by Rick Jones
Those predators on the outskirts, those whose containment cells had been distanced from the main arena, were those beyond Orion’s Belt.
She flipped to the next page.
It was a facsimile of the previous page, that of the Menagerie. But this time there was a large Grid Sphere rotating in the center of the floor plan. The image glowed and pulsated in steady rhythm as it hovered above the floor.
Whitaker moved closer to the large screen. “That’s it,” he said. “That’s the source.”
“I don’t recall seeing an orb of any kind in the Menagerie,” said Goliath.
Whitaker concurred. That particular space within the Menagerie had always been, at least to memory, vacant. He turned to Alyssa. “Ms. Moore?”
“From what I can tell,” she started, “the enclosures are patterned to represent the placement of stars within Orion’s Belt. This particular orb, however, represents Orion’s major star, Mintaka. It’s the highest producing source of energy within the constellation.”
“But it doesn’t exist on this remnant,” said Savage. “Nobody has seen it.”
Alyssa stared at the pulsating globe on the screen. With more of an involuntary act driven by inborn curiosity, she reached out with her finger and placed it on the image of Mintaka. Almost immediately the lines of the globe began to turn into a nebula of bright gold, the flare of light reflecting off the faces of those surrounding the console.
“What’s happening?” asked Whitaker.
Alyssa fell back into her holographic chair and shook her head. “I don’t know.”
In the Menagerie, however, in the vacant area between the bins, the floor began to open.
#
In the central vicinity between the enclosures, the floor began to part.
As the floors divided a waspy hum grew increasingly louder, as if a cluster of angry cicadas were giving rise from underneath.
Scientists and Tally-Whackers drew back as the floor separated, the soldiers summarily raising their weapons in unison as the floor drifted slowly apart.
Something was rising.
Streamers of indescribable light shot up from the maw as something began to crown from the opening. Its top was round, the thing rising with mechanical slowness, looming larger.
The Tally-Whackers had 99% of the necessary pressure needed to pull the triggers of their assault weapons. Scientists headed for the shadows.
The object emerged slowly, evenly, its generating hum a constant buzz that neither grew nor waned.
A massive globe surfaced from underneath, the shell of its body a perfect sphere, and hovered approximately twenty feet above the opening. There were no structural supports that held it aloft. No laws of physics that could explain its capability to drift in a manner that defied the laws of gravity.
The globe was huge. Its shell encapsulated shades of pearlescent light that seemed to move with a life of its own, like iridescent serpents constantly entwining with one another, always moving, always shifting.
The hum remained steady.
One of the Tally-Whackers, K-Clown, whose last name was Gacy and therefore given the moniker of K-Clown, short for Killer Clown, for the fact that he shared the serial killer’s last name, edged closer to the floating orb once the floor joined seamlessly together.
The colors within pulsated and moved with hues that were phenomenally soft and pretty, the metallic tints writhing with such poetic grace that it drew him closer.
The soldier stood within feet of the mass, then lifted the point of his weapon to test the orb’s shell. The mouth of the assault weapon passed right through. There was no shell. The mass was a perfectly contained sphere of massive energy.
K-Clown stood back and lowered his lip mike. “TW Six to TW One . . . Do you copy?”
“Go.” It was Whitaker.
“I got something here in the Menagerie,” he stated, backing up. “It’s a globe of some kind. It just came out of the floor.” He stood there and appraised the vessel, his head craning upward as if watching the slow trajectory of a distant rocket, measuring. “It’s huge,” he finally said. “And it’s humming. I tested it and it has no exterior, no solid shell. The—” He cut himself short. “The lights inside it are geometrically contained as perfectly globular. But there’s no external means of support.”
“What’s that?”
“The globe,” he said. “It’s tangible and intangible at the same time, if that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t.” And then: “Maintain a visual,” he added. “If there’s any change, any change at all, I want you to contact me ASAP.”
“Copy that.” Raising his lip mike and then stepping back to admire the globe, with its pearlescent colors filling the room, K-Clown waited for change.
#
“You heard that,” Whitaker said, directing his statement to Alyssa. “There’s your Mintaka, a massive globe of pure energy stationed at the central point of the Menagerie. It has to be the energy core.” He then maneuvered toward the console to a point behind Alyssa. O’Connell sat in Whitaker’s direct path, so Whitaker gave him a kick that prompted the injured man to move aside in order to give him a berth. Since the holographic console surrounded Alyssa like a donut, Whitaker stood directly behind her until he had a straight-on view of the large monitor, a direct line of vision. No side views.
The orb on the screen was pulsating.
“Can you bring up the file regarding that sphere?’ he asked her.
On the screen and to the lower left of the schematic were myriad symbols of scripts and lettering, presumed to be instructions. One symbol in particular, the holographic sign of Mintaka, throbbed with quick and angry beats.
“If I change to another file setting,” she said. “Then we’ll have to leave this particular one. Problem is I’m not sure I can bring it back.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said Whitaker. “We have it recorded. Right now I need the file regarding that sphere.”
She looked at the pulsating the button, at the way the tile of Mintaka flashed angrily in warning.
