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The solace in the cargo bay was periodically interrupted as Quayl threw his fists into the punching bag hologram. He promised himself to push further than he previously had and was finally breaking a sweat. His strength didn’t seem to have a limit, at least none he could find. He tried weight training but he didn’t trust the weight scale on the Puuqpu’s hologram emitter. He didn’t know how much a Turnip weighed, or why the Puuqpu chose Turnips as their measurement. He let the orange shell-like formations on his arms take over, forming rough and durable gloves around his hands and fingers. He could feel it creep and change to his movements, adapt to his needs, and provide additional support around his wrists and arms when throwing precision blows.
Quail stopped to catch his breath and have a drink of juice. He studied his hands, assured that the power of the nummus was doing this to him. In turn, he was glad it was, it made him feel like he had a fighting chance against an opponent in hand-to-hand combat. He clenched his right fist and relaxed his left. The crab-like armor receded on his left and grew on the right, turning into a full and dense claw. It felt heavy, something he hadn’t felt since before it all began. Anything that met this weaponized part of him in combat would surely meet a crushing end.
With the punching bag holo program on, he took his claw arm and gave the bag a proper hit. It was surprisingly fast and precise, and the force of the impact made the bag glitch out. The feedback from the force hit the holo emitter and it sent it flying in a spiraling path down the length of the cargo bay in pieces.
A slow clap came from behind him. He turned, kinda proud of himself, but also in need of a new emitter. It was Gem watching from behind.
She looked impressed. “How hard did you just hit that?”
Quail shrugged. “I dunno… the force of 3,000 Turnips?” He shrugged. He relaxed, willed the crab armor to calm down, and returned it to simple scales along his arms.
Gem nodded her head. “I’m sure that’ll be useful should you come face to face with a Namina. Give’m a good ass-whoopin’.” A smile was shared between them, though, Quayl was nervous in his mind. He hoped that any Namina soldiers would have the armor and helmets that concealed their appearance like he had seen on the transport ship to Horusa before they destroyed it. He worried about the safety of Hebu.
“I’d like to see them try.” He said anyway with a strained chuckle. Gem pointed down the cargo bay, and Quayl followed along. The shattered pieces of the holo emitter were floating in the air aimlessly. In a slow wave, the dust and debris along the floors rose as well. It came to Quayl and his feet left the solitude of the stable ground. He was weightless. The following moment, Gem was floated as well. She held onto the handle of the door and reached for the intercom.
“Junney-honey, what’s going on? There’s no gravity.”
“Sorry about that” Junne replied. “We just entered brackish waters, saltwater mixed with fresh water. It messes with the gravity drives. I’ll make some corrections.” The was a moment when everything hung in the air, then in a singular harsh pull, everything fell to the floor.
Gem was fine, she was holding onto the door, but Quayl fell flat to the deck.
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Gem and Quayl headed to the bridge, the Aerios should be near its destination by now and they were curious about their estimated time of arrival. With a curious inclination, Gem asked Quayl. “So, something has been eating at you. Do you want to talk about it?” He instantly knew it was about Hebu. He began with that, maybe he had the slimmest chance of outwitting her.
“What do you think of Hebu?” He asked. “Do you trust her?”
“For now, I think so. Something does seem off about her though, can’t put my finger on it yet.” She answered and Quayl kept it at that. Any more and he could expose what she was to the crew. He didn’t like keeping secrets from them.
They entered the bridge just as the ship dropped out of lightspeed. There was a brief rattle down the spine of the ship, and everything floated for a second in the air before obeying gravity again. Off in the distance was a tiny dot sitting next to a large field of asteroids. It was Station NP-155, also known as Stanhope Station. It was midsized, complete with drydocks for passing ships of any size, supply depots, and all the necessities and accommodations for some shore leave. Its presence in the sector was to speed along the development of a new planet and a terraforming effort. The brackish water and high oxygen content made the right conditions for it. Though, they wouldn’t have a liveable planet for another 20 to 30 years. It never really took that long to put one together though.
