P Hillard - The Knower of Truths

“They won’t get away with this, Mellok. We’ll find a way to make it right,” Aileena said.

“How!? How can we make this right? I was an idiot, a fool. Chasing some impossible dream of a hero to liberate my people. All I have done is bring death to my own doorstep. This is my fault. All of it.”

Michael unclipped his harness, clambering out of his seat. He walked across the bridge, wobbling uneasily as it shook. He placed his hands on Mellok’s shoulder. “Listen to me. This is not your fault. None of it. You went looking for me, you brought me here, but you aren’t on that ship, firing down at the planet. You can not make yourself responsible for other people’s actions. You just have to do what you think is right, at the time. No-one expects anything else from you.” Michael didn’t know where the words had come from, but it seemed to have the right effect, calming the alien.

“I… I do not know what to do next. What do I do?” Mellok looked up at Michael. The alien’s feathers were slowly lightening, shifting away from the obsidian black they had become.

“You do, what the rest of us are trying to do. Save everyone we can.”

Meggok hopped off the cart, sprinting through the open doors of the engineering bay. He carried a set of fire extinguishers under his arms, salvaged from his precious galley. He came to a skidding halt by his husband, who was elbow deep in a panel.

“Where do you want these?” Meggok said, lifting the extinguishers with almost casual ease.

Kestok scanned the room quickly, his eyes darting back and forth. “Just, in the middle? The fires seem nearly random.”

“Anything else need doing?”

Kestok stepped back from the panel, his arms covered in grease. “Come hold this cable in place, the connection is a little loose.”

Meggok leant into the open panel, placing his hands on the large black cable within. He felt the looseness Kestok was talking about, and pushed, feeling the cable click into place. “Like that?”

“Perfect, now hold that there until I say otherwise. I know, it’s being a glorified clamp, but needs must.”

“No,” Meggok said. “I understand. This is your kitchen, you tell me to chop kova root, and I’ll chop kova root.”

Kestok nodded. He understood the gist of what his husband was saying, even if he didn’t understand the exact metaphor. “We looking good, Skorra?”

“Yep!” Skorra said. The girl sounded almost cheery. She was hanging from the ceiling, her legs wrapped around a pipe. A section the metal roof had been removed, cables dangling free. Kestok had given her an actual engineering task to perform, and she had completed it with gusto, following her mentor’s instructions exactly. “Just as you said.”

“I hope so, otherwise our explosion is going to be really impressive.”

“Uh.” Worry was written across Meggok’s face. “Is now the time to be doing something dangerous?”

“Now is exactly the time. It was something Michael said to me. We don’t have enough power to charge the jump drive and too much power building up in the shield, more than we can discharge as weapons fire. So, we route one thing into the other.”

“Is that going to work?”

Kestok smiled. “Only one way to find out.”

Paranax was pacing his command centre, muttering to himself, his words escaping as a low rumble. The thralls around him were cowering, those who still had enough of their mental faculties at least.

“Does someone,” Paranax said, his claws wrapping around the railing that surrounded the central holodisplay, “want to explain to me why that ship isn’t destroyed yet?”

“The enemies defences are resisting us, lord. Their weapons fire has weakened us considerably,” said the nearest thrall, a thin grey-skinned creature. It still had use of its arms and legs, though its face was covered with a control system.

Paranax simply gestured towards the thrall, a casual flick of the wrist. The back of the organics head exploded outward, splattering against the wall. The edges of the blast glowed slightly; the energy burst released from the head-mounted control releasing an incredible amount of heat.

“Any more excuses? Anyone else want to besmirch the might of the Substrate. Our ships are forged by the finest stoneshapers, powered by antimatter reactors. No-one can match us. No-one! I don’t care how, but I want that ship destroyed. Overcharge the cannons if you must. Just destroy it!”

“Cannon control systems are damaged. Overcharging is not reco—” the thrall speaking, one fused into a control panel, cables running into its torso stopped midsentence. There was a buzzing noise, followed by a loud crack as a metallic insect squeezed through the back of its skull.

“That was a good one,” Paranax said, stepping up to his throne. “I must ensure I commend the artist who crafted that control device.” He sat down, turning to face his slave crew. “Now, overcharge the cannons, as ordered.”

The bot scuttled forward on its tentacles, a fire extinguisher wrapped tight in the ones it wasn’t using to move. It squeezed the trigger on the device, spraying the fire with a thick foam.

“Fire’s across multiple decks,” said Clive, his voice emanating through the robot. “I’m trying to control them. That last barrage was stronger. I am detecting multiple secondary explosions from the enemy ship.”

“Hey, everyone,” Kestoks voice echoed through the air, Clive seemingly too focused to manifest an image. “I have, I think a solution, but it’s going to be rough.”

“Rougher than it is now?” Michael said. He had strapped himself back into his seat, the ship was shaking too much to do otherwise.

Mellok had finally sprung to life, working the comms and directing the refugee fleet behind them. “Whatever it is, it needs to be quicker. The pirates are moving to flank around us. The others are unarmed and exposed.”

“We need to stop shooting,” Kestok said.

Michael placed his fingers to his temples. “Come again?”

“I’ve wired the shield’s power overflow to the jump drive. I think I can siphon off the power into the drive. If we want to jump quickly, we need to stop shooting so I can funnel all of the energy from the guys shooting us into our pair of matrixes.”

“I don’t know shit about all this alien tech stuff, but that sounds dangerous, even to me.”

“Oh, it is. If it even works, the jump is going to be uncontrolled. We don’t have time to tunnel to a set location so it’s just going to go the maximum distance and just drop us out wherever. Assuming we don’t explode.”

“Fantastic,” Michael said. “What do you think guys? What do we do?”

“We do, what you think is best,” Aileena said. “This is your show now. I’ll go by what you decide.”

“It’s just like the casino, right? Taking a gamble,” Brekt said. “Even our trip to Merydia paid off in the end.”

“I’ll follow you, knower,” Mellok said. “We just have to do what we think is right, that’s what you said. Everything seems to have led to this. Our crew coming together, this ship, the jump matrix. Everything has prepared us for this exact moment.”

“Personally, I still think it’s all coincidences, but that doesn’t matter now. Fine, Brekt, stop firing. Kestok, do what you need to do.” Michael felt empowered, like his friends’ belief was making him surer of himself. “Aileena, get prepared to adjust our position, in case it’s like Earth and we get followed. Mellok, instruct the fleet to jump into our corridor.” The other just nodded, attending to their designated tasks. “Time to go.”

Paranax watched the holoscreen, the alarm blaring for an outgoing jump forming. His rocky talons were digging into the throne, scratches forming in the armrests.