The Reyblade Pt. 05: Arrival

"I didn't even know if you were still alive. Can you tell me what's going on?"

"Not really," said Rion, reaching the top of the ladder. Her adrenaline was wearing off and her breathing was laboured. "But we need to get in a fighter."

"I'd be long gone if it were that easy," Jessi replied. "They're locked down. Place emptied out with panic after we figured that out. People are saying there's somebody with a pistol on board. To me it's safer to stay in one place if that's true."

Jessi paused.

"Is it true?"

"Darla Brown, the new First Mate, has a pistol at minimum," Rion said. Her vision was getting worse. "Likely The Captain too. Now please can you help me out of here?"

"Oh! Yeah. Sorry."

Jessi was extremely strong considering her small frame and had no trouble pulling the rest of Rion out from the hole in the ground. It closed up immediately after she was laying on solid ground.

"What the-?" Gawked Jessi.

"Try a fighter again, Ms. Ipsen. Choose your favourite."

"I told you, they're locked do-"

"Try AGAIN," Rion say, stumbling to her feet.

"Jesus," Jessi muttered, walking over to her usual fighter. She had flown it far less than she would have liked on this ship. She didn't want the high risk missions that the New Order was pushing her toward, but she had assumed that on this more low key gig that she'd at least be sent on more training drills. But even before Jez had taken to spending all her time with Security, it felt to Jessi like she had long lost her lustre for the position. Not that Jessi particularly blamed her. It was a widely known secret that The Reyblade had become nothing but a glorified delivery vessel.

Technically all the fighters were identical, but Jessi - like most pilots - had developed an affinity for a particular unit. It wasn't the one she had trained in. It wasn't even the one she had flown in the most. But it was the one she went for when she felt that spark. The spark that had driven her to become a pilot in the first place. She walked over and placed her hand on the nose. Her arm unit glowed light green.

"There's no way."

"I told you. Now let's get out of here. I don't think Eipom will be able to hit us even if it's his priority. The ship has a mind of its own now."

"Apparently," Jessi breathed, still staring at her arm unit which was flashing its clearance of her use of the fighter.

"Help me in, I can't see a goddamned thing."

Meanwhile, Darla felt more alive than she had in her entire life. She was striding down the hallways, shooting at will, guided only by her instincts which she felt deep down were just. The rush of seeing Jez Farmer's pleading expression drain away from her face as she fired killing blows into the Weapons Director's body brought a sense of destiny to her that she had never known before. She knew that the ship was giving her direction. She knew that she could trust her gut with who to save and who to kill. It's what her Captain had commanded after all. It's why she had recovered from being stunned so quickly after all. That was what she assumed anyway. And why shouldn't it be true? All recent events were pointing toward her being chosen for something great. Something more.

She hadn't received any communication at all from Eipom, but Darla wasn't worried yet. Word had spread about her it seemed, because expressions of terror spread across the face of anybody she came across, even before she raised her weapon. But Darla was quick on the draw and had yet to let anybody escape who she had intended to kill with the exception of Paulina and Rion. She tried not to think about that failure. Rion was probably her most important target and she had slipped through her fingers because of the lazy useless Paulie. Darla didn't think twice about why she hadn't followed them into the showers. Her subconscious had told her that it would be futile. That was enough.

In similar fashion, Darla had accumulated a number of crew members who followed behind her. Every person she hadn't shot she had told to stay close behind, but it was a command that she made instinctively. In her mind she was alone.

Then. Suddenly.

"The Hanger!" She shouted out loud, breaking into a full run. She brought her arm unit to her mouth. "Captain. Rion is escaping. To our checkpoint. Now."

"It's too late, First Mate. Rion is gone and it's no use anyway. We'll be landing on Thorn soon."

Eipom's voice was monotone and cracked.

"Thorn, Sir?"

"The Anomaly. Advise The Disciples to put themselves in deep sleep and then do so yourself. We're going home."

Darla turned around to face the group that had followed her, remembering without surprise that they were there.

"Did you hear Eipom? Sleep."

The group of over two dozen dropped to the ground immediately. Darla followed not two seconds after.

Rion and Jessi had indeed escaped and Jessi felt the surge of adrenaline that she had missed so much as she zipped away.

"Hey, don't go too far. Turn around and get a visual," Rion said.

"Why? You can't see it and I don't care."

"I need you to describe it for me. And you might care once you're looking."

"Whatever," Jessi said and obliged the former First Mate. "But you're killing my buzz."

