The Distance Between

by Blair Cousins

  Pisces powered on her hover pack and guided Ester to the ship. They landed hard against the metal. Ester released Pisces’ hand to grab hold of the warm metal. She could feel the vibrations of the ship, as well as the ships buzzing over her. She opened her eyes and saw Pisces waving at her and pointing at her own feet. Ester looked down and had nearly forgot about the suit’s magnetic soles. Ester reached down and turned hers on. She stood, then a rumble from the ship threatened to knock her over. Large doors opened up on the side of the ship just a few feet away from them, and huge guns emerged and aimed and fired at the ships above them. One explosion rocked Ester’s entire body in the most terrifying way. She bent down and covered her head and saw the cannon gears turn, reload, and fire again. The sight of such a weapon had her frozen in place until a hand reached out to her and pulled her along.

  Ester’s body protested at first, but Pisces would not allow her to stop moving, So Ester focused her mind on that, moving. She was terrified, but the fear of these powerful ships arriving on the farms of Adum pushed her body to move her muscles and tendons along. The two made a quick cross to a spot where they could sneak in. Above them, rangers battled in full force. The shields were down over Ans-on, but the island of Juw-ja, home to ranger academy, still had its shields up, and it looked like the enemies were focusing on that first. Ester hunched over next to Pisces as she began unscrewing what looked like a small vent. It didn’t seem like the enemies on board knew they were there, and Ester hoped it stayed that way. She looked in the sky and saw Odie’s ship flying through the clouds. It was taking damage, but holding its own. Pisces pulled Ester along, tearing her from her thoughts into the hole.

  The inside of the vent was pitch black and slippery like a metal slide. They slid along for what seemed like forever when they finally rolled to a stop. In the darkness, Ester stood to her feet but hit her head on the low laying ceiling. Pisces heard the thud and pulled Ester down. Pisces shushed her and pulled her towards a tiny light in the distance. They walked quickly as the vent began to get smaller again. It was better lit, but Ester was starting to prefer the darkness. The vents of the ship looked like black veiny snake skin but were hard like metal. They stopped, and Pisces turned around.

  “Below,” she whispered, “is the main hall leading to the ship’s shield generator. We will not have long to make our next move after we attack the generator. By then they will know we are onboard, but it should cause enough confusion to give us the upper hand. Twenty-seven paces past the generator is where the machine room to the new weapon is. Get me there and we can bet them. Can you do that?”

  Ester nodded and clenched her fists to turn on the gloves Odie had given her. She could feel them pulling her power to her hands. It was like nothing she had ever felt.

  “Let’s go.” Pisces turned and began to open the vent door.

  The vent cover swung open startling two guards. They came running over, only to be jumped by Pisces and Ester. Pisces landed on one and punched him out and Ester upper-cutted the other, zapping him into the air. He landed hard but did not get up. The two looked at each other and nodded and took off down the corridor. It was as dim as the vents, but the interior was a dark ashy brown with two sets of yellow lights coming from tiny bulbs in the ceiling. Ester followed Pisces as she cut turns and navigated forks. She really did know this place like the back of her hand. They ran until they came to their first door. It was locked by some kind of card reading mechanism. Pisces stepped out of the way so that Ester could fry the system. Ester stepped up to the panel and brought her hands over the controls. She concentrated on using enough electricity to fry it, but with little to no training, she let off a blast stronger than she intended. Pisces stepped back as the panel smoked and fizzled. Waving the smoke from her view Pisces turned to Ester with her eyes wide open.

  “Sorry,” Ester shrugged as she laughed a little.

  “It is okay, now help me get this open.”

  They got to work and started to pry open the doors manually, but their actions did not go unnoticed. An alarm sounded that strobed the halls in red. Pisces and Ester looked at the ceiling. This was bad, but they couldn’t turn back now. They pried open the door then took off down the corridor. From the shadows, guards appeared from unseen doors. Pisces withdrew her stun gun and shot down every guard she saw as they began to fire. Ester ducked and spotted the next door. Pisces saw it too, and they two ran faster. Ester sprinted forward as Pisces covered her. Ester placed her hand on the panel and didn’t hold back. She blasted a hole right through it. Pisces slid into the door with her back to it as she shot down the guards heading their way. The door was still closed, and they needed time to open it. A wave of five guards appeared and shot at them. Pisces and Ester jumped out of the way as the door was taking hit after hit. They wouldn’t last much longer hiding behind a support beam. Ester saw Pisces’ taking aim and firing at the guards. She needed something like that. She needed to think.

  “Pisces! Cover me!” Ester shouted as loud as she could.

  “What?”

  “I got a plan!” Ester turned the charge all the way up on her gloves.

  For the most part, her people were immune to low levels of electricity. Their conductive bodies absorbed the brunt of it, meaning large amounts of electrical current could flow through their bodies and they would sustain little damage from it. If Ester created a flare, she could blind the guards and take them out one on one.

  “Cover your eyes!” she shouted to Pisces.

