Wolfy-Hyperspace pt2

Wolfy - hyperspace

part two



Prologue

A large ship slowed alongside the small miner. Thinking about it, Joesph considered putting one there a fairly good idea; he didn't want to eat his first officer waiting for a ship from earth. Ben just didn't have enough meat on him, but he was tenderized enough though, with all the shifty gravity. Joesph grudgingly put all thoughts of cannibalism to the back of his mind.

The communicator buzzed to life, “make your way to earth, captain; we're here only for refueling purposes.” A small vibration under his feet signaled that the tank was being refueled. Joesph sat down on his uncomfortable captains chair and started to play with his kneecap, visualizing the gory bone sticking out of it and frowning wildly. Ben stirred from his unconscious stupor, wincing and holding his abused head. He shakily got to his feet, holding onto the wall his body was originally squished against “what the hell?”

Joesph ignored him and started the ships engines, guiding them to their long trek to earth.



Arnold smiled despite himself, reading the crews reports made for entertaining reads at the least. The hyper space experiment had been kind of a success, he supposed, but there was a hostile 'creature' in there? This is why you don't tell the public of such things; pressure on what to do next, or even worse, morality on what to do next. He opened his wooden desk and took out a pair of grey trousers. The one piece of tangible evidence, and they're a pair of trousers, further insanity, the public would've loved this. The symbols on them meant nothing without context, just doodles, he supposed. Arnold thought they were part of a language, or perhaps 'it' was just screwing with them? More information was needed, but how could he do it, if it was a subtle 'clear off' it would probably destroy the next ship in there, a risk he had to take. Arnold threw the piece of clothing onto his desk, got off his chair and made himself some tea. He would have to go himself.



Arnold was nervous; his first time into space, and also his first time into a alien dimension, if that didn't make anyone shit their pants, they obviously hadn't eaten recently. He walked into the mining ship with a small crew behind him. It had been hard to get a crew, telling them about the risks involved, the possibility of alien contact, and the distinct probability of destruction. He solved the problem by not telling them those things. The crew abandoned him for their respective posts..

He reached the bridge and tutted loudly at the dry blood stuck to the wall. If they had to bleed, they could've at least cleaned it up after. He turned the thrusters on.

Once free of the atmosphere, he engaged the generator.



Chapter one

“Captain Wolfgang, your ship is to be mining section A512, A520. Acknowledge.” His new ship was relatively comfy, but not too unlike the old mining ship. With the funds gained from that unofficial experiment he brought himself a mining ship, and was using it on Mars.

“Acknowledged.” Rather than go on his own, Joesph tagged along with Hector Mining Corporation, they provided many services to freelancers, and their percentages were reasonable. The ship slowly descended onto the hostile surface of Mars and began its laser treatment of the surface. Joesph got from his chair and let the automatic mining system do its work, he also went to the lunch room for coffee.

The room was empty. Joesph wondered where his crew was, normally they would have any excuse to slack off work, and the time it takes the lasers to dislodge any minerals was the official slacking time. He nearly went to look for them, but he remembered he didn't care. Instead he turned the kettle on, and started to mix the instant coffee into his mug.

He turned on the scanner and tuned in to the Hector frequency, the only frequency in range. Luckily enough, radio entertainment was part of the deal they give to freelancers, and music filled the room. Alas, not very good music, more like muzak. Joesph rolled his eyes and turned it back off. With the absence of entertainment, he decided he did care about his crew after all, and went to look for them.

The residential areas all tried to look as pleasant as they possibly could, and were actually quite good at it. The ship, like most, was structured so you could walk in a straight line and go through everyones room, a lack of doors made this a convenient, if annoying, system. Having looked everywhere else, Joesph walked down the hall. Every cubicle had a small bed made of metal, a viewer screen near the pillow, and a plant to the left of it, most had personal effects sprawled over the floors.

Joesph saw a foot stick out of the corridor, betraying their whereabouts, he started towards it, curious. “what're you looking at?” Joesph asked them when he'd arrived.

“There a rogue mining ship hovering around in the atmosphere.” a crew member told him. Joesph edged towards a different window, and saw nothing, that's probably why they were all looking out the same one. But then it whizzed past his own, a mining ship it was.

Joesph looked on, amazed at the spectacle. Four small fighters took off out of the main Hector Corporation building, probably to warn destruction if the ship didn't get lost. But the rogue still acted crazy, and now it looked like it was swooping landed mining ships. Joesph could make out sparks as it grazed one during a particularly low sweep. The fighters shot grappling hooks, they attached themselves to the renegade and they began to pull up. Joesph squinted his eyes as they nearly went through the atmosphere. The ropes snapped. The miner fell.

Joesph's crew gasped as it plummeted to the ground, the fighters merely turned around, probably contemplating lawsuits from anyone who survived the huge fall. But they needn't do that; the ship fell way too fast to have any survivors. it had too much thrust, and dropped like a sack of potatoes over the horizon. Joesph could make out an explosion if he squinted his eyes.



Joesph sat in his command chair reading a book, a very interesting one actually, when the communicator pulled him back into reality. “Captain Wolfgang, your presence in required in hospital one, A523. A transport ship will be arriving soon. Acknowledge.”

Joesph sighed “acknowledged.” and then he waited, losing all interest in the book.

The airlock door slid open, and instead of the harsh terrain of Mars, a small person carrier waited for him. That was a drawback of organized mining; the corporation owns you as long as you're in their grouping. He walked forward, pressed the controls, and broke the connection with his own ship, instead standing in theirs.

It resembled a police car, the passenger part of the ship was the only piece he had access to, the driver sat behind a steel cage and the seats were leather.

“Do you know why I've been called for?” Joesph asked the driver, not expecting a very good response.

“Nope, I just drive.” he said, confirming Joesph's suspicions. Joesph just sat down, this time forgetting his sigh.

The trip was at least entertaining for him, not having seen the surface of mars before, watching it whiz by through the viewers was pleasing for the eye. Until the vehicle came to an unexpected stop, then the plain red dirt was kind of uninteresting.

“we're here.” the driver said, then he concentrated on connecting the Hector building with the person carrier, he did this by pressing a button. A click signaled his success at the hard task, and the airlock doors opened again, signaling him into the building.

The building had a sterilized cleanness to it, in that it was sterile and white, but it still had that creepy hospital feel to it, on Mars or not. Joesph just stood in his position near the airlock, his hands in his pockets feeling awkward. seeing everyone around him doing work, with him being idle inspired this. He played with the lint in his pockets, hoping it didn't look strange his hand moving around in there.

“Mr Wolfgang?” a man asked him. Joesph answered him. “a patient has asked to see you.”

“A patient?” Joesph coughed lightly “Who?”

“Mr Arnold Detweiler, he's in room number 12.”

Joesph raised his eyebrow, sighed and tried to walk away, then remembering he had absolutely no idea of where to go, he turned to the man. “follow me, sir.” he said, doing a lousy job of stifling a smile. Joesph followed.

The room had the same atmosphere as the rest of the hospital, mainly disinfectant, and death. Arnold was sitting up in his bed, looking over Joesph, as if unsure if it was really him. He had good reason, they'd only met once before; Joesph was confused.

“Is there a good reason why you had me summoned?” Joesph asked the man.

“Yes, but listen to this for a second: hyperspace travel is now a reality, we can go to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, no... the universe. But there's only one thing stopping man from wielding the power of gods; that thing. It needs to be eliminated, Joe.”

“Don't call me Joe.”

“Sorry. How does the chance to elate mankind to the highest pedestal sound?” Joesph looked uncertain. “and” he continued, “one million pounds?” the uncertainty vanished.

But then it flicked back, with a quizzical edge, “what would you have me do?” Joesph asked.

“You just need to be there, to be the first officer on the ship.” the look gained strength on Joesph's face. “only you and me have been in contact with this thing, actual direct contact. I need your advice, and a bit of verbal abuse if I do something stupid.” Arnold smiled, the smile killed Joesph's uncertainty dead, a grin sprang up on its corpse, closing the deal.

“When do you need me?”



Chapter two

“Where's that other ship?” Joesph asked Arnold, his new captain.

“It exploded, I thought everyone on Mars saw that?”

“That was you? How did you survive that? And why aren't you in jail?”

Arnold thought for a second, “it was me, I have no idea, and I promised not to sue.” Joesph sighed, as it was an old habit.

The new ship looked like a top of the line mining ship, probably part of the deal with Hector. There were no battleships of the space variety, as there were no enemies that needed fighting. If they did make such ships, terrorism potential would make the world shit it's pants, so they didn't. The miner followed the same type of unimaginative formula as the small one, but was much bigger, it even had its own aquarium. The genius of these machines, though, was that they needed very few crew to operate, whereas a small craft would need anywhere near twenty crew members, the new, bigger, ones had machines to operate itself. In direct logical contradiction, this craft only needed three crew members, and was at least four times the size.

“Who's the third crew member?” Joesph asked him, showing he knew about such ships.

“the chief engineer,” Arnold responded, “also needed to know about the creature.” Joesph's heart sunk. “A lieutenant Ephron.” Arnold finished. Joesph felt like smashing his head against something, preferably hers. He sighed.

This time the bridge wasn't cramped, and the command chair didn't look uncomfortable. But in a stroke of anti-luck, the first officers chair was the dreaded chair-stool. The captain sat in his comfortable leather seat, provoking stares of jealousy from Joesph's face.

The ships thrusters roared in a blue flame. The craft went up, and promptly failed to come back down.

“engaging hyperdrive.” the universe reluctantly tore itself apart as the laser operated, leaving them free to travel into the next one.



Space was red again, and artificial gravity suffered a complete existence failure. Joesph didn't bother to point this out; to do that would be stupid. But he did float, and he floated well.

“And now we wait.” Arnold whispered to himself, which happened to be restrained by his seatbelt.

The brown dot showed itself on the horizon. Joesph gulped nervously. It gained itself a shape, which seemed to be moving towards them. The shape was of a worm, with darkness instead of teeth, infinite darkness. Infinite darkness that now surrounded the ship.

Arnold stopped his limited floating and he fell onto his comfortable chair. Joesph, however, had no such straps. He tried his best to grab hold of the stool, but when gravity decided to exist again, he found himself on the cold, hard, metal floor, looking at Arnold's polished shoes. Arnold grinned and unstrapped himself, “Unlucky.”

“You shouldn't really unstrap yourself, sir...” Joesph said, denying his urge to hold his tongue and laugh at the smug git as he fell.

“if I stayed in my chair, I wouldn't be able to perform my mission.” at that time gravity nudged itself to the right,and Joesph fell again, but this time oton his feet, which only hurt a little.

Arnold, on the same gravitational pull, also fell. “follow me to the armoury” he said, after he'd stopped.

Joseph followed him through the, unfortunately, spacious corridors. Falling three feet every time gravity shifted, and praying it didn't make them fall completely forward again; Joseph liked his bones on the inside of his skin. The straight down style of corridor was designed to reduce confusion and help people new to space get used to it, but a fall from the potential height they were at now would kill them. Four times the size. Joseph realised this and felt a pang of potential vertigo.

Luckily enough, they reached the armoury before all combinations of floor-ceiling were reached, and they jumped through the door, landing on the current ground, which happened to be a wall.

The armoury, funnily enough, did not attempt to intimidate. Instead, it had the same cutesy potted plants as most of the rooms in the ship and made an attempt to look clean, it failed. Inside it was rows of rifles, handguns and other generic weapons, but what stood out was what could only be described as an atomic bomb; and only because that is what it was. Joseph dropped his jaw in surprise at the instrument of destruction, he knew they were there to 'eliminate' the thing, but to vaporise it? On the side was a green light which could only mean one thing: it was armed.

“Oh, don't worry about that thing; it isn't armed.” Arnold said.

“But the light's green!”

“Hey! So it is. I think the best thing we could do here, is to find out why it hasn't already exploded.” he said, peering at the explosive device, with a quizzical look on his face. Gravity reversed, Joseph fell to the ceiling, and watched in horror as the bomb did the same, settling with a sickening crash. Arnold got back to his feet, and apprehensively approached it. “the safeguard has been activated, it's armed, but it won't be detonating for a few hours at least.”

Joseph nodded dumbly, before the room decided to turn upside down. He got to his feet again and brushed off his trousers.

“We have to hang around here for a couple of hours at least.” Arnold said as he walked forward a little, looked around confusedly, then turned back to Joseph, “There should be a casing attached to the wall here.”

“It's on the ceiling.”

“Now that's just damn inconvenient.” as if to apologise, the ceiling decided to become the floor. The casing resembled a metal cabinet attached to the wall,but had groves down its horizontal to differentiate itself from the rest of the wall, which had vertical groves. Arnold crawled up to it and opened it along on its horizontal, inside it was a thing that looked like a flame thrower, but access to the air made it steam.

“Liquid oxygen,” he explained, “it should keep whatever those things are at bay.”

“Isn't that a little inhumane?” Joseph looked at the thing, it resembled a fire hydrant, but was much larger; Joseph wondered if Arnold could carry it.

“We're here to kill the thing, Joseph.”

“But...-”

“I'm staying here to protect the bomb, you're going to engineering to help Ephron with the creatures.” Arnold interrupted.

“I can't go out there, I'll fall to my death!”

“I thought of that, take the rope from the rack...” he looked around “from the wall to your left, tie it to something.” Joseph sighed and did what he was told, but found he couldn't distinguish the colours from each other, he sighed and felt around, hoping the effects would nullify themselves soon. He gasped the rope, tied it around his waist in what he hoped was a tight manner, then tied it to a hole in the metal of the wall. He then waited for the door to be accessible from his position. Gravity turned itself to normal for the time being, and Joseph found himself sprinting down the corridors, hoping the rope wouldn't be necessary after all.

The run down the corridors was terrifying, the spacious room they allowed people were usually reassuring, but now they threatened bodily harm. Joseph ran as fast as his legs could take him, fuck his lungs, he'd pay them back later. His heart began to complain; it was generating a stitch, but he ignored it; any time soon he could be using the rope tied around his waist, that seemed to stretch forever behind him as the armoury door disappeared into the horizon. The engineering door came into sight, he bounded through it, and sprinted to an area of relative safety, then he collapsed onto his stomach, moving up and down with his breathing.

Engineering was a small room with only a couple of dozen objects, firmly attached to the wall. It too tried to look calming, but only succeeded in annoying the eye with the repetitiveness. Inside it was Ephron, but was too busy trying to escape the black insects that flew around the room to notice him. Shit. they were flying gently around the room, not even around her, but she was apparently having a panic attack about it. Joesph's eyes darted around the room for anything that could help, did Arnold not think of this for him? He noticed a airlock outside the safety zone, where gravity seemed an enemy.

“Hold onto something!” he yelled in her general direction. She glanced his way and attempted to comply, trying to ignore the insects that surrounded her.

Joseph took a run from the door and jumped into the relative safety of the airlock compartment. It was a hatch of sorts, and it looked like it was newly fitted. Joseph realised this is where the bomb was to be delivered. He lowered the hatch, but before he activated it and let the cold vacuum of space do its wok, he glanced sharply back to engineering, trying to ensure she was indeed holding onto something.

He took a deep breath, and pulled the lever.

The air rushed through the small hatch, explosive decompression unleashed. Sure enough, the insects that had no grounding rushed out, obscuring his view with pure black as they left. He gritted his teeth and put his arm to the lever, tried his best to pull it back to its original position and succeeded beautifully, he waited for the air to settle. He breathed and promised his lungs good times, for fear they'd divorce him. He ran back to engineering.



“Are you ok?” Joseph shouted to the figure holding onto the metal pole for dear life.

“They didn't hurt me, if that's what you mean.”

“how long were they in the room?”

“about 10 minutes.” something was odd, Joseph thought, they didn't seem dangerous, and he'd never seen the creature do anything violent, yet. His thoughts were disturbed though, by a sound of a clang. He turned around and found the bomb sitting neatly on the corridor outside. Beside it was a rope along side his own. A faint noise sounded down the now vertical hallway, Joseph silenced himself and listened. It was a whooshing sound, Joseph lowered his eyebrows, and then remembered, Arnold had that weapon.

Joseph grabbed a hold of his rope, followed it to the hole in the wall that made a door, and stepped out. His muscles complained as his feet lost their ground, but answers were needed. Looking up, Joseph saw Arnold, with a swarm of the black things around him, quite literally a swarm. He dodged violently as a frozen insect fell past his head, Joseph watched it fall and shatter on the final floor below. Joseph climbed up.

“They aren't dangerous! Stop killing them!” he shouted up, Arnold ignored him and continued to spray the oxygen over them. Every time one would try to get close, it would be frozen, Joseph tried his best to dodge the fallen, but one grazed his left arm and started to draw blood.

