Military – Inklings Fiction

The Cambridge’s Final Voyage

Kinn System

“She’s nearly ready to be scuttled, sir,” First Officer Reddy says with a salute.

Looking out of the bridge’s forward viewing area, Captain Mali can’t help but sigh.

Floating haplessly through space ahead of them is the Cambridge, an old frigate that had seen more action than most, but it hadn’t seen nearly enough to earn its salvation. The ship had fought alongside Mali and his ship, the Adelaide in the Corva Uprising.

Now the ship was about to join the countless others that had been intentionally crashed into one of the planets in the Kinn system, where the wreckage would be slowly picked through by salvagers, robots, and scavengers who thought they’d make a quick buck.

“We’re certain that there’s nothing else we can do with her?” Mali asks his First Officer.

Mali had been doing all he could for the past few years to save the Cambridge.

For Mali, this was a personal fight to save the old ship.

During the Corva Uprising, the Coalition-planted insurgents had commandeered a ship and sent it hurtling toward the Adelaide. The Adelaide, a large, lightly armored, semi-clumsy battle cruiser. Since the ship was still going through its shakedowns, it had a larger crew than usual, and it wasn’t ready for combat.

Chuckling, Mali recalls how he had summed up the situation afterwards, We were sitting ducks and the insurgents were like hawks, swooping in for the kill.

Out of nowhere, the Cambridge dropped out of warp and then raced between the Adelaide and the ship that the Coalition insurgents were using as a massive battering ram.

The Cambridge took the hostile ship along its portside and Mali had thought that everyone aboard the ship had to of been killed—or, if nothing else, the ship had to of been disabled.

But then its forward thrusters roared to life, pulling the Cambridge away from the now stricken insurgent ship which was largely shattered from the impact. Once it was a safe distance away, the Cambridge opened fire and reduced the remainder of the insurgent ship to dust.

Mali had reached out to the captain of the Cambridge, but he was never patched through. According to his sources, the Cambridge was on some secret mission and the captain had disobeyed orders in order to intervene in the Corva Uprising.

That decision saved the lives of Mali, and the thousands of people aboard the Adelaide.

“I’m sorry, Captain, there’s nothing left for us to do,” Reddy shakes her head, “I’m sorry, sir.”

Sighing, Mali takes a seat, and he stares at the dark hulk of the Cambridge.

Even in its current state, the Cambridge looked like a fearsome warship. Its sleek hull betrayed the ship’s ability to fly faster than even some of the fastest ships available today. The sharp edges of the remaining armor stand as a testament to the nigh-impenetrable armor that once lined the entire ship. Gaping holes up and down the ship’s length stand as reminders of the weapon systems that once occupied those same spaces.

“Such a travesty,” Mali sighs once more, “It was a wonderful ship.”

“Indeed, it was, sir,” Reddy nods.

Mali nods back and he recalls one of his more creative attempts to save the old Cambridge. This particular attempt revolved around the abilities of various skilled engineers from all over. The finished project, as Mali had tried to convince everyone, would have been one of the best fortified defense stations along the Alexandrian border. Any Coalition ship that saw the station would immediately turn back to find another way because the sheer capacity of the proposed station.

But that plan fell on deaf ears.

Everyone assured Mali that the Coalition’s days of recklessly attacking planets in Alexandrian Space was over. They said the Coalition was crumbling and they couldn’t spare the ships on such an attack.

Mali wasn’t convinced and reminded those who shot down the idea that desperation drove animals and people alike to lash out violently.

He was then escorted out of the building and sent out on a new assignment far from home.

“Sir, it’s time,” one of Mali’s officers urges from behind him.

Nodding slowly, Mali finally relents. With a nod, he gives his permission for his crew to deorbit the Cambridge, “We may proceed.”

“Would you like some privacy, sir?” Reddy asks as a few short alarms chirp over the ship’s speakers to notify everyone aboard the Adelaide that the Cambridge’s scuttling is about to commence.

“No,” Mali grunts.

Still sitting, Mali watches the scene unfold before him as the Cambridge is given the honor that it was entitled to.

All along the length of the Adelaide, colorful flares and gas canisters are shot out, illuminating and casting beautiful colors in all directions. As Mali saw things, the flares and gas canisters painted one last picture that he could remember the Cambridge by.

A light flashes to life overhead, indicating that the Adelaide is blasting its horns for the stricken ship before it, as per maritime tradition. Sure, the sound would never reach the Cambridge in the vacuum of space, but tradition dictated the need to blare a ship’s horns in order to honor the death of their brethren.

A few seconds pass and every gun on the Adelaide flashes to life as they all let off a round or two as yet another salute.

And then everything stops.

The flares that had been shot off gently die out.

The gas canisters expel the last of their contents and the clouds dissipate.

The light indicating that the Adelaide’s horns are blaring turns off.

Taking a slow breath, Mali gives the final order that he had been dreading for the past few years, “Scuttle the Cambridge.”

On cue, a small handful of deorbiting torpedoes emerge from the bow of the Adelaide.

The torpedoes aren’t much to look at, and the only thing that really set them apart from the blackness of space are their thrusters, which are slowly burning as they carefully approach the stricken ship.

A few minutes pass before the various torpedoes come to a stop on the portside of the Cambridge. Once they’re all in place, the torpedoes’ thrusters all flash as they turn to full power.

Feeling like he is watching an old friend die, Mali helplessly watches as the Cambridge begins slipping toward the atmosphere of the planet below.

Several more minutes pass and the first few signs of reentry flames start to pick at some of the sharper edges of the Cambridge as it slips into the atmosphere. Seconds later, the ship is one massive fireball hurtling toward the unforgiving ground below.

There was no going back now, the Cambridge was gone.

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A Bootleg Christmas

*Author Note: This is a prequel/Christmas Short Story to the story: The Invasion of Allegra which is in Kindle Vella*

Watchtower XXIV, Deep Space

25 December, 2283 – 00.04

“Fahy!” Vansen whispers through the door that she had just barely cracked open.

