The Long Hand was alive. Odysseus had known this from the very moment he stepped foot onto the vessel. He could feel the very lifeblood of the thing flowing all around him. Even beneath his bare feet there was a continuous ebbing pulse. Even the elevator that the three of them were riding in was a living, moving organ of the ship. When he had first stepped onto the space faring vessel it was plunging into a cool pool of water, but one where every sense and feeling was heightened to a new level.

“Valerius, when we get to the top, hang back in the elevator for a moment so Felme and I can check to see if it's safe,” Abbot said, gripping her rifle tightly. She called him his public name, Valerius. It was the only name given, and would be given, to anyone on this mission. Odysseus was his personal name. The numen of Terra used a naming system that required a minimum of three names: A public name by which anyone and everyone could call a person, a personal name for family and loved ones to call a person, and lastly the family or clan name used only in the most formal settings such as court. The number of a person’s names might increase with regard to great deeds or services done for the Adamancy. Amongst members of The Twelve Houses and their children, it was tradition for the highest ranking member of a person’s family to assign a person at birth a second public name. His second public name was Constantinus. Thus Odysseus was also Constantinus– Valerius Constantinus Odysseus.

He peeked around from behind her to see her face. She was scared. At least he thought so. Should he be scared too? He asked himself. He paused, and thought for a moment. Hah! Nope! He chuckled silently to himself. Being on The Long Hand felt like how he imagined having steroids pumped directly into his veins from a ten liter tank. He wondered if either the Auxiliaries or Pages felt this too. The Justiciar–Batu, if Odysseus remembered correctly– who sent Odysseus here to make contact with the First Commander of the Greyhounds had droned on and on and on about not antagonizing the others… but they were just so…so… unintelligent. He sighed quietly. Only Felme heard him.

She eyed him… was that suspicion? Odysseus was not sure. According to everyone else he had difficulty reading people’s faces. Which was apparently not normal. Bah. Odysseus pushed the thought aside. No no, she was the weird one. Not weird as in wyrd, but weird as in strange. And she wasn’t weird because she was opaline. He assured himself. No. Felme was weird because Felme was not her real name. He could feel it and therefore he knew it. What her real name was he could not figure. Everytime time the name Felme was spoken and she answered, Oddy could feel the lie. A change in her heartbeat. A lag in her response. A realization or recollection of the role she was playing. From what Oddy could recall of his history lessons, Felme Vamahn was quite the infamous person. So what was her game? It did not matter now.

Odysseus had spent a long time memorizing what pretty faces looked like and what pretty faces did not look like. He had to do this for something called “therapy”. Pretty people– and he knew that Felme (or whatever her name was) was pretty even behind her veil– seemed to get away with everything. He learned this from pure observation. Specialist Abbot was much the same. Abbot was beautiful with skin dark like polished ebony and bright-dark eyes to match. She had a teardrop shaped face with broad cheeks, a dainty round nose, and thick round lips. He could not tell about her hair, it was always under a cap or mountain of gear and equipment, but he was sure it was like soft curls of obsidian. Where Felme was tall and slender, Specialist Abbot was petite in stature but more shapely. He watched the men and a couple of the women on the Cure glance at Specialist Abbot and Felme lasciviously. However, Odysseus was sure Abbot was… off. There was something about her that was not quite right. But everyone else seemed to ignore all these signs because they were pretty. Or maybe the others, even Marshal Dela, just did not see what he saw.

An unintentional scoff escaped him. Both women looked back at him. He pursed his lips and avoided their gaze for a moment and then smiled at them. He had learned long ago that if he smiled just right, he could generally get his way. Specialist Abbot smiled back, revealing two rows of bright white, perfectly straight teeth. “Felme” only rolled her glowing azure eyes at him before turning back to face the doors. The tension eased.

The elevator ride was ridiculously tedious. The Long Hand was so enormous. The vessel was ovate by design. Thus it had two diameters. The smaller diameter was three kilometers, and the larger diameter was seven kilometers. The Long Hand was also twenty-one kilometers long. Due to the hollowness of the vessel, the elevator, which was more like a cart, rode the inner curve of the cylinder. Odysseus scratched his head, slightly irritated. His bad habit of remembering random facts reared up again. Spouting random facts had earned him derision on more than one occasion. At least he had broken the habit of speaking his thoughts aloud.

The space was starting to feel cramped. Between his mother and grandmother, his backpack could not have been fuller. They packed a full camping set in there for pity’s sake! Where did they expect him to go camping? Bah! Perhaps he should ditch the backpack somewhere. He considered it for a moment more. No. He decided. Then he would feel guilty about it later, when he returned home without it. Oddy! His grandfather would say– his family called him Oddy. Oddy, where's your bag? Your mother and grandmother worked hard on that! Then Odysseus, or Oddy, would really feel guilty.

Oddy felt his stomach lurch a little. The elevator was coming to a halt. The elevator dinged, and a woman’s voice, an artificial one, came over the speaker.

“You’ve reached Security Depot J117! Thank you for your hard work! Enjoy your time off!” The cheeriness, which verged on condescension, in her voice was disconcerting. The doors to the elevator split open and Specialist Abbot moved into the dimly lit space weapon raised. Felme produced a violet glowing glass-like orb. How she produced said orb, Oddy did not know (maybe he had not been paying attention, but he would not admit that, even to himself). Felme moved into the room as well moving the opposite direction of Abbot as she exited. Oddy stood there, thumbs hooked into the straps of his backpack, bored. He knew there was nothing, nothing he could sense, in the vicinity… nothing living anyway.

Specialist Abbot's shaky voice came from the far right end of the semilit space, “Clear!”

“Yes! Clear!” Came Felme’s sultry voice from the opposite end. Oddy rolled his eyes, and stepped off the elevator. The security depot was a collection of well organized reception desks, offices, waiting rooms, and holding rooms. They all met back at the reception desk closest to Oddy.

“So what now?” He asked, looking from Specialist Abbot to Felme and back.

“Well, I need to find the highest ranking security officer’s office, that one’ll likely have the ability to grant the right security clearance,” Specialist Abbot said as she walked around the desk and gained access to the reception clerk’s computer using her lockpick. A few audible clicks and clacks later she let out a satisfied huff.

