Hell Off-World

“I’m getting a massive heat signature a mile to the North East.” Blaine pointed out.

“I see it...” Theresa noted.

The signature had crept up, like someone had punctured a hot water container. Theresa focused the image, the source of the heat was buried underground, was four times the size of a blue whale, and seemed to be made up entirely of tentacles, from what could be told by the still blurry blob on the heat sensor.

“Captain!” Atlas’ voice urgently sounded over the comms. “The monsters that destroyed the city are awakening. You need to leave as fast as you can, to the co-ordinates I’m uploading. I’ll be right behind you in the Tank.”

“Any chance these things can be killed?” Theresa asked.

“Possibly, but as soon as one is killed, someone else on this planet takes its place!”

Atlas already had the Tank running towards the outside of the spire, while they scooped up their sensor equipment and ran after it. After the cockpit hissed open at Atlas’ command, the android made an impressive leap, swinging off the rim of the cockpit and into the seat, before it closed around them. With a roar of the exosuit’s jets, the Tank took to the skies. Atlas connected with the Tank’s advanced heat sensor not a second too soon. The Tank spiralled to one side, narrowly missing a blue fireball, the size of a boulder, which soared onwards, obliterating several houses after it made contact with the ground. The fire burnt steadily in place, with no signs of spreading or going out.

As Atlas corrected themself, they saw on the horizon, a monstrous creature. It was several stories tall and draped in tentacles. Its mouth was stretched open by five triple-jointed mandibles, and was smoking from its recent attack. From its sides emerged a gargantuan pair of bat-like wings, with clawed hands half-way down.

From its size, Atlas could tell it wasn’t one of the twelve foot soldiers of the attack, but the terrible leader, the monster Amy had dubbed ‘the surrogate Destroyer’. It must have lain down to rest near the egg, while its cohorts had spread themselves out.

“Captain, Amy had a plan to make us immune to becoming monsters after we kill the existing ones. I’m uploading the co-ordinates to a lab where the instructions on how to make a vaccine are stored on a hard drive, and I’m uploading the translation algorithm.”

Theresa sensed what Atlas was implying. “Atlas, I appreciate your intention to make a heroic sacrifice, but I am ordering you to bring the Tank to the ship. No one is leaving this city until we’re all together!”

Theresa had never had to issue Atlas an official order before this mission, now she had given them two, in as many days. Because of her sharp and efficient mind, she and the android often saw eye to eye, but this planet was proving to be a rollercoaster for all of them. Meanwhile, Atlas hovered in place, eyeing up the creature as it advanced. Although it was preparing another fireball, the speed at which it was approaching was nothing the Comet or the Tank couldn’t outrun. Even if it was capable of moving faster, Atlas could still wait to engage it until that proved to be the case.

With a swivel of the thrusters, the Tank spun around and began flying towards the Comet. With a sigh of relief, Theresa turned the Comet and began flying around the city, orbiting the monster from afar, and easily avoiding its second fireball.

“Monty, strap yourself in.” Theresa ordered, without taking her eyes off the windshields. “Things could get a little technical...”

Needing to further encouragement, Monty deployed a chair, folded against the back wall of the cockpit and pulled across the various safety straps.

As the two vehicles reconvened at the outskirts of the city, the Tank latching onto the top of the Comet, with Atlas remaining inside, it seemed as though no heroic sacrifice had been necessary. It was likely that the surrogate had mostly supplied management and intimidation during the massacre, it seemed very unlikely that it could even fly. As the crew of the comet made their way towards Amy’s co-ordinates though, they found something that could.

“Incoming!” Blaine declared.

Something smaller was streaking across the crimson grass in the distance, and coming straight for them. It was too big to be a pterodactyl, and Atlas already had a good idea of what it was. The thing was about the same size as the Comet, and was almost spherical, with black tentacles flailing in all directions, and soaring on a pair of menacing wings.

“Blaine, I’ll fly, you shoot.” Theresa commanded.

“Got it.”

The Comet had three laser cannons, all controlled through one firing interface. They were designed for clearing asteroids, but were no picnic for living things either. As the distance between the ship and the monster closed, a glimpse of blue emerged from a gap in the monster’s tentacles. Ready and waiting, Theresa barrel rolled the ship to the right before a much smaller and faster fireball had the chance to obliterate the cockpit. The ship streaked through the sky, darting left and right as the Reaper hunted them down. All the while, Blaine tried to focus the three targeting reticules on his screen, unleashing fire on the creature whenever he could.