Yawning, Fahy rolls onto his side and looks at the light that is streaming in through the crack from the bright hallway outside of his cabin. Rubbing his eyes, he asks, “Yeah?”

“Can we come in?” Vansen requests, “It’s just Boris, Fagan, and I.”

Nodding slowly, Fahy thinks about what Vansen was asking. A few beats pass and he can’t come up with any ideas. Confused, he finally says, “Yeah. Why?”

The door slides the rest of the way open, and Vansen, Fagan, and Boris slip in silently. Once they’re both in, Vansen taps on the console beside the door, and it whooshes shut. She taps in a few things on the console before she smiles and excitedly says, “It’s Christmas!”

“Christmas?” Fahy rubs his eyes tiredly, “Already?”

“Yes already!” Vansen sounds happily as she quietly claps her hands.

“She’s a little too happy about all this,” Boris chuckles.

Vansen gives Boris a playful scowl before she responds, “It’s a bit of a big deal!”

“We know,” Fagan smiles, “We all know.”

“Well, it’s a bit of a bummer since we’re not allowed to celebrate right,” Vansen sighs.

Fagan shrugs, “Doesn’t matter what’s allowed or not so long as we’ve got each other.”

Vansen smiles and nods at Fagan, “Exactly!”

“So, how are we celebrating?” Fahy asks as he swings his legs out of his bed and straightens out a few things that are in reach.

“Well…” Vansen slowly looks around before she answers, “I sort of smuggled in some gifts for all of us. I made a few things too.”

“I made a few things too,” Fagan smiles, “Been sneaking down to the maintenance area to get a chance to make things.”

“Me too,” Boris smiles. Chuckling, he adds, “Fagan and I had to hide our projects from one another.”

“D—did you get something?” Vansen asks after a few beats.

Smiling, Fahy pulls out a few small boxes. In them, there are the things that he had been slaving away at for the past few months for his team.

“I thought you’d remember!” Vansen squeals happily as she grabs the box with her name on it.

Smiling, Fahy hands out the other two boxes as he asks Vansen, “How’d you manage to smuggle in gifts?”

A twinkle in her eye, Vansen answers, “I have my ways.”

“Mysterious as always,” Fagan chuckles, “From what I heard, there were some people who owed her some favors.”

Vansen lets out a loud laugh, “That makes it sound so much easier than it was. You’ve got no idea.”

Nodding, Fahy chimes in, “I’m sure it was hard—there’s a reason why none of us were able to smuggle anything in!”

“It really was,” Vansen nods along slowly, “Well, are we ready to start opening them?”

“Let’s,” Fagan smiles, “Who first?”

“Oh, we’re taking turns?” Boris asks, his first present already halfway unwrapped.

Vansen chuckles, “Of course, we are civilized, after all!”

Smirking, Fagan says, “Well, Christmas is here to celebrate Jesus and he said whoever is first will be last so… Boris, I guess you’re up!”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” Boris lets out a very sarcastic laugh before he turns his attention back to his gift from Fahy. A few moments later and Boris is poking at the small machine that Fahy had made for him.

“It’s a little farmer!” Fahy explains as he points out the small mechanism which is working slowly, “See how it’s using that thing like a hoe on the dirt? I thought it’d remind you of home!”

Boris chuckles and smiles slightly, “It does, that’s super neat. Thanks.”

“Alright, now I’m curious!” Vansen blurts out as she rips open her gift from Fahy. Once it’s open, she examines it and smiles, “It’s a cow!”

“Just like the ones on your ranch, right?” Fahy asks, his heart in his throat as he hopes that she likes it.

Vansen looks up from the cow after a few beats and assures him, “It’s awesome, thank you, Fahy!”

“Good, I’m glad you like it,” Fahy smiles back as he lets out a very quiet sigh.

Everyone else opens their various gifts and each gift is very well received. After a long while, Fahy is holding the very last gift.

“Well, you’re finishing things off, Fahy,” Vansen notes, “Hope you like it.”

Looking at the gift, Fahy briefly wonders what Vansen was able to make and what she could have smuggled all the way out to their Watchtower. The small, wrapped box isn’t large, but Fahy had suspected that it was impossible to smuggle anything larger than that out here.

“Well, are you going to open it?” Boris asks.

Nodding slowly, Fahy proceeds to begin unwrapping the gift. When he finishes, he sees that there are two boxes.

When Fahy hesitates, Vansen speaks up again, “The one on top is what I smuggled in, the one on the bottom is the one I made.”

Letting out a long sigh, Fahy stops and says, “Thank you all for this. As much as I’d like to be back at home with my family for Christmas, you all made this Christmas something special.”

“Oh, you can’t go and say that before you open your present!” Vansen laughs, “And besides, we haven’t even finished the party! Things are just getting started.”

Smiling slightly, Fahy presses his point, “All the same, you guys are the best. I hope we can keep doing this when this is all over—”

“You mean when we’re not in the middle of a deathly cold vacuum that could kill us and that the only thing keeping us alive is this little tin can?” Boris cuts in.

Fahy chuckles, “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I don’t know if I’d like to stick around with you weirdos if I don’t have to,” Boris says sarcastically.

Vansen elbows Boris and then looks around. Smiling, she lets her head lull to the side slightly and she sighs, “I’d like that. You all are something else, and I think my family would love you all too.”

“Mine too,” Fagan chirps.

“Same here,” Fahy smiles, “Let’s just hope that we can get home sooner rather than later so we don’t have to spend another Christmas way out here.”

“And so I don’t have to go through so many hoops trying to get you all gifts!” Vansen adds with a laugh, “I mean, you guys are great and all, but sheesh!”

“And so I can just buy you guys your gifts,” Boris teases. Holding up a hand, he points out a few burns, “You have no idea how much of a struggle it was to make all your things.”

Fahy laughs and nods, “I think it would all be a lot easier back home. A lot less people to try and sneak things by that way too.”

