CHAPTER TEN

  Soran awoke to a tumultuous clamor. Raised voices emanated from the cockpit. He wandered through, rubbing his eyes while clumsily fastening the straps of his overalls. Before he could muster so much as a good morning, something tackled him to the ground with the force of a falling comet. Tugg used his massive body to shield the boy from falling debris, the Horizon shedding anything not bolted to its hull. The boy grabbed Tugg's trunk-like arm, his eyes clenched as he braced himself for impact.

  "Take it to manual," Ranna barked over to El, who confidently helmed the ship's controls. She shot Ranna an incredulous glare, backseat driving both unwelcome and unneeded. The Horizon shook. A clamorous rattle reverberated through the ship's hull as clusters of meteoroids bombarded the exterior shell. A fragment of cosmic chaff clipped the Glass shielding at the ship's bow, and a lattice of cracks spread over its surface like a winter frost.

  "No breach yet, Captain," El replied, relieved.

  "Keep her steady and try to escape the pull zone."

  Pull zone? Soran's breathing slowed almost to stop as he realized what was happening. An unexpected gravity well had materialized just weeks before his rendezvous with the Horizon crew. It had pulled the Hyacinth's host asteroid out of its orbit, threatening the lives of everyone on board. Anything within a gravity well's pull zone is hauled toward its center and crushed into nothingness. The Horizon would be no exception.

  Soran dipped under Tugg's arm and carefully maneuvered his way to the ship's rear. Without hesitation, he dismantled an assemblage of crates, pawing through their contents.

  "Where are they? The explosives." Soran yelled, assuming a crew with the arsenal of the Horizon would at least have something that blew up. Ranna's head swung around with a perplexed look.

  "That isn't going to help, kid; focus," Ranna said firmly, dismissing the boy's feverish scheming.

  "It's a gravity well. I can get us out." Soran said, flinging boxes of ammunition and sacks of food rations. Ranna seemed surprised the boy was even familiar with the anomaly, let alone how to escape one. Clambering from the co-pilot's seat, he held onto the wall and navigated his way over to Soran, stopping periodically for tremors as debris continued to bombard the ship. He entered a code into the lock pad of a sizable black crate. Soran took note of Ranna's hesitation, each keypress a delicate tap. The lid slid open with a hiss, revealing four lustrous metal orbs, each topped with three red lenses arranged in a triangular formation.

  "Shattertank Mines," Soran whispered, his mouth agape. Being this close to such a dangerous manifestation of destruction terrified and amazed him. Manufactured for use on Citadel and Vanquisher class Naval vessels, the mines were highly illegal for anyone outside the government to possess.

  "Had to pull a few strings for these beauties," Ranna said proudly as he admired the devastating power on display. Soran paused, questioning whether or not to employ such a device. One false move and the Horizon, its crew, and everything within a hundred miles would cease to be.

  "Are we doing this, or what?" Ranna asked, the ship shaking violently from a significant impact.

  "She's not gonna hold much longer." El chimed in from the cockpit. Soran's thinking time was up. He clasped a mine in his hands with the same delicate precision Ranna had used to unlock its cage. Taking one careful step after another, he traversed the trembling vessel and flicked open the vacuum shoot. Its primary use was ejecting waste, but today, it would shepherd something far more sinister.

  "Align the ship with the well's center." Said Soran.

  The effect of the pull intensified as the ship slipped further into the core of the anomaly. Soran covered the three lenses with his fingers, and they began to glow simultaneously. A blip sounded for every five seconds he kept the lenses hidden. On the third chime, he released his grip, and the mine dropped into the shoot, propelling out into space at high velocity.

  "Full reverse thrust!" Soran called out. El slammed the throttles to maximum. The ship groaned, fighting against the immense pressure of the well. Meteors hurtled past, several narrowly avoiding a direct collision.

  Within seconds, violet light engulfed the ship. The Shattertank converged with the center of the well, exploding with magnificent ferocity. An enchanting array of colors expanded in a luminous halo. The gravity fought with the unfathomable destructive power of the mine, attempting to claw back the expanding fountain of light. Soran embraced his closest fixture as the shockwave battered the ship, propelling the vessel backward in a violent thrust. The cracked glass plating continued to splinter. Shards rained down on El, and she looked up in horror, terrified they were about to be plucked into the void.

  The Horizon soared through the abyss on the calamitous wave, her rust-worn skeleton aching under the thrust.

  After a prolonged session of bone-breaking acceleration, the Horizon collided with a field of static debris, and they came to a sudden and violent halt.