“Alright, I’ve got tier 1 access, it’s the lowest level, but I would need access to a higher ranked admin to grant that. Here, Felme, connect your datapad real quick. I'll make you a copy of my key. Valerius you…”

“Make me a hard copy–a key card, please,” he told her.

“Right. Good thinking.” Abbot proceeded to rummage through the desk drawers until she opened a drawer with several neat stacks of blank polymer key cards. She handed Oddy the newly made key when she was finished. He thanked her and tucked it away into a hidden pocket. Specialist Abbot gasped quietly. She had been watching him intently to see where or how the key disappeared. Oddy gave her a smile and she coughed and looked away in embarrassment. Oddy felt the smile fade from his face, the skin on the back of his neck stood up. It took him a moment more to realize that it was the pulse of the ship itself that changed. What was once slow and even had become erratic and messy… But it still had a certain direction to it, Oddy realized. The pulse before moved around the ship like blood through a body. Now it moved from all over, all around him, converging into a single direction. So he followed. He vaguely heard Specialist Abbot and Felme call after him, but Oddy ignored them.

Louder and louder the noise grew. As he inched ever closer the pulses became more and more frequent. The pitch rose higher. The cacophony that only Oddy could hear was deafening. The pulses became a single continuous sound like the shrill screech of thousands of summer time cicadas, distantly, as though they were a thousand miles away, Abbot and Felme called after him again. The ear-piercing uproar drowned out every other sound into a muddy unknowable mess. Oddy finally saw where the pulses were converging. A locker. Or some sort of tall freestanding cabinet. He could not be sure. Oddy’s heart beat like a great drum in his ears. The din was unbearable. His hand at last touched the door. Everything stopped.

Silence.

Only the tumult of his own heart was in his ears. Oddy slid his hand across the surface of the locker door to the handle, which was just barely within reach. He pulled down on the lever. The sealed door unlocked with a clank. It popped and hissed as the seal broke and it swung open. The stench hit him in the face first, before he could even see inside the locker. Oddy hacked and coughed, blinded by the horrible smell of death and rot. Tears welled up in his eyes. He covered his nose and mouth and blinked the tears away. He looked inside of the locker. Odysseus was met with the face of horror. He hollered out in fear and slammed the door shut with all his might. NO! No no no no no! Not here! He can’t be here!

Oddy’s mind reeled. He was there again. The blood red sky. The smell of the scorched air. The taste of dry, bitter dirt in his mouth; he was pinned to the ground by the man with the melted face. He gasped, but there was only dirt. A second figure appeared. Then the searing, excruciating, burning pain as the glowing ring of adamantine was pressed into his back just below the nape of his neck between his shoulder blades. Backpedaling in haste, his heel caught something on the floor causing him to fall back, smacking the back of his head on the ground. He was suddenly back on The Long Hand. He quickly sat up and shuffled backward until his back pressed against something. He jumped.

“Valerius!” Specialist Abbot was suddenly beside him, kneeling, hand on his back in comfort. “Are you alright?” She cupped his cheek with the other hand. The material on the palm of her environmental protection suit was as soft as felt. Oddy rubbed his hand on the back of his head where he fell, he was not really hurt at all.“What happened?” she asked, gently wiping the tears from his cheek. Then she grimaced and covered her nose and mouth at the smell. She looked to Oddy who pointed out the source: the locker. The fetid smell of death was thick. Felme, whom Oddy did not see appear at his other side, cautiously approached the locker, glowing violet orb in hand, ready. Odysseus wiped the tears and snot from his face and nose, and stood up, ready to fight. Or flee…

Abbot stood as well, autorifle raised. Felme placed her hand on the locker handle and looked back to Abbot who nodded. Felme nodded back. She slung open the locker door. The twisted shape lurched at her. Felme leapt back screaming, bright violet bolts of energy sprung from her orb, Abbot fired her gun too– bright blue flashes of burning spacecoral. Oddy barely had time to cover his ears, even that did not suffice. He made a small weirding to protect his ears. Silence. He could see the thing more clearly now (even with the flashing lightshow of Felme’s and Abbot’s weapons) as the thing hung half way out of the locker.

It was a body. Presumably of a man. His face, though rotting, had clearly been melted by some incredible heat. Too eerily similar to his face. Oddy shuddered. The memory echoed in his head again.. He shuddered and returned to the present with Specialist Abbot and Felme and the melted man. No it was not the melted man. Well, this guy was a melted man, but not the melted man. Oddy took a breath in and out. A small wave of relief washed over him. A security guard it seemed to Oddy based on the remains of his uniform and a dingy, blood spattered badge that said “Security”. Felme and Specialist Abbot finally ceased their onslaught. Oddy took his hands off his ears, and looked dumbfoundedly at the two of them. They looked at him, then back at where they had shot. They missed every shot.

“You missed every shot,” Oddy said, not so successfully hiding a stupid grin.

“My apologies,” Felme said in her pretty accent. She sheepishly tucked her orb into a pouch that was half exposed from within her sash. Oddy had come to like the peculiar accent the Opaline Delegation had. Especially Felme’s. He still suspected her, but her flowing, flowery, even nasally accent had enchanted him in a way. Compared to the Terran accent of the common speech (particularly the one spoken by the Establishment), which was a strict, clear, and definite pronunciation of vowels and consonants, Felme’s accent was relaxed, graceful, and free. Oddy sighed and let out the smallest of giggles.

“Oh, as if you could do better, Valerius, you brat!” Specialist Abbot said, attempting to berate him.

“I can,” Oddy said coolly, a sly smile on his lips. Then with a sudden seriousness he said, “I’ve trained since I was old enough to pick up a small sword. My skill with a firearm is no less. I hunted and took my first prey at six,” he told them truthfully. Oddy figured, unbelievable as it may have been, that this was the first time Specialist Abbot fired her weapon outside of training. Abbot let out a dry cough, stripped the magazine from her gun replacing the empty mag with a full one, then slung the weapon around her back acting as if the gun never existed. She had no reply. She cleared her throat and awkwardly motioned to the dead body. The trio drew closer to the body to see it better in the dim light.

