New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Dr. Urle, are you sure . . . ?”

“Open the airlock,” Verena said calmly.

There was a moment of silence, and then the door opened into Michal Denso’s room.

The air itself seemed to shimmer, to shift.  Colors flickered where nothing existed to reflect them; shapes distorted and twisted like mirages, but the room was cold.

Except around Apollonia.  There was an almost visible area around her where the distortions seemed to curl back on themselves, to bend around her presence.

It wasn’t a large area, her island of safety.  But it was enough for Verena to stand next to her.

The doctor scanned the room, her heavy protective suit limiting her ability to turn her head.  Looking down at her belt, at the device there that gave at least a sense of local krahteons, she saw that it registered nothing.

After a moment of consideration, she reached up and took her helmet off.

“Doctor-” came the cry over the comm.

“Apollonia Nor does not require a suit.  I do not believe I will,” Verena replied.

Apollonia said nothing and started to walk forward.

Staying by her side, they came upon the glass room box that surrounded Denso – or once had.

The glass had bloomed like a flower, splitting open in jagged lines like it had shattered apart at its top, but then folded gently towards the floor.

Apollonia stepped onto a folded petal, and though it made a grinding sound, it did not break.

Verena noted that the glass did not seem to have lost any structural integrity, and followed suit.

Denso himself was still.  His eyes were closed.  But there was something about the way he lay there that was different.  At once his face looked withered but his presence was stronger, as if much of him that had once been visible was now unseen, yet it remained in their senses in a way that was ineffable.

“Michal,” Verena said out loud.

The man did not speak, the silence lingering.

But then, his eyes opened.  Slowly, like a man waking from a deep dream.

“It has been a long time since I heard a voice that wasn’t filtered through glass or a mask,” he said softly.

Verena stepped closer, as far forward from Apollonia as she dared.

“Are you there, Michal?”

“The chains are broken,” he replied.  His eyes were focused upward, half-lidded and calm.  “Soon I shall be reborn.”

Verena looked back to Apollonia.  Her face was set in tight lines, the strain and toll visible upon her.

Verena turned back to Denso.  The point where the air seemed to be safe was only a foot from him.  Whatever mysterious power Apollonia possessed, it was strong enough to resist what Michal Denso was becoming.

“Michal, do you know where you are?” Verena asked.

The man blinked slowly, a hint of confusion going over his face.  But it passed.

“I am on Medical Station 29,” he said.

“Then you know that there are many other people here.  People who are sick or injured,” Verena continued.

Denso blinked again, and his answer was slower in coming.  “Yes,” he finally said.

“What are you going to become, Michal?” she asked.

A hint of a smile played at his lips.  “No word is sufficient to describe it,” he said, awe in his voice.  “I wish I could.  I will be . . . greater than anyone who has ever lived.  I will no longer live.  I will no longer die.  I . . . will simply be, in the truest sense.”

“Will you be a Leviathan, Michal?”

He was quiet again.  “Words are useless,” he finally said softly.  “You can’t understand.  You could see, but you do not have eyes.”

His head turned, slowly, his skull scraping loudly along bare metal until he was looking at Verena.  He was smiling broadly now, a joyful smile with a tinge of madness.

“I would help you all gain eyes, if you would let me.”

Verena found herself staring into his eyes, and she felt something curl in her stomach.  A feeling that made her knees weak, made her want to turn and run.

Her hands were shaking, she realized.

Something touched her shoulder, and she looked up to see that Apollonia had stepped forward.  A bead of blood ran from the woman’s nose, just touching her upper lip.

“He doesn’t really understand you,” she said softly.  “He’s lost in his own universe.”

Verena wondered what to make of Apollonia’s words, but was disturbed by them.

She could not find words of her own to speak before Apollonia continued.

“Take my hand,” she said.

Verena looked to her hand, feeling afraid to do what the woman said and yet knowing she had to.  She did not know what else to do.

Taking it, Apollonia reached out and touched Michal Denso.  Her touch was gentle, her fingers landing where his collarbone had once been.  If it still existed under the morass of twisted flesh, Verena did not know, but part of her thought that a human form did exist somewhere in there.  It was only hidden.

Apollonia’s hand moved up to touch Denso’s cheek.

His expression had turned to one of surprise, and Verena gained a realization that the man must not have known a gentle touch like this in years.

“Close your eyes,” Apollonia said.

Verena was not sure if the woman meant her or Michal, but she closed her lids nonetheless.

And then she felt a jolt, and found herself standing in an empty room.

The walls were not truly; they were only an impression of surfaces.  The space could have been infinite, even the floor did not seem to exist.

She was not alone here.

Apollonia stood there, her face calm and unfocused, and across from Verena, staring at her with just as much surprise, was a fully-human Michal Denso.

Verena stepped forward.

“Michal,” she said.  “Do you know who I am?”

