Momentary panic sets in. Breathing began to quicken.

  Incoherent screaming can barely be heard as a whisper from outside their helmets.

  Switching communication channels, Vertan quickly attempted to calm the remaining people, struggling to maintain composure.

  “Fellas!”

  “Fuck! What happened?! Fuck!”

  “We’re going to die!”

  “I want my mother! My wife! My family!”

  “Fellas! Guys—!”

  “The gods have abandoned us, by the cosmos we’re—!”

  “Listen!”

  Managing to quiet them for a moment, Vertan begins counting everyone by hand. There were only five individuals in total, including him, Calian, and Reja.

  “Everybody okay?”

  “No!”

  “I meant is everyone physically intact?”

  “Mostly!”

  “Good enough.”

  Looking up and around him, Vertan now finds their position to be most unusual. Everything appeared to be mostly floating suspended through the air in all different directions, untied to gravity. Occasionally, an object that holds no relevance or relation to where they were seemed to float by before disappearing again, despite the otherwise consistent environment.

  Sometimes, the constraints of physical boundaries did not apply, and two objects would appear to clip and phase through each other as though neither were there. Other times, a self-fulfilling loop between the past, future, and present versions of the same object appeared to interact with each other endlessly.

  But peering through the dense mess, he could see that the pillar lies far ahead, still in its original orientation. Much of everything surrounding it seems to have been ripped up and floating around, the laws of physics having become suggestions.

  Furrowing his eyebrows at the sight of this, Vertan opens his scanned map onto his HUD, and sees that, indeed, they were all still within Base Seven, even if they had been miraculously transported to a different part of it. However, the rooms, halls, and overall structure as to where they are now located is no longer existent, let alone relevant.

  Another pulse can be very lightly felt passing through the air, but no longer comes just from the ground.

  “Listen up! We’re going to be okay.”

  “How is any of this okay?”

  “Whatever it is, it’s reaching its limits. It could have killed us, but here we are.”

  “So what’s going on, then?”

  “I’m not sure, but we need to stay away from and avoid all anomalies. Too risky. It’s how it tests and fights us.”

  “So what was that whole thing? Who was that creepy—?”

  “I don’t know, but whatever it was, we set off the trap. Right now, we need to focus on making it to the pillar.”

  A strong pulse emanates from the pillar, a sign of interference. But, just as the outward pulse went, a reversal rushed back in softly; the pillar at least restabilized itself.

  “And we need to get there soon!”

  Quickly gathering into the best formation they can conjure for this kind of environment, the group of five made their way across the unreal. There wasn’t much choice but to persevere and proceed at the moment.

  It wasn’t so much climbing through the rubble as it was walking around tiny planets. The constantly changing orientations of gravity depending on when and where they were caused all of their stomachs to churn. Upside-down, right-side up, longways, sideways, this way, and that. Other times, they either had to jump and grab onto a passing object, or attempt to float out into the abyss, bound together by each others’ hands.

  Slowly but surely, they made their way closer and closer to the pillar. Each time a Daero Counter returns some type of abnormal reading, they would either move away silently, or softly hide until it passed, allowing them to continue onwards.

  A rock suddenly comes thrown down the hallway.

  Immediately, everyone raised their arms, but found no other threat to appear. While looking around, craning his neck to look upwards, Vertan could see that from seemingly nowhere, a group of five appearing to look just like them steps out from a door frame onto a large chunk of floating floor, sideways and upside down in the distance from them. They appeared to stand there for a moment, looking around, and he swore that one of them looked directly at him.

  Although nothing came up on the Daero, hurriedly, he motioned everyone to move along, continuing to move down the broken hallway and out to a clearing. One by one, each person hopped over, almost slipping and sending a piece of rubble flying back down the hall. The environment on this side appeared to be different from what they had previously just seen. It was the most disorienting feeling; their entire perspective had seamlessly shifted, more than it was moving to another room.

  Confusedly, Vertan looks around, taking in his surroundings. And then, there he saw; it was them a few minutes ago, now in the distance, about to continue down their hallway into the door. Vertan sees himself hurriedly motioning everyone to keep moving, lest an unknown anomaly comes for them.

  So that’s where that rock came from, he thought.

  Communications between other groups remained constricted, radio interference buzzing from its struggle to navigate through such a space.

  *****

  “You think we’ll make it through this?” asks Reja.

  “We have to,” says Calian. “It’s kind of quiet now, actually.”

  “What do you guys think it is?” Vertan asks.

  “Think what is?” replies Jyr, one of the two transported with them.

  “You know, the Abomination,” responds Vertan.