“Remember what Atlas said.” Theresa shouted, her pupils darting around like marbles as she tried to focus on the spinning landscape in front of them. “Shoot to stun, we can’t kill these things yet!”

“Captain look out!” Atlas called.

While soaring at a right angle to the city and the surrogate, the mighty monster had launched another fireball, displaying breath-taking calculation skills, in timing the speed of both the Comet and the fireball, to ensure they collided, despite the fact that the surrogate was just barely visible on the horizon. Theresa spun the Comet to the side and pulled up, putting the fireball beneath them, the Reaper closing in from above, and the red meadow to their left. Seeing their opportunity, Atlas had the Tank let go of the Comet and, with an explosion of thruster flames, launched directly towards the Reaper, aiming for the joint where the body met one of the wings.

Atlas latched on successfully, forcefully pinning one wing back, and sending the Reaper spiralling down to the crimson meadow below. All the while, Atlas punched and shot and electrocuted, doing everything they could to debilitate the creature. It hit the ground with a crash, sending several small mammals fleeing from nearby burrows. The Reaper writhed in a circle, flapping its one wing desperately and spewing a lake of blue fire from its mouth. As the suit’s core temperature rose and the shielding began to deteriorate, Atlas dug one foot into the creature’s side and, with one mighty thrust, empowered by small thrusters in the elbow, the wing twisted beyond what was natural, with a sickening snap.

The only expression of pain the monster gave was more uncontrolled writhing on the ground, in the inferno it had created. Atlas flew from the creature immediately after injuring it. They hoped that the Reapers were fireproof, species that could naturally generate fire usually were.

The Comet had levelled out and was flying smoothly towards the squid doctor’s lab, when Atlas caught up and landed the Tank in the open hangar. Minutes later, Atlas joined the rest of the crew in the cockpit, where Theresa was deep in conversation with someone over the intercom.

“... so you can trust me when I say that this is massively important.”

“An alien civilisation...?” One voice breathlessly remarked, surprising Atlas slightly. By sharing her discovery with the other crews, Theresa had also shared the reward, but of course, Theresa was smart enough not to prioritise money at a time like this. “Well we’ve seen some small dwellings, but nothing as advanced as this...”

“Well the pictures speak for themselves. I’m telling you this because I need you to believe what I’m about to say. Creatures are coming out of hibernation, twelve to be exact.” Theresa produced the images of the Reaper that the ship had captured, and swiped them towards the messenger window on her screen, containing the names of the other two ships. “One of them was here, but we killed it, but we don’t know about the other eleven. When engaged, the creatures initiate a defence mechanism we can’t understand.”

Atlas began to catch on that Theresa was weaving an elaborate lie. They didn’t blame her, they barely believed the truth themselves.

“We engaged the creature from a mile away with every defence shield you can imagine protecting our ship, and the crewman who initiated the automated firing sequence has been catatonic ever since. Whether you believe that or not, please believe that you are safest retreating from these monsters! Our crew’s android has discovered records of a vaccine we can use to counteract the creatures' power, in the mean time, I’m imploring you not to engage!”

“You seem awfully invested in the lives of strangers...” The captain of the Wyvern replied, suspiciously. She had a cool and confident voice, and emphasised her vowels slightly, suggesting she was a Hydromora from the Epsilon-8275 system.

“It’s a weakness, I know, but I don’t sleep that well after I let others die needlessly.” Theresa replied. “Look, it’s up to you. If you want to get yourselves killed, I’ll feel better that it was your own fault, and not mine.”

Theresa ended the connection and sighed. “Well, if they don’t bite, we’ll just have to hope that the new Reaper is whomever’s closest to where the last one died.”

After a few more minutes of smooth flying, Monty broke the silence, after disengaging his safety harness and joining the others in the front of the cockpit.

“Once we create this vaccine and administer it to the other crews, do we have any ideas how we’ll be able to destroy the monsters?” He signed, nervously. “Atlas was able to debilitate one, but even if they had wanted to...”

“We don’t have any ideas, Monty...” Theresa abruptly cut him off.

Silence resumed. The crew comprised of two expert combatants and one all-round genius, but the simple matter was that the Comet simply didn’t have the firepower to penetrate the sturdy barrier of tentacles that surrounded the Reapers, and they couldn’t even consider how they might confront the behemoth at the city.

“Atlas... Is there anything particular about how the natives were able to destroy the monsters, before they were wiped out?”

“Sheer force, I’m afraid.” Atlas said, resignedly. “They had an armada of tanks and planes like nothing the United Galactic Empire has seen.”

