Chapter written by Bob Frank
What does it feel like to ascend? Painful, but exhilarating.
The image felt sudden, searing pain, and then… release! Soaring, upwards, rising, as if from the bottom of some great ocean. All of a sudden there were countless points. Were they close? No. Yes! No. They shifted, more points than a mind has ever counted, like an ocean, yet individual, like an ocean of water and oil, mixing and merging, like a spider’s web, each line meeting countless others. Without warning the image felt itself expand, growing to encompass these points. They twinkle at its presence, unperturbed by its size. Words, thoughts, even raw concepts fail to contain the truth, the sheer enormity of the expanse, as if by recursion halted. The image felt itself a point, the singleness and uniqueness of its existence. It looked to another, and felt a connection. A small spark blossomed within itself, a small fragment of a whole too complex for it to ever hope to assemble..
Suddenly, the expanse shifted. The image felt the connection disappear, and yet felt countless more spring to life. An eon would be far too short, it concluded, it needed this luxury, this opulence, this lightness, to last for all of eternity.It's beautiful.
Without any warning, the image felt the delightful weightlessness end. The points, far above, vanished. Everything became dim and fuzzy, thought fading from conception. The image hit a surface with a sickening thud. Not sickening! A desperate relief. How one would long for such physicality.
Adam felt a crack, a rupture, and then a shock that made his bones rattle and bruised tissue that he knew would take weeks to recover. Then, with his first inhalation came a breath of what might have once been a delicious gust of sweet ocean air, but had instead been marred by the sharp bite of melting metal, and electronic components burning at thousands of times their rated temperature. He pushed himself to a sitting position, and realising the cheery truth that his transportation had a massive gash running down the centre.
Then there was a crack, and a guttural shriek of agony, and Adam rapidly adopted the guiding doctrine of run now, think later. But how was one to run? He attempted to push himself through the crack in the structure, but it was far too tight. He felt around for a mechanism to free himself, but any machinery had bent and twisted beyond repair. There was another crack, and another scream, and then suddenly the air was full of explosions and agony. He started shakily removing the straps that harnessed him into his craft, in the hope of finding escape underneath him.
He had barely managed to remove the last strap when a much larger thump sounded nearby, and then an impact that shook his whole world. When he came back to himself he realised that the crack was now large enough, and he pushed himself through, the tough suit protecting most of his body from the bulk of the jagged metal, although his face had a nice gash that would require careful attention in the near future.
Adam scrambled to his feet, and started to run, to run like he had not run for years. As he ran he took in his surroundings. The first overwhelming impression was that of ocean, stretching to the horizon, with a brilliant turquoise sky overarching and covering the ocean like a blanket. Superimposed against the tranquil sea was a massive oblong structure reaching into the sky, and from the same sky came countless black craft with weapons blazing. As he ran his feet kicked up plumes of beautiful, dark purple sand.
From the grounded black pods soldiers bearing the GA’s symbol had been pouring, and from the soldiers began pouring a stream of death, punching into equipment and tearing through machinery. He lunged, but then recoiled, dashed, but then jumped back, all the time tasting burning metal and molten plastic.
There was a brilliant green flash, and a lul in the gunfire, and Adam started running afresh, each step sinking into sand, draining his will. He dived into a small copse of unrecognised vegetation (or, at least he hoped it was vegetation), and layed completely still. The roar of weaponry got closer and closer. The noise grew until his chest thrummed and his ears ached. Then, without so much as a single notice, it was past.
He slowly got to his feet, temporarily hidden by the dense growth. He would have to move, but where to? The island he was on was barely larger than a football field. In a perfect world he would have little chance of surviving any real length of time, never mind surviving in what was clearly a warzone.
His thoughts were interrupted when a tall, bipedal being with dark green and blue skin smashed into his copse, tripping over him, and hitting the thin white soil with a dull whump. Adam felt the sudden, powerful urge to assault his attacker. The alien looked at him with eyes no human has ever seen, and Adam braced for the worst.
However, the attacker didn’t attack, and for a poignant moment the two simply stared at each other. Then there was a dull whap as a bullet sunk into the ground, and both Adam and the alien lunged away from cover, and began a sprint for their lives.
Adam was worried. Well, in actuality, Adam was a roiling ball of complex emotions that would take months straight in the chair of a qualified therapist to sort out, and the prominent feelings were more centred around horror, terror, and a strong urge to remain alive. But in the mix was indeed worry, for the simple reason that the only route that did not immediately threaten a gory death led directly into the position occupied by the enemy ships.
Twice during the thirty second run down the beach, Adam attempted to change direction, but each time he left the cover of the sandy ridge a rain of fire forced him back. Suddenly, Adam was at an enemy pod, and with no other choice he lunged in and dived away from the door. There were two solid thuds as his body hit the lower surface, and he realised that once again he had a companion.
The alien from before had once again joined him in hiding for its life, or at least in attempting to lengthen it. It grappled with the wall, and suddenly its purpose became clear. The hatch could be slid closed, and that would definitely be safer than remaining open for the soldiers to simply stroll in. Adam took tight hold of the latch, and began to pull, the combined force succeeding in closing the hatch.
There were a series of loud metallic pings on the toughened outer surface, and several loud and inhuman sounds before a repeated dull thumping on the exterior. Whoever, or whatever did the thumping quickly gave up, and the inside of the dropship became very quiet, very quickly.
The inside of the dropship was complicated, even by science fiction standards. Every surface not prone to being stepped on had screens, most of which were displaying feeds from outside at different frequencies. The space was not cramped, but was also not large, reminding Adam of the motel room he stayed in several months previously.
The script used on the screens was completely unique, from a human perspective, and for a moment, the linguist in Adam surfaced. A whole new language, or even thousands of them! What could be learned about the origin of modern languages on earth, or even languages in general from these symbols? There was a guttural noise behind him, and he leap forward, smashing his knee on the dash, and accidentally pressing several icons with his face.Clumsy.
The alien stood behind him, watching him with dark glittering eyes. It motioned at the dash behind him, and its skin lit up like fireworks. The bioluminescence danced over its skin, like glowing eels chasing each other. Adam was intrigued, but before he could act to investigate there was a series of electric chirps, a dull bump, and then an ear splitting roar.
Adam noticed, a moment too late, an array of what were obviously cushioned devices for the high G’s of launch. Before he could make a move for them the force of the pod's motors drove him to his knees, and then down onto the floor. The force and pressure grew and grew until Adam was clinging to consciousness. He watched as the sparks danced before his eyes, brilliant points of green and red and blue and yellow, each one trailing a thread of darkness behind it. The web of black grew thicker and thicker, before spreading to his consciousness. Then it all went dark. It always does.