possible?” Hughes demanded in my headset.

  I realized she’d tapped into my helmet cameras and was seeing the empty compartment even as I was.

  “Colonel,” I said, “the engine has been removed. There’s a hole nearby leading into another compartment… that’s where the vacuum leak must have come from.”

  I moved to investigate the hole, which was only about a foot wide. A full-grown man couldn’t have used that crude rip through the metal to enter the chamber, but maybe one of the Vehk could have pulled it off. Their bodies were built differently than ours.

  “How could they have gotten our engine out of that tiny hole, Gray?” Hughes demanded.

  “The mere idea is preposterous,” Fillmore complained. “And yet… it seems to have happened.”

  “They can go in-between,” I told them. “They have devices allowing them entry and exit to subspace…”

  “So, they used the trick they’ve been using to appear at Arlington Labs and inside our ships?” Fillmore asked. “You must be right. Fascinating…”

  “It’s not fascinating, it’s terrifying,” Hughes said. “Without that drive, we’re stuck on this side of our Sphere, lost in space forever.”

  Fillmore sniffed. “Hardly forever. If that battleship doesn’t blast us into atoms, we’ll starve or suffocate in a month or two. With cannibalism—which I predict, by the way—we might last another—”

  “Shut up, Fillmore!” Hughes ordered angrily. “Gray, you have to find that field projector. You get my engine back!” she ordered.

  My mind was already turning that concept over in my head. I felt the ship shudder briefly, and I became alarmed.

  “Jessup mustn’t do anything to our course and speed,” I said. “If they are in-between, moving our ship’s location might mean they’ll drift away from us. They must be right here, close to this spot—but in another dimension.”

  “I don’t entirely know what you’re talking about, Chief,” Hughes admitted. “But I’ll try to get Jessup to drift. It will be hard, as he’s got a battleship bearing down on us. It will take some time for the enemy to get here… but we don’t have forever.”

  “Less than an hour, I should think,” Fillmore said unhelpfully.

  Gathering up Big Al’s equipment from the gear bag at my side, I strapped the harness into place. The harness was quite light, almost like wearing a safety vest. I noted with experience, it probably focused a small personal field around the wearer. No doubt the belt unit powered the field like our own engine had been functioning on our ship.

  With great reluctance, I powered up the alien transportation system.

  When I’d been lost within the strange world of the in-between, I’d promised myself I’d never go back there.

  Now, here I was, willingly entering the universe of ghosts and timelessness again.

  Because I had no choice.

  Chapter 44

  There was only one way to chase the enemy and get the engine back. Without that drive, we’d be wandering forever outside of our Sphere—or at least until they destroyed Viper.

  Working the alien gear I’d taken from Big Al, I managed to transition into the in-between. When I faded out in front of them, I caught a few gasps from Hughes and the rest. Most seemed horrified, but I also noted a gleam of unbridled joy on Toby’s face. He’d be happy to go with me, I knew. Toby might not be fully human, but he had the spirit of a true explorer.

  A moment later they were gone, and I found myself floating in nothingness again. Getting my limbs operating was a chore, but it took only a fraction of the time it took before.

  I knew how to do it now. I was no expert, no trapeze artist of the in-between—but I was a little familiar—I could function here.

  Casting my gaze—if that’s what it even was—in several directions, I saw the glow of the big engine reactors, off and to my right. I wasn’t looking at the jump-drive—it was the main fusion chambers that Viper used to power around in normal space.

  With that hot-zone as a positional guide, I began searching for any hint of the engine and the thieves that had taken it.

  At first I saw nothing, and I searched with an increasing sense of desperation.

  Making an effort, I widened my field of view. Doing this was a strange, hard to describe work of perception. It was like refocussing one’s eyes to study the glass in a window pane rather than looking across the fields outside.

  There… I saw something new. That glow—so distant, but deep and clear. It smoldered and shimmered, looking much like Viper’s reactor.

  It had to be the power source of the battleship. The monster vessel the Vehk had driven here to steal our technology.

  I couldn’t believe it. The battleship must have caught up to us. Viper was drifting, depending on me to find that drive—and I was failing her and everyone aboard.

  Who knew how long I’d already spent in the in-between? Hours? It could be. Long enough, in any case, for the battleship to come close and hover near Viper.

  How difficult it must be for Jessup to not run or fire on the bigger ship. I had no way of knowing the true state of affairs in my home dimension. Perhaps, Viper was crawling with alien invaders.

  I peered around, looking for them. I’d never seen a fellow traveler in this state before, but logically…

  There they were—far off. Halfway between the smoldering glows emitted by the reactors inside Viper and the alien battleship, I spotted a small pale huddle of forms.

  They looked ghostly and irregular—like an amoeba with an indistinct outline.

  Spurred by a surge of hope and determination, I set out after them.

  Movement came more easily when I had a clear goal ahead. I soon passed through the hull of the destroyer and out into empty space. Without walls to wriggle through, my speed increased. Gliding like an Olympic swimmer, I crossed the void.

  As I approached my prey, it seemed to me that they were focused on dragging a dark bulk between them. They showed no sign of detecting my approach

  The shape of that bulk wasn’t quite right—but it had to be Fairweather’s field projector. It resembled a sketch drawing, a wire diagram of lines and shading. They’d taken it with them into the in-between and were dragging it with great effort toward their battleship.

  Now I could plainly see why the Vehk had so easily dominated us in this conflict. They could turn into ghosts and move freely through the walls of our material world at will. What a way to operate! It wasn’t clean and easy, but it was highly effective. Creatures wh
o could invade Spheres like ours at will… I suspected the Vehk race was the scourge of the galaxy, the pirate-kings of the stars.

  As I pushed and swam, the effort became easier, more natural—almost like flying in a dream. I was getting closer to them.

  The Vehk themselves didn’t seem to notice me. Perhaps they were too focused on dragging their bulky prize away.

  As I grew near, they became more distinct in form, but they still didn’t look humanoid. They were gauzy gray-white shapes, partially transparent. At the core of each of them a glimmering light pulsed like a beating heart.

  There was another such pulsing light on the back of the engine.

  What could that light be? A soul? A power-source? I wasn’t sure, and I wasn’t certain I’d ever learn the truth.

  Watching the hostiles work and inch along, I realized why they’d never simply stolen the engine while it sat upon Earth. It would have been too far to go at such speeds. They could never have dragged it away over millions of cold kilometers.

  Instead, they’d plotted and worked to get us to bring the engine to them. They’d pirated our ships inside our Sphere, brought them to Earth, then created chaos to increase our urgency.

  Had they started off by assassinating members of our team in order to put fear into our hearts? To make us accelerate our plans? What efforts had been earnestly done to kill team members, and which had been designed to lure instead?

  It was hard to say, but it seemed clear I was witnessing the final moments of a vast, devious scheme on their part. They’d herded us to this point in time and space by trickery, fear and careful planning. I, for one, was duly impressed with their devious ingenuity.

  That cold, black thought entered my mind again. Whose side was I on? Were the Watchers deploying me to hasten the field projector into Vehk hands? Maybe they had some kind of secret arrangement with them.

  Soon, I was within striking distance. It was time for a plan of action, rather than daydreaming about the enemy.

  I needed to defeat two Vehk hostiles. Big Al would have called them spawn-guards. Next, I had to drag the engine back to Viper—but how? I wasn’t even sure I could fight these vague, ghostly shapes. If I did attack them, would my hands go right through their bodies? Would they be able to disable the technology that kept me in this strange sub-space, and would I be left in hard vacuum?