by Jason Letts
“Feeling the light is like bathing in the soft glow of every star in the universe at once. It envelops you, fills your soul, and gives color to everything around you. Light is our defining relationship with the cosmos. It’s our lifeline, our shackles, our sight.”
Loris second guessed every word he’d written, wondering if even the most basic concepts of softness, or color, or soul were recognizable to them. In the end, he couldn’t do more than express himself in the terms he knew and hope that they’d be able to translate. He sent the message and waited for a response.
The boy proved to be a quiet passenger, content to sit and stare out at everything in front of them. Loris read up on a few notices while he’d been asleep. Quade refused to give up but was getting nowhere. No signs of Rasher. Redhook had taken Brina and Riki to the life creation tanks.
Suddenly a response appeared on the console. Loris leapt to find out what it said.
“I would like to feel it. It sounds gentle compared to the pulling, the warping, and the decay.”
Loris read the message fifty times over, trying to sort out the motivations of this creature. He began to get a sense of some dissatisfaction behind the words; some struggling that needed an opportunity to be expressed. What was unique that made them want to make contact with beings in the visible light spectrum? And what could Loris offer in return. He needed more information.
“Why did you bring us here? Why create the probes and the windows?”
The reply came much more quickly this time, thrilling Loris.
“Because we knew there was more in existence than what we could sense.”
Loris smiled, and suddenly it all made sense. It couldn’t have been easier for Loris to sympathize with the hunger to understand within a mysterious universe. If they wanted answers, he’d be more than happy to open the doors for them. But one venturing one more question to strike a personal connection was in order.
“What do you call yourselves? We are the humans.”
The wait was longer this time, making Loris think he’d made a mistake and hit upon something sensitive.
“Our species is the Khoriams, but you might call us the Zero Cadence.”
Loris assumed that referred to some kind of group, either that small group of fighters or some portion of the total population. He wondered what exactly it meant. Something to do with not having regular rhythm or movement? Either way, the time had come to make his appeal. In his mind he imagined invisible dark matter fighters cutting up the entire Detonan armada. If that was the path he was imagining, he had to make it real.
“Zero Cadence is welcome to learn about our experience and explore our station, but there is not much time. We are in danger,” Loris wrote.
“We know.”
The short response stumped Loris, who struggled to figure out how best to go from there. He wondered if the Khoriams knew the whole history of the Detonans creating other species. The boy, for all his willingness, seemed to offer no guidance on how to secure aid. Loris decided that keeping it simple was his only option.
“We are facing attack. Will you help us?”
Passing minutes continued to add up until an entire hour passed without a response. Looking around again with the panel revealed nothing about the area. After a while, he noticed that the boy had fallen asleep and received updates from crewmembers about shift assignments and sleeping quarters. Whatever else could be said about these beings, they had room to improve when it came to ending conversations.
Sleeping on the Incubator gave Loris a new perspective on everyone’s discomforts. The bed pads were thin, lumpy, and still greasy from their previous users. When he woke up, he thought the smell had seeped into his mouth and was stinging his gums. It was enough to compel him to skip the long deliberations and head straight for the nearest inhabitable planet, if only he could.
Making it to the control room, he found Panic, Lala, and Quade there. The Chief of Technological Research looked even more of a wreck. His hair was a mess and an uneven beard was coming in. He’d given up on circumventing the Detonans’ lock on the ship’s computer system.
“They had a backdoor for access,” Quade sighed, hunching over the back of a chair. “I would’ve had to have gone through every single line of code to spot it, and there are millions. I still don’t know exactly where the root of it is, but it’s completely frozen any local attempt to make changes or input commands. They got me.”
Even that level of contrition from Quade was remarkable. He looked beaten, physically, from the way he carried himself.
“You did your best and what you did accomplish was incredible,” Loris said.
Quade didn’t display much comfort in Loris’s support.
“What’s interesting is that if they wanted to, they could seal the air ducts or pop open the internal vents, any number of things that would make living here almost impossible, but they’re not.”
“Perhaps they want their ship back in one piece,” Riki said.
“They might not get that anyway,” Panic said, crossing her arms over her chest. “If it looks like we’re going down I’ll make sure this thing is full of holes. I’ll smash their tanks, plant a charge by the engine.”
Panic stopped abruptly and exchanged a warm glance with Lala. The comment got Loris’s attention, too.
“Is there any way to kill the engine?” he asked. Quade rested his chin on his palm and raised his eyebrows.
“There might be, but I wouldn’t know the first step of how to do it. All I can gather is that this ship is propelled by completely different principles and mechanics than ours. I couldn’t tell you if setting off a charge or touching anything would disrupt other systems on the ship and leave us worse off than where we are now,” he said.
“You might not know, but maybe Marta Aylward would,” Loris said, referring to their Chief of Engineering.
“It’s a shame she’s not here,” Quade said, but the train of though was already moving in Loris’s mind.