Junne relaxed and sat back in his chair, kicking his heels up onto the console. “I heard Stanhope Station is kinda nice. Maybe we can all have a good fancy meal or watch a movie?” He said looking directly at Gem in a not-so-subtle hint for a date. There was another tremor along the lines of the ship that made everyone uneasy, and once again, gravity fluctuated. “Rob, could you check the systems? Just to make sure everything is ok?” Junne asked.
Rob nodded but before he could answer, the ship suffered some form of impact from the side. Rob turned to the engineering and diagnostics console for a quick status report.
“Captain, sensors show that we have something attached to our port stern.”
“Got any visual?” Junne asked.
Rob tapped through the different optics and found nothing. “No, it seems to be in a blind spot. I’ll go out and look.”
Junne warned him. “Be careful of the brackish water, it floods and isn’t held back by the atmospherics.”
“I’ll use the docking port’s airlock, I’ll be careful,” Rob said.
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The heavy loader was the only thing that had a self-contained breathing system. Somehow he wheeled it from the engineering bay to the docking port, leaving a few scrapes and scratches along the way that Junne will never be told about. Rob strapped into the small cockpit and made sure the loader’s arms and claws worked properly. He was glad he kept it tuned up. The compartment flooded with water and the doors parted. He ventured out and made sure all systems were good. “Captain, do you read me?”
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“Loud and clear Rob, what did we pick up out there?” He spun the loader around and went for the port stern of the Aerios. Tucked beneath a rudder was a large lamprey. They sometimes latched onto ships to lick minerals and barnacles from the hull, and in some cases, pierce the hull for oxygen to heat its body for warmth and to produce offspring.
“Oh. Just a lamprey, I got it.” Rob told everyone and used the arms of the loader to pry off the parasite. He let it go and it swam away swiftly. “There, it’s gone now.” A shadow loomed over Rob, and he and the loader turned around. That one wasn’t the only lamprey around it seemed, and coming right at him was the mother. Its large gaping circular mouth spread over Rob’s vision, and the was no escape. Rob turned towards the hull of the Aerios and began slamming the arms of the loader to dent the plating, creating a pocket for him. The giant lamprey encompassed him and darkness was all he could see. Teeth covered his back but none pierced the thick chassis of the loader, he was in the pocket he made, and it was enough to not be eaten. The lamprey, however, sank its rows of teeth into the ship, piercing and slicing into the habitable areas of the port stern. Rob got his wits about him and radioed the crew.
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“I’m ok! I’m alive! We have a bigger problem with a bigger lamprey though. Looks like it’s attached to the back of the cargo bay. Seal it off, I need to bust through to get myself free.” Junne hit the controls for the locks.
“You’re sealed, don’t mess up my ship too badly,” Junne ordered. Rob smiled nervously, and with the little room he had, he pulled and tore a breach into the ship.
The heavy loader plummeted onto the steel deck floor with a dense metallic thunk. Rob was dazed but free of the jaws of the monster. The lamprey fed on the oxygen like it was blood and was sucking and consuming as much of it as it could to generate heat. The Aerios was taking on water, and soon the entire cargo bay was submerged in fresh water. Rob took a precaution he never thought he’d have to take.
“Computer! Engage shipwide store protocol one! Authorization Engineer Code Pass Romeo Oscar Bravo!”
“Store protocol activated. Processing.” The store protocol was the smartest thing the Puuqpu could have come up with. Should any ship be compromised, all of the data and even the objects aboard were compressed and stored on a master device so that it could later be remade. All of the personal belongings as they were in the quarters were atomized and stored on the backup drive. As a replicator could make things, it could also unmake things and store them.
There was no oxygen left in the compartment and the lamprey detached, satisfied with its meal. Rob was left floating, looking through the hole from the inside to the ocean outside. It hurt to see. “Status, captain?”
