The Carnival were all gathered in an area away from the centre of Wayfaire that was strangely devoid of buildings. Half a kilometre in diameter the zone had been magically overlooked by the Departments urban development teams. Trees had taken over and the space was used as a picnic and recreational area by members of the Department and others who had to work in the centre of the burgeoning planetary capital.
The sun had yet to properly breach the horizon but a pink glow suffused the air, blurring to purple due to azure light coming from all the portals on Blue Street. John looked around and suppressed a grin. He could see the massive machinery churning underground, lifting Doris to the surface for the first time in years.
“Shouldn’t someone make a speech?” rumbled Greg, grinning cadaverously at the assemblage. The Carnival's friends and family had dragged themselves out of bed early, hungover and complaining, so they could be present to say a final farewell.
“Keep the noise down!” complained Evie, raising a hand to her forehead only to flinch as her power armoured hand clanged off her helmet, sending a loud noise through her fragile skull. “This is going to take some getting used to,” she moaned, carefully avoiding any further movements. Vomiting inside their new armour had probably been allowed for in the specs but she had no wish to be the first to test it.
Raoul towered over everyone in his four metre tall suit but the rest of them were easily two and a half metres tall now. Only the twins had refused the new armour pattern, preferring standard BME armour as it didn’t limit their movement and power. Bob had built them a pair of suits anyway and kept them in reserve in Doris’ backpack. Their regular armour wasn’t ideal for fighting in vacuum or other hostile environments.
“When will I be allowed back in?” demanded someone from the Department who had worked a night shift and made a habit of stopping off in the park to take breakfast/dinner before heading home. For some reason the sight of Carnival, decked out in their intimidating new armour hadn’t been enough to persuade him to skip a rural breakfast today.
Eight lumps of metal pivoted to stare down at the thin man who suddenly became very quiet and began to sidle away. The team turned and watched expectantly.
It began with a crash as earth was thrown to the sides of a huge hatch, splitting the ground in two as it clam shelled up. They were watching from the line of the split and it appeared as though a powerful explosion had blasted the dirt outwards.
As the dust cleared Doris’ head was revealed. It took a minute as the machinery lifting her out of her underground bay wasn’t up to quickly moving so much mass. Her gleaming helm emerged, a blank metal visage devoid of facial features gleamed silver and gold in the early morning light.
“Bloody hell Bob. I still wish we could have swapped powers. She’s beautiful!” said Evie quietly, as the head continued to emerge. The only decoration was two long spikes, swept back from her head where the ears would be on a human.
After the ten metre tall head was clear the shoulders came up, turrets and launchers bristled on top of the pauldrons, making it look as though she had stolen a pair of science fiction battleships and melted them in place. Barrels and tubes large enough to count as naval weapons pivoted and spun, testing their range of movement now they were free from the confines she had been held in for so long.
Her right arm held a long bladed spear of white metal that was taller than a multistorey building. Her chest and torso armour was angled to deflect ranged attacks, giving her a strangely triangular body when viewed from the front. The bulky rectangular backpack attached to the mech was clearly not part of the original design and looked awkward and artificial compared to the rest of the flowing design.
At this point her head was already fifty metres above the surface and then her legs began to emerge. More gleaming metal that John could see housed all sorts of nightmarish weapons of war, hidden in recessed turrets and firing positions.
At last the mechanical rumbling faded away and she took a step forward, dust exploding under her broad feet as they slammed into the ground. She pivoted, swung her spear up so it was resting over one shoulder and snapped to attention.
“Pretty sweet right?” Bob chuckled, the drone bouncing up and down in the air.
“Do the rest of us even need to go?” wondered Flash.
“I want to spar with her!” declared Raoul. “Tell me I can spar with her?”
“Maybe if we get a chance on the ship. We should be put into a space big enough to accommodate us all, according to Jintak, but I don’t have infinite spares. I can make most things to fix her up but serious damage might result in a full rework. So be careful!” said the drone.
John moved over to where Vic was standing with Ryn. The girl was seemingly dwarfed by their new armour. John pushed the image away, his daughter wasn’t fragile by any means and the comparison was unfair.
“Well kiddo. It’s time. You listen to Bob while we’re gone ok?” he asked awkwardly as he held out an armoured hand that she reached up and rested her own against. They had said goodbye and exchanged final hugs before coming up from the underground terrarium.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Ryn smiled tightly as she fought down tears. Her parents had always been there and life would be different with them away for so long.
“You guys take care. All of you!” Ryn called. The rest of the team nodded, expressions not being communicable through their bulky helmets, and called out that they would and she should as well. Evie winced at all the noise but moved over to gently pat Ryn on the back.
“Look after Earth for us little sis. Love you,” she said simply. Ryn grinned up as a tear formed in her left eye.
“Don’t get into any fights you can’t win!” she joked back in a slightly choked up voice.