“A security guard,” Abbot said, pointing out the obvious. “He must’ve fled here after being wounded by the enemy and hid…”

“Indeed,” Felme agreed, “But what kind of weapon melts a person like this?” She asked. Oddy made a sour face but kept it to himself. Oddy knew. The strange weapons of fighters from The Great Unity could do this, Oddy replied to Felme in his mind. His grandfather was one of the engineers that attempted, unsuccessfully, to reverse engineer captured enemy weapons. Felme Vamahn should know that history too, because Felme Vamahn was there too. According to his grandfather, he knew Felme Vamahn personally as they were on the same team during the Unity wars. Not only was Felme Vamahn a veteran of The Great Unity Wars, she was also a veteran of both Adamant-Opaline Wars. In addition she was also one of several mad minds behind the creation of The Long Hand, which would justify her presence on this mission. But the pieces did not fit together. The math did not add up. He said nothing aloud. Who is this fake “Felme”? He asked himself. Apparently the entire Opaline Delegation was in on it. They had to be, he concluded. But why?

Specialist Abbot answered Felme, “The weapons of the alien confederation known as The Great Unity,” she sighed. “We don’t know exactly what kind of matter or energy it is, but as you can see it melts targets when they are struck,” she said, motioning to the gruesome sight. Confederacy was a generous term, Oddy thought. From what he understood The Great Unity was something more akin to a religious oligarchy, ruled by a priesthood made up of only one alien species. The authority of the priests was legitimized by two other different alien species that served as the commanders of their military and law enforcement. These top three species wielded immense power and influence over a plethora of different “lower tier” alien species. He chose to stay silent. Oddy looked at the corpse, half melted and burnt, half rotted away. A thought occurred to Oddy: It was likely that the melted man’s face had been melted by a Unity weapon, the same as the poor security guard. He stored that thought for later.

“Well then, I guess that confirms a Unity presence,” Oddy said aloud.

“Right. Now we just need to know to what extent. An entire warband of Marshals, their Auxiliary, and Pages should have been able to handle anything but the largest Unity warfleet–The Divine Hand of Retribution,” Felme explained. Specialist Abbot nodded in agreement. Oddy took a mental note that “Felme” knew what the largest Unity fleet was– a piece of information he did not know previously.

“Agh!” Specialist Abbot exclaimed! “This just brings up more questions! Were the Adamant and Opaline forces stationed here attacked by a Unity force so large that they couldn’t overcome them? But why then was the Hand left here, the Unity must know that the Hand is a significant asset. Or was the Hand attacked by a smaller fast attack formation armed with some new weaponry? But, again, the Hand is still here, its last reported location, the Unity forces did not seize it…” Abbot paused. “A trap then, and we waltzed right into it,” she concluded. Felme nodded in agreement. Oddy only stared at the slagging face of the corpse. It’s empty eye holes where eyes had once been.

Specialist Abbot’s conclusion fit the situation they were in, Oddy admitted it to himself. The mission was a disaster from the moment Ship’s Cure came into contact with The Long Hand. The entire company had been systematically separated, and Team 1 was engaged in combat from the moment they entered their own reception area. Clearly the trap was sprung. It all added up to that point. But why? Oddy pondered. Was the goal to get the Hand back to Adamant space and blow it up when it got back to port for further repairs? But why then spring a trap on the repair crew if their goal was to blow up the ship? If it was Unity forces, who were they trying to trap? Just some random repair crew? Did they know that the famous, or rather infamous, Felme Vamahn was coming? Is that why there was a fake Felme with them now? This guy had clearly been hit by Unity weaponry, Abbot confirmed what Oddy suspected. Why then was there no other evidence of a battle? There was zero evidence of a battle above Juniper having taken place. There should be blown-up and destroyed Unity warships all around here. There was no way the Hand would not get boarded without a fight. No, no, no! Oddy racked his brain. Unity forces attacking The Long Hand was too convenient. He stared harder into the dark, blank spaces where the eyes had been. Something was missing.

“We need to link back up with Page June and Delegate Thassua, and then hopefully with whatever is left of Team One. Then we need to get the message out that The Great Unity has attacked,” Abbot said. “Alright, let’s get moving. We need to get the rest their security clearance as quickly as possible.”

No! He needed more time! Oddy replayed the information he had back in his mind’s eye. The Hand made the jump eight-hundred-and-sixty-four hours ago… He did some quick arithmetic. About thirty-five days. Last contact was twelve hours after arrival. He remembered clearly that before opening the locker that there was no smell whatsoever. The body was basically sealed inside the locker.

Oddy looked at the body. It smelled horrendous, yes, but the body was not… gooey? Juicy? Yes! The body was bone dry. He looked again, there was no blood inside the locker, at least none that he could see. The body was partially melted, particularly the face, presumably by Unity weaponry. Partly melted, no blood or any other fluids… How did the body get here? Was it actually alive to run to the locker?

“C’mon, Valerius. Grab your bag and let’s get moving,” Specialist Abbot said, tapping him on the shoulder. His bag? He dropped it? Where? He looked for it, and saw it a little ways back where he came from. No! No! No! Do not get distracted! He rubbed his knuckles on the side of his head.

“Valerius?” Abbot’s voice was filled with concern, “Are you alright? Why did you do that?” She gripped his shoulder lightly.

Oddy ignored her. He turned his head toward the corpse. A question popped into mind, a curious little question. How much faster do the eyes of a corpse decay than the rest of the body in a sealed environment, when the body is drained of its fluids, inside a sealed locker?

“Where are his eyes?” He asked aloud. The once silent pulse of The Long Hand began again.

“What?” Specialist Abbot asked incredulously.

“Where is his blood?” Oddy asked.

“What are you talking about, kid?” Abbot asked even more flabbergasted.

“I’m serious,” Oddy said, pushing away her hand from his shoulder.

“Where are his eyes?” He asked again.

“They obviously rotted out,” Felme said, exasperated.

“Okay. Answer my second question: where is all his blood? Or any bodily fluid for that matter.”

“It drained out of him when died,” Felme was quite annoyed now.

“Then where is it? It’s not inside the locker. And! The locker was sealed shut before I opened it,” Oddy crossed his arms.

“Well, it’s…” Felme trailed off noticing things for the first time.

Oddy asked a new question, “ How long does it take for eyes to decay?”