“We seem to be ok. We’re leaking all over. This ship isn’t designed for this level of stress or even these kinds of waters. Good call on that store command, some things can’t be replaced if they’re damaged.” Rob took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. He knew he had a long night ahead of him. Staring at the hole, he wished he was back in the military servicing ships that simply needed to be dusted off from the lack of use. Now, he’s having to keep the crew alive one bolt at a time.
A few more lamprey flashed themselves across the opening of the hole, followed by thuds from other parts of the ship.
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“Aw crap.” He muttered. “Captain, there’s more.”
Quayl radioed to Rob. “We’re going to go to lightspeed and get out of the brackish water and see if they’ll detach themselves. Hold onto something, you could get sucked out of the hole at those speeds.”
The thought was terrifying, but Rob couldn’t let it bother him. He had his orders so he wrapped the arms of the heavy loader around a main girder to the room’s frame. He clamped the claws together until they creaked and locked the controls in place. They couldn’t be any tighter, and he knew that. Squeezing harder on the controls with his grip would only hurt his hands, so he rested his arms behind his head. “Just along for the ride now.” He said to himself. “Whatever happens, happens, and it is what it is.”
Quayl and the rest of the crew were feeling the stress. There was an inch of water on the bridge and it was growing ever more concerning as it rose.
The captain settled into his chair. “Everybody sit tight, this could be very rough.” He then unlocked the speed safety and pointed the nose towards the open ocean. Everyone was ready so he punched it to lightspeed.
The Aerios rattled like a tin can with rocks inside it. Its balance was thrown off by the hull breach and the lampreys still stuck to its hull. The ship dragged and ripped through the waters like an ungraceful zipper, leaving a wake of rough turbulence. Luckily, there were no other ships in the area to be caught in it.
“Almost there! Rob, ya still with us?” the Captain called out.
“Yep, just chillin’.” He replied.
“Ok, get ready for a hard stop, let’s see if they can be bucked off!” In a single motion, Captain nearly left the transmission in the water behind him. He hit the aqua-brakes, threw it into reverse, and engaged the speed safety just to make sure every system made for stopping the ship’s weight and mass was applied at full.
The Aerios went from 299,792,458 meters per second to zero in the span of 4 centimeters. Anything still loose anywhere on the ship was smashed against the front walls of their rooms. The bridge had only so much shielding from the inertia, and they all lurched forward. The wave of dizziness and confusion punched through them when the fluid in their ears and heads briefly slammed ahead of them. The maneuver was always thought about but never spoken of, or even considered. It was questionably safe.
“Rob?” Junne called out, worried that he felt the full force of the inertia wall. “Rob!?” Junne called out again.
“Waddaya know? Still here, still fine. The water was sucked out leaving behind a vacuum, didn’t feel a thing. Did you hit the inertia wall?”
Captain recovered his wits. “A hard one at that.”
Hebu looked like she was meditating, likely recovering in some way that they didn’t understand. Quayl was crawling through the inch of water below, trying to keep the dirt from his spilled bonsai from washing away. Gem took it the hardest, and she began lurching, and with a heave, vomited into the water on the floor. She immediately cried, ashamed that she wasn’t strong enough to hold it down. She was embarrassed, and her makeup was running with the tears on her face. Stevero tended to her immediately, shining a light in her eyes to see her pupils were unsteady and her eyes were jerking back and forth as they couldn’t focus on anything. Stevero pulled a Puuqpu instant shot of antiemetic medicine to prevent any further vomiting. She reached for Junne to be at her side. He felt horrible, it was he who performed the maneuver. He unbuckled himself and went to her.
Quayl had fumbled all of his bonsai together at last. The captain turned to him. “Quayl…” He said with pain in his eyes. “You’re the captain now.”
He took a deep breath and sat his bonsai on the front dashboard where it seemed to have found home. He sat in the captain’s chair – Junne’s chair – and began reading the status of the ship. There were multiple hull breaches scattered all across the ship and some screwed-up readings from flooded sensors. He didn’t have a clear image of what was going on.