Yet Rion was right. The moment Jessi had a visual on The Reyblade, she was glad she turned around.

"Half the front is missing," she said blankly.

"Of wait?"

"Of The Reyblade. Wait, no. It's not missing. It's disappearing into something. Into something invisible. It's rippling. Like space water."

"Space water?"

"You know what I mean. You think I have practice describing things to blind people?"

"Is the, er, space water flat or curved?"

"Curved, I think, it's hard to tell. It's only rippling at the point of entry. It's almost all the way through. Should I follow it?"

"No! No. I don't think we'll be able to enter as smoothly."

"So then what now?"

"This is messed up, let's get out of here."

"And where do you expect to go in this short-range fighter with limited navigational equipment and no hyper drive, Miss Ipsen?"

"I dunno. Away from the invisible thing that swallowed our ship?"

"Gotcha. Well I don't think it wants us inside. We should just wait here."

"And how do you know that?"

"I don't for sure. I just have a good feeling. It worked for getting this thing to fly, didn't it?"

"Are we really the only ones who made it out? What do you think's in there?"

"I don't know, Miss. Ipsen. I just hope I don't die without getting to take another shower."

"Oh good, you know about the smell. I wasn't going to say anything."

Chapter Three: The Anomaly

Captain Eipom hadn't planned on passing into sleep like he had commanded Darla and her followers to, but the instant after he had given her that order he had dropped just the way the rest of them had. When he awoke, he was naked and in the corner of a small pale red room. He knew his muscles were weak before he tried to move them, but he tried nonetheless. Sure enough they contracted and pulsed in dull pain as he tried to stand and he collapsed right back onto the floor in response.

"Awake I see?" A voice echoed through the room.

"U-unh," Eipom grunted. He put his hands under himself in another effort to get up, but even if his muscles had planned on a better performance, the room started to shift around him. Eipom tumbled onto his back as the room turned into a spherical shape and changed to a light gray colour.

"That's better, now stay still."

Eipom grunted again as the room shifted back into a cube shape and he heard noises that sounded something like a door opening. Then heels. Then the unmistakable form of Admiral Lorna.

"Hello John."

"I should have known."

"You should have known what?"

"That you were behind this."

"Oh. Right. Well, no. I mean, yes," the figure said. "What I should say is that this is simply the form I am taking. I am not your Admiral Lorna, but it's also not a lie to say that she is behind, er, all this," the figure who looked like Lorna said, getting onto her knees beside Eipom. She had a strange grin plastered on her face as she stared unblinking at Eipom. She began to stroke his face, shivering as the backs of her fingers touched his skin.

"She has deprived us, you know," she continued, this time in a whisper. "But the Swirl sends us a gift."

"Listen, it would help if-" but Eipom lost his train of thought. The walls had started to flicker and revealed rows of seating. It was clear to Eipom that the seats were filled but he found it impossible to determine what the beings looked like. They looked more foggy the harder he focused on any one of them. The thing that looked like Lorna brought Eipom's attention back into the room.

"You must understand, John. Just because we chose to hide doesn't mean we don't feel abandoned." She had stood back up and her foot was now on his chest. He couldn't see her face over her bust.

"I don't know who you are." Eipom said.

"I know you don't and I don't care," the Lorna retorted. "Stop interrupting. You are a gift for me, not a participant in this conversation."

Eipom suddenly became aware of the pressure that the creature's foot was putting on his chest. He sped up his breathing in a light panic and it just made the pressure feel worse. Then his head began to hurt. Eipom had never been prone to headaches and that fact did not help him deal with the severe nature of this one. It was as if a coating was being ripped off from the inside of his skull. The Lorna pushed down harder on Eipom's chest, but he could only focus on his head. He was flashing through memories now, realizing how thoroughly his behaviour had been influenced by his initial encounter with the anomaly.

"We had help, of course," The Lorna said as if reading his mind. "The Reyblade was our original home. Your Admiral thought herself clever but was ultimately foolish to re-purpose it."

Eipom groaned as the hubris and sense of calm that had shrouded in mind in the days following contact with the anomaly - with Thorn - finally fully broke away from him. It was like his mind was suddenly naked and exposed to the cold. He felt fear for the first time in a long time.

"There's my sweet dumb man," the creature cooed above him. "I'm going to need you to start making yourself useful, however. There's something you have that we just haven't been able to replicate yet. When it comes down to it, we don't need it, but we do miss it."