“In the most ideal conditions, like a lab… maybe thirty days?” Felme said, unsure.

“In unideal conditions?”

“Hours? Minutes? The elements are harsh enough, and animals tend to go for the eyes first, easiest sources of good nutrition.” Felme’s voice was suddenly tense.

“What are you two playing? We don’t have time for some game, or prank, or whatever this is!” Specialist Abbot’s voice was filled with sudden anger.

“This isn’t a game!” Oddy snapped back. The surprise on Abbot’s face was clear. “How did a body with no blood and no eyes get in this locker and seal it shut?” He waved his hand angrily at the corpse. “And! If he was struck with a melter-gun-weapon-thing in the head, how did he actually survive to run away? From what I know the heat is so intense it can just fry an Auxiliary right then and there. And this guy would have been just a normal human!”

“Well, that– I don’t–” Abbot stuttered.

“You see? Something is very wrong! We need–” Oddy barely caught it out of the corner of his eye. It’s jaw twitched.

“Valerius? Hello?” Abbot waved at him.

“It moved.”

“Oh please!” Abbot rolled her eyes, “As if it cou–”

“I saw it too.” Felme said, orb already back in hand, and new sickle-like dagger in the other. The whole corpse shuddered. Abbot swung her rifle back around, barrel pointed at the thing. She stepped back into a fighting stance ready to unleash a storm of bullets. With her lead hand she grasped Oddy by the arm, pulling him back. Oddy eased back until he was at a distance slightly behind both Abbot and Felme. Abbot flicked a switch on the side of her rifle; she set it to burst fire. The Thing's head abruptly and violently cocked sideways as if someone had just broken its neck. The three of them stepped back further. Two centipede looking things crawled out, one from the gaping mouth, the other from one of the empty eye sockets. The heads of the two centipedes peeled back revealing a strange marble that was a motley of muted colors on each body.

“Uh…Why aren’t you two shoo–” No time to finish his question, the Thing leapt forward with freakish speed. Specialist Abbot and Felme let a burst of fire, both missed. Odysseus expected this. Even faster than the monster moved, Odysseus lowered himself into a fighting stance, then stomped forward delivering an open palm strike into the chest of the barreling monster. The powerful strike flung the Thing backward, crashing through the locker, destroying it, through the far away glass window of the security commander’s office, shattering it, finally smashing through the commander’s faux-wood desk. Abbot and Felme stared at Oddy in disbelief.

“What‘re you DOING?” Oddy jumped up and down waving his arms like a madman. “Shoot the THING!” He screamed. Specialist Abbot and Felme snapped back as if suddenly remembering their current circumstances, took aim at the monster as it rose back up and unleashed their fire upon it. Oddy ducked and pressed his hands to his ears and once again shielded them with a weirding. The room was filled with a brilliant mix of bright violet and cobalt blue light and deafening thunder. The monster was blown apart by the combined fire.

When the gunfire and orb energy bolts subsided, Oddy put his hands down from his head and stood up. He realized Abbot and Felme both were breathing heavily in great gulps of air. Their faces were profuse with sweat. Abbot finally caught her breath with one final sigh. She stripped the empty magazine from her gun and reloaded. Felme put away the orb and shook and flexed her hand trying to get the feeling to come back to it.

“Valerius, grab your bag. Let’s get out of here,” Abbot said, the exhaustion in her voice was clear.

“Yepp,” was his reply. Oddy hurried over to his giant backpack and shrugged it onto his shoulders. Even with his back turned with the backpack blocking the way, Oddy heard the faint squelching slithering sound. “Hey, Specialist Abbot… Do you hear that?” He asked nervously.

“Hear what?” Abbot exasperated. The slimy slinking sound grew.

“That!” Oddy exclaimed! He waved his hands toward where they last saw the monster. All three of them turned back to where the monster had been only to see a mound of dark, splotchy slimy oozing worm-like abominations rising from the pile of debris. The pile grew and grew far beyond the mass of the original monster. The two centipedes climbed up the pile of writhing worms and then reared up. They were at least as long as Abbot was tall. The mound of oozing worms surged upward around the centipede things forming a body around them. The worms merged together imitating muscle and sinew.

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The new monstrous form stood an easy two-and-a-half meters tall and looked like a skinless cadaver but instead of the red color of living flesh it was the colors of rot, decay, and putrid scum. The two centipedes were now where the eyes would be. The lidless eyes moved independently of each other looking between Abbot, Felme, and Oddy in turn. It smiled– a toothless, freakish imitation of a smile. This time, thankfully, Abbot wasted no time and opened fire. The 6.8 millimeter, 10.5 gram bullets ripped through the air and where they struck the monster burst open in sickening ruptures of wormy flesh. Specialist Abbot’s hail of gunfire had no effect. Even as she shot the thing, it began to reconstruct itself. When her magazine was empty, the monster smiled at her. It took a lumbering step. Then another. It smiled an even bigger sinister smile. The freakish hulk made its way toward them.

“Well, I’m running,” Oddy said nonchalantly and took off for the nearest door, Felme and Abbot were a step behind him. They got to the door; it was locked.

“How fast can you lockpick it?” Felme’s voice was thick with fear.

“I… uh– I–I can–” Specialist Abbot nearly fumbled the lockpick as she took it from its pouch. She could not help herself, all three of them watched the worm monster. With each step it gained confidence. With more confidence it sped up, the next step quicker than the previous. Abbot began to panic.

“Wait!” Oddy yelled! “What are we doing?” He fished out his security key card, and opened the door. They stood there for a moment, their brains catching up.

“Right,” Abbot said and took off through the door into a new corridor, then Oddy, and Felme pulled up the rear after shutting the door and locking it back with her own security clearance.

“I hate your ridiculous backpack,” Felme said quietly, so quietly Oddy almost did not hear her. Oddy let out a subdued snort so Abbot could not hear, she had a lot on her plate at the moment. The corridor was long and was a constant bend as the corridor followed the curve of the ship. Felme yelped in shock at the sudden screeching, groaning sound of warping metal, followed by a whooshing sound then a crash and clang. Not too distantly the worm monster let out a scream. It screamed in the manner of how a creature thought a human would scream having never actually heard a human scream. An inhuman scream. The monster chased after them down the corridor.The creature’s booming footfalls escalated into a thunderous run. It screamed again. At this all three broke into a full sprint. Well Oddy tried at least, Specialist Abbot was frustratingly slow. He heard her labored breathing, she was drained. Oddy felt Felme begin to push on his enormous backpack trying to hurry him up.