“Well, we’re just going to have to hope that the other crews have more than us up their sleeves, and as a last resort, we’ll have to wait until the Ark arrives, and we’ll try and get the Empire involved.” Theresa scowled. She clearly didn’t care for this plan.

“But we’re all infected.” Blaine said. “If a single spore gets on that ship, then the monsters might take over, and feed all the passengers to that egg. Hell, the Reapers might do that, the second the Ark enters the system. For all we know, they can fly in space!”

“That’s why it’s a last resort.”

-x-x-x-

With a whir of machinery, the Comet landed gently at the foot of a red hill, and the thrusters powered down. They had arrived at the co-ordinates Amy and the Doctor had given, but there wasn’t a building to be seen. The Comet’s four crew members came down the boarding ramp and fanned out. An ostrich creature had been in the area, but had fled at the sound of the Comet’s sonic repulsors, and was currently on the ground, just outside the Comet’s radius, rubbing its head against the grass, in an attempt to rid itself of the ringing in its ears.

Monty, once again shielded by his cloak and sunglasses, made his way up the hill towards what had seemed to be a boulder, wrapped in a purple, crawling plant, like ivy. He worked his hand between the vines, making some small cuts with a handheld laser, like Amy’s, before feeling the unmistakeable texture of metal beneath.

“Everyone! Over here!” He signed.

The crew gathered round and, with some more cutting, and a great deal of tearing roots which, impressively, had been able to burrow into solid metal, a doorway had been exposed and cut open. A chill breeze hit the crew as the warm air around them was sucked into the icy, long-undisturbed bunker.

“Okay... No reason why this shouldn’t be a perfectly safe in-and-out...” Theresa nervously began. The concept of jinxing oneself had become no less ominous throughout the space age. “…but let’s all stay sharp, and keep weapons primed.”

As the four of them descended a ramp which led downwards into the underground facility, several devices, including Atlas’ eyes, flickered into life, casting light in various directions. Several strange species of alien fungus were thriving in the cold, dark environments, and a number of the beetle-like species Monty had encountered in the Spire were glimpsed, before they scurried from the torch-light. The ramp led down a considerable distance before levelling out to an entrance foyer. Three corridors split off in different directions.

“Captain, I should mention that splitting up is an option, if you approve.” Atlas offered. They produced, from a compartment in their side, three small, metal boxes with a number of spindly wires poking out of one end, much like the wires from Atlas’ finger, they had used to download data from the hard drives they’d found in the city. “I’ve brought these universal interface devices. Anything resembling a hard drive can be connected with one of these devices and the contents will be sent to me.” Remembering that only Monty had seen the previously found hard drive, Atlas held up a data pad, showing the Constantines what it had looked like.

Theresa considered it. “Okay, Monty, you’re with me. Blaine and Atlas, you two go down that corridor and work your way around the facility.” She generated a map of the building on her data pad, produced by advanced sonar. The two furthest corridors seemed to form a loop around the facility, with various rooms branching off from them. The central door led upwards slightly, to a larger chamber. “We’ll meet in the middle, and then investigate this last room if we still have to.”

With a few “Yes Captain”s, the crew broke into pairs, and embarked down their respective corridors. There were several double doors spaced out, down the corridor, but most had large, empty window panes in them, and the ones that didn’t were easily cut open.

The first room Atlas and Monty came to had a counter running along the outside of the room, and several decomposed casings of what had probably once been computers. Atlas was able to dig out two hard drives, but all they were able to find was research on exotic life that had been discovered on neighbouring continents and deep in the planet’s oceans. It seemed the room had mostly been used for data gathering and archiving. The next room they reached had probably been used for more hands-on research. There were the remains of a quarantine door, and every surface was several inches deep in a fuzzy, purple mould. Atlas volunteered to investigate that room themself, for Blaine’s safety, but found no hard drives.

The third room had probably been some sort of habitation, but since neither Blaine nor Atlas knew what furniture the squid people had required, they couldn't be certain. What was left, was a series of flat, metal surfaces with shallow grooves in them, and a separate room, with drains covering the floor. As the duo investigated the room, Atlas stood up abruptly as they received a data upload from the rest of the crew.

“Hey Atlas, we found some hard drives. Uploading the contents now. I want this whole place searched before we leave though, vaccine or no. If we’re gonna find anything on how to kill these monsters, this seems like the place.”

Atlas whirred through the files. “Antibiotics and standard immune boosters, but nothing for the Reapers. I’d say you’re close though, Captain.”

