by Joshua James
He checked the connection in his HUD. The nukes might have gone in with the sunken ship, but they were still responding to his HUD. He could still detonate them.
Lee prepared to give the command. He’d always known this was a one-way mission. He was at peace with it. He didn’t want to kill himself, but he knew he had no choice. These alien monsters had to be stopped.
“Have to be stopped,” agreed a whispering voice in his head.
Lee spun around, expecting to find someone right behind him, but he was all alone.
He frowned as he replayed the voice in his head. It was familiar to him for some reason, even though he couldn’t place it.
“Have to be stopped,” the voice repeated. It seemed to come from behind him this time, from the oily ocean beyond.
Lee walked over to the edge of the black oil and knelt down.
He reached out to touch it. To his surprise, the oil reached out for him in return. In a way, it was beautiful. It really was. Putting aside his absolute hatred for the Shapeless and his determination to end them, they were astounding.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” This time, the voice didn’t whisper. And in the deep pitch, realization dawned on Lee. It was his own voice.
He turned around, but still nothing was behind him.
But when he turned back, he found that the black oil had formed a shape that reflected his own, right down to his own face looking back at him.
“It is,” agreed Lee.
“You don’t need that,” the other Lee, the imposter Lee, said, nodding at him. “Not anymore. Not since you stopped being strictly human.”
“What? My helmet?” Lee chuckled. “Nice try.”
“If we wanted to kill you, Lee, you would have died back on the Atlas.” The imposter stepped forward, slowly rising out of the black oil, in full uniform.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to keep my helmet on.” Lee backed up and took out his pistol as he did so.
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you think?”
“You want to destroy us? Destroy this place?”
“Of course I do.”
“But you’d be destroying the cradle of heaven. You’ve seen what we can offer, not only to you but to anyone who has ever lost anyone. We will bring families back together. Reunite widows and widowers with their beloved dead. Grieving parents will see their children again, and vice versa. What is it that’s so bad about that, that you want to deny all humanity that peace, that closure?”
“It’s murder, for one,” Lee said.
His doppelganger scoffed.
“Secondly, these lost loved ones you offer aren’t real. They’re faint memories molded out of vile clay that will never match the complexities of the real thing. And third, this Abyss you speak of, that you seem to worship, it’s not real.”
This time the imposter Lee cocked his head.
“That’s right,” Lee said. “I was shown what it is. It’s nothing more than mental manipulation, an ability your kind stole from another. So you’re murders, thieves, liars and deceivers. And you want everyone to just let you take over the universe?”
“Liars? Deceivers? Murders? Are these not all qualities that can be attributed to humans? Why are these qualities okay for yours but not mine?” The imposter Lee was fully out of the black oil now, having emerged from it and walked across it to the lava rock surface of his planet. The oil began to recede off of him and instead of a strange black silhouette, Lee found himself looking at a perfect replica of a younger version of himself.
“We’re far from perfect,” Lee growled. “That’s true. But we try to be better. That’s the difference. Your kind have accepted being monsters and embraced it. We struggle to be better than we were the day before.” He held his pistol in his hand, finger on the trigger.
“Really?” The imposter Lee laughed. He pointed to the gun. “Is that trying to be better? Admit it, we’re not so different. At least when we kill, we do so to deliver someone to a better place, a better existence. But you, you kill out of anger, vengeance, and justice. Which is worse?”
The sound of gunshots exploded across the alien landscape. The young imposter took a couple of bullets to the face and chest. He fell down to one knee, as the wounds were still open and smoldered. They were incendiary rounds.
Lee looked down at his gun in stupefied shock. Had he fired somehow?
But there was no smoke coming out of the barrel. There wasn’t gunpowder on the gloves of his suit. He hadn’t shot.
Then who had?
The imposter Lee started laughing in between moans of pain. He stood back up, changed form into the Pale Man. Still, the holes blown in him stayed open. Two more shots in his knees sent him back down to the rock.
