by Derek Baker
Alexander and I were led back through the long hallway and into the elevator. This time, we traveled down, (if that was possible in space) all the way to the bottom of the ship. When the door opened we saw not another brightly lit hallway but a dark chamber with cells that lined the walls on all sides. Most of them were empty, but a few held other Wendrans and yet more aliens the likes of which I had never encountered.
We, being the only humans, were shoved into our own cell adjacent to one occupied by a Wendran prisoner. Apparently we weren’t going to be able to talk to anyone but each other, not that we would likely understand any other alien in the brig anyhow.
So it was for the next few days, Alexander and I sullenly discussing anything to get our minds off the current situation, periodically being brought food and water. Our neighbor slept most of the time. When he was awake, he would stare at the two of us intently with an almost vengeful expression. I was beginning to find everything about these Wendrans repulsing.
Occasionally I would look around and get a glimpse at these other aliens who were held captive. If all these creatures came from different planets, how were we humans kept in the dark so long about it? Maybe these other species had been like us, ignorant of these so-called Wendrans that played overlord to all other creatures of the universe. On the other hand, they could all have been interconnected, coexisting in an interstellar neighborhood. I came to find out it was the latter.
One night, if one can say that night exists in space, Alexander and I had been asleep for a couple hours when I woke up to the sound of something outside the cell. I quickly glanced around to see it was none other than the mysterious Chym.
I thought back to how he had given me a wink, that peculiar mouthing of words of which I had no idea how he knew or comprehended. There was something good about this Chym… something inside told me to like this creature. Besides his obvious physical differences from our captors, he possessed a less savage demeanor. Though he was indeed an intelligent life-form, nothing like one I would have ever imagined in furthest recesses of my mind, there was something more sophisticated going on in his mind. Everything about him spoke to me a learned individual, a result of generations of evolution and design, a product of years of discipline. I was intrigued.
Noticing he had waked me up, he brought one of his bird-like talons up to his mouth as if to tell me to stay silent. My theory that he knew human gestures had been correct. He was in the middle of setting up wires to what was an explosive on the lock of the cell.
“Wake up your companion, and move back into the corner. Cover your heads and ears,” he whispered as silently as possible.
I followed his orders exactly as he had said, and soon Alexander and I sat in stunned silence, shooting each other questioning but hopeful looks, waiting to see if this Chym fellow could manage to blow the door of the cell wide open. Before we knew, he connected a fuse and backed up away from the blast radius.
BOOM!!!!!
The calm of the artificial night was suddenly engulfed in the shouts of Wendrans and other prisoners startled by the explosion. The whole chamber was instantly filled with smoke, but I could see through it all my first glimpse at a fight between aliens. Chym was quite prepared for the chaos that ensued and fired upon the Wendran guards of the chamber with the very weapon I had seen them all carry on Earth as well on the ship. It discharged pulses of energy that destroyed any biological tissue it met, ensuring a quick, searing death to whatever got in its way. The disgruntled guards that had swarmed into the smoggy chamber were no match for the adept fighter that Chym showed to be. Within thirty seconds of the original blast we had no more resistance in the chamber keeping us from escape. The wide eyes of the other prisoners poked out from their cowering forms as they took shelter in their respective cells.
“Follow me!” Chym shouted.
Within moments, the whole ship would be after us, but I had this impression that Chym had everything planned out. He’d probably gotten the notion in his head the moment he first met us. I didn’t dare question this would be savior of ours. Running through the still thick smoke within the brig, we dashed for the elevator. With the three of us inside, Chym pushed a button, closing the door on not only the brig but the chances of us living should we have been recaptured by the fearsome Wendrans. The reopening of the door inevitably reopened possibilities.
Chapter 11
The only way to reach the escape pods that all Wendran ships possessed was by going to the lowest level and traversing the long hallway to its end where but a door separated one from freedom. Perhaps this seemed to be most inconvenient path to salvation as it was precisely the avenue I had to cross with Alexander and our newly gained ally, Chym.
It seemed as soon as the elevator doors closed on us to make its descent, the ship’s alarm went off to inform the occupants of the ship of our attempt to escape.
Tossing us additional energy rifles that the Wendran soldiers used frequently in their scuffles, Chym explained to us how they worked.
“This button toggles the automatic aiming mechanism of the rifle, and this one shoots to kill. All you must do is aim in the general direction of the person; the rifle seeks kinetic energy in order to do the rest.”
As the elevator continued downward, he continued, “Stay close to the side walls once the door opens, for we shall be fighting at close quarters and the walls provide our only means of protection against their fire which will also be aiming directly at us.”
“How many do you think there are?” Alexander asked him.
“If one subtracts the Wendrans slain in the Brig, there should be exactly two hundred sixty-eight crew members in pursuit of us now. We shall face significantly less, however, seeing as logically, there are only so many soldiers are available on a vessel for the purpose of stopping us.”
And at that very second, the door opened to the lowest hallway and revealed a formidable fighting force of several dozen Wendran soldiers whose main goal was to prevent our escape.