“You’re . . .  Verena Urle.  The doctor . . . who has taken care of me,” he said softly.  The words struggled to come out.

“There is little of you left, Michal,” Apollonia spoke.  Her voice had an ineffable quality, husky and strong without having changed tones.  A fullness to her voice that soothed out the fear in her heart, even if they left her saddened.

“I’m dying,” Michal said, the realization coming to him.

“You are,” Apollonia said.  “And you’re becoming something else.”

“Yes,” he said earnestly in a whisper.  “I’m becoming something more.”

“And you’re going to hurt people,” Apollonia said.

The man looked stricken.  “No.  I’d never hurt anyone.  I’m an officer of the Sapient Union, I took an oath-“

“You’re going to hurt people if you are reborn,” Apollonia said again.

Pain and fear went over Michal’s face, and Verena felt a terrible sadness strike her.  She stepped forward, her first thought to bring comfort to someone who suffered.

“Michal,” she said gently.  “I’m sorry, but it’s true.  We . . . we can’t move you.  I don’t know if we could even help you die at this point.  But you are becoming something that we cannot withstand.  And even if we wanted to, we could not escape from you in time.”

Anguish went over the man’s face.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said.

“I do,” Apollonia told him.  “You have to let go.  Your continued will to live is the anchor that holds what you are becoming tethered to reality.  Without you . . . it will never be.”

“I . . .  I don’t want to hurt anyone!”

“I know, Michal,” Verena said.  Carefully, she reached out, and put a hand on his shoulder.

The man’s knees seemed to give way, and he fell into Verena.

She caught him, and held him, as his anguish gave way to sobs that wracked his whole body.

Verena put her arms around him.  It was the only thing that she could do.

“Please, how do I stop this?” he asked, “How do I . . . let go?”

Apollonia was silent.  “I don’t know,” she admitted.  “But we can figure this out, Denso.  We just have to try . . .”

Her words faded, but she looked uncertain.

“If he wished to die, to prevent this, he would have done so already,” a cold voice spoke.

Verena felt a stab of fear at that voice, looking towards it.  It was not Apollonia, and she, too, spun to see.

There were no longer just they three in the room.  Across the space, near them in spirit if not physically, was Kell.

In this space his body was not right, not human.  His form shifted, changing.  His clothing itself had eyes that opened, peered, and closed, to reappear elsewhere.

His face itself slithered and slid between an open snarl on an oily hide to the calm features he showed to the world.

And a power radiated from the being, a terrifying power that bespoke the deepest time, an age that had seen mountains rise and wither, oceans boil off and return in rains lasting a million years.

Like what Denso wished to be, a thing beyond life and death.

Denso looked at the Shoggoth, and shuddered.

“I hurt you before,” he whispered.

“Because you are not ready to go,” Kell said.

“No,” Denso finally said, his voice the merest sound.  “I’m scared.”

Apollonia seemed to shrink back from Kell, as his presence came closer.  He did not walk, did not move, yet he was nearer all the same.

Verena felt a primordial fear rising in her, but she clung to Michal still.

“He is my patient,” she snapped.  “You can’t take him!”

Kell stopped, and his face calmed, settling in his human shape.  A hint of regret went across it.

“There is no other choice.”

Apollonia screamed, and dove onto Verena.  Denso was pulled like he was on chains, his voice breaking as he was brought closer to Kell.

And the Shoggoth’s human form began to leave it.

Verena saw only a glimpse of something massive, a heaving shape of muscle with a surface that glistened like oil, before Apollonia covered her eyes.

“You shouldn’t see this,” the woman whispered fiercely.

And Verena did not struggle as she heard Michal Denso let out a final, protracted scream, accompanied by the sounds of death.

---

< Ep 3 Part 54 | Ep 3 Part 56 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Fifteen minutes ago, Brooks had been informed, Apollonia Nor had crossed onto MS-29.

His countdown for the arrival of Director Freeman said there was just over two hours left.  Once the man arrived, it was all out of their hands.

And he had a sickening feeling that it was going to go even more disastrously than he feared.

He was tempted to order the Craton to leave.  At least save his ship.  But he could not simply run and abandon the hundreds of millions on the medical station, and he had orders that kept him here.

He could only wait.

An alert startled him.  There was a call incoming, from Director Freeman.

Had the man arrived already?

He answered.  “Brooks here.”

There was no visual, and the audio was odd; distorted and low-quality, but his system confirmed an audio match for the director.

“Good,” the man said.  “Captain, I will arrive shortly.  I would like you to begin to prepare Michal Denso for transport.  I have specific instructions for this task I will send at the end of this message.”

“Are you messaging me while in transit, sir?” Brooks asked.

“Yes,” Freeman confirmed, but offered no more elaboration.

Brooks had never even heard of that ability, though judging from the quality of the transmission he could understand why it was not in wide use.

“Sending instructions now,” Freeman continued.  “And Brooks?”

“Yes?”

