Surefoot 55: Ex Mortis

At her boots, grasping her by the shins, T'Varik instructed, "Be exceedingly careful, Lieutenant! Let one of your hands pass in first, but be prepared to withdraw it if the environmental forces on the other side prove to be detrimental... for Lt Arrington's sake, we must hope it is not."

Sasha stiffened, but didn't respond. Since Giles returned to the Surefoot following the Battle of Khavak, she had kept him at arm's length, not wanting him to believe that there was any hope of their rekindling the physical side of the relationship they had as cadets while onboard. She was probably a little abrasive to him as well, partly driven by her new role as Acting Second Officer and a need to establish her authority.

Now, however, she wanted to talk with him, try to explain herself, how she felt. But if he was dead, and past that...

Her hand disappeared. She still felt it, and what was beyond: hot, dry, heavy, swaddling air, like in a sauna rather than in a steam room. She withdrew it, looked at it: the skin had indeed dried, but she otherwise appeared intact. She looked back over her shoulder. "I'm going in, but the gravity pull is very strong, here and on the other side!"

"Acknowledged, Lieutenant!" T'Varik called back. "Be careful!"

Sasha turned back and continued crawling. The whine was growing louder, seeping into her like the heat had done to her hand. What was on the other side? What was on the other-

Oh, Hell.

She gasped, as much from shock as from trying to breath in the hot, dry, sulphurous air she found here. The ochre-red sky was a swirl of angry clouds that offered thunder and lightning but no relieving rain, above a bare, rocky, blood-red desert terrain that made Mars look like Risa.

In the far distance, there were distinct, indistinct flashes, clashes, as if a battle was underway just beyond a slope, Closer, however, there were Creatures. Hundreds if not thousands of them, assembling in great black swarms, making horrible sounds that filled the dead air.

Closer still, she saw the barrels, many now opened, revealing more of the Creatures, crawling naked from them like newborn animals.

Crawling towards a prone, gasping Giles, just lying there.

And more Creatures, cloaked ones, had also noticed him, and making their way closer.

Sasha felt the intense gravity here, and she realised now both why Giles was not moving, and why the operators of the black ship were shrinking the corpses down: the gravity here was several times greater than what most humanoids could manage under their normal sizes. It pressed her down, and even her lungs struggled to take in air, as she continued to crawl, her lower half still on the other side of the doorway, T'Varik still holding onto her. She had no idea if the doorway was one-way or two-way, and she didn't want to risk finding out. She tried calling out to Giles, but the air was too thick and distorted her voice; it was like trying to speak underwater.

But he seemed to notice her, and began twisting around and crawl in her direction. Reaching out. Two metres away. One metre.

Sasha tried to get closer, but sensed that she was as far as T'Varik would allow her to go. And the Creatures were drawing closer, closer-

Suddenly she lost the hold on her ankles, and tumbled forward, the full gravity and heat and oppressive air upon her. Her head struck a rock, but she ignored the pain as she reached out for Giles, grasping him by the forearm, crawling back towards the twin columns.

But they seemed so far away. And the Creatures, better adapted to this environment, were closing in.

*

In the White Room, T'Varik twisted and fought back against the swarm of Creatures that had shaken off the stunbeams from C'Rash's phaser, and had resumed their attack. The black-furred Caitian was on her feet, tossing T'Varik the phaser, warning, "Only a few shots left!"

T'Varik caught the weapon and half-used it as a bludgeon, her Vulcan strength and stamina serving to keep them at bay, but only just. She needed to return to the portal-

A sound from outside the White Room caught her attention, and she looked over in time to see Kami launch herself into the fray, claws extended, mane flying behind her as she roared and fought, followed closely behind by Kit, using some form of martial arts to use his opponent's greater mass against them.

The fracas quickly ended, with Creatures lying around dead or disabled, the sickly-yellow ichor leaking from their wounds spoiling the air. T'Varik caught her breath, ensuring the rest of her colleagues weren't gravely injured, and then turned back to the columns. "Hurry! We must rescue Sasha and Giles!"

*

In the Cathedral, Hrelle ducked as the three Spheres, two silver and one golden, spun around him like moons in orbit, before rising and expanding their orbit, crimson laser beams shooting out between them, sculpting photons into a hologram of what looked to Hrelle like a giant narrow silver-black octahedron shape, slowly rotating and spewing out beams of black light.

The Tall Man raised a hand to it. "This is the Enemy, Captain. Ours, and yours, though you don't know it. Leviathan: a being of Absolute Order and Control, with acolytes who worship Agony, and seek to inflict it upon others. They have had desires to extend their dominion over our own realm for centuries. We need soldiers." He raised the corner of his mouth. "Better to use the dead than to let the living suffer. You understand that, Captain."

Hrelle stared up at the hologram, as if hypnotised by the abstract above. "The dead... deserve better. Better than what you and I have given them." He rose to his feet. "To die in battle here, only for the likes of you to resurrect them to keep on fighting somewhere else? It's monstrous!"

