Ch: 110 Contact (Patreon)

Edited by Aldous

Sorry for being late. I got sick, as in a head cold, from the plane trip back home. Runny nose, upper respiratory type thing. No fever, so I think it's just the flu and not Covid. Still, staying home from work tonight just to be sure. Might get tested anyway if work asks me to. 

Things get exciting from here. Lots of questions get answered, but more questions get asked. Enjoy.

Chapter 110

Contact

Freya cursed as the escape pod went dark, and her night vision turned on. Looking down at the screen she had been watching the feed was now dark, as was everything in the pod. She banged on the console, but it remained dark. She could feel the vibrations from the engines behind her, so she knew that something was working. While it was good that the engines were working, it was bad if the engines were working without a guidance system to point the pod in the right direction.

She cursed as she unstrapped her restraints and pulled off her backpack and took out her tools. She could tell from the G forces that she was going straight, which was fine as long as straight wasn’t straight down. The last thing she needed was for the escape pod to plow into the seabed. She unrolled her tools and started pulling the console apart, hoping to see a quick fix.

Her hopes were dashed as soon as the panel came off. She didn’t see anything out of order. She checked the most obvious points of failure, but everything looked fine to her scanner. She didn’t have time to yank off the entire panel nor did she have the space, but she could peel back sections of it, which she did. She finally found the problem. It was a small hand-sized battery, which was dead.

The battery she found, after she checked it over, was a rechargeable battery. The problem was,t when she checked its charger, which was attached to the console, it had a wire that was loose. It was a quick and easy fix. She still had a problem though, as the battery was still dead, and she didn’t have the time for it to recharge from its charger. What she did have was an idea.

First, she reached into the panel to unattach the charger. After she had it out of the console, she pulled off a small, armored panel on her armored suit and unscrewed a wire. Then, praying that she didn’t short out her suit, she attached the wire to the charger. Her night vision flickered, but came back on after a few seconds. Warning icons popped up on her HUD as several systems in her armor started flashing red. Nothing serious right now, but she would need to fix those systems soon or get new armor.

The recharger was working overtime now, she noted when looked down at it. Every few seconds, it jumped up a single percentage which was much faster than if she had left it alone. She wanted it to be at least twenty percent because she didn’t think her flight time in the pod would last all that long once she had an idea where she was. Her end goal was to head back to the dropship and get inside while the mission to capture a Ketica went on.

A little more than thirty seconds later, the battery indicator showed twenty percent, and she pulled the charger off and put it back into its place inside the panel. It took a few seconds for the system to boot up. When it finished it’s self-diagnostics test, the entire control console lit up. She had a second to recognize the huge rock she was flying towards when the collision alarm started blaring. Her personal AI took over the controls, using her armor to connect to the escape pod. She was suddenly the escape pod rushing towards a rock sticking up from the ocean floor. She had less than a second to react at that point. Thankfully her AI was much faster than her body and she turned the ship to the left of the rock. She didn’t get off completely free. She heard a loud metal bang as the bottom of the escape pod bounced off the rock and she was thrown up and down from her chair. She had forgotten to strap herself back down in the seat.

Again, her Personal AI was a blessing as there was no way she could fly the escape pod while being bounced around. She was able to pull herself back to the seat and secure the straps as she turned the pod around and back towards the battle zone. Luckily, she wasn’t that far from it. Even after she was secure again in the seat she used her Personal AI to fly the ship. It was simply easier. Plus she could see more, as if the sensors were her eyes. It was an awesome feeling.

“Cap, on my way back.” Freya said on her armor's radio. “Where do you want me?”

“On the ship.” Thompson replied. “Fred is on course to pick you up.”

“Roger that.” Freya replied, spotting the dropship circling above the battle. She noted that there were a bunch of fish constructs following the ship as it turned towards her. The fish were much smaller than the eel-like creatures that had popped out of the ground in the ambush previously. There were also many more of them and they were faster than anything she had seen before. The fish were swimming together like something from a documentary she had to watch when she was in school. There were hundreds of them swimming close to each other and reacting like they were a single organism. They were white and shiny so they were easy to spot in the darkness of the deep ocean.

