The Spaces in Between

by Chase Henderson

  Ryoma brought himself low to the ground and using the base of his sword deflected the point of Tsuen’s. He hooked his foot behind Tsuen and turned on his heel. He spun behind Tsuen and brought down the blade. I jumped when the top half of Ryoma’s sword embedded itself in the wall beside my head. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was those swords that were able to cut just Tsuen or me.

  The air cracked.

  A fracture ran down the front of Tsuen’s barrier. Ryoma leapt back and drew his antique Colt .45 from his sleeve. There was a report from his gun and then the sound of glass shattering. He fired again, but Tsuen deflected the bullet off his sword. Cameron felt blood trickling down his cheek.

  Cameron ran his index finger over the cut and it vanished. He snapped open his flintlock pistol and tossed the spent casing. He dropped the new shell in and slammed the gun shut. Tsuen used his great length to strike at Ryoma. He stuck out his tongue and rolled backwards – Tsuen only succeeded in slicing through the Talisman imprinted on his clothes.

  Ryoma flew into Cameron’s chest and his posture changed. Cameron dropped the gun into his left hand, stepped back, mounted the gun’s barrel on his hip, and pulled the hammer back with his thumb. Tsuen took a defensive stance - the air crackled with power as his barrier re-grew. The sound of ice rapidly freezing struck my nerves.

  The trigger snapped, the hammer struck, and it was like watching a nuclear blast being funneled into a Christmas tree ornament.

  Cameron shoved the gun into his coat and approached Tsuen’s smoldering torso. He placed his palm on Tsuen’s forehead.

  “You’ll have to endure for a little while. I can’t let you heal and follow us. Just be fortunate that I’m not interested in doing anything drastic like making your heart explode when you use spiritual powers.”

  Tsuen screamed wildly and tried to focus on Cameron with his bare eye sockets. “I will hunt you down to the ends of the galaxy and feast on your entrails! I will not rest until I’ve killed you, you monster! God will choose me!”

  “If that’s your wish,” Cameron said, “But I bare no grudge.”

  He tugged at my chain – indicating we should leave. Ryoma jumped out of Cameron and floated beside him. “Now that we have this Talisman, you know where we should go? The whore nebula.”

  “Out of the question.” I stopped following.

  “What?” Cameron didn’t bother to turn around – he just stopped in his tracks.

  “I want to leave,” I said.

  “We’re not off the ship yet,” Cameron said, “I can just drag you.”

  “You know this is over. You know that there is nothing on this ship that can actually stop you now. Let me go!”

  “That’s not a good idea. Stay on my ship for a while. You won’t even have to do anything. Just let that arm grow back first.”

  “I want to leave. I’m not going with you.”

  “Fine, I gave you my word.” Cameron glanced at me. I could see the guilt in his eye. I heard Tsuen scream again. “Your body has been looking for you for awhile. So when I cut the chain you’ll be catapulted back. If you want to remember any of this I’d suggest writing it down. I hope you at least take that advice to heart.”

  Cameron hooked his thumb under the chain and snapped it clean in two.

  5

  “And that’s when I woke up,” Warren finished.

  Janet was sobbing profusely. Warren leaned in and shut off the tape recorder. “It’s ok. Just a dream. I’m fine now. I’m here.” Warren kissed her on the cheek. “What’s wrong?” Warren tried to embrace her, but found his left arm uncooperative.

  “Your arm…” Janet whimpered.

  Warren’s eyes widened. “What about it?”

  “The doctors said that everything is fine with it, but it’s like your brain doesn’t want to believe it’s there.”

  Warren could have said there was a logical explanation to all this. That his dream was just his subconscious telling him about his arm. But he just sat there in silence.

  6

  “I think it’s funny that we’re suddenly in the Whore Nebula,” Ryoma said and peered over Cameron’s shoulder.

  “I made a wrong turn.”

  “Please, I know enough about this thing that you can’t make a wrong turn.”

  “ Of all the known and civilized planets of the Universe only two star systems have been outright rejected by the Ashtar Command – the Atlantis and Lemuria star systems. Both seem bent on conquering the Universe one through force and the other through missionary work. They are like yin and yang.