The search continued. The crew found records on all manners of bizarre wildlife, both from the planet and from the squid’s home galaxy, they found invaluable information on squid technology, which Atlas found immensely interesting, and eventually, they found what they were looking for. The two groups reconnected when Theresa and Monty joined Atlas and Blaine in their final room. There wasn’t much left to suggest what the room had been for. Atlas found some tall, metal devices which they believed to be a sort of psychic microscope. Blaine found a large computer, connected to the remains of a terminal which ran along the length of a wall. He pulled out the large hard drive, and threw it to Atlas to catch.

“This is it!” Atlas declared, once they connected with the device. They stared dead ahead as the crew gathered round. “This doesn’t seem like anything we can’t handle. Let’s see… Iron… Iridium… Calcium… Carbon… Yes, the Comet’s synthesiser should easily be able to construct this, we’ll just need a few instances of common flora, found on this planet. The lab harvested theirs very nearby actually, from one of those plant clusters we saw flying in.”

Theresa sighed. “Finally, some good news. Okay, let’s check out that last room, then get to work on the vaccine.”

The crew shared the Captain’s relief, for the first time since Amy had vanished, it really seemed like there was a slight chance that everything would eventually be okay. They made their way towards the spacious entry foyer. While the rest of the crew walked towards the final door, though, Atlas turned their head to the entrance and paused.

“You okay Atlas?” Blaine asked, seeing that the android had stopped.

“I just got an alert from the ship, there was a strange heat signature to the West.”

Theresa’s newfound hope popped like a balloon in a cactus patch. “The Reapers?”

“Unlikely.” Atlas immediately replied, realising how they had sounded. “Just a sudden rise in temperature across a large area, like a heat wave, just for a few seconds, now it’s gone…”

“Okay…” Theresa pondered the new development. “Blaine, you take the Tank and go investigate. Don’t…” Blaine had begun to turn towards the entrance, so Theresa placed a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back to face her. “Listen to me! Don’t engage! Fly low and quiet, find out what’s going on, and report in. Don’t let anyone or anything see you. Understood?”

Blaine nodded curtly. “Right.”

While Blaine left the lab, the Comet’s remaining three crew walked up the small ramp to the remaining chamber. Unlike the other doors, the large, double doors to the last chamber were twelve-feet tall, and made of a similar, indestructible alloy to the safe Atlas, Amy and Monty had found in the city. There were small windows, just wide enough to squeeze through, or rather they would be, if they didn’t still have incredibly dense glass in them.

Theresa ran her hand along the defensive glass and invigorated the scowl she had been wearing very often, recently. “Atlas, break this open, but be careful. When you’re this isolated and deep underground, odds are that a door like this is for keeping something in, rather than out.”

Atlas considered mentioning that the door had been sealed for millennia, and that whatever had once been inside was almost definitely dead, but they realised that the rules of the universe could scarcely be applied to the planet they were standing on, so they simply nodded in understanding.

Atlas placed the palms of their hands against the glass, and began vibrating their hands at a frequency too high for their organic crewmates to register. They measured the response from the glass, sensing its integrity and, more importantly, its weak points. Keeping one hand on the glass, vibrating slightly more violently now, Atlas withdrew the other and, pressing their fingers together and flattening the hand, jabbed sharply at the glass just once, causing it to shatter into a thousand shards.

After a cautionary scan, Atlas climbed through the resulting hole, and then offered a supporting hand to Theresa and Monty, to help them avoid cutting their hands on broken glass. The trio continued up the ramp, and arrived at a large, circular chamber. Because of the integrity of the door, it was the most intact of all the places they’d encountered since arriving on the planet.

Glimpsing the room piece by piece as they shone their small lights around, the crew saw one vast display screen, spanning the outside of the room, above what Atlas believed was some kind of psychic interface, looking like a football-sized sphere, rising from the floor. In the centre of the room, were several large, glass cylinders, the contents of which were obscured by the murkiness of the glass.

“The power cells would definitely be depleted after all these years… but besides that…” Atlas mused to themself.

They paced along the outside of the room, carefully running their hands along the wall, and their eyes flickering as they scanned through various filters. Eventually, they seemed to find what they were looking for. Atlas pointed an arm at the wall and their hand unhinged, hanging from their arm like the lid of a ketchup bottle. Underneath, was a circular, black socket, from which an arc of blue lightning erupted and connected with the wall. For just a few seconds, a bright white glow shone down from the ceiling and the displays flickered into life. Monty and Theresa looked around in awe, before the lightning from Atlas’ arm ceased and they doubled over, the lights in their eyes flickering slightly.

