Steven Campbell - Suck My Cosmos

I hunched down and spread my arms, waiting for their imminent attack.

The Ontakians then took off to their right, away from me.

Uh, what?

They reached one of the engines and climbed up onto the very front of it, where a vast manifold of some kind sat on top.

They began pulling and pushing on the manifold. It must have been the size of a building.

“Stop them,” Garm said weakly.

“Stop them from what?” I asked.

I was totally happy they weren’t over here killing me in the nose.

And then the illumination in this entire room changed to red, as emergency lights signaled Something Very Wrong was happening.

“Hank,” Garm said.

“What?” I answered. I couldn’t imagine she had a diagram for this.

But I turned back to where she was looking.

The Ontakians were somehow pushing the manifold off the engine!

It was impossible, but there it was.

I just stared at them as they dragged this enormous structure. I mean, what were they going to do with it? Were they just showing off?

It reached the edge of the engine and the Ontakians and the manifold all fell off together.

They passed through the floor like a brick through a paper wall. When they hit, the two Ontakians were underneath. They might be unbelievably tough guys, but I think some drops of their blood must have speckled the wall five miles away when they got squashed.

They were dead or I was a fat Keilvin Kamigan.

The persistent engine noise lessened by a noticeable amount.

“Huh. Well. That was something,” I said.

I got my tele and called Delovoa after I recovered from seeing the Ontakians splat themselves.

“We just had something happen to an engine. Did it help?” I asked.

“I see the engine is off, but that doesn’t stop your velocity. You need to put that engine in reverse,” he said.

“Oh!” I replied, understanding. “I think they broke it. How about the Portals?”

“Malla got in contact with Maris-To’s people. They are willing to allow me to open the Portals, but it won’t be enough.”

“Well, we’re in the engine room, is there anyone who knows how to turn them on and point them in the right directions?” I asked.

“Take a tele picture of the controls and send it,” Delovoa said.

“There are probably a quarter-mile of controls in here. I’m not even kidding. Are the other engines on?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Garm, do you know anything about these systems?” I asked her.

Her face was getting puffy, her nose was broken, and both eyes were bruising.

“Dreadnaught engineering was an elective in military school,” she said unhelpfully.

I hurried across the massive hall and looked at some controls. Not entirely sure what I was expecting, maybe a big button that said, “Hank, press this to put all engines in reverse.” But I didn’t see that button. In fact, most were unlabeled or had incredibly cryptic designations of one or two letters.

“Guys, if you can’t slow the dreadnaught, you should get off,” Delovoa said.

That was probably the only compassionate thing I had ever heard Delovoa utter, so it told me just how hopeless this situation was.

“Hey, do military ships work like civilian ones?” I asked.

“That’s a pretty vague question,” Delovoa answered.

“I mean, Zzzho told me that when ships lose their major systems, they come to a complete stop to prevent them flying off and running into stars or something,” I said.

“Who’s Zzzho?” Delovoa asked.

Garm heard the conversation and yelled.

“A cab driver made of gas!”

“No one. Just, do you know if that’s how it works?” I asked.

“You think breaking some controls will stop Shelter?” he asked.

“I think maybe breaking a lot of controls would. Imagine if there was some malfunction and a dreadnaught got stuck with its engines on. There has to be a failsafe.”

“You’re making a big assumption that the civilian precautions are the same as the ones for the largest capital ship ever built,” Delovoa said.

“The safety on a civilian rifle works the same as a military rifle,” I said.

“Yeah, but the safety on a civilian rifle and a military chemical weapon are nothing alike. And you’re standing on the equivalent of a city full of chemical weapons.”

“Well, I don’t think I can find my way back out of here and I don’t want the responsibility for rebuilding society, so I think we should give it a try,” I said.

“Do you still have the torch?”

“No, it guttered out. Garm, shoot the controls,” I said.

Two shots immediately hit near me and I almost dropped my tele. I think she was still mad that I didn’t know what the B5 diagram was.

I kicked the next set of controls and punched it, and after a while, managed to leave it looking pretty bad. I also got tired. I surveyed the room and roughly guessed I had one zillion more consoles to go.

How did those Ontakians knock a whole dreadnaught engine apart when I couldn’t even break a computer without getting winded?

Then I looked back to where we first saw my brothers.

I turned and hurried to the spot.

“What are you doing?” Garm asked, as she kept shooting systems cabinets.

There they were: two canisters of fluid. It was what the Ontakians had consumed to break free of Garm’s truss mines and rip apart a spaceship.

“So I’m going to drink this. If I kill you or run off screaming or drop dead, I pre-apologize now,” I said.

There was quite a lot of fluid left in each container. I wondered if I should drink both or mix them together. But I also wasn’t sure if they were tied to the…genetics of each guy. It could simply be some tasty beer and they were just badass engine-destroyers who wanted a drink before they got around to ending our civilization.

I poured one into the other. It was a fairly viscous substance. Clear. Didn’t seem appetizing.

I took a deep breath as I looked down at it. There was only a remote chance of this working. In all likelihood, I’d run around yelling as the ship smashed into my home.

At least I wouldn’t notice.

I brought it up to my lips and drank and drank and drank.

I tried not to breathe in, so I wouldn’t taste it, but even on my lips I felt an almost numbing sensation. Inside my mouth it was like needles were being dragged over my gums—not hard enough to be painful, but just short of it.

I felt it swirl like fire down my throat and it burned my stomach like the ghost of a thousand indigestions.

I began to panic. It was clearly poisonous.

I should try and induce vomiting. I couldn’t afford to have a tummy ache on doomsday.

But when I raised my arm, it felt…great.

I felt fantastic!

I flexed my hands, which had been burnt and cut a moment ago. I could almost feel each molecule of air passing over them.

This was so much better than Tamshius’ garbage!

I turned and saw Garm. She was still on the ground from her ordeals.

I jumped and landed next to her. Well, I tumbled a bit. I wasn’t used to jumping.

“You owe me money, you know,” I said, after I got up. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten. Yes, I know this is an odd time to bring it up, but I feel I have the leverage and if I can get your assurance I’ll be paid off, we can go about resolving our current difficulties.”

I picked her up. It felt odd talking to her on the floor.

“Another thing, I don’t like the fact that you and Malla were manipulating me. We have a long history and I feel you took advantage of our personal relationship. Not to mention it’s all rather embarrassing the predicament you put me in,” I said.