Cosmosis

Critical Error

Frustratingly enough, I was drawing on inspiration from Vather.

Umtane, Esk, and I had failed to engage Vather truly simultaneously, and not for lack of trying. The Prowler had simply not let us.

So now I did the same.

Instead of fighting both Adepts at once, I attacked one, intent on ruining any opportunities they had to coordinate, before switching targets and putting the other off balance for a few more seconds.

In a way, I was still fighting reactively. Because continually switching between them wasn’t going to defeat either of them.

Flawed combatants as they were, I didn’t forget that I had been a complete novice when I’d fought off Stalker, killed Trapper, and blown open the throat of Courser’s hound.

These were still Adepts. Still dangerous.

And loud.

Dropping back inside the colony put us back under the air barrier and its positive atmosphere. Sound travelled well enough for me to hear some of what my opponents were saying under their own suits.

“Hel- agh!”

Skinny was not a fighter.

I ran toward them, intent on knocking them off this rooftop. They materialized a sword again, swinging it wildly. They weren’t thinking about the gravity, or bracing themselves.

“Like this,” I muttered. I jabbed my quarterstaff into Skinny’s belly, magnetizing my feet for leverage.

The blow knocked them off their feet again, but not enough to push them past the roof’s edge. It would have to do for a few seconds more. I turned to deal with Brawny.

They hesitated to rush in, so I had to take the initiative, charging toward them.

Instead of making a gun, they gathered up a strange black gel around their hand. The fluid looked similar to the dark fleshy tendril Skinny had used, and my instincts told me I shouldn’t risk touching it.

The gel coated hand swiped forward at me, and I was ready to twist out of the way. They didn’t let up, trying to speed up to match me.

Instead of only dodging though, I anchored my feet to the rooftop, and caught the Vorak’s forearm. Their own momentum toppled them when my footing didn’t budge.

I flipped the Vorak over me quickly enough for Skinny’s tendril to slam into Brawny’s chest instead of my back.

Skinny aborted their attack, but only by yanking Brawny away from me before I could do any real damage.

Unlike Esk and I had, these two were managing to act in concert even with me doing my best to keep them staggered.

It meant I had no time to give them.

Skinny was proving to be easier to attack than Brawny, so I materialized a new kind of bomb in front of their faces.

Orange paint splattered both of them. The reflective faceplates of their suits protected their faces from my ordinary flashbangs, so I’d resorted to smoke before. This was the next logical improvement, and it paid off.

I once again picked Skinny to attack first. With them both blinded, I had another opportunity to even the numbers.

Which, at this point, I was convinced would let me win outright.

Brawny proved to be brainy too though. Either my paint job had a few crucial gaps, they had some Adept sense I didn’t know about, or maybe they just had good instincts, but they shoved Skinny aside before my attack connected.

Fine. I was going to keep switching targets rapidly anyway, Brawny was even doing it for me now.

A crackle went over Brawny’s visor, and my paint vaporized.

Drat.

I’d hoped it would be harder for them to work around that.

A quarterstaff was my best weapon to stave off Brawny’s gel coated hand again. They did use the strange fluid to catch my quarterstaff in motion, but I didn’t hold onto the weapon.

I abandoned it and ducked in to try hitting their head.

Unfortunately Brawny had anticipated that.

My estimation of their combat skills went up a notch when they took the opportunity to tackle me to the ground before my blow landed.

Even when I wrenched their wrist aside, and scrambled to my feet, Brawny stayed aggressive and tackled me immediately before I could get any distance.

“[Son of a…]” I yelled as they slammed me into the rooftop.

This was still more or less a stalemate as long as I lacked for big offensive moves, but that was one of the reasons I’d moved this inside the colony.

I didn’t need to be the one to force this to an end.

I had friends for that.

I broadcast.

I could see the building with access to our launchpad, and holy crap was it a mansion? With the yard space around the building and the striking parallel to Dubai hotels, it couldn’t be anything but a very upscale residence.

And bonus, there were Casti in Coalition black ponchos visible through some of the windows. Someone had made it to this launch point.

Two of the figures—one looked Farnata, hopefully Dyn—were frantically pantomiming on one of the terraces.

Trying to signal me?

Two shots rang out.

Brawny went still for a second, looking toward them.

“[Of course,]” I spat, kicking Brawny off me. They could hear me at least.

This was proving to be a dangerously valuable lesson about the risks of improvisation. I must have done something catastrophic to my psionics to not be receiving messages.

I didn’t look to see if any Coalition ponchos were moving forward. There wasn’t time in the fight. I just had to trust them.