“I am counting on you.  Your success or failure in this will be remembered by myself and the rest of the Directorate.”

Brooks said nothing as the connection was cut, and the data stream began.

He reviewed the instructions Freeman had sent.  They were rigorous, and he could see that it would take several hours; Freeman had anticipated this and noted that that they were unlikely to be finished by the time of his arrival.

But he expected them to be well along.

Given what Brooks knew about the current state of Denso, this did not seem safe for his crew.  But Freeman had even anticipated that.

“Risks to crew considered acceptable under circumstances.  This is a matter of Union security.”

Brooks was duty-bound to order his crew to begin preparing for this.

Instead, he asked his system; “Where is Ambassador Kell?”

The device took a moment, longer than it should have, for such a simple question.

“Ambassador Kell’s location is currently unknown.”

“Did he leave the ship?”

“Unknown.”

Brooks closed his eyes for a moment.  He had a feeling where Kell was.

“Put out a call for volunteers from our available Response officers and medical staff,” he ordered.  “Matching the parameters of this document.  I want this team assembled in twenty minutes.”

---

< Ep 3 Part 53 | Ep 3 Part 55 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“It’s been a few days longer than I expected,” Jaya Yaepanaya said to Apollonia.

The latter was standing at the door to her office, watching silently.

The brighter lights of the room shed light on just how unhealthy the young woman looked, Jaya thought.  Her eyes had dark bags under them, and she looked so thin under her clothes that her bones might have stood out.

But there was a glint in her eyes that burned brightly.

“I’m ready to go,” Apollonia said.

Jaya studied her a moment longer, then nodded and rose.  Apollonia did not need to ask for her to come, and the Commander walked alongside her as they went to the airlock that connected the Craton to the Chain.

Apollonia came to a stop at the gate, staring across.

Jaya watched her.  She would cross over with the woman if she wanted her to, but it felt hollow to her.  It would not be a field of bayonets for her, just a walkway.

---

Apollonia stared across an abyss.  The ship had fallen away, though she was still aware of the bulkheads and decks.  She saw beyond.

It was a cesspit, a black hole, everything terrible at once across there.

Why was the difference so stark?  From their ship to the other, an arbitrary boundary.

It was just in her head, she realized.  The darkness from what lay on the Chain had sunk deep, but it was not the station.  It was something on it, and it bled onto the Craton, infused all of this sector of space.

She didn’t have to cross a field, she was already in it.

In which case, it was hardly any different to be on that side, was it?

She walked across.

The shock when she’d first arrived had not been from the station itself, it was her system reacting to that presence.  It had already surrounded her, though, it had since they’d arrived.

New layers opened to her.  She couldn’t understand them, not really, but she could see enough.

Jaya walked with her, and once they were on the other side, Apollonia spoke.

“Let’s go see that doctor.”

Jaya messaged ahead, and a drone met them as a guide.

Through tunnels and corridors, down elevators, deeper into the station.  The presence of foulness grew more intense, it burned, itched, hurt, in ways, made her feel like she was being watched.  Her stomach churned, but it did not touch her in the same way it had the first time she’d come aboard.

They finally were brought to an office.  It was cold, austere, and Verena Urle came out to meet them.

“Commander Yaepanaya, Ms. Nor.  What brings you here?” she asked.

“I’m here to help,” Apollonia said.

Verena studied her for a moment before replying.  “To be honest, Ms. Nor, I do not know what it is you think you can do.  The situation has changed drastically, and-“

“I know,” Apollonia said.  “I’ve been seeing it . . . feeling it, since we got here.  I know I’m late, but I think we need to go in there and talk to Michal Denso.”

Jaya looked to her sharply.  She did not think anyone had ever even told Apollonia the man’s name.

Verena caught that as well.  “It seems you are well-informed.  I have the feeling that this is not simply Commander Yaepanaya’s doing.  You have your own ways of knowing.”

Apollonia nodded.

“In which case,” Verena continued.  “Would you mind telling me just what your plan is?  I assume you understand that the conditions in the room with Denso are not safe for anyone.”

“I think that it’ll be safe for me and whoever is with me,” Apollonia said.

“You think?” Verena asked.

“We can only try it and find out.”

“This is far too large a risk to take, just on your feelings.  I have seen for myself many strange things, especially recently, but I am not yet ready to risk my life on these feelings you have.”

“Suit yourself.  I’d still like to go in,” Apollonia said.  “Because the alternative is a lot worse.”

Lines creased on Verena’s face, and a tense silence filled the air between them.

“What will happen?” Verena finally asked.

“Denso is becoming something else.  He’s going to be reborn as something that I don’t think we can contain or deal with.  We’ve got to act now, before that happens.”

Verena visibly reacted as Apollonia spoke.

“The last time I was in there, Denso talked to me.  They were the most coherent words I had ever heard him speak,” she said softly.

“What did he say?” Jaya asked.