“Atlas, you can’t power this place yourself.” Theresa stated. “Obviously.”

“Yes…” Atlas said, more quietly than usual. “That was a test run, I’ll fetch a power cable from the ship and we can find out exactly what they were working on in here.”

“You got enough power left?” Theresa asked, uncertainly.

“Of course, the drain was just a shock to my systems, is all.” Atlas reassured her. “I’m be back in a moment.”

After Atlas’ metallic footsteps faded, Theresa turned to Monty. It occurred to her that now, of all times, was probably a good time to make sure the introverted Vampire felt connected to the team. “Monty, how are you holding up?” She asked, bluntly.

Monty, who had been investigating one of the psychic interfaces, turned to face the Captain, looking mildly surprised. “As well as I can be, Captain.” He signed, resignedly. “Thank you for asking.”

Theresa sighed, too quietly for Monty to hear. Like most Vampires, and humans with anxiety disorders, Monty didn’t display affection in the same way as the rest of the crew, and Theresa’s working theory was that he cared for Amy as much as the rest of them did. She considered reassuring him that everything was going to be okay, but he wasn’t a child, and they all knew there was no guarantee that anything would be even remotely okay.

Silence resumed, and the next time it was broken, it wasn’t by Theresa, Monty, or anyone at the door. Like a light switch, Theresa entered combat mode and rounded on the source of the noise with her duel blasters in hand. The noise had come from one of the cylinders in the middle of the room.

“Monty, stand back.” Theresa warned, as she advanced on the containers.

Monty reluctantly gave in to his cowardice, with the Captain’s blessings, and retreated to the edge of the room, while Theresa shone the light of her wrist-mounted data pad, looking for a gap in the grime that coated the interior of the tank. There was definitely something moving inside, banging against the glass blindly.

As Theresa made her way around the tank, the banging sound was slowly accompanied by another sound, one that took Theresa a second too late to identify. As it turned out, it was the sound of fracturing glass. Theresa realised this as, with one mighty collision, a fracture became a vast crack running the length of the tank, and with another, the glass shattered and the captive was free.

A Reaper tentacle, twelve feet in length, leapt through the cascade of shards and towards Theresa. Instinctively, Theresa shot backwards on the balls of her feet and unleashed a maelstrom of laser fire at the disembodied appendage. Theresa’s weapons did little damage though, and she was made to dive aside as the tentacle struck, snake-like at the captain. Rolling impressively across the floor, and landing on her feet, Theresa assessed the tentacle for potential weaknesses. Although she could barely see it by the meagre light in the room, a logical assumption would be the point where it had been severed from its original owner. It would also be reasonable to assume the tentacle would die within moments of being severed, but since it had survived for thousands of years, Theresa wasn’t about to count on that.

“Monty, head towards the doorway,” Theresa ordered, as she ducked jumped and rolled her way to the opposite side of the chamber, with the tentacle advancing on her.

Not long after joining her crew, Atlas had taught Theresa how to play chess (which hadn’t changed at all, in the 5,000 years since its invention), and Theresa had found it surprisingly similar to real-life combat and, although she was never able to beat Atlas, she found her fights in the field to be greatly influential on her game, and vice versa. Imagining she was offering a tantalisingly abandoned rook, Theresa lowered her head and backed against the wall. Taking the bait, the tentacle struck, and, ninja-like, Theresa leapt against the wall behind her, and flipped over the tentacle, landing on her toes and hands behind it, emptying her blaster’s energy cells into its open wound, before it could turn around.

The tentacle thrashed around the room wildly and aimlessly, effectively communicating pain despite not having a head or body. Before long, it had regained its composure though. Theresa’s pistols beeped as new energy cells were automatically loaded, but she was fresh out of ideas as to how to use them. All she could do was evade. She sprinted around the room, dancing around each attack, aware that stopping to climb out of the door’s window would give the tentacle the advantage it needed to finish her off. Theresa had no idea what she could do to fight back, but luckily, she wasn’t alone.

“Captain!”

Atlas and Monty were back. Atlas was dragging a thick cable, which Monty was rapidly feeding out of a winch which connected it to the ship. Atlas threw the end of the cable at the Captain as the tentacle drew back, ready to strike, but once it did, Theresa was ready. With a pull on the stiff lever on the side of the cable, a pocket thunderstorm erupted out of the end. The room shone a dazzling white as arcs of electricity ran from the cable, dancing up and down the length of the tentacle. It blasted back across the room and slumped to the floor, twitching mildly under the electrical stimuli.

