Entanglement Bound: An Epic Space Opera Series (Entangled Universe Book 1)

by Mary E. Lowd

  The magnetic field sucked them out, grasping the containment crate and the metal components in each of their suits. The grappling hook drew them out of Cassie's friendly gravity field into the zero-gee nausea of space. They hung over the event horizon of a black hole, hovering over the mouth of the Devil's Radio, as the grappling hook pulled them closer and closer to the Doraspian vessel. The metal behemoth grew in Clarity's field of vision as the steel cable drew them interminably into the airlock of Irohann's sworn enemy.

  30 Sunshine Spaceship

  The inside of the airlock glowed like a yellow sun, blinding in comparison to the deep darkness of the Devil's Radio. Even with her hair mostly hidden inside her spacesuit helmet, a jolt of energy from the bright light hit the photosynthetic locks of the hair framing Clarity’s face. The brightness sealed around them; the air cycled; and the inner door opened to reveal the brambly shapes of two tumbleweed-like warriors silhouetted by even brighter light pouring in from the rest of the vessel.

  Each shrubby warrior was armed with a softly glowing blue half-bubble of a force shield, and held thorn-like metal daggers, approximately the length of Clarity's hand, gripped by twisting green vines. Clarity counted three daggers held by one of the soldiers, and four held by the other. But they could have easily been wielding more daggers, blocked from view by their shrubby clusters of flowers and leaves.

  The silver daggers gleamed in the bright light. These warriors were menacing, but Clarity couldn't help sympathizing with Cassie's view: they were the most beautiful warriors she'd ever seen. The Doraspians stared at her with eye-flowers like pink daisies, and the warrior on the left ordered, "Follow us to the bridge!" Its voice tinkled from tiny purple flowers shaking like ringing bells. Even relayed through Clarity's helmet speakers, the Doraspian's voice sounded like a chorus of fairies singing.

  The warrior on the right pointed one of its three daggers at the hexagonal containment crate and said in a voice as sweet as honey, "Carry the weapon."

  Mazillion's spacesuit unzipped, and a mass of tiny insect bodies poured out. A black cloud filled the sunny chamber. Mazillion had grown so large and dense, Clarity could hardly believe they'd squeezed into that bipedal spacesuit. The storm of Mazillion easily lifted the heavy containment crate, and they lifted both Clarity and Irohann off their feet. The storm swept them down halls bursting so brightly with sunlight that Clarity had to squint her eyes.

  What she saw of the ship as Mazillion floated her through it was all glittering crystal walls, shining yellow light, and aliens who looked every bit as beautiful as the floral bouquets Cassie had displayed on her screens. No, they put those bouquets to shame. The Doraspians bodies clustered pink daisies and purple bell flowers; blue roses and green spades; sea green fronds and elegantly twisted vines; with sprays of tiny yellow-white buds like baby's breath; all arrayed with radial symmetry. They were gorgeous. They were all of the glory and chaos of nature combined with the mathematical, fractal perfection of nature. Bouquets arranged by florists were nothing but undead, hacked-together Frankenstein's monsters in comparison.

  The air filters in Clarity's spacesuit kicked in, cycling external air through the embedded algae scrubbers. Her suit's computer had determined the air here was breathable, and it was designed to make use of local air whenever available for efficiency's sake.

  The air from the Doraspian vessel mixed with the sterile air, scrubbed and rescrubbed hundreds of times inside her spacesuit, and it was the sweetest smelling air Clarity had ever tasted. Perfume like a dew-covered rose on a spring day mixed with the tantalizing scent of perfectly ripe apricots and freshly baked vanilla sugar cookies.

  When the air filled her lungs, it felt like drinking deeply from a cold stream on a hot day, after hours of marching through beating sunlight until her throat and tongue were parched dry and scratchy. The perfume soothed her soul. Sweet, sweet manna.

  "Damn," Clarity said. "If this is what a Dorsapian spaceship is like, how beautiful is the Doraspian homeworld?"

  Irohann didn't answer. If she was feeling overcome by the beauty of this vessel, how much harder must it all be for him?