“Of course they're dangerous! I saw them destroy the ship I was on!” Arnold eventually shouted back, when the insects around him started to ease themselves away from him. This was good for Arnold, but not so much for Joseph. They started to approach him instead, Arnold became invisible under the black wall that approached.

“they're harmless!“ Joseph shouted with little enthusiasm, one creature nested on his wounded arm. It began to melt into the shape of his arm, it didn't hurt.

Arnold and Joseph were next to each other now, side by side and and hanging, supported only by their ropes. “Jesus, Joe! It's on your arm!” Arnold said, staring at the creatures.

The heavy cylinder on his back was too heavy to be supported there for long, so he lessened his grip and suffered rope burn on his struggle to get down. Joesph followed his lead and bit into his lip as he plummeted down.

The creature regained its shape, leaving Joesph's arm fully healed. “look, no marks on me! They're safe!”

“Bullshit.” Arnold replied as he sprayed around him with the liquid gas. He then began to pick the small tactical device up.

“don't do it, Arnold.”

“it needs to be destroyed, Joe!” he ignored the threatening nature of Joesph's voice. And instead secured the device directly into the chamber.

Arnold pressed a few buttons on its interface, the green light went out, replaced by a red one. Joseph grabbed Arnold's shoulders and pulled them back, with the added weight of the weapon he fell extremely easily.

Arnold was too shocked to retaliate straight away, but when he realised what was going on, he responded viciously. The first punch landed on Joesph's stomach; in his lain down position, he couldn't reach the man's face. Arnold loosened the constricting straps necessary for the weapon and jumped to his feet.

“Stand down! It needs to be destroyed!” Arnold shouted.

Joseph ignored him and laid a punch to his jaw instead. Gravity changed again, the bomb fell from its place and landed with emphasis onto the floor, it didn't seem to bothered.

The creatures finished their descent and now flew in the same corridor as the fight. Joseph was against the wall, having his face repeatedly punched by Arnold when he noticed them. Arnold saw Joesph's expression of pain vanish, turned around, and saw an angry mass of insects. He reached for the weapon, but it was too late; one of them settled on his hand.

Joseph regained his senses as Arnold's onslaught stopped, more importantly, he opened his eyes. What he saw screamed for him to close them again, Arnold's hand was missing.

“harmless? Harmless!!” Arnold shouted. he was flailing his limbs at the creatures in desperation, hoping to get them away, but every time he hit one, they stuck to him. He lost his ability for language and instead started the horrific screaming, he fell to his knees and covered his head with his arms

Joseph blinked.

When he opened his eyes the screaming had gone, the rest of Arnold was ink black, and didn't resemble a human body at all. It slowly dissolved into a puddle. The puddle separated an turned into the flying creatures, there was no trace of Arnold.

Joseph watched in a morbid fascination as the creatures merely flew away through the ceiling, letting drops of ash fall to the metal floor. He slithered own the wall he was leaning on and fell to his knees, he put his hands over his head.



Half an hour by Joesph's watch later, the ship still hadn't left hyperspace, and the gravitational fluctuations had all but stopped. If it did change, it would do so gradually, not the quick fall-to-the-roof style as before. The bomb's light had blinked back to green after it's failure to explode, much to Joesph's great appreciation.

He walked to the bridge, he still had his rope around his waist, he wasn't stupid, after all. But he was scared.

Outside the viewer it was black, Joseph guessed the ship was still inside the beast. He walked over to the captains chair, dead man's boots. He pressed the communicator, “Ephron, turn the generator on, please.”

The bridge had a different atmosphere than before, it stood exactly the same, but Arnold's presence was missed.

“It's already on.” she replied. Joseph sadly nodded his head at the lack of 'sir'.

“Well, try...” he noticed something on the armrest. “ah, don't worry.” quite a few modifications had been done on the old Hector model, one of them controlled the generator from the bridge, Joseph thought, it was only logical. He pressed the button and a VR screen filled his eyes, not bad, but there should have been a warning. Joesph's eyeballs were a testament to this, which now had blotches in his vision obscuring the interface.

They faded and a huge graph was seen. In the middle was a green dot labelled, 'Earth', with a numerical value of one, around it was nothing. He reached his hand out and selected a section of space, its value displayed itself in digits.

Joseph smiled, he wouldn't have his million pounds, Arnold's unfortunate status of not existing prohibited that, but he had the second hyperspace capable vessel in the history of man. He intended to keep it.



End