Breakthrough

“” I rasped.

He’d died to give me this advantage and I still hadn’t been able to get away.

Anger, shame, and despair welled up in me, competing for attention. This was so unfair! We hadn’t asked for any of this. Neither Daniel nor I had ever wanted to be stuck in a pit. I’d come so far just to fail one last time.

It was right here!

How had it disappeared? Why couldn’t my radar detect it, all of a sudden? It was just like Nai had been. It was indistinguishable from the background, unless there was something else to guide attention to the right spot.

How?

Looking at the alien, it was possible to compare what my Enumius radar showed and what I could see. Only in that comparison was the discrepancy noticeable.

How?

The question hammered in my mind with my heartbeat as the Vorak pressed on my throat. My free hand grasped for anything in reach. I scraped my fingers uselessly across the wall behind me, before pawing at the goggles on Chief’s face. I couldn’t even mis-align them, much less pull them out from beneath its helmet.

The alien didn’t even blink. It just kept choking me against the wall.

The Phantom in my mind writhed, churning in my mind. It seemed… angry. Frustrated. But it didn’t do anything.

Maybe that’s why it’s frustrated.

Pain in my throat became harder to notice as my chest heaved for air. Dizziness set in and the edges of my vision faded.

Daniel. I had to keep… had to keep going.

I thought, sending the words toward where he’d been in my mind. Nothing within the Phantom reacted even the tiniest amount.

For a horrifying moment, the inside of my mind was all I could perceive. No light, no sound. Had I lost consciousness?

It was so odd to see what I’d created up close. It was so… connected. Almost everything in my mind felt connected to it. Had Daniel had those same connections?

Was this how it was for him? Trapped in a cage with only the Phantom for company?

Pain brought me back to reality, such as it was.

Suddenly my face bashed into the snowy ground. It took me a second, but I saw blood from my nose smeared the snow and my brain managed to fire enough synapses. Chief must have dropped me to the ground.

I sucked down a breath, but it didn’t feel like it put any air into me. My vision was still fuzzy, and my head felt it might have all the blood fall right out the bottom. Despite the snow, it felt like my body was on fire.

I pushed myself onto my back, still bleeding all over my face and tried to fill my lungs. But my nose was still bleeding, and on my back, it dripped down my throat instead and I started coughing.

Chief knelt down right next to me, watching closely while I coughed blood out onto the snow and tried not to suffocate.

From the corner of my eye, I could barely make out its arm stretched toward me. Just… holding it there, like it had reached out, only to hesitate.

Fresh anger welled up in me again. Was that supposed to be concern?!

One of my and Daniel's first conversations about the otter’s came back to me. I was the last human alive from the ship. If I died, what did they have but two dozen corpses? Even if that still held true, any priority they placed on my survival hadn’t swayed me then, and it wouldn’t now.

I sucked enough air down to give myself feeling back into my limbs before leaping at the otter. It had tried to kill me, Tasser, and Daniel too. Daniel most of all was dead because of this thing.

All of my focus was on the only damage I’d done so far—to its jaw. But instead of bobbing its head out of the way, the otter snapped its jaws down on my fist. Teeth ground into my fingers and knuckles… but it didn’t hurt that much. Especially not compared to everything else.

A bomb had gone off in my hand and only left a sunburn. I tried to pull on its jaw and it gave an angry snarl.

Its claw went for my neck again, but I got a thumb underneath its goggles and dug my nail into its cornea. Dark purple blood oozed all over my hand.

The shriek it let out put a bloody grin on my face. Any pain I could give it was well short of what it was owed.

It swiped its arm at me, smashing the bracer of its armor into my head, but I fought to stay upright. I tumbled to my knees trying to tackle it to the ground, and my hand closed around something strapped to the side of its belly.

Chief kicked me back and my legs were too worn to stay under me.

I held up the prize I’d pulled from the holster near its stomach.

The pistol was the same kind as the first Vorak gun I’d managed to steal back on their space station. The grip was the same sharp angle designed for otter hands. Between barely being able to grip the gun and my bloody, fuzzy vision, I couldn’t have hit anything even if it were only ten feet away.