  Adrenalin emptied from their bodies in clouds of panicked breath. Ranna was the first to his feet; his crew's well-being outweighed any injury he might have sustained. El and Soran were both relatively unharmed and even though he had taken the brunt of the fallout, Tugg showed no outer signs of damage. Attempting a slow stumble to their feet, the crew observed a large cluster of oddly shaped rock formations through the rear viewing slit. The sediment collection had brought the Horizon to a standstill, saving them from a potential mission-failing detour.

  "That was too close," Soran said. His voice crackled, still reeling from shock. He took a moment, acknowledging the serious proposition that this mission could end up taking his life. Never again would he see the Hyacinth nor get the opportunity to save Lanic. Never had he contemplated death so frequently, the process crystallizing his priorities. Adventuring in the distant reaches had always seemed a sure way to make the most of your life. But the more he experienced, the more his heart called for home.

  I can't fail. Soran refused to accept any outcome in which he didn't return home with Lanic. Any thoughts to the contrary were banished to the far corners of his mind.

  El swept off the thick layer of dust from her jacket and emptied glass shards from the pockets of her overalls. The Horizon's hull had shed a thick coating of dust and debris. Spring cleaning was long overdue.

  Soran had noticed that all three of them wore matching jackets. The crew's logo adhered to both the breast and back, the stitch work in various states of disrepair. Most hunter crews operated similarly, having an item of clothing or even an entire ensemble to differentiate themselves. Worn as a badge of pride, nothing was a more egregious display of disrespect than defacing a gang's crest. Despite mainly being lowlives and vagabonds, hunters provided a much-needed service in the galaxy. A fact that not even the galactic government couldn't deny.

  Tugg looked down at Soran, who gave a smile of thanks for his protection. The Accran replied with another disturbing attempt at a smile, this time revealing a second row of jagged teeth that had previously remained hidden.

  The Horizon was in a pitiful state. Mauled by a multitude of meteor shards, large fissures blemished the summer hues of her outer hull. The Glass plating at the bow was the worst affected and seemed only an aggressive flick away from completely shattering.

  "What do we do about this?" Asked El, eyeing up the ever-expanding collection of cracks that littered the screen.

  "We proceed as planned," Ranna said bluntly, to the surprise of his crewmates.

  "But…"

  "If we don't get to Kaligan soon, he won't be there. You remember what I said about this mission not having a plan B? That's still the case. Unless any of you have something to add?" Ranna canvased for opposition. Even though the boy had not been with the Horizon crew long, he knew Ranna's word was law, and questioning him would be unwise.

  Soran's attention wandered to the front of the ship. He thought his eyes were deceiving him for a second — a trick of the light, maybe, or a mirage conjured by his sleep-deprived brain. The puzzled faces of his crew confirmed that there was no mistake. Drifting before the Horizon was a monolithic stone eye. Not that of a human but something much, much bigger. It belonged to something alien, ancient beyond compare. Ten times the size of their ship, the orb was unlike anything they had seen before.

  "How is this possible?" Ranna said as more strange rock formations appeared. They looked like bone fragments, fang-like shards ascending from innumerable rocky surfaces. It felt as if they had stumbled across something arcane, floating among the remains of a primordial secret forgotten by time. It was beyond their comprehension. Even El remained silent as she observed the odd silhouettes sail past. Soran looked closer, seeing something he recognized — a fungus.

  It couldn't be.

  Although uncertain, he could swear it was identical to the lichen growing on Valaterra. He looked at El to see if she had noticed, but her attention diverted to a sparking coil jutting dangerously from the control terminal.

  She said they only grew on Valaterra. Soran noted no ice crystals in sight, just a graveyard of primeval sediment.

  "Whatever this is, or was, I think it's wise we be making our move," Ranna advised. He jumped into the pilot's seat and rerouted the course from their new location.

  "Only an hour away. The blast helped us out." He said, surprised. Soran was relieved that his confinement was almost over. He was acutely aware of time, knowing the swifter they progressed, the more chance there was that Lanic would still be alive.

  Ranna accelerated upward, hastily withdrawing from the eerie cluster of stone. As the ship ascended, Soran noticed the fragments coiled on for miles. Whatever it had once been, it would have been planetary in scale. He shuddered at the thought, laughing at the absurdity of his imagination. Sitting back on the bench, he watched Tugg use a machete to clean chunks of crustacean from his innumerable teeth. Having spent the majority of his life in the company of aliens, he was used to the unique cultural quirks they each possessed.

  Ranna turned on some music that hummed gently through the speaker system. Soran recognized it as the same folksy tunes Lanic used to play as they worked, and he caught his feet tapping along to the rhythm. With his eyes closed and sitting under the warm draft of the heaters, he almost felt at home.