Bursts of energy blasted past us from the soldiers’ rifles on all sides; the rear wall of the elevator was pummeled with them. The energy partially reflected off of it but fortunately only slightly left a vibrating sensation upon our backs. Using the minimal information that Chym had provided me, I naturally waited until the Wendrans ceased their first round of fire and then pointed my own rifle out the door of the elevator and pressed the button that had been designated as the one to auto-aim. I heard a beep over the shouting that filled the area and quickly slammed down on the other button to fire as someone in frustration would forcefully hit a button on a remote.
The kick that the weapon gave me was miniscule, but the roar of the discharge was anything but. Still hiding behind the side of the elevator, I snuck a quick glance around to see that I had killed one of the soldiers, a horribly disfigured corpse lay where it had stood only seconds before.
The fallen Wendran was the first creature, other than annoying insects here and there, that I had ever directly killed. Many say a killer always remembers his victims, and I was no exception to the rule. To my benefit, though, I didn’t have much time to think about it in the midst of battle.
As I came to learn, the Wendrans’ rifles took several seconds to recharge, which explained the periodic pauses in their fire that gave us an opportunity to retort. I repeated the aim-fire process again and again, not believing what was happening. Everything still felt foggy, dreamy through all that was happening. I thought if anyone else could have seen through my eyes at this particular moment they simply wouldn’t know what to think. I didn’t dare to look at my other victims for fear of the nightmares the sights would give me. All I knew was that I didn’t want to remember their faces as they fell by my own hands. I decided then and there I was not a killer, nor a natural born soldier. In times like these, as there were more in my life, I was only killing in necessity.
Not forgetting my friends, in the heat of the struggle I found seconds every now and then to take a look at Chym a
nd Alexander to make sure they were okay. It was difficult to hear anything, especially due to the death roars of the Wendran soldiers taking their final breath. When I glanced at Chym, it was astonishing to see that he wore his ever passive expression that seemed to accompany all individuals of his race, no matter the situation, including battle. Though I could see, however, the concentration he held whenever he would fire his weapon. For what reasons he was helping us instead of the Wendrans who I had thought to be his allies I couldn’t yet figure out.
The look I witnessed in Alexander’s eyes was something entirely new to me. As he saw one after another of the Wendrans torn into pieces by the pulses of the energy rifles –which I found disturbing –I thought I could see a gleam of pleasure forming over his complexion. And if I was really seeing it I couldn’t actually tell in the heat of the fire fight, but I could have sworn that I saw a slight grin break across his lips. What had they done to him?
I had never actually been around firearms throughout my life, but I suppose the ease with which a seemingly seasoned alien soldier like Chym and two earthling novices could take down dozens of fierce Wendrans could be attributed to the fact that their weapons were astonishingly deadly. Though whenever their volleys of energy pulses came at us, we simply ducked behind the walls of the elevator or just briefly allowed the door of the elevator to reclose and open again. In what seemed to be a long, painful process we returned fire and picked off a few Wendrans at a time; having our rifles automatically aim at the ones who failed to get out of our way in time.
Within ten minutes or so, we had taken out enough of them so that they began retreating towards our destination: the landing bay at the bottom of the ship where the escape pods were located. As if our trio had read each others’ minds, it occurred to us all at once that the Wendrans might try to destroy the escape pods before we could reach them.
With urgency, Chym said in his always formal phrasing, “It is absolutely imperative that we kill all of them in order to assure that our flight is successful.”
Finally coming out from the elevator, we darted down the hallway, checking every doorway for surviving Wendrans, and hoping to stop our enemies before it was too late.
They had clearly planned for us to follow them, because as soon as we reached the door leading to the landing bay, we were suddenly knocked back several feet.
“What the hell?” Alexander and I were both puzzled by what seemed to be an invisible wall blocking our way.
“It is but a force field,” Chym stated flatly.
He stared down the invisible force field as if he could actually see it. For all I knew at the time, he could have actually been able to; for I was ignorant of the capabilities of both alien species I had encountered and figured anything was possible. Alexander and I looked at him and back to the invisible wall. Beyond it, I knew the Wendrans must be either destroying the escape pods or setting them off to fly away into space. Time was too crucial for this.
“Ah, yes, why I did not realize it before I know not,” muttered Chym.
In a flash, he had whipped out what looked like a dagger and with a shout, hurled himself at the force field and sliced his way through.
My jaw dropped but I didn’t have much time to gawk at what Chym had pulled off, because he immediately shouted, “Come, men of Earth, our chance of salvation diminishes by the second!”
Not daring to question our ally, we squeezed through the slim space Chym had cut through the force field and proceeded through the door to the landing bay. I still had no idea how his dagger had done it, but there was no time to think about it.
Much to our disappointment, our fears had come true. As the door opened, a group of Wendrans were pressing the button that sent the very last escape pod into space. They looked back at us baring their fangs, probably surprised that we gotten through the force field, likely pleased all at the same time. Before any time was wasted, we opened fire on the small group. We took cover before they could retaliate.