The alien was a little closer than ten feet.

I squeezed the trigger over and over, shooting every last bullet at the otter.

It couldn’t react quick enough before at least three bullets, maybe more, hit it. For every crack of the gun, a sharp metal ping rang out where the bullets hit Chief’s orange armor.

It didn’t just trust its armor though, in a flash crystal grew into a jagged shield that it held in front of its face.

The magazine of the gun wasn’t empty when the otter spun aside, pulling its shield apart into two crystal blades and thrusting one forward, skewering my left forearm.

The pain coursed up my whole arm and I dropped the gun from my other hand. Chief’s boot drove into my shoulder, flipping me away from the gun.

Fury and pain were the things keeping me conscious right now. Surely any second my body would run out of adrenaline, and I would drop dead.

I managed to end up on my feet this time, and didn’t see nearly enough purple blood from the otter. None of the bullets had made it through its glittering metal armor.

Chief didn’t attack yet. Those swords were like Nai’s fire. I could just tell. They would go through anything. The otter could take its time. All it had to do was cut me down.

“What are you waiting for?” I heaved, my chest was fighting so hard to inhale, I thought my ribs might break from the inside.

“Come on!” I shouted at it, spitting blood.

“Drag me a trillion miles out here already; so don’t waste my time ! Let me die on my feet!”

I mock-stepped toward it, like I was ready to lunge again. I’d even meant to. But when my foot left the ground, I’d been certain I’d fall over.

“I’m right here!” I screamed, “Can’t run—” my breath wheezed, and my lungs struggled to keep up with my anger. “—can’t run like this. I finally stop and now you’re not wanting to chase?”

I invented some otter-slurs on the spot, and I was ready to spit them out along with some more blood when my brain remembered it wouldn’t understand them anyway. That made me hold my tongue. I didn’t want to waste anything on this thing.

I took a real step toward it, too furious to care if it stabbed me again—my left arm was numb below the elbow. It didn’t even really feel so bad now.

Chief brandished its blade threateningly in response. The swords made my Enumius radar go crazy. It wasn’t hiding anymore.

I wasn’t sure when that had changed, but I could sense it again.

Whatever change Daniel’s absence had produced in my mind wasn’t gone. I could still sense myself. Looking at the frenetic anger flashing around my consciousness blunted that same feeling.

Just like I didn’t want to waste words on the Vorak, I didn’t even want to give it the satisfaction of making my blood boil.

Daniel was gone. That was its fault every bit as mine.

But Daniel had asked me about this moment, when he’d be gone.

I’d told him I wanted to do everything I could.

But even before that, I’d told him I’d live.

The hot fire in my stomach threatened to flare up again at just the idea of what that would take. But just like Daniel had quashed my panic a few times, I strangled the anger in my own mind cold.

I put my hands up, empty palms.

And Chief’s orange helmet cracked.

I saw the result before I heard the cause. Flecks of orange, jewel-like metal spat off the side of the helmet, and an instant later a sound like a thunderclap blew by.

My eyes widened.

The Vorak bowled over onto the ground. I didn’t move an inch from the spot, but Chief scrambled. For the first time, I saw it panic. It got a claw under the strap on its chin, and it tore the helmet and goggles away with a pained grunt while it sprinted toward the hole it had punched in the building.

It ducked inside, crouching down against the breach. It was bleeding from the side of its head. Something had shot it! Something with enough force to dent its bulletproof armor and still wound the alien underneath.

The thunderclap had come from somewhere behind me. I wasn’t sure. But the otter was. I could still see it where it hid, I could follow what spot it was trying to get out of sight from.

I turned to see a Casti on the rooftop aiming its long bolt-rifle in my general direction.

Tasser.

My knees went weak, and I thought I might cry.

I wasn’t fifteen feet from the building. Not fifteen feet from the alien otter trying to kill me, or worse.

And it couldn’t reach me.

I started laughing uncontrollably. Chief glared at me from its cover. Its emanation on my radar writhed angrily.

My own had settled down, at least comparatively. If this alien had a radar like mine, could it see the Phantom?

