Here, amongst the twinkling stars, Roger and I gaze upon our massive collection of sparkling, pale blue crystarium with the pride of two men hot and tired after a hard day’s work.
“Alright, now that I know how to transmute this stuff, you think this’ll be enough to get started?” I ask him.
“Running the numbers as best as I can: yes, Mr. Wolfgang. Unfortunately, my information on building cafés is quite limited. Should we want to mitigate the risk of failure, we should build a computer with extranet access.”
“What’s a computer, and how do we get one?” I ask the question, but it’s almost like the idea he’s referring to enters my mind before he even answers.
“A computer is a machine similar to a biological brain. They are often used to store, access, and communicate information.”
“Like a library?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s the extranet? How do we access that?”
“The extranet is a system that connects machines by way of radio waves sent between dimensions. If we sent them through spacetime, communication throughout the vastness of outer space would take centuries or millenia. Instead, communication takes only mere moments.”
“Fancy space radio connection. Got it.”
“We’ll need to construct a DiFi satellite.”
“DiFi?” Again, the concept I’ve never heard of before springs into my mind, foreign and strange, but fully formed. Roger fleshes the idea out.
“Dimensional Fidelity. I at least have data with instructions for building a computer and a DiFi satellite, as well as a generator to power them.”
“We’ll start by building something you can use to show me what the pieces look like. Something like one of those televisions. You got anything like that? It’ll be a lot easier transmuting the crystarium if you can show me the parts.”
“That idea is fantastic, Mr. Wolfgang.”
Reeeegh!
A psychic howl resounds throughout the asteroid field, rattling the nerves in my tendrils with a shiver.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“What is what, Mr. Wolfgang?”
“That screech. Something’s coming.”
I swirl around, looking in every direction to try and find the source of the screeching.
“It’s getting louder. Stronger. You can’t hear it?”
“My sensors detect nothing, Mr. Wolfgang.”
“Oh, I forgot. You don’t have a brain. This thing is psychic. It’s screaming at me. I’m too exhausted to focus. I can’t figure out which direction it’s coming from.”
“Psychic screams? A Yog! Get ready to fight, Mr.—”
Clang!
I whip around to look at Roger the moment I hear the metallic crash.
“Help!” squeals Roger like an untuned radio.
A batlike, chitinous creature has enveloped the tin can in its leathery wings. The beast stares back at me with eyes like a praying mantis from Hell, insectoid mandibles wide, baring beastly fangs and a lolling pointed tongue.
“Get your demon claws off my tin can!”
I shloop at the beast like a raging bull. Wrestling the horror, my tendrils strain to pull its terrible claws off of Roger. The beast is strong; I’m too tired to challenge it with any real resistance.
“Help!”
If I use a psychic attack, I might hurt Roger, too. Besides, I can barely focus. I’m exhausted. Think of something. Quick!
I stretch out a tendril. The crystarium. I pull a rock of the stuff back in an iron grasp.
357 Magnum!
“Mr. Wolfgang! Help!”
The revolver forms in my tendril. I point it right at the monster’s bulbous eye and—
BLAM!
I can’t believe I pulled that off. This transmuting thing is easy now that I’ve got the hang of it.
Ringing ‘ears’ apparently aren’t limited to humans, though I think as the tinnitus seeps into my brain.
I shake my head as if to rattle the squealing tone out.
The beast’s brains, though? They’re gone, globules of the green fluids and pink tissue splattered into the endless void of space. The creature goes limp, and I toss it aside.
“Here.” I hand the pistol to Roger. “Do you know how to use one of these things?”
“Mr. Wolfgang, you saved me.”
“Yeah, no problem. Do you know how to use a gun?”
“I thought for certain I was to be torn apart and my batteries drained dry. No one has ever risked anything for me before.”
“Roger, get it together.”
“My apologies, Mr. Wolfgang. I have never experienced such irrational behavior before. Was that called selflessness?”
“Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“Selflessness is cool, Mr. Wolfgang.”
“You know what’s also cool, Roger?”
“What?”
“Personal defence. Take this. Point it at something you want dead. Squeeze here. Enjoy the show. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. Wolfgang.”
Reeeegh!
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“Bully,” I spit sarcastically. “You’re about to get plenty of practice. Make me proud, tin can.”
Reeeegh!
Shlooping behind Roger, I grab hold of him to direct his fire. I take a deep breath and try closing my eyes to rely purely on my psychic instinct. We drift and turn. When I open my eyes, another beast is flying straight toward us.
“There! Shoot, Roger!”
BLAM!
A green mist bursts from the creature’s abdomen.
Reeeegh! Reeeegh!
The awful thing drives forward, closing the gap between us. More screams fill my brain.
“Shoot again! The head!”
BLAM!
The beast is dead, its head exploded into green and pink globs.
“Over there now!”
We turn. He fires.
BLAM!
Another monstrosity dies in a violent burst.