“That he had no more chains,” Verena replied.  “And that is not all . . . an expedition to the Terris system encountered on our monitoring station there an unknown individual, whose appearance matches that of Denso.”

“And he’s dead, isn’t he?” Apollonia asked.  She could not say how she knew, but there was a logic here.

“Yes,” Verena replied, her brows furrowing in confusion.

“I think that whatever contact Denso had at Terris was not like that of others,” Apollonia said.  “It was something special.  I don’t know why him, out of all the people there.  Perhaps there isn’t a reason, or it’s one we can’t understand.  What affected him was so powerful it broke him as a being like we know it.  He existed in his body, but also elsewhere.  Some kind of . . . shade of him.  For all we know, there might be more of them out there.  But something has been growing inside this man here.  And as he died, it grew stronger.”

“I disconnected the life support for him earlier,” Verena said.  “It was . . .  perhaps an overdue mercy.  But I cannot do any more.  I already violated specific orders to do that much – and it did nothing.  There is little else I can justify doing.”

“Will it violate your orders if I go talk to him?”

Verena shook her head.  “You truly think it will help?”

“I think I have to do something.  And yeah, maybe.  Maybe there’s something of Denso still in there that can listen to me.”

“Unless you can convince it to cease existing, I do not know what,” Verena said.

“Perhaps I can do that,” Apollonia replied.  “But no promises.”

---

< Ep 3 Part 52 | Ep 3 Part 54 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Apollonia felt hollow as she looked out the window.

For days now, she’d tried to work herself up to walking back onto that medical station.

But every day, she’d turned back.

Jaya’s words still echoed in her mind, and she wanted to hate the woman for saying something so stupid and basic and right.

She’d been on the margins her whole life.  Surviving, but not living.

That wasn’t something she was going to get past easily, maybe never.  But she had a choice if she lived in fear or took what control she could.

She felt the presence of Kell as he arrived in the lounge, but she wasn’t alarmed.  The tension rose in the room, as everyone else sensed his arrival.  Even if they didn’t see him, they felt it.

The Ambassador walked up next to her, staring out at the stars in silence.

And they stayed that way, for ten minutes.

The lounge had partially emptied by now, as the patrons – many still not realizing the source of their discomfort – went home or to another lounge.

Kell was slightly amused by it, she thought.  As dour as he acted, he had emotions lurking beneath the surface, and when she wasn’t so keyed up inside she could get hints of them, even if his face gave away nothing.

Apollonia was the first to break the silence.

“Something big is happening,” she said.

The being nodded.

“If it is not dealt with, then drastic actions will have to be taken,” Kell commented.

She turned to look at him.  “You mean you’ll have to take care of it.”

Kell gave only the barest hint of a nod.  “No one will like this outcome.”

“Can you stop it?”

Kell shrugged.  “Perhaps not.  But it does not matter, as one way or another the events that follow will not bother me.”

“You mean – either you win or you’re dead,” Apollonia guessed.

Kell did not answer this time, but she felt that it was what he meant.

“I have to go back on there,” she said.

“But you are afraid,” Kell noted.

She hated that he could read her so well, glaring at him.

“I am frightened as well, on some level,” Kell said softly.

And it shocked her to realize he meant it.  She could feel it now, an inkling of fear in the being.

“What do you think will happen if . . .” she asked, unable to give voice to the rest of the sentence.  If they failed.  If they did nothing.

“Something new will be born . . . beyond that, I do not know,” Kell replied.  “And that is what frightens me.  When it comes to times of action . . . rarely have they come quickly for my kind.  We act on our own timetables.”  He frowned, his eyes going down to stare not out at the stars, but at the floor.  “We are not used to acting in haste.  Our age can make such actions fall outside of our own consideration.”

“You contacted people, right?  That was kind of a quick move, wasn’t it?” Apollonia said.  “I mean, we’ve not really been that impressive for very long.  Going into space for only like a thousand years.”

“And we were pondering the question of your people for a thousand before that,” Kell said, glancing at her.  “Nearly two thousand years . . . and that was still a quick decision among my kind.”

Apollonia got a sense from Kell that she could not even quite understand; the closest she could equate it to was a certainty, a conviction so strong that it was more akin to the most intense emotions of people – like love or hate.

“After all,” Kell said, his voice tinged with bitterness.  “Why should we usually care?”

Apollonia had little to say to that, turning back to look at the stars.  These stars were a stranger to her; all her life, she’d seen them from her own system, and now they were deep in the void between them, lightyears from where she’d come from.  Their positions were all wrong.

“It was good talking to you, Ambassador,” she said.  “But I think I have to go.”

“I wish you fortune,” Kell said.  “And I hope that I will not have to follow in your wake.”

---

< Ep 3 Part 51 | Ep 3 Part 53 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Observation platform, this is Response Team.  Was that a body that just went out the airlock?  Are you there?”