Daniel had been devoured by the Phantom, and he’d also been connected to the radar. Everything in my mind seemed to be connected to everything else.

The Phantom especially. It was almost like a second mind attached to mine. Daniel had felt like a mind within mine, but whatever I’d built, whatever had devoured Daniel, was separate. Discrete.

There was an empty piece of Daniel still noticeable on its abstract surface. In my mind, I pulled the piece free. Not quite empty as it turned out. There was nothing inside but a few words, not even in Daniel’s voice, only his handwriting.

‘Think small.’

It was a label, and if I looked close enough at the tiny piece of what had been Daniel, there were more words to it, partially cut off.

‘— n’t get hung up. Your first instinct is to look for and find what you did wrong. Used right? That’s a powerful tool. But it also makes you too critical of yourself and your mistakes. You are your own worst enemy, so you need to be your own best friend to balance that out. Find something small, something so easy, you can be confident you can do it perfect every time. Do that when you need to. Then do something a bit more. Build up those small successes and remind yourself that you c—’

I didn’t even have to read it normally. The whole of the text was apparent to me the moment I realized it was there. It went on like that before abruptly cutting off.

Maybe there were more pieces.

Mementos of Daniel.

Think small.

A small win. I could do that.

An idea came to me, something to create. To my surprise, the Phantom was completely visible to me in my mind, sharper than ever. It was separate from me. Created by me, connected to me, but separate.

The Phantom didn’t respond. It was utterly passive while I spun together a speck in my mind, something bright and visible. A contrast color to all the dark concrete and steel, but also with the snow…

I picked a neon version of the color of Vorak blood. It wasn’t hard to guess what spot on the wall lined up with Tasser’s vantage point and Chief’s cover.

My glowing purple spot stuck to the wall; it was something for Tasser to aim at. I raised my hand to point a finger gun at Chief.

“Bang.” I said.

We didn’t have perfect timing, but after a delay Tasser took my cue and fired again. The bolt from his rifle blew clean through the wall and bit into Chief’s armor. It leapt up with another yowl and ducked back, further inside the building but not out of sight.

The black bolt Tasser fired was visible, having partially penetrated the shoulder-piece of the armor. Purple blood oozed from beneath.

I let out an involuntary laugh that made my lungs convulse painfully. I still couldn’t breathe. More of my body was failing on me. My brain, my chest, I was running out of functioning body parts.

My attention was split between the Phantom in my mind, Chief, Tasser, and the thing I knew I needed most right now—my air mask.

While my lungs screamed at me, I shuffled over to where I’d torn it off. The clasp wasn’t broken, thank God, so it stayed in place over my nose and mouth. The inside of it was caked in blood and I had to wipe at it with my sleeve before I felt air successfully come in through it.

Relief was slight, but immediate.

My lungs didn’t strain so forcefully for air, and the pain in my head and eyes lost its edge.

Chief didn’t take its eyes off me. I looked it in the eye and found myself wordlessly understanding something.

I wasn’t the only one angry.

It was a bit like Nai. I couldn’t be sure how I knew or why, but I could tell that it hated me. Even worse than the Farnata. Certainty settled in my bones at the realization.

I hadn’t given up. It had paid off.

But it wasn’t done either. It hated me enough to be tempted, right there, to leap at me earn a bolt through its head for the trouble.

None of this was over.

Tasser and his gun were keeping me safe right now, which meant…

Chief looked at me and I could see the gears turn. It was figuring out from exactly where it had been shot from.

It took off through the building. I could hear it tearing through doors. That was bad. If it reached Tasser…

We stood a better chance working together, like always. My body was at its limit though. Trying anything faster than a weak shuffle would see me drop to my knees

I could still get close enough to help.

Tasser wasn’t close. Chief had to take the long route through the building complex, but I could take the direct route via outside.

Make a plan then. I couldn’t do much more than walk, but my mind wasn’t through yet.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the dented helmet Chief had thrown away. The goggles were attached to it. If it didn’t make a new pair…

My flashbang, in one form or another, had saved my life against every Vorak up to this point.

