Joxx found himself in the middle of chaos. Their escape from that wretched dead mist world was a blessing beyond measure. Having rescued a small group of Andonian refugees was especially fortuitous. The woman piloting the shuttle was surprisingly unhappy given how many people she had saved. Nevertheless, they were back, and Joxx's first priority was to get the rest of them back: the lost fleet.
Using the readings from the shuttle that saved them, the people at Andonia Central were able to rig a communications system that would project across the dimensional manifold. They expected the need to be able to recall the ships in the event they weren't able to locate Andonia on the way back. Once the signal is received, the ships automatically return. Not knowing where the ships were heading, they could have been disabled or damaged. The automatic recall would save them should the crew be incapacitated.
Standing in the monitoring station, watching the sky, Joxx was excited. They had sent the signal and received a confirmation. Two ships were still sufficiently intact to reply. In only a few minutes they would have their people back.
-==-
Visch raced down the passageway, pushing terrified crew members aside.
"PREPARE FOR DIMENSIONAL SHIFT! RECALL SIGNAL RECEIVED. PREPARE FOR DIMENSIONAL SHIFT! RECALL SIGNAL RECEIVED."
The ships were reducing thrust and transferring power to the dimensional drives. In only a few moments they would be dragged across the ether, back into Andonia, and they would bring this curse with them.
Rounding a corner, Visch was faced with a hall crowded with overcome crewmembers. Dripping black vapour, their bodies tapping the walls, searching for something, or preparing for something. A golden flare lit within the serpent, and the people in the hall became rigid, then parted way. Without wondering why, the captain darted between them, on towards the engineering bay.
A communication channel opened from the other ship, "Captain Visch! Our ship has received a recall signal from Andonia! We are saved!"
Ticking his head to the side, he replied, "Destroy your Dimensional Drive!"
"What? That's the only escape for us. The atmosphere below has almost reached our hull. We don't have time!" replied the captain.
Angrily, Visch snapped back, "Can't take this alien presence to Andonia. Destroy your drive!"
"No, captain Visch. Our ship has not been compromised. You do what you must," said the captain, terminating the signal.
The engineering bay doors opened before the great snake. His fins stretched out, sensing for the control consoles, concealed within the black mist.
"INITIATING DIMENSIONAL SHIFT!"
Visch focussed, his eyes flared with an inner light, and the shadows and dark crew within moved to his will. As one they grappled with every mechanism, device, and system in the room. With a shrieking twisting thought, Visch had them tear the room and everything in it to metal shards. Dull bursts of light punctuated the pitch black mist as the engines died.
Captain Visch turned away, heading for his bridge. Through the sounds of sparking damage from behind him, a message came through over the audio systems.
"Captain Visch! Are you alive? This is Joxx, you made it! I can't believe you made it! Welcome back!"
"Would you tell me of your world?" asked Ya, drifting behind her quietly.
The passing shape of a four legged mount distracted her. The thing was covered in bone on the outside of its flesh mostly, with eyes hidden deep in the skull cavity. Its glance was haunting. But she had gotten rather used to such sights, here in the faerie's domain.
Turning to face the woman, Xecia fumbled with her glasses, using them as a tool to keep her occupied while answering awkward questions. "It was where I grew up, where they raised me. What more is there to know?"
"It causes you great pain, Xecia my dear. That kind of pain can be a dangerous distraction in a place like this," continued Ya, stepping around in a broadening circle.
Her gown flowed about her like fluid water, even to the point of shifting its border like ripples on a pond. Xecia always found this woman more than just alien, she was somehow otherworldly. Her thoughts drifted again.
"Xecia?"
"No. I mean yes. I don't like to talk about it. I left home long ago, and...," muttered Xecia. "Planets... everyone I knew... nobody did anything for us -- the survivors."
"What happened to your planet?" inquired Ya, having gotten bits of the story many times before.
"The moon. We don't know what it was. It broke up and collided with the planet. It happened so quickly, they didn't have the resources to evacuate. We were in a war already. We thought it was them, the Om. But after we lost our planet, they helped us relocate. It was hard to deal with," mused Xecia, staring up at the dark sky. "I spent the rest of my life trying to understand what had destroyed that moon."
Ya gave her a long look, pity in her eyes. She reached out a hand and brushed away some hair covering Xecia's eyes and patted her on the head. "Come with me, I have something to show you."
Sighing, she made to start walking after the woman, but a spell of dizziness came over her. Wavering slightly, she steadied herself against a rock. As her senses came back to her, she found a bizarre and ugly creature in her palm. She wasn't sure how it came to be there, but her experiences with Ya had desensitised her to such surprises. The little thing had an odd hollowed horn along the shell, scruffy hear on its bird-like head, and six spiny long legs.
"Ya, I think what you wanted to show me found me first," said Xecia, staring down at the small beady eyes of the critter. "Ya?"