"I did not bring you here to debate ethics, Captain," the Tall Man informed him archly. "But to bring your leaders a proposal: your people face an Enemy that is both insidious and relentless. They will overwhelm you. But we are prepared to offer you assistance: weapons, technology, information, that will help you achieve victory. And in return, you allow us to establish a permanent facility in your dimension, and openly deliver us all your dead, for our use-"

"No."

The Tall Man straightened up. "Do not let your emotions overwhelm your reason, Captain. I have seen mankind rise from the superstitions and rituals that wasted time and resources on rotted flesh, and have seen races like your own, that place no absurd value or inviability on the dead. Your own actions-"

"I know my actions," he said, moving to one side, to a set of religious icons mounted to the walls, divided by tall brass incense burner stands. "I don't need you to remind me. But the answer is still No." His hand moved up to an iron Star of David, his fingertips running along the sharp segmented edges.

"You have no reason to refuse us!" the Tall Man declared loudly.

"Oh, I have many reasons, Bubulah. I could go into the ethics of alliances with grave robbers from other dimensions or your prior history or your untrustworthy natures. But really..." He looked over his shoulder. "I just don't like you, you long streak of piss."

With his eyes fixed on the Tall Man's, Hrelle grasped the Star of David, pulled it off the wall, spun in place and flung it like a discus with all his might.

The Star soared up and struck the left side of the Tall Man's skull, taking part of his skull away and making yellow pus-like blood spurt.

Around Hrelle, the Creatures reacted to the attack on their Master, as did the Spheres overhead.

Hrelle grasped the incense burner staff with both hands and began fighting.

*

Somewhere else, Sasha kicked out at a Creature that had tried to grab her boot, and put an arm around Giles as she tried to help him hurry back towards the portal, before they both succumbed, either to the Creatures, or to the equally-hostile environment. It wasn't far, a metre-

Two Creatures were upon her, pulling her hair, digging claws into her skin-

Then they screeched and staggered back, falling over themselves in terror as the sky darkened to an inky, stormy black.

Sasha turned -- something had frightened them, and it definitely wasn't Giles and she -- and looked up to three tall, thin humanoid silhouettes approaching, coming into view.

They were as hideous in their own way as the Creatures: chalk-skinned, clad in padded, skin-tight beaten black leather that exposed open, weeping wounds, their tortured skin seemingly bound in other places by razorwire and clamps and needles. They possessed horrific individual features: one had its face peeled back and framed with hooks, another was missing its jaw, leaving a long, bisected tongue to flap and swish like a tail... and the one in the middle sported a series of nails hammered into its face and skull in ordered rows. Their black eyes fixed on the humans.

Sasha stared up in abject horror. "Jesus!"

The one with the head full of pins laughed, his voice like the tearing of living flesh. "Hardly, Child! Though if we can find some wood for a cross, we would be delighted to crucify you both!"

They moved towards Giles and her.

Suddenly from the portal, T'Varik's upper half appeared, reaching out for the two humans, grabbing them. They began crawling to assist, the gravimetric forces pulling them back-

-Into the White Room. Sasha kept crawling, panic almost overtaking her, her skin and uniform covered in sulphuric ash, her lungs protesting with racking coughs. Around her, Kami and Kit helped her up, as C'Rash and T'Varik helped Giles. She almost doubled over from the return to normal gravity and pressure, but she forced herself to point at this end of the portal, forced herself to speak. "Shut- Shut that fricking thing down! It's- It's Hell on the other side! Shut it down!"

The others looked to each other, T'Varik noting, "We have yet to find any control mechanisms for it."

"Respected Commander," Kit offered. "If there is any remaining power in Lt Shall's phaser, destroying one of the columns might trigger an imbalance which will collapse the portal. It may also clear the local interference on our combadges-"

T'Varik had heard enough. "Clear the room." She reached out for the phaser. "Lieutenant?"

The Caitian glared at her, but complied, following the others. The Vulcan checked the power reserves -- 12%, and of course they were not aware of the composition of the materials to determine if it would be sufficient or what effects might occur from their actions, but they hardly had any other options on hand. She stepped back to the doorway, feeling C'Rash grab her by the waist from behind, obviously ready to pull her partner out of any resultant explosive reaction. She aimed at one column and fired without any further hesitation.

The column ruptured, and eldritch energies coruscated outwards. The vibrations that had suffused the immediate area of the ship grew now, but with a sickly, alarming tone. C'Rash drew T'Varik back to let the doors slide shut, as all of their combadges began chirping at once.

"It worked!" T'Varik shouted with unabashed emotion, smacking her combadge. "Surefoot! This is Commander T'Varik! Lock onto all combadge signals and beam us directly to the Bridge!"

*

In the Cathedral, Hrelle fought valiantly, smacking away the Spheres as they tried to swoop down and impale him with spikes or blades, swung out the incense burner at the Creatures that swarmed around him. He did his best, alone.

It wasn't enough. One, then another, leapt onto him, and even as he felt himself succumb, he fought back still, until the sheer weight of their numbers threatened to collapse his lungs.

"Let him up," the Tall Man commanded distantly.