Power had come back to the station minutes before, and Bascet had halted their ship at a safe distance.  Even with power back, the signatures had been wrong, unstable.

For awhile, it seemed like the station was going to rip itself apart.

“We’re here!” he suddenly heard.  It was Tred.  “We’re alive, we’re okay!”

“Report status.  What happened, Ensign?” Bascet demanded.

“Um, well.  A lot of stuff?  But we’ve got it under control.  Er, but that body float by, that’s . . . that’s part of the problem that was solved.”

“A body?  Who is it?  Where’s Lt. Pirra?!” Bascet demanded.

“I’m here,” Pirra’s voice came on.  “It’s a long story, sergeant.  We had intruders . . . of a sort.  But where is Lt. Commander Caraval?”

“He’s been . . . relieved of duty, Lt.  I’m acting-commander.  Is the situation safe to dock?”

Pirra was quiet a long moment.  “Docking bay is working.  You can connect any time.”

Bascet felt like something was wrong, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“Begin docking procedure,” he ordered.

---

Pirra had been worried about what was going on with the team, but after conferring with Bascet, she understood.  It was horrible to think of Caraval being affected like that, and she’d spoken to him briefly, but he seemed all right.

Still.  That wouldn’t be enough to let him take back command, not without a more thorough check-up.

It meant it was all on her.

It took Bascet a little while longer to understand what had occurred on the station, and she knew he was still nervous about her and Tred.

That she could not even really explain what had happened didn’t help.  But ultimately, the man had accepted her taking command.  And the first thing she’d done was order their evacuation.

“It’s unsafe to be on here,” she ordered.  “We’re leaving immediately, we’ll operate the zerogate and comms remotely.”

“Er . . . all right,” Bascet said.  She could tell he was worried he’d made the wrong decision handing power over to her.

She was the last off, letting the rest of the team get on –  including Tred – before her.

Before she boarded, she took just a moment to glance back.

She’d felt no tremors, felt nothing from the station, for awhile now.  Were they still skimming through time?  Through dimensions?

As was usual with this sort of thing, she had no idea.  There was not a neat ending for her.

She turned and boarded, wondering what she might be leaving behind.

Once they detached and drifted the ship away, she felt a little better.

“Activate the remote comms and connect me to the Craton,” she ordered.  “And prepare immediately for a zerojump out of here as soon as we can.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Bascet said.  That she was getting them out of Terris seemed to strengthen his belief in her.

While the communications were set up, she looked to Tred.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“Huh?  Oh . . .  uh, yeah,” he replied.  “I didn’t get hurt.  Well, some bruises, but that’s all . . .”

She nodded, and put her hand on his shoulder.  “You did well, Tred.  You came through when we needed it.”

The man’s face went into an expression she could not even decipher.

“Th-thank you, Lieutenant.  You, um, you did good, too.”

“Connection to Captain Brooks coming through,” Bascet told her.

“Captain, this is Lt. Pirra, acting-commander of the mission,” she said.

This wasn’t a real-time transmission, and so she’d just have to tell him and then wait half an hour for a response.  Communications were fast, but still not instant unless one wanted to use more power than the station could even produce.

“We’ve run into difficulties, but the mission has been completed.  Lt. Commander Caraval located the Sunspot and we are including all relevant, safe data.  Potentially unsafe data will have to wait until our return.”

She hesitated.  “In the process, Caraval was potentially contaminated by a memetic infection.  Please have medical resources standing by.

“Here on the station, we encountered our own problems . . .”

---

< Ep 3 Part 49 | Ep 3 Part 51 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Nalen Kress wasn’t hard to follow.  Even with his headstart, the man was screaming as he ran, crashing into walls.  Before long, Pirra found blood splattered on a corner he’d hit, and from then on it had been even simpler.

Still, she did not let her guard down.  Already she’d had a gun disappear from her hands, and she couldn’t rule out that Kress couldn’t do something similar.

The image and words of the man he’d shot dead wouldn’t get out of her mind.  Even now it felt like his words were still whispering in her ear.

I will be reborn.

Did he mean that when the bizarre cycle this station was stuck in reset, he’d be alive again?

She couldn’t possibly know, didn’t understand any of this or possibly predict it, but his words felt more ominous even than that.

He’d known things, and she felt vulnerable in her ignorance.

As she moved swiftly after Kress, she began to hear him running.  His pace had fallen as exhaustion and his injuries caught up with him.

She could hear him around the bend.  They were back near the airlocks, where the gunman had shot at her, where she’d seen the three men kill themselves.

She stepped out, aiming.

“Step away from the panel!” she said.

He was at the control panel for the airlock, and looked up at her, sweat running down his forehead.  Panic and exhaustion competed with each other on his face, but he then smiled, a bitterwseet, hateful smile.

“You’re too late,” he said.  “I didn’t need much time.  This place will be destroyed, and I’ll be freed.”