Xecia glanced up, since Ya wasn't answering, and was taken aback to find herself in some room beside a computer console. A squat creature stood behind her, with long ears, a scarred face, and several orbs circling its head, each with a face on it. It was familiar to her.
"Come with me, Doctor Xecia."
Alarms shook the walls as the ship began to seal itself. Waving his tentacles frantically, Commander O'Snap motioned for his crew to apprehend Cat, standing just outside. Without waiting, the feline leapt into the vessel. Behind him, the split maw creature steadied itself, then darted forward with horrifying speed. The door closed on a sickening whisk of air. It had made it inside.
"Apprehend and kill the dimensional intruder!" barked Commander O'Snap through the intercom. His tentacle shook unsteadily, pulling free from the console.
Screams came from deeper within the ship. The sphere Cat, Fruit Juice, and Commander O'Snap stood in had two halls breaking off from it. The power flickered in one of them. Light from windows along the length of the other hall cast conflicting shadows across the walls. Bizarre engine sounds tricked into Cat's ears. Things were not going to be all right.
Racing up the darkened hallway came a shadow with no one to cast it. Cat smiled at the arrival of his friend. "Did you see Rion?" asked Cat.
"Yes, we were together. Its having a hard time moving in this ship, so I left it behind. Seems safe enough. Just a bunch of weird engineers from Andonia Central," said Stickman.
"Something came through the vortex," said Cat grimly.
A shudder passed through the ship. Commander O'Snap darted his beady eyes about nervously, his tentacles curled inwards.
"I'm guessing it's something alive and dangerous," continued Stickman after the walls ceased vibrating.
"I believe so. Let's both get back to Rion," said Cat, turning to go back down the hall Stickman had come from.
Commander O'Snap moved with them, keeping them in sight, now seeming to be more of a pet than a jailer. The nervous technician named Fruit Juice ran down the opposite hallway to check on the damage.
Passing broad windows, Cat noted that the exterior view from each one was completely different, even to the point of being different times of day. There was the towers of Andonia's great library at midday, and right beside that window was a sunset across the Perran ocean, which was half a continent away. Window by window Cat saw the whole of Andonia stretched before him, each step taking him past another place and time.
"Why do you have holographic display screens for all of Andonia? Is this a monitoring vessel?" asked Cat as they strode on.
Interrupting, Stickman said, "Those aren't displays, they're actually the real outside view. It's just that this ship isn't all in the same place. Same time though. It's dark there because it's dark right now there. Come on, just around the corner here."
"Humph," said Commander O'Snap, perturbed at the stick figure's handy understanding of his vessel.
With a loud roar, the ship jumped. The engines engaged and the views outside the windows blurred and shrank. Cat tipped sideways, hitting a wall. The effect was dizzying. Then the floor lurched out from under them. Commander O'Snap leapt up onto the wall, sticking to it fearfully. Stickman fell backwards into an Octopousse control console. Then, right in front of him, Cat saw the views outside the windows twist into clarity. A great set of four slitted eyes looked in on them. A dark mountainous landscape lay beyond. Then a great arm lifted in front of the window.
Crashing down, machined hands rent open the side of the ship, leaving a gaping hole. The smell of the air outside rushed in, and Cat knew where he had last smelt that before. His fur stood on end, daring not to move.
Twisting torrents tore across the ravaged face of the once fertile land. Frozen soldiers and citizens alike littered the landscape, quickly succumbing to the foreign temperatures. Atop the mountain hive sat the eye of the storm, with the violet cane in hand, stirring the storm.
Below were the ones that had awaken it, fleeing this world. No, they will not leave me behind, they can not go. With a horrible gust, a swarm of still living insect guards were tossed from the sky, down onto the fleeing dots below. It watched, shifting itself, enjoying the sensations of fear and surprise that those below were experiencing.
Many new forms were down below. Some of the small bright ones, but also a unique thorned one. This one was closer to it, a cousin. It pulsed within, darkly. Two forms in one, a young and an old. Above, the storm gained strength as the monster on the pinnacle watched.
The ancient form stirred in sync with the younger one, and with a twisting rip, the insect guards were destroyed. The little ones began to run, off into their swirling blinking door. Away, away, away.
No! They can not separate from me! COME BACK!
Launching from that great throne, bellowing a winter storm from a cavernous maw filled with icicle teeth, that frozen menace avalanched down, pushing itself, ripping itself, screaming after that small twinkling doorway.
As it neared the threshold, it saw beyond; the warm glowing lands, the small quiet people, and one stocky little figure standing at the centre of the gate. It did not glow, it had no thorns, it was the most bizarre thing in creation. It was new, and without it, nothing could survive.
The halls of the ship creaked ominously. Systems were beginning to go offline. Life support systems were ramping down as they detected fewer and fewer crew to maintain. Death, or a different sort of life, was overcoming them.
