The Spaces in Between (18 page)

The Ashtar Command ship
White Knight -3
had opened fire with maser pulses.

“Uh, open a wireless channel so I can inform them they are committing an act of war with the Intergalactic Church of the Old Ones. Our church may be unorthodox, but is still protected under the Andromeda treaty.”

He was replied with a black screen that read
Audio Only
in red letters, and silence. He licked his lips and continued. “Our claim number is 4440323G.”

“We don’t give a flying fuck,” a reply finally came. “This isn’t just an attack. We’re going to annihilate you. Is that what you’ve been doing, hiding behind bureaucracy? Casting your hand me down spells?” Cameron appeared on the screen.

“You were dead!”

“Yeah, but I got better. I think I’m going to take a walk after this…a shoddy mage you are.” Cameron stretched and his back popped a little. The man in black twisted his jaw and it crackled. “Oh and I found that piece of the Source Code, but that doesn’t even leave us close to squarsies.”

“I’ve already transcribed both of those tablets, Cameron,” the man in black replied. “I’ll trade you those for the one you have and we can all be on our way. I’ll even throw in what it does.”

“You don’t seem to get me,” Cameron said. “I’m not here to negotiate. We could have done that yesterday, but
no
you had to go and kill me. Your little stunt may have succeeded in eroding my sanity a little. That doesn’t really help you much – now I’m going to show you how to properly wipe someone from existence.” Another barrage of maser pulses rocked
Hallow One,
but didn’t make it to the hull.

“I don’t know how you got back here or dispatched all those Paladins. Apparently I was wrong about you. I apologize, but non-believers will never again entry to our Church.”

“Oh that’s cool. We want to convert. Drop your shields so we can come in for…conversion. Yay…Old Ones.” The
Soulforge
came to life and released a graser beam that struck the ship. A lamp fell over; a box rolled and then shattered against the wall, and knocked the man in black off balance. “Ok, new plan, we’re going to slowly shake you to death.”

“Is revenge really that important? You still couldn’t get in if we were dead. We’re leaving.”

“You’ve been wasting a lot of your time looking at me,” Cameron said, “Zoom in on the
Soulforge
.”

“When you should have been watching us,” Cameron said from the deck in full space suit. The field protecting the deck from the emptiness of space had receded. He held the flintlock aloft and with confidence. Ryoma pulled the trigger and nothing seemed to happen.

“Have you forgotten powder won’t ignite in space?” the man in black taunted.

At that magnification the man in black could not spot Cameron’s gun firing. Flying faster than a bullet was a stream of anti-matter. He had loaded one of the largest shells – a one-liter antimatter shell. He only used a shell that size in space where there was no matter to immediately annihilate since this much would actually damage the gun. A liter of anti-matter was enough to hurt a god – Cameron should know. The shockwaves would be enough that even something on the Astral would be hurt by it.

Space lacks significant friction so there would be no reason for the stream to lose any of its momentum. The stream had spread like a shotgun blast with a central splash surrounded by droplets of antimatter. One of the tiny droplets orbiting the lead touched a tiny piece of debris. It annihilated in the flash of an h-bomb and ignited the rest of the anti-matter. In a neighboring galaxy those looking through telescopes were simultaneously blinded. The
Soulforge
rocked from the force of the premature explosion and all of the furniture inside was knocked over.

The debris was still close enough to catch
Hallow One
in its terrible blast zone. The entire liter of liquid h-bomb clipped the ship with the end of the ensuing explosion. The malevolent aura swirling around the ship split, and
White Knight Three
shot her with an electric blue tractor beam.
Hallow One
shuddered for a moment then ceased movement. The beam formed a tunnel and down it traveled a payload of invaders.

A high heat laser was turned on the hull and burning through fast. Around
Hallow One
the aura changed from dull to a livid force with red speckles. As it writhed and swirled the ships systems roared back to life. Then it moved to expanding back into the hole left by the anti-matter annihilation. This progress was halted by the force beam and the invaders within furiously burning through the hull with a laser.
Hallow One
’s aura surrounded the beam in at attempt to crush it.