Then Felme, panic-stricken, said, “Faster! Please! Run faster!”

“We are running as fast as we can up here!” Oddy shouted from behind his backpack. Felme began fearfully cursing in her native tongue. Mid stride Oddy spun around to face her and continued to run backward keeping the same pace. He was lucky that the corridor was wide enough to accommodate his ridiculous backpack as well as the maneuver.

“I don’t know what you said! But! It can’t have been very nice! Specialist Abbot is running as hard as she can!” Oddy admonished her.

Felme replied in Opalish. Oddy raised an eyebrow. Felme cursed and then spoke common Terran, “ We are going to die if we do not run faster!”

“Well I know that,” Oddy replied. “But Specialist Abbot is just a normal person. She physically cannot run any faster! See? Look!” Oddy shifted to where he was run-skipping sideways.

“Valerius!” Felme shouted pointing as Oddy did not see that Abbot had stopped dead in her tracks. The corridor had been torn apart opening the corridor into the chasm that was the inner workings and structure of the ship. Felme managed to stop in time. Oddy, however, smacked right into Abbot’s back and sent her over the edge. Abbot screamed, Felme screamed, Oddy screamed. Odysseus leapt after Abbot catching her by the boot and Felme dove catching him by the ankle. Oddy watched as Specialist Abbot’s rifle went tumbling down through the air into the dark bowels of the space vessel. He would find her a new one later, he thought as he stared past Abbot and into the chasm.

“Um… Delegate Felme, would you mind pulling us back up. If we fell, I should be alright… most likely. But Specialist Abbot would not…” Oddy said, keeping a nervous death grip with both hands on Abbot’s boot.

“Yes! Please pull us up!” Abbot called up.

“A moment! A moment!” Felme shouted down at them. She held Oddy with one hand and pressed up from the floor with the other, till she got to her knees where she switched to hands and lifted them, backpack and all, up mostly back over the edge. Oddy put his feet on the floor and dragged Abbot the rest of the way back to safety. The monster howled that inhuman screech again in the distance. Felme, hands on her hips, muttered a curse. Abbot layed on the floor a moment breathing hard, shaking her head. She had given up. Oddy, looked out into the depths of The Long Hand.

“I don’t…” Abbot began breathlessly. “I don’t want to–” she corrected herself, “I can’t die. I can’t die yet, Adrian.” she whispered the name.

“You won’t,” Oddy said confidently, Abbot and Felme both looked at him. “There’s a catwalk below us, running perpendicular to the corridor.”

“Perppen– what?” Felme asked. The common tongue of Terra was not her first language.

“Perpendicular? You know crossways,” Oddy motioned crossing lines with his hands. He pointed up. Felme exclaimed softly, she understood after seeing the catwalk itself.

“But how will we get to your walk?” Felme looked at Oddy quizzingly. Oddy stared at her for a moment. Felme did not see the obvious.

“We’ll jump,” he said.

“Jump?” she asked.

“Jump,” he confirmed. “I’ll carry Specialist Abbot and jump. Without a doubt I can make that jump.”

Abbot bolted up. “You’ll what?” She asked incredulously. Oddy hated repeating himself. So this time he said it slowly.

“I. Will. Carry. You. And. Jump. To. The. Catwalk.” he said, miming the actions as he went. He did not wait to see if Abbot understood before looking to Felme. “Can you make that jump on your own?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“You two are crazy!” Specialist Abbot she said in a whispered yell.

“Specialist Abbot, it’s either jump or die to the monster,” Oddy said. Speaking of… where was the monster? He asked himself. The corridor behind them was dead silent. Oddy turned to face the corridor and took a couple steps. The light above Oddy was dim. The rest of the corridor was obscured in darkness except for the intermittent lights on the ceiling.

“Valerius?” Abbot asked after him. Oddy heard her, but chose to ignore her.

There! He saw it. It appeared at the edge of a not too distant light. Then almost elegantly, the monster stepped into the dim light. Oddy realized with horror that the galumphing footsteps ceased because the monster had figured out how to actually walk. Its facial structure properly aligned and now even fit well around the freaky marble heads of the centipedes as though they were now true, albeit lidless, eyes. The monster grinned. Instead of teeth there was row upon row of spiny things. The spines were the thousands of legs of the centipede things.

“No. Nope. Absolutely not,” Oddy said, shaking his head. He turned on his heel and scooped up Abbot who had finally stood up. She squawked as he did so. Oddy ignored her protests. He sprinted as hard as he could and then leapt. The vast void beneath his feet threatened to swallow him and Abbot as they seemed to hang in space for a moment before descending quickly.

Oddy’s feet slammed into the catwalk sending a shock up his body. But his footing was sure. There was a second clang, softer than Oddy’s landing. Felme landed safely grabbing the safety rail above their heads for security. Oddy set Specialist Abbot down. He looked up where they jumped from. The monster looked down on them from the corridor. The thing was displeased. It turned back. The three of them let out a sigh of relief. Oddy recovered first.

“We need to get in contact with the rest of Team 2,” he said. Abbot nodded in agreement. She flicked a switch on her headset and spoke into it calling for Page June. There was no response. She tried again, then again on the back-up channels, still nothing. Abbot and Oddy turned to Felme. She obliged and pulled out a flat disc of violet crystal. Oddy wondered if it was some type of space-coral he had never seen before. She pressed her thumb against the disc. The surface rippled.

“Thassua,” she called. There was no response. “Thassua,” she called once more. Then Felme broke into her native speech, and received only silence back. Her brow furrowed. “This is no good,” she said. “We were supposed to have good communication through that device from the ship, yes?”

“Yes, supposed to,” Specialist Abbot said. “There must be something local interfering with our communication…” she trailed off thinking.

“Well okay then, we should move further from centipede-worm-guy so we need to know where this goes,” Oddy said, motioning the way forward on the catwalk.. Abbot nodded and brought out her map and found the catwalk they were on. The projected schematic showed a blinking light (their current location). Abbot swiped around the projection.

