Nano Writing Month, 2017.23

[mc776]

Every day, write some bit of fiction. Preferably over 50 words, but there will be no standard beyond "something". Posting is entirely optional.

"Guys! Hold it! I'm getting a distress signal from the Phlogistroni!"

Orgoth lost grip of the ladder and landed on me, and we fell in a heap. Finkelstein and Captain Alvarez stood bug-eyed and slack-jawed and stared at nothing for a couple bewildering seconds.

We were in a stone chamber some forty feet below grade - the bottom of the shaft leading down from the altar. The chamber was about fifteen feet square and fifteen high. At one end of the room, to the liturgical "east" relative to where the altar was in the nave above our heads, was a second altar not unlike the one that contained the shaft. The walls were a different sort of stone now, grey and brown with only a little of the old green stone as trim; they met at the top forming a groin vault.

The carvings were much less deeply made and were free of the later defacement (and defecation), and appeared to be a miniature version of the ones in the nave above.

Captain Alvarez stammered for a moment and then snapped out of it. "Can you tell what's going on?"

Gunnerbot was silent for a moment. "Nudibranch attack. One Marauder-class vessel. Both badly hurt. Still shooting each other as we speak!"

"What is the message exactly? How do we know it's not a trap?"

"It's coming from Ai. They says someone named Billy is lying passed out from the G-forces on the bridge and they've got him contained."

"Do you detect anything unusual in their voice, mannerisms? Any sort of weird 'if you see this you know I've been kidnapped' anomaly in what they're saying?"

"Uh..."

I looked over to the new altar. It was similar to the first but in much better condition - until you realize that one corner had completely worn away due to a water leak from a hole above. Another golden tablet lay on top of it: unlike the first, it simply lay there on the flush (or formerly flush) top, smooth and seeming to glow with a precious gold-red sheen.

On top of this tablet was a cross-shaped dark-coloured base, as had been on the other tablet. Protruding from this was a rod, about a foot and a half long and roughly the width of the handle on a tennis racquet. In the limited light it looked almost translucent, like the colour of really dark sunglasses. It was hexagonal or octogonal in section and expanded slightly about a third of the way from the top, and was covered all over in some geometric writing of some sort. At the head, recessed into each face of the prism including the tip, was a small recessed window, out of which poured a steady, dim red light from some unknown source.

As I turned my gaze towards that light, it pulsed and I felt a dark voice in my head.

Our brother from your mother calls out to me from that ship! Go now and save them!

"Wait, you can talk!?" I'm not sure in retrospect if I said that aloud.

We can talk later. Go!

I turned to the captain. "Hey, I think--"

She was already jump-booting her way up the shaft and yelling at us to hurry the fuck up already.

...

There being no need to be discreet, and our path back to the ship already mapped, we spent the rest of our jump boot and jetpack power to get straight to the ship. Some of them ended up getting shot anyway. It was raining and the smell was terrible. There was nothing else of note.

...

"This is Captain Cristina Alvarez of the U.T.S. Ellobius! We are under the direction of the natives of this planet to intervene in this assault! You are hereby ordered to stand down immediately!"

The message was received and video contact established. What the fuck did they do to that giant aracanid. Also, was it wearing a Santa hat!?

The synthesized voice began. "Hello new friend. I am Chompas. Have some tinsel!" Our opfor scanner picked up a badly damaged missile bay opening and missiles flying out. They almost immediately exploded upon departure, sending a rain of hot fragments that probably wore down their shields more than ours.

A familiar squeaky voice was screaming out from somewhere down a corridor. "Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck! Did sie just say Alvarez!? Chompas, don't fuck around! Get into hyperspace now! What are you still doing on that vid connection!? Cut the connection! Cut it cut it cut it Arthur get over here I need--"

Chompas glanced over to his left, before suddenly everything dropped downwards in a blur. There was some crashing and cussing, and the vid connection was cut off.

The marauder warped out of the scanners' view.

I laughed. "Well, Cap, it seems your reputation--"

The entire ship shook as a shield bit guarding our main thrusters exploded under the direct hit from the marauder's main laser. Gunnerbot immediately began evasive warping.

