by Randy Noble
Rachel started to reach for the glasses to grab them off of Cindy’s face and then pulled her hand back.
"Nothing,” Cindy said. “A voice told me that I don't have authority."
Regina, whose security access was one of the highest available to anyone, knew that did not include military equipment, but it dawned on her that it didn't matter.
Cindy handed the glasses back to Rachel, and then Rachel scrunched her face, eyes closed, tilting her head. She almost dropped the glasses. As quickly as Rachel winced in pain, it was gone. Rachel saw both Cindy and Regina staring at her.
“What?” Rachel said.
Cindy and Regina looked at each other. “Something wrong?” Cindy asked.
Rachel shook her head. “Nope. Nothing. Just a sharp pain there for a second, like a migraine coming on, but it’s gone now.”
Regina didn’t say anything. It was obvious that Rachel didn’t want to dwell on it so Regina didn’t.
On the plus side, the glasses had the capability to see the creatures. And the glasses were already set to the spectrum they needed, because that was the last setting the deep voiced man on the planet left them at. “Try the glasses, Rachel. We should be able to see whatever has been following us."
Chapter 50
Cindy was way out of her league. Regina knew it, she was pretty sure Rachel knew it, and Cindy was way too quiet with her opinions not to know it.
Rachel insisted she be the one to wear the glasses, deeming them her property, still a hope of monetary gain that Regina knew she wouldn’t get. They’d kill her. Why leave loose ends, especially with all the corrupt governments around? She didn’t have a chance, but her hopefulness superseded common sense. Rachel could never hand the glasses over unencrypted. It was a death sentence to all of them. And none of them had any idea how to re-encrypt them.
Maybe it’s what Rachel needed to get through everything; otherwise, it was all for nothing. Regina didn’t blame her for what happened. If it wasn’t Rachel, some other pilot would have been hired, no doubt, like Rachel, having no idea what they were getting into until it was too late. Regina would put in a request to her superiors and would find them, this government, and do everything in her power to shut them down. Whatever they were up to, curiosity or not, was nothing good.
It crossed Regina’s mind that this government, or group of people, were somehow behind the hiring of the buffoon squad to wipe out the SOADs. It made sense. No one government controlled the SOAD, with each government containing one SOAD board member, all of which decided on tactics, control, and targets.
Most likely, the defective consisted of one board member. Even though they would have to have agreed with the other board members to target the killers of the SOADs, they probably hoped the SOADs would be wiped out first, leaving the whole SOAD division in chaos. The government or governments could then do what they wanted with little or no repercussion if things went wrong.
With SOAD out of the picture, it left others free to do things, like send in soldiers to investigate a mysterious planet and not have to worry how things went. They must have taken into account that Pyramid One would be at risk of compromise.
Rachel refused to carry a weapon so she led the way, slightly ahead after they left Blair’s room. “Nothing so far,” Rachel said.
They continued the walk forward on the path they took to Blair’s room. The plan was to squeeze all of them into a magnetic travel tube and get to the shuttle bay and then the hell out.
Regina saw the sign for the travel tube, a picture of a cylindrical tube with a stick figure in the middle of it, and an arrow pointing to a hallway perpendicular to the one they were in. She wasn’t sure why they had signs on how to get to the tube, because only staff could use them, and herself, of course. But regardless, the signs helped them out.
“Slow down, Rachel,” Regina said. Regina took the rear, and Cindy was in the middle, her rifle at the ready, her right eye down the site line of the barrel.
Rachel pulled twenty feet ahead of them, making her way around the corner of the hallway. Regina watched behind them and missed Rachel’s mistake.
An orange flash filled the hallway, seeming to come from the hallway Rachel went into and from behind Regina. They were surrounded.
“Jesus!” Rachel said, falling back on her ass, into the hallway intersection.
Cindy, to her credit, started firing in front of and just above Rachel in slow bursts, conserving ammo.
