The difference between a breeze and a draft is the desired temperature for cool air. Waking up to frigid air felt like sitting in the freezer in a restaurant down back on CA-9484 in its northern hemisphere. Great service but the food definitely suffered from frost burn.
Charyd shivered and reached for his blanket, but his hands stopped with a hard jerk and clang. The metal handcuffs dug into his wrists and made them feel stiff, from the muscles and even the bones… He tried to morph his short leg to deal with the pain better, but his body did not respond, it remained rigid in its form. He could not shift to have the pain reduced, leaving a bloody wounded leg he would not look at, a tiny nose that whistled with each breath, a bruised head from him getting hit, and the feeling that a boot kicked his ass.
The worst elevator song was playing. It took him a moment to realize the lyrics were robotic saying “Imma Bugging U”. The only reason he knew it was just the letter U was because it was stated on a monitor screen that was executing a BuGGing-U.mp9 file.
“Officer Charyd, glad to see you are awake. I’d say well, but you have definitely looked better before. And oops… my mistake. Do you prefer to go by Captain now that everyone knows the truth?”
The voice was crisp compared to how it normally sounded in the control room. It also sounded a little… peeved? The agitating song stopped and the screen switched to a video of walking through a brick dungeon - a screen saver. He could not see further because of the thick tube he was handcuffed to, it fed into a giant server box. The humming and slight vibration felt like a drill to his head, he leaned forward.
“Tony, who is on the Darkstorm?”
“I didn’t hear a magic word.”
“Please, Tony, tell me who is on the ship.”
A tiny beep filled the room. “Captain Posey and your whole crew made it onto the ship.”
His crew made it, they were back. They must have a fun prison party planned to put him in this room filled with handcuffs on the wall. His head hurt though. “Where are we currently?”
“About to crash into the waves that hang around PT-0237,” Tony stated as if talking about a mild summer storm that suddenly threw up in space and became a system hurricane.
“Is Posey flying the ship then?”
“She just finished sharing some cake with a few of your crewmates. Alice is at the helms, but she can’t see the waves.” Two monitors lit up, one of Alice sitting in the captain’s chair trying to hold the steering, her skin a dim white showing her agitation. Scooball was trying to calm her down but she almost bit his head off so he left her to go enjoy the festivities. The mess hall came into view with Polo’s giant body being dragged to a table away from a flattened decorated cake. Two others from his crew were already stuffed and handcuffed to chairs. Charyd was surprised to see the safety belts over their bodies.
Charyd felt the rattling of the ship and heard the DME humming, ready to power them out of PT-0237 gravitational pull once they passed the waves. Their eggshell of a ship was about to break and they were diving into the frying pan.
“No one can see the damn waves!” Charyd shouted and went to start gesturing before the handcuffs reminded him he was immobile. He yanked on them again for good measure and frowned. “Did Posey handcuff me?”
“With my help!” The AI sounded like he was smiling.
Charyd muttered a few swears under his breath as he observed the cuffs. They were standard issue for morphers like him. Without the right key, they would not come off.
“Can you detect the waves like before?” he asked while observing the cuffs.
Two computer beeps played making apologetic, the room’s acoustics echoing it around Charyd. “Unfortunately, someone deleted the data and I have nothing to go off on. I’m flying blind.” That sounded accusing.
Charyd rolled his eyes and ended up looking back at the monitor. The camera in the mess hall showed Posey running out of the mess hall and towards the bridge. The AI helpfully changed cameras so Charyd could track her movements. His crew was incapacitated by Posey and they were all about to be crushed by some invisible waves. Sitting around was not going to fix this situation. He tried to morph the strength in his arms again, but to no avail, he jerked at the tube. It only moved the small amount of dust that had gathered on it and put the tiniest dent in the insulation. There were small seams from when the insulation was wrapped around the tube, he wiggled the small chain that was between the handcuffs between it hoping to break off whatever was underneath. The foam insulation was easy to split apart.
“Why don’t you just sit still? I’m certain we can work this out.” If the AI was pleading, Charyd had to be on the right path.
“Where is Squilla? Where am I?”
The AI quickly changed the mess hall camera to show Squilla’s body collapsed on the landing by the Lightning Strike, a small trickle of dried blood sitting by her antennas and eyes. Charyd held back the gagging reflex and focused on the task at hand. And then focused on his hand. Again he yanked at his handcuffs and a crunching sound followed, they dug into his wrists from his strength. This current body would be going on vacation soon. Charyd would much prefer something with tentacles or swimmers after this.
“Don’t break that, please.” Finally some respect back from the AI.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“No one else is going to show up to save my crew.” He shimmied the chain around, trying to find the concave section in the tube from before.
With one more hoick, whatever was underneath the insulation broke, and a fluorescent green, slick, liquid began to pour right onto Charyd’s legs. As he stood up, he slipped about more than when the ground was wet and stumbled into the wall displaying all the handcuffs. If his nose hadn’t been so small, he would’ve smashed that instead of his forehead. His eye twitched again and thanks to the handcuffs he still could not morph. The wall of handcuffs rattled and a few of them fell to the ground. So did a master key.
The lighting in the room changed as all the monitors woke up, displaying graphs and the factoring light that was bouncing off the crescent of a wave a second before it vanished. The worst part was seeing Alice in a choke hold by Posey and he still hadn’t done anything to help his crew!