“Here,” she indicated. “An access door. This access door takes us to a supply hub, a small one it seems. So more like a supply closet. Perhaps I’ll be able to find something to protect myself with there.”

“Sorry about that,” Oddy said.

“It happens, at least I’m alive.” She exhaled, then continued, “We should be able to then take a small transport to what looks like… a medical sector.” Specialist Abbot paused and pursed her lips. She continued, “If I am reading this right, there is an emergency communications station there.” She motioned to another part of the catwalk, an intersection. “If something happens, like the door to the supply hub is blocked. We’ll reroute this way,” she indicated going left at the access door along the catwalk. “This’ll take us to a maintenance and fabrication station. We’ll have to go around a ways, but it should lead back to the med bay. From there we should be able to get a clean call to anyone on the ship. Which should be us and the crew.”

“How can you be sure?” Felme asked rightly.

“The emergency system is a hardline that runs throughout the ship which has both hard line phones and broadcast nodes all over the ship. It bypasses virtually all the other systems. Ideally whatever is blocking the ansibles will be undermined by the emergency network. It’s technically slower than ansible communication, but that doesn’t matter right now. There is an emergency comm station right there at the crash zone,” Specialist Abbot said, satisfying Felme. “Alright you two let's move. Valerius you’re in the front. Felme keep your weapon out. We’ll need it for sure,” Specialist Abbot finished. Oddy and Felme complied and they began to move along the catwalk. Oddy heard it first, a distant thumping– a quick and powerful succession of beats. Alarmed, Oddy shouted.

“Centipede Man!” He yelled! Sure enough out of the tunnel they leapt from previously, came the Centipede Man sailing through the air. It smashed into the catwalk nearly missing. One of its legs came apart, bursting into thousands of nasty black worms. The worms quickly began to reassemble themselves.

“OH! Come On!” Oddy shouted furiously! “Will you just leave us alone!” By now the three of them were moving as fast as they could down the catwalk.

“We need to move faster!” Felme shouted!

“I know!” Oddy shouted back!

“No! I threw down a… a… explosion maker!” Felme shouted back!

Oddy took a second to process while running… “A MINE?” He screamed!

“Yes!”

Oddy began to yell furiously, running as hard as he could. Without realizing he pulled away from the other two. Far away. There was a crash and bang like a lightning strike behind him. Felme’s mine. Oddy yelped in surprise but kept running until he reached the door. He found his security card and swiped at the keypad. The door did not open. He tried again. The pad flashed green as if it was opening but then nothing. It was as though the ship was denying Oddy. He angrily kicked the door and with a swoosh the door slid away. Standing opposite of Oddy in the doorway, looking as surprised as Oddy looked, was a giant salamander as tall as Oddy standing on two legs.

The giant salamander cradled something tubular in its hands. It only wore a large hard-rubber-like harness that covered its midsection both front and back. The harness came up around the salamander’s neck in a fashion that reminded Oddy of a toilet seat. He could see the clear water running through the collar. A rebreather for water instead of air he realized. They looked each other up and down. Stared for a moment. Then the giant salamander let out a hissing squeaky scream. Oddy screamed in response. The salamander began fumbling with the thing in its stubby hands. A gun! Oddy smacked the close button on the door pad. He swiped the security card again and the door locked with an audible clunk. Oddy stood for a moment shocked. He looked at the access pad and punched it as hard as he could, smashing it.

“Oddy, what’s with the screaming?” Abbot and Felme finally caught up. “And why in the world did you smash the keypad?” Specialist Abbot asked when she noticed the broken panel.

“There’s a giant salamander with a toilet seat around its neck on the other side of the door!” He said exasperated. Oddy checked behind the two of them. In the distance the Centipede Man was still struggling to get up, but it was getting there even if only slowly. He looked back to Abbot who was still processing the new information. Her eyes widened with sudden realization.

“A Toad!” She shouted! “You saw a toad?”

“A toad?” Oddy scrunched up his nose. “No, it clearly more resembled a salamander,” he shook his head.

“Yeah! We call ‘em toads! They’re the cannon fodder of The Great Unity's forces. That means that the Unity is here!” She shouted pounding her fists on top of her helmet. “What is going on here?” Abbot shouted into the air. As if in response Centipede Man groaned. It was basically whole again, ready to stand. Abbot’s eyes widened.

“We need to move out of here!” Felme spoke up, snapping the other two out of an apparent stupor. Oddy did not need another invitation. He hurried down the alternate catwalk, a left turn from the previous direction Abbot showed them earlier. Felme and Abbot were hot on his heels. There was a series of clangs as the door behind them was wrenched open from the otherside. A group of strange aliens spilled out onto the catwalk. Four or five giant salamanders, or Toads as Abbot called them, each with a slight variance in look but with an identical harness, and two new aliens. The two were like scaly, featherless, flightless, birds. Instead of wings they had two appendages with three fingered hands. Taller than Specialist Abbot but nowhere near as tall as Felme. In a way they reminded Oddy of roadrunner birds he saw on the wildlife channel with their long spindly legs. Instead of feathers making their pointy cone-like head crests, the crests were made of long spiny protrusions. They had four beady eyes, two on either side of their elongated ovate heads. Each bird alien had a big vulture-like beak.

Both of the bird aliens saw the fleeing trio, pointed and screeched. Three of the four toads took aim, the other toad screamed pointing at the charging Centipede Man. The others swung around and saw Centipede Man careening toward them and began blasting their weapons. The sound was not thunderous like the sound produced by burning coral. But it was more like a ringing, warbling zip that Oddy could feel in his chest and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. The bolts of energy, or whatever they were, struck Centipede Man all over blowing, bursting, and melting its body.

But Centipede Man was relentless, before it lost both legs, it flailed forward landing on the nearest toad. The toad emitted a bloodcurdling death cry. The others stepped back still blasting at Centipede Man, but it lurched forward like an amorphous blob snagging another toad which also shrilly squalled out. The remaining toads and the two bird aliens finally broke and retreated when Centipede Man lashed out with a slimy wormy mass of a tentacle and nearly took one of the bird aliens. Centipede Man seemed to have forgotten about Oddy, Specialist Abbot, and Felme as it chased the group of aliens back through the door from whence they came, for which Oddy was grateful. The three of them turned away and hurried down the catwalk to the other door. Oddy opened it and the three of them spilled into the room. Exhausted.