Regina whipped around, feeling with her right hand, grasping at air. She fired the goo shots only, trying to find one of the creatures. “Rachel, where the hell are they?” Regina said.
Rachel’s eyes were wide. “Ahh, Cindy is knocking this one back.”
Cindy walked in front of Rachel and kept pressure on the creature she couldn’t see, Regina assuming she gauged it by the explosive tipped bullets she fired.
Regina continued to fire, but her shots revealed nothing. That scared her more than anything, because that’s when she knew it got between them somehow. Regina turned around.
Rachel looked over at Regina, and then over at some unseen thing as she crawled toward the wall.
That was all Regina needed. She opened fire with both goo and the charged pins and made contact. “Get out of the way, Rachel, for Christ’s sake!”
Rachel got up and backed down the hallway, away from Regina and the creature. “You’ve got it, Regina. Keep firing.”
Regina did, one after the other. “Go!” Regina yelled. “Go past Cindy and get to the tube. I’ll catch up.”
Rachel took off. Regina walked forward, pushing the creature back, but it didn’t fall. Little purple splotches appeared on its invisible body followed by percussive explosions, ripping it to pieces. The creature didn’t wail in pain or scream in anger, like the destruction of it didn’t faze it in the least.
Regina looked to her right as she got to the intersection, and saw Cindy firing barrage after barrage of bullets on a creature lying on the floor. Rachel stood up the hallway a ways, waiting. Regina walked backward toward Cindy, firing only goo now, one after the other.
SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!
After ten goo shots, she fired one pin and a large explosion erupted in the air, a small repercussion wave washing over her, her clothing and hair rustling from the power of it.
Regina grabbed Cindy by the shoulder to pull her along, but lost her grip. Cindy continued to fire on the creature, not taking the hint.
Regina kept moving backward as she yelled back “Let’s go, Cindy!”
Cindy looked up after her clip emptied. She reloaded.
Regina turned her head and saw Rachel running toward them. “Look out!” Rachel said.
Regina whipped around, bringing her gun up, but it was too late.
A brown blob was in the air, from the creature Regina had been shooting at or another one joined the party. The blob made contact with Cindy, before Regina could get her gun up, consuming Cindy’s body in seconds. Cindy’s encased body fell to the floor and lay still.
Regina stepped forward, towards Cindy's body, her mouth open. "No! No, no, NO!"
As Regina reloaded her weapon, both clips, a brown blob came at her from ten feet away. She dodged it and kept moving forward, not looking back at where the blob went. After reloading her gun, she brought it up at where the blob came from, walked towards it, stepping around Cindy's body, and opened fire, yelling "No!" with each explosive shot.
Rachel pulled at Regina's shoulder, tugging her back, lightly at first and then with more force. "Goddamn it, Regina!" Rachel pulled at Regina's left arm, tugging her away, just as another brown blob appeared out of nowhere, flew at her head, missing by an inch. It thumped into the wall beside her.
The other blob moved along the carpet towards them.
Rachel pulled Regina away and Regina continued to fire her weapon, hitting the unseen menace, her teeth grinding, her lips quivering, her brow furrowed.
Only when Regina unloaded her clips into it di
d she finally turn around. Both of them jumped over the gooey blobs crawling towards them and then ran full out up the hallway.
Chapter 51
Regina and Rachel plummeted down to the shuttle bay at lightening speed, using the tube, both of them grasping the bar above their heads as leverage when it braked hard just before the bottom.
They looked at each other as they got out, Regina knowing Rachel thought magnetic tubes were suicide machines just like she thought, but neither said a word.
Regina took her weapon out of its holster as soon as the tube doors opened.
Rachel scanned the hallway and into the shuttle bay through the glass partition in front of the tube they came out of.
Regina looked at her and Rachel shook her head, which Regina took to mean there were no threats. Regina grabbed the handle to the glass door in front of her.
Both of them looked over to where the SPARS parked their ship and saw no activity.
"Should we --" Rachel started, and then Regina shook her head.