“Magic, come to heading 017, 190.” Fred said over the radio. “Slow to 20 MP.”

The heading was based off of a three-hundred-sixty degree circle. The first number told her that he wanted her to turn slightly away from him. The second number told her he wanted her to dive slightly towards the ocean’s floor. The last bit was about her speed. He wanted her to slow down to a much slower pace.

“017, 190. 20 miles per hour.” She replied, telling him she understood.

“I’m going to come around you, and drop the ramp.” He told her. “I want you to bump your speed up at the last moment and come in. Hit your brakes as soon as you clear the ramp. Fly straight. I put Thompson in a pod for her safety.”

“Roger. Boost my speed then hit reverse as soon as I’m in.” She told him.

“Good luck.” He replied as she adjusted her course and slowed down.

On her screens she spotted the dropship heading her way. As it flew towards her, she spotted the auto cannons firing, devastating the school of fish behind it. It only fired a few rounds but the explosive nature of the rounds took out many around their initial targets. The school of fish was gone in seconds, but behind it she spotted more schools on their way towards the dropship.

She slowed her pod to the required speed as the dropship itself slowed down a bit. It flew past her, going slightly faster than her escape pod. She saw the ramp lower as it passed her and she maneuvered her pod, through her Personal AI, so that she was lined up with it and hit her boosters. She suddenly was overtaking the dropship. Her escape pod was roughly three feet wide by four feet tall and about six feet long. That meant that she had to carefully maneuver it so that she didn’t hit the edges of the ramp as she rushed inwards. As soon as her nose cleared the ramp she reversed the engines to slow the pod down. She passed the first four spawn pods and was dangerously close to the command and control station when her pod finally slowed to a stop.

She took a deep breath and pulled her AI out of the escape pod. It was still really dark inside the pod, but her night vision was still working. The lights on the control panel were dim. Much dimmer than before, making her wonder how much battery life she had left. Reaching above her, she hit the canopy release button. The canopy fell back and away from the pod and she was able to stand up and exit it. As she did so she noted Captain Thompson exiting a respawn pod. She gave Freya a nod before hurrying back to her seat at the command and control station.

“I’m in and okay.” Freya called out on the radio.

“Gotcha.” Fred replied a second later, sounding busy.

Freya linked her AI with the ship’s computers as she climbed out. She saw that they were being chased by at least two schools of fish. The auto cannons were being controlled by the targeting computers, but they were having problems tracking such small targets. Freya immediately took control of the guns and seconds later had a target. She fired all six rounds into the school, turning the fish into pink mist.

“We’re low on printer fluid.” Captain Thompson said out loud from in front of her. “Don’t let it drop below two percent.”

Freya nodded and checked the printer fluid supplies, and her eyes widened at how low they were. According to the computer they were down to a bit more than four percent. Each time the auto cannons reloaded it ate about .2 percent away. She knew that from experience.

She didn’t have time to respond as another school got a bit too close to the ship. They were, Freya thought, worryingly fast. She fired off another round from a single cannon and turned the fish behind her into pink mist once again. There was another school chasing the ship, but they weren’t that close. Freya took the time to look over at the damage control board and frowned.

It was showing multiple damages to the hull, which was probably why the dropship was still flooded even after Fred had closed the ramp behind her. It was slowing him down, but there wasn’t much he could do about it as the ship would flood as soon as someone tried to evacuate the water. The holes were simply too big to keep up. The ship's damage sensors were screaming about a few maneuvering engines that were down, and several vital systems were down. The ship wasn’t affected too badly at the moment because the backup systems were working in their stead.

Before she finished checking over her ship, it shook, and the damage system started screaming as another maneuvering engine died. Freya quickly checked the feed wishing she had the same depth she had when she linked her Personal AI to the ship like she did when she linked with the escape pod. She still had to bring up the feeds instead of just seeing out of them like she did with the escape pod.

The damage, she noted when the correct feed came up, was on top of the ship. There was a school of fish that had somehow snuck up past the ship’s sensors and were now eating away at the hull. The ship shook because the maneuvering engine had exploded, ironically taking a bunch of fish with it, saving them from further damage. Fred supercharged the ship’s hull for a second and the electricity killed the rest.