The three of them laid there for a few minutes, getting their breath back. Oddy, who had shrugged off his enormous backpack the moment he entered the room, eventually sat up and began to rummage through it. With an “Ah-ha!” He pulled out three water bottles. He handed one to both Felme and Abbot. Felme thanked him.

Abbot protested, “No thanks. I’ve got one.”

“No,” came Oddy’s reply, “You forgot your water bottle back on the ship.” She sat up and began to search her own bag, but Oddy already knew she would not find her bottle because she in fact left it back on the Cure. So he patiently waited for her to not find her water bottle. When she gave up, Abbot abashedly took the water bottle Oddy offered. They drank water and rested in silence, carefully listening for any sign of either Centipede Man, or Unity forces, or both. No signs ever came. For the first time in a while, Oddy could sit and listen to the beating pulse of The Long Hand. The pulse was smooth and even. He interpreted that as no danger around them.

After a time, Specialist Abbot stood and walked around searching for something. She did not have to go far, the room was not exactly large. It was a workspace along the wall made up of a workbench and printer-fabricator. She let out a surprised grunt.

“Looks like whatever poor fellow was here last had the same idea as me,” she said, motioning to the spatter of long since dried blood on the floor and wall. “Yeah… most of what I need is already printed,” Specialist Abbot set her water bottle and helmet off to the side already deep in thought. “Yeah they had the right idea… But didn’t execute it correctly…” she trailed off. She pressed a couple buttons and the machines came to life. Curious, Oddy stood and went over to watch. Felme joined too. Specialist Abbot spun the design on the monitor around. It was a nozzle? Oddy was not sure. He looked on top of the workbench itself.

“A gun?” Oddy asked, looking at the parts laid out.

Specialist Abbot replied only half looking at him, “Not quite. Both me and the person before thought of using a cutter as a close range defense tool.” She looked over at Oddy who had scrunched his nose, not satisfied with the answer. Oddy looked up at her and scrunched his face harder. Abbot rolled her eyes and explained, “This is a two-in-one tool that burns coral to either weld or cut metals. If you change the nozzle and modify the limiter, thus increasing the output, you get a fairly dangerous weapon that shoots arcs of burning coral.” Specialist Abbot looked at Oddy. He smiled at her, satisfied with her simple explanation. He looked up at Felme who was wide eyed in amazement.

Felme snapped out of it to comment, “Even if you maximize the output and distance, your weapon will not throw the burning coral very far.”

“Correct. At most the cutter–”

“Coral-blaster,” Oddy interrupted. “It sounds better than whatever you were about to call it.”

“Right…” Specialist Abbot considered it for a moment, shrugged, and then continued. “Yeah… The coral-blaster will be most effective within about four meters. Anything more and the target will only get a really really bad burn… Ya know instead of getting sliced in half.” Specialist Abbot said, as she tapped the screen a couple times causing the printer-fabricator to move excitedly. Oddy could not help himself, he let out an amazed “whoa”. The printer began to spin and whir, its arms zipping back and forth. A series of parts began to appear on the flat-top of the printer-fabricator; meanwhile Abbot looked to the workbench and began to assemble her weapon using a variety of tools and whatnots. When the fabricator dinged she shifted over and plucked her newly made parts. Oddy and Felme just watched her work in silence, periodically sipping their water.

Oddy looked over at Felme while Abbot tinkered. Felme was completely entranced. Her azure eyes sparkled. Literally, sparkled. Other people may have described Opal people’s eyes as glowing, but Oddy felt it was more like the shine that eyes get when the sun shines through a person’s eyes. Yes, that was it. Opal people’s eyes shone with the light of the sun even when there was no sun to shine on them. He stared at her face, only the strip not covered by her cowl and veil. Judging by her eyes alone, Oddy felt that this imposter Felme was closer to twenty years old, rather than the three or four hundred (or whatever) years old that the real Felme should be. Maybe this was Felme’s daughter? Could be… But why the subterfuge? Oddy asked himself.

“Why are you squinting at me like that? And why are you frowning so much?” Felme asked when she finally felt Oddy’s stare. “Are you ill?” She asked. He did not even realize he was staring so hard.

“No,” came Oddy’s simple reply. “I just think you’re hiding something… Suspicious. That’s all.”

“Well, I believe you to be hiding something too as you can be a bit… strange,” she said, smirking behind her veil. Oddy scoffed in offense, and Felme chuckled in response. How dare she accuse him! He was hiding something, but that was not the point! He thought. He’d figure her out sooner or later, he thought and turned his attention back to Abbot’s work.

Abbot finally finished her tinkering, picked up the coral-blaster, and tested the grip. She nodded and grunted, satisfied, she spoke: “I almost wish I could test it… but I’m afraid it’ll attract too much attention.” No one argued that.

“Well, we should all eat something then,” Oddy said excitedly, already digging through his bag. His mother and grandmother stuffed his backpack with enough supplies for a small army. He was hungry, and had been for some time now.

“Valerius, I don’t think we have time to eat,” Abbot said, fitting her new weapon in a new holster strapped to her leg. Oddy somehow missed when she fabricated that.

“Yes we do! The two of you look ready to faint! And if you happen to faint at a crucial time, well then we are dead! Ah! Here they are!” Oddy cheered! He produced three packaged meal bars and three fruit-vegetable blend pouches. Abbot began to protest, but when she saw Oddy open his meal bar and begin to eat, she quietly took her share and ate as well.

“I do not think it is safe to stop and eat. I am not even hungry,” Felme said proudly. Only then, however, a loud squeaky rumble came from her stomach. She immediately turned her face to the side and hid her face with her hand.

Oddy laughed loudly. “You don’t have worry, we’re safe here. Centipede man and the aliens it was chasing are already in another sector of the ship.”

“How do you know that? What makes you so sure?” Felme snapped her face around, anger in her voice. The question hung in the air for a moment before another stomach rumble from Felme broke the silence.