  “What do you mean ‘what is it?’” asks Jyr. “It’s like a storm, an unnatural phenomenon rather than a natural one. What is there to ask about it?”

  “I don’t think it’s quite so simple like that now,” states Vertan. “Why don’t Abominations happen anywhere else, then?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They’ve only happened out here and where there’s a lot of people, right?”

  “Well, yeah, that’s why we’re out here,” says Calian. “So we contain it.”

  “That’s not exactly what I meant,” says Vertan. “I mean like—”

  “I don’t get where this is going—,” interjects Jyr.

  “Hey, let him finish talking,” says Reja.

  “Thank you,” replies Vertan. “I mean like it seems to gravitate towards our strategic areas. Why can’t it happen somewhere else for us to observe?”

  “Of course it’d be nice to wish for things to go another way, but—” begins Calian.

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  “From all the reports that we know, it always goes this way though,” comments Vertan. “I swear the thing is intelligent in some way.”

  “I heard through the vine that there’s classified information on these things the higher-ups keep,” adds Inma. “But that kind of stuff doesn’t get out to us, it gets silenced pretty quickly if it does.”

  “Really?” queries Vertan.

  “What?” asks Jyr. “Now why would they keep that kind of stuff secret from us?”

  “I don’t know,” says Inma, slightly shrugging her shoulders. “I’m sure they have their reasons.”

  “They should let us know anyhow so we don’t die out here,” Calian grumbles.

  “Maybe,” says Vertan. “It’s more important to them than our lives are.”

  A moment of silence passes between this.

  “Well fuck this, now I’m mad,” scowls Jyr.

  “Huh?” says Reja. “It’s not like we’ve proven anything yet—”

  “I got myself here, busting my ass so I can make money!” barks Jyr. “Because a person of my race and record won’t get hired anywhere else back home!”

  “Hey, easy there, we’ve got to—”

  “No! I didn’t sign up to be a rich man’s martyr! I didn’t sign up to be a pawn in their game! Now I guess my nine siblings can go and starve without me!”

  “Jyr!” shouts Vertan.

  “What!” Jyr shouts back.

  “We focus on the mission right now!”

  “Fuck the mission!”

  “You want to make it out of this alive? You want to spite them back?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Then we keep moving forward and get ourselves out of here first! Then we get to deal with them all we want after, got it?”

  With a gruff and exhale, Jyr nods with a scowl, still steaming from his anger. The rest of the crew eyed him as Vertan continued to lead them forwards. Being at the front of the line, nobody notices Vertan’s face crawling with doubt. Looking back out at the unreal, Vertan hopes that somewhere out there, Hilgo is alive and making his way through it the same way he was.

  *****

  After a long and tense journey, Vertan, Calian, Reja, Jyr and Inma finally reach the boundaries of normal reality that still surround the core facilities of Base Seven’s pillar. Floating past upside down, each person leapt forwards onto the floor below them, the normal gravity of the planet pulling them towards the ground. Some made a smooth landing, some rolled, others fell, but all made it.

  Observing their reference map, they found that a significant distance had already been covered on their journey to the pillar.

  A pulse passes through the floor.

  Once again, everyone takes up defensive arms, and silently moves to conceal themselves from any possible anomalous occurrence. The Daero Counters pick up no significant reading, and they proceed forward with tactical caution.

  The distant sounds of gunfire and commotions continued, occasionally punctuated by an eerie silence.

  Down the hall, a figure appears with several others. Immediately, all five drew arms, fingers hovering over their triggers.

  “Wait!” a familiar voice calls out.

  “Identify yourself!” shouts Vertan.

  “It’s me!” says Hilgo, continuing to walk over.

  A wave of relief washes over everyone, and Vertan in particular.

  “Thank goodness, you’re alive!” exclaims Vertan.

  “Yeah, for sure, I got lucky,” says Hilgo.

  “Where is everyone else?” Vertan asks. “Did you get transported with anyone?”

  “I did, but there were a lot of battles and struggles, and not all of us were so lucky. Broke my comms too, I’ve been without contact for a while. I thought it was going to be it before I found you.”

  “Fero? Syani?”

  “I don’t know, they didn’t come with me.”

  Vertan nodded solemnly.

  “It’s alright, you’re with us, now.”

  Hilgo nods in acknowledgement.

  “Who are those two?” asks Hilgo, pointing.

  “They are Jyr and Inma, they got transported with us.”

  “Good to see you,” says Inma.

  Jyr simply nods in acknowledgement.

  “Good to see everyone,” says Hilgo. “Everything good between everyone so far? Where were you all headed?”