  Atlantis is entirely materialistic and Lemuria has no regard for reality. It is no wonder that they have clashed so often in the past with themselves and each other. Much of the Universe’s history uses this conflict as a springboard.

  Their lost colonies of the same name on the planet Earth are a well-known failure. It is rumored that both bred with the Earth natives. The Ashtar command has no desire to confirm this, because they are absolutely terrified by the idea of a people descended from the Atlanteans and Lemurians.”

  - Various

  A History of Our Universe

  On loan from the Akashic Records

  Book One: The Fillipre Strain

  In space no one can hear you eat brains…

  The Dread Pirate Cameron trekked across the landscape of the Astral. He crossed the ravines and plateaus of the soul. His mind’s eye focused upon one thing – finding Noah’s Arc. The Arc is slang across space, for those in the know at least, for God’s back up copy of Creation. Many sought after it to reverse engineer Creation, but Cameron intended to use it to siphon the very power of God. Cameron was powerful, but one day that power would run out.

  The third eye inside his brain, metaphorically speaking, fixed itself upon the Arc. However, he could not focus upon it at all. It was always obscured by mists. Hot magic piped through his veins as he concentrated harder, but the mist would not part. Frustrated Cameron cried out to the Universe to throw him a frickin’ bone.

  The Universe replied by blinking and bleeping. Bleeping?

  The landscape fell from under Cameron, and he passed through the Astral back into his body. His one green eye slid open. He brushed some of the stray, red dreadlocks from his face. LCD screens had appeared on all of the walls in his whale belly room.

  A man wearing full samurai regalia of the late Edo period walked into room. If not for the fact he passed right through the walls you would assume that he was going to the same costume part as Cameron. Sakamoto Ryoma took a moment before addressing Cameron with all the poise possessed by the revolutionary father of modern Japan.

  “What the hell did you do now, Gaijin? The ship keeps bitching about something found on the Collision Detection System. Shoot it or something. I don’t want to hear about it anymore.”

  “I don’t think that’s what it’s there for,” Cameron said. His knees popped when he pulled himself up from his cross-legged position in the middle of the floor. The Collision Detection System was on The Soulforge to avoid objects too large for the deflector array. The deflector array could deflect minor space debris without cause for concern in passive mode. This showed an uncharacteristic error on the ship’s part since it normally takes evasive maneuvers on its own.

  There were no windows in the room, but with one great sweep of Cameron’s arms the wall’s muscles contracted and slide away to a monitor displaying the deepest reaches of space. Cameron spotted an object approaching off the starboard and highlighted it by using his finger as a stylus. Enlarged the object looked like the cross between an underground drill and a mushroom cloud. A menacing metal phallus surrounded by three rings was heading towards the ship. Ryoma recalled seeing something similar in movie once.

  Emblazoned on the second ring was the name ATS Fillipre.

  Cameron swirled his index finger on the screen, which brought up a new window and a virtual keyboard. Taking the home position on the keyboard he quickly typed in the ship’s name. The Intergalactic
Wi-Fi or Wireless brought up over a million web sites. Cameron placed his palm on the screen and opened the eye nestled in his brain that no one else could see. Blood spurted from his nose at the sound of a million people screaming at him at once. He focused on weeding out the voices until the most important one remained.

  He closed his hand, which closed the window. Another window opened proclaiming great rates on space mortgages. Cameron snapped his fingers and the window dissolved. Across the galaxy an Atlantean ad server exploded and a programmer combusted. His children would always remember that day as the first day there were ever truly free.

  “According to the Wireless,” Cameron said, “The Atlantean Terra Ship Fillipre has been missing for fifty years, and the Atlanteans have assumed it lost. Some encrypted sites mention that this was because the five of the search parties sent did not return. The Atlantean military was secretly using this cargo ship to transport experimental weapons, and most interesting: two tablets thought to be fragments of Creation’s source code.”

  “That is interesting. What did they think these tablets do?” Ryoma said.