“That’s not going to stop us. We’ll get her images of everything and see if she can figure it out. Maybe there’s a chance we can manually bring the ship to a halt by cutting the engine.”
Loris felt more optimistic about this new plan with each second, but not everyone felt that way.
“And that leaves us…adrift and helpless,” Quade surmised.
“Maybe not,” Lala said. “We should be passing through another star system on the way to Detonus. None of the planets have atmospheres, but the Magellan might be able to tow the Incubator into a safe hiding space where we could figure out what to do next.”
“You think the Magellan could tow the Incubator with a cable?” Quade said, his voice thick with skepticism.
“The station is equipped with a number of retractable lines. Running calculations would be necessary to ensure its feasibility, but as long as we could harness the slowing Incubator’s momentum that should give us the jump start we need to get going.”
Quade waved his hand.
“Sure, maybe. But the only place to send communications back to Aylward is through the Cortes, which is a long way from the engine room. There’d be a lot of back and forth. Even getting to the engine from the inside of the ship isn’t easy. I only attempted it once and stopped when my wristband detected radioactive emissions on the other side of a shield. The only way through seems to be a removable panel in a duct leading directly out of the ship.”
Loris smiled.
“It sounds like you’ve done a lot of the work for us. Let’s get moving on this,” he said.
The first step was getting in touch with Aylward, who had even stronger reservations than Quade did.
“You think we’re going to be able to have an uncontrolled power down of the isotopes fueling the engine without blowing the whole ship apart?”
That was enough to lower Loris’s expectations, but after some pleading she agreed to look at whatever they could show her. Loris held out hope that once they made it within sight
of the engine they’d find a solution, but getting there was much easier said than done.
Because of the threat of radiation and loss of pressure, Aylward insisted that they seal off the area around the duct panel that would be their entry point. That took several trips and hours to accomplish. Removing the duct panel wasn’t difficult, but the tunnel required quite a bit of improvised infrastructure to safely navigate. Safety lines and footholds needed to be set, as well as a tow rope for a vertical section. Farther along, they needed to cut a hole into the bottom of the duct without the use of a torch. That would allow them to drop into the engine room and begin gathering information about what was there and how it worked.
They’d expended the entire shift by the time everything was in place.
“All right, who’s going in?” Panic asked. She glared at Loris, keeping him from volunteering.
“I will,” Redhook offered, but it turned out that he’d be too big for the hole they’d cut.
“Sure, ask for volunteers when you really just want me to do it,” Lopez said. “You all owe me big time. I’m going to come back with a third eye or Rasher will be sitting in there waiting for me.
Suited up, Lopez climbed into the duct and shimmied out of sight. He banged against the walls with every movement, and the clangs became fainter until he could no longer be heard. Loris and the others waited through the silence. The instructions were to photograph everything as thoroughly as possible. Loris could only guess at how much of the engine was accessible or how long it would take.
It was nearly two hours before the banging resumed and Lopez shimmied back toward them. When he slid out of the duct panel and reached the floor, he turned to them and flashed a bright smile.
“I think you’re going to like this,” he said.
They rushed back to the Cortes where they could view and transmit the images. Lopez had taken hundreds, but he brought up one in particular of what looked like a large box set into the wall.
“What is that?” Panic asked.
“I think it’s a secondary control panel. Here, look at this next image of the interior. There are all kinds of big levers. If we can figure out what they do, maybe we can circumvent the program.”
It was a promising idea, and Quade immediately took up the task of translating the labels and cross checking with the ship’s systems. They were excited to see what Aylward made of it.
“I’ll see what I can sort out,” she said, “but I have some bad news. We picked up the Detonan armada on the long-range scanners. They’re coming toward us and we’re running out of time.”
Loris lowered his head and closed his eyes. The walls were closing in on him, he felt disgusting, and now the next day would bring the confrontation he’d been dreading. Their attempts to improve their fortune were based more on desperation and hope rather than sound logic or likelihood of success.
He knew in his heart what it would come down to. A ship. A cockpit. A trigger. He’d have to face them down again, but unlike last time, they were unlikely to run.
When he returned his attention to the room around them, he saw the concerned looks on everyone’s faces. It was getting late and they were tired. Taking some of their precious time for sleep was unavoidable, but if they didn’t find a solution relating to the engine soon, it would be too late. Panic, Lala, Redhookthey all shared the same expression of grim resolution.
They would do what they could, but it might mean little in the face of hundreds of fighters, a dozen heavy cruisers, and tens of thousands of Detonans.
“We’re going to find a way to survive,” Loris said, refusing to accept the alternative.
While Quade and Aylward worked on deciphering the control panel, Loris left the Cortes to take a few more hours of uncomfortable sleep, when he ran into Brina, who was coming to check in on them. She looked hopeful, almost happy. It was something he hated to change, but it would’ve been wrong to keep the truth form her.