“That’s not true.  My compatriot is undoing what you’ve done.  And when our ship comes, you can leave, too,” she told him.  “If you’ll just stop and listen to me, there wouldn’t have been a need for any violence at all.”

“He’s a fool if he tries to stop it.  But next time – next time it won’t matter.  I’ve been practicing and getting better at this.  Even if I come back, even if it starts over, next time I’ll succeed in destroying this place.”

He punched another button on the airlock.

She aimed above his head and fired.  The shot hit the bulkhead above him, making sparks rain down as the bullet disintegrated.

“I said no more,” she said.  “I will shoot you if I have to.”

“Go ahead,” he said.  And then he hit one last button.

The airlock doors opened – on both sides.

Air howled out, and Pirra was pulled forward, crashing to the deck and sliding towards the door.

She looked up in time to see Nalen Kress close his eyes and let go, being taken out the airlock.

Emergency doors began to slam shut, sensing the vacuum.

And one of them was above her.

If she let go, she’d be trapped on the airless side, but if she held on she’d be cut in half.

Digging her fingers into the grating, she pulled with all her strength, curling her legs-

The door slammed shut, and she shivered, waiting for the pain.

But it didn’t come.

Slowly, she opened her eyes and looked.

Her feet were inches from the closed door, and even her wing drapes were mostly safe.  A bottom edge of one was caught in the door, and she cursed, grabbing clumsily for the knife she’d taken earlier.

There was no choice but to cut off some of her feathers.  As long as she did it carefully, it wouldn’t hurt.

It’d be ugly – hideous, even.

But better that than to be dead.

Standing up, she moved to a monitor and activated the external cameras.

Nalen Kress was a speck now, drifting out into the void.

Pirra couldn’t condone what he had done, but she hoped that the man had at least some measure of peace now.

---

< Ep 3 Part 48 | Ep 3 Part 50 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

As Pirra left, Tred stared at the screen readouts.  The system thought it was running an unmanned test and wouldn’t accept external inputs to tell it to shut off.  Kress had disabled that option.

He could still manipulate the system that the man had thrown off, though.  Normally a plasma coil alignment took hours and a team of six.

But that was procedure, and this was his specialty.  He could not manually set the alignment, it was far too fine a work for a human to do.

He watched the stability rating of the generator.  It was just starting, and while it was already beginning a dangerous oscillation, the magnetic fields were able to withstand it for now.

He knew some tricks that could help him speed this.  He didn’t need to perfectly align it all right now – well, he needed it nearly perfect, but there was some wiggle room.  At least enough to make it not destroy itself . . .

Some of the magnetic fields were set right.  He just needed to give the others the appropriately mirrored settings.  It wasn’t a procedure you should ever do, eyeball the numbers, flip them, and force the system to implement them.  Normally you’d plot them all by calculations and then let the AI finagle the little details.

But the AI wasn’t working right now.  He had no other way.

His hands shook as he put in the numbers.  He did the math in his head; it wasn’t hard, but he’d never had to do it under pressure like this.

Even a glance told him that there were thirty-six of the magnetic field generators out of alignment.

And in some of them, Nalen Kress had anticipated his plan, he realized.  Four of the most critical magnetic plates that mirrored each other were all out of alignment.  He had no base numbers to work with to flip.

Quickly he finished the others.  The oscillations in the system were still growing, and alarms were beginning to increase in number, but the more of the system he had functioning properly, the slower the problem would grow.

But those last four – he had no simple tricks to fix them.  He was going to need to figure out a proper alignment to them that would function, with just a calculator.

Panic overtook him, and he froze.  The instability readings increased, and he knew that soon it’d be too late.  His problem would be solved by no longer mattering.

No one would ever even know he’d panicked.  They’d just know he’d failed.

But he’d been trained well.  He couldn’t think, but he could still act.

His fingers flew and input numbers.  He couldn’t be sure where he was pulling them from – memory?  He had looked at these numbers, and though the angles were absurdly precise, down to the twentieth decimal point, did he really remember them?

One more aligned.  His mind felt like it was a blank again, and he was second-guessing his own numbers.

“Fusion reaction destabilizing,” the computer said.  “Reactor breach imminent.”

“I know,” he muttered.

If he was wrong on his first number, then it would kill them.  But inaction was a guaranteed failure.  He just had to run with it.

The stress on the system was beginning to set off even more warnings.  He had so little time left . . .

“Reactor breach in ten seconds,” the computer said.

“I know, I know!” he snapped.

Taking the number he’d just input, he adjusted the last three magnetic fields to match.

His eyes went to the readout.  The oscillations wouldn’t immediately stop, but if he’d done his job anywhere close to right they’d begin to . . .

“Fusion reaction stabilizing,” the computer said.

“Oh thank god!” Tred burst out, his knees giving way.

Slumping against the console, he gave thanks to his teachers, both in mathematics and speed-typing, and whoever had made a keyboard that was proof against fat-fingered inputs.