“We can’t keep this up.” Fred said over the ship’s radio.

“We’re not in yet.” Thompson replied out loud. “We need five more minutes.”

“I’m not sure we have five minutes.” Fred replied.

“Make the time.” Freya’s old Gunny ordered him.

Freya brought her attention back to the ship’s guns and quickly acquired another target. The constructs seemed to really want the dropship dead because she found a huge swarm of schools of fish building up behind them. She unleashed another round from both auto cannons, but this time it didn’t seem to make that much difference as the swarm absorbed the damage.It was a long few seconds as the cannons reloaded.

“Where is my update?!” Captain Thompson yelled over the command channel.

Freya risked a look over at the command and control station and saw a few blank screens. She quickly looked away, hoping she hadn’t just seen dead feeds from her fellow platoonmates. It was possible, she reasoned, that the feeds were somehow being scrambled. She unleashed another round each from both cannons as the huge school of fish behind them started to get organized and follow them. As the cannons reloaded she noted that, while many fish had died, there were still a lot more of them still behind them.

“Boss.” Freya said, speaking out loud to Thompson as the cannons reloaded.

“I know!” Thompson shouted back. “Keep them off us, Magic!”

Freya watched helplessly as the fish swarm exploded towards them at an insane speed. Fred stopped trying to dodge and shot straight upwards. Even still, the fish closed in on them. Freya, still using her personal AI, backed out of the cannon screen as they reloaded and looked for something to help her. Then she noted that they had an artillery shell loaded in their big cannon on top of the ship. She had no idea why they had loaded it, but she had a very bad idea when she saw it.

She immediately pulled its safety like she was about to fire it then ejected it from the cannon. Fred immediately cursed over the command channel. “What the hell, Magic?!” He yelled, just as there was a worryingly loud bang as the shell bounced off their hull before it fell behind them. Freya quickly switched back to the auto cannons and targeted the falling shell.

“Brace, brace, brace!” Fred yelled, as he saw what she was about to do. He yelled, Freya noted, slightly amused, over the command channel again. She mentally pressed the fire button and a single round spat out of the back cannon.

She didn’t see the explosion as the dropship was rocked violently. She hurtled into the bulkhead. Pain exploded in her left arm as she bounced off the bulkhead and fell back down to the floor. Her HUD exploded in yellow icons as she lost contact with the dropship’s computers. Ignoring her pain and the yellow icons on her HUD, she quickly re-established contact with the dropship computers, and looked at what she had caused.

The first thing she noted was that she had caused a lot of damage to the dropship with her shot. The rear cannon was out, according to her screens. A quick tab to the damage control screens told her that it wasn’t the only thing that was out. The hull had taken a beating. It had already been holed by the fish before the explosion, but the damage far exceeded what the fish had done. They lost four of the respawn pods. They were just gone, leaving holes in the hull where they had been. Since the pods that were missing were random and not next to each other she assumed that the hull had already been weakened at those spots.

The main artillery cannon was broken in half on top of the ship. It had already been damaged from the fish so Freya wasn’t all that surprised, but still it was a startling thing to see. The engines had also taken some damage. They had lost a few more maneuvering engines, but their main engine was still showing green. It was an odd sight in a sea of yellow and red icons.

The explosion had spared the front auto cannon. She quickly mentally tabbed to its screen and smiled when she saw the green icon.

Her assessment had taken seconds, but she was worried that she had taken too long with it as she tabbed back to the feeds from behind her. While most of the cameras were out, there was still one feed that was still live. She quickly linked to it and looked at what she had caused. What she saw made her smile. The swarm of fish was gone. There was a red haze like someone had dumped a bunch of chum behind them. Freya thought it was a glorious sight.

“Fred, get us back in the fight.” Thompson said over the dropship’s channel. She then started speaking over the command channel again. “We are still alive, thanks to Magic, but I need some eyes in that factory.”

“We’re not getting anything on the drones we send in, ma’am.” Cannon replied. “I’m sending in a team.”

“Understood.” Thompson replied. “We’re coming back around to give you cover.”

