Vortex (Part 3)

VORTEX Part 3

All the other ships were able to raise their shields in time; while the atomic explosions slowly died down, Luzifer's ship disappeared through the vortex. I immediately ordered our ship to follow, because the radioactive fallout could not harm us at all—the shields kept the radiation out magnificently. As the vortex was growing larger and larger, it was no longer a problem to fly through it with a massive battleship like the BRIGHT STAR 3.

Luzifer's ship was flying right ahead of us; we were already close enough that I could read its name off the bow: it was the ENOLA 2. We were close enough for magnetic projectile weapons. Both they and we could finally deploy them, since the dispersers had already failed once before. We had several new, untested weapons on board, but I only wanted to use them if everything else failed. ENOLA 2 fired again, launching magnetically accelerated projectiles at us, and they bored straight through our shield, causing only minor damage to the hull, however.

BRIGHT STAR 3 immediately returned fire and damaged the ENOLA 2 around its engines; the two ships were evenly matched in strength. Only the technology of their armaments differed in a few aspects. The other ships of the planetary alliance waited on the other side of the vortex; they would not have been much help—the BRIGHT STAR 3 did not have enough firepower to bring down the ENOLA 2, so the other ships would have had just as little chance.

Fighting our way forward, we approached Earth and penetrated its atmosphere. To avoid crashing, the Space Drive had to be deactivated and switched over to the anti-gravity drives suitable for atmospheric flight. In atmospheric flight, however, the Enola 2 was much faster, because the BRIGHT STAR class of starships had not been designed for atmospheric pursuit battles. Back then, they were meant to attack Vahanara's ships in open space and, if necessary, seek shelter within a planet's atmosphere.

A mighty battleship, bristling with countless weapons, suddenly appeared before us and opened fire immediately without even attempting to make contact. Despite active shields and transatomic armor, the weapons took effect at once; the protective hull warped under explosive forces equivalent to hydrogen bombs. Our ship could not hold out long against that.

While the alien vessel fired from all its weapon bays, a holographic image of a spider suddenly appeared behind it; what happened next within a few seconds was indescribable. The battleship tried to turn toward the holo-spider, but before it succeeded, a smaller ship in red-and-blue colors appeared and fired just a single beam; the giant battleship flared up white and vanished. In its place, only a cloud of steel atoms drifted over the ocean.

The BRIGHT STAR was so heavily damaged that it could no longer operate in space, so we had no choice but to make an emergency landing on a nearby island to repair all the damage. The other ship landed beside us, and a man leaped out of the hatch.

"—Allow me to introduce myself! I am Master Four, an opponent of the Skytologists, and I have a proposition for you."

When the fully repaired BRIGHT STAR rose back into the sky to disappear toward home, I sat down on a fallen tree and asked Master Four about his intentions.

"—As far as I know, you are a genomorph and can transform yourself into any lifeform you wish. The Skytologists have kidnapped my wife, and if I approach the building where she is being held prisoner, those bastards will kill her. That building just so happens to be their headquarters, and they know I could wipe it out in the blink of an eye."

"—So you basically want me to sneak in there, free your wife, and then you can flatten the building?"

Master Four nodded, noting:

"—Quick on the uptake, this lad, I like that. What you also should know: the control center houses the device that keeps the hole in our dimension permanently open, so you'll have to hurry if you don't want to remain our guest forever."

I nodded in agreement, but said at the same time:

"—I don't know anything about this world, and above all about you. What is this strange naming convention supposed to mean?"

"—Master Four is of course my code name; I won't reveal my real name to anyone, because then I wouldn't be safe anymore. Besides, everyone in our organization uses a code name in the fight against Skytology."

"—Tell me more about your organization, and then you'll get my answer."

Master Four sat down next to me and explained:

"—The organization I'm talking about is called ASO, Anti Skytology Organisation, and we were founded in the year 1l9 when it became clear that the Skytologists would seize power. We have been fighting them ever since."

"—And who was this Luzifer?"

"—Is, not was! He is immortal and probably the most dangerous being in the universe. A year ago he had the idea that one could conquer a parallel universe. Now he wants to destroy you all, keep you as slaves, or who knows what?"

"—All right, in that case I'll help you," I said, activating the wormhole expander on my wristband. Before stepping through, I added: "—We meet here in one hour."