Shaking her head, Vansen scoffs, “You guys don’t even understand how much of a struggle it was to make it through all the trainings and whatnot they forced me through to become an officer. If I stuck to the rules like I’m supposed to, we’d all be stuck in the brig for this.”

“And we’d be dead not long after that,” Fahy adds the grim caveat that they all knew was the truth.

“And we’d be dead,” Vansen echoes in agreement.

“Well, open your thing already, Fahy!” Boris urges, “I’m ready for our Christmas dinner!”

“Christmas dinner?” Fahy asks, his ears perking up.

“Oh, unwrap it already!” Vansen laughs, “Stop getting distracted.”

Chuckling, Fahy shrugs, admitting defeat at long last. He was, in fact, stalling and he knew it.

Turning his attention back to the present, he gently unwraps the bottom box.

“It’s a miner!” Vansen tells him, “I know it’s just a figurine and can’t move like yours do, but—”

“It’s awesome,” Fahy cuts Vansen off, “I love it.”

Fahy is slowly turning the piece over in his hand as he admires Vansen’s work. Sure enough, the figurine is a very well done miner and they are in the middle of swinging a pickaxe. Fahy knew full well that Vansen likely spent just as long as he did, if not longer, making this present. He also knew that she must have spent a lot of time coming up with something that would be the perfect gift for someone like him who spent so much of his life belowground working the various mines around his home on Allegra.

“The second gift—the one I smuggled in—is the other part to this one,” Vansen explains, “Go on, open it!”

Nodding obediently, Fahy opens up the next gift and is greeted by the sight of a chunk of iron pyrite.

“It’s fool’s gold!” Vansen pipes up.

Chuckling, Fahy rolls the piece of metal between his fingers as he recalls the story that Vansen had likely used as inspiration for this gift. That story, as Fahy had told it, had taken place maybe ten years before. Fahy had been working an abandoned part of one of the mines he worked in an effort to find something worthwhile to make a name for himself and hopefully breathe some new life into his town’s mine which had been struggling as the ore dried up. As he had been digging, he found some iron pyrite and was convinced it was gold. After running through town and making a complete fool of himself, Fahy had been informed that his discovery was nothing more than fool’s gold and that he was the fool.

“Just like your story,” Vansen continues, confirming Fahy’s suspicion.

Smiling, Fahy looks up at Vansen and says, “Thanks, Vansen, this is great.”

Vansen takes the two gifts from Fahy and then puts them together so that the miner figure is preparing to strike the lump of fool’s gold instead of empty space. Handing it back, she smiles and nods, “I’m glad you like it.”

“Well, with that out of thee way, that means it’s time for some chow!” Boris announces as he sets his presents aside and pulls out his bag.

“I guess it is,” Vansen nods as she pulls her own bag out and starts laying out small bags of food, “I had to pull some strings for these too.”

Smiling, Fahy takes a bag that Vansen hands him and he does his best to help finish laying out their little Christmas meal.

When the meal is all set up, Vansen looks out the window behind Fahy and sighs, “Despite everything else, we sure have a lot to be thankful for too. I mean, just look at that view.”

Turning, Fahy sees that they are looking over the whole of the Milky Way.

“Yeah, that’s a view alright,” Boris nods, “Makes me think about how small everything is in the grand scheme of things.”

“Come on, guys, let’s eat,” Vansen says after a few moments.

Turning back to Vansen, Fahy smiles and nods in agreement, “Let’s.”

“Prayers first,” Vansen reminds everyone as she stretches out her hands.

Taking Vansen’s hand, Fahy nods, “Prayers first.”

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The World Beneath

The Black Forest, Allegra

“Listen, Horton, I don’t have all day,” Hreve snaps as he scowls at his companion. Horton had been stammering through the same complaint for the past three minutes and wasn’t showing any sign of finishing.

Horton huffs before he weakly says, “Well, I’m just saying that we shouldn’t wander all the way back here alone!”

Hreve ignores Horton and he continues deeper into the cave system that they had claimed as their apocalypse bunker upon the news of the alien invasion. Hreve didn’t know if the claims of the alien invasion were true or not, but he didn’t care. He was more than ready to fall off the grid and cease to exist as far as any governing officials were concerned. For that matter, he didn’t care if anyone else from the Thessalonian Shipbuilding Company knew if he was alive either.

In short, he needed a break. Any sort of excuse would do to get him out of Thessalonia.

Hreve chuckles as he thinks, And to believe it took an alien invasion to get me out of there. I wonder if it’s even legitimate, or if it’s even still going on…

Glancing back at Horton, Hreve’s brow furrows and he can’t help but ask, “How long have we been up here anyways?”

“Well over three weeks, I’d say.”

“Think they’ve beat back those aliens yet?”

“I still don’t know if the stories were true.”

“Well, I was hearing a few scattered words from someone on the radio we brought up here… whatever the story, there are other people up here too.”

“We could just be picking up some transmissions from somewhere else.”

“Not with the magnetic field around here.”

“What? Why?”

“Magnetic fields mess with radio waves, don’t they teach you framers anything?”

“They teach us to weld and rivet, that’s all you need to know to build a ship.”

Hreve shakes his head and sighs. I can’t believe they put idiots like Horton in charge of building my designs, he thinks in disgust, All it takes is one mistake on Horton’s side of things and I could be out of a job. Everyone at the shipyards could be!

Taking a few more steps, Hreve stops suddenly, and he shines his flashlight ahead. As was common in this network of caves, the tunnel splits off into a few different directions. That was nothing new, and Hreve had been following the ‘right-hand rule’ for most of this exploration trip.

What stood out this time, however, was that one of the tunnels was made of a different kind of material. Rather than be a dull grey, tan, or brown, this particular tunnel was almost black. In many ways, it reminded Hreve of an oxidized obsidian, just with a hint of green to its matted color.

Behind Hreve, Horton gasps, “I’ve never seen anything like that,”

That would be why I stopped, Hreve thinks with a slight chuckle. Something that he had always enjoyed about Horton’s company was how the man would voice his every thought. Sure, it could get annoying, but it would be funny more often than not. In this instance, Hreve managed to see the humor in things.

“It doesn’t look natural, how do you think it got here?” Hreve asks Horton. He didn’t expect an answer, but he was open to whatever idea the other man might offer. He approaches the odd tunnel and stops just a meter away from the nearest chunk of the greenish-black stone it was made of.

“Someone must have put it down here,”

Hreve nods in agreement, happy that Horton was thinking the same thing he was. Problem was, no one should have even been in this cave before them. It wasn’t on any maps—not even the bootlegged maps that Allegrian natives made of parts of the Black Forest. The mouth of the cave appeared to have been sealed off for centuries and was completely overgrown. A recent rockslide was the only reason Hreve had even been able to locate the tiny breach that he cleared away to allow everyone into the cave.

Reaching out, Hreve runs his finger along the cold stone face. It was several degrees cooler than the surrounding country rock, which he found strange. Just to confirm, he reaches out with his other hand and touches a piece of the natural grey stone that he was used to. He frowns when he notes that his initial impression was correct. Looking back once more, he asks, “But why would they go through all the work of building something down here?”

“There must’ve been something important down here.”

“Either that, or they wanted their own apocalypse bunker,”

“I don’t know… this doesn’t look like anything anyone we know would build. It looks…”

“Alien, I know.”

“But Allegra was uninhabited when it was settled,”

“That’s what they say.”

“You think that was a lie?”

“It could have been, or the alien race that lived here was extinct. Maybe they moved on when the water started drying up. I mean, if they were advanced enough to build with whatever this stuff is, then I’d guess they knew what to expect from a planet that was drying up.”

“Why not work to save the planet? That’s what the colonists did when they found Allegra.”

Hreve shrugs, “I don’t know, Horton. All I know is that we have to check this out.”

“I don’t know…”

“Haven’t you ever wanted to discover a lost race of aliens and be remembered forever for the discovery? We could be famous!”

“But you said you didn’t want anyone knowing about us,”

“That’s because we were nobodies back at home. With a discovery like this, we could be somebodies! You know what the Coalition does for somebodies?”

Horton’s stomach growls as if on cue, “I’d guess that they feed you at the very least.”

Hreve yearningly looks at the tunnel and smirks as his mind races with images of splendor and riches. He knew full well that this could just be the opportunity that got him and his family off this planet once and for all. With a find like this, he could get some cushy job in an office making records of this find for the rest of his life. No more risking his life to do something as monotonous as approving and improving the same old ship designs day in and day out. With a job like the one he was imagining; he could finally see the galaxy and not just the same few streets between his home and the shipyard.

Smiling wistfully, Hreve lets his friend in on his thoughts, “There would be a whole lot more than just food waiting for us… We could get out of the shipyards once and for all.”

“You know, some of us like our jobs.”

Chuckling, Hreve reminds Horton of their conversation yesterday, “You called your job a premature cancer ward and you said you were happy that you got away from it all.”

“Well, it’s fun when you’re not breathing in the welding fumes… Or cleaning up after someone’s mistakes… or—alright, I guess you’re right. I could use a new job.”

“Just imagine what they’d have us do after this…”

“Well… I think we’d spend a lot more time in caves. I don’t really like the sound of that.”

Hreve shrugs and he takes his first step into the darkened tunnel. When the world doesn’t suddenly explode or anything like that, he continues walking deeper into the cave. Turning back, he calls out, “Come on, let’s check this out. If you don’t like the job they offer you, then you don’t have to take it. All I know is that I’d rather explore caves and see something new every day than be stuck in that stuffy office at the shipyard.”

Horton hesitantly follows.

Hreve can’t help but notice that the dark, matted walls of the cave seemed to absorb all the light from his flashlight. While he still had enough light to continue deeper, he found himself squinting in an effort to see further. The limited light situation fortunately didn’t seem to phase Horton, either that or the man didn’t notice the change. Either way, Hreve was happy that Horton had stopped complaining.

At that, Hreve momentarily wonders if he might have lost Horton. He quickly looks back and sees that the man is in fact still behind him, and he continues ahead.

After a hundred meters or so, the tunnel begins dipping downward at a much sharper angle than it had been. Rather than be a five-degree slope like much of the cave, it is now dropping at about a thirty-degree slope, which makes it harder to stop and makes Hreve’s ankles ache. After maybe a hundred meters of that, the ground levels off and feels almost perfectly level, which Hreve finds odd. He is about to mention it but opts against it when Horton fails to say anything.

“It looks like the cave opens up ahead,” Horton notes as his faint flashlight beam shines ahead further than it had been.

Hreve nods slowly in response and he quickens his pace. He wanted to see if what he and Horton were seeing was true, something about the dark walls of the cave had made everything seem so tight that the thought of it opening up was both a surprise and a relief.

Stepping into a much wider section of the cave, Hreve stops once more, and he looks all around. This large cavern is about twenty meters tall and is easily three times that in length. As far as Hreve can tell, its ceiling is also a near-perfect semicircle, which he finds odd. In addition to being odd, it confirms his suspicions that the structure was in fact man-made—or more accurately, alien-made.

The walls of this cavern are made of the same dark material, but this stuff seems to have a slight glow, a glow that really highlights the geometric crystalline structure of whatever the walls were made of. Just to be sure, Hreve approaches the nearest bit of glowing wall, and he turns off his light. Horton seems to pick up on the idea and turns his off as well. A few moments pass before Hreve’s eyes adjust and he sees that the walls are in fact glowing ever so slightly.

“Weird,” Horton whispers.

“Yeah, very weird. I wish I brought our Geiger counter along, it’d be interesting to see if this stuff is radioactive.”

“Are we going to die? I mean, if all that smoke from welding didn’t get me, will this?”

“I don’t know… I wouldn’t think so though.”

“Why not? Doesn’t radioactive stuff glow?”

“Some does… but I don’t think this stuff is dangerous. The aliens wouldn’t have built with it if it was.”

“But they could have gone extinct from it.”

“That’s a possibility, but I don’t think it’s the case here.”

“I… I think I like it. It’s pretty.”

“I like it too,” Hreve agrees.

“I saw another tunnel at the far end of this room.”

Hreve nods slowly as he asks, “Think we should check it out?”

“We’ve come this far,” Horton answers.

Nodding still, Hreve grabs his flashlight and warns, “Lights on!”

Flicking on his light, Hreve squints against the bright light and he waits for his eyes to adjust. A few seconds pass before he feels confident enough to trudge on ahead to the far side of the cave.

“I was thinking,” Horton announces as they walk.

“What?”

“Do you think that these structures could be what’s causing the magnetic fields? Like, they’re weird anomalies, so they’d have to be made by something weird, right?”

“I don’t see why not,”

“Well, what are we going to call the aliens that made this thing then? I think it should have something to do with magnet in their name.”

“I don’t know about that—”

“How about Magnet-heads?”

“We don’t even know what their heads look like.”

“Field Layers? Magnet-ites? The Polarity?”

“The Polarity sounds pretty cool. A bit ominous, but cool.”

“I liked that one too.”

Hreve stops yet again, this time at the end of the large cavern that they had been in. He is looking through the cave ahead of them and he blinks a few times to confirm that he was in fact seeing what he thought he was. When that doesn’t help or change what he was seeing, he flicks his light off once again and Horton follows his lead.

Ahead of them, a faint light is shining from further down the tunnel.

“That can’t be daylight, right?” Horton asks after a few seconds.

“No… We’re way too far underground.”

“And we couldn’t have walked all the way under the mountain range… right?”

“Right…”

“Then… could it be lava?”

“It could be, I’ve never seen the stuff before though. Shouldn’t it be warmer in here if it was lava?”

“I don’t know… maybe these rocks don’t let heat move the same way.”

Hreve finds himself nodding uselessly in the dark and he also notices that his jaw had dropped. He quickly clamps his mouth back closed and he begins walking toward the light, this time without the aid of this flashlight. The light ahead of him and Horton appears to be almost aqua in color, which isn’t too unlike the sunlight on the surface, however, there still remained the issue of how far underground they were. There was no way that the light could be coming from the surface.

“I’m nervous,” Horton mumbles.

Again, Hreve just finds himself nodding along. His original thoughts of grand appearances and notoriety were gone now. All he could think about was just what could be ahead of him. He didn’t know if it was dangerous, if it was alive, or if it was nothing at all. All he knew was that it was something and that he had to find out what.

“I was thinking it could be some sort of light,” Horton rambles on, “Like, we’ve got our flashlights, maybe these aliens had lights too. Those glowing walls probably didn’t keep things bright enough for them, after all.”

“But how could it still be going all these years later?” Hreve asks, knowing that Horton wouldn’t know the answer.

“Alien tech. They’ve always got stuff we don’t. Just think about all the stuff that the Toaz had that we made use of—these aliens are bound to know some stuff too.”

Again, all Hreve can do is nod.

Horton continues babbling about everything that pops into his head for several minutes and Hreve allows it. There were better things to do than bicker, and on top of that, Hreve couldn’t muster his voice to say anything anyway.

Turning a corner, Hreve gasps when he sees a door that is being silhouetted by the aqua-colored light that is seeping through on all sides of it. Something about the presence of a door makes the entire situation seem somewhat normal and it makes the aliens—the Polarity as Horton named them—seem more human. No more were they some wispy civilization that may or may not exist, they were concrete and real—just like the door that is only a few meters away. In a way, Hreve thought that the presence of a door was funny, out of all technologies to find that humanity and the Polarity had in common, a door was not something that Hreve would have put on the list.

“Think it opens?” Horton asks suddenly.

“It’s got to,” Hreve answers as he boldly approaches the door. Stopping just in front of it, he begins feeling around for a door handle or a console beside the door or any other way to open it. He does so for a good minute before stepping back.

“Maybe it’s more simple than we’re thinking,” Horton offers as he steps forward for his own turn.

Hreve watches as Horton puts forth both his hands and rests his palms flat on the face of the door. Horton then takes a few deep breaths, the light from the door casting strange and eerie shadows off Horton’s body as he does so.

Then Horton suddenly presses on the door and it gives way, but not in the way Hreve expected.

Rather than swing one way or the other on some sort of hinge, the door glides into the area beyond in the same direction that Horton had pushed it. For a moment, Hreve is awestruck and confused, but his brain quickly catches up to the present and he realizes that the door was utilizing some sort of magnetism to work, a fact he found quite odd.

Horton stops pushing and he examines the door. Planting his hands on his hips, he happily exclaims, “Magnets!”

Hreve lets out a short laugh as he takes in Horton’s happiness, but he cuts his joy short when he realizes that he and Horton are both being bathed in the bright light that they had been pursuing. His eyes snap upward, toward the source of the light and he is greeted with what he can only describe as a massive screen at the top of the cavern he is in. The screen is at least a hundred meters above him and, if he isn’t mistaken, it appears to only be about fifty meters or so wide, which he found surprising. His eyes drop so he can take in the size of the cave that the screen is so easily illuminating when his heart skips a beat.

This was no empty cave.

It wasn’t filled with stalactites, or trash, or ruins, or anything that he had been expecting.

The floor of the massive cave is made up of gently rolling hills and a handful of valleys, all of which are spread across the huge five or so kilometer circle that the screen above Hreve is keeping bright. Scattered haphazardly along the hills and in the valleys are mostly small structures, buildings Hreve could only describe as hovels or huts.

However, those buildings were anything but primitive, like that description would imply. Rather than be built out of mud or brick, these structures are all built out of the same crystalline blackish stone. Roads made of the same material weave their way through the landscape, connecting all the buildings to each other and to the small assortment of larger structures.