Brawny was a lot more dangerous up close than Skinny. They were about as good at hand-to-hand as I was.

But only ‘about as good’.

They rolled to their feet after being kicked away from me, warily moving between me and Skinny.

“What did you say?” Brawny asked.

“I said you’re not getting to that launch pad,” I told them.

The Vorak lunged at me, materializing a knife.

“At least, not before I can [blow this joint,]” I added, moving to counter them.

But they faltered as I spoke. The blade they held vanishing practically only a few heartbeats after they created it.

I didn’t miss the opportunity.

Ducking under the half-aborted slash, I punched their stomach, driving the force up from my legs through my whole body.

In the low gravity, it was more than enough to put the Vorak multiple meters off the rooftop, but I wasn’t done yet.

I’d promised my allies a delivery.

A full tilt kinetic bomb would drain me, but I’d already managed one miniature version today. One-and-a-half if you counted the paint bomb. What was one more?

I hadn’t realized how tricky it could be to aim without my radar helping with the third dimension, but this didn’t need to be exact.

The blast caught Brawny mid-air, shoving him horizontally enough to see him fall off the rooftop.

It was more than double the height I’d thrown Trapper from. Surely the gravity would keep the fall from being lethal.

Ethics later, I told myself.

There was still one more Adept to deal with.

I turned to deal with Skinny.

My Coalition backup could kill Brawny, while I dealt with this one. Then we’d hold the launch point until Nai arrived, and then we’d blast off to safety.

Skinny held up fists, ready to take a swing at me.

“Like I told your friend,” I said, “offer stands. Let me pass, and I won’t hurt you.”

“[Fuck you,]” was all Skinny had to say about it.

Fine then.

I darted forward, my feet clinging to the rooftop. Skinny tried to backpedal, but they could only take one step before pushing themselves off the ground just by walking.

Without my radar, the psionic gap in my mind still seemed to be doing something.

I couldn’t be sure without examining it more, but it just felt like I was thinking faster, making quicker connections, adapting sooner.

I’d only seen it a few times, but when Skinny materialized another tendril coiled around their arm, I didn’t hesitate.

They threw it toward me, but I saw the timing to avoid it and how they’d probably flex the tendril midair to try and catch me anyway.

I made a diagonal leap to the right dodging the tendril, then when Skinny flicked their arm, I did a short flip back to the left when the tendril swiped at me.

Up close, there was no contest and Skinny knew it.

I punched down, using my height to connect with their shoulders without pushing them up or away from me.

They threw up their arms to block, but that only exposed their belly.

Just like I had with Brawny, I slammed a fist into the Adept’s stomach. They doubled over, and I took the opportunity to shove them off the rooftop.

They caught me off guard though.

Nai had drilled into me that an Adept creation couldn’t move itself unless it had been physically designed to accommodate that motion. Adepts couldn’t just telekinetically manipulate their own creations.

So it was quite a shock when, as Skinny fell, the tendril I’d been ready to avoid twisted itself toward me like a snake.

It latched onto my chest, and I magnetized my feet to prevent it from pulling me off the roof. Except the force only grew when Skinny sent another tendril to latch onto the ground, connecting the two tendrils.

A pit opened up in my stomach as I felt the roofing tear up underfoot as I was pulled. Even if I could cling to surfaces, I could still be moved along with that surface.

Chunks of the roof still clinging to my boots, the tendril dragged me off the building and toward the ground at dangerous speeds. Low gravity didn’t soften blows or change momentum, it just made it more difficult for people to achieve leverage and traction.

I slammed into the ground with the force of a small car crash—more than enough to knock the wind out of me.

Anchoring my feet had been a mistake. I’d already severed the tendrils with a flashbang—they were fleshy and seemingly vulnerable to heat.

A lesson to remember then. Creativity and new answers had their strengths, but so did consistency.

How had the Adept gotten their tendril to move like that though?

It was like it had a mind of its own.

…Which…might not have been impossible.

“Adept nerves,” I whispered like I was guessing to Nai.

There was a reason the tendrils seemed so fleshy. They were flesh.

Somehow, they’d created whole muscles and nerves, connected themselves to the tendril’s nerves, and directly manipulated it as an extension of their own body. They were that thick for the same reason human muscles were. In fact, dollars to donuts, this Adept probably created the Adept-flesh based on their own body.

It wouldn’t be normal flesh though.

I’d been able to materialize a flashbang on the inside of the tendril. The chemistry perpetually active inside real cells would disrupt creations unless I was in direct contact to compensate for it.

But I’d been able to make a flashbang inside the tendril, even from a distance.