Either the SPARS crew they left behind were disintegrated or they were encased, and Regina didn’t want to find out which. "Where is the shuttle you used?"
Rachel led the way to the back of the shuttle bay, turning her head left and right as she walked, scanning the area. She stopped at the last shuttle in the back row of the bay.
"Rachel," Regina said. "Watch our backs."
Rachel turned around.
Regina accessed a side panel on the shuttle. She couldn’t believe their luck had finally changed. All of their previous luck had gone from bad to worse, fraught with disaster, and they finally caught a break to get themselves out of Pyramid. What Regina didn’t know was where the hell they could get to in a shuttle. They would have to wait for another rescue team to show up and hope they get saved before they got boarded by the unfriendly neighborhood aliens.
"Hurry!" Rachel said.
Regina didn't need to ask. They had company and not the pleasant kind.
The door to the shuttle opened, stairs folding out and down.
Both of them went right for the cockpit, Rachel watching through the cockpit window.
"How many?" Regina asked.
"A lot. Fifteen at least. They're almost on us. I locked the door, but that might not matter."
Regina looked over at Rachel, who stood and watched what Regina couldn't see. Rachel would not take her eyes off of it.
Regina, also standing, had no idea what to do. She was no pilot and she didn’t have the matchstick enabling device. "Rachel! Take those glasses off and get us the hell out of here!"
Rachel snapped out of it and pulled off the glasses. Regina grabbed them out of her hands as soon as she had them off.
Rachel jumped into the pilot's seat and strapped in. "Regina, you need to strap in."
Regina put the glasses on as she sat down and couldn't believe her eyes, even though she knew what to expect. She couldn't see them all, because they were probably trying to get on the shuttle, but what she did see was similar to what they saw on the planet. Everything was the same with the exception that the creatures were shorter, maybe six feet, and not as thin. They looked more human. Even the head wasn't as carrot shaped. It was rounder, but it did still have a point on the top. No features on the face, just a smooth, featureless body with a blue hue.
Before Regina realized it, Rachel was strapping her in. She had zoned out, fascinated by these things, whatever they were.
"There'll be a bit of a jolt," Rachel said.
"What? Why aren't the engines going?"
"No time for start up procedures or warm up." Rachel punched a couple of buttons and a panel slid open beside her, with a lever inside. "If it will start at all," she added, and then yanked the lever up, the buttons she pressed previously lit up, which Regina took as a good sign that there was some power to the ship. Rachel pressed them.
The floor plummeted downward, taking the shuttle with it due to its attachment via the shuttle's magnetized landing spikes.
Both Regina and Rachel's shoulders wrenched against their harnesses.
Thoughts raced through Regina's mind, like her life may be over at any moment. Mostly the flashes were of her mother, memories she had forgotten, because she was so young when her mother was taken from her, stolen from her.
She flashed on an image of her mother sitting beside her, so beautiful, glowing, red hair, kind eyes, reassuring words. It was the first space flight she was ever on, at five years of age, terrified, a year before her mother was murdered. Her mother told her stories of magical worlds for two hours, making up anything fantastical that she could, until Regina finally fell asleep.
And then the flash of her mother's murder, or how Regina perceived it: a man throwing her mother to the floor, hitting her, berating her, tearing her clothes, and then blood -- a fountain of blood -- and her screams for someone, anyone, to help her. But nobody did, even though she died in a well to do, well-populated area. Nobody did.
There were flashes of her father, the training -- the constant training -- and the kills, so many, too many, and the anger, always the anger, always there when she needed it. So lonely. Alone.
These thoughts pervaded her mind in the seconds it took to drop out of Pyramid and into space.
As soon as the shuttle cleared Pyramid, thrusters kicked in to stop it from flying off into space.
"What's it doing?" Regina asked.
"It's going to stabilize and then trail Pyramid at 100 kilometers. Well, that is, it will if we don't get it going."