We waited until they had fired back to turn back around and take out the last of them. When they had been disgustingly mutilated by the horrible contraptions we carried, we looked around the landing bay. Its layout was much like that of an airport’s on Earth. It had two rows of “gates” on two opposite sides facing one another, though the crafts that each gate contained were inside. The craft would have to lift off inside the mother ship and come to the end of the landing bay where the craft could proceed out. However, the escape pods we had hoped to acquire were different in that they each had their own separate doors through which they could be launched out of the mother ship. It would have been the convenient way to escape, but now our plans had been changed.
Then Alexander saw what would be the solution to our predicament.
“Look,” he said, pointing straight ahead of us, “it’s the ship we first saw on Earth!”
He was right. At some point or another, he and I had been on that ship, carried who knows far through the universe to this mother ship where we had become prisoners of the Wendrans and the play things of their doctor, with no choice but to submit to his experiments. It was sickening to think about not only the experiments, but the entire situation in general. And yet I still wondered what they did to Alexander…
We then saw that the ship was being boarded by several Wendran soldiers, likely the last of whom we had battled out to the landing bay.
“They’re trying to get away!” I exclaimed to Chym, giving him a look like he was our leader, our savior, knowing what to do next. And he was indeed our leader; we couldn’t have made it that far without him.
“The ship that they are boarding is incidentally the only one I know how to pilot,” nodded Chym, “should we make it over there in time, we can try to hijack the vessel. We could attempt to escape by way of another craft, but this may be our only hope.”
Without another word we were sprinting at top speed over the hundred yards or so that separated us from the ship. Its engines gave a roar as they came to life. It would only be a matter of seconds before it lifted off.
Apparently the doctor of the ship had done something right in the midst of my torture sessions, because I felt like I was in better shape than I had ever been my entire life. Although, it might have been that the false gravity on the ship was not as strong as what I was accustomed to on Earth. Indeed, without the suit I was wearing I would be floating in mid-air.
Mid-air! Of course!
The ship rose above our heads, too high to jump up and reach before we got to it. Alexander and Chym watched in dismay as it came towards us, heading to the end of the landing bay to leave its mother ship. But I, with a new plan formulating in my mind, was far from ready to give up.
I turned my head towards my companions, quickly shouting, “Do as I do!” and immodestly ripped off the suit giving me gravity. I instantly was lifted off my feet, and with my rifle still in hand, I swam up to the ship as it continued hovering towards its destination. Chym and Alexander, though questioningly, followed my example and we were then all floating through mid-air in the nude.
With surprise on our side, we made it up to the main door and Alexander arrogantly knocked on it. One of the Wendrans foolishly opened the door and was chunks in a split-second. We climbed in with nothing but our weapons, taking out the other soldier that saw his friend die. Luckily, no other soldiers came to their aid.
“We must get to the cockpit,” said Chym.
The craft, like I said previously, was about twenty-five feet long, but the interior was separated in two little passageways that went up to the cockpit. The door we had entered through to break in to the ship was in the middle of the left passage. From what I had seen, there had been five Wendrans that had entered the ship, making three more to go before we were in control of the ship.
“Human, stealth your way to the other passage, kill whomever you meet, and meet us at the cockpit,” Chym motioned to Alexander, “for I have seen you fight, and the ferocity with which you do so tells me of
your capacity to best a Wendran solo.”
Chym, too, must have taken note of what I had seen inside the elevator, when Alexander almost looked as if he were smiling as the battle raged on. While it had somewhat frightened me, seeing as I knew by then that I lacked the stomach for killing, it seemed that Chym saw Alexander’s fighting prowess to be a very useful asset, especially in this critical moment.
Leaving Alexander to his task, Chym and I held on to the side walls, as we were still floating through air, to guide us to the door leading to the cockpit. The process took about thirty seconds. The ship was now stalled in the landing bay; it was likely waiting for the mother ship to open the gateway to allow it to pass through into space. Evidently the pilot didn’t know we had breached the ship. Our escape, not that we had actually thought it out, was actually working out quite splendidly. If the mother ship gave the smaller vessel we were on permission to depart, we may likely escape undetected. After all, it was only leaving because they must have known Chym only knew how to fly that particular kind of ship and wanted to keep us captive. The irony would be too bizarre to be believable otherwise, I figured. I wondered what had to have been going on throughout the rest of the mother ship, the turmoil of not being able to keep proper track of us, and having no clue that we had managed to board the smaller ship. Or maybe they did. Perhaps their plan was to wait until we got out and just blow us up. I decided I would be better off waiting until that moment came to worry about it.
I then heard the large gateway of the mother ship opening, being the signal that the ship could now pass safely out into space. This was as great a time as any to make our move. Pressing a button, the door to the cockpit opened up revealing the pilot and co-pilot manning the controls. They whipped their heads around in alarm only to see our rifles discharge right into their faces. While the brutality of the whole thing shook me, I didn’t see any other choice if we were going to survive.
Before we had a chance to realize Alexander wasn’t there, I felt another rifle press against the back of my head. The bearer of the weapon spoke the intelligible words of the Wendran language. Was I about to die?