“Simulation successfully completed,” the computer continued.

It still believed that it had only been a test.  For a moment, Tred was worried that maybe it had been, that he’d gotten this scared over nothing.

He looked through the readouts again.

But it had been a real threat.  He’d averted disaster.

“Computer,” he said, feeling exhausted.  “Get communications back online.”

---

< Ep 3 Part 47 | Ep 3 Part 49 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The engine room seemed dimmer than before.  The main lights had gone out, and the only source left was a dim red emergency light that a human would see easier in than she would.

That meant that Tred hadn’t succeeded as she had hoped.  No power, no hope for contacting the team.  Maybe even no chance for the team to even escape this system.

Would their ship begin to ride the waves as this station was?  Oscillate through reality until it became stuck in an endless loop . . .

Moving from cover to cover, she kept watch and moved towards the primary engineering room.  It was a secure chamber just beyond the main room.  Maybe Tred hadn’t entirely failed.  If he had succeeded in even just resetting the system, the generator might be simply awaiting a manual input to get everything back online.

She’d risked contacting him, but the ship’s system informed her that the communication system was down.  She’d been keeping silent, and couldn’t know when that had happened, but it wasn’t a good sign.

Moving towards the door, she suddenly heard a noise from beyond and cursed, sidling up to the wall next to the entry.

It was unlikely to be Tred.  She’d given him orders, and the man was at least good at following those.

Readying herself, she slammed the door open button and took aim.

“Don’t move!” she cried, her sights on the man.

The man froze.  His back was to her, and she could not see his face, but both his hands were visible.  And on a console nearby was his pistol.

“Don’t even think of going for it,” she said.  “I won’t miss.”

He turned just enough to peer at her over his shoulder.  “You’ve got the wrong idea.  I’m not your enemy.”

Pirra ignored that.  “Step towards the main screen.”  Away from the gun.  The room was big enough she could herd him away and get it.

“No,” the man replied, his voice curiously blank.

“I will shoot,” Pirra hissed.

“With what gun?” the man asked.

And Pirra realized that her hands were now empty.

“What the hell-”  She moved to lunge for his gun.

“Don’t try it!” the man said, grabbing the weapon and pointing it at her.

“It works in ways you don’t understand, Lieutenant Pirra.  Sometimes it even listens to me.  Sometimes, I can reset the things I want, when I want,” he said.  “Except for the living . . . you I can’t reset . . . at least not yet.”

“How do you know my name?” she asked.

The man’s eyes glittered like a maniac.  “Do you really think this is the first time around for this?  For any of this?”

She didn’t have a response for that.  “Where did you get the gun?”

“From Dr. Crube.  She was wise, in a way, to sneak it on board.  She’s seen enough of the results of messing with Leviathans to know that sometimes a bullet is the best way out.  Too bad she realized it too late.”

Pirra kept her hands visible, trying to plan.  If she dove back, she might be able to close the door on him, but he was in the main engineering room . . .

“To be honest,” the man said.  “I don’t want to hurt you.  Or anyone.”

“You shot at me.  You were chasing the other man,” Pirra replied.

“I was scared.  You were new, at one time,” he replied.  “It’s been a long time and I saw someone new and I . . . panicked.  I wanted you away from me.  You have no idea how delicate it all is, how important it is that I don’t die yet.”

“You’re not in any danger from us, and we’re not trapped,” she said, forcing her voice to be calm while her stomach went into knots.  “We can still get out.  If we can contact my ship, we can leave.”

“You wouldn’t know if you were trapped,” the man said.  “And you need to listen to me.  The fusion reactor’s been sabotaged.  But I’m just a Nav officer.  I don’t know how to fix it.”

“Sabotaged?  How?”  Pirra demanded.

“The magnetic fields have been unblanaced, and the system set to run an emergency drill that it believes is a test.  So it’ll go full power in ten minutes unless we stop it.  And if it does . . .”

“Then the plasma will rip out the side of the reactor,” she breathed.

“Yes,” the man replied.  “It will destroy the station and kill us all.”

He looked back to the console.  “I can’t die.  Not, yet.  I’ve still got more to do.”  He brought up a screen.

“Look,” he said.  “You can see it’s true.”

She approached cautiously.  The man still held the gun, but he was not pointing it at her.

The screen showed exactly what he had said.  A test was warming up, noting the ‘scenario’, but on another window she could see that the magnetic rings had been tampered with, put out of alignment.  Alerts were going off, but the system had been blinded to itself.

This scenario had been locked in . . . well, it said days ago.  That seemed unlikely, but given how time was making no sense, it didn’t mean much.

It also meant that she couldn’t know who did it.  The three men who had spaced themselves might have set it before committing group suicide.  Or even Dr. Crube.

And them taking other ways out did make sense; a rupturing fusion reactor was not necessarily quick or painless, depending on just how it ripped the station apart.