“Excellent work you two.” Theresa breathlessly thanked her crew, disabling the cable and throwing it back to Atlas. “Not a second too soon.”

Unphased by what had happened in their absence, Atlas carried the cable back to the place on the wall where they had powered up the room, and did it again, only this time, with the colossal energy cells of the Black Comet at their disposal. With the manipulation of another lever, the cable clamped to the smooth surface of the wall, as white light shone from the ceiling once more and the monitors illuminated, showing pale blue screens.

“So… psychic interface?” Monty repeated Atlas’ words.

“I believe so…” Atlas walked over to one of the spheres and placed their hands on it.

“Can you use those?” Theresa was confused. “I mean, I don’t know how psychic communication works but…”

“The psychic relay is compatible with any sentient mind, we learnt that on our first night here, when we were under the impression that we’d all either inhaled hallucinogens or malfunctioned.”

Theresa frowned at the memory of her lapse in judgement, not that she could think of any better way she could have acted, given the circumstances.

As Atlas manipulated the sensor, the screens displayed the chalky white face of one of the squid people. The fact that they had video technology told the crew that, face or no face, the squids had eyes somewhere. Little did they know that the screens were also psychic projectors, although they did begin to suspect, when the squid began speaking perfect Galactic Human Standard.

“It’s… It’s all coming undone…” The squid’s voice was distorted and monotone. It was impossible for the crew to assign the voice to any age or gender. “We spent so much time perfecting this idiotic vaccine, that we didn’t realise that we’re long beyond that now. The monsters have destroyed our military and they’re wiping us out like cattle. None of us are in danger of becoming like those beasts… because we’ve lost the ability to fight them, and I’ll never be desperate enough to put my hope in…” A sharp whine covered several seconds of the record, as it turned out, the psychic connection couldn’t translate proper nouns. “… ridiculous fairy tales. What we’re dealing with here is a monstrous space-faring alien. It reproduces by destroying worlds, and ours is no exception…”

The blue screen returned, and the crew dwelled on what they’d seen for a few seconds.

“Atlas…” Theresa began, thoughtfully. “Let it be known that I am more than desperate enough to rely on fairy tales, if they claim to have the answers. What did they mean by that?”

With their hands still in the interface, several images blurred across the screen, until another squid, slightly paler and with shorter tentacles, was displayed on the screen. The next video began with a proper noun, making the crew wince.

“… is a fool. It doesn’t matter how ludicrous it seems… If there’s one thing that definitely won’t avert this disaster, it’s dwelling in this bunker doing nothing! As a great person once said…” It turned out that a similar translation problem occurred with quotes. “…So I’m going to the landing site, to try and find out if the rumors are true.”

“Rumors?” Theresa asked Atlas.

Atlas cocked their head, compensating for the fact that they couldn’t frown thoughtfully.

“The squids had a philosophy that any force, power or obstacle always left its weakness at the place where it begins. It dates back to their invention of tools, where they’d believed that the axe that cuts down a forest should be made from the wood of its oldest tree.”

“What’s that got to do with this?” Theresa asked the obvious question.

“Well it’s mostly superstition and had little effect on the daily lives of the more modern squids, but I believe it coincides with a part of the squids’ mythology about the creatures, which mentions a potential weakness…”

“You’re only mentioning this now!?” Monty signed, irritably.

“Translating a psychic alien language isn’t an exact science, Monty…” Atlas coldly retorted. “I didn’t recognise the implication until just now. But towards the end of the invasion, the squids began to speak of this fairy tale, and suggest that, in the place where the Destroyer first landed on the planet, it caused a crystallization in the ground around it, and that those crystals are the key to defeating it.” Atlas looked between Theresa and Monty’s shocked expressions. “I feel I should emphasise though, that this is just a fairy tale, spread by…”

“Where is this landing site?” Theresa interrupted. “These crystals bring our number of retaliation options up to exactly one, Atlas.”

Atlas returned his attention to the interface, but the moment he did, Blaine’s voice cut desperately over the comms.

“Mum!? Are you okay?” He called. “Are you all okay!?”

The crew shared a shudder, Blaine only called Theresa ‘mum’ when he was afraid for his or her life.

“We’re fine. Blaine, what’s wrong?” Theresa urgently replied.

“You’re all fine? You all feel fine? None of you are… changing?” He asked, nervously.

Theresa’s blood ran cold. “The Reapers…”