This elicited a laugh from both Abbot and Oddy. Oddy answered her, “Because I just do. Trust me,” he said, handing Felme her meal bar and fruit-veggie pouch. Felme finally took her share and sat on a short supply crate. She gracefully kept her legs together and put them to the side as though she were posing for a painter, a half sitting half lounging pose. Oddy rolled his eyes. Definitely not the Felme he knew from his grandfather’s stories. But this Felme had been reliable so far, so he set aside his suspicion.

The meal bars were filling but not so tasty. They were supposed to taste like vanilla. But the real plant went extinct due to a severe change in the global climate and humanity had been trying to synthesize its flavor for thousands and thousands of years with no true success according to “the experts,” as if these people were present when the plant was still growing. Oddy rolled his eyes to himself. On the other hand, the fruit and vegetable blends were still cool and refreshing even after the many hours spent inside Oddy’s bag. Must be a mother’s love, he remembered his father’s saying so many times to himself, but accidentally giggled aloud. Abbot and Felme both looked up at him. Before either could say anything, Oddy stuck his tongue out at them. Abbot chuckled, Felme rolled her eyes and went back to slurping her smoothie under her veil as elegantly as possible.

When they all finished, Abbot stood and put on her gear she previously took off. She made her final adjustments and turned to the other two. “Well,” she started, “We should get moving again. We need to get to medical and get to the emergency comms.” Oddy nodded, stood, and put on his backpack. Felme followed suit and soon enough the three of them were outside the small maintenance room and headed toward an access elevator. Oddy observed their surroundings. He listened to the ship’s pulse. All was calm.

What was that before? Oddy asked himself. The ship was more than alive, it was awake. It knew things. It knew when Oddy stepped foot on the ship for the first time. It knew where Centipede Man was and that it was a threat. Oddy just did not know what the change in pulse meant at the time. He did now though. It was a warning. Thinking back on it the ship knew that the Unity aliens were behind the door to the supply room too. Is this what his grandmother meant when she told him that The Chonaic willed that he be here? Here on The Long Hand? Oddy recalled that his parents were very much opposed to him leaving especially after the incident, the incident that started when the man with the melted face, the real one, not Centipede Man, took him. But when his grandmother said The Chonaic showed her that Oddy was meant to go and was crucial to “the future” (whatever that meant). That this journey was the only way to save himself from himself (whatever that meant too). His parents finally relented after several weeks of arguments. Oddy remembered the pain in his father’s eyes, grey eyes, like clouds before the rain. His father kept a strong look, he even smiled at Oddy. But his mother wept. Great big tears welled up in her shining dark onyx eyes. They kept his younger brother and sister at home, they did not see him leave. Oddy remembered meeting Marshal Dela for the first time. His parents’ worry was nearly erased. But when Oddy saw Dela smile and assure them that nothing would go wrong, he counted it an ill omen.

The elevator dinged and the doors swung open. Oddy did not even remember getting on the elevator. The artificial voice came through the elevator speaker: “You have reached Medical Sector J3 Reception. Thank you.” The speaker went quiet, and the three of them stepped out into the silence. Their breath came out in small puffs of foggy haze. It was cold. Oddy looked around, the pulse was even.

“Why is it so cold?” Felme asked, shivering.

“I have no clue,” Abbot replied.

“How cold is it?” Oddy asked.

Specialist Abbot checked her data pad, “It’s currently 3 degrees Celsius.”

“Blood!” Oddy exclaimed, cold and now frustrated.

Abbot eyed him, “If I was your mother– which, yes, I am not– I would not let you get away with speaking like that.”

“Specialist Abbot, it is practically freezing!”

“Well just think warm thoughts,” she said, giving him a wide eyed glare.

Oddy crossed his arms and shivered. Just think warm thoughts! He ranted in his mind. How is that supposed to keep me warm? He could have shouted. It’s not like he could actually make himself warm, just wishing it! He raved to himself… Oh wait. Yes he could. How did he forget? Didn’t matter. He pushed those thoughts aside. Oddy, as Page June had put it when giving Oddy pointers back on Ship’s Cure, just had to show a bit of spirit. He concentrated for a second, he imagined himself wrapped in warmth like a blanket. Creating the weirding around his ears to silence the sounds of gunfire was easier. Oddy only wanted silence, and he got it. But now the world resisted him, something wanted it to be cold, needed it to be cold, but he pushed out harder than the world pushed in. He felt his strength well up inside him. He grabbed that strength and pulled it out to create a weirding. Oddy willed his weirding into shape around him, enveloping himself in warmth. He opened his eyes satisfied. Felme and Abbot both noticed the change in him.

“What did you do?” Felme asked, wide eyed. Her azure eyes sparkled with curiosity.

“I made a weirding. Like I did before to keep from going deaf when you shot Centipede Man…” He hesitated for a moment, unsure if he should tell them.

“What’s wrong?” Abbot asked.

Oddy took a breath, “Before, nothing resisted me in silencing the noise. But this time I ran into resistance…” The two of them gave him a puzzled look. He continued, “To make a weirding you have to bring out your will. But things, people, the universe don’t want you to do want you want to do… Does that make sense?” Oddy asked. They shook their heads no.

“When you want to make something happen, a weirding, something almost always resists. When I wanted to be warm, something resisted me. Something definitely wants it to be cold here…whatever it is, it wants it cold so much that the universe reflected that want and tried to stop me from making myself warm.” Oddy finished. There was something there, true, but the Hand’s pulse was still steady and consistent.

“So there is something here?” Felme asked.

“Yes.”

“Alright. Everyone be on your guard,” Specialist Abbot said, drawing her new pistol, or coral-blaster. “Let’s go make this call and get out of here as soon as possible then.”

“I am right behind you,” Felme said to Abbot, drawing her knife and orb. The two of them looked to Odysseus who nodded and they approached the med-bay door. Abbot held up her lockpick with security clearance. The door’s access pad flashed green, then red. She was denied. Abbot tried again. The light flashed green again, then red again.

“What is going on?” Abbot, frustrated, holstered her weapon and held the lockpick over the access pad to start the lockpicking process. “Felme, Valerius, watch my back.” Felme and Oddy nodded and scanned the surroundings. They listened to her tap the keys on the lockpick for a moment, then suddenly a speaker in the ceiling over the door squealed causing the three of them to jump. Then a husky, lispy voice spoke:

“Who goes there?”