  “They didn’t have any local legends about them like the Mehmet Talisman did.”

  The LCDs chimed again with more alerts. Now closer to the Fillipre, Soulforge received her distress calls. “Well, I’ll be damned. She still has power – that’ll make this a lot easier.” Cameron’s fingers danced across the screen and brought up another program. Now that even the faint Wireless of the Fillipre was close enough for hailing the program began to deduce her passwords with preternatural speeds.

  “Alright I guess I’ll lead the away team.” Cameron said. Then he peeled the screen off the wall and folded it until it was pocket sized.

  2

  Cameron watched as the Soulforge drifted farther and farther away…

  He hated breathing recycled air. It was stale and lifeless. It was necessary, but joyless. He was wearing a simple spacesuit that fit snugly over his clothes, but still allowed for plenty of mobility. The suit was made of a polymer that could withstand high impact bullets and had alloy inserts in vital locations that could stop a laser if you moved fast enough. The helmet featured a similar high impact glass and C02 scrubbers that would clean all the air he exhaled. In his belt he had crammed a flintlock pistol, a cutlass, and he was wearing a shoulder holster holding a hand held railgun.

  He watched tiny rocks and space trash pass harmlessly through him. His physical body was no longer in the Physical realm, but in the Astral. His plan was to infiltrate the Fillipre this way. Whatever security system she still had in place would most likely not spot him. Ryoma followed.

  The black cloud swirling around the Fillipre caused Cameron to unholster his railgun. Ryoma followed in suit with a pair of Civil War era Colt 45s. If you could hear in space the cloud would sound like a thousand beating wings. Horrible winged humanoids with flaming eyes circled the Fillipre. Cameron recognized them immediately as Byakhee.

  A brick dropped into Cameron’s stomach. They remind him of the God-awful hellgrammites his father would use as bait. The Byakhee followed great calamity. They are carrion, but do not feast upon the living despite how easy it would be for them to snatch one. Instead they are sustained on the psychic build-up in an area right before a disaster strikes. They occasionally accost ships after a meal, and it’s a common misconception that they are of solid matter. They are actually Astral dwellers that swell into the Physical while feeding. It’s where HP Lovecraft spotted them, because they live in dreams.

  The question Cameron and Ryoma asked themselves as they entered the flock - were they too busy eating to notice them?

  Cameron slowly weaved his way in and out of the monsters while they siphoned psychic turmoil in the ship. He was careful not to breathe all the while. While the Byakhee only needed psychic suffering to feed on they will shred a human being for fun. Or a ghost for that matter. They aren’t picky, but assholes regardless.

  3

  One of the Byakhee around Cameron snapped at him. His heart stopped a second. If it hadn’t hit one of his insert shin guards his suit would have been compromised. He squeezed the trigger as fast he could – a railgun bolt split the winged horror down the middle. Spirits are tangible in the Astral, and as a side effect a physical being in the Astral is a lot stronger than in the Physical. They seem denser in the Astral, and weigh more since their souls are solid here.

  Ryoma did not have this advantage. It took two rounds to the face of an attacking Byakhee to force it back. Now all of the Byakhee noticed. While Cameron’s gun made absolutely no noise at all since the rounds were magnetically propelled, Ryoma’s antiques were loud as hell.

  “Hurry!” Cameron shouted. Ryoma grabbed Cameron and sped through space like a rocket. Ryoma concentrated on flying as fast as possible with the unnerving sound of a thousand beating wings right behind them. The Byakhee snapped their jaws as they zipped through the cloud that was closing in on them. Cameron fired more railgun bolts at the Byakhee that got close enough, but he could barely hit something in a target range much less while moving.

  Another Byakhee dove into their flight path. Cameron delivered a quick kick to where he thought its junk might be. He was wrong, but the creature was knocked aside. Another grabbed the end of Cameron’s coat, and he quickly drew his sword to sever the hand. With another wide sword arc he severed more hands and mandibles as they lashed out for him.