  Clarity switched her radio to a private channel, open only to Irohann's suit. "Stay focused, Iroh. We've got to get the box open and get out of here before Cassie knocks us into the black hole with all of this. Any ideas?"

  Again, no answer. Clarity tried to twist around in Mazillion's grasp to catch a glimpse of Irohann's face, but it was like trying to swim while skydiving. Fruitless. She realized she might be on her own here. She didn't know for sure she could trust Mazillion not to have been swayed back into harmony with their other self. And Irohann's psyche was probably cracked wide open. She would have to rely on herself.

  They arrived at a chamber where the bright light emanating all around was interrupted by a patch of deep velvet blackness. It was the viewscreen, and they'd made it to the bridge. Mazillion set down their three burdens. Clarity's feet hit the deck. She looked down. The floor was transparent, like standing on glass, and she saw more chambers of the vessel beneath her, with Doraspians going about their business. Clarity feared to shift her weight too suddenly, lest the glass crack. Yet, the transparent floor held the heavy weight of the hexagonal containment crate without difficulty.

  She tested moving her foot, and the transparent ground held firmly beneath her. She looked away, trying not to think about empty space beneath her. It was nothing compared to the event horizon of the Devil's Radio. And if she didn't get this containment crate opened and get off this ship before it was too late, she'd spend an eternity of subjective time being crushed to death by the unthinkably massive gravity of a deadly black hole.

  Well, either that or she'd die suddenly, never aware she'd failed. Logically, that seemed more likely. But existential terror is awfully compelling, and she couldn't shake the fear of failing and then experiencing her failure for eternity.

  Mazillion reformed in the tumbleweed shape of a Doraspian, dense and black and buzzing, beside the Merlin Box's containment crate.

  The two Doraspian soldiers flanked Clarity and Irohann, and a third Doraspian tumbled toward the containment crate. This one's vines were dripping with teardrop ornaments made of faceted glass. On this ship of sunlight, the teardrop prisms cast rainbows everywhere, and they tinkled like breaking glass as the Doraspian moved.

  "This is the Merlin weapon?" The decorated Doraspian reached out several green vines and touched the metal coils on the side of the crate with the quivering tips of the appendages.

  "As promised." Mazillion's multitudinous body pulsed as one as they spoke.

  Clarity was worried. She moved her lips silently inside her spacesuit helmet, praying to herself that Mazillion was still divided and still half with her.

  The decorated Doraspian tumbled away from the containment crate, turning its clusters of pink-daisy eyes to look at Mazillion. It held out quivering vines and spoke with chiming bell flowers, "Come to me."

  Mazillion's form grew less dense, spreading out into a larger cloud of the same shape, still mimicking a Doraspian, floating instead of tumbling. The Doraspian who dripped with teardrop prisms rolled forward, rotating as it tumbled. They came together, tiny insects flying into the spaces between vines, settling on the petals of flowers, and sea-green fronds unfurling to let tiny black bodies land on every feathery leaf. It was an embrace unlike any Clarity had ever seen or imagined before. It was like the two creatures became one.

  Buzzing chuckled from Mazillion's black mass as it coated the Doraspian, and the chiming of tiny purple bells tinkled back like fairies laughing. The two aliens spoke to each other in their embrace, speaking too softly, too quickly, too intimately for anyone outside their bubble of communion to understand.

  It reminded Clarity of communing with Cassie, and she looked out the viewscreen to see Cassie's purple whale-like body approaching through the blackness, lit by the golden sunlight leaking out of every crack of the Doraspian vessel. Her spiraling horn pointed straight a
t the Doraspian viewscreen.

  Clarity wasn't sure how Am-lei intended to knock the Doraspian vessel into the Devil's Radio's event horizon, but the way Cassie's horn was pointing at—and approaching—the viewscreen looked really ominous. They might not have long. She looked at Irohann, standing beside the Doraspian soldier with four daggers. He was staring dumbstruck at Mazillion's communion with the Doraspian leader.

  Did he look—jealous? Clarity's stomach twisted in disgust. "You have got to get over that stupid queen," she said. Her radio was still set to broadcast only to Irohann, but she must have spoken loudly enough to be heard directly through the faceplate of her helmet.

