She woke with a start, blinking away her sleepiness within a second. Sleeping on the job was never recommended, but what were they going to do about it? Ice her?
A voice rang out in her ear-piece, rattling on about something that she couldn’t hear. Sighing, she plugged the small device in, turning up the volume slightly.
“-eat. Security Officer Spark, come in,” A voice Spark knew well. Turner seemed pissed and scared.
“I copy you Turner. What’s up?” The security officer asked politely. In her mind she just wanted this over with so she could go back to sleep. This probably was just a routine check-in.
“What the hell have you been doing in the docking bay?” He yelled at her through her earpiece. Spark smiled. She could imagine what her senior officer’s face looked like at the moment. Eye’s narrowed, teeth showing, and the glare of death just trained on the poor object in front of her.
“Uh, I don’t know. My job? I’m making sure none of the colony rebels actually get on board the Marathon.” Spark smiled. ‘Here comes the heavy breathing when she’s trying not to break anything.’
She was right, of course. Slow, restrained breathing came over the communication link. Turner spoke slowly to Spark, trying to show the seriousness of the situation.
‘Is he actually trying not to yell? Must be really serious.’
“Spark, why don’t you go find a terminal screen, and then tell me what’s wrong,” Turner said, his voice making it an order.
“Okay. I have one right here actually.” She replied, walking slowly over to the terminal screen. Glancing up at it, she swiped the dark screen, bringing it to life. What she saw scared her.
Marathon Emergency Systems Broadcast
Today at 0820 hours, the Marathon came under surprise attack
from unknown hostile forces. The Marathon has sustained
serious damage.
At 0830 hours, alien forces boarded the Marathon. The current
situation is dire. All personnel are required to arm
themselves and fight for their lives.
Spark saw the posted notice and immediately went from a screw-off cadet to a fully trained officer. The difference was visibly noticeable.
Turning around, she dropped her empty clip, shoving another one in with her spare hand. The fully suited officer spoke into her mic as she worked at her weapon, making sure it was in working order.
“Sir, what’s the current situation up there? Everything’s quiet down here.”
“Well of course everything is quiet down there! These damn aliens are all up here, trying to take down engineering. We’ve got every personnel available barricading the doors to the main engine. Everyone on the security team is currently trying to break into the heavy artillery cabinets.” Tucker said, sounds of heavy machinery being dragged and straining metal backing up his words.
“Breaking into? Are the AI’s down?” Spark asked, alarmed. The AI’s controlled nearly every function on the ship. They controlled the airlocks, the life support, and the communication channels. If they were down, the entire ship with thoroughly screwed.
“We’ve lost contact with Durandel, which means that elevators and doors are out all over the ship. We assume that Tycho was completely destroyed in the first wave of aliens. They don’t care what they’re shooting at, they just seem to want destruction.”
“Tucker, do we have prelim reports?” Spark asked, knowing that she was dangerously out of line.
Tucker ignored the fact. Being the best did have it’s benefits.
“There appears to be three classes of aliens so far. Two of them are bipedal. The first appear to have a weapon that you can disarm them of. This ‘shock staff’ is capable of shooting a ball of plasma energy at high speeds. Easily killed.The other appears to have armour, and a shoulder cannon. Detonates if killed though explosion or electricity. We’ve gotten no data on the third type, but Leela says that they’re attacking her cybernetically.”
“Casualties?”
“High. We’ve lost almost all of the upper decks, with survivors scattered everywhere except Deck A and B. Those we lost to explosive decompression. From what Leela can gather we’re losing ten people every thirty seconds. The colony’s not doing much better. They’re being subjected to orbital bombardment.”
“Shit. I’m on my way to engineering now. ETA, fifteen minutes.” Spark said, bringing up her helmet’s HUD. Nothing on the movement.
“Negative. Leela says she’s got a special job for you. We’re going to hold out here until we can get those TOTZ and SPNKR’s out. We’ve got about seven hours worth of oxygen in here. Radio silence is in effect until absolutely necessary.”
“Yes sir. I’ll come by and give support after I’m done.”
“Do it, and do it well. Tucker, signing off.”
“Aye sir. Spark, signing off.”
Finished with her weapon check, she turns to the terminal, waiting. Spark didn’t have to wait long until she heard the familiar ting of the page changing.
Aliens are attacking my cybernet. I cannot be certain of this map’s accuracy.
