“Nah, he’s perfectly cuddle sized!” I said, giving the shorter Curt a back-hug. He just glanced at me without moving from his spot, the beginnings of a smirk starting to tug at his lips, not dignifying that comment with a response, but still enjoying the contact. Still, he didn’t stop making sure to keep a wary eye on our friends at all times, which slightly annoyed me, as it showed that tensions wouldn’t be so easy to defuse.
I wish Chloe could be here, she would know how to get us all on the same side… Speaking of…
“Hey, where is Chloe anyway? Did one of you already move her to the ship?” I softly asked the two people who might know, but the one to answer was Fae.
“That one… Alice,” She quickly corrected before continuing. “Grabbed her before we could get her and took her away somewhere.” There was more than just a hint of venom in her tone, but given the fight I’d just broken up and what I knew about our… ‘condition’, I couldn’t exactly blame her, so I instead let it slide and turned to the sullen biologist, dragging Curt by the hand with me as I went. This caused Mike to take several steps back and around us to join Fae and Alex’s side.
“Hey.” I spoke softly. “Are you okay?” I asked her. It was clear to see that she was not, but it was still important to ask. As if to illustrate my concerns, she slowly nodded in the affirmative, a bare-faced lie that meant she didn’t want to address what was bothering her at the moment.
“Think you can go fetch the captain for me?” I asked her, and she slowly got up and moved towards a ladder set on one of the walls, which she climbed and moved out of sight.
It didn’t take a genius to see she was hurt, more emotionally than physically, or to see why that could be. More than Curt or myself, she had been looking forward to reuniting with the other half of our squad, particularly with the man she loved, and when we finally did, he shot her in the face with no hint of hesitation. Even if I could see what could be causing her tumultuous thoughts, I couldn’t fathom what could actually be going on in her head without her telling me and it seemed she wasn’t willing to do that at the moment, so I settled for giving her an easy task that might hopefully distract her.
I almost immediately wanted to punch myself as the ‘easy task’ I’d given her had been the grisly one of retrieving the corpse of our beloved leader and years-long friend. I sighed. There wasn’t really much of a choice in the matter. Neither Curt nor I knew where she’d been placed and I simply had to stay here or risk another fight breaking out.
Being the voice of reason is exhausting.
“So, what… happened to Chloe?” Fae asked hesitantly, testing each word as she said them. “She looked unconscious, and she didn’t even twitch as she was pulled away.”
Those simple, inquisitive words were each like knives through my gut as I was forced to recall the events that had taken place only a few hours ago.
“She’s gone.” I said in a voice I could hardly hear myself.
“Bullshit.” Fae spat, evidently having heard me just fine. It looked like she wanted to say more, but stopped herself when she noticed a returning Alice, the limp body of our captain in her arms. “How?” She asked instead, only moving closer once Alice had approached enough that Fae didn’t have to leave Alex’s side to get a closer look.
“We were spaced, all four of us. Apparently we could survive that, but her EVA helmet had been damaged at some point so it failed to deploy and… yeah.” I told her an abridged version of recent events, my voice beginning to shake near the end as tears formed in my eyes.
“And where were you during all… this?” Fae said, loosely encompassing the six of us gathered here with a gesture and only lifting her gaze from her inspection of our deceased captain to linger for a second on the newly one-armed Alex.
I was a bit confused at her non-sequitur, but I was still grateful to be able to talk about literally anything else, so I answered honestly.
“I was… undoing the exterior clamps. We were planning to disconnect this thing and ride it to the mothership.”
“Right, there would be those…” Fae muttered, talking to herself in a low voice not really meant for anyone else’s ears, as she continued her inspection. Her fingers came to rest on a shard of broken glass on the collar of Chloe’s suit, which easily came apart at her touch. She sighed, and turned her around, only to frown. “Where’s her memory chip?” She asked somewhat harshly.
“Wha… oh. I have it here.” I told her, producing the small storage device containing a log of the captain’s last memories.
“May I?” She asked, and I handed it to her, who then walked up to Alex.
“Hey big man.” She spoke softly to Alex, who was lying belly up on the floor, groaning and grabbing at the remains of his metallic arm.
“Be honest with me doc, how bad is it?” He asked through gritted teeth. Whatever strange sensation was coming through the wreck of his arm, it didn’t look pleasant.
“Gonna have to amputate for now.” She told him, a forced but still reassuring smile on her face.
“Fuck, I’d hoped I’d never have to hear those words again.” He said in between groans. “Proceed.” He told her eventually, and she did. She lifted a few panels, pressed a few buttons, connected a few wires that had come loose, and with a hiss and a heavy impact on the ground despite the short distance of the fall, the arm came loose at the shoulder, Alex’s hiss of pain echoing the arm’s hiss of machinery struggling to work as intended.