Every corner of my body ached in protest at the prospect of creating anything right now. It would be agony. But I could do “one more.”

Tasser was no fool. The moment I started moving toward his rooftop, he started moving too. It occurred to me that Tasser didn’t know if Chief had been hit again. Not for sure.

But he was playing it safe, behaving as if the Vorak was still a threat. Which of course, it was.

But something nagged at me. Chief had proved to be a quick thinker. Moreover, the day’s events had repeatedly found me putting myself in trouble because of assumptions I made. Here I was, one more time, running toward an enemy.

My trouble was perspective. I was letting myself get caught up again.

Chief was going after Tasser. Why? Because Tasser’s rifle was powerful enough to harm and kill it. And as long as I stayed in an open space that Chief would have to travel through to reach me, then I was safe.

If I were Chief…did I really need to get Tasser?

…No, not really. It only needed to get to me without getting shot by Tasser. Those things weren’t exactly the same.

My final mistake of the day was one I couldn’t help. I hadn’t seen a map. I didn’t know the precise layout of the building. The only clues I could have used were Chief’s preference to attack from below, and the knowledge that its Enumius radar wouldn’t help it hunt down Tasser.

So when the ground crackled a few yards in front of me, I realized I’d gotten lax about keeping the mirror in my mind up. Chief could sense my position.

I’d even known there were some sections to this place that ran underground. Chief had snuck in somehow, so it almost certainly knew the layout beforehand.

The spikes were slower this time, too slow and too inaccurate to be an attack. But as they tore up through the snowy concrete ahead of me, they didn’t pierce and tear like they had before. The jagged spears were almost blunt, more optimized for pushing things.

It was basically the same thing as when the Vorak had created spikes and launched itself. Instead of throwing the otter’s own body at me, this time it pushed up a massive slab of the ground, heaving it up between me and Tasser.

My walking speed was truly blistering, and I tried to go around the obstacle. If I could get back into Tasser’s line of fire…

Chief itself climbed up from the hole in the ground, blocking my way. I thought to try going backwards for a second, but there was no chance I could go far enough for Tasser to see me.

I wasn’t too exhausted to still get angry though.

“So unfair.” I spat, pulling my mask aside for a moment to wipe my bloody nose.

I saw it hadn’t replaced its goggles.

Could I stun it? A flashbang wouldn’t really help if Tasser still couldn’t shoot it.

My mind raced, trying to find a solution in the seconds I had.

I felt the inert piece of Daniel I’d pulled from the Phantom. The words reminded me of something I’d learned back on Earth. Something small could be pretty powerful.

My and Daniel’s experiments to create a more forceful bomb had failed.

Think small.

Daniel’s hint applied in more ways than one.

Power was a matter of perspective. All it took was a change in perspective. And at the smallest scales, the ones I had to try to work within when I created matter, the answer wasn’t more mass, it was less volume.

We’d tried to make a stronger explosive the same way we’d made the flashbang itself. That is, we based everything on the same principle the flashbang used: explosive combustion. The problem was, I had a mass limit. I just couldn’t make more than a few grams. I could only put so much energy into those grams to combust.

Or so I thought.

So far, I’d just created objects at rest, and let what I knew of physics do the work from there.

But the truth was I was making objects that wouldn’t ever occur in nature. Even ordinary flashbangs weren’t just a blinding burning material. There were trigger mechanisms, housing components; various pieces to fulfil the conditions for the goal.

But my flashbang didn’t have any of that. It was just the burnable part, and I could even create it so it was already burning the instant it existed. These abilities allowed me to force unnatural situations, cut out the prerequisite conditions.

It was the same realization that I’d had with Tasser. Deal with the small before the big. I’d been thinking ‘stars’ when I should have been thinking ‘germs’. Even the criteria we’d been experimenting for had been based on the size of the explosion. But we hadn’t thought to make an explosion via a different method.

Combustion was chemistry. Some oxygen molecules get moved around, and heat gets released quickly enough to create an explosive hike in pressure.

So why couldn’t I just skip the first few steps?