The page pinged over, this page showing a map with a room circled.
Go here. It is the main vent core for the engine. It is going to be the only way that you can approach the aliens without alerting them. They are in the control center of the main populace center. They must not be allowed to continue exploring its controls. If they vent the area, over a thousand civilains will be vented to deep space.
Another ping, the text changing and the map disappearing.
You must stop them. Someone important is among them, and while he may have an oxygen tank, he will be pulled away by the rush of air.
One last ping, this time to a page with only two words on it.
Don’t fail.
“Okay Leela. Let’s get this done. I could jump down a twenty foot ventilation shaft, sure.” Spark said. She wasn’t sure if the computer could hear her, but it made her feel better to whine.
This was a death mission, and she knew it.
<<000>>
“Damn. I knew that the corridors of the below decks could get mixed up, but this is crazy!” Spark said, nearly throwing her hands up in frustration. According to her automap, the place she was standing was already taken up by another corridor.
“Damn five-d space.” The disgruntled officer whined.
Spark had heard the the warp engines could do weird stuff to the layout of the ship, things that weren’t expected whenever the moon of Demeos was converted into a colony ship, but the crew had learned to live with it.
She shrugged. Being part of the upper security team, she never had any reason to come down to the maintenance shafts. Spark saw the wisdom in her choice. The whole floor plan of this deck made no sense! Over-ride switches to operate doors literally in the room they unlocked, platforms you needed to be on top of to operate when the top was just a room, hell, there were even switches over lava!
“Somebody needs to get fired.”
Walking soundlessly through the hallways, she kept her gun drawn and ready. Spark had yet to see the aliens that were causing chaos throughout the ship.
But even if she hadn’t seen the aliens, she had seen the destruction. Crew members, civilians, even friends just... slaughtered. Their bodies just left to rot.
In her career on the Marathon, she had never dealt with death.
It made her sick. Why did these aliens show up, if only just to murder innocent people? It sounded like a bad video game plot. What did they get out of-
Spark’s thinking was cut off by her HUD lighting up red. Flicking her eyes, she brought up the alert.
A teleportation signal had been detected nearby. It didn’t match any of the Marathon’s teleporter wavelengths. Which meant...
“Those teleporting bastards.” Spark said angrily. “Come aboard my ship and kill my friends.” She left the sentence hang. There was no one around to hear her, so why bother.
She cocked her pistol. Besides, she had work to do.
<<000>>
“Urg. Damn Wr’kanter.” Said the pony, struggling to his hooves. “I admit that using our own spell energy against us was genius, but why the hell did he have to aim it at me?”
‘Well, it is a creature of chaos. Nothing it does is going to make sense.’
“Where the hell am I, anyway? This is definitely not the station in orbit around the star, but it looks like an early-era type ship.”
Trotting along the deserted corridor, he opens a door, peering inside.
“Ah-ha! Terminal! Let’s see what ship I’m on, and how far I am from home.”
Swiping at it with his magic, he brings up the data screen.
“Let’s see. We’re in orbit around the once-colony planet of Teu Ceti. Freak. That’s halfway across the frigging galaxy.”
He stopped to think for a moment. The screen showed the colony as still there. Maybe the concussive blast had temporarily reset the computers to a random date in its database.
“Computer.” The dark green unicorn said. “System reset, connect to the intra-space wave-length.” She finished her command, waiting for the beep the acknowledged her request.
It didn’t come.
“Computer, status report.”
Nothing.
“Okay. Either the voice system is out, or I’m just really lucky at getting stuck on a ship without proper upgrades. I guess we’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way.” He said, pulling out a small keyboard underneath the terminal.
He never got the chance to put in his commands, as just then the door behind him opened. Turning around, he sighed in relief.
“Spark, you got blasted too? Glad I’m not the only one aboard this ship then.” He stopped, glancing at Spark’s pistol. “Woah. What’s with the gun? We won, didn’t we?”
Spark just glanced at the unicorn and yelled. A guttural yell, one meant to intimidate. Cocking the pistol, he aimed it at the unicorn.
“Spark?” The unicorn asked as he stepped back. He didn’t get a chance to ask more, as Spark opened fire on him.
“Shit!” He yelled as he threw up his protective shield. “Spark, don’t you remember me? Blast?” He screamed at her over the gunshot.
The shots kept coming. Blast concentrated and teleported behind the human, pushing her inside the small room. Before she had a chance to recover, Blast slammed a hoof down on the switch that closed the door.
