Gord Zajac - Major Karnage

An assault of tiny needle-like white lights rained down the walls on the glowing green door. The green lights lashed out in angry flaming tentacles, knocking away the light. The persistent rain of white whittled away at the green, knocking back its defences. The green and white roiled and boiled around the door until the white overtook the green just enough that the door slowly opened a few inches. As the glow slowly changed from dark green to paler and paler shades, the door spiralled open just enough for Sydney to push Karnage through the gap. She scrambled through after him before the door slammed shut behind her.

A tiny spot of white light appeared on the floor in front of her and lurched forward. She heaved Karnage back onto her shoulder and ran after it. A shot of green blasted across the floor and obliterated the white, leaving Sydney stranded in the darkness. Another sliver of white careened towards her from the distance. She started running toward it, but another blast of green obliterated it before she got there. Behind her, green lights were attacking the cracked door frame. The door’s spiral panels shook and shuddered as they tried to open. The worm on the other side was beating against the door, the cracks on its surface growing larger and larger.

White light coiled down the wall. Sydney followed it as fast as she could, Karnage’s limp bulk weighing her down. The light gathered around another door farther along, and it spiralled open. There was a loud crash behind her. Sydney turned around. Bits of door exploded into the room. An angry torrent of green light flowed up from the door and flared across the wall towards her.

She raced for the glowing white door ahead of her. She could practically feel the heat of the green light behind her as it collected and flared, making everything before her glow green. Her shadow on the floor grew longer and longer as the light flickered and flamed up. There was a loud smash and scattering of debris as a horned worm screeched behind her. Sydney didn’t look. She stayed focused on the door. Licks of green light shot ahead of her and attacked the white ring. The fingers of white slapped back at the green. The green lashes swooped down and seemed to devour the white. The light around the door grew dimmer. Sydney dove through the door just as the green light consumed it, and the door’s blades spiralled closed behind her.

Sydney dropped Karnage like a dead weight, panting. The room was dark. Angry tentacles of green light lashed at her feet. She desperately searched for any glimmer of white.

A dull grey sphere pulsed high above her in the middle of the room. As she ran towards it, the sphere slowly lowered down to the floor. It was larger than her, its innards oblong and mechanical. She saw a giant nozzle press against its side. She recognized it instantly, and grinned from ear to ear.

It was the barrel of a Sudsy tanker.

She pulled out her stun stick and smashed an opening in the sphere’s surface. She crawled through, coughing in the thick yellow haze as she pulled Karnage through after her. Mist poured out of the sphere, and she could see the Sudsy tanker in detail. Sydney opened the tanker’s hatch and dragged Karnage inside. She locked the hatch behind her.

“Lucky for you I got my start on the force in riot control.” She strapped the unconscious Karnage into the co-pilot seat. “Might not be quite as good as, say, a plasma cannon, but it’s a good start, right?” She lifted Karnage’s inert face and gently slapped his cheek. “Now you just sit back and enjoy the ride, okay, mate?”

She strapped herself into her seat and flicked on the console. It hummed to life, the controls vibrating under her fingers. She was thrilled to see the tanker’s Sudsy vats were full. She put the machine into gear and crashed it through the remnants of the sphere. She swung it around so it faced the glowing green door. The door spiralled open, revealing the angry sawtooth maw of the horned worm.

Sydney took a breath. “Right, here we go.”

The worm shot forward, and Sydney hit the guns. Sudsy sprayed across the floor. She backed the tanker up out of the path of the worm. The worm tried to bank, but its bulk hit the Sudsy and it slid across the floor, missing the tanker completely. It spun wildly as it disappeared into the black, screeching horribly. Its screeches faded to nothing.

A flash of white light appeared on the floor, and shot across the cavernous room into the darkness. Sydney steered the Sudsy tanker towards it and followed at full speed.

She checked her rear monitors. A pair of worms chased after her. Squidbugs rode atop each worm, their clawed hands holding the horns. They were catching up quickly. Sydney sprayed Sudsy behind her across the floor. The worms moved to twist out of the way. One of them made it, but the other caught the tail end of the Sudsy. The sudden loss of traction on its rear end caused the worm to flip violently. The squidbugs were thrown from its back and crushed as the worm rolled across the floor.

The streaking white light in front of the tanker was obliterated by a sudden ferocious flash of green. Sydney kept going, hoping she was still moving in the right direction. She pushed the engines as hard as she could, their gauges quivering at maximum.

A squidbug riding on the worm behind her levelled its staff. A ball of energy collected on its end, and buzzed towards the tanker. Sydney yanked on the controls, trying to dodge the blow. There was a loud sizzle, and she smelled burning plastic as she felt her hair stand on end. Warning lights on the console flashed. She wasn’t sure at first what had happened. The engines were still going strong. But then she noticed the Sudsy vats were emptying fast.

Oh no.

Sudsy was pouring out over the outside of the tanker. It coated the exterior monitors with a greasy smear. The tanker suddenly bucked and spun as the Sudsy hit one of the treads. It soon soaked the other and the tanker slid out of control. The monitors showed brief flashing blurs of the worm behind her also spinning wildly, squidbugs desperately clinging to its back. There was nothing left for Sydney to do but brace for impact.

The impact never came. She caught a white blur in her monitors and saw a grate on the floor open in front of the tanker. The tanker dropped through.

Sydney was jarred as the tanker collided with the wall of the chute. The tanker slid down the pipe toward a T-junction. White light collected in a ring around one of the openings and it slammed shut. The tanker bounced off its cover grate and slid down the other corridor.

Sydney shut her eyes. She felt like she was riding a tilt-a-whirl careening down a rocky mountainside. The tanker was being rocked and buffeted through the innards of the ship. She felt a huge lurch, and wasn’t sure whether it was the tanker or the ship that tilted down.

She opened her eyes again. Where she expected the salvific white light, instead, she saw flashes of blue at the end of the black tunnel. These turned to blue and beige as the tanker flew out of the belly of the ship and plummeted towards the desert floor.

When Karnage came to, he was hanging upside down in a mangled cockpit. Sydney stood beside him on the ceiling, right side up. “What happened?” Karnage asked.

“We escaped from the alien ship.”

“How?”

Sydney frowned. “It’s… kind of complicated.”

“Try me.”

“I think we had help.”

“Why can’t I move?” he asked, tentatively testing out his frozen muscles.

“That was me.” Sydney rubbed her throat. “You sorta… tried to kill me back there.”

“Oh.” The memories of what happened came flooding back to him: his fist squeezing her trachea. The shocked, terrified look in her eyes. The explosions, the smoke, and the flames, and then…