  “Yeah,” says Vertan. “Right, we were making our way towards the pillar. We don’t know how much time we have left, all things considered. We were just about to go down—”

  “Oh, that way? I just came from that way, you don’t want to go there.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s a death trap back there. I know your map might still show how things were, it’s just not how things are now.”

  “Alright, good call, then. You lead us the way, then?”

  “I can certainly try, I’m figuring it out the same way you are.”

  With Hilgo added to the group, the new team of six now hurriedly yet painstakingly make their way through the surviving remainders of Base Seven’s core. Dead end, after dead end, close call, after close call they encountered.

  “We’re lost, aren’t we?” groans Jyr.

  “Not yet, we’re not,” says Calian. “We’re working on it.”

  “We’ve passed this corridor more times than I can remember now,” grumbles Jyr.

  “Yes, we have,” comments Hilgo. “I think there’s a loop we’ve been trapped in.”

  “We ought to trace our steps back out to before we entered, then?” asks Vertan.

  “And where would that be?” replies Hilgo. “It’s already safe enough here, surely there’s something else we can find around here—?”

  “We’re not going to find anything here,” grumbles Jyr.

  “Yeah, we should move back a bit, Hilgo,” says Reja. “We’ve covered every square inch here already.”

  “You’re right,” says Hilgo. “We’re wasting time.”

  Carefully retracing their steps, the team slowly but surely makes their way back out of that part of Base Seven’s labyrinthine structures. Distant gunfire seemed to slowly and gradually quiet, now only noticeable when thought in hindsight.

  The sound of footsteps comes from down the hall. Coming from around the corner, Vertan, Hilgo, Calian, Reja, Jyr and Inma are met with a larger group, the surviving members of a different platoon.

  “Finally!” one of their voices rings out.

  “Hey, good to see you guys!” Calian calls out.

  “We saw you earlier!” one of them says.

  “Really?”

  “You’ve been stuck going around in this loop for a while, we couldn’t catch you!”

  “Oh.”

  “Come on, we don’t know how much time we have left. We’re lucky to still be alive.”

  Obliging, they join the larger whole, and continue onto their new route towards the pillar. In a few moments, finally arriving through the penetrated door they saw at the beginning, the group looks up to see the technological behemoth that is the pillar. It both appeared to stretch through the high ceiling and far into the ground, deep into Thoma’s core.

  Some industrial lights are still turned on, but most of the light in fact emanates from within the pillar, a soft, burning glow of red-orange light. The megastructure is surprisingly quiet for its size, emitting only a light yet consistent hum, rather than the loud noises associated with typical machinery as one would expect. The walkways surrounding the pillar still appeared to be intact, giving them access to each of its sixteen anchors.

  All said, despite its gargantuan size, it in fact came nowhere close in comparison to the size of its corresponding gateway above locked in tidal orbit, though it was much longer and thinner, reaching beneath the earth.

  Another pulse ripples through the complex, stronger now that they are closer in proximity to the pillar.

  “Should it pulse like that?”

  “I don’t know how it works.”

  “From what I hear, it shouldn’t.”

  “We didn’t feel any pulse when we got here.”

  “Right, it only came up after the Abomination’s arrival, right?”

  “Everyone, break off into smaller groups. Secure the anchors. We can’t risk getting killed all at once clumped together.”

  “Got it.”

  “Aye.”

  Breaking off into groups of four, with two groups left over including five individuals, Vertan, Hilgo, Calian and Reja are once again together as the thus-far remaining members of the Fifth Squad.

  Moving over to one of the pillar’s massive anchors, they find the mammoth machine to have been previously tampered with, though this didn’t apply to all anchors. As communicated through comms, they found that approximately eleven out of the sixteen anchors have thus far been tampered with.

  Inspecting them, they were all met with a curiously peculiar circumstance. Tampering may be an understatement. It looked to be meticulous work that deliberately reverse-engineered every single detail and aspect of their systems. Compared to the brutal and barbaric deaths they had suffered outside, everything that had occurred in here had happened with an impossibly surgical amount of precision. Too precise.

  A sinister aura fills the air.

  Looking around at the mostly intact pillar compared to the rest of Base Seven, they began to wonder. Why didn’t the Abomination simply blow them all up to orbit? Instead, they are presented with exactly what was previously theorized: a deliberate sabotage of their own systems, tricking it to destroy itself akin to an auto-immune disease.

  As an added layer, every Base and its corresponding gateways, pillars, and then said pillar’s anchors are all constructed uniquely. Everyone looked on, baffled at what could have possibly gotten so far in this progress in such a short amount of time. The possibility of an intelligent force began to be discussed through the groups.

  An entity is spotted watching them.