The main administrative building towered high into the sky and was impossible to miss. In the background, the crescent moon shone, bathing the building in a mystical light—an intentional effect that was very impressive. All around the building walked various people, all bearing the same insignia: an image of the building itself.

Limping, I approached one of the people, a young man, and put a cigar in my mouth, then asked him for a light. As he handed me his lighter with a smile, shielding the flame from the wind with his hands, I brushed against him and copied his genes. I threw the cigar away immediately, brought my metabolism to maximum within seconds, and morphed into the man. Naturally, that shocked him, but he didn't have much time to think about it, because in the very next instant I grabbed him and dragged him into the nearest building, where a well-placed strike knocked him out. Since I was now built from his genes, his clothes fit me perfectly; not even his own mother would have been able to tell us apart.

Without difficulty, I made my way into the building and put on a pair of sunglasses that were actually an energy detector meant to show me the location of the vortex generator. The computer display told me that there was a massive energy source on the fortieth floor, and it possessed the same coherence as the vortex—that had to be it. I immediately ran to the elevator and punched the number 40 on the keypad. The doors closed, and I felt the elevator shoot rapidly upward.

But what was this? Instead of the fortieth floor, the elevator stopped on the forty-first, and as the doors slid open, several armed Skytologists were already waiting for me. Luzifer pushed them aside and greeted me:

"—Mr. Black, planning to betray us? You really should have known that the fortieth floor triggers an alarm in the elevator. You should have been standing guard downstairs instead of nosing around like a little boy to look at the generator; that practically begs for punishment."

Truth be told, I was now in the mood to test whether this Luzifer was truly immortal.

The armed guards arrested me and led me to a cell where I was supposed to serve my sentence. I didn't want to draw attention too early to the fact that I was someone else entirely, so I let myself be locked up without resistance. After a few minutes, Luzifer walked in and said:

"—This breach of trust is punishable by death. No one will ever know what happened."

Then he drove a knife into my heart and opened his mouth to capture my soul. Since this minor wound was harmless to me, and furthermore I didn't possess a soul at all, the time had come to finally strike back—because once Luzifer realized I wasn't mortal, he would guess the truth anyway.

I pulled the knife from my heart and shouted:

"—Activate battlesuit!"

The muscle servos, armor, and anti-grav belt materialized, forming the battlesuit—a combat suit that granted its wearer tremendous strength. Luzifer was a bit slow on the uptake, but when I landed several blows so powerful that he flew through two walls, he realized what was happening. He still didn't know who I really was, but he recognized that I was a nearly equal opponent.

The punches didn't seem to bother him much, but his camouflage faded, and I saw his true nature. He was a horned being with horse hooves and an arrow-tipped tail—in other words, a completely ordinary second-class ectomorph.

"—Now it's your turn!" he yelled angrily, punching me in the stomach with all his might.

The couple of broken ribs healed immediately, but since I lay on the floor for a few seconds, I was able to take a closer look at the other cells. Various eyes peered back at me from some of the openings; from one, even a pair of gorgeous female eyes—that had to be Master Four's wife.

I morphed my hands into claws and lunged at Luzifer. His horns injured me, but I still managed to hit his energy center behind the spine. He exploded in a colorful fireworks display, releasing the souls, but at the same time his new body began to form.

I used those few seconds to break open the cells and get everyone out; they all ran outside immediately. Once Luzifer had regenerated, he realized that we were at a stalemate and vanished.

Now it was child's play to penetrate the control center one floor below. The operators at the screens were utterly stunned when they saw me—after all, you rarely see a man with claws. They all ran away like frightened rabbits.

When I looked at the main screen, everything became

...became clear: Luzifer's plan was, just like back then with the Zer, to wipe out the entire defense of Terra in one single blow. The entire fleet of Earth was on its way to the Vortex, only because they were slower than Luzifer's ship, they were only halfway there. The strategic display on the screen was breathtaking; there had to be more than ten thousand warships. Terra Prime wouldn't stand the slightest chance against this overwhelming force, and not even the United Fleets of Terra Prime, Zer II, Malkor, and the Ectomorphs of our universe could have resisted them in battle.

Once the fleet reaches the Vortex, Terra Prime and Malkor are as good as lost. But if I were to destroy the generator, I would be trapped in this parallel universe forever, along with this Luzifer. I had no other choice. With a fire axe, I smashed the electron tubes—a dull boom, then everything around me turned bright white.

