Chapter 184

POV: Melly

Everything was so quiet, and then we heard the explosions. My head ducked down without me consciously doing so. I hated that response of mine. When this round of explosions was over, I powered on my screen once again to see the news.

There were many channels open, with many discussing different factors of the current war. All of this was too damn familiar, even if my memories were from when I was young.

They showed the Forward Horizon again and how it constantly fired those bluish bolts. Apparently, those were something called hard light, a truly rare and dangerous technology that no one had seen for a long while.

There were always sensors and cameras watching that ship, and each time its shields flared, my heart pounded faster. My stomach twisted. Some of the organs there were new ones my body had made to adapt to my fascination with humans.

There were only a few of us left of my species, but all of us now looked different. Well, not so much on the outside, but definitely on the inside. My changes, however, didn’t feel completely normal. Perhaps they were normal humans, but it felt like I was missing something.

A few taps brought me to the front page for the Forward Horizon’s stats. Its defences were above average, but its offensive capability seemed to be off the charts, especially for a ship of that size. Almost everyone seemed quite taken by the ship, as most of the comments were about how much they liked it, even though it looked a bit weird.

While I tried to sleep, the explosions made that impossible. Then my screen displayed an open communication.

“Overseer, this farce has gone on long enough. Surrender now, or the station will be wiped from existence.”

No one knew what to make of it. Then the flyby came. The web was pandemonium, and my hand shook so violently I could barely see what was written on the screen. Then someone posted something from the fleet communication channel.

It was so hard to focus. I was so scared. I didn’t want to die having failed my entire species. Then I saw the message, and my hands tightened around the screen so much that I could hear it creak.

How were they going to stop that? No, you can’t die. My mind flashed to an image of Bob. He was so wonderful. Everyone held their breath. The entire station seemed so quiet as that bomb came closer and closer.

Smoke then appeared in space somehow. The Forward Horizon flew in, and my heart stopped. Then they came out as if nothing had happened, and the bomber had disappeared. Everyone was confused. No one understood what had happened.

My heart could not take it anymore, and I was so damn tired. I paused the video on the image of the Forward Horizon flying out of the smoke and held it close as I climbed into bed.

Vibrating woke me up. At first, I thought it was my screen, which I was still holding, but no, it was something else. It was the communication device Bob had given me that was inside my ear. Somehow, it displayed words that I could see in front of me without them actually appearing there.

Where the hell was the utility closet G85 on subfloor two? Wait, they wanted me there? Why did they want me there? Had they already landed on the station? Wasn’t the war still going on?

Quickly, I put my clothes on, trying to stay as quiet as possible. Everyone seemed to have fallen asleep, so I snuck out. I had only been to Subfloor Two a few times, but I thought I remembered seeing something like a utility room.

Fortunately, everyone was on lockdown, and no one seemed to be walking around the building. Normally, there was always something going on. People being brought in and out, and noises barely muffled by the walls.

It took me longer than I wanted, but I didn’t dare to turn on the light to find the right door. All I had to go by were the ambient lights, which barely illuminated anything.

The room wasn’t that large, and there was nothing there besides some buckets and mops. Minutes went by with nothing happening, and I started to worry. What were they going to do, and why did I need to come here?

Then I heard a sizzling sound coming from behind me. I was pretty sure nothing was on the other side. Touching the wall was a bad choice, as it was way too hot. What the hell was happening?

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Slowly, what seemed like a light stick pierced the wall. My back was pressed against the door as soon as I came out of my shock. Only moments later, there was a hole in the wall.

“Captain Remi?” I managed to get out, not understanding how they were there.

“Excellent, you made it. Come, let’s get your ark,” he said while stretching out his arm towards me, wanting me to take it.

He looked so imposing, and those eyes promised so much yet seemed so fierce. For a brief moment, my eyes flicked between everyone there. There were two very similar individuals. I’d only seen one of them before, but apparently they were brothers, as they looked too much like each other.

Then there was a gorgeous woman who had a rifle on her back almost as tall as her. She looked at me like she was studying every piece of me, learning what made me tick.

Bob wasn’t there, which was a bit disappointing. I took Captain Remi’s hand and felt the jolt that made it clear that he was human. There was something wrong, but I pushed that biological feeling aside, as it was not important right now.

As soon as he had a solid hold of my hand, he gently pulled me through the hole in the wall, and we started to walk. The surroundings grew ever darker, and I could barely see the end of my hand, let alone where we were going.

“Why is it so dark? Where are we heading?”

“Keep quiet for now,” was all he said. The questions burned inside of me, but I held them back.

We eventually reached some arbitrary spot after having gone down a couple of staircases. Those were quite difficult, and I stumbled a few times, but Remi had no problem holding me up.

There was some more light here, so I could finally see them all again, and it was so eerie how they all stopped almost at the same time without any of them having spoken.