It swirled around the beam like a black sludge trying to crush a florescent light bulb. Cameron stopped for a moment to examine this aura. He pressed his palm against the beam, which separated, and voices flooded into his head.

Heed us pirate and die!

Flee from here!

Fear us the chosen of Almighty Old Ones!

Cameron sent a feeler tentacle of his aura through the beam. The feedback was intense – thousands of screaming, incoherent voices. One solid impression stuck with him in the man in black’s raspy voice
Those of the Church may serve the Almighty Old Ones after their deaths. They shall be the chosen.

A matrix of ghosts? That’s Harvey’s secret weapon? What a jacktard leaving his doomsday device out where I could use it.
He sent his energy through the feeler to conquer the wills of memories that have forgotten what it was like to be a person. His hand burned against the beam, and Cameron was force to withdraw the feeler or have it snapped off. This mass of ghosts wasn’t too big for him to control what could be stopping him?
They are souls. Harvey, you son of a bitch, these are their souls.

Keeping a soul from the afterlife and preventing the second death of the Astral Body is a serious matter. Without becoming vampires or wraiths that feed on the energy of the living; souls in astral bodies simply do not stick around for years like Hollywood would like you to believe. Ghosts are memories and can be quite potent memories, but aside from the rare exception sentient ghosts simply do not exist. Cameron ran it through his mind, and the only way it could work was if they consented to this by joining Harvey’s church. That’s not a good word for it. A cult. That’s a far better term for it. He would bet good money that clause was fine print in an oath probably in a language they don’t speak.

What would Harvey the man in black need with these souls? Or his Old Ones? A dial in his head suddenly clicked. Harvey didn’t really serve any “Almighty Old Ones”. He was searching for creation’s source code under the direction of Lam. Lam was collecting these souls.

The laser finally cut a hole through
Hallow One
’s hull in a manner similar to a burglar cutting through a glass window. The beam shook and the tube was crushed by the black sludge. Then covered the hole.

19

Our parsonage is over three hundred strong. The Chosen not withstanding.
The man in black’s voice crackled through the air like it was coming over the Wireless, but Cameron knew it wasn’t. Harvey was bouncing his thoughts off the soul net surrounding the ship and amplified them
. I don’t care if you can make that ghost solid and use that gun! I’ll throw them all at you. They’re worth more to me dead!

The man in black sat in the bridge and salivated at the very thought of using the Mehmet talisman to manifest the Chosen. Once he had it that is…

Back at the breach Cameron looked on at the fifty cultists that had poured in. They all bore full black cloaks and face masks that struck him as terribly similar to the masks of Drama and Comedy. The eyes peering through the eyeholes were glossy and vacant. In their hands they clenched scythes and handheld masers, but they shambled forth like zombies. Drool drizzled down many of the frowning masks. He thought that the ones whose mask bore a malicious grin were closer to their actual expression.

Cameron grinned.
Harvey doesn’t realize what I’ve done yet!

20

Heavy losses in the breached Cargo bay!
reported a multitude of voices trapped in the Chosen.

Each death only brings us closer to our goal.
The man in black replied without moving his lips.
I would rather them complete the Ritual, but by the glory of the Old Ones, these are the trying times!

No casualties. So far seventy-five have been incapacitated.

Those masks are enchanted to prevent influence outside of mine. How could he knock out what I sent and the reinforcements? He’s just one man!

The chosen replied in thousands of words or rather a picture. The image played like an aging movie reel with scratch marks and burnt out splotches. There was not just Cameron on board; in fact he couldn’t be seen at all. Instead were the eleven of the armors of the Paladins. The maser pulses from the cultists’ pistols hardly left a scorch mark on the armor, and the sonic disruptors mounted on the armors’ gauntlets brought them down before close combat could be engaged.

The man in black was enraged, and the Chosen shifted with his demeanor.

Hey, bitches! What’s up?
Cameron’s thought bounced off the Chosen.
I made some improvements to the Paladins!