His mind was racing. What could have made his partner act like this? It was if they had never... met...
“Damn it. If I am where I think I am...” Blast said, glancing at the decal on the door. “Then we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”
Bringing up his HUD, he reset the date to the start of the Marathon invasion.
“Okay. I’ve have a human that doesn’t know me, a pistol and three clips, and I’m stuck on the first ship to be graced by the Pfhor presence. Why do I always end up with these odds?”
Spark immediately turned towards the terminal, planning to send a sit-rep down to Leela. Leela didn’t have any camera’s down here, as Durandal was the one that ran Marathon’s “downstairs”.
“Oh, shit.”
The only terminal in the room, which appeared to be a small armoury, was riddled with bullet holes. Useless to her. A quick glance at a corner in her HUD confirmed her other worry. She had just used up almost all of her bullets for her pistol. Five shots left, and a ship full of aliens to shoot.
“Why the hell did we decide to give the AIs control of the entire ship? Especially if they can go down just like that!” She yelled to the air, smacking her gloved hand against the crate that stocked the M75b clips. “Hey! Durandal, if you can hear me, and you’re still online can you open these weapons crates?”
Nothing. Not that Spark had expected anything else, but still, she hoped. She only had one choice.
Activating her radio, she sighed. She was going to get in trouble for this. Taking a breath, she mentally composed herself for what she was going to have to say to her commanding officer. “...-”
click
Immediately the pistol was drawn and she ducked down slightly. Spark’s eyes searched over the small room. Nothing. Something had changed though. Something subtle, something that even the most astute person could miss. Spark barely saw it before dismissing it as nothing.
The weapons crate was open.
<<000>>
“Spark! We gotta talk about this! I am not your enemy!” Blast shouted through the door. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to tell her, but he’d BS’d his way through worse situations than this one. He just wasn’t sure where this situation ranked on the panic scale.
Noticing that he hadn’t gotten an answer from the trapped human, he tried again. “Spark, please just listen to me. I know you don’t trust me, but you need to, just for a little bit.”
Nothing.
“Come on Spark! I don’t have time to explain, but we need to hurry! We’re going to have those aliens on our asses if we don’t leave, like right now!” Glancing at his motion tracker showed that there indeed was a patrol of pfhor on their way. If he remembered correctly, at this point it shouldn’t be too hard. The hunters weren’t sent in until later in the invasion
Nothing.
“Dammit Spark! I will explain everything to you later!” Blast yelled, smacking the door with a resounding metallic sound resonating throughout the empty hallways
A click.
“Damn right you will.” Blast cursed under his breath as he felt a very familiar cold tube against the side of head.
“How’d you get out?”
Spark sighed. Of course the strange creature would wonder about that instead of his predicament.
<<000>>
“Durandal, if that was you, I’m sorry for all the crappy things I said about the AI systems.” Spark said, sighing in relief. She walked over to the ammo crates, checking the containers that were open. Out of the ten crates in the room, three of them were open. One held a second pistol and about ten clips. She grabbed the pistol and slid it into a holster that was built into her security suit. She did the same with her other pistol.
Spark laughed at what was in the next crate. Is was an old M-75b assault rifle. These things hadn’t been used in about twenty years. It’s amazing that this one was in perfect order. Picking it up, she juggled it around in her hands, testing its weight. She gave it look over. The seemingly perfect gun had only one flaw. It was stuck on full auto, meaning that instead of a mid-range gun like she had hoped for, she had only a full auto gun. Good for crowd control, of not much else. An interesting feature this one is that it seemed to have a grenade launcher built into it. Well, welded onto it. Shrugging, Spark slipped as many clips as she could carry into her ammo belt. Throwing the gun’s carrying strap over her head, she slid it out of her way. Stepping lightly towards the third and final crate, she opened it and sighed. It wasn’t more ammo, like she had hoped, but it was something. A helmet that would automatically seal in the event of a decompression. It was something, at least. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it might protect her from a blow to the head.
*bing*
Sparks head whipped around again, this time her hands finding the stock and the trigger of the assault rifle automatically.
A door was open. A door where there clearly hadn’t been one earlier. According to her automap it was the room directly next to the one she was in now. One that should have an open door.
“Thank you mysterious benefactor! Next time we meet, remind me to do something nice for you. If, you know, we aren’t in the middle of a life-or-death situation.”
