Three Square Meals Ch. 099

She had nearly given up hope of finding what she was looking for when she spotted a huge corridor at the end of her current passageway. While the rest of the ship was quiet, this section was thriving with activity and when she crept up to the junction to take a look, she was astonished to see scores of Vulkat marching towards a massive arch at the end of the tunnel. Waiting for the current group of arachnids to sweep past, she snuck out into the tunnel, keeping herself tucked close into the wall where she would be concealed in the shadows.

There were no signs that an alarm had been raised, so she prowled along quietly, keeping a wary distance from any of the Vulkat crew. The hairs stood up on the back of her neck as she got closer to the huge arch, feeling an overwhelming sense of dread as she approached. With her senses screaming at her to turn back, she inched closer to the curved parapet the edge the upper level of the vast chamber beyond, forcing herself to get close enough to look down over the edge.

Her eyes widening at the sight within, she turned and bolted, no longer able to stay in the darkly oppressive chamber.

***

After waiting impatiently for Sakura's return, John turned to watch Dana as the redhead stared intently at the dusty old machines occupying the room. "Find out anything interesting?"

"Hmm? Oh right, yeah I did..." she replied, glancing at him and smiling before returning her eyes to the distinctly alien piece of equipment before her. "This seems to be some kind of incubation chamber; environmental controls, life support, diagnostics. If I had to guess, this is where they kept all the baby spiders after they were born. There must have been hundreds in here..." After speaking she realised what she'd just said and yanked her hands back with a visible shudder of revulsion. "Eww!"

John frowned as he studied the strange device, just one of dozens spaced evenly around the big room. It looked like a black table about five-metres across, with dinner-plate sized nodules across its bumpy surface. The dust was thick across the onyx top and obviously hadn't been touch in many years. "Doesn't look like it's had any use in a very long time."

"A ship crewed by zombie spiders," Rachel murmured, running her armoured fingers over the disused machinery. "I wonder when the last of the living Vulkat died out?"

"She's back," Alyssa said quietly, drawing everyone's attention to the door. The blonde seemed distracted, her head tilted to one side as if she were listening to something just on the edge of hearing.

Tashana mimicked the way Dana had previously opened the portal, by pressing her first two fingers together and inserting them into the slot. The door spiralled open, just as their black-armoured scout rushed into sight.

"Any luck?" John asked, before noticing the Asian girl's pale countenance. "Sakura, are you alright?"

She was breathing heavily, her almond-shaped eyes wide as she stepped into his open arms. "I found a place filled with crystals, it looked like they were being made there... and there was something else..."

"What was it?" he prompted gently.

"I think it was their Queen! I found a massive... throne room... I guess it was," she replied, trembling in his embrace. "I got really bad vibes in there... it was awful."

John glanced around at the girls and could see how badly shaken they all were... except for Alyssa who seemed to be oddly distracted. "Maybe Dana was right. Perhaps we should call this off before we get in too deep."

Alyssa hesitated, then reached out to place her hand on his shoulder. "We're so close to the Eternity Crystals, it seems like a shame to turn back."

He frowned at her and said, "That's not like you; you're not normally that interested in new technology."

She shook her head and glanced at the ceiling, a distant look in her bright blue eyes. "No, but there's something important here on this ship... I can feel it."

John looked torn for a moment, then turned back to Sakura and asked, "You think you can take us there?"

She shivered with fear, but still gave him a determined nod. "We won't be able to sneak in though... there's far too many Vulkat around that area. We'll definitely have a fight on our hands to get there."

"That's not a problem," Tashana said with a cocky grin that was nearly convincing. She twirled her Reaper pistols in her hands. "I was getting tired of all this sneaking around."

"Alright, let's move out then," John said, glancing around and finding that the girls were all huddled nearby with their weapons at the ready. He nodded to Sakura. "Take point and show us the way."

Unshouldering her Quantum rifle, Sakura left the room with John and the girls assembling into a similar formation as last time. Tashana eased back to make room for the new addition to their group, walking beside Alyssa and covering the rear with her pistols. Sakura guided them to the crossroads and turned left, then led them onwards to the next junction roughly one-hundred metres further along. They took a right, then another left, Sakura never hesitating as she followed the route further into the bowels of the Vulkat command ship.

John was surprised at how infrequently they came across any of the shambling arachnids, but they were able to progress far into the ship before they had to back up a couple of times to avoid an unwelcome encounter. Sakura led them into the footwell of a sloped ramp that allowed access to the higