A deafening bang rippled through the darkness, its echoes reinforced by another loud bang against the metallic hatch. Despite its durability, its bolts eventually gave way to the unrelenting hammering. With a distinctive crack, the final resistance against the knocker failed, and the hatch was pulled open, allowing the starry night to pour into the deserted space within, immediately followed by the invisible glow emitted by a scanner.

“This is CO3, breaching complete,” a young voice, slightly distorted through the radio, filled the cockpit of one of the humanoid machines waiting by the now-opened hatch. The one who had been hammering against the bolted hatch drifted aside, a puff of hot steam escaping the worn siege ram until it dissolved into the vacuum of space. “No hostilities detected.”

“Any life signs?”

“Negative, ma’am. Although,” said the pilot of the machine as it peeked into the void, its metallic hull cleansed by the constant outflow of warm air, “the interior is still pressurized. Standard habitat breathing mix with no toxic components detected. And the temperature’s within survivable range too.”

“Copy. Stay alert, I’ll ring the bell again,” the pilot took a deep breath as her gloved hand flicking the radio switch to a wide-band broadcast, ensuring that everyone should be able to hear her message, “unidentified vessel! This is orbital patrol! Respond if you can hear me!”

“Repeat, respond however you can if you can hear me!” The mecha pulled itself into the seemingly empty ship with its five limbs, followed by its two subordinates. Once the last machine disappeared fully behind the opened hatch, its tail coiled upward to shut the hatch once again. With all its original bolts snapped, the tip of the tail opened and fired a bright pink sphere against the edge. The ball broke the moment it landed on the cold metal, turning into a sticky smear that kept the hatch shut while allowing it to open at a moment’s notice.

“This is CO1. Negative response from bogey.”

“How spooky, it’s like a ghost ship…” the young voice commented, the singular eye of his mecha glancing left and right, its glow barely illuminating the darkness, and the almost uniform warmth of the air felt almost impenetrable. The worst part was, despite everything, he could not shake the feeling of being watched.

And he was right.

Without a warning to the other mechas, a blast of hot air suddenly erupted behind their back. Alarmed were tripped, and when the pilots turned their attention towards its direction, the camera could barely catch a glimpse of his machine firing its thrusters and plunging itself through the compartment into the unknown.

“CO3, this is CO1! What happened?” The commander cried into the microphone, but she could not hear in the response the expected, panicked cry of a newbie who bumped into the control panel. Instead, it was the dull thuds of some kind of metal crashing, followed by a sharp shriek. As the rumble settled into anxiety, all that remained was the background noise of a low, electrical buzzing.

“Damn it… let’s go grab him. Hope he didn’t break anything important,” the commander’s voice spread through the radio and poured into the cockpit, as the two mechas turned and squeeze their way through the hole made by the rampaged mecha. Despite the commotions, the air around them remained still, and once the last echoes of the clash melted into the warm darkness, everything returned to the dead silence once again, safe for the buzzing static noise seeping through the radio.

The commander tried futilely to suppress her racing heart. Her fingertips danced on the keyboard to wake the various subsystems up from their slumber, as her duty and instinct required her to assume the worst – although the suffocating atmosphere itself was more than enough to persuade her. Eventually, whispers from her proximity radar caused her to pull on the control stick, letting her mecha to stop in the middle of the void. The buzzing noise through the radio was becoming unbearably loud by now, but she could not afford to tune it out. Taking a deep breath, her finger sank into a button, summoning a burst of blinding light as it flooded the darkness outside the chassis.

Part of her expected to see the marks of hostility on what remained of her teammate, but that was not what she saw.

The mass-produced mecha was pinned against the wall of the ship by a large spike through its lower torso. Bright blue arcs jumped from the spike to the downed machine, squeezing an involuntary twitch out of the otherwise silent vessel, its searing leaps matching the low humming still pouring through the radio. It was obvious that the newbie never had any chance to perceive, let alone fight against the enemy. Despite that, the cockpit still appeared intact, with the spike barely missing it.

“CO1 to control! Hostility sighted! Requesting backup!” She could feel her hair standing on her skin. Her hand twisted against the radio knob as she called for support. However, all she could hear was the same buzzing noise filling the air. A frustrated punch did nothing to clear up the signal, and she was forced to tune to her other teammate instead.

“CO1 to CO2, stand guard on maximum alert, and try to contact HQ. I’ll get him out of this…” uncertainty clouded her throat as the mechanical hand reached for the electrified spike. She was aware of the risk, but it had to be done. The moment her mecha grabbed onto it, her hands pulled as far back as she could, ignoring the plethora of alarms springing to life until they were drowned out by the rumbles of thrusters. The sheer force was enough to dislodge the impalement, and the downed mecha was soon freed from its torment. Without the luxury of wasting any time, she commanded the mechanical hand to throw the spike away and held onto her comrade while she tapped on a rarely used button.

“Newbie! Can you hear me?” She yelled, and her voice pulsed through her mecha into his.

“—am! It came outta nowhere!” Soon, she could hear his panicked voice echo once more, and she let out a brief sigh of relief.

“We’ll get you out of here,” her sweat-drenched hand twisted against the control stick, and with a tap of her thumb, her mecha reached down with its free hand and drew its charged rifle. A deadly weapon — she hoped it was deadly enough.

“CO1 to CO2. Newbie’s alive! We’re leav—” her respite was short, as the mecha shown on her monitor was not assuming the standard alert posture, and the radio was still barely usable, even though the electric spike had stopped its torment.

—it was not the source of the interference.

Another alert flared. She had its meaning drilled into her mind – unidentified energy signature. It meant someone was aiming something powerful at her.

Her instinct took over. Her fingers conjured a red mark against the darkness where the alarm came from, and the computer turned the chassis and its weapon towards it and pulled the trigger.

Pzzzt-

BOOM!

Through the filtered view of the monitor, the blast was still blindingly bright, filling the dark cockpit with pure light for a brief second. As the computer quickly adjusted, she could see a bolt of energized particles pierced through the darkness, chasing it away for just a moment. Yet, it was not meant to last, and the darkness soon returned to its place. She saw no explosion, or any signs that her attack hit whatever enemy there was. Even with the computer-enhanced image, the only thing she could spot in a split-second was a slight distortion to the side of the shot.

Cloaking? No, that can’t be it… perhaps it was—

The commander was forced out of her thoughts by a sudden blow. A heavy strike against her mecha slammed it against the wall, flooding the cockpit violet with a myriad of alarms. It was not a deadly attack, just a sucker punch that managed to evade the early warning system.

As it came from the mecha that was supposed to be friendly and down.

“Newbie! What the f—”

“I—I didn’t touch anything! The system just went crazy!” His plead sounded genuine, and she could hear he was drowning in alarms like she was.

“ℋ𝑒’𝓈 𝓇𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉, 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝓀𝓃𝑜𝓌.”

Suddenly, all the blaring sounds evaporated into thick air, as if they were parting ways for the mysterious voice. It was a soft, soothing feminine voice, one that felt really out of place for everything that had just gone down.

“Wh—who’s that?” The commander asked instinctively, her eyes darting between the monitors and her control. She was sure that she did not tune into the public channel, and yet the voice definitely did not come from anyone she knew. “Screw it, we’re leaving!”

“𝒪𝒽? ℒ𝑒𝒶𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝑜 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝓃?”

Just as the commander grabbed the struggling mecha and engaged its thrusters, another blot twisted at the edge of the light, revealing an inhuman shape as the assailant made its move faster than the concealment could compensate. And before anyone could react, the gun emerging from the cloak unloaded against them. Multiple large nails – not as big as the spike, but still sizeable – darted towards the commander, their impressive speed pushing the hardened, sharp tips through the armor and into the wall. As the tortured hydraulics spilled the mechanical blood, the nails were more than enough to pin it in place.