The flickering of the room had changed to a dull glow and the observation room that surrounded Eipom and his captor was now fully in view. While Eipom still couldn't manage a firm visual on any of the creatures, audio from the outside was beginning to filter in. The voices were human-like, but not in the way that the Lorna imitator was. Their qualities were hard to pin down in a similar way that they could not seem to be looked at.

"Get hard for me, will you?" Lorna whispered. Eipom hadn't noticed her lower herself down again and so her soft words beside his ear consumed him. He forgot all about the beings watching them. He could only feel this Lorna's breath on the right side of his head and her enormous full breasts pressed tightly against his chest. He realized how much lust he had harbored for the Admiral. He felt his cock rise in accordance with her command.

"That's a good boy. Are you gunna cum hard for me? Gunna just lay there and spray just because of the body of a woman is pressed into you?" She moaned in his ear and Eipom felt his balls brewing. He tried to hold back, but he hadn't felt this uncontrollably horny since high school. His brain couldn't keep up with all the events and sensations he had gone through and just gave into the situation. He began to convulse and felt himself cum in his pants.

"Some will hate me for that. They'll call it a waste. But I believe in you, my silly dumb man. I bet you'll be an endless fountain for me, won't you?" Then the Lorna ran her hand down Eipom's body as she spoke and teased his package with the tips of her fingers over his clothing. "I can just get you to do it again."

Eipom whimpered.

Back in the fighter, Jessi was getting restless.

"The Reyblade is gone, Rion. Nothing is happening. Either we go after it or we fly away. I- am- BORED."

"I hate to believe stereotypes, Miss Ipsen, but you're making it difficult."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm sure you know," Rion said, leaning back and warily putting her hands behind her head. Her recent blindness was making it difficult to look casual.

"I'm sure I don't," Jessi snorted back.

"Just that pilots are jocks. Impatient and bloodthirsty with a one track mind."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"I guess it helps on the job but there is no field that a little patience can't benefit from."

"And what about being pretentious? Does that help too?"

"Nah, that part's a burden," Rion grinned.

"Wait, I might have a visual." Jessi said, sitting up straight in her seat.

"On what?"

"I'll need to fly."

"You don't have to lie to do what you want, you know. I can't see and I have no authority over y-"

"Ohmygod, what's wrong with you?" Jessi interrupted, firing the fighter back up and thrusting it forward. "I see something. On the other side of this cloaked whatever-it-is. Based on where The Reyblade went in and where this thing came out from, it must be the size of a small planet."

"Then make sure you account for th-"

"*Obviously* I'm going to do that! Let me be good at the one thing I'm good at, Flaks," Jessi snapped, keeping her eye on the tiny object as she flew in a large upward arc to chase it. "It could just be debris, it's extremely hard to tell at this angle and nothing is showing up on my radar."

"If it's not showing up, then that's probably what it i-"

"Even debris would show up at visual range, genius. It's not cloaked visually, but it's also not behaving normally."

"Are you sure you're taking enough space around the anomaly? We have no idea of its actual size."

"I always told Jez that these things needed an eject button," Jessi responded. Still, she took an even larger arc over the invisible object and sped up to accommodate.

"See anything yet?"

"I'll give you a play-by-play, don't worry your blind little face," Jessi said through gritted teeth.

Rion took a deep breath and tried to relax. The image of smacking into that wall on The Reyblade repeated inside her memory and made her more angry each time. Why hadn't she had a hand out?

"Um, Flaks? I think it's The Reyblade."

Rion wasn't quite sure why, but the information made her concentrate and try to feel the presence of the ship with her mind. She felt something but it could easily be her imagination.

"Did you hear me? Because it definitely is The Reyblade. What should we do?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Like you said, I'm just a pilot. I follow orders and blow stuff up. Do we run? Do we fire?"

"We board. I think it's empty," said Rion without really thinking about it.

"Empty? What gives you that idea?"

"I just feel it."

"Listen, Flaks, I'm all for hunches, but everybody on that ship just went crazy and then it disappeared into an invisible orb and came out the other side and you think we should get on it?"

"Yes. Plus, we'll never last out here in a fighter and I don't think flying into the anomaly is a good idea."

"Well we agree about that last part."

Rion's mind felt the ship in a more concrete sense in her mind now. She could feel all the rooms. See all the rooms even, but not in a traditionally visual sense. It was more that she felt like she was inside the walls; meticulously aware of each centimetre of the space.

"You're in the driver's seat, Miss Ipsen."