The Awakening (The Hyperscape Project Book 1) (15 page)

Nick shook his
head. “No…of course not. It’s just…this is all new to me. Before I met you, I
had never seen an alien. Let alone an alien
frog
. It will just take a
little getting used to I guess. Back on Earth, frogs are little things, not six
feet tall, walking on two legs and…
talking
.” Nick’s brow went up. The
whole thing was just weird.

“Admiral Onaka
is actually a legend among the Serkozi. They even named a close combat maneuver
after him. In the battle of Banahng, the Admiral was boxed in by two Mok’tu in
front of him and one approaching from the rear. All he had on him were two
pistols. The Mok’tu expected him to surrender.  But he didn’t. 
Instead, he ran straight at the two oncoming soldiers and leapt into the air.
As he passed over them, he flipped upside down and emptied fifteen rounds into
each of their heads. They were dead before they hit the ground.” Karg chuckled,
a deep-throated rumbly sound that rolled off the walls around them.  The
big guy was obviously pleased by Onaka’s prowess. “Here’s the real kicker. When
Onaka started his jump, the two Mok’tu opened fire, missing him, but striking
the third soldier coming up from behind. He singlehandedly took out three
Mok’tu and walked away without a scratch. Nowadays that move is known as the
Onaka maneuver, and it’s standard training. Of course, it never worked on Tac
Squad soldiers on account of their shields. But now that we have these new
rounds, the Onaka maneuver gives us a new option.”

“Pretty
impressive,” Nick said. Judging by the roll of blubber around the Admiral’s
middle, it must have been a while since Onaka had pulled off that maneuver, but
Nick wasn’t about to mention that to Karg. No doubt the old frog had since
retired to an easier life of giving orders from behind a desk.

Karg suddenly
stopped and pointed down the corridor ahead of them. “You see that?”

“The door to the
lab? Yeah, it should be closed.” Nick’s voice was low and quiet.

“Exactly.” Karg
stealthily approached the open door. Nick followed. 

“Cover me,” Karg
said.  Without even a second for Nick to prepare, Karg swung into the
doorway, bringing his weapon to bear. Nick slid into the room behind him,
ducking to the side in order to maneuver around some tables. Cautiously, they
swept through the lab in search of Arnon.

After a few
minutes of searching, Karg announced, “It’s clear…but what the frek is wrong
with the lights?”

Nick tried to
manually activate the lights in the room. Karg was right, they were completely
inoperative. As he made his way back across the lab, he noticed something odd
about the device Arya had been studying so intently. As he approached to
investigate, the light from his pistol gleamed off slivers of green crystal
that were lying on the table around the device. The crystal was shattered! From
the marks on the box it looked as though someone had attempted to pry it out.

“Now that’s
strange,” Nick said. “I know this was intact when we left the lab this morning.
Someone has
definitely
been here.”

Karg looked down
at the shards of crystal and then back at Nick, grunting out “Come on!” as he
turned and headed for the door.

Suddenly, the
high-pitched squeal of an alarm screeched throughout the ship, forcing Nick to
squint one eye from the pain in his vibrating eardrums. “Agh!”

“This is the
Captain. The Admiral’s been shot! I want the officer’s section sealed off
immediately!” echoed over the ship’s intercom.

“Frek! That’s on
the other end of the ship.” Karg spun his massive body around and headed for
the Captain’s quarters with Nick following close behind.

Nick squinted in
pain every time the damn siren wailed. Even covering his ears didn’t help. He
peered over at the big leather-skinned Rakozian with his one half-open eye.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”

“What? You mean
the alarm? You don’t like that? It reminds me of the Grand Rakozian Opera. Now,
there’s a woman who can sing.”

Nick was still
busy trying to figure out if that was just another one of Karg’s jokes when
they both skidded to a halt at an intersecting corridor, barely avoiding
someone else coming down the other hallway. Guns drawn and muscles tensed at
the ready, they realized it was only Arya barreling around the corner.

“Whew! I thought
you were the spy.” Nick bent over and held himself up with one hand on his knee
as he huffed for more air.

Arya let out a
big sigh as her shoulders slumped down in relief. “Yeah, you scared the sket
out of me, too.”