“The vault is just through this wall. Dean, if you please?”

One of the two brothers then pulled out the same sword as before. I jumped a bit when it turned on. It was a sword made of light, something I didn’t even know was possible.

The same sizzling sound started as he pressed the sword against the wall. The wall resisted it a bit, but I had a feeling that if he went fast, he could simply cut through it in mere moments.

It didn’t take long for us to have another hole that we all walked through. This side had even more light. The design and decorations of this hallway were the same as above. I didn’t even know our building went so deep.

There was a vault door that seemed to be extremely heavily protected. Why weren’t the turrets already killing us? Then the captain pulled out drones from somewhere. Where was he keeping those? A dozen drones moved towards both sides of the hallway. They seemed to cover every electronic device there, even the turrets.

“Should be safe for a bit. Dean, cut through the location I’m indicating.” Remi didn’t make any other movement, but Dean seemed to know exactly what he meant somehow. He plunged his sword into the door, then twisted it a bit, making a bigger hole.

“That should be good enough. Let me see if it opens,” Remi said, pressing his hand against the door, and a couple of seconds later, the extremely heavy vault door clicked open. I was so shocked that I barely realized we had all walked in.

“Oh, so that’s why the overseer is not doing anything,” I heard Captain Remi say, but all of my attention was on the back wall, where the holding rack for the arks was.

I kept my composure, as there were only four left there from the original twelve. Mine was one that was still there, the one that would respond to my biosignature. But where were the rest?

My eyes swept over the room, then landed on the broken-apart pieces of arks lying in one corner. “That bastard.” He had been trying to break into them, and their failsafes had triggered, destroying so much.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Remy said, and I felt that he meant it.

“We shouldn’t linger too long. Everyone, grab as much as you can, especially that thing. Melly, let’s get your ark.” All I managed to do was nod as tears ran down my face. So many lost for what?

My hand touched the ark, and it took a few moments for it to recognize me. The operations of this ark were burned into my head, and with the correct codes, the locks disengaged.

I grabbed the handle that was now visible and pulled it out. Now that this rack spot was empty, I could see what was beyond it. It seemed that the rack had been hooked up to a large data cable, probably in the hopes of hacking it. Unfortunately, that didn’t seem to have worked.

“Captain Remi, the ark only has twelve hours of internal battery. Are you sure you can hook it up to your ship’s power supply? This is the last of my people.”

“Do not worry. But should we leave the rest of these here?” he asked.

“What?” was all I managed to get out.

“Like, should we leave the rest here or take them with us? The arks, I mean.”

“They can’t be taken. We need to get the others down here, but I’m not entirely sure every one of these can be taken out by them. I’m pretty sure some of theirs are missing.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he said while pressing his hand against the rack. Something happened, and then I heard a click as one of the ark’s locks disengaged.

He looked at me, looking for something, but then he simply continued, and one by one, each ark unlocked. How was he doing that? That should not be possible. Only if we unlocked them should they be able to be taken out without triggering the failsafes.

“So, are we taking them, or should I lock them up again?”

“Take them,” I stammered out. Then he made one disappear as he pulled it out.

“No! Take it out! Take it out now! They don’t survive inside an inventory space!” I yelled without thinking.

“Calm down. I have a special inventory space. They’ll work just as well in there as out here. Don’t worry, it’s completely safe,” he finished by bringing out the ark once again.

All the indicators seemed fine, which shouldn’t have been the case after it had been in an inventory space, even for a moment. “Sorry.”

The rest of the arks disappeared one by one, and so did the one in my hand, although I was reluctant to let it go. What if only a moment inside the inventory space wasn’t as dangerous as they had taught us? But he brought out the first one once again and showed me that it was still fine.

Then he looted everything else left inside the vault that the others hadn’t already taken. We were all about to walk out when Remi stopped and looked back towards the rack.

“Captain, we need to move,” the woman said, seemingly a bit worried.

Remi didn’t listen, continuing to stand in the middle of the room. Then he walked towards the rack and pulled out a glowing seed. Everyone else’s eyes seemed to go wide, and I could barely take my eyes off that seed.

He opened his hand, letting the seed simply stay there. Then, as if carried by an invisible wind, the seed lifted off his hand and flew towards the rack. It went through it and seemed to land on the data lines.

Disbelievingly, I watched as the seed seemed to move into the solid data lines as if it were phasing through them. Remi stayed there for a few moments, watching the seed disappear, then walked back to us.

“What did you do?” the woman asked.

“I don’t know.” Remi was about to say something else, but we all heard gunshots, and my head ducked once again, the loud noise scaring me.

Everyone moved without speaking even once. One of the brothers, the one who didn’t have a sword, grabbed hold of me and dragged me towards the other end of the hallway.

“They found the utility closet hole. The way back is closed. We need to go through the building,” he explained as we rushed past the hole we had made to get into this place.

“Oh no.”