Andrew Mackay - Infinity Claws

Zillah shook her head. “No, the power-down occurred quite out of the blue.”

She waved the image of the ship away and pulled up a live feed of the moon Enceladus. “We were six hours away from Enceladus when it happened. Manuel picked up this image. Can you see it?”

Everyone leaned in to look at the dark side of Enceladus.

“No?” Katz said.

“Here,” Zillah enlarged the picture. “Something fantastic happened. We discovered something on the dark side of Enceladus. A pink gas cloud funneling from its core. Typical attributes of a wormhole. As it turns out, the source of Saturn Cry.”

Tripp shook his head. “What is that pink thing?”

Bonnie released Jelly onto the conference table. She stretched her legs and trundled over to the holographic feed of Enceladus. “Meow.”

Jelly clawed at it, but her paws sank through the image, confusing her.

“Jelly, behave,” Bonnie patted the table in an attempt to get the cat to return to her.

Zillah didn’t like the feline’s presence on the table.

“So, what you’re saying is that Enceladus is a portal?”

“It contains a wormhole on the dark side. To where, we don’t know.”

Haloo scanned the hub and realized someone was missing. “Zillah, where is Androgyne?”

“She’s in the control deck.”

Trapped inside Alpha’s control deck, Androgyne freaked out next to her counterpart lying dead across the chair.

Saturn hung in the star-filled sky, seemingly looking down on her. A giant, beautiful blue star that blocked any kind of meaningful progress.

She held her finger to her ear in the hope someone could come to her aid. “Hello? Does anybody read me?”

No response.

“Hello? This is Tor Klyce in Opera Beta. Is that you Androgyne?”

“Oh God, yes. Tor, it’s me,” she said with relief, “Listen, I am stuck. Zillah has trapped me on Alpha. I can’t get out. My lungs are tightening up, it’s as if the room is running out of air…”

“Oh, that’s a shame, isn’t it?” Tor responded with little emotion.

“Yes, it is. Please, help me.”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“What?” Androgyne ran around in circles, trying to compute Tor’s words. She felt her limbs slow down and get heavier. “Why won’t you help me?”

“Because I want you to die with the others.”

She reached the corner of the control deck and reached a ten-foot-high compartment. Desperate to find a tool that might rescue her, she yanked on the door.

It flung outward, releasing Zillah’s dead, deflated body.

“Agh.” Androgyne stepped out of the corpse’s fall toward the ground. “She’s dead. She’s dead.”

“Who’s dead?” Tor asked.

“Zillah. She has some sort of pink blood on her face. Oh my God, she’s dead…”

“Androgyne?” Tor interrupted. “Listen to me very carefully.”

“Yes, yes?”

She took a step back in complete confusion. Looking around for a way out proved to be futile in the extreme.

“It’s very simple Androgyne. You and the Beta crew are going to die.”

“What?”

“Goodbye, Androgyne.”

The communication cut off, leaving Androgyne with two corpses in the control deck and very little else.

She just about managed to stagger to the free chair next to her counterpart’s body. She sat into it, coughing and spluttering, looking down at her knees.

A drop of pink blood splashed against her thigh.

Her eyes were bleeding.

Zillah walked the crew of Opera Beta into the partially-destroyed botanical area of her ship.

The plants had withered. Most had disintegrated into a black husk. The remaining plant life had turned a sickly-looking pink color.

“As you can see, Botanix took a lot of the damage.”

“The oh-two levels won’t have helped if there was an explosion,” Haloo said, taking out a device from her pocket. It sprang to life and took a meter reading. “Do you remember an explosion?”

Zillah shook her head and watched Jelly growl as she prowled her way through the plants. “No, no explosion. Not that we can recall.”

“So you’re saying everything just went dark?” Bonnie asked, looking over at the water coolant.

“Yes, utter darkness,” Zillah paused to close her eyes and take in a lungful of air. “Mmm. Even with the majority of the systems down, every so often, I come back here and enjoy the clean air. It reminds me of Earth.”

“Really?” Haloo took a reading from the room.

“I’ve been up here for so long. It’s gets lonely.”

“I’m sure,” Katz said. “I think we’ve seen enough. Tripp?”

“Captain,” he walked over to him and pulled him aside. “Can I have a quick word?”

“Certainly.”

Tripp walked with Katz to the corner of the Botanix chamber and kept his voice low. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably,” Katz kept a stern eye on Zillah inhaling the clean air. “Zillah is not in proper operating order.”

“I don’t like this at all ,” Tripp whispered, “Something has happened here. None of it makes any sense.”

“Power down for twenty minutes? No-one remembers anything?” Katz agreed, “Something’s gone spectacularly wrong.”

“Want to know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think they went through whatever that thing is on Enceladus.”

“The wormhole?”

“Yes,” Tripp was in danger of being overheard. “I think we should wake everyone up and put them in quarantine.”

Tripp caught Katz looking at him strangely. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Your eye. It’s bleeding.”

“Huh?”

Tripp ran his finger across his cheek. A blob of dark pink liquid appeared on his glove. He blinked hard in an attempt to squash whatever remained of the substance from his tear duct. “Is it gone now?”

“No,” Katz cleared his throat and stormed over to Zillah. “I think we’ve seen enough. Can I have everybody’s attention, please?”

Haloo, Jaycee, Bonnie, and Jelly turned to Katz, awaiting instructions.

“With Zillah’s approval, we’ll reconvene with Androgyne and awake her crew from hyper-sleep. It is our opinion that Alpha is not salvageable, so we’ll have to leave her where she is.”

Zillah wasn’t too happy to hear the news. Instead of responding inappropriately, she crouched to her knees and offered her arms to Jelly. “Come here, girl.”

“Meow.”

Jelly ran along the plants and jumped into her arms. She held out her infinity claws for Zillah to make a fuss over.

“Captain Katz,” Zillah said, hugging Jelly in her arms. “I’m afraid you do not have my blessing. You see, Space Opera Alpha is my ship. I’m afraid I cannot let her wither away to nothing a billion miles away from Earth.”

“I’m afraid that is an assertion for you to make. Captain.”

Zillah rubbed noses with Jelly. The cat pawed at her cheeks and widened her eyes. Her pupils went from dark orange to yellow in a few seconds. “Follow me, everyone.”

“Where?” Tripp asked.

“Good girl,” Zillah walked out of Botanix with Jelly in her arms. “Perhaps I will oblige Captain Katz after all.”

Tripp and Katz watched her walk through the door. They were somewhat hesitant to follow her.

“That’s one weird chick.”

The hyper-sleep chamber on Space Opera Alpha was an exact replica of Opera Beta’s. Seven pods in total. Only one of them was open – Zillah’s.

She stood with Jelly in her arms and stroked her head. “Look, Jelly. All my crew are fast asleep.”

Bonnie and Jaycee followed her in. Haloo, Katz, and Tripp walked in after them.