“That button, Ms. Moore, push it.”
She hesitated. “That may not be a good idea,” she told him. “I think a more prudent approach—”
“Ms. Moore, the button to that particular symbol has proved to be the gateway thus far. Press . . . the button.”
It was rapidly beating red.
When Alyssa failed to do so, Whitaker leaned forward and took the initiative, using his finger to hit the icon. The symbol beneath his touch suddenly broke into soft ripples, the red light gone, the Mintaka symbol evolving into another symbol, one Alyssa did not recognize.
But she knew it was not a good sign.
The screen suddenly disappeared. And her console undid itself, the circle vanishing, as did the chair, causing Alyssa and the laptop to fall to the floor, hard, the screen of the laptop breaking into spider-web designs, Alyssa less broken.
Everything had shut down, leaving them all in the gloom of phosphorous green light, all energy lost.
Whitaker had chosen poorly.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The globe winked oddly, the colors growing harsh and less appealing to the eye. The hum became less consistent, the noise dissipating to an immeasurable drone. And then the orb, though consistent in its form, began to shrink—first growing to the size of a basketball, then to a point, and then it was gone—until the pinprick of light flared in a final burst before dying.
The light stalks in the chamber remained lit. The light, however, provided little to no relief.
And that was because everyone knew that darkness was on its way.
#
The moment the globe disintegrated into a spark of light and a whisper, the energy throughout the remnant had ceased.
Everything regulated by energy had powered off.
The first indication came quickly when an apex predator from a sea of ammonia spilled out onto the floor, the walls of the enclosure now gone, and all containment lost. The
creature agonized for a moment, the environment not conducive to its existence as the amphibian-like predator thrashed about, its skin dark and glossy, its gills flaring for the intake of fluids, failing, and then dying with a horrible scream.
The ammonia was pungent and strong; the fumes overwhelming and deadly, taking the lives of three scientists as the sea vapor devoured their skins and seared their lungs, the men gone within less than a minute.
Creatures fell from their housing containers, dead before their bodies hit the floor, the atmosphere egregiously poisonous to their systems. Their bodies, however, remained perfectly preserved.
Poisonous gases once contained within the bins escaped—the component gases that kept the creatures alive in stasis—and permeated areas of the ship and killed those caught within its toxicity, which included a Tally-Whacker whose flesh blackened with ring-like lesions that formed along his skin.
Within a period of six minutes bodies, both alien and familiar, lie strewn across the Menagerie floor. Gases dissipated, having been diluted in such a large space that they were no longer harmful. Noxious vapors from pools of ammonia remained noxious. And those who survived steered clear, distancing themselves from the bins and carcasses.
In total, more than 98% of all apex predators died as a result of being introduced to an atmosphere that was not their own.
The other two percent, however, thrived, finding the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen at conducive levels enough to survive.
Two percent.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Although it had taken its last breath more than sixty-four million years ago, time appeared more like a quick flash too small to measure.
In its world it was a high-ranking soldier caught in a civil war that had waged for several millennia. Its planet was all but dead. The once rich soil had turned to dust and sand from years of irradiation and biological warfare. The population of its race dwindled from more than four billion to less than one hundred million, the loss mostly by starvation once the plankton in its seas began to die off, which disrupted the food chain until there was nothing left to consume but the meat on the bones of their enemy.
The once green planet filled with luscious fauna had become a desert landscape, the atmosphere dry and dusty with pockets of floating clouds that were noxious and deadly floated with the course of a breeze, the cloud formations so distinct, their colors so unique, for those who did not take cover died in throes of unimaginable agony, the armor of their exoskeleton, as thick as it was, would dissolve like the tallow of wax within the acidic mist.
It had, however, survived along with its family on top of an aerie, a fortress high above the canyon floor where its enemy hid within the shadows, acting more as hunters than warriors for a cause.
The civil war started generations ago as the main political body became divided over unspecified issues; the history of the war’s beginning now forgotten after several millennia, which caused a seceding when one side decided to seek a sovereign path of its own. The rooted party, however, took affront and waged battle against the dissidents. And as the years passed, as the lands became poisoned by weaponry and the planet began to slowly die off, the primary reason as to why the war started ultimately faded. And as starvation and disease set in, the primary initiative for subsequent generations had become survival. The once proud society of ascending species had digressed to a primitive state of tribal customs.
As ruler over its tribal kingdom, it stood at the edge of aerie’s precipice and viewed a desert landscape as crimson as its blood-red eyes. In the distant winds constantly blew along the desert floor, driving with abrasive speed across the landscape and scouring surfaces of stone to glassy smoothness.
It was a good day for a hunt. The traveling winds were too far to cause damage to their armor.
In anticipation of the hunt it gathered a team of its most seasoned warriors, knowing that somewhere below its quarry lay in hiding within the warrens of the canyon. Although enemies by nature they looked the same—tall and broad with exoskeletons of crustacean-like armor built to defend. Unlike each other, they held very different ideologies which led to undeserved prejudices and hatreds.