  The Doraspian leader, still coated with Mazillion's bodies like a fine layer of black ash, turned its pink-daisy eyes toward her, looked her up and down, then turned them toward Irohann.

  "This is Sloanee?" The Doraspian's voice twinkled.

  Irohann looked away, but the Doraspian rolled up to him, shedding Mazillion like a wake of dust. The Doraspian reached out several vines and grasped Irohann's spacesuit clad shoulders, compelling the canid to kneel down until it could look through his helmet's faceplate with three pink-daisy eyes. "You were the queen's consort? Her highness's beloved amphibian consort has... turned herself into a... dog!" The Doraspian's vine-limbs shook with mirth, and it rolled away from Irohann, tumbling aimlessly about the floor of the bridge as it was overcome by laughter. "Too rich," it twinkled. "I must send your image to her highness immediately. What do you call yourself now?"

  Irohann turned his back on the room, staring instead at one of the crystalline walls of the bridge. Clarity pursed her lips tightly. She would never tell this bunch of flowers Irohann's new name.

  But she didn't have to.

  Mazillion said, "Irohann, and the human companion is Clarity. They've traveled together for thirty-some odd years."

  Clarity's eyes burned fire at Mazillion, but she still hoped it was only Mazillion's evil half who had chosen to reveal Irohann's name. Even so, it was the death knell of the identity Irohann had shared with her. It was the death knell of their friendship. He would never travel with her in this form again, and she still would not change her form.

  It shouldn't matter. She'd already decided their friendship was over. And yet... When he'd been right that he was still in danger, a part of her had begun to reconsider. That was all over.

  The Doraspian tumbled its way over to a computer console and sent the message. "Now," it said, "let's get this crate open and take a look at the weapon you've procured for us. The traitor Sloanee and her accomplice are an amusing addition, but nothing more than a bonus. The weapon is paramount."

  This would be their chance—once the Doraspian commander opened the containment crate, Clarity couldn't allow it to be closed again. The universe depended on it. She looked around the bridge frantically, searching for something she could use as a weapon or simply a tool to jam the crate open. But there was nothing aboard the bridge but built-in computer consoles and Doraspian soldiers. She didn't have any assets of her own—only her own body and the spacesuit she was wearing. She'd need the spacesuit to protect her body if she was to escape.

  But if those were her only assets... Well, she'd have to make do.

  As Mazillion and the Doraspian commander worked to unlock the containment crate, Clarity steeled herself to rush at the hexagonal metal box bodily. If she could get the smaller Merlin Box out of the containment crate, perhaps she could make a run for it. She only had to keep the Merlin particle safely out of the containment crate long enough for Cassie to throw the Doraspian vessel into the black hole. How long could that take?

  Alternatively, how quickly could these clusters-of-vines wielding thorn-like daggers take her down? Probably pretty quickly. Maybe Mazillion would defend her. That would buy her some time.

  The lid of the containment crate cracked open. Clarity almost jumped, but she held herself back. She had to wait for the right moment. The Doraspian reached through the crack with the green tips of several vines. Mazillion's cloud helped lift the lid open wider, giving Clarity a glimmer of hope.

  Please, please, she thought, let Mazillion still be on our side.

  The Doraspian's vine-tips emerged holding the simple metal box of Clarity's nightmares.

  "So simple," the Doraspian tinkled. "Is it truly so dangerous?"

  Mazillion's cloud of bodies pulsed around the Doraspian commander. "Open it. You will not be disappointed."

  Clarity thought her heart would stop. It couldn't be this easy. The Doraspian commander wouldn't be so foolish. If they opened the box itself, then the electronics on their ship would stop working. They'd be dead in space, and Cassie would be perfectly safe knocking them into the black hole's event horizon.

  Irohann said, "You shouldn't open it. Dori wouldn't like it."

  "How dare you, dog," the Doraspian general said. "You have no special knowledge of Her Highness Queen Doripauli's mind. I've served her loyally since I was a sproutling with my roots still in the ground. You betrayed her before the seed I grew from had even germinated."

  Irohann shrugged. "You're probably right." From the look in his eye, if his fluffy tail weren't stuffed inside of the leg of his spacesuit, it would be swishing. "I'm probably trying to trick you into not checking inside the box so you won't realize we swapped the true Merlin Particle out before bringing the containment crate to you."