When the smoke cleared, I stood up. My healing powers had saved me from severe injuries, but the nutrients in my body had dropped to a dangerous level. Another injury would certainly be fatal—even for a Genomorph. On shaky legs, I left the ruined floor via the emergency stairs.

One floor down, Master Four's wife was already waiting for me and helped me make my way further down. She said:

"If you were a normal human, you'd be dead by now. So who or what are you? I'm also curious how you turned your hands into claws."

"I am a Genomorph. I'll tell you the rest later, once I'm back at full strength."

When I emerged from the wormhole and found myself back on the island, Master Four greeted me:

"You saved my wife! I will always be grateful to you for that. Unfortunately, your spaceship didn't manage to fly through the Vortex before it collapsed."

So the BRIGHT STAR 3 was still in this universe.

"What are we going to do now? We can hardly hide a ship as big as the BRIGHT STAR 3 from the remaining people of Skytology," he said, exasperated.

My patience wasn't particularly resilient due to my body's poor overall condition, but Master Four reassured me:

"In return for your help, I offer you an unlimited stay at our base, provided Master One agrees. The base is top secret and still large enough for ten spaceships of this size."

Driven by hunger, I began gnawing on the grass; the fact that I ingested a few insects in the process didn't bother me much, even if the chitin shell tasted terrible. Some Genomorphs didn't like it when their food ran away when the lights were turned on, but I was starving and these little critters were just a welcome source of protein. The married couple, however, felt sick and threw up. After a few minutes, I was fully recharged and morphed back into my old shape.

"Enough puking, take me to Master One, I'd finally like to meet him!" I called out and boarded their flying saucer.

During the flight, I said: "We could finally get to know each other properly now. I'll start: My name is Varlon Traas, a Genomorph from the planet Zer and advisor to the President of Terra Prime—the planet Luzifer wanted to conquer."

"All right," said Master Four. "My real name is Miles Scarab, I am the scientific advisor at ASO. This is my wife Andrea, also with ASO."

"And Master One?"

"We know very little about him, but one thing is certain: he is not from this planet."

That caught my attention. Earth didn't seem to be such a boring planet after all. While there didn't seem to be any Genomorphs in this universe—evolution on Zer probably took a different course—there were still several alien races here too.

A camouflaged plate in the desert we were flying over slid open, revealing the entrance to an underground base. Miles hadn't exaggerated about its size. We flew inside and touched down rather hard for my taste; the flying saucer likely had an outdated beam-gravitational drive that wasn't exactly known for gentle landings. Admittedly, ASO had excellent weapons, but their propulsion systems weren't quite state-of-the-art.

Hardly had we stepped outside when a man wearing a steel mask stood before us and said:

"From what I hear, not even the Genomorph could destroy Luzifer! That is very bad, of course, but we will destroy that devil sooner or later."

"That's Master One," Miles explained to me.

Master One turned to me and said:

"Welcome to ASO. Since you are now trapped in our universe, I suggest you join us!"

I really had no choice but to agree.

"I will introduce you to the other members: Master One, that is me. Master Two is named Rolf Schwarz and is our expert on propulsion systems. Master Three is Dexter Peel, the one who worked on the research starship PROTON before the Skytologists stopped the project. Master Four, who is responsible for our weapon systems, you have already met. Our tactical officer is Jessie Grave, an outstanding tactician and fighter. From now on, your code name is Mastermorph."

Mastermorph. That sounded very good, but at my age I cared less about pleasant-sounding names than about the situation I found myself in, and that was truly no laughing matter—I was in deep trouble. Thanks to these new friends, however, the situation might not be quite as hopeless as I had initially thought.

The BRIGHT STAR 3 was already on its final approach. Thanks to the transmitter in my handheld computer, they were able to pinpoint my exact position and guide their landing accordingly.

With this spaceship, ASO finally had a fighting chance against Luzifer; we only needed to modify the weapon systems.

When my ship finally touched down and the hatch closed behind it, I boarded the starship and explained the whole situation to the crew, with all the details they needed to know. None of them were thrilled about our involuntary stay in this parallel universe, but they knew it was fate—and that I would not rest until a way back home was found.