Another flashbang now was all it took to blow apart the tendril pinning me to the ground. It hadn’t been pressing that hard. They could contract and bend with impressive force, but lengthening was much weaker.

I stumbled to my feet and almost fell again.

I’d hit the ground harder than I thought.

New parts of my psionic construct lit in response to my problem, growing to fill some of the gap left by the radar.

Responsiveness returned to my limbs, and I rolled out of the way of a tendril coming down toward my head. The swipe slammed into the concrete where I’d just laid.

Each tendril made a dangerous sound as the Adept swiped them at me. It seemed like they were going for wide area attacks now.

I ducked under one tendril and its momentum wrapped it around a lamppost.

But instead of dissolving the tendril and making a new one, the Adept had the coil squeeze and the metal crumpled.

That was something to avoid. Constrictors everywhere would envy that force.

That wasn’t enough for Skinny though. They had the tendril fling the lamppost at me for good measure.

It was a bad throw—I didn’t even have to dodge. Probably. But I did anyway to be safe.

The Adept’s body language stilled for a moment, as if surprised by their own power. Behind the reflective visor, I could imagine the look that came up on their face.

It said ‘Hey, that wasn’t a bad idea. Let’s try that again…’

They threw out a couple more swipes at me before wheeling back to give them some distance to work with.

A new tendril grew, sticking to the middle of one of the massive flagstones in the road we’d landed on.

The Adept detached the other end of the tendril from their arm, anchoring several times over to the road and multiple other flagstones.

I noticed they kept one hand on the tendril while it flexed. They must need physical contact with the creation to instruct the Adept nerves. It might even be related to their cascade…

There wasn’t time to explore that thought further.

Skinny’s tendril flexed powerfully as it wrenched the flagstone up from the street, and curled on itself.. It moved frighteningly quick for something whipping around a few hundred kilograms in cement. Even if the stone weighed far less here, mass was constant. The force to move it like this…into my head popped an image of red chunks of Caleb smeared against the colony street.

But I saw my opening.

The tendril curled sideways, whipping the flagstone at me like a frisbee.

My timing was good though.

I didn’t need to know the precise math, but the psionic curve I’d used to estimate my own fall worked here too. Different projectile, larger mass. Same environment though. The mental creation fed me where the stone would be, when.

I leapt, more forward than anything else, but just high enough to clear the flagstone in motion.

There was an awful sound of stone cracking behind me, and I landed carrying the momentum into Skinny, shoulder tackling them as hard as I could.

As they fell, I materialized another icepick, ready to get it right this time.

Skinny saw it coming again, but this time I stomped a boot down to pin their arm, preventing their block.

I put my whole body’s weight into the blow, magnetizing my other foot to the ground for maximum force to punch through the space suit and into the neck beneath.

But just like Brawny had faltered against me, I froze moment before the blow connected, my panic annihilating the icepick back to nothing in my hands.

The earlier exchange caught up to me in full.

‘Fuck you’.

Except Skinny hadn’t said that.

Skinny had said [Fuck you.]

In English.

“[Nonononononono!]” I yelled, immediately scouring the helmet of the Adept’s spacesuit. There was a small ratchet dial just under the collar. Not dissimilar to the one on my visor.

The spacesuit was not covering the skinniest Vorak I’d ever seen.

Skinny wasn’t a skinny Vorak at all.

She was a very ordinary human, now staring up wide-eyed in terror at me.

No questions roared up in my mind.

Or maybe they did. I couldn’t tell.

Panic, confusion, and sheer disbelief consumed my mind like fire. A crack in reality, a glitch in the matrix, something impossible was before me.

I hadn’t felt the urge to reject the reality in front of me like this since Daniel had first helped me get moving in our cell.

I sputtered.

Nothing in my brain worked properly.

“[G-get the hell off me!]” she shouted, kicking up at me.

I reeled, but my hand still moved to knock her fist down when she tried to punch me.

Reflexes firing normally. Rebuild from there.

Brawny.

They’d realized I was human.

When?

Were they human too?

This girl hadn’t.

“Wait! W-[Wait!]” I shouted, holding up one hand, and scrambling to change the opacity on my suit’s visor.

The girl had begun materializing another powerful tendril when her expression changed to shock.

“[Holy shit,]” she said.

“[Yeah,]” I replied, lost for what next. “[That.]”

She exploded into questions, seeming to forget the fact we’d been trying to kill each other seconds ago.

“[Who the fuck are you? What are you doing? Why are you trying to kill me?]”

I wanted to ask the same questions.