If I could create atoms, why couldn’t I create some atoms that were already at an explosive pressure? I just needed to create the same amount of mass in a much tinier area. It wouldn’t even need to be anything combustible. Even super stable atoms like Helium still repelled each other if they were forced close enough together.

The sparks in my mind came together at a single point, and I redoubled my focus on the sensation. I needed to make every atom as close together as possible.

I didn’t need much energy. If anything, I was scared I might accidentally put too much in and blow us all up.

I needn’t have worried though. It was all I could muster to create a speck. For a single heartbeat, a speck appeared and hung in the air, just a few inches from Chief’s breastplate.

It was even smaller than the first specks Daniel had spun together.

This speck wasn’t even solid.

It was technically gaseous. Dense, dense gas packed into a space no larger than a hair’s breadth.

The pattern in my head had all the flashing atoms nestled close together, far closer than the electron clouds would ever allow in nature. The split second my gaseous mote came into existence, all its electrons packed together, natural physics took over.

No chemical reactions. No combustion. Just similar charges repelling each other.

The Vorak knew it didn’t have its goggles anymore and threw its arms up to shield its face from a blinding flash, but this wasn’t meant to blind.

I’d found my way to get a bang.

My mote exploded in a translucent shockwave of gas that blew Chief away.

It wasn’t a sharp crack like chemical high-explosives made, this was lower, heavier blast. It was like a boulder splitting in two, or even the sound from Tasser’s bolt-rifle. Even from a few meters away, I could feel the shove of the pressure wave wash over me, threatening to topple me.

From point blank, Chief flew backwards, denting the sheet metal wall and deflecting into the ground. Its ultra-rigid armor made it violently bounce and slide over the icy concrete. The explosion had thrown it backward like a ragdoll.

For a split second I dared to hope that it wouldn’t get up. There wasn’t even any hate to the hope. Just raw self-preservation.

I didn’t care why it wanted me dead. I didn’t even care why the Vorak had abducted me. I just wanted to live through today.

To survive ‘one more’.

But before Chief had even come to a halt, it righted itself, claws scraping against the ground. While it was still moving, it rose up to a crouch, sliding to a stop across the ground. It hadn’t even been knocked off balance for more than a second or two.

But even a fraction of a second is more than enough time for something to go wrong.

I realized that I’d just killed it.

My trick had thrown it backward several yards, blowing it well past the cover its trick with the ground had created

Realization dawned on it that I’d moved it back into Tasser’s line of sight. It lurched forward on reflex, to evade. But for a single moment, when it righted itself, it had come to a halt. It had been a stationary target.

I couldn’t see from where, but I heard the Casti fire. His bolt-gun let out a familiar thunderclap and a burst of indigo blood splattered out the side of Chief’s head. The Vorak violently bowled over on its side, and its head smacked wetly against the ground.

Dark purple blood oozed out from its skull.

It didn’t move.

A cold shock went through my bones. It was the exact same stillness I’d seen in Daniel’s body. It had been my last sight before passing out and waking up in the Vorak cell.

I was going to be sick.

Worse than that, my body couldn’t keep up anymore. I’d pushed myself to the brink and then some. I fell down, as my mind went back to the last moments I’d had with my friend.

I was still lying on my back, staring up at the alien sky, when other Casti arrived. How long had it been? Did it matter?

None of the Casti wanted to go near me. And so I just lay on the snowy concrete until two Casti mustered up some nerve. One of them looked to be Tasser. I was shoved onto a wide board, and they started carrying me away.

I wish I’d had the strength to turn my head away, or the presence of mind to shut my eyes. But I caught one last look at the bloody scene.

Stone and metal were torn up, there were even half-finished spikes that Chief had made. I hadn’t seen them. Chief’s body lay still where they’d fallen.

The blood was the worst though. Purple and red stained the half-melted snow in messy splatters. The colors were too bright to feel real. With perfect blank snow in every direction, it was impossible to look at anything else.

I failed to choke back my scream and the Casti carrying me almost dropped me.

Despite how awful I felt, the blood loss, the pain, the horrible memories, my lost friend, I couldn’t help but smile madly.

I’d made it. I’d killed Chief.

But I hated it.