  Ester charged up her gloves and turned on her shield as she jumped out in front of the guards with her hands raised and let off a blinding electrical blast. Pisces covered her eyes and turned away. The guards were stunned and stumbled backwards. That’s when Pisces charged forward and finished the job. Ester panted as she watched Pisces take down the last guard. She looked at her hands. She really loved these gloves.

  “Let’s go!” Pisces turned and started to pry the door open.

  With help from Ester, it slowly slid open and the two slid through the crack just small enough for them to pass. Pisces lead the way down the hall to the last door and waved for Ester to open it. Ester placed her hands above the panel when suddenly Pisces heard a sound.

  “Blast cannon!” she shouted as she pulled Ester out of the way.

  The blast sent the women flying into the wall as smoke and debris filled the air. Ester coughed and winced. Her side was hurting quite badly. She looked over at Pisces. She was starting to get to her feet when gun fired rained through the hole. Both of them ducked and inched closer to the wall. The fire was heavy and with the threat of cannon fire, there was no way they were going to get through there. Behind them, they could hear gunshots in the distance. The corridor lit up with flashes and smoke started to pour in from behind. Pisces squinted in the dim smoke-filled hall. She didn’t understand why gunshots would be coming from where they just left, but the echoes bounced louder in the hallway as Pisces and Ester crawled closer to the wall. Pisces turned her stun gun to high as Ester charged her gloves. The sound of footsteps came from down the hall. The guards appeared, but Pisces noticed the symbol on one of the guard’s legs.

  “Reformers.” Pisces pointed to the symbol on their leg. It was hard to see at first, but Ester saw a giant serpent like beast on one of their legs. Somehow they managed to infiltrate the ship.

  “I thought they couldn’t get on?” Ester gasped.

  “Jordain.” Pisces raised her hand to her chest.

  The men were armed with laser guns and shot back through the hole. Now it was a mess of laser fire on both sides. One of the Reformers rolled over to the other side of the door opposite of where Pisces and Ester were and threw a small hand grenade through the door. The Reformers stopped firing and ducked for cover. A loud explosion went off on the other side, filling the air with more black smoke and debris.

  Pisces stood and looked at her fellow Reformers. They brought their right fist to their chest and Pisces did the same. They re-charged their we
apons and nodded to her to follow. Pisces waved Ester along. Ester was relieved to see that they had some backup. On the other side of the door, the room was a mess of bodies and destruction. Many of the lights were damaged, and it was almost completely dark inside. Ester covered her nose as she stepped over the bodies of Tozork’s men. It was weird. They were her enemy, but she would never get use to the sight of lifeless bodies on the ground. Pisces ran to the control panel and started to feverishly enter in codes. Ester stood around with the other Reformers. It was taking a lot of time for Pisces to bring down the system, and there was no telling when the next wave of guards would arrive. Ester turned and looked at the shield generator. It was a wall of panels, flashing lights and buttons. It looked all too confusing to her. Fire started up again in the hall as the Reformers rushed to defend the room. Time was running out. Ester ran over to Pisces.

  “What’s wrong?” Ester poured over the controls.

  “I cannot…I cannot shut down the power. They must have changed the codes.” Pisces mashed buttons but nothing seemed to work.

  “Okay, it just needs to stop right?” Ester asked.

  “Yes but finding the right codes to stop it is impossible.” Pisces growled at another unauthorized message.

  “What if we just break some of the parts, it’s bound to stop some of it right?”

  “It’s not that easy, the generator has a lot of back up routes. It would more than likely recover.”

  “Okay, but what if we just completely wreck it?”

  Pisces looked at her through the plastic shield of her helmet. “I cannot spare any of the bombs I brought to destroy the weapon.”

  Pisces looked down at Ester as she charged up her gloves.

  “That is not enough. The exterior is virtually shock resistant. We need the right codes,” Pisces said.

  “We don’t have time.” Ester ran over to one of the deceased guards and pried the laser gun from their hands.

  “What are you…?”

  “Okay, the outside is shock resistant,” Ester interrupted, “but what if I can create a small hole in the panel and focus my gloves’ power in there. That would shock the inside.”

  Pisces looked down at the panel. The gunfire was getting louder. It was a crazy idea, but anything was worth trying at this point. The Reformers shot through the hole behind them, but one by one they were falling. Pisces took the gun and aimed it at a weak looking part of the panel. She fired and blasted out a fist sized hole. The panel flickered, but as Pisces suspected the shields generator returned to normal operation. Ester waved Pisces back. This was their only shot. If she could fry the panels on the doors, she could fry this. She charged her gloves up once more to the highest setting. Stepping closer, she hovered her hands over the hole. She drew all the electricity from her body into her hands and closed her eyes as she let it build. She had never focused this hard before, but she could feel her power getting stronger. She began to chant:

  “Grand Mother in the sky, who watches over us and who we draw our strength from. Hear my pleas and open up a path for me to use your strength. Hear my pleas Grand Mother in the sky and grant me the ability to save my planet.”

  Ester opened her hands and something strange started to happen. Her necklace started to glow. From her chest, a great power began to form and take shape. The energy surged from her chest to her hands and exited out of her finger tips. The force blasted her and everyone else away and lit the entire wall a blaze with electricity and fire. Micro explosions rocked the entire room as the bodies of everyone in it landed and tumbled to the other side. Ester landed hard. Her hands were burning, and her body was screaming. She was half conscious when she felt the rumblings all around her. She could hear nothing, and her vision was blurry.