“Stay the hell down, you slimy alien prick,” bellowed another familiar voice from further down the rock-strewn slope.
Lee turned to see Chevenko in a bright orange space suit, holding a rifle.
“Our deal is done!” Chevenko screamed. “It’s over.”
Shocked, Lee backed up out of the way. He raised his pistol and pointed it at his former friend, but he didn’t pull the trigger. And Chevenko didn’t seem to care that he had a gun pointed at him.
Chevenko walked past a shocked Lee, up to the Pale Man. He pointed his rifle directly at the Shapeless’ head. “Consider this a resignation.” He fired two more shots directly into the Pale Man’s forehead. The Shapeless crumpled down, dead.
“Don’t move!” Lee kept his pistol pointed at Chevenko, who slowly turned around.
“Or? What can you do to me, Lee? You already killed my daughter.” Chevenko raised his rifle and quickly fired, before Lee could react.
Lee felt a terrible burning in his gut. He looked down. Smoke and blood spilled out from a hole in his suit and stomach. When he tried to back up a little bit, he tripped over his own feet and fell down.
“What more can you take from me? You were supposed to be my friend.” Chevenko was beyond out of his mind. Grief and head trauma had taken its toll on him. He was as far from the man that Lee had known and been friends with as possible.
“You tried to kill me.” Lee struggled to get the words out as the bullet still burned in his stomach. He didn’t think of it at the time, but what the Pale Man had said earlier was true. There were no issues at all for him breathing, even though his suit had been breached.
“Apparently I didn’t try hard enough.” Chevenko fired again. His second bullet hit Lee in the chest, puncturing a lung.
Lee coughed up blood in his helmet. He used what little strength he had to take it off. It became hard to breathe, and not only because of his new injury. The helmet itself felt suffocating, especially since he knew that he didn’t need it.
“Because of you…” Chevenko stood over Lee. “My daughter, my Anastasia, is gone. Sorry, my old friend, but I can’t just let that go.”
If you kill me, then it’s all over. Humanity is doomed, dead. Don’t be an idiot!
Lee wanted to say the words, point out to his former best friend that killing him would doom all of humankind, but his punctured lung made that difficult. And even if he could speak, it was doubtful that any words would’ve stopped the crazed admiral.
Lee managed to raise his pistol just enough to shoot Admiral Chevenko in the shin. The bone was instantly shattered. Chevenko screamed out in pain and fell to the ground in front of Lee.
Unlike Lee, Chevenko didn’t have the same alien influence in his body chemistry. Immediately he started to choke on the Shapeless planet’s air entering his suit. Add that to the agony of getting his shin bone shattered, and he was in a bad way.
Lee grimaced hard as he managed to pick himself up off the ground to one knee. Blood dripped out of his mouth and his two bullet wounds. His breathing got shallower, with only one lung doing all the work. He could feel the life leaving his body.
The lights were starting to fade. Lee couldn’t talk, which meant that he couldn’t
order his HUD to remote-detonate the nukes in his mostly sunken ship. He was going to fail.
I’m going to fail. They’re all counting on me and I’m going to die at the damn finish line.
All Lee could think about in that moment was that his father had been right all along. He would never amount to much of anything. His medals, his achievements in the war, they meant nothing. Because when it came down to it, he was a failure who might as well have ended up working alongside his dad in the docks. At least then he wouldn’t feel the weight of his monumental failure on the Shapeless’ home planet.
“You haven’t failed yet, friend Lee.” Just as the lights started to dim, Lee heard that cold, slightly creepy alien voice. It was the alien with glowing yellow eyes, who somehow stood right next to him.
How?
“Sorry about this. I was the one responsible for what happened to this poor deluded man’s daughter, but not on purpose. Now, to make up for it, I’m going to make sure that friend Lee survives, to finish the job.” The yellow-eyed alien put his hand on Lee’s shoulder.
What are you doing?