“It’s like… it’s like some sort of vacation destination from the commercials!” Horton calls out joyously.

“Don’t!” Hreve grabs Horton’s shirt and stops the man from racing toward the nearest structure.

“And why not?” Horton demands, “This right here is everything we could have hoped to get from a discovery like this, and we can have it right now!”

Hreve shakes his head slowly. He isn’t sure why, but something didn’t seem right about all of this. As he shakes his head, he continues scanning the scene before him, and he begins noting the rusting hulks that are on the roads and scattered elsewhere as well. He sees that the pieces of machinery are more plentiful closer to one of the large structures, and he examines it more closely. After a few moments, he realizes that the structure appeared to be some sort of barracks.

Taking in a sharp breath, Hreve finally says, “I think this is some kind of military base.”

“Military? No way! Look at that over there! They’ve got a lake! There’s no way—”

“No! Look at those things out there! The ones with the rust. Those look like some kind of futuristic tanks to me! And look at these buildings here!” Hreve points at the nearby structures that seem like they would funnel anyone going through the door they had just entered through right to, “Tell me they don’t look like a checkpoint for people to check in before being let in.”

“But it’s so pretty!”

“Maybe that’s just how the Polarity builds their military bases.”

“But… why all the way down here?”

“I don’t know… maybe it was a bunker or something.”

“But aren’t bunkers supposed to house tons of people? This whole place,” Horton makes a big point of waving his hands around, “That’s a lot of work to just house a hundred or so houses!”

“I really don’t know,” Hreve sighs, “But I don’t like it. I know that much.”

“Well, are we going to look around at least?”

Nodding slowly, Hreve agrees, and he allows Horton to take the lead for a while.

Hreve and Horton make their way through the abandoned checkpoint, and Hreve can’t help but look inside. He stops long enough to poke his head through the open window and he takes in the sight of everything inside. He can see what appears to be a filing system of sorts for square, green crystalline plates. He can see what is clearly a chair sitting before what he believes is a computer, and beside that is something that he immediately recognizes as a rifle-like weapon.

Hreve makes a point of pointing out the rifle to Horton who simply shrugs and nods at the discovery before marching ahead.

Exiting the checkpoint area, Hreve immediately notes the green and red plants that make up the ground cover of the cave. The plants remind him of both moss and clovers at the same time, and he can’t help but wonder how the plant life hadn’t taken over the entire cave in the years since the area had been abandoned. Sure, there were some places where the plants encroached on the black road a bit, but they had yet to cover it completely.

Hreve continues following Horton for quite some time and he stops at the first of the rusting hulks that he is now certain are war machines. Horton continues on ahead, somehow unfazed by the machine.

Unwilling to part with the tank-like machine just yet, Hreve lets Horton leave and he begins circling around the machine. The machine is largely made up of the same blackish material that the alien race seemed oh so fond of, but there are parts of it that are made of what Hreve assumes is some sort of steel. The steel is where all the rust is coming from, and that rust has stained parts of the black material over the many years.

There aren’t any wheels or treads on this tank, and Hreve ascertains that it must use some sort of levitation to move along. The lower half of the tank appears to be just an armored carrier for whatever moved the machine, much like the tanks Hreve was accustomed to seeing the Coalition use. The upper half, much like a normal tank, was clearly the weapons platform where weapons that were a lot like the one in the checkpoint were pointing out every which way. There didn’t appear to be any front or rear to the upper portion of the tank, which just made it appear even more fearsome.

“Horton, I think we need to leave this place,” Hreve calls out to his traveling buddy as he quickly retreats from the tank. Something about all of the guns pointing out of it made it seem threatening and scary, even if it appeared to be very much dead.

“You can leave, I’m on vacation!” Horton calls back.

“Something happened here, man!” Hreve shouts, “I don’t think we should stay!”

“Whatever it is, it’s gone now,”

“You can’t know that.”

“It’s been forever since anything living was here.”

“We don’t know that,” Hreve starts. He is about to say more as he walks toward Horton, but he stops dead in his tracks. At his feet is something that he can only describe as a footprint. The print is easily a meter long and a little under half a meter wide and it appears to have been left behind by some sort of mechanization, based upon the sharp edges of the print. Not too far away, there is another print and then another and another. Judging by the state of the plants that had been crushed, the steps were not too terribly old.

“Horton…” Hreve says in a shaky voice, “I’m leaving right now, and you should too.”

“Just go already!” Horton snaps, “I’ll take all the credit for discovering the Polarity for myself!”

Hreve looks over to Horton and he feels a pang of anger, fear, and sadness as his friend threatens to cheat him. After so many years of working together and getting to know each other, Hreve expected more of the man. He had had Horton and his wife over several times over the years to have dinner with his own family, and here the man was threatening to throw all of that away.

Shaking his head, Hreve immediately thinks about what his father always said about how power always corrupts. People, no matter how good they once were, they always had a propensity to do horrible things in the name of gaining or maintaining power. That was one of the reasons why the Coalition had gotten so bad, or at least that’s what Hreve’s father said.

Before he can say anything else to Horton, Hreve sees something move on the crest of a hill in the distance.

A split second later, there is a flash and a beam of light.

Hreve’s eyes follow the beam and his heart stops for a moment when he sees a smoldering section of the green and red grass where Horton had been standing not long before. All that remained of the man is a few small scraps of clothing.

Somehow remembering the emergency drills from the shipyard, Hreve’s body immediately drops to the ground, just like he was trained to do in the event of explosions. While there hadn’t been an explosion, Hreve somehow instinctively knew that dropping to the ground would be his sole means of survival.

After a few seconds that seem to take hours, Hreve allows himself to look toward the distant hill where the flash had come from.