Gunshots were audible on the other side of the building we’d just fallen off.

Focus!

In order then.

“[I’m Caleb Hane, I’m trying to get off this rock, and I thought you and—]” I gestured toward the other side of the building, “[—over there were trying to sabotage my way out.]”

“[You were abducted,]” the girl said, breathlessly. “[You were-were… the fourth ship, holy shit—]”

“[Your turn!]” I said, cutting her off. “[Who are you? Where are you from?]”

“[Nora,]” she introduced herself. “[I’m from California, where are you from? What about the rest of you?]”

“[California too,]” I told her. “[Outside Sacramento. What ‘fourth ship’?]”

“[You were on a ship right? Twenty-four kids total? So were we—]”

“[‘We?’]” I asked. “[How many of you are there?]”

Nora spoke quick and clear, “[Seventy-two!]” she said. “[There were two more ships found along with mine. Each one with twenty-four abductees. Two ships were full of girls, but one ship had boys. We’ve been trying to figure out how to communicate our theory! There’s a fourth ship full of dudes somewhere!]”

Seventy more humans out here?

Hearing that hit every bit as hard as just one other human!

“[Where have you been?]” I asked. “[Where are the rest of you?]”

“[Some secret facility,]” Nora said. “[Halax is escorting me to put me in touch with someone important. Uhh… Enna… no, it was Shi-Enna someone.]”

‘Shi-Enna’ was Vorak-something for ‘Marshal’s Adjutant’.

“[Tox,]” I said. “[You’re trying to reach Tox.]”

“[Yeah, for talks,]” Nora nodded. “[We’re trying to reach people who can actually start helping us.]”

She looked me over, recognizing the fact I was in a different style spacesuit.

“[You guys got help too,]” she observed.

“[No—yes. I got rescued from the Vorak.]”

“[Rescued? Wait, by the Flatheads?]”

“[Flat—you mean the Casti?]”

“[Yeah. Big eyes. Flat heads.]”

“[They took me in,]” I told her. “[They’re helping me get off the planet, this was just supposed to be a layover.]”

“[Halax is getting me to the planet,]” Nora said. “[We were going outside the colony to reach our launch pad to—]”

“[—to avoid the fighting,]” I guessed. “[Yeah, we had that same idea.]”

“[Nora!]” a Vorak shouted, bounding toward us.

“[Easy Halax!]” she said. “[He’s human. Friendly.]”

‘Halax’ ignored her, turning to me instead.

I sized up the Vorak, fighting the urge to throw a punch first.

“You’re fluent in Starspeak,” he said in the same.

“I’ve had to be,” I confirmed.

“[What’s he saying?]” Nora asked both of us.

“You-[You don’t know Starspeak?]” I asked.

“[Starspeak?]” she said. “[Oh that’s way better than what we came up with…we’ve been calling it ‘standard’.]

“You haven’t been teaching them the language?” I asked Halax.

“Efforts were complicated,” he said. “There’s seventy of them. It was quicker for one of us to learn [English]. But this isn’t the time! Coalition forces are right behind me, and they’ll no doubt be interested in both of you.”

“They’re helping me,” I corrected the Vorak. “We have a ride off this moon, they’ll—”

Everything went horribly wrong.

Halax had tensed when I said, ‘they’re helping me’. He’d realized I was human, but not that I was with the Coalition. He’d had just enough reason to begin materializing a gun, but he’d relaxed when I seemed ready to intercede.

So when my Casti backup rounded the corner, I was a split second too slow.

They saw a Vorak with a gun, plus the other Adept—whom they couldn’t see was human—standing close enough to maul poor little Caleb.

Their first instinct was to fire.

Halax summoned a small barricade, clearly straining himself.

He was just barely too slow as well.

A bullet found his shoulder, but his barricade stopped him from taking any more wounds.

Three bullets caught Nora. Two in the chest and one on the neck.

She crumpled on the spot, falling behind Halax’s barrier.

“[No! Stop, don’t shoot!]” I yelled.! “<[Stop shooting! I’m not the only Human!]>”

That was the wrong language!

“” I yelled to them. “”

The sight of the blood seized my attention. The only other human I knew was bleeding out in front of me.

Nora clutched the side of her neck, coughing blood against her suit’s faceplate.

The Coalition had stopped shooting, but there were more gunshots audible not far from here.

My hands were on Nora’s throat, trying to put pressure on the bleeding. How did you stop throat wounds without strangling the person?

Halax quickly copied me, pressing on the wounds she’d received in her torso.

“Adept medicine,” I screamed. “How much does she know?”