“Have you seen me today? Seen us? Nothing in the universe stands a chance!” Evie bragged. “The Monarchs went out without gear, without tech and totally ignorant. We’ve got the best of everything and some idea of what we’re up against. We’ll be fine Ryn,” Evie finished in a reassuring voice. “I’ll keep an eye on mum and dad.”
John blinked. Evie had never referred to Vic as mum before. Carly, John’s ex-wife and Evie biological mum, had refused to be here this morning, having exchanged tearful goodbyes last night interspersed with venomous glares aimed at John.
“Well, I guess it’s time to do this. Is everyone ready? Bob, where’s Bob-prime?” John asked.
“I’m up in the cavity in Doris’ skull. All set mates.”
The rest of the team nodded or confirmed they were ready and John opened his status screen.
Deploy to other worlds to assist the Alliance?
This involves an indeterminate period on campaign. You may not return in time for the first waves of the Void invasion of Earth. You will be tasked with missions to serve the Alliance. Victory or death are your only options.
Do you agree to serve? Y/N?
John didn’t like the use of the word serve in this context but he had steeled himself to this decision and wasn’t going to back out because the system was an arrogant dick. He mentally selected the yes option and the world went white.
A second later the trees and the distant buildings they had been surrounded by were gone. The pink light of dawn had been replaced with an electric white and he blinked as he looked around. Then he looked through and his breath caught.
The space they were in was perhaps a mile across and it was all burnished copper. Probably not actually copper, he thought ruefully, some kind of alien metal. The ceiling was half a mile up and covered in metallic stalactites giving it a semi-organic appearance.
His friends were nearby and Doris occupied the centre of the room, he briefly checked they all seemed to be fine and other than some elevated blood pressure and heart rates nothing was out of the ordinary on the team life signs monitor. Looking through the walls made his own blood pressure shoot upwards and his whole body clenched up at the scale of the ship they were on.
This vast space was one of hundreds, possibly thousands, all lumped together in the centre of the most intricate machine he had ever seen. The interconnected spaces, obscure machinery and the vast engines that glowed a colour he had never seen before and couldn’t describe in English formed a massive floating city. Vaguely rectangular in shape, what John assumed were the habitation sections -the rooms like the one he found himself in- were clumped together forward of the engines as they churned incomprehensible energies out of what looked suspiciously like his own portals.
Setting aside the motive force and how it somehow interacted with the real world to propel the voidliner beyond the speed of light he was mesmerised by the aliens aboard. Most were like themselves, in their situation if not appearance, contained in sealed areas as they sat or fought or slept. However some were moving down passages and tunnels linking between the more esoteric machinery of the vessel. They looked… weird? Humanoids with a nest of tentacles instead of legs that flowed along with an undulating gait. Bulbous heads and large eyes gave them a very stereotypical alien look that John found somehow disappointing.
Then his vision passed outside of the outer layers of the ships armour and he seized up. He didn’t collapse because his armour locked up to hold him in position but he screamed as he saw something beyond his understanding. The warp and weft of reality was not something to be witnessed directly. He snapped his vision back to its most limited state and struggled to pull himself together.
He’d seen shapes and things, perhaps machines or maybe living beings swimming through the unreality around the hull of the voidliner. They hadn’t been particularly scary, no fang filled maws or writhing limbs, but they had been so outré, so beyond his comprehension that seeing them was enough to breach the boundaries of sanity.
“John!” A clang echoed through his head, pulling him back from the brink. He reached out and caught Sam’s hand as she pulled back, likely to wallop his helmet again.
“I’m ok. I saw outside. Of reality. I wouldn’t recommend it. What’s the situation?” He pulled himself back together to focus on what mattered and the weird polygonal life outside the universe was put aside.
“Blessed once more,” murmured the twins, causing John to scowl slightly. They wouldn’t call it a blessing if they’d seen it.
“We’re all good,” said Flash. “No one is missing and all the gear came through with Doris.”
Bob-prime scampered over Doris’ shoulder, threading its way through the turrets and jumped off. It fell quickly but slowed before it hit the ground and rushed over to the human members of the team.
“We were out for six months. As we appeared here I briefly connected to the Bob-swarm on Earth but lost the link after a microsecond. I’m guessing that was when we went to hyperspeed or whatever,” said the drone in a rush. “Everything was fine. The construction work was well underway.”
“So what the hell do we do now?” asked Raoul, scuffing an armoured foot against the floor to see if he could leave a mark. He couldn’t so he gave up.
A face appeared on the wall ahead of the team. The projection was vast but John knew the thing was only four feet tall at most. This was one of the weird little creatures that wasn’t penned up in sealed holds. It had blue-grey skin and large oval eyes that swirled with purple light.
“Welcome aboard the Kipragtsek-” it glanced down as though consulting a document, “-humans? Humans will do although I see multiple species and inorganic life forms are included. Please be at ease for the first leg of your journey. Refreshments will be provided and should you require training facilities, or have any special biological requirements, we will do our best to meet your needs. The Light shines.”