“I’m saving you so you can save life itself.”
Lee suddenly felt a cold rush throughout his body. The yellow-eyed alien had sacrificed himself by forcing the former commander’s body to absorb him once again. The holes in him started to fill in. His lung reconstructed itself.
With his newfound strength, Lee stood up. Chevenko, choking on the Shapeless planet’s atmosphere, still managed to transition to sitting down and facing his former friend. He picked up his rifle, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, as he struggled to find any breathable air.
Lee wasn’t worried, though. Absorbing the yellow-eyed alien, even though it wasn’t his idea, gave him a sense of calm. Seeing what was behind Chevenko helped ease any fears of being shot again.
The Pale Man rose up again out of the ocean of black oil. He stood on top of the liquid, right behind Chevenko. The creature’s head became disfigured, unnaturally large, like a python dislocating its bottom jaw. With a mouth full of razor-sharp, shark-like teeth, the Pale Man bit down on the admiral’s head, ripping it in half.
“I see you have a passenger again.” The Pale Man, blood covering his mouth and chest, again decided to try and engage Lee in conversation.
Lee had no desire to talk. He just stared at the Pale Man. His thoughts wandered to his son, to Ben. Though he’d given his word that he’d try everything he could to return to him, it was very clear that wasn’t going to happen.
“So now we have to deal with two traitors? And in case you were wondering what I meant by ‘we’.”
Lee felt pressure in his stomach. He looked down and saw a black blade sticking out of one end. He felt more pressure in his chest as another blade entered through there. The yellow-eyed alien had taken away his ability to feel pain, which was a gift.
The two blades belonged to Lee’s parents, respectively. They’d been conjured up out of the lake of black oil, the goo still dripping off their nude bodies. His father stood behind him, his mother to his side. Lee smiled.
“Thank you,” said Lee.
The Pale Man changed his form into Lee’s wife. Behind him were all the soldiers, friends, and civilians that had died over the course of Lee’s life. They stood nude on top of the black oil ocean, staring and smiling at him.
“For what?” asked the Pale Man in the form of Lee’s wife, Beverly, as he inched closer, propelled by a tentacle attached to his back that jutted out of the black oil.
“For letting me see them one last time. HUD, activate remote detonation.” For the first time since they’d encountered each other, Lee was the one with a wide Cheshire smile, and the Pale Man was distressed.
Ben…I’m sorry.
An apology was the last thought that went through Lee’s mind as there was a bright flash. He closed his eyes.
When Lee reopened his eyes, he was walking through the streets of Annapolis. It was a perfect night: warm, but not hot. Cool, but not cold. On his arm was his wife. Beverly rested her head on his arm as her high heels clicked on the elevated walkways of the city. Their bellies were full of dim sum; their mouths still tasted and smelled of alcohol.
“Where are you taking me?” asked Beverly, almost falling asleep on her feet. It’d been a wonderful but long date night.
“Do you trust me?” asked Lee.
Beverly looked up at her husband, confused by the question. “Of course I do, honey.”
Suddenly the lively elevated streets of Annapolis were empty. It was just Lee and Beverly. Just ahead, through the forest of skyscrapers and gargantuan apartment towers, there was an opening. The couple walked towards it.
When they reached the opening, there were no more buildings ahead of Lee and Beverly. There was no city. There was only open space, and the millions of stars that inhabited it.
“What is it?” asked Beverly as she wrapped one arm around Lee’s waist.
The first thought Lee had was that it was the Abyss. After everything he’d been through, all the fighting against the Shapeless, he’d still ended up where the aliens wanted him and all humans to be. But then he saw one of the stars in the distance get brighter and flash yellow for only a few seconds. All those fears went away.
Lee pushed up his wife’s face by her chin and planted the most passionate kiss he ever had on her. She reciprocated. In that moment, even if all existence disappeared for him, he’d be fine. He’d found heaven in her lips. It was something he’d yearned so much for since she died.