What they shared, however, was undeniable hunger, each group depending on savage mentality to conquer and feed—the meat of its brethren serving as the sustenance by banqueting on their flesh as cannibalism no longer served as taboo, but the norm. Since husbandry was no longer a possibility, to feed in this manner was their only bastion for continuing survival.
In the early morning hours it had taken its unit downward through the mesa-like structure the tribal village sat upon, the interior hollowed out. At the bottom of the structure was a composite door much stronger than steel, an impenetrable object. The warriors were carrying special halberds, a weapon with an axe-like head at the tip of a long shaft, the device created specifically to pierce and cleave the armor plating of its enemy.
From a small portal above the doorway, a Hominid scout had the vantage point to determine the fortress’s immediate surroundings by looking into the nearby recesses, at potential ambush spots. When the immediate area was declared safe, the hunt commenced.
It could remember its team tracking a scent cast upon a mild wind, the smell of its kind so common and so distinct, the ability to follow its wafting pull learned over years of killing its own kind.
And then it happened. Not much of a surprise, really. From atop of worn boulders a group of ground dwellers leapt from perches bearing spiked cudgels, crying out in blood lust as they dived with clubs swinging.
The action was met with the points of raised halberds, the tips piercing their armor, impaling them briefly before they fell to the earth, wounded, some fatally. Others gained their feet, swung their cudgels, connecting, the spikes driving hard through the crustacean-like plating, cracking, the soft flesh underneath exposed, becoming vulnerable, the mere sight of the meat driving them to frenzy.
The battle waged on. Halberds and cudgels continued to swing with reckless abandon, causing plates of armor to fall away, sluicing off their defenses, the wounds now gaping, the meat underneath the shaved-off armor showing pink and ripe.
And then there was a brilliant flash that was much greater than the light cast by the reigning star of Mintaka.
It was all consuming and crippling, freezing it into impotence. And suddenly it was here on its hands and knees inside an enclosure within an alien ship, its mind trying to comprehend why it had gone from savage warring to a place of strangeness.
And then it raised its crustacean-like arm and flexed its humanoid-shaped hand, its fingers opening and closing, trying to figure out where its halberd went.
And then it gained its feet to its full height, searching its surroundings.
The area was dark and alien with the rib-like extensions from nearby walls glowing with the pace of a steady heartbeat, the light a phosphorous green.
Stepping down from its enclosure it could smell scents not of its world.
And it knew that it was not on its planet.
Rearing back its bone-shaped skull and raising its arms high, the Hominid cried out with a savage scream that carried far and wide throughout the ship.
#
From the moment of its origin it had three goals in life: to live, to grow, and to take new ground.
It had come from a primordial world at the farthest reaches of the Orion Belt, a gaseous planet whose environment was acidic and noxious. It was not driven by deductive reasoning or logic, nor was it directed by contemplating or assessing situations in its current surroundings. It was completely governed by its olfactory senses and sheer instinct.
On its world it had no enemies and no equals. It was wispy, not solid. It could be broken by strong winds only to coalesce back into a deadly whole. It could expand and contract, like gases can. And its vapor was as powerful as the most concentrated acid, the Mist having the ability to dissolve matter down to a single particle until that, too, became traceless.
&nb
sp; It was hypnotically beautiful and poetic in motion, soft and wavy, always undulating in a mesmerizing way to entice its prey in the same manner that an angler fish draws its victim close by dangling a wormlike appendage on a baited hook. It pulls and draws—the bursts of beautiful light within the mass glowing and popping off in spangles, adding to the tow of its victim, forever drawing it close.
It was, by all creations, its own atmosphere capable of surviving anywhere, on any planet. It was also the perfect organism.
It had spread out from its container, slowly, its instinct telling it to be cautious. Misty tendrils reached beyond the energy fields, finding them gone. For more than sixty-four million years it lie in wait, the creature having no conscious understanding of patience or time. Since it had no organs, no central nervous system or skeletal matter, it could not be placed in stasis. It simply existed and nothing more.
When its misty tendrils reached out and lapped at the edges of the enclosure, the metal-like composite began to hiss and dissolve, the metal then dripping to the floor and cooling into an oily looking mass.
It then began to spread outward, floating feet above the floor. The vaporous mass dilated and contracted, like flexing muscles, like spreading its wings. Diamond-shaped spangles of lights continued to pop off and on in concert, synapses of energy bursting and reshaping itself into other forms of natural electricity.
It meandered about, driven by the instinct to take new ground, to hunt and feed. As it explored its surroundings it discovered that it was hemmed in by a wall. At the base of that wall lay a small doorway, a passageway. And then it condensed into a small cloud, the vaporous mass becoming thicker and less translucent, the acidic cloud a deep purple. And then it passed through the opening seeking new territory.
#
On their world they hunted in packs.
Standing six foot tall, the otherworldly raptors resembled the raptors of Earth with some adaptable differences which customized them to thrive on their planet. With a thinner tail that acted more as a whip than it did for balance, they stood more upright. Triangular ridges honed to a scalpel’s sharpness and having the strength and density of steel ran along its spinal column to the tip of its tail. It was also their primary weapon, the pyramidal-edges serving as a vicious cutting tool the moment the tail lashes out like a bullwhip.