That’s impossible! You can’t bend the Paladins to your will!

I know, Harvey! That’s the improvement!

Harvey?
The man in black rubbed his temples.
This pirate is ruining everything!
He considered using the tablets that he had absconded from Cameron, but those would only hurt his chances of winning. He was pretty sure that Cameron and his crew would not be affected. The man in black then realized why they were here.

“I fucking hate doppelgangers,” the man in black muttered.

21

Doppelgangers were a kind of artificial spirit that magicians created to do menial tasks on the Astral such as information gathering or recording the last episode of Lost. They often bore the resemblance of the magician hence the name. Humans unconsciously create doppelgangers all the time. The many stories of seeing an apparition of a person before they arrive or of a loved one as they die elsewhere are good examples of common doppelgangers.

The eleven armors (the damaged suit didn’t make it through the breach) bore down on the cultists with the sonic disruptors. The suits were contaminated with trace amounts of gamma radiation allowing profane spirits in the armor. The Chosen dripped through the hull and slapped a tendril through the helmet of one of the armors.

“Shit! I’ve lost visual!” Cameron shouted.

“Just look through the armor then!” Cameron replied from another armor.

The armor raised their disruptors in the direction of the black sludge dangling from the ceiling. It shuddered and swatted another suit of armor across the cargo bay. It shattered against the wall at the joints like a clay doll. This was the suit the man in black was aiming for since the chest plate bore the Anchor symbol. The disease spirit within poured out and lunged towards the unconscious cultists. The spirit chain burst from nine other suits and struck Xibulba through the abdomen.

He felt their will being imposed upon him, but strangely he could only feel the will of just one Cameron trying to overtake him. He saw a small opening where he might be able to grab the will and wrest the control away from him. He grasped it, but Xibulba was not at any seat of advantage here and it slipped from his hand. He wondered if Cameron let him inside like Ryoma if he would be at the advantage there.

“Look up guys!” Ryoma yelled through the speaker in the armor’s helmet, which was designed for allowing a spirit’s voice to be heard in the Physical. The suit opened the palm of its gauntlet and six reports of his Smith and Wesson rang out. All six .45 rounds burst through the sludge in the ceiling in sprays of black mist, but this did nothing to stop its momentum. The aura of the Chosen poured into the room and engulfed the armor. A crude oil that filled the cargo bay.

22

The barrel of a gun pressed into the back of the man in black’s head.

“How’s it going, Harvey?” Cameron pulled the hammer of the flintlock back.

“So all that down there was a ruse,” the man in black said. “And you’d sacrifice those friends of yours.”

“Ryoma can take care of himself. Xibulba…I want to lose. So tell me where those tablets are so I can kill you?”

“You presume that my soul won’t enter the Chosen so that I may serve the Old Ones forever.”

“Then you are presuming…I can’t shoot…to wound.”

“You also presume that I can’t create a doppelganger so dense that it was solid enough to press a gun into,” the man in black announced from across the room. Cameron allowed his aura that was dimmed to get the drop on Harvey bloom in full. His aura flashed a bright white, and he blinded the man in black. Cameron spun and fired the flintlock. The mushroom cloud burst forth from the barrel, and his hostage dissolved back into the Chosen and engulfed the explosion.

Cameron was reminded of a cartoon situation where a dog brought his owner a stick of dynamite, and no matter how many times they throw it the dog only brings it back till eventually the stick becomes inexplicable lit and explodes. Of course, the puppy remains unharmed through this entire interaction.

Sweat streamed down Cameron’s face as he felt the heat of that great fireball being carried back to him by the man in black’s Chosen. His attention was drawn elsewhere as he felt the presence of Lam sharing the room with them. Cameron raised his spiritual wavelength so he could spot the two shriveled gray men cautiously gripping a hole that he found far too familiar. Once they had noticed he was watching them Lam faded away. Cameron took the reigns of the portal and the fireball went through it into the world of the yellow things. The tunnel collapsed in Cameron’s hands.