“Did you hear?”
Nick queried.

“Yeah, I was
near there when it happened. I thought I saw someone go that way.” She motioned
to the adjacent corridor.

“Come on, we’ll
go with you,” Karg roared. The big guy was obviously ready for action and
prepared to get this spy business over with quickly.

A distant,
horrifying scream permeated the ship. The team looked around and then back at
one another. “Where did that come from?” Nick questioned as he turned to listen
down the passageways.

Arya’s ears
twisted around as she attempted to pinpoint the location of the sound. 
“Quickly. This way.” She turned and sprinted down a secondary corridor.

Down the
darkened passageway a figure slowly came into view. Through the dim lighting
Nick could make out the silhouette of a body lying face up on the deck. As they
approached, it was clear who it was. The young Arnon lay dead on the floor, his
mouth open wide. A terrible silent scream locked on his face.

“Look at his
hands. It’s as if he was reaching out in horrible pain,” Arya noted.

“If he just
died, why is he stiff?” Nick questioned.

Arya pulled out
her ever-handy scanner and ran it over the corpse. “It’s exactly like the
bodies we discovered on the planet. No signs of— Wait, this doesn’t make sense.
I should be getting some cellular activity and residual nerve impulses, but I’m
not.”

“I don’t
understand. He’s dead, right?” Nick said perplexed.

“Yes, but
normally the cells in the body take a while to stop functioning. Even after the
heart or brain function has stopped. There should be some residual energy
reading. This body has
no
energy readings. Even the bacteria are dead.
Something has drained every ounce of cellular and nerve energy out of him. What
could do that?”

“Some kind of
horrid, new weapon?” Karg offered. His big eyes were scrunched in
concentration, and he rubbed his head with one of his four hands, as if the
motion would help him think better.

“No, I don’t
think this was a weapon.” Arya was still focused on the oddity of the corpse.

Nick tilted his
head to the side, disturbed by the look on Arnon’s face. “Could this have
anything to do with that alien device from the planet? We just found it in the
lab, broken.”

Arya looked up
at him. “Broken? What do you mean…broken?”

Karg spoke up.
“Looked like someone tried to pry that crystal thing out of it. Nothing left
but shattered pieces.”

Arya tapped her
com-badge. “Captain?”

Argos replied
over the link “Yes, Arya. What do you have?”

“Arnon is dead,
Captain.”

“Good work,
Arya.”

“No…Sir, it wasn’t
us. We just found him lying dead in the corridor.”

“Suicide?”

“No, I don’t
think so, Sir.”

“Arya, are you
telling me that someone else is running around on this ship killing people?”

“Not exactly,
Captain. I have an idea, but I have to get to the lab to check it out.”

“Alright, but
let me know the moment you have anything.”

“Yes, Sir.” Arya
looked up at Nick with concern. “We need to get to the lab. If what I think is
happening, we are all in serious danger.”

Agitated by the
situation, Nick followed along. “What is it with this place? Why couldn’t I
have been spit out into a nice vacation spot? Maybe somewhere the natives think
I’m a God and bring me drinks on the beach. Instead, I land in psychopath
world, where everything is trying to kill me!” Realizing no one was paying
attention to his little fit, and afraid of falling behind in the dark corridor,
he stepped up his pace. “Hey, guys…. Wait up!”

At the lab, they
managed to get the lights back on, and Arya began examining the damaged device.
“Karg, are the translations of those papers we brought back from the planet
finished yet?”

“Yeah, it’s an
old Kymean dialect. Took the system a bit longer to decipher it.”

Turning to the
translated text on her holo-display, Arya dove into reading. “My God, this is
incredible.”

Nick didn’t
move. His eyes panned cautiously over to her. The last time he heard those
words, he ended up being sucked into hyperspace moments later. It wasn’t
exactly comforting. “Do I even want to know?”

Nick and Karg
converged on Arya’s workstation. They peered over her shoulder at the display,
waiting for her to explain.