“Rob, can you get out and get a visual on the hull of the ship? We have no eyes up here.” Rob detached the heavy loader from the steel structural girder and floated in the rising water. All systems on the loader were functioning properly.
“I’m on it!” He confirmed.
Rob and the loader exited through the hole he and the lamprey mother had created. He strafed out a fair distance from the ship and took a good look. “Uh, guys… you’re not going to like this.”
“Just give it to us straight Rob,” Quayl commanded.
“The ship is Swiss cheese.” He said. He floated around as much as he could to survey the damage. “Hold on,” He noticed there was something still attached, in fact, there were lots of things still attached. “We didn’t shake all the lamprey. There are about a dozen on the starboard bow.”
“How!?” Quayl exclaimed.
Hebu came forward. “The freshwater that filled the ship is sustaining them.” She tried to stand but fell over soon after, she was still blasted by the stop.
Rob saw how much they were chewing at the hull, now frantically gaining entry to the ship for survival. In a moment, many of them had entered the ship and more came but the second.
Quayl and the crew could hear their slimy bodies slam and slide through the corridors. Their roars gargled in the filling waters and struck a primal terror in the bridge crew. It silenced them and sank their hearts. Quayl reached beneath the captain’s console, pulled the gun, and handed it to Stevero. “Keep her safe.” He said. Quayl stood before the door. “They’re coming here for oxygen. They can smell it.” He summoned his armor and turned his arms into the powerful crushing weapons they had become. Hebu stood with him, plasmatic energy glowed in her eyes and arcs of lightning ribbed along her fingers. They stood ready for anything that came through the door, come hell or high water. “Rob, I’m open to suggestions,” Quayl asked.
“Uhm, if it’s freshwater they’re after, let’s make it salty. The gravity drive is hyper-salinated, I can rupture it and it’ll do just that. Just one catch though.”
“What’s is it?” Quayl asked, and the thumping of the lamprey felt closer, they could see the inches of water at their feet ripple and vibrate with every impact of their tails.
“The gravity drive is in the back of the ship, you’re at the front, so we’ll need to do a lockdown override to open all the doors.” Quayl agreed.
“Ok do it!” He said.
Rob reminded. “That means ALL doors.”
“I SAID DO IT!” Quayl commanded.
Rob worked fast. In the saltwater-flooded cargo compartment, Rob lifted the front glass shield of the loader, and the salt water was properly walled back. He gained access to the ship’s command system through a terminal and punched in the codes necessary to perform the all-doors-open procedure. “Stand ready!” He called out over the radio and hit it.
The whole ship lurched and jostled as all of its weight redistributed and the air formed new pockets or escaped out. The door to the bridge opened as well and water came rushing in up to their knees. It was littered with anything that could float, and terrifyingly deep enough.
“Alright, get to work,” Rob said to himself. The heavy loader would be a tight fit down many of the corridors, but so far he managed to get it down past the purification hall that filtered the ocean water from the ram scoop to turn it into pure saline metal to fuel the ship.
He wasn’t far now.
“Hurry up Rob!” Cried Quayl.
The dark flickering hallway just beyond the bridge’s door held all the terror. Gem assured Junne she was ok with mere whispers, and Junne joined the defenses, drawing the gun from his hip. “We’ll be ok.” He whispered back.
It roared and reared up, filled the door frame with teeth and hisses of anger, and lunged forward. Everyone jerked and startled, but not Quayl. He only reacted, countered, and pushed the beast back with claws of pure power.
Hebu summoned her power. “Quayl, down!” He ducked and before she could fire her bolt, a smaller lamprey snapped at her face. It was blocked by her forearm, but it certainly regretted it. She was a descendant of the mighty electric eel, and piercing her very skin unleashed all that she had stored within her. The flash of light was blinding, and the only remains of her attacker were only charred skin and sinew. Quayl thrust the larger lamprey back, keeping it in the door and hall where its movement was restricted. If it entered the bridge, it would be free to thrash and crush them all.