Captain Visch was checking the escape pods, along with a few other crew members that had stumbled across him and found it safer to remain with the serpent than to venture out alone. Somehow, Visch was resistant or immune to the dark preying mists that were filling the ship. The other members of the crew, however, were not and any that got caught were quickly consumed. But they didn't die, they simply began to bleed a dark vapour from every pore of their bodies. People transformed in this way could be heard if it was sufficiently silent; a dark haunting breath, out, only out.
A signal broke the silence of inspecting their possible escape routes. Visch twisted his body around to see the communication screen on his body suit. One of the other fleet vessels was trying to reach them. Concentrating on the device, Visch activated and opened a channel.
"Visch, is that you? Please respond! We've lost two of the ships already, they crashed on the planet below," came the other captain's urgent call.
"Here, uncompromised," rasped Visch.
"Thank goodness. You need to get your ship out of this system. The atmosphere of that planet seems to be extremely lethal. The ships that went down reported it was asphyxiating their crew. We've not been affected, but judging by your ship's systems, I assume you have been?"
"Yes," Visch replied. He then angled the camera to reveal the hallway behind him. The other captain saw the frightened crew huddled around Visch, and in the dark hallway beyond were some other crew, their clothes swaying in the darkness, their skin invisible against the pitch black mist.
"How--how have you survived?" exclaimed the captain. "We need to evacuate you immediately!"
"No, do not make contact. Separate from us but keep contact," said Visch, then severed communications.
Moving on down the hallway, another interruption came over the ship's internal broadcast system. A klaxon then sounded accompanying the announcement. The announcement filled the crew with relief, but sent a sharp dread through the captain.
"PREPARE FOR DIMENSIONAL SHIFT! RECALL SIGNAL RECEIVED. PREPARE FOR DIMENSIONAL SHIFT! RECALL SIGNAL RECEIVED."
It was a colder night than usual. Standing out on the balcony, she gazed out at the starry sky. So calm, so silent. This was a busy world, but somehow more peaceful than her own home. There were no wars, no endless conflicts, no danger. Everything was strange here. Even the constellations were foreign to her eyes.
A small burst of light caught her eye off in the midnight canvas. She had often seen flying vessels travelling about with their various lights and trails of fire. This glimmer was unusual because it seemed to pop into the sky rather than slowly sneak up. After a few moments, she saw the glimmer break apart into many smaller pieces, a group of them going their own way in the sky.
She heard a child's wail. Faint. Turning around behind her, she saw nothing. An empty room.
The sound came again, insistent. There was a slight animal bent to it, that of a herbivore, like a wounded deer. The curtains by her window scraped against the walls restlessly as a light wind picked up. Unsettled by the mysterious sound, she turned to go back inside, out of the cold.
Her balance left her suddenly and the room dropped away from her, stretching to infinity. A black tunnel tore down it, eating away the door. Then from the centre of that depth shot a serpent, its head massive and vile. Tearing open its sightless head, the thing revealed a starfish maw filled with teeth. She screamed, falling backwards.
A cold world. So much life, but cold. All cold. There would be no rest here.
Mushroom had been drifting through this new world without much incident. The creatures here did not seem to possess the senses of sight or sound. They did appear to be able to distinguish touch, since his motions did cause them to take pause. But a fungus that had decided to become immobile was most silent indeed.
Somewhere in this world lay Nastrus. He wasn't sure how he knew that or why, but it was somewhere he had to reach. Onwards he moved, across the scraped surface of this planet.
"Hrank-uck!" came a bizarre sound. Mushroom had just leapt off a cliff, aiming to land on a plateau some distance below. The gravity here was distinctly lower, and Mushroom's form allowed him to sail across this bizarre landscape, filled with chasms as it was. Below he spied a mottled, spiny creature. It seemed to have two fore-limbs and scattered limb-like stubs that didn't seem to function. Long spikes jutted out of the thing's back and three horns ruptured out of its head. In the middle of its skull was scooped out a large section. Were this a domestic beast, such form would make it a natural beast of burden. It had no eyes nor ears, but it did bear teeth in the usual place. A hard bony growth held its hind section up off the ground as its front limbs latched onto the earth and dragged it forward.
Mushroom landed on the cliff's edge mere metres away from the thing. There was no opportunity to stand rigidly quiet, the tremor of his landing alerted the beast. It bit at the air, the very space it closed its jaws upon seemed to stretch and blacken. Mushroom considered his options.
"Uck-hakka-ran!" exclaimed the thing, twisting its head sideways. It wavered on its two fore limbs, very firmly planted, its head swaying about. In the distance, Mushroom could see movement. Numerous similar things were leaping from the sides of the pedestals and columns around here, approaching.
Mushroom eyed the one beast before it. Coming to a decision, the fungus leapt into the air, bearing down on the alien form.
"This one won't be noticed," thought the mushroom.