I reach for more crystarium.
BLAM!
Another 357 Magnum forms in my tendril.
“Here!”
I hand him the new weapon.
BLAM!
Rounds spent, I take the first one and grab more crystarium to make more rounds.
BLAM!
We’re starting to be swarmed. I think back to Sgt. Sigrid and her men fighting in the corridors of their ship.
Don’t tell me there are that many. We can’t take that many. Bully! The tin can’s doing great here. I just need to keep him supplied.
BLAM!
I hand him the reloaded pistol and reach to make a third and fourth.
BLAM!
BLAM!
BLAM!
This time, we’re both firing. The batlike insectoids are pressing closer. It’s getting hard to tell the live ones from the dead.
BLAM!
BLAM!
Too many guns now. I can’t keep count.
As if reading my mind, he passes me the spent pistol, and I trade him one of mine, then start reloading.
Reeeegh!
Crash!
“Oof!”
“Beep!”
The rounds slip from my grasp as a beast crashes into me, sending me and Roger twirling. The hideous creature tears my flesh with its mandibles, rips my tendrils with its claws, and stabs my body with its stinger.
I yell in pain as my vision reddens. That madness. It’s coming over me. But, I get a sense, deep in my gut, that I can’t explain, that I should hold back and retain my human faculties.
I reach around and—
BLAM!
My round obliterates the beast’s head. I throw its corpse aside, then blast another rushing creature.
Grabbing Roger, I shloop us back to our stockpile of crystarium, knowing we’re dead in the water without a resupply of rounds.
Another monster tries to flank us, but Roger turns to blast it.
Click!
“Mr. Wolfgang!”
He’s empty.
We trade weapons, and close enough now to the stockpile, I reach out and grab a large hunk of crystarium.
We need more firepower!
I picture a Thompson submachine gun in my mind. Blowback operated, selective-fire submachine gun. The crystarium bends and glows. Not enough material! I grab another hunk and start working it into the first.
.45 ACP. One hundred-round drum.
I begin to really feel the burning, screaming pain of my rent flesh. There’s a sick churn in my stomach. My vision reddens again, and suddenly the pain is gone, and … so is everything else; my focus becomes unparalleled.
The firearm is complete with a full drum. A small part of me stares in disbelief; I shouldn’t have been able to do this, but I know the madness is pushing my psychic prowess to new heights. I’ve never felt such clarity or focus.
But I have.
A memory of war, rounds bursting from my M1 Garand, flashes through my mind. Artillery hammers the mountains like a god striking the Earth with judgment. A grenade tossed. Adrenaline spiked. The blasts and booms never cease. The rhythm of battle—
I’m back in space.
Time drips by, slow as molasses: from every direction, the horrific monsters approach, at least a baker’s dozen total of batlike bugs. Hell is feeling generous. I recall the tight corridors of the Emperor’s warship where Sgt. Sigrid and her men made their final push, and I know, eventually, there could be hundreds or thousands.
I pass the Tommy gun to Roger and reach for more crystarium with every free tendril. I know I can’t fight as readily. I know I have to support the guns lest we run dry on rounds.
Fatigue seeps deep into my sinews. My alien limbs go numb, perhaps from the venom of the monstrosity’s stinger. Regardless, I press on and fill my hands with copper and steel.
Ratatatatat!
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat!
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Reeeegh!
Our hail of gunfire shreds the hideous monsters, pressing them back as the gushing, green fountains of their blood pool into neon globs. Now, the beasts stop approaching; they begin to grab their dead and … cannibalize them.
Ratatatatat!
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
We keep shooting. And shooting.
Reeeegh!
Ratatatatat!
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
We don’t let up.
Ratatatatat!
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Our rounds rip through the beasts, our hatred unyielding. Unyielding until, finally, not one is left moving in any direction.
“Roger…
“Mr. Wolfgang?”
“I think that’s it.”
“Are you alright, Mr. Wolfgang?”
“Not really. I feel pretty sick. At least the pain is going numb.” I heave out ragged, strained space breaths. “I need you to help me molt.”
“Mr. Wolfgang, it is too soon since the last time.”
“We have to do something, Roger. I think I’m going to die if we don’t.”
Reeeegh! Reeeegh!
Damn it! More!
“Keep fighting, Roger! It’s not over!”
“Beep! Boop!”
Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat!
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
No one’s going to save us… It’s just me and the tin can.
BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!
Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat!
At least if I die, I die with a friend.
Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat! Ratatatatat!
“You’re doing great!”
“Die! Die!”
“Atta boy! Blast’em!”
The cacophony of violence boils the blood in my veins. My mind goes blank as the magnums kick and kick, and when one is spent, I toss it aside and reach to make another while I fire from more. The blasts deafen me, tinnitus totally robbing my hearing except for the terrible psychic screams that drive their way into my mind.
Here, amongst the twinkling stars, Roger and I fight and prepare to die.