  Two grabbed Cameron’s wrist, and five put Ryoma in a headlock to finally stop them. The cloud enclosed them. Ryoma gritted his teeth.

  The top of the cloud exploded in flailing bat wings following Cameron and Ryoma’s escape at blinding speeds. Ryoma had suddenly become unconcerned about possibly crushing Cameron with their velocity. He was concerned about finding the bare patch of hull, and he dove through. Cameron re-entered the Physical just in time to land spread eagle in a pile of boxes. The whole cargo bay rang with the sound of a thousand heads smashing into the hull.

  “Dumb kusotares were so full they forgot they’d swollen into the Physical,” Ryoma said.

  “For some reason that doesn’t make me fell better.” Cameron surveyed his surroundings. “Something bad has to be going down to feed so many of those buggers. The lights are still on so the crew has to be here. Certainly after five decades of missed maintenance checks the ship would break down.” He focused his inner eye on the boxes stacked haphazardly around the room. This was obviously a cargo bay since the room was white and featureless outside of the boxes. He didn’t know what the tablets looked like, but he’d know them when he saw them and they weren’t there.

  “Well they made things easier by opening all the boxes for us,” Ryoma said.

  Cameron kicked over a packet of freeze dried corn and Salisbury steak suppositories. “This is the crew’s food, and it’s been ransacked. I hope no one found those tablets before us.”

  “It doesn’t look like they were looking for the tablets.” Ryoma bent over to get a better look at a pile of trash. “A lot of this food has been opened, gnawed on, and discarded. Great. They have mice.”

  Cameron’s eye scanned the room, and he knew that Ryoma was partially right. The entire floor was carpeted with food wrappers and pre-chewed vittles. He pulled a jawbone from under a wrapper of pseudo-vegetable chips with his thumb and forefinger. There were worn bite marks on the jawbone that were obviously human.

  “Mice don’t do this.”

  Cameron was cut off by the chimes and vibrations from his pockets. He unsnapped the side pocket on his belt and unfolded the LCD sheet that was inside. The open window declared that the program was done. He danced his fingers over the screen to bring up the ship’s emergency log. Aside from the generic distress call that had been on a loop for fifty years there was nothing of interest. He checked Fillipre’s maintenance logs and found that her life support functions were still operational.

  He snapped his helmet off and took a deep breath. Cameron turned green then vomited.

  “What
? I thought this ship was Atlantean,” Ryoma said, “I didn’t think they breathed arsenic.”

  “It smells really bad in here.” Cameron snapped the helmet back on his shoulders then ripped it off his head again to wretch. “Oh God, it’s in my helmet.”

  “What does it smell like?”

  “Rotting corpses. This ship must be filled with them.”

  “One of those Mothmen didn’t get in here, did they?” Ryoma asked.

  “They don’t cause disasters just flock to them.” Perspiration beaded Cameron’s forehead. He brought up a blueprint of the ship on his LCD screen. “These are the cargo bays. I want you to go ahead and find those tablets. In case whatever did this is still here.”

  Ryoma made a hand gesture to wave away Cameron’s concerns. “It would already be on us. This happened fifty years ago - I don’t see why a killer would stay that long.” He levitated from the ground and flew through the ceiling. Cameron poked at his LCD sheet a few times and the door opened. As time progresses, hacking has become less and less sophisticated. The only real requirements of a hacker anymore are the ability to hit NEXT repeatedly through the Wizard.

  Despite his better judgment, Cameron stepped out into the corridor. It was lined with metal walkways and fading lights, but the ceiling fans made the smell lessen. The walls on the other side of the corridor were splattered with brown stains of dried blood. Cameron moved in to get a better look. Something stuffed under the walkway caught his eye.

  4

  A human skeleton.

  It was completely bare, but there were scraps of cloth lying around it. The bones were stained and showed no signs of decomposition. Cameron cautiously poked his fingers through the grate to pick up one of the scraps of clothing. It was the same almost burlap material used by the Atlantean military. On this piece Cameron could recognize the insignia of the Atlantean military patch on the side. He ran his gloved fingers over the stitched shape of a horse-drawn chariot.