"You little shits", the captain mumbled. Then, "Gunnerbot! Once you have a chance, warp us inside the planet's gravity well! Phlogistroni, do you copy? Follow us! Gunnerbot, give Ai the coordinates!"

"Where?"

"Anywhere, we just need to shut down their hyperdrive!"

What happened next was a vomitous dogfight. Science Officer Finkelstein passed out for most of it; I had Orgoth (who was closer and could reach around more easily) put their earmuffs on them as I noticed that we were luring the marauder down... and down... into the atmosphere above the alien hills.

The sound was deafening even with the earmuffs. The two other ships' laser guns filled everything with horrific roaring and plasma. My hair follicles were screaming to leave my body like the souls of the damned in hell. The insults that the captain hurled at Ai when they tried to use the Phlogistroni's plasma casters should never be printed or displayed on any medium.

Hundreds of miles of rolling hills and vast, meandering rivers and putrid-green lakes zoomed past us. The heat was putting more stress on our hull than the marauder's lasers. I could hear the shots going off but I couldn't sense any impacts, nor did our scanners indicate any hits on either of the other two ships. No one was able to pull off any fancy moves in this treacherous muck we landlubbers called sweet, precious air.

All this time the Ellobius hadn't even fired a shot.

"I can't go on like this! I'm at near critical! I must return to vacuum!" The Phlogistroni was already pulling upwards.

I looked over to the captain. Her face was fixed in the usual deathly scowl of combat focus; but soon, as though Ai's remarks had to melt and sink in, a tiny flicker of a smile almost began.

Our scanners showed the marauder pulling away to pursue the Phlogistroni.

I never wish to relive what my innards felt when we banked around and pointed our missile bays at the marauder.

Captain Alvarez's voice was barely more than a whisper. "Now!" Four missiles blasted off the Ellobius, meandering towards the marauder.

One hit, knocking out the marauder's missile bay for good. Another hit, taking out... something, we couldn't see. The third hit, sending it spinning, the fourth turning to follow it...

...careening straight into the path of the Phlogistroni...

...

We found the Phlogistroni half-buried on the beach, covered in dirt and destroyed trees and crawling with them despite Ai's best efforts with the lasers. They couldn't use the plasma casters, even though quite a few of them had strayed quite close; our fugitive had apparently awakened towards the end of the brawl and disconnected the casters for some reason before escaping through the huge hole blasted through the side of the ship.

We had no idea if Chompas and the noodles were alive or dead. Last we saw them what was left of their ship was flying off in a parabolic arc somewhere hundreds of miles inland. Based on our visuals of the planet they would have been in the middle of a huge swamp or huge murky lake of some sort. Unless they had an intact hovercar in there and could pull it out of the wreckage, even if they survived the crash they would not be able to reach us for weeks even if they knew exactly where we were. There was no point going after them.

Saint-Pierre's reward had been for recovery of her ship itself, as well as Ai's safe return. It was too large for us to tow into space or put on board, though the engines were intact enough that, given a month and a couple supply runs, we would be able to repair it enough that it can leave the planet on its own power so we could escort it back to friendly territory for some proper repairs.

In the meantime, it was relatively simple for us to scrape off the filth, tow the ship to a more defensible position out on the open beach, reconnect the plasma casters, and angle everything in a way such that, between the Phlogistroni and all of us, we could have probably killed every last one of them left in the world that night if they had decided to come by.

So what, then, to do with the one person who could cause that to happen?

"He's stranded here", Orgoth said. "Let that bastard rot. He's got all of them for like-minded company, if the noodles don't get him first."

"He'll want revenge", I said. "We need to find out where he is and stop him. Him and, eventually, the noodles."

"We must rescue Jean!" Ai said. "If it weren't for him I would still be stuck in that time-loop, and who knows what horrible things Robertson would have done with this ship!"

"Is there any possiblity of Saint-Pierre sending us backup out here?" Finkelstein asked. "Assuming they could even figure out how to find us."

"Speaking of finding us", interjected Gunnerbot, "according to these pictures I took we're only about 3 days' walk from that city with the temple." Pause. "Hey, didn't we leave that shaft open when we left? With the ladder still attached?"

Our fugitive suddenly became top priority again.