“What was that for?” asked Beverly. “I’m not complaining, just…”
Lee smiled at his wife, then looked back out at space. “You know what this is? It’s hope, Beverly. It’s hope.”
Space lit up bright, like the flash of a nuclear bomb. He hugged Beverly, rested his forehead on hers. Finally, finally he could rest, knowing that he hadn’t failed.
Eleven
The End Game
Rhule sat alone, except for his two guards, on the command bridge of the Veruvian. The red emergency lights painted a grim picture as sirens blared. He stared out the viewing screens at the catastrophe unfolding in the space outside.
“I ordered an evacuation,” Rhule said. He’d ordered it as soon as the Veruvian’s shields were fully depleted.
“I know, sir,” answered one of the guards.
“Then why are you still here?”
“We’re not just going to leave, sir. Orders be damned,” answered the other guard.
“If you stay here, you’ll die,” said Rhule. It was the truth. He knew that there was no way, barring some miracle, that he’d survive this battle. Nor would his beloved Veruvian.
When neither man spoke, Rhule sighed. “Okay. Look out there, tell me what you see.”
The guards hesitated for a moment. Then one of them spoke up. “I see a battle, sir.”
“Look harder.” Rhule stared at the viewing screens, which flickered on and off with each jolt the Veruvian got from Shapeless ships colliding with it. Battleships fell, one after another, unable to take the bombardment from the alien flagships that hurled every imaginable non-explosive projectile they could come up with. At the same time the kamikaze fighters took chunks of even the biggest vessels with them each time they flew into one.
“We’re losing, sir,” said the other guard.
“I see hope,” Rhule said.
The two men exchanged a look.
“Not for us. We’re screwed. But for humanity. What I see when I look out that window is humankind fighting for each other despite being lifelong enemies. I see hope. I see the end of the Universal War.”
One of the guards pointed. “I see that they’re moving.”
Rhule followed his gaze and frowned. He was right. Several of the Shapeless flagships were on the move. They were moving towards Earth. That couldn’t be allowed.
He slapped the comm button on his chair. “Anyone that can hear me, listen up. This is Rhule of the A
IC Veruvian. Those alien ships are heading towards Earth. We can’t let that. Do everything, and I mean everything, in your power to try and stop them. It’s been an honor. And hopefully we’ll see each other on the other side.”
Rhule leaned back for a moment and rubbed his temples. This was it. He knew what he had to do, if he could actually pull it off.
“If you want to change your mind and get out of here, now’s the time, guys,” warned Rhule as he took the Veruvian off its auto-piloting system. It had been decades since he’d actually been behind the sticks.
Neither guard answered.
“Okay. Well, at least take a seat. Might as well be comfortable when you die.”
Rhule shifted the controls and sent the dreadnought on a direct line for one of the Shapeless flagships. He recited a silent prayer, then pushed the thrusters to their maximum capability.
Naturally, the Shapeless noticed a huge ship like a dreadnought flying straight towards one of their flagships. A good chunk of their fighters still out in space immediately came after the Veruvian.
“That’s right, you sons of bitches. Follow me. But you’re not gonna catch me.” Parts of the ship were being blown apart by Shapeless fighters, who swarmed around it like angry wasps, but Rhule didn’t care.
Though they were significantly faster than the Veruvian, the Shapeless fighters were much too small to stop a desperate dive like this. They were able to crash into the dreadnought, but the amount of damage they did was insignificant. The massive ship was just able to fly right through them.
Twenty seconds away from colliding with the Shapeless flagship, Rhule was at peace with his decision. He was going to die. And it was a death to be proud of, a good soldier’s death.
But the Shapeless had a habit of making everything difficult. Just seconds from impact, Rhule saw something he couldn’t believe. The liquid metal surface of the alien ship shifted all to its rear. That liquid metal turned into a large spiked barricade that instantly skewered the Veruvian. The guards, unrestrained, were thrown out of their seats.