Just like before, the spikes did not go through the cockpit, but the damage was still obvious. Half of the monitors were filled with nothing but warnings of all the failing systems within the mecha, and she could see a new dent above her head – no doubt the result of a nail bending the armor. Had the thrusters put her a few feet higher, it would have turned her torso into a bloody mess.

She could feel the air inside hardening. It took all her strength and will to take but a simple breath through it, and she could not shake the chunky feeling fermenting inside her lungs and stomach. She wanted to vomit, but the stiff, warm air pushed against her attempt, causing all the distress to stuck inside her throat, allowing only some indecipherable dry cries to escape. Even though her body was still intact, she felt every bit as pinned in place as her bleeding chassis, helplessly watching the optical cloak to disperse before her eyes.

It was every bit as unnatural as she feared. Instead of a humanoid form, it looked more like a stocky centaur. The lavender livery was alien to her, and the viridian streaks accentuating its shape guided her attention to where its head should be – a circle of vantablack void trimmed by horns, puffs of green smoke prancing around it, as if they were frenzied cultists performing an eldritch ritual.

It was not something that belonged to this world.

“God damn it, move you piece of scrap!” The commander yanked against the unresponsive control, the lack of resistance against her input reinforcing the dire situation she was in. Through the buzzy radio and the fuzzy monitor, she could see her still functional comrade raising its assault rifle and firing against the unknowable mecha. Yet, despite its size and rotund build, the enemy dodged all the shots with trivial ease, the chassis dancing in the encroaching darkness, surrounded by the pale blue glow of thrusters and the strange green smoke.

“Target identified,” the garbled voice of the on-board computer provided some cold comfort to her, showing that at least some parts of her trashed mecha were still working as intended. As the targeting system locked onto the approaching mecha, the half-dead monitor began displaying the scant details that were known about this entity, “designation, pattern group ‘Minotaur’. No known registered operators. Recommended action: retreat and report to—”

A loud bang drowned out the mechanical voice of the computer and drew her attention back to the battle – if it could be called such. The Minotaur raised its forearm and, with a deafening thunderclap, a large spike was propelled through its empty arm and towards its next prey. It was the same weapon that destroyed the newbie’s mecha, as it conspired to do the same to the remaining unit. However, as luck would have it, the mecha engaged all tis thrusters and moved out of the way of the stake at the last moment, causing it to merely glance through its shoulder. However, the sheer momentum was still enough to tear that arm from the chassis, pinning it against the ransacked wall before it was enveloped by a sphere of lightning.

It did not give them any illusion of victory, though, as the strange mecha simply reached behind its back and into the green smog. With its pull, the mist seemingly condensed into a new sphere, fabricating another shot out of thin air as the enslaved dust reached around the metallic walls to harvest more material for their master. Knowing well what was about to happen, the commander took a deep breath against the suffocating air, and her tail coiled around a dusty switch behind her while her fingers tuned her radio one more time.

“This is CO1,” her fist tightened, and she began pulling against the switch. It was heavier than she thought, perhaps to match the power that would flow through it without burning down. “Core system overdrive authorized. I’ll buy some time for you. Get out of here ASAP and tell—”

The mecha trembled violently as the green smoke reached for the commander. The long nails punching through the chassis began to melt back into the strange fog, seemingly bringing bits of her mecha with it back to its master like a loyal bloodhound. Another alarm blared, but she no longer cared – if anything, it might just work in her favor.

“Damn it, I’m trying to have a moment here!” She yelled, not caring if the enemy could hear her. With all her strength, she pulled the switch. With barely any concerns for safety, all the stored energy from the nuclear heart of the mecha flowed into its battered limbs, forcing them to obey her command, if just for a brief moment before the immense power converted the steely sinews and bones into molten slag. Her hands once again pull against the control system, and this time, the mecha forced itself up and threw itself towards the enemy, an act that appeared to surprise even it. Behind her, the two bloodied mecha knew of her plan as well, and silently pushed themselves through the punctured hull into the relatively safety of the void.