“I don’t know how to fix it,” the man said again.  “But I can’t die yet.  I can’t.”

Pirra glanced to him.  “I don’t know how to fix it either.  It would take a highly skilled fusion engineer to do this . . .  The other man with me can do it,” she said.  “We have to get him.  If we can find him in time, he might be able to avert this-“

“Pirra!” she heard called from outside the room.

The man snapped his gun up to aim at the door, but Pirra held out her hands.  “That’s him!” she said.  “Trust me!”

The man hesitated, his finger on the trigger.  She saw the fear in his eyes as he watched her.  It was more than fear of what would happen, she felt.  It was a true fear of her.

“I promise you we won’t hurt you.  We want to live, too.  This station needs to live.”

The man hesitated.  “I want to trust you, but I don’t think I can.”

“I’m a Response officer,” she told him.  “I’ve taken an oath to serve the Sapient Union, like you did.  But I also swore to protect and save who I can.  Please . . . let me help you to live.”

The man’s hand slowly, hesitantly, lowered the gun.  He said nothing, only watching her.

She took a careful, slow step forward.  He didn’t move.

“Let me take it, and I promise I won’t hurt you,” she said.

His shoulders slumped, shuddering as something seemed to loosen in him.  Carefully, she took the gun from his hand.

Putting it on her belt, she called out.

“Tred!” she called.  “We’re in the Main Engineering Compartment!”

“We?” Tred came back.

“It’s under control,” she said.

The man was no longer looking at her, his eyes cast downward.  He didn’t even seem to be aware as Tred came into the doorway.  “I had to come tell you about the sabotage,” he said.

“I just found out, glad you could make it,” she said.  “Do you think you can fix it?”

Another man appeared beside him, the man who had appeared and run so many times.

“This is Nalen Kress, I met him coming down here and- oh god!” Tred realized the other man was there and visibly recoiled.

“It’s okay-” Pirra began.

“Shoot him!” Kress screamed, pointing at the disarmed gunman.  “Shoot him while you can!”

“No,” Pirra said, trying to calm him.  “He’s not armed, and we-“

Kress came towards her.  “You’ve got to protect me from him!  He’s the cause of all of this!  He’s the reason we’re stuck!”

His panic was almost infectious, and she saw terror spreading to Tred’s face.  It encroached upon her almost like an animal, and she held up a hand to try and push him back.  “Stay back-“

The room was too cramped, and as he moved towards her, she grabbed for the pistol on her belt.

But she couldn’t shoot the man just for being panicked.  He was raving, coming closer, and she prepared to give him a kick to the leg that might knock him back-

“Give it back!” the gunman cried, lunging for her.  “I can’t let him kill me!”

“Calm down!” she yelled, as authoritatively as she could.  But both men were rushing her-

Kress got his hand on hers, struggling for the pistol.  Then the gunman had as well.  They fought, Pirra throwing her elbows and knees into the men to fend them off.

With her training and enhanced muscles she was a match for them, but it didn’t mean it was easy.  The grasping hands were threatening to accidentally-

The gun fired.

The once-gunman gasped, his eyes widening.

“No,” he said, stumbling back.

Pirra threw a hard blow into Kress, sending him onto his back.

A bloody flower blossomed on the once-gunman’s chest, and he slumped against the wall.

“Finally,” Kress whispered fiercely.  “Finally!  You can’t stop it this time!”

Pirra aimed the gun at him.  “Stay on the ground!”

The whole room shook.  The fusion engine had just reactivated.

She stumbled, the gun almost slipping from her grip.

She managed to hold onto it, but the newcomer threw himself out of the room, clawing his way back to his feet and sprinting off.

“The magnetic coils are unbalanced!” Tred yelled in horror.

“Get on it!” Pirra said.  “Can you fix it?”

“I don’t know!  We’ve got one, maybe two minutes before it rips apart!” Tred replied, getting on the console and frantically beginning to work.

Pirra hurried to the shot man.  He was staring upwards, his eyes open.  Blood covered most of his front.

His pulse was thready, and even as she applied a closing bandage she knew it was too little too late.

She still didn’t even know his name.

His mouth moved, and the barest of sounds came out.

She leaned in to hear his last words.

“I will be reborn,” he whispered.

Then his pulse stopped.

Rising, Pirra looked out the door after the man who fled.

“He’s the one who sabotaged us,” Tred said.  “He’s an engineer – I think he’s trying to end all this.”

“What?” Pirra demanded.

“There was only one engineer stationed here.  Only an engineer could have set the reactor into this death spiral,” Tred replied, talking quickly.  “It has to have been him!  You need to get him, Lieutenant, if he gets away there’s all kinds of other things he can do to destroy this place!”

Pirra took a deep breath.  “Lock the door behind me,” she said, and charged out after the man.

---

< Ep 3 Part 46 | Ep 3 Part 48 >