by J.P. Yager
“What in the world is that?” Rayph asked his supervisor.
Jeb, boss of Outpost Z-19, laughed. “Don’t blame the game. You’re the one who doesn’t understand the rules. This is all about tactics.”
Rayph tossed the board game aside, knocking the pieces to the ground. This game, chess, couldn’t be more confusing. There was no way to attack your opponent outright. Maybe if they were playing a shooter or a strategy game on his console, he’d teach his boss a lesson. Earth games made no sense. Probably why their people had died out.
Rayph decided to go back to work and actually learn his job while Jeb went to go get more snacks from the storage cupboard in the next room. Maybe he would try this chess game later.
Outpost Z-19 was about the worst assignment you could get as an Ecath. Rayph had failed flight aptitude tests, science tests, and military training, and when he had tried to make it as a writer, he became a laughingstock. So for Rayph, the outpost gig was perfect—decent pay, barely any responsibility, and best yet, no work. All he had to do was monitor a few machines, and that was that.
The outpost was small. The bottom floor contained the rec room, which connected to a shared sleeping quarters and a bathroom. Then there were stairs that led to the small upper floor. Rayph wound his way up those tower steps and opened the door.
When he arrived, he saw a red blinking light on one of the computers and walked up to it. It took him a second to figure out it was actually one of their recording machines.
Rayph knew enough to work the thing. He dialed the knob up, put his headset on, and pushed “play.”
There was a lot of static. “Hello?…Come in Z-19. This is Outpost R-81. We have reports of an anomaly in space. We know what you’re thinking, but it’s not a rift. It’s something else. We can’t seem to figure out what it is with our equipment yet. At its current rate of speed, coming from the Outer Rim, it will reach us at 1244 standard synch time. We’ll let you know if it’s something to worry about.”
Rayph shrugged. The guy sounded older; he’d probably been doing this a long time—at least long enough to know better than to worry about nothing. Most events in space weren’t anything to sweat over. A star collapsed here and there, meteor showers—it was nothing to go overboard with. Rayph wondered why the older man sounded so concerned.
He put his headset back down and threw his feet up. At the top of the outpost, there was a pretty nice view of the Milky Way Galaxy. It was beautiful the way it spiraled into itself like it had spinning tentacles.
Rayph had heard his boss talking about how in his day, there had been a war through this system, and one of the planets had been taken out. Leave it to the humanoids to figure out that kind of destructive power. He couldn’t remember what that planet was called. Were they the ones that made chess?
“Anything new?”
Rayph turned and saw the boss eating a package of bitter wafers. It was probably why he was so large in the middle, which was strange for an Ecath. They were usually all lithe and catlike. Jeb was pretty fat and slow. He hoped he didn’t turn into a Jeb working there.
“Naw,” Rayph answered. “R-81 reported some weird space anomaly, but I doubt it amounts to anything.”
“You want to come back downstairs and go another round?” Jeb had Rayph’s white king in his hand.
Rayph shook his head and smiled. “I don’t—”
“Z-19, Z-19, come in!” the voice from the radio called, panic-stricken.
Rayph watched his boss lumber over to the radio and answer. He also saw the clock above his head read 1242.
“Go ahead,” his supervisor said calmly.
“I need to relay something back to Flora and quick. The anomaly…it’s something…it’s unbelievable! Warn them that they have to declare Protocol 3.”
His boss wiped a crumb off his shirt. “Did you say Protocol 3?”
“We don’t have time for this!” the voice yelled. “Yes! This thing is…it’s, like, it’s consuming everything! They must be warned before it’s too late.”
“I will.”
“Good. Make the call, and then try to save yourself. Oh no…it’s—”
The connection went dead.
“What was that about?” Rayph asked. He wasn’t sure whether he should joke about it or what. The concern on Jeb’s face said that would not be wise.
His boss pulled up an old-school phone, which Rayph had never seen. He immediately got a voice from the other end.
“Hello?”
“Initiate Protocol 3.”
“Identity.”
“Y-Eight-Two-M-Five-D-Three-Zero.”
The other person ended the call.
His boss put the receiver down.
Before Rayph could ask anything, he saw something that scared him, something on his boss’s face. He grew even more worried when Jeb covered his mouth with his hands. His eyes were looking out far in the distance.
Rayph tried to see what his boss was seeing. Out in space, he didn’t really see anything new. Suddenly, he saw movement. It was subtle, like a trick of the eye. Then when he realized it was real, his own mouth became guarded, as if he didn’t want the words spoken.
Out there, shadowy tendrils, like snakes, were winding their way through the Milky Way. Stars were disappearing. One whole side of where they were looking vanished in a type of dark vortex that was traveling forward.
“It’s just like he said,” Rayph said.
Nothing was shown on their monitors, and those things reached far beyond whatever the space event was. It was like the darkness really wasn’t there, and yet what had been there was gone. Readings on planets and stars vanished.
Rayph shook his boss out of it. “We have to get to the ship.”
“In eighteen thousand years, we have never had to order a Protocol 3.”
Rayph was pulling him down to their ship. “What is a Protocol 3?”
Finally, his supervisor relented and started following him down. “Evacuate the planet.”
Chapter 8