<<000>>
Spark shook her head slightly to clear it. “It doesn’t matter how the hell I got out. What I am more concerned with is why the hell a damn... unicorn know who the hell I am!”
“Spark, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this...” Blast started, only to stop as he felt the gun press into his skin harder.
“Skip the bull-shit, and just tell me.” Spark demanded, her head hidden from view by the helmet. It actually made her more intimidating than without it.
“Um... Would you believe that I’m on your side and that I’m from the future? Sent back by a creature that we’re going to defeat?” Blast tried, hoping. He didn’t have much hope though, because he knew Spark.
To his surprise though, Spark started laughing, pulled the gun away from Blast’s head. It was still aimed at him, so it wasn’t much of an improvement.
“Sure. Why the hell not. Stranger things have happened today. But there is still the problem is that the Marathon is currently having an alien attack. And by any days standards, a unicorn is pretty much up there with alien. How do I know that you aren’t part of the alien forces?” Spark said, ending up with a sarcastic spin in her voice as the laughing stopped.
“Because of this!” Blast shouted at her. Using his magic, he pushed her into the ground, grabbing a pistol off of her belt. Spark rolled over, and then felt the heat of a plasma blast go through the space that her body had been moments before.
“Fuck!” Standing and jumping into a different hallway, she pulled the assault rifle up. Blast had already opened fire on the aliens, alternating pistols to reduce time in between shots.
While the ...pfhor’s(?) attention on the strange newcomer, Spark risked a glance at her enemy. Bipedal, they looked insect like. Three eyes, arranged in a triangle with the point on the bottom. What looked like breathing tubes ran from their back to their faces.
Spark watched as they fell, subcumming to the rain of pistol bullets. It eventually stopped as the strange creature dropped both of its clips and slammed two fresh clips in at the same time, the other aliens dead on the ground.
“Believe me now?”
Spark jumped at the unexpected voice. Berating herself mentally, she turned towards the source of it, keeping her fingers on the trigger, but the weapon itself lowered and safety on. Her mind took a moment to process its question.
“I’ll trust you not to shoot me in the back, but as far as that...” She left the statement hanging, letting the strange little unicorn finish it in his head.
Blast sighed. He had known it was going to be hard to get Spark to trust him. Even though she knew that his Spark was in the future, it still hurt to not be known by his friend. He stuck out a hoof to Spark.
“I’m Blast. Heavy hitter, sniper, or infiltration specialist. In other words; Special Ops.”
“Oh yeah? No kidding. So, ‘Blast’, you’ve clearly had training. What army? You another alien, or part of a secret project by the egg-heads down below.”
“Uh, a little bit of both? I... technically shouldn’t be in this universe. The warp engines went off during a cool down period, and I sorta got... sucked into this one. Heard that the guy that started the blast got sucked into mine.”
Spark whistled. “Okay then. Walk and talk.”
Motioning forward with her AR, she swung it off to the side and pulled out her trusty magnum. Blast got the hint and started walking.
“So, different reality. If it weren’t for some of the fucked up shit I’ve seen today I wouldn’t have believed you.” Spark said without a hint of sarcasm.
“Tell me about it. I thought I had gotten lucky and gotten here after the Marathon invasion. The universe has just told me otherwise.” Blast said, unsure about whether or not be relieved that she was taking this so well, or to be worried.
“Take the left up here.”
The strange duo walked in silence for a while. Each had a lot to think about, but it was more out of respect for the massacre that they were witness to every time that they turned the corner, took an elevator if it worked, and every time they opened a room.
Blast broke the silence after about fifteen minutes. “Hey, thanks for, you know, not shooting my brains out back there.”
Spark gave a short laugh. “Well, in my defense, I did try. And I still don’t quite trust you. Nice trick with the shield, by the way.”
“Thanks. I was taught it by... a close friend.”
“Think you could modify it and put a form if it on my suit? It’s got a red bar max limiter, to keep people from doing stupid stuff outside of the ship.”
“Actually, I could, but we’d need tools to modify the plug-in from a standard ship-wide plug to accept my magic.”
“Uh, the plug that says do not modify?”
“That’s the one!” Blast said brightly.
Spark sighed and checked the map again. Then looked at the corridor. Then the map.
“Dammit. There should be a door here.”
Blast sighed as deeply as Spark had, if not deeper.
“Not again. I dealt with this shit with Discord.”