“ROB!” He screamed.
Rob heard his cry and squeezed through the last corridor, the large main canister was within sight. All he had to do was burst it open.
A smaller lamprey caught the loader’s right arm. “Now is not the time for this!” He yelled. He jerked and yanked, but the lamprey held tight, there was no giving up. He turned the left arm and let the claw pinch and crush the joint of the right arm, loosening it up to give him some slack.
“ROB! HURRY!” He heard, and couldn’t imagine what was happening on the bridge.
Rob opened the glass shield and wedged a large wrench into the joint. He had no intention of unscrewing it, no, he used it as a chisel and pounded it with the left arm, snapping the right arm clean off. He was free.
He lowered the glass shield and swung at the canister with all his might. It burst open, filling the water of the entire ship with a white salty viscous mixture of salt and water it had hyper-pressurized.
The lamprey’s skin and insides all burned at the taste of it, struggling and suffocating in agony. Quayl took one last crushing blow to the lamprey at the bridge before the salt caught up with them.
Everything froze and they were suspended, floating on top of the salt that was far denser than their bodies. Crystals formed on the walls and consoles where electrical elements shorted and condensed the salt even further.
“Rob you did it!” Quayl yelled. “Everyone is safe! We’re all good up here!”
The sigh of relief could have been heard for light years.
The dying lamprey used the last of its strength to pull its way forward to Quayl. From beneath them in the dark sludge, a golden glow came. It rose through the salt solution, and it was a divine letter held in the lamprey’s forked tongue. It lifted it as high as it could. Quayl was surprised, they were all surprised. Quayl took it, and the second he had, the lamprey withered and shriveled under the effects of the salt.
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The Aerios was beat up, but still intact and repairable with some tender loving care. Stevero went on the Seahawk to ask for a tug to bring them into the station, and they happily obliged. He witnessed the care Junne had displayed for Gem when she wasn’t well, and how he gave up command of his ship – his precious ship – to go to his sweet Gem’s aid. Stevero thought he had earned the privilege to pilot the seahawk on the way in. Gem hugged and held him from behind. Quayl, Hebu, Rob, and Stevero surfed on top of the tug boat’s cabin, laughing in shock and stunned that they all survived at all. They compared themselves to heroes, movies, video games, and anything of pop culture that symbolized their experience and helped them cope with the ordeal. Quayl was yelling battle cries like a barbarian and let his coat flap like a cape in the wind, all making his arms huge with crab armor as everyone cheered. “I am the crab man!” He yelled, and everyone, even Hebu, toasted him with invisible drinks to honor his triumph.
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Quayl and Rob had a hotel room at Stanhope station. Quayl came down from his battle high while Rob flipped through the TV channels to see if anything good was playing. All he was getting was static or news reports of local officials reading vague statistics from the front lines. The more vague the news, the worse they were faring in the war. It worried him deeply.
Quayl was tending to his bonsai, making sure the soil was properly tucked and the leaves were wired so they would heal and stay. It didn’t suffer much damage, and he thanked the gods of the ocean for that.
A knock came to the door and Quayl was closest to it. He got up to see who it was. Opening the door a little, it was Gem. “Hi. Let’s go for a walk.” She said.
She took him to a quiet central plaza resembling the middle of a large mall. There were shops and stalls of all kinds, but at the late local hour, they were all closed. Perhaps they have been closed the whole time. There was no telling how populated the station had been, or where the people that inhabited it ran off to. The war could be displacing people all over the sector. The skeleton crew seemed to be keeping it running. There was an atrium tree and a water fountain feature at least being cared for.
Gem chose a nice bench overlooking the fountain and sat down. Quayl joined her. She took a sigh for herself and then asked. “What’s in the letter?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know what a lamprey would possibly write,” Quayl answered.
Gem shook her head. “No honey, your divine letter. The one I saw when you spilled your bonsai, the one you keep in its soil.”