“I’m not seeing that many constructs left. That artillery shell took care of most of them.” Cannon told them. “Rattled us pretty good as well.”

By the time Cannon was done talking, they were back on station, circling the factory. Freya found that Cannon was right as she sought new targets. All she saw was dead constructs all over the place. There were a few hotspots, but the marines had them under control. She did keep an eye on them, but they didn’t look like they needed help.

“Captain. We got a problem.” Nonuglas, First Squad’s first team leader told them. “There is nothing here.”

“What do you mean, there is nothing there?” Captain Thompson asked in a very quiet voice.

“We followed the corridors to the middle of the factory, but there is nothing here.” He replied.

“I’m not seeing your feed.” Captain Thompson told him. “Can you do anything about that?”

“My drone operator tells me we are being jammed.” He replied. “But ma’am, there is nothing here. It’s empty. Just a big, open space.”

“Cannon, take your team in.” Thompson commanded. “I need more than ‘it’s empty’.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Cannon replied. Freya held her breath as she realized that it was her team that Cannon was taking into danger. She hoped it wasn’t a trap. About a minute later Cannon came back on the radio.

“Ma’am, I’m at the center of the factory. Nonuglas is right. There is nothing here. It’s a room about three hundred feet wide and about two hundred feet tall, and there is nothing here.” Cannon told them.

“Scan for explosives. Look for traps.” Captain Thompson told them. “Magic, get ready. If it’s clear, then I need you in there.”

“On it.” Freya said, backing out of the dropship’s systems. Standing up, she went to the escape pod, which was on its side now, and grabbed her weapons from where she left them. By the time she was armed again, Cannon had started talking on the radio.

“My people’s initial scan says there's nothing here. We are doing a deeper scan now.” Cannon told them.

“Magic, you’re up.” Captain Thompson told her. “Keep yourself safe, but I need something.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Freya said, as what was left of the ramp lowered itself. Looking out, she saw that Fred had flown the ship right up to the factory and slowed to a stop.

She pushed off the deck of the dropship and started swimming towards the building. She passed several marines along the way as she swam towards a hole that had been torn in the corner of the building. There were a few auto cannons set up around the hole and a few marines she knew from her platoon guarding it. They watched her pass them by. She couldn’t see their expressions in the darkness of the deep ocean, but from their stance she knew they were not happy. She wasn’t sure if they were unhappy with her or what had happened with the objective.

BT was waiting for her just inside the factory. He nodded to her and then turned around and led her deeper into the building. He led her down a corridor before leading her to the right and down another corridor. There was a hole in the wall and it led into a huge, wide-open space where someone had set up chem lights all over the place. The chem lights lit the room in a dim green light.

They were right, though. The place was empty. Looking around, Freya didn’t know if this place ever had anything in it. While the walls and ceiling looked like they were constructed, the floor was the same sandy ground as the seabed outside. She found Cannon standing with her friends. Monkeyman was holding on to some kind of scanner and Lurch was floating by the ceiling drilling a hole in it. If she had to guess, he was trying to get a signal out so they could send a feed to Captain Thompson. Nonuglas’s team was there too, but they were swimming at the far end of the room.

“Magic’s here, Boss.” Cannon said over the radio.

Freya ignored her and looked around, not getting anything. Still treading water by the hole in the wall she reached out and touched the wall. She got nothing. Feeling stupid she swam deeper into the room, looking around. Not knowing what else to do she swam down towards the sandy bottom and dug her hand into the soft, gritty ground.

Her instincts screamed at her, telling her she wasn’t alone. Before she could pull her hand back she saw huge eyes staring at her from deep inside the ground. They were huge, purple, and looked pissed. She let out a yelp and backed away.

“Magic, what do you see?” Captain Thompson asked, sounding far away to Freya.

Freya was too busy to answer her as the body of the thing deep under the sand started to appear. It wasn’t moving, but now that she noticed its eyes she could start to make out the rest of its body. It was like spotting someone in passive camouflage. It was like she saw something like an outline of something then realized that it was a person laying there.