Charyd snatched the master key, fumbling to make his stupid four fingers and a single thumb work in putting it into the keyhole. All the technology in the universe where there were chips, card readers, AI, biometrics, and handcuffs still ran on keys!
“Umm… Captain?” The AI’s voice echoed through the room instead of being clear. “We’re in orbit.”
Finally, the four-dimensional rule of keys lined up and he successfully got the key into the handcuffs just as the ship jerked sideways and his back bounced into the large black box behind him. He morphed his fat and muscles around his bones to soften the blow in time. Unfortunately, the green slush at his feet had him slipping and sliding for a few seconds before he landed flat on his ass with his feet flying in the air. He groaned but didn’t have time to complain. He didn’t have the time to catch a breath that even Alice couldn’t afford. He slipped and slid towards the doors, waiting for them to open. They didn’t.
“Tony! Could you please open the doors?” he growled out.
The AI did not respond.
The ship shook again and he grabbed a long slat near the door to keep still. He dragged himself up enough to look at the board in front of him and began hitting all the buttons. A poser DJ at a club would've been jealous of his tenacity. He morphed a tentacle that grabbed at a nearby dial on the display and spun it around without reading the description.
“Fucking Charyd!” Shouted the AI, confirming that was not his brightest move as the ship whipped around.
He slammed into the monitors and saw on the monitor as Squilla grasped at the ladder tightly with all her appendages to keep herself from floating off. Charyd felt the gravitation loosen where he was even as he wrapped his tentacle around the slat to keep himself from flying off in the middle of the room. A glance at the monitors revealed Alice and Posey, both floating still as the camera spun around them - the ship tumbling from the impact.
The door to the room slid open. “Stop touching everything and get out!” The AI lectured.
The DME hummed and adjusted for correction, slowing their spin. Charyd used his tentacle to drag himself away from the wall where all the cables ran to the server box on the ground and to get out of the door.
The reason they were strapped in during the descent into PT-0237 was simple, landing was similar to a crustacean trying to survive a rip tide current when it wants to pull it in three distinct directions. Somehow, Charyd flew up and sideways and diagonally down into the hallway to crash into the wall panel. A solid gong sound echoed as his ass imprinted into it. No gravity. He was flying around with the force that hit the ship. His mind flashed through all the different alien species to think of one that could propel him through the hallway fast enough to get to Alice. An octopus with their suckers and insane strength would work but he had only seen pictures of them.
The Nereus were perfect with their limbs and agility! Plus he had seen her in enough brawls to precisely replicate.
I’m on my way, bunny hopper.
He morphed his body into the Alice he knew, his damaged eye from earlier though did not shift properly, remaining the frustrating human eye - so did the damage to his short leg. Good enough. There was no change in his emotions, Alice was deep in a fight and too busy to pick off the telepathic line.
The ship flipped around once by the time he was done. A screech of a cry came above him near the Lightning Strike. He did not stop to check on Squilla, but her panic was comforting to know she was at least alive. His movement had him flopping around like a fish out of water and he slowly wiggled his way down the hall.
A military-issued gun floated in the middle of the hallway. He crouched against the ground - which was now a wall panel with the Darkstorm turning around - and snatched it as his shoulder rolled into the other wall panel. That wall had less give and grunted back. He was getting closer to the control room. His thumb switched the gun setting from incapacitate to stun, he hated seeing blood, it's why he did his fights in space so there would be less of it! The gun began to charge the stun shot but unfortunately, the doors to the control room were shut.
“Please open the doors, Tony!”
By the time he bounded to the doors, they were still shut. The military’s most advanced AI, and probably the most advanced in the entire galaxy, and they still could not open a damn door. A force from what he assumed was another wave threatened to pull him away. He pried his fingers into the tiniest gaps around the door seam.
“Warning! Extensive damage to Escape Pod in Dorsal Fin.”
Charyd banged on the door. “Tony, open up before I blast this-”
The doors slid open and he pinched his fingers slightly as he swung into the room. Alice leapt across the ceiling to the floor to grapple at Posey who held onto the captain's chair. The Shacor alien was not easily grabbed though and kicked at Alice to push her back. A small tiara was embedded in the inflamed skin around her temple. The Captain’s eyes landed on Charyd’s name tag.
“You!” With a practiced motion, she pushed off the captain’s chair and flew towards him. There was something floating right between them and Charyd realized what it was only once Posey grabbed her gun and aimed.
Charyd had his first and aimed. “Get off my dock,” he growled. The auto-aim pinged, he pulled the trigger just as a deep red fire extinguisher floated across absorbing the entire stun shock. A fire crackling electricity went through the whole control room, tendrils reaching out to everything metal shocking everything instantly.
The room went dark, static filled all the screens, leaving the only light coming from the distant sun through the display port. A banshee’s scream attacked his ears before it stopped as quickly as it had begun.
His emotions twirled around until they lined up with his own concern. Alice?
Captain!
Where is Posey? None of the emergency lights turned on yet and he could hear the screeching of the ship as the waves crashed down on him.
She had a fucking mind shield on her, I can’t tell.
The static of the screen stopped and the AI’s hologram lit the room. Tony pointed at the captain’s chair even as the hologram spun with the ship once more. “Charyd you’re a work of art. Really. I’m impressed. Now, though, I need you to pilot this ship. Posey is not responsive. Use that luck of yours and get us out of these waves!”