Twinks in Space: Fantastic Voyage - Part Two - 18. Chapter 18 - In the Dark

Fonith was not unconscious. The dark that swallowed her had not been caused by a blow to her head, and the four soldiers were also confused by the blackness. The two men who pulled Fonith from her ship’s kitchen floor were still holding her arms, but they were silent.

The entire Cometskipper was dark, but so was the Scorched Atmosphere.

On the upper level of Fonith’s ship, Golvinte was seated in one of the two power siphon cannon gunner chairs. The first three times he had pressed the weapon’s firing mechanism, nothing happened, but when its ready light suddenly blinked on, Golvinte pushed its button again. The blast instantaneously collided with the Scorched Atmosphere, disabling all the electronic systems on the military vessel, but since the Cometskipper was still attached, the power siphon took out both ships at once.

However, with Fonith’s ship no longer subjected to the perpetual drain, it was able to begin its automatic reboot, and certain systems were programmed to activate.

In the safe-room, a small light set in the wall blinked to life.

Finnow stared into her daughter’s terrified eyes, and she brought a finger to her own lips.

Upstairs from them, an emergency light above Golvinte also came on, and he whispered to himself, “I wonder if I can restart the Cometskipper the way Fonith instructed me earlier.” He left the weapons array and carefully made his way with the minimal light back to the cargo hold. “Two, three, one,” Golvinte repeated to himself. He flipped the middle lever, the third lever, and finally the first.

In the safe-room, the light died and returned Finnow and little Riah to the darkness, but then it came back on again.

Down below, Captain Suoki was still positioned at the top of the stairs. No lights had come on in his vicinity. His eyes were wide against the blackness, and his ears were perked up for any indication of other soldiers coming.

In the kitchen, Fonith was surrounded by total darkness.

“What happened?” asked the man still holding Fonith’s left arm.

The soldier behind her added, “Who killed our headlamps?”

The man with Fonith’s right arm in his grip remained silent, but the fourth soldier said, “Bring her to the Scorched Atmosphere.”

The men fumbled with their headlamps, banging their hands against the sides of their helmets a few times, but only one clicked on. It provided a tiny amount of illumination to the kitchen, but the single soldier’s little light was pathetic against the oppressive darkness.

None of the others’ headlamps would turn on again.

Fonith’s arms were wrenched behind her back, and her wrists were bound in metal cuffs. A soldier still held her on either side, and she was shoved out into the hall that led toward the airlock and the Scorched Atmosphere. Her head was ringing from getting bashed by the door, but Fonith noticed an insignificant beep from her ship’s computer. The sound may have been nothing to the soldiers, but Fonith knew exactly what the little chime noise meant.

Nice work, Golvinte, she thought to herself.

The beam of light from the single soldier’s lamp shined on the burned and blackened corpses of the first group of men who had entered the Cometskipper.

“You’re a demon,” the soldier holding her left arm whispered.

“I’ve been called worse,” Fonith mumbled more weakly than she expected. Her head was pounding.

As the soldiers entered the Scorched Atmosphere’s airlock, a light flickered behind them in the hallway of the Cometskipper near the bottom of the stairs. The group paused and turned.

“Take her and keep going,” one of them said. “I’ll check it out.” He approached the glow of the lone lamp’s light and stepped into it, but his head suddenly jolted back, and he screamed like a banshee. He fell backward, grabbing at his face as his blaster clattered to the floor.

The shaft of an arrow was protruding from the man’s cheek.

In the darkness at the top of the stairs, Captain Suoki was standing with Stawren’s bow gripped in his outstretched forward arm. When Fonith took the elevator to the kitchen, Captain Suoki realized Stawren’s weapon was sitting unstrung beside the box of her nano-cloud arrowheads. He strung the bow and waited in the dark with one of Stawren’s standard metal hunting arrows notched on the string and cradled between his bow fingers. The captain may not have been a skilled archer, but as soon as a soldier had appeared in the light at the bottom of the stairs, he let the arrow fly. His accuracy mattered little at such short range; he may have been aiming for the soldier’s heart, but the arrow’s wicked point was now firmly lodged in the man’s brain.

The other three soldiers with Fonith were startled by their companion’s brutal end, and in that moment of distraction, she considered taking the opportunity to break free from her captors, but a wave of dizziness washed over her and her knees buckled.

“Get her out of here!” one of them shouted.

An ominous voice suddenly came out of both the Scorched Atmosphere and the Cometskipper’s speakers.

“Captain Disigorth, this is Admiral Gniack of the starcraft Deathian. I picked up your ship’s auto-distress call, and my destroyer will be dropping out of hyperspace at your position in less than two minutes. If you have coms, respond.” His voice went quiet for a moment. “Battle cruiser Scorched Atmosphere, are you receiving me? Do you copy?”

Godsdammit, Fonith thought, I’ve gotta detach the Cometskipper and get us out of here! She pulled against the hands that held her, but her disequilibrium from her head injury left her feeling weak.

With the two ships’ external scanners and sensors still offline, the only means of viewing the space outside the vessels was through either of the ships’ windows. However, even with the limited view for those onboard, every crewmember on either vessel within sight of a starboard-facing window saw the gargantuan destroyer as it exited hyperspace.

The starship Deathian’s bay doors opened like a mechanical geometric mouth, and as the massive vessel moved through space toward the connected Cometskipper and Scorched Atmosphere, the Deathian swallowed them both.