The thing was glowing purple about fifty feet below the sand. Its shape looked familiar, like she had seen something like it before. It took her a second, but she realized it looked like the Monarch while she was an energy being except the thing wasn’t a huge sun-like creature. It wasn’t bright like the Monarch was. It wasn’t even round. It was more of a cigar-shaped thing than a round thing.

She thought about it and realized it wasn’t even remotely like how the Monarch looked while they were traveling faster than light. Still, there was something there that reminded her of the Monarch. She had no idea why she thought they looked similar, but she did. Even if they looked completely different. Then the answer popped out of her subconscious.

“It’s an energy being.” She muttered out loud, looking down at the thing below her.

“Say again?” Captain Thompson asked.

“It’s like the ships.” Freya said, still looking at the purple thing below her. “It’s an energy being.”

“Can you…” Captain Thompson started to say when the thing below in the sand lashed out with a purple tentacle.

The tentacle moved through the ground like it wasn’t there and wrapped around a marine from Nonuglas’s team. Freya watched in horror as it pulled out the soul of the unsuspecting marine. The marine had been floating by himself near the center of the room. Freya had no idea what he was doing before the thing below them attacked. He never saw it coming. The purple tentacle wrapped itself around the marine and yanked downwards, pulling his soul right out of his body. The physical body of the marine never reacted. It just died.

Freya yanked her short-range rifle off her back, but she never got a shot off before the thing below her yanked its tentacle back below the ground. “It’s below us!” She yelled in warning.

“What happened?” Captain Thompson asked over the radio.

“Did anyone see what happened?” Cannon yelled in turn.

“Wayne just zeroed out!” Nonuglas said, sounding shocked. “He was there and then he died.”

“It has tentacles.” Freya told them, swimming upwards. The thing's eyes, to her horror, followed her as she moved.

“What has tentacles?” Cannon yelled.

“It’s about fifty feet below us.” Freya said as she aimed her gun downwards. “It’s an energy being.”

“Can you talk to it?” Captain Thompson asked.

“It just pulled the poor guy's soul out of his body. I don’t think it wants to talk.” Freya replied.

“It did what?” Nonuglas yelled.

“BT, move.” Freya yelled as another tentacle shot upwards towards her teammate. BT started frantically swimming towards the hole in the wall, but the tentacle followed him. Before he could make it, it wrapped around him. She saw it start to pull his soul out of his body. In near panic she raised her gun and fired. To her surprise, her shot struck the tentacle. She saw the energy beam from her gun hit the purple tentacle and it released BT’s soul. She watched as BT’s soul pulled itself back into his body and the tentacle retreated back underground.

“What they hell was that?” Nonuglas yelled. Freya turned to look at him and saw that he had his weapon out and pointed to where the tentacle had retreated back into the ground.

“You saw that?” Freya asked, surprised.

“The big purple thing?” Nonuglas yelled. “Yeah, I saw it.”

“I saw it too.” Lurch told them, sounding just as shocked as Nonuglas.

“I saw it as well.” Monkeyman said. “But only after you hit it.”

“So we can hurt it.” Captain Thompson said over the command channel. “Good.”

As they were talking, Freya noticed the thing started wiggling. She was just about to say something when it started to move. It shot upwards, but away from them towards the back of the room. She absently noted that it was using its tentacles to move.

“It’s coming.” She yelled as she started swimming backwards. She mainly used her feet because she was too scared not to keep her gun trained on the thing as it flowed upwards.

“Kill it.” Nonuglas yelled and started shooting randomly at the ground.

“It’s surfacing over there!” Freya screamed as she pointed to the spot where the thing was rising.

Both her teammates and Nonuglas’s team started shooting where she was pointing. Freya pulled her hand back and joined in as the thing rose to the surface. Just before it reached it, there was a very bright flash of purple light that blinded her. She pulled the trigger a few times, but was unable to see if she hit the thing. When she could see again the thing was gone. Looking around she found she hadn’t been the only person who had been blinded. Both her and Nonuglas’s teams looked dazed.She looked back at the sandy ground, but didn’t see any sign of the thing.

“What’s happening?” Captain Thompson yelled over the radio. “Did you get it?”

“No.” Freya said sadly. “It’s gone.”