  “What was that?” Pisces shouted as she stood over her. Ester could barely hear or see her. “That was incredible!”

  Pisces’ voice faded in and out. A hand reached out and started to drag Ester towards the wall. Reformers, just shadows in Ester’s vison, rushed around the room as it became engulfed in flames. What was that power? Ester thought. It could not have been the gloves alone. Though she did not doubt the skills of Odie—she had seen his work firsthand—somehow that attack felt different. She lifted her arm to her chest where her necklace rested. It was still warm to the touch. Perhaps the Grand Mother in the sky had granted her power or maybe she just pushed the gloves to its limits. She turned her palm over and the little metal circles on the gloves were charred. She was defenseless now, but at least she completed her part.

  Now it was up to Pisces.

  One of the Reformers limped over to help Ester up. He hoisted her arm over his shoulder and walked her to the weapons room. The weapons room would not be as easy to destroy. It was built to withstand a direct hit and even the damage caused by the Reformers did little to affect the weapon incased behind the thick layers of metal. Pisces ran over to the hull and started to climb up the metal bar steps. The few remaining Reformers below got to work prying open a small vent. Ester shook herself awake to see Pisces ascend. She was high off the ground climbing the massive weapon chamber. Lights and panels lit up as a slow pulsating hum vibrated through the floor.

  Pisces stated to climb faster when she felt the vibrations. She was sure they were getting ready to use it. She reached the maintenance panel on the next level and hopped up only to be caught off guard by a guard with a laser gun. There was little time to withdraw her stun gun. She could only dodge, but she was not quick enough. She fell over and hissed as she held the wound on her arm. Blood started to bleed through the hole in her uniform. The guard stood over her, laser gun pointed at her head, then an explosion of blood coated the panels and the guard fell to the floor. Pisces used her arm to shield herself from the body then stood. She walked over to the rail and saw a Reformer on the floor holding a laser gun. The Reformer lowered their gun and raised their fist to their chest. Pisces smiled through the pain and did the same.

  The pulsations continued and became strong at each passing second. They were running out of time. Pisces walked around the panel and found the upper maintenance stairs. They were locked, but she used the guard’s laser gun to blast open the door and climb in. The weapon was reinforced inside and out and simply blowing it up would not be enough. That’s why the Reformers choose to target the laser barrel. If the barrel were damaged the weapon would not function properly, thus giving the two remaining ships enough time to disable the main ship and rebel. Pisces counted her steps quickly as she crawled through the tiny maintenance vents. The laser weapon was revving up to fire and that’s exactly what she wanted. She counted and followed the path, until she reached the interior of the barrel. Using a special laser cutter she had on her, she cut herself a small hole to plug a grappling hook into. She harnessed herself in and lowered herself into the barrel. Then the barrel shook, from the outside explosions. Pisces clenched onto her line; she could feel that it would not hold.

  “Dammit.” she shouted as she looked down.

  She needed more time. She needed to place the bomb exactly two point seven four meters from the base, but it didn’t seem like her line would hold for long. The barrel walls shook again, it sounded like charges, the weapon was nearly functional. Pisces held on tighter. There would be little time to set the bomb and get back up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

  “I will complete my mission,” she said as she lowered herself down.

  ***

  The Reformers back in the weapons room pried the vent door off and tossed it to the ground. They knew they couldn’t hold the guards off forever. One Reformer checked the inside of the vent and nodded, then two others walked over to the sniper who had saved Pisces from before and exchanged a few words. The floor stopped pulsating and changed into one powerful hum. The sniper turned to Ester and raised his fist to his chest. Ester didn’t know what to do, so she just nodded. She watched the sniper take off back the way they came along with a few others. That left just Ester and three
other Reformers. Ester was starting to get up, using the wall to hoist herself upright. Pisces needed to hurry. It sounded like something bad was going to happen. She watched the panel for her come down when two reformers pulled her by the arm.

  “Wait, what about Pisces? Shouldn’t we wait for her?” Ester looked back at the maintenance panel. The Reformers tensed but ignored her pleas and dragged her along. “Wait!”

  Ester shouted and tried to wiggle out of their hold, but it was no use with her body so weak. They pushed her through the vent and started crawling away from the weapon room.

  “Hey, stop it!” Ester kicked, but the Reformer in front of her just pulled her by the arm faster.

  A huge explosion from behind them stopped the group for just a second, then a rumble came from the vent. The Reformers looked at each other and then gasped.

  “Move!” one shouted from the back as the group crawled faster.

  The rumble got louder, and soon they started to feel the heat. The two Reformers in front and the one behind Ester pushed on, but the one in the back stopped and stayed behind. Ester looked over her shoulder.

  “Wh-why is he stopping?” She saw him press a button and form a little blue shield. Ester’s eyes widened. “Wait!” she screamed.

  “There’s no time!” One of the Reformers shouted from in front of her and pulled her along.