The shuttle stabilized below Pyramid and slowed its pace, Pyramid passing over Regina and Rachel, a goliath of a ship Regina did not have the luxury to see previously as most did before boarding. Regina was too busy watching others to look out the tunnel window of the space station they boarded her from.
The hull smooth, rounded, not blocky like a real pyramid would be, and tiered, albeit upside down, like a pyramid, or at least half of one.
As Pyramid flew them by, Rachel busied herself, Regina assumed, prepping the ship for startup. Why there was not an emergency start up was beyond Regina, but who was she to tell a pilot what to do.
As they passed behind the giant, the blue-green glow of the engines drew Rachel's attention, and then Regina watched her eyes dart elsewhere.
All Regina saw was a strange little dark gray bump on the underside of the otherwise smooth ship.
"Jesus!" Rachel said. "Right under the shuttle bay. I swear it wasn't there a second ago."
"What? What is it?"
"It's another ship."
What seemed insignificant became much more as the bump on the underside of Pyramid detached itself and came at them.
Chapter 52
"Seriously!" Rachel said. "What the fuck do they want? I fucking did all this for nothing. Fucking nothing!" Rachel winced, gritting her teeth. Searing pain. Of that, Regina had no doubt. She could see it in Rachel's eyes and the contortion of her face.
"Calm down," Regina said, trying to console Rachel, but it came off more like a command. "Just . . . get us out of here."
Rachel turned away from the window and grabbed the cylinder out of her pocket. The cylinder they needed or they wouldn't get anywhere. Rachel clicked a button on the small cylinder, and there was a red flashing light; then she clicked a different button and the light almost immediately turned solid green; and then another button. Too many damn buttons.
"Bringing systems up now," Rachel said, which Regina found unusual for her to be voicing out loud, but so be it. Voice away. "Engines. Hard start." Rachel pressed a series of buttons that meant nothing to Regina.
The engines burst to life. Regina didn’t understand how the creatures could know to leave the shuttles alone. How could the creatures have knowledge of their technology? Specifically, knowledge of the matchstick markers and the safety features built into almost every ship to keep it within range of a marker?
The gray ship was close. Too close. Regina watched its approach. It was
bigger than the shuttle, at least double the size, but flatter and oblong, a dull gray.
Rachel grabbed the yoke in her left hand and the throttle with her right, and then accelerated right at it.
"Rachel!" Regina blurted, but Rachel said nothing. Both of them slammed back into their seats, the harnesses cinching up. Rachel rocketed toward the alien ship, playing chicken with it, and, at the last possible moment, way past the point any sane person would react, she yanked the yoke.
The shuttle flipped upside down and flew underneath the alien craft, almost skimming the bottom of it.
The ship was devoid of any features, much like the creatures themselves. Not a window in sight.
Once they cleared the underside of it, Regina digging her fingers into her seat, Rachel hit the thrusters and they blasted back toward Pyramid.
Regina said nothing. Where else could they go? There was nothing around them, no planets, just a big empty three hundred and sixty degree wasteland of space. Nowhere to hide, but the doomed ship they just escaped from. Regina had no idea what, if anything, Rachel had planned.
Since the shuttle's gravitational actuation system was always active, any way Rachel turned the ship felt upright to Regina. It was the advantage to flying in space, and the advantage to having an artificial system of gravity. Even though it didn't matter, Rachel righted the ship parallel to the current position of Pyramid. She reached for the throttle, pushing it as far as it would go.
The alien ship was not visible through the window.
"Computer," Rachel said. "Navigation. Holographic."
The paper-thin, glass monitor in front of Regina tilted, becoming horizontal, its back side parallel to the dashboard. Three-dimensional animated figures of the shuttle, Pyramid, and the alien ship popped up, flying above the screen, but did not go outside its borders.
The alien ship had turned around and was in pursuit. A digital number told them that it was three hundred kilometers and gaining quickly. Rachel got a nice jump on it from her little maneuver, but it wasn't good enough. The only place to hide was Pyramid, and now Regina knew where Rachel was going, but not how she was going to go about it.