“They’re coming and we don’t have much time,” he said. She nodded, her expression neutralizing. She gave him a hug and took a long look over his face. Her hand slipped through his hair. When she pulled her hand back, there was a strand of it between her thumb and forefinger.
“Your hair is starting to thin,” she said.
“I’d say that’s the least of my worries right now,” he said.
Pursing her lips, she looked past him down the hall.
“I know, but I’ve got another one that might be higher on the list. There are fights breaking out in the residential areas. The Novans and Quade’s manufactured people aren’t getting along. I’ve been looking into what Quade did with the creation system. A few minute changes might’ve had a dramatic effect on their temperament and level of aggression. I’m afraid we’re going to have a riot on our hands.”
Loris glanced around wondering if anything else could go wrong. All that was left was the walls of the ship collapsing, hastening them into the arms of space’s cold void.
“We’ll get over there to take care of it,” he said.
There were thorny questions to work through about what responsibility they had to people born from soupy vats, but now wasn’t the time. It had the potential to take a lot of manpower to keep all of the residents in line, and the defense team was stretched thin as it was.
Before parting again, Brina gave him the kind of soft kiss that seemed suited to better days.
After telling Panic about the situation with the residents and getting a little rest, Loris returned to the Cortes to find Lopez all suited up and ready to head back into the engine room.
“We’ve hit on something that seems promising. By activating a maintenance mode, it should reduce the output of the engines,” Quade said.
“Reduce the output by how much?” Loris asked.
“Hard to say, but it could be significant. It would make sense that they’d have something like this in order to allow work to be done inside the core chamber.”
“If it buys us some time and throws the Detonans off, I’ll take it,” Loris said.
“Back in the hamster tube,” Lopez grumbled, sealing his helmet.
Because many of their soldiers were now working to mollify the refugees, the team heading to the engine rooms was much smaller than before. There were only four of them making the trek across the ship.
“You know what you’re doing, right?” Panic asked Lopez as they viewed the gaping hole in the duct he would be crawling through.
“Of course. Pull the knob with the funky symbols next to it. Easy.”
“At least this shouldn’t take as long as the last time you went in there,” Loris said.
“Good thing, too. I don’t want to be late for my massage.”
It was hard not to crack a smile at Lopez, whose spirits remained high in even the darkest of moments. Soon his legs dangled out of the tube as he pulled himself in. As he banged his way through, the others talked about preparations for the fight ahead on the Magellan. The Hudson and da Gama were being outfitted as they spoke. The Cortes would be detached as soon as the Incubator slowed enough. They lamented that the Balboa wouldn’t be available because it was needed to circulate air through the alien vessel.
The sounds of Lopez’s squirming vanished, but long before they expected them to reappear as he made his return, they heard the footsteps of a soldier thundering down the hallway. The man was out of breath and red in the face after tearing across the entire ship. When they got closer, they saw that there was a streak of blood across his uniform.
“Sir, things are out of control in the residential section. There are two soldiers dead already and twice as many Novans. The new people have banded together and are roaming the halls. I was trying to help one of our guys when they set on me. I barely got away.”
Loris took a long look at the hole in the duct, knowing Lopez wouldn’t be happy to return and find no one around. But if these genetic monsters thought they could get away with killing soldiers and refugees, he knew he’d need to teach
them a hard lesson.
“OK, let’s go take care of them. If we hurry we might make it back before Lopez gets out. Hold nothing back,” he said.
They left the engine room and retraced their steps back to the Cortes, where they broke into a supply chest and removed a few hand cannons. Redhook had a devilish smile as he slipped his fingers around the trigger.
“We should’ve known it was about time we had another crisis,” Panic said.
Redhook lifted his arm at a bare patch of wall and fired a mass of hot orange matter that ate into the grey surface and stuck there, sizzling.
“Keep ’em coming if you ask me,” he said with a deep chuckle.
For Loris, it felt like he was bouncing from one problem to the next before any of them could be properly resolved. Now they took the ramps to the residential areas, hoping to group up with more of their defense soldiers and quiet things down by force as quickly as possible.
The gray walls, and the just-slightly-too-dim lights overhead, seemed like they would never end. Before they arrived, sounds of the commotion echoed through the corridors to reach them. Angry shouts and yelling hinted that something was going on in the area.
Getting closer, there were refugees running this way and that with wild looks in their eyes. Some were wielding what Loris guessed to be Detonan bones. They ignored Loris and his group as they ran toward a tight cluster in the hallway. So many raised arms and jostling bodies made it impossible to see what exactly was going on, but within the deafening noise were cries of pain.
“Out of the way,” Loris said through gritted teeth as he tried to clear a path the others could follow. Together they pushed and shoved people out of the way, knocking them over or pressing them into the walls to get forward.
The smell changed, and it wasn’t just the number of sweaty bodies. It was more like the site of Rasher’s attack and the dismembered bodies. There were hints of blood on people’s hands and clothes.