“Go back to whatever non-Euclidian space you’re from…!” She stretched her straining arm, and the mecha raised its firearm towards the flickering target. The weapon channeled all the excessive energy towards its target, letting go just before it turned itself into a glowing spear. The bolt of beam shone brightly as it glanced against the Minotaur, its outermost layer evaporating into a lavender cloud of mist. Seizing this mote of hope, the mecha engaged all its remaining thrusters and drew close to the dazed enemy. She threw the burning gun towards the Minotaur, disrupting it as the purple mist began to deposit into solid forms once again. Ignoring the increasingly loud alerts, the commander crashed her mecha into the enemy while drawing its blade. Knowing that even the robust backup system would fail in seconds, she diverted all the remaining power towards the sword, converting the heat into the searing glow of a plasma sheath, before pushing it right into the Minotaur.

The last sound entering the cockpit was an indescribable one. It was as if someone was quenching a red hot blade with a copious amount of slime. Before she could witness the result, the last ounce of power was sapped from the cockpit, and the rest of the mecha as the rumbling of failing mechanisms fell into silence one by one. Eventually, even the faint sizzling stopped propagating through the frame, and everything was plunged into complete darkness. With the mecha transformed into a motionless wreckage, the commander’s heart started slowing down, and her reason began surfacing from her turbulent mind as her raging, singular emotion precipitated into her sinking heart.

Did she win?

She thought to herself, but then she shook her head with a smile.

Of course she did. She knew her teammates got away, at least for now.

She reached beneath her sweat-drenched armpit and pulled out her sidearm from its holster. But then, her ears twitched as she picked up something through the darkness. It was a strange noise, as if something was snaking through the ruined machine, grinding against the frozen mechanism as it passed through. Then, faint tapping noises echoed within the cockpit, knocking the shut door right in front of her behind the trashed monitors.

“Who… who’s there?” The noises did not change, dissolving the last vestige of the feeling of invincibility as her hands began to shake. For a moment, she pondered about the best way to use the puny weapon in her hand – incapable of harming anything larger than a human – against whatever overwhelming horror at the other side. However, she ultimately decided to trail the barrel against the darkness, waiting with racing heart for the uninvited guest to come through.

The first thing she saw through the deep darkness was the otherworldly glow of lavender, prompting her to fire against it. However, the bullet simply passed through the churning mist, landing on one of the twisted monitors in front of her. It was only when the purple fog condensed that her mind dredged out the unusual alert she discarded at the heat of the moment.

“𝒩𝒶𝓃𝑜𝓂𝒶𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓈.” The all-consuming swarm.

As every piece of the puzzle fell into place, the commander could only do one thing.

She laughed. Harder than she ever had in her life. She threw away her useless sidearm and stretched her arms, welcoming the embrace of the one that fought her. And instead of stripping away her uniform, her skin, and her flesh and bone, the lavender smoke congealed before her, its violet, almost blood-like glow gradually dimming into a humanoid form, still radiating in its otherworldly glow. One by one, the figure’s form became tangible, comprehensible to a mortal eye. A flowing hair of lavender, a dress in the color of the firmament, defining a body that could only be described as divine. And of course, the eye dyed scarlet like a royal cape. As eldritch horror morphed into otherworldly beauty, the commander continued her laughter, even when the overwhelming emotions spilled out of her limiting body in the form of tears.

For how could anyone not be enraptured in the presence of their goddess?

“𝒯𝒽𝒶𝓃𝓀𝓈 𝒻𝑜𝓇 𝑒𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓉𝒶𝒾𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓂𝑒. ℐ𝓉’𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝒶 𝓌𝒽𝒾𝓁𝑒 𝓈𝒾𝓃𝒸𝑒 ℐ 𝒽𝒶𝒹 𝒻𝓊𝓃 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓈.”

She could feel her hands wrapping around her, and the all-consuming warmth melted away all her earthly worries. She closed her eyes and sank into the embrace of her goddess.

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Pub: 02 May 2024 03:23 UTC

Views: 218