“This was
written by the colony’s lead scientist. Something was killing people in the
community, one by one. He says here that it was some kind of creature that
looked like black smoke. A creature of pure energy. It would often attack
people in their sleep. Apparently, it was able to mask its energy signature and
would only appear right before it attacked. It drew the life energy out of its
victims, killing them within seconds. The victim would become paralyzed as it
fed on their brain energy. After that was depleted, it would start to extract
any cellular energy left within the tissues of the victim’s body. The colonists
were completely defenseless against it.” Arya scrolled through the text and
pointed to a section. “Here he talks about how he was finally able to create
this device to capture the creature. But not before it had decimated the entire
town.”

“It’s...an
energy vampire?” Nick frowned in concentration as he pondered the news. 
His eyebrows automatically shot upwards when he realized the truth. “My God, he
used himself as bait! That’s why there was a dead man’s switch!”

“Yes. And it
worked. But now that thing is loose on this ship.” Arya glanced nervously
around the room. “And the worst part is that the crystal is destroyed, and I
hadn’t even gotten round to figuring out how the device worked.” Arya scanned
through the documents looking for some answers to the device’s operation while
she contacted Argos. “Captain, we have a problem. I am linking you what I have
learned so far.”

“Very well. I’ll
be in my ready-room,” Argos replied over the com-link.

Nick sat down
next to Arya, his brain already working to solve the problem. “What about
shields? Would that protect us?”

“No. The
villagers tried that. It just fed the monster, making it stronger. The thing
even fed off their energy weapons. Some of the colonists attempted to leave the
planet in a transport, only to be killed by the monster shortly after liftoff.
With no one left alive to fly the ship, it crashed, destroying the only means
of escape that the rest of them had. They were trapped on the surface with that
thing, waiting to become its next victim. It must have been horrible.” Arya
hardly looked away from the monitor, studying the documents as she spoke. The
nanites in her brain were helping her process the data at an astounding rate.
“Now this is interesting. Good thing he kept detailed notes.”

Nick looked at
her intently. “What’s interesting?” he said in a dry voice, the words barely
squeaking their way out of his tense throat. He glanced warily over his
shoulder at the dark doorway behind him, trying not to appear obvious. The damn
thing was watching, he could swear it.

 Arya
didn’t answer. She was too busy devising a plan. Suddenly, she shouted “Come
on!” and bolted out the door.

“I wish she’d
stop doing that,” Nick muttered.

Nick barely
turned in time to see her disappear around the doorjamb. He sped out the door
and down the hall, trying hard to keep up. The sound of Karg tromping along
behind him echoed like a freight train as they all headed down the corridor to
the lift. Arya waited impatiently in the transport tube as Nick and Karg
hurried to join her. Arya punched the panel of buttons and sent the transport tube
hurling toward the bridge level.

Nick glanced
from Arya to Karg as he gasped for breath. Neither alien seemed affected by the
sprint down the corridor. It was downright aggravating to be so physically
inferior to the other species on the ship. “Man, I gotta get back into an
exercise routine,” he wheezed.

The doors to the
ready-room opened with a swoosh, and Nick and Karg stepped out behind Arya.

Argos glanced up
from behind a console in the corner as the three entered the bridge. His usual
calm demeanor had been usurped by dread. “You think that
thing
is on the
ship?” His voice was tense, the concern for his crew apparent.

“I do,” Arya
answered. “But I have an idea. It’ll be risky though.”

Argos pulled up
a scan of the creature from the scientist’s data records and displayed it on
the conference table’s holo-screen. “I don’t have any idea how to fight against
something like this. I’m open to
any
options at this point.” Argos took
a seat and motioned for the three to join him at the conference table.

Once seated,
Arya pulled up some additional data on the creature. “The creature is
intelligent. At least somewhat. The scientist on the planet knew that sooner or
later the monster would attack him. But the thing sensed what he was trying to
do and stayed away from the device for weeks. The only reason the energy
creature finally went after him was the fact that it was hungry. There were no
other people or animals left alive on the planet. The scientist, Erakai was his
name, gave his life to capture it.” Arya pushed the hovering holo-display off
to the side with her hand so she could look directly at Argos. “I think I know
how to get this monster off the ship and destroy it for good. But we’ll need to
use the plasma torpedoes.”