“How’re you feeling?” She asked him once he’d recovered enough to sit up.
“Better. Less pain, but also…” He paused to wiggle the steel capped stump at his left shoulder. If there was still a limb attached to it, it might have moved, but what little remained of it was currently lying discarded beside him. “So much worse.” He finished as his stump stilled.
Fae patted the base of his stump softly, where steel met flesh, before moving towards the discarded arm. She inserted the memory chip somewhere I couldn’t see, and the glare of a screen lit up her face. I could see her reading something, her face twisting in shock and disgust as her eyes darted from left to right and back again, before she forced herself to pull her eyes away. The glare of the screen disappeared, and she held the small memory chip in her fist again.
“FUCK!” She yelled suddenly, kicking the arm at her feet a couple meters away and causing all of us to flinch. It was lucky I still held Curt’s hand in mine or I didn’t know what kind of reaction he might have to that outburst.
“Okay…” Fae spoke, visibly relaxing by taking large, deep breaths of the stale air in this chamber. “Let’s say I believe you now. I almost wish I didn’t, but I do.” She spoke with a barely hidden anger behind her words that she didn’t know where to direct. “What’s the plan now?”
“I- Same as before, I guess? We ride this shuttle to our mothership and use that to go home. I don’t know what the people here might have done to the controls, so maybe you can help me figure it out?” I spoke unsurely under the intense stares of everyone around me. Fae sighed and nodded, beginning to move towards the shuttle, but stopped herself suddenly.
“Before that, out of curiosity, where were you keeping this thing?” She asked, brandishing the memory chip between her fingers.
“In my pocket, obviously.” I told her, not knowing why she was asking.
“What, in a prison wallet?” She asked, a faint smile tugging at her lips, the first I’d seen on the normally energetic woman since being reunited.
“No. Why would you even say that?” I asked her, and her response was immediate.
“You’re not wearing anything Sarah, much less anything with pockets.” She said, her brief amusement disappearing from her face.
“Huh.” I said, her point landing with only a little resistance. The Guardians had torn all our equipment away before doing what they did to us, but so far as I could tell it had all rematerialized when we suddenly went back to looking like ourselves. It had felt like something so minor that I hadn’t thought to question it, but knowing what I did about things not looking like they were, it just begged the question. “How did I do that?” I asked myself out loud.
“Show me?” Fae asked, handing me the memory chip, which I pocketed once again, causing her to wince, for some reason.
“Well, what did it look like?” I asked her, but she could only answer through a few gasps and retches.
“Oh, I really wish I hadn't. You uh… held it under a tentacle… and the bug legs carried it… to the base and uegh-” She had to stop herself as she started dry heaving at the thought of whatever it was she’d seen. It was lucky nothing actually came out of her mouth or our boarding of the shuttle might have been delayed even more.
“Rude.” I told her.
…
“Looks like we just need to make sure the tanks are filled up, and then we can go.” I told Fae who was working beside me, a frustrated frown on her face. We were both standing in the control center of the shuttle, the space littered with buttons, lights and doo-dads that were needed to control a spaceship.
Apparently, the locals had gone out of their way to make this shuttle as close to idiot-proof as they could, with multiple helpful annotations, stickers, and even a full-blown manual that I found lying around that outlined the steps one should follow before operating the vessel. Granted, everything the locals had done assumed one would only use the shuttle as an engine for the giant tree, so it wasn’t directly useful to us, but it was still nice to have and made my job easier. The same could not be said for Fae.
Stolen story; please report.
“How do you know that? Where are we even supposed to find fuel for the tanks in this frickin’ tree?!” She complained, throwing her hands up from where she sat in the copilot’s seat.
“What do you mean? They’re clearly labeled.” I told her, pointing through the clear glass of the cockpit at the external fuel tanks that I’d just set the shuttle to drain from. The words ‘ROCKET FUEL’ were written in bold letters at their side while a small notch on the side of the tank indicated the volume of fuel left in it. No matter how powerful or how many were used, a shuttle like this wouldn’t be able to move such a colossal structure as this space tree for long, so the existence of external fuel tanks to extend its range was a given. We would be using those external tanks to refill the internal ones before absconding with a fully fueled shuttle with more than enough range to get us to our mothership in only a few hours at most.
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean’? Everything’s covered in gunk and… ugh.” She didn’t manage to finish her sentence before being grossed out, her hands pulling away from the controls she’d been working on.