To his terror, there is something coming his way from that hill. It is walking in a soulless disjointed way that tells Hreve everything that he needed to know—the thing that killed Horton was a robot. Whatever it was, it had to of played some sort of role in this military bunker. It was a resident of this horrid underworld beneath the Black Forest.

Realizing that the machine hadn’t fired until it had a direct line of sight with Horton, Hreve concocts a plan: he would make his way back to the door he had come through whenever the machine was out of view.

Hreve immediately laughs at his plan, but he cuts his laughter short because he feared the robot would shoot at him if it saw his movement. A few seconds pass and Hreve’s thoughts return to the absurdity of his plan when he reasons that the robot hadn’t seen him. I’m literally about to play some psychotic version of red light green light to save my life, Hreve thinks, the craziness of it all bringing him far too close to laughing once more.

Before he can rethink his plan, the robot slips beneath the crest of another hill and out of sight. Without giving the order, Hreve’s body leaps up and begins sprinting back up the road. He was on autopilot, and he knew that his instincts were the only thing keeping him alive.

As he runs, Hreve looks back every few steps to ensure that the robot cannot see him. He gets a good three minutes of running in before he sees the glint of metal that the robot is made of, and he dives to the ground amidst some of the roadside plants.

The war machine is still stumbling along closer and closer to where Horton had been murdered. Whatever its agenda, the robot seemed intent on investigating the scene of the killing it had conducted.

Several painfully long minutes pass as the robot works its way down the hill and toward Horton and Hreve. As he waits for his next chance to run, Hreve realizes that he has to pee and a few tears stream down his face as he wills his body to ignore the urge for just a little while longer.

Before he has a chance to wet himself, the robot slips back out of sight, this time behind a building, and Hreve races closer to the door he and Horton had entered through an eternity ago. He gets to the checkpoint in time to see the robot emerging from the building that had come between it and Hreve, and Hreve dives through the open window into the room he had examined earlier.

Inside the building, Hreve takes several dozen unsteady breaths before he steadies his breathing to the point that he can calm down and think once more. As he thinks, his brain immediately jumps to the idea that there would be questions if he were to return without Horton. People could think that he murdered the man. He needed some sort of proof of what happened.

And at that, Hreve realizes that he jumped into the perfect place to take his proof. He reaches for the green plates, but he stops when he remembers just how badly he had to pee. Not wanting to risk his life to respond to the call of nature, he opts to pee inside of the checkpoint room he is in.

Finished with that, he then grabs a plate and the strange rifle as well. These two prizes in hand, he peeks out of the window just far enough to check on the robot. It is now standing over the charred earth where Horton had been standing not long before. Every now and then the machine takes an awkward step or two, but it seems like it has no idea what to do next.

And then it begins marching back the way it had come, just as suddenly as its showing up in the first place.

Hreve briefly considers making a run for it while the killing machine’s back is turned, but he can’t bring himself to risk it. He knew that he’d have a better opportunity as soon as it crested a hill.

He keeps repeating this line of thought for several minutes until the robot is finally out of sight. At that, he crawls back through the window, grabs his artifacts, and runs. He is several steps past the door he had entered through before he stops himself. He can’t help but feel like he had to shut the door. That he had to put the lip back onto Pandora’s box.

But, at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel like doing so would get himself killed.

Letting out a shaky, emotional groan that he is happy no one is around to hear, Hreve retreats, and he races away from the door, from the false paradise, and the killing mechanization. He doesn’t stop running until he steps out of the blackened tunnel and feels the familiar natural, cool stone underfoot.

Finally back on familiar ground, Hreve drops to his knees and he sets down the two pieces that he had taken as proof of what had occurred. With his hands now free, he drops down further, bowing to nothing in particular as he allows his emotions and thoughts to catch back up to him.

The terror that he had felt upon seeing the robot that killed Horton causes him to shake uncontrollably and he feels like his bones have been replaced with ice as the fear somehow reaches that deep into his being. The adrenaline that had kept him alive is easing up, and it is filling him with a pain that he can only describe as broken glass that is cutting at his insides. The excitement that he had originally felt is there as well, but it feels foreign and like it is an abomination. Any level of excitement right now felt like it was spitting on the grave of Horton.

Hreve isn’t sure just how long he had been sobbing on the ground by the time that he wakes up.

The ground beneath him is wet from his tears, and he can see several small streams of moisture that had found their way downhill from his face. As he looks at the wetted streambeds, he momentarily wonders how he could see in the dark. A moment later, his eyes find that he had somehow managed to bring his flashlight along and he had left it on as he sobbed and eventually fell asleep.

Swallowing, Hreve realizes that he hadn’t drunk anything for quite some time. He reaches for where his water had been but finds nothing. That is when he remembers that Horton had borrowed his canteen and had been carrying it when he was killed.

Swallowing once more, Hreve rises to his feet shakily. Bending down, he grabs the plate, the rifle, and his flashlight and he begins shuffling back toward where his family is near the mouth of the cave.

He didn’t know what he would do when he got back to them. He didn’t know what he could tell them. He didn’t know how to explain what happened.

All Hreve knew was that he had to get all of them out of this cave. Anywhere else would do. Even the open air would do. Better yet, Hreve thinks, Better yet, we can just get out of the Black Forest! Get away from all of this. Surely the alien invasion is over by now. Surely things are looking up out there.

Nodding resolutely, Hreve commits to the plan. He was going to get Horton and his families both out of here and far from that horrible cave.

Whatever the race of alien was that built that cave, they must have had no interest other than making war.

5 out of 5 stars (based on 1 review)

October 9, 2021

Interesting concept, well worth expanding.

Mike Blake

Caleb Fast

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I Don’t Do Water

A knock sounds at the door of Carlos’s hotel room and he snaps to attention out of habit. Realizing that he was miles away from the nearest base and even further from the combat zone, he stops long enough to think about who might be knocking.

He hadn’t ordered room service. He didn’t invite anyone over.

Pushing down his many aversion and worst-case scenario thoughts, Carlos sneaks toward the door and fights off the urge to swear when he remembers that the door didn’t have a peephole.