“Not enough,” he said too, too calmly.

“Nora!” I shouted. “[Stay awake! You need to replace your damaged flesh! Doesn’t need to be perfect, just a patch job to keep you from bleeding!]”

“[I-don’t know…how,]” she hissed tiredly. She was losing too much blood, too quickly.

“[Just imagine how your body grows new cells!]” I said. “[Just focus on the wounds and fill them with Adept copies of the ordinary cells]."

“[Adept? I-I don’t…]” she murmured.

“[Just try!]” I shouted.

Patchy grey flesh sprang into being on her neck. My cascade said her throat was mostly pressurized from it, but—

“[—now chest wound.]” Halax instructed her. But she didn’t seem to recognize his words.

“Caleb!” one of the Casti shouted. “What’s going on?”

“Surrender,” I told Halax. “Formally.”

“I surrender,” he agreed without hesitating. “No fighting.”

“” I shouted. “”

“Dyn is at the ship,” the Casti said, trotting closer. I didn’t recognize them. They must have been one to volunteer for psionics. They gave Halax some nervous glances, but seemed to accept he wasn’t fighting.

The Vorak, still keeping one hand on each of Nora’s wounds, tilted his head, listening to a radio inside his suit.

“More rak are arriving,” Halax growled. “They are in pursuit of an Adept called the Warlock…?”

He looked at me, tilting his head questioningly.

“She’s a friend,” I said.

I called, praying I’d be able to at least hear her like before.

she replied.

Thank God.

“Help me get her to Dyn,” I told the Casti. They hesitated, but gave me the positive click.

“She cannot be moved,” Halax said. “She is in critical condition, but with her Adeptry, her wounds should not be fatal.”

“She absolutely needs to be moved,” I countered. “A hundred-fifty feet from here is a medic familiar with human biology, and my folks have compatible medicine from the Organic Authority.”

Intense thought rumbled behind the Vorak’s eyes, but he relented.

“Go,” he said simply. “I must remain for the other abductees.”

“Where are they?” I asked.

“Circumstances do not favor either of us now,” Halax said. “I have no choice but to entrust her safety to you. You must do the same with me and the other humans.”

Every fiber of my being screamed at the idea.

I did not trust him.

But if I wanted us to get off Archo safely, there wasn’t time.

There was no choice.

“[Come on,]” I told Nora. “[Stay conscious, keep cascading your wounds. Try to patch the injury. Create temporary flesh.]”

I thought she might have been able to walk, but she couldn’t get upright.

“[Hard to…see…]” she muttered. The inside of her visor was fogging up.

“[Sorry, this is going to hurt,]” I told her, picking her up in a fireman’s carry.

She screamed, but I ignored her. All my focus was on getting to the launch point.

“” I told whoever was listening. “”

The two Casti firing on Halax stopped and I took the opening.

Dyn was waiting for me when I reached the fancy residence.

“[How—] How far away from launching are we?” I asked him.

“As soon as you’re on board, thirty seconds,” he said.

“Nai’s right behind me,” I told him.

I turned long enough to see Nai leaping down from the rooftops toward Halax.

I sent her,

True to his word, Halax did not attack her, and Nai simply landed beside him and sprinted toward our building.

“[Stay with me, Nora,]” I said, desperate to keep her conscious. “Dyn, please tell me we brought the medical case the Org gave us.”

“No,” he said. “It was with the supplies we sent in the adjunct module. Do not worry. Get them on the ship, and Nai and I can talk you through Adept first aid.”

The residence connected to the colony superstructure by a short tunnel to a launch hangar. The ceiling had already retracted and there was an odd blocky rocket ready for launch inside.

Dyn, the handful of Casti with him, and I all slipped into the yacht sized rocket. Dyn paused only long enough for Nai to slip through the hatch behind us

“Go,” he said simply, pressing a button on an intercom.

I had just enough time to lay Nora down on the floor just inside the hatch.

Dyn sealed the airlock, and the rumble of the rocket’s engines suddenly gave us all weight again.

It wasn’t the body crushing weight I’d felt launching off Yawhere. In fact, aside from the relative soreness, it felt close to normal Earth gravity.

But Nora let out a scream in agony from the floor as we lifted off.

I knelt down, and desperately began cascading her neck and torso, trying to learn what I could. Dyn joined me, immediately talking through instructions, and details for us to start checking.

“Dira,” I heard Nai swear, realizing what Nora was.

That about summed up how I felt about it too.

But cold focus won out over fear and confusion, though not by much.

I flew away from the surface of Archo utterly hollow.

Reeling.

I was not the only abductee.