“Well, regardless, now we just need to wait for a few minutes, and then we can get Mike to fly us home.” I told her, settling down on another seat beside her. If she had something to say about what I'd just said, she made no comment on it.
The silence stretched on between us and the mood was… awkward, to put it mildly. Eventually, Fae seemed to gather her resolve to speak.
“Hey, so. I don’t know if now is the best time, but will you tell-” She started, but was interrupted by Curt stepping into the bridge of the shuttle.
“Hey, I just wanted to check up on you two… things are getting weird back there.” He said, pointing behind himself where the rest of our squad had been told to wait while we prepared the shuttle to leave. As if summoned by his words, Alex stepped through the sliding door behind him, his posture tense.
“Don’t mind me, just making sure nothing surprising happens.” He told us, though his words and glare were clearly directed at Curt, who wouldn’t be able to even hear his words being spoken and was the last person that should be antagonized if the point was to ensure nothing happened, though I guessed he might not know that with how hectic everything’s been.
“Are we going to have a problem?” Curt asked, the first hint of anger lacing his words as he turned to Alex, who tensed and started to bring his remaining arm up, sensing trouble.
Oblivious to all this, Mike popped his head through the door, moving around Alex, a lack of confidence visible in his body language. “Hey, uhm… Are we uh… ready to go, or…?” He asked hesitantly, but I promptly ignored him in favor of defusing the situation with the other two.
“Everything’s fine!” I told them, both a statement and a command. As much as I worried, I couldn’t actually be mad at them. Alex was just worried to suddenly be working with the aliens that had started this whole clusterfuck of events, not to mention leaving Fae alone with one of them, while Curt was still being haunted by his twisted view of the world, unable to even speak or be spoken to by our squad members who would unnerve him with their mere presence even if they were to do everything in their power to avoid it.
Not being able to hear Curt’s question, Mike piped up happily with “Oh good! Let’s get out of here, then.” And I could get mad at that.
Again with this shit?
“No! We’re still a few minutes off from being refueled, you all keep it civil, and everyone who’s not needed here, kindly fuck off!” I exploded, hoping that would be enough to stop them, and it looked like it was, as they all slowly filed out one by one. Fae, bless her, didn’t decide to interrupt. Only having been able to hear half of the words being spoken, I didn’t imagine she could have helped.
I thought that would be it, but just as I relaxed with a sigh, I heard an impact coming from the corridor that led away from the bridge. Rushing towards it, I was met with the sight of Curt having pinned Alex to a wall of the shuttle, one hand on his collar and the other on his one remaining arm. The sight of the loveable pipsqueak overpowering the much larger man like that would have been comical in any other situation, but right now, I needed to get everyone to calm down so I could put an end to this as soon as possible.
“Hey, relax! Everything is fine…” I quickly moved behind Curt and wrapped him in a hug, speaking softly into his ear in a way that I hoped would sound reassuring. This did get Curt to steady his breathing and visibly calm down, but Alex, apparently, was having none of it.
“Like fuck it is!” He yelled as he lifted both of his legs from where he was held up against the wall and used them to push Curt away, collapsing to the floor but releasing himself and sending Curt and I to smash against the opposite wall.
It looked like all attempts at diplomacy had failed, both men rising and sizing each other up but, surprisingly, it was Fae who interjected this time, literally placing herself between them. In a panic, Alex quickly tried to grab her and pull her away but, down an arm and with her much smaller size, she easily ducked under and out of his grip.
“For fuck’s sake, can we not leave you alone for even a second?!” She chastised the two muscle-heads. Not one to let them off easy, she even doubled down. “Well? I asked you a question!”
“That thing started it!” Alex complained, but was immediately shut down.
“I don’t give a shit who started it! We’re gonna be seeing a lot of each other in the coming days so you will behave!” She finished, leaving no room for argument. Even Curt, who couldn’t have even heard her words, seemed to have been cowed by her, following meekly after Alex as they both left to the sitting space in the back of the shuttle. I was almost surprised Fae had managed that, but then again, nature hath no fury like a pissed off mechanic surrounded by technology.
As the boys slowly made their way to the back of the ship, Fae and I moved back to the bridge, where I promptly threw myself at the pilot’s seat, which spun around a little under my weight.
“Hasn’t been easy for you, has it?” Fae asked, taking a seat next to mine.
“No.” I told her tiredly.
“Wanna talk about it?”
I sighed. “...Yeah.”
I sat numbly on one of the seats that lined the outer walls on the back of the shuttle, trying to process the events of the last few hours, yet unable to form much of any coherent thoughts.
