I knew Mary was worried and had every right to be. I was petrified, but at the same time, relieved to finally be nearing the end, one way or another. Taking her hands in my alien space suit gloves, I looked her in the eye. “We’ll be back shortly. Hopefully, we’ll have good news.” I found the helmet’s release, and it hissed open. Cradling it under my arm, I leaned in and kissed her deeply. My inevitable bad breath, and any other thoughts, pushed down below and I opened myself up to just being with her for a moment. She kissed me back, not with a fervent passion, but with a soft, caring effort that left my knees weak and my heart pounding. I almost didn’t hear Magnus clear his throat, and I’m sure I turned a little red as Mary leaned back and smiled at me. “Just come back to me,” she said, and turned to walk to the cockpit.
“Well, well, well. Looks like we have ourselves an old-fashioned love connection.” Magnus grinned ear to ear in his helmet. I donned mine once again and walked to the center of the room. We’d moved our pinned buttons to the outside of the suits, mounting them on a loose pocket on the breast. For good measure, we also each strapped one of the Kraskis’ powerful guns to our backs. We didn’t know what would be waiting for us out there.
My heart pounded and a bead of sweat ran down my back as I waited for the word from Mary. I was about to willingly alter my matter to get to the container. The idea that I might materialize half in the container, or that the rope wouldn’t come with me and I would float out there forever, crossed my mind as she called to us, telling us it was time.
Magnus, looking as calm as ever, pushed his button and was enveloped in a green light. Following suit, we both glowed as we used a rail above us to push down gently. I didn’t feel my legs moving through the ship wall, but soon I was neck deep in ship and after a quick eye closing and opening, I was out in space. Then, just as quickly, I was entering the huge black container, rope still firmly in place. We entered into a small room with dim lights on each wall. It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust – then I saw the bodies.
The room was about thirty feet square, and maybe a hundred people lay on the floor, unmoving. I knelt down to the nearest person, and saw her chest rising and falling slowly. She was alive!
“Magnus, she’s alive! Check the others! Are any of you awake? It’s okay, we’re here to help you,” I called out. A few people moved around along the wall, and one of them hesitantly stood up.
“It can’t be,” the skinny man said. “We’re dead, don’t you see?” He stumbled forward, stepping on some unmoving bodies to get to us.
“No, you’re not. We’re human like you. Here to save you.” I gripped him as he stood in front of me. His face was gaunt, and dozens of others were slowly getting to their feet. Some stayed unmoving, and I feared the worst for them.
There was a door at the far end of the space; Magnus was already moving for it. It hissed open, sliding to the left, and he motioned with his hands for me to follow.
“We’ll be back. Does anyone know if there’s a control room or something with computers in this thing?” No one answered. I breathed deeply and felt the cool, fresh air hit my lungs. Guilt hit me right in the gut seeing these struggling people, dead or near death, and here I was with full oxygen. I needed to have it so I could help them, though.
Magnus waved me forward from the next room. Dim lights flickered softly as I stepped over and around countless people. I wanted to stop and check on them, but I knew that we needed to keep moving.
“Everything seems to happen at the center of the Kraskis’ cubes, so let’s make a line for the middle of this thing. And do it fast. There might be some air control – maybe thrusters or something,” Magnus said.
We moved past countless thousands of humans, all piled on the floors in the dozens of rooms we went through. There were hallways every few rooms deep, like they made these containers just for storage and only needed limited access to them.
“Should we hit the middle of this cube, like on the mother ship?” I asked.
“I think you have the right idea. Let’s hit these stairwells and climb our way up.” Magnus walked up to the door, and it slid open for him. We could now tell the stairwell markers on the doors, because they had a small image of a ladder on them. Pretty universal. We climbed for what we assumed was halfway, and after a few minutes, we took one of the hallways and followed it a while before it intersected with another hall going perpendicular to it.
“If I remember anything from old shoot-em-up games, you see a path like this, you follow it to the big bad guys,” I said, remembering my days playing Doom in my parents’ basement.
I tried to forget about the other containers just like this one, filled with people and heading for the power of the sun as we were walking around this one. It felt so hopeless, but we had to try our best. I wished we had a radio right now so we could check in with Natalia and Mary and let them know we were okay. I heard something coming from down the hall and turned, straining to hear it through my suit.
“Wait!” a pleading voice called. A thin woman struggled toward us, her clothing smudged and stained. Magnus stood firm, holding his gun, and watched the other end of the hall.
“They’re in there… well, one level up, actually. We tried to fight them off at the start, but they shot and killed a whole room. A thousand of us dead in an instant. We’ve kept our heads down ever since.” She could barely stand.
“How many of them are there?” I asked.
“I don’t know. There were at least ten that I saw. But this place is huge and we think all halls lead to the central control room. Three days in, a group tried to take over and break down the doors, but there was no way in. Most of the rooms filled with a gas early on. Some sort of sedative. It just knocked them out. They eventually just went back to wait for their deaths with the rest of us.” Her shoulders slumped forward, hair spilling over her pale face.
“I think we have a way in. What did they look like?” I asked on a hunch.
“Like you and me. Human.”
“How did you know we weren’t with them, then?” Magnus asked tensely.
“Because they all look like the same woman.”
“Hybrid clones, maybe? Makes sense. Why ship your purebreds off to die when you have already proven dispensable hybrids? The bastards.” At that moment, the guilt I had for destroying the last of the Kraski from the universe drifted away into the cosmos. “Stay back. We’re going to go in and take control of this place. Magnus, let’s double back to that stairwell and get moving. Remember how we got on the ship? I think that the technology allows us to pull through solids toward the power module of each ship. In this case, that should be through the doors upstairs.”
“I hear you loud and clear, Dean. Let’s move. Lady, you might want to find a room down the way. Can you try to gather everyone who’s well enough to fight and bring them up a flight in ten minutes? We may need the backup.” Magnus swung his gun into ready position.
The woman nodded lightly and took off down the hall. We turned to the stairwell and worked our way up a flight. Were they watching us with cameras? Did they know we were on our way to them? Maybe they were too smug and cocky to even be worried.
We exited through the sliding door out of the dimly lit stairwell, and into a hallway with softly flashing lights. It occurred to me that maybe something behind the doors at the end of the hall was pulling energy from the breaker or whatever they used on these things.
Magnus took the lead, and soon we were at the door, each standing at either side of the metal slab, guns raised. I took a moment to calm my breathing, which was getting labored as adrenaline surged through my body. I looked up to Magnus and gave him a smile that more likely looked like a grimace. The pin on my suit felt heavy this time as I readied to push it. Magnus raised three fingers and slowly lowered them one by one. At zero, we both pressed our buttons and were pulled by a soft green glow. Magnus was heading upwards, so I pushed him forward through the door; he grabbed me and dragged me through with him.