  The Doraspian commander's pink-daisy eyes swiveled about on their stems following the erratic paths of the black streams of Mazillion flowing through the air all around. Its sea-green fronds curled up into tight little fiddleheads, and its blue blossoms closed their petals into primly pursed buds. The sounds of buzzing and fairy bells ensued. Clarity couldn't understand the conversation filling the air with a cacophony of noise, but it seemed like, maybe, Irohann had made the Doraspian commander doubt Mazillion. And if any of Mazillion was still on their side, then they were probably dragging the argument out. It took all of the self-control Clarity had to not launch herself at the Doraspian and snatch the Merlin Box from its grasping vines.

  As the buzzing roared louder and the fairy bells sang more and more complicated symphonies, Clarity glanced at the viewscreen. Cassie's horn kept coming closer. Was Cassie going to ram them? Spear the Doraspian vessel with her horn the way Hercules had speared The Serendipity? That couldn't be right... How could she knock the Doraspian vessel into the event horizon with it speared on her horn? And yet, the sharp point of Cassie's horn gleamed closer on the viewscreen, glinting with the leaked sunlight from the Doraspian vessel.

  Clarity whispered into her spacesuit radio, "We can't wait any longer for them to open the box." She caught Irohann's eye. He was standing on the other side of the containment crate from her. He was listening. "We'll have to—"

  Total darkness fell inside the Doraspian vessel.

  31 The End

  Clarity's stomach flipped as the artificial gravity flickered in and out, finally settling on out, leaving her floating in the dark.

  All of the sounds around Clarity were suddenly muffled by the spacesuit helmet over her head. The radio no longer worked, and it no longer relayed amplified, clearer versions of the tinkling Doraspian voices and Mazillion's buzz. But muffled did not mean quiet. Mazillion's buzz had grown to a roar, and Clarity heard the chiming fairy choir voices of Doraspians all around her. They spoke too fast—and too distorted by her helmet—for her to understand.

  She needed to get her hands on the Merlin Box before the Doraspian commander could close it, but she couldn't tell, listening, where the commander was.

  As her eyes adjusted to the dark, Clarity saw a single glowing spike. She narrowed her eyes, turned her head, and peered at the shape, trying to understand what she was seeing. "Oh my god, it's Cassie's horn," she whispered into the echo-chamber of her helmet as soon as the shape made sense to her.

  The viewscreen hadn't been entirely electronic—it was an actual window overlaid with computer infographics. The overlay
was gone, but she could still see out into the void of the Devil's Radio. And even though Cassie was no longer lit by the leaked sunlight from the Doraspian vessel, apparently her horn glowed with its own inner bioluminescence. It was beautiful. Clarity's naive, childlike, loving spaceship was coming to rescue her. That was her first thought. The second was: oh god, I'm going to die.

  Clarity wheeled away from the viewscreen and peered into the darkness of the Doraspian bridge. Hidden in the darkness, she knew there were several soldiers wielding daggers, and the shrubs all sounded frantic based on the high pitch of their fairy choir voices. Possibly hysterical. These photosynthetic sentients weren't used to pitch black darkness. Though with their spherically symmetrical bodies, they'd probably be excellent at handling zero gravity.

  There were some bioluminescent panels in her spacesuit, Clarity remembered. That would help her find Irohann. But she feared if she turned the panels on, the dim light would be more help to the Doraspians around her than to herself and Irohann.

  Clarity cried out in surprise and terror as she felt her feet pushed out from under her, sending her into a spin in the null gravity. She reached a hand out and grabbed something with a hard edge. It had a crenulated quality like the metal coils around the hexagonal containment crate. She wobbled herself back into a steady float, catching her balance physically. Emotionally, she was still reeling.

  Had she been knocked down by a Doraspian? Mazillion? Or the fracturing of space-time?

  The lights and gravity were off, so the Merlin Box was still open. That was good, but it also meant the existential nightmare of the Merlin Particle growing inside the darkness. If she could see better, how many reflections of herself would fill the Doraspian bridge?