The Creatures obeyed, holding onto Hrelle as they forced him up to his knees, and the Creatures parted in front of him to let the Tall Man stride up. His head wound remained gaping, but he reached up to it and folded back the hanging skin, licking his fingers where they had gathered what passed for his blood. "A foolish choice, Captain. We are eternal. We will continue. You... and your family and crew... will not. But know that after your deaths, we will endeavour to provide you all with gainful employment."

Hrelle bared his teeth and doubled his efforts to escape... until his combadge chirped and announced, "Transport commencing, Captain."

The Caitian looked up at the Tall Man. "Kiss my furry-"

"-Ass." Hrelle fell forward, no longer held in place, and smacked his snout on the floor of his Bridge.

He rose quickly, ignoring the pain, ignoring the urge to rush up to Kami and Sasha and hug them both, instead barrelling over to the Tactical station, as C'Rash, standing there, announced, "Phasers and quantum torpedoes online, Sir!"

He looked up at the viewscreen, saw the black oblong ship still there amongst the wreckage of the space battle. "FIRE! FIRE IT ALL!"

Then he watched as a volley of torpedoes shot forth, the phaser beams overtaking them as they struck the black ship, cutting along its light-absorbing surface, making it spin and crash into some of the surrounding debris, even as space began to warp around it.

From the Science Station, Kit called out, "They are activating some sort of interdimensional shift, similar to what we found in the White Room!"

Hrelle gripped the sides of the Tactical station. "Ready another volley-" But then he watched as the first volley of torpedoes reached the ship, and the enveloping dimensional shift... seemingly disrupting and igniting the latter, and causing the ship to implode and blossom into a blinding energy.

And then nothing remained.

The returned Bridge crew watched still, silent, until Hrelle moved to embrace his wife.

*

"Captain's Log, Supplemental: We have departed from the Perigord system, finding no survivors from either side of the battle, and are continuing on our way back to the Thirteenth Fleet. Lieutenants Hrelle and Arrington are in Sickbay, recovering from their experiences in the other dimension... and my First Officer has been frog-marched in there as well by my Chief of Security, apparently because of earlier injuries she had suffered from a prior incident.

But the questions that have been raised by this current incident linger. According to the collective reports from those of us abducted by the Tall Man, he and his unseen masters had been robbing the graves of Terrans for centuries, and have now ventured out into the wider Galaxy to do the same. We seemingly destroyed him, but can we really destroy such things? Will the Tall Man and his minions be back again? And those black-garbed entities that Sasha and Giles described seeing in the other dimension? What Hell raised them? Too many questions, and not enough answers.

Humanoids... and felinoids... like to think of themselves as the pinnacle of evolution, on the top of the ladder, the acme. But there is no acme, it's all relative. There are entities that exist beyond our means of comprehension -- the Organians, the Douwd, the Q -- entities whose mere presence would at best be incomprehensible to us, at worst would literally blow our minds. And it is for the best that, for the most part, they keep to themselves and not bother with us insignificants. We should perhaps scurry away and hide ourselves, stay silent so as not to draw their attention...

Nahhhh, screw them. I don't have the build for scurrying away and hiding."

Hrelle rose and slipped off his jacket and the reset of his clothes, venturing into his bedroom, where he heard his wife and cubs all together, Kami having stayed close to them since her return. He didn't mind; he wasn't in the mood for anything but trying to catch up on sleep.

*

Somewhere close and yet immeasurably distant, a family of Q picnicked in a clump of chaotic space, the parents enjoying the refreshing respite brought by the rentrillic waves washing over their non-corporeal forms, while their son played with his pet in a subspace rift.

But then it was time to leave and go home, though now, their child proved mysteriously unable to hear them. Even when Papa Q called out, "Quentin! Join us this instant! In fact, join us five minutes before we asked! You know you have to practice your temporal manipulation anyway!"

Quentin stuck his head up over the edge of the rift. "We can't go! Quarrel's at the bottom and won't come up!"

Mama Q made a sound. "I told you he was too young to have a pet. But of course you know everything..."

"But I do know everything," Papa Q reminded her, looking back at their son. "You're going to have to leave him."

Quentin's face screwed up into anguish, making nearby worlds tremble and crack. "We CAN'T! He'll be lost, and never find his way home!"

"If only," Mama Q muttered, saying more loudly, "Quarrel is made from our essences, Sweetheart. He'll find his way home... when he's good and ready. And probably hungry for Nova Treats."

"Quentin..." Papa Q finished, in a tone that could not be ignored.

Grumbling, Quentin climbed out of the rift, peering down at the cat at the very bottom. "Don't be late, Quarrel! And don't cause any trouble again! Promise?"

"Of course," his pet lied, his attention focused on the family of tiny lifeforms he had spotted, while observing a disruption of interdimensional portals. Tiny little lifeforms, barely worth glancing at... except for their pointed ears, fur and tails, much like his own. Distant relatives, perhaps, albeit very, very, very, very far down the evolutionary ladder?

He should definitely investigate... They could be fun...

THE ADVENTURES OF THE SUREFOOT WILL RETURN