Aren’t hotels required to have peepholes? Carlos wonders as he reaches down to his hip for a gun that wasn’t there anymore.

“Hey, care to join me for a swim?” a familiar feminine voice asks from the other side of the door.

The voice belonged to Gretta Thorbin, Carlos’s ex-girlfriend–recently-turned-fiancee. It was a long story, but could be summed up with them kicking things off once more once the war was over.

Carlos had booked two rooms, one for himself and one for Gretta in order to get her to what was supposed to be a luxury resort. Unfortunately, that ‘luxury resort’ didn’t have peepholes for their doors.

Last night, Carlos had proposed, Gretta said yes, and they spent the rest of the night on horseback following their guide over the gentle rolling hills of the desert that the resort was in the center of.

Carlos had chosen a desert location to ensure that he could see things coming from many miles away. One could never be too careful.

“Come on, Carlos, I know you can hear me,” Gretta laughs, “Come join me for a swim!”

Opening the door slowly, Carlos looks his wife-to-be over and he fights off the urge to smile like an idiot. It didn’t take much to fight off that urge however, after holding that lovestruck smile all night last night, Carlos’s face muscles didn’t like the idea of smiling anymore.

Shaking his head, Carlos flatly declines, “No, I don’t do water.”

Again, Gretta laughs. Actually, it’s more of a giggle–the same giggle that she had let out a couple of weeks ago that caused all of Carlos’s old emotions he had for the woman to rise back to the forefront. Before he had the chance to remember the church service they reconnected in, Gretta asks, “What do you mean you don’t do water? How do you not do water? You just spent the last few years in it!”

Carlos’s focus on Gretta’s soft face and her earthy eyes lapses as he is suddenly sent back a few months to one of the most terrifying moments of his life.

He was on a civilian cruise ship of all places, providing some sort of security for everyone on board as they traversed waters that were allegedly dangerous. Everyone that wasn’t Command knew that those reports were outright lies pushed forward by sailors who wanted an excuse to ‘guard’ a luxury cruise liner as it sailed across the Caribbean and Gulf. Getting stationed on these ships was a treat for anyone who had made a good impression on the lower echelons of the command structure.

It was supposed to be the easiest month of Carlos’s life. Much of it was.

Until the return voyage.

As they sailed east and made for blue water a passenger jumped overboard. Carlos wouldn’t have believed it if someone told him, the whole trip had just been so perfect. Being a soldier, Carlos got a lot of attention that he thoroughly enjoyed. Plenty of free meals too, especially after he shared some of the tales of his deployment to actual combat zones.

Everyone was having the time of their lives.

Everything was perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

Carlos replays the images of him dropping the book he was reading and feels his Adam’s apple lurch as he nearly cries out once more, ‘Man overboard!’

The kid had jumped off the lower deck which had been nearly vacant. Everyone else was busy enjoying the rays on the uppermost decks that were getting bathed with the tropical sun. Carlos had opted to go to the quieter shady lower deck on the port side to read and to avoid the sun. After spending so many days getting baked alive, he had no intention of wasting what was basically his vacation under the harsh light.

Only a couple of people heard his call and Carlos remembers their skeptical stares as he lurched toward the spot where they boy had jumped.

When he finally realized that no one else was doing anything, he finally got his feet to begin working properly and he broke into a full sprint across the smooth wood deck. As he closed the final few yards, he remembered grabbing a life preserver and the line it was on off the wall. Even now, he could feel the firm foam circle in his fingers.

And then he jumped.

Right into the water. As he was trained. It was a water rescue, simple as that. Just like he trained.

But it wasn’t.

The training took place in a pool. Near the end they had gone through some training in a lake, but nothing was like this. No body of water just kept going further and further down. It never ended.

Despite his initial shock at not being able to see the bottom, Carlos remembered swimming downward, he had released the life preserver as he jumped into the water, so the only thing slowing him down was the clothes that he was wearing.

He knew that the boy had jumped with the intent to kill himself, so he knew that he would have to swim down as fast as he could. There was no knowing what the boy might have used to weigh himself down so he would reach the bottom. Odds were that it would be something large, just big enough for him to be unable to get rid of it should he change his mind.

As those thoughts passed through his head, Carlos spotted the boy’s body. It was floating freely in the water. A frayed rope extended away from the body like a snake that had latched onto its victim.

As he neared the kid, Carlos remembered wondering if the knot the kid tied had failed, or if he had frantically done what he could to free himself from what he used to drown himself with. He wondered if the kid had second thoughts about taking his own life. He wondered if the boy got a new lease on life.

But he would never know.

No amount of effort could bring the kid back.

Carlos remembered how he had gone from being so level-headed as he started giving the kid CPR. There was nothing special about it at first, he had done CPR dozens of times before and everyone had woken up. When this kid didn’t he began to lose it. It took six men to pull him off the kid and it took even more to talk him back down to reality.

“Carlos?” Gretta prompts once more.

Looking down at his hands, Carlos examines the deep scars on them. The scars were the last vestiges of his attempt to save the kid. He got them from pulling himself and the kid up out of the water and onto the ship’s deck. It took months for them to heal up after the rope cut through them.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Carlos suddenly realizes that a few tears had begun streaming down his face. Shaking his head, he whimpers, “I don’t do water.”

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Caleb Fast

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Bad News

Alright, I have bad new. 🙁 If you’re seeing this, then there aren’t enough stories in the genre you want to check out! I know, it’s sad. But, there’s good news. What is it? YOU can write a story! Yes, you! Everyone has a story in them. No, we might not be the best at first, but we’re humans and we’re made to learn. Made to adapt. Made to create.

If I was able to convince you, then please be sure to check out the page Write With Us and start going through the stories you’ve already written! 😀

The Cambridge’s Final Voyage

A Bootleg Christmas

The World Beneath

I Don’t Do Water

Bad News

"Go Forth and Write." Isaiah 30:8