Beside me to my left, sat Alex, his glare never wavering, and in front of me sat… two aliens, the source of all our problems, one giant that could easily match Alex’s stature with two tentacles coming out of its back, and a smaller, more lithe one with six tentacles that were constantly feeling up and down the walls.
Apparently, these were supposed to be our missing friends, that we had lost contact with when this nightmare truly began, but I had trouble believing that. Not because it seemed impossible, the events of what I had thought had been nothing more than a traumatic dream for the sake of my sanity rushing to the forefront of my mind, but because…
I was distracted from my thoughts by the smaller alien suddenly noticing my stare. It met my eyes and then…
There it is. That smile that drives a dagger into my heart while twisting my guts into a noose.
The creature’s smile was a horrifying thing, its beady black eyes just barely catching a glint of the light and doing nothing to distract from its countless needle-like teeth.
And yet, It was not the first time I’d seen something like it. In fact, there had been a time when I would have done anything in my power just to see it one more time. I still would, to be honest. In a heartbeat with no hesitation. And yet...
Alice…
No matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn't reconcile the image in my head of the woman I loved with that of the creature before me, the resemblance somehow uncannily apparent yet distinctly non-existant between moments, as though she were the creation of the most deranged abstract artist told to draw an image of a person while losing their mind.
To top it all off, I couldn’t tell what felt worse at the moment. Having even the faintest idea of what she’d had to live through, or that I almost wish she hadn’t…
I felt a pang of physical pain in my chest as the self loathing built up from those thoughts I couldn’t believe were going through my head. Deeply ashamed of myself, I used that shock to lift me out of the stupor I’d fallen into, and went to stand up, only to be stopped by Alex’s arm in my face.
Looking up, I saw that he’d stood up before I could and had placed his arm protectively to stop me from doing the same. Meanwhile, on the other side…
The larger creature had fully stood up from its seat, one arm extended in what looked like an aborted lunging motion, while the other, smaller one, had perched itself on the outstretched arm, claws and tentacle spikes digging into the flesh and drawing dark green ichor that dripped onto the floor, fangs exposed threateningly to both Alex and myself.
After an awkward moment that seemed to stretch on forever, the large creature sat back down, the smaller one climbing off its arm to take back its original seat, followed shortly after by Alex sitting down at my side again.
Not a word was spoken before or during that little confrontation and it didn’t look like that would change, so I was once again left alone with my thoughts.
Thoughts I didn’t want to face out of fear that there might be some truth behind them…
I sat numbly on one of the seats that lined the outer walls on the back of the shuttle, a thousand thoughts going through my head, and yet they all converged on one simple question.
What will happen now?
The captain had, in a way, kept her promise of reuniting us with our squad and getting us a ticket home, and yet with her lying in a frozen coffin only just far enough away to be out of sight, I couldn’t exactly be happy about it, and not just because of the crushing pain of losing her, but also because of our current situation.
I sat with Curt to my right, and up ahead, were two Guardians. Of course, I knew better than to trust their appearance, these were our friends no matter how grotesque they might look. Fae was supposed to still be on the bridge, so the smaller one of the two should be…
Mike.
My thoughts kept on circling back to what to do next. If I knew him, he would likely freak out if I tried to approach him so I stopped myself from doing that, my twisted appearance hidden to my eyes under a veneer of normalcy, a burden I was reminded of every time I glanced at the pair sat opposite us.
It was as I was going back and forth in circles inside my own head, thinking about what I should do next, that our eyes met. His expression was unreadable, due to his monstrous appearance, but his body language looked tense, so I shot him what I hoped would come off as a reassuring smile.
He instantly averted his eyes to look down towards his lap.
I sighed. This would be so much easier if we could just talk, but tensions were high aboard the shuttle and I couldn’t risk adding fuel to the fire.
As if reading my thoughts, Mike started to rise from his seat. It looked like he would get up to approach us, but he wasn’t the only one.
I had to grab Curt’s arm as he quickly stood protectively between us.
“Don’t… Please.” I told him softly, the words a struggle to even form under the intense weight of emotions clouding my eyes.
Curt looked across from us for a second, to where Alex had mimicked his action, before turning to me. “Alright.” He said softly, allowing himself to be pulled back down to his seat. Alex then followed suit, and like that, we were back where we’d started.
I thought of getting up next, much like Mike had earlier, but I couldn’t trust myself not to act in a way I wouldn’t want to, the fact that I couldn’t even see myself the way I was boding poorly for any attempt to turn my appearance into something non-threatening.
I’m the problem here. I thought ruefully, painfully aware that despite all appearances, he was the normal human while I’d been turned into something else. As for what to do next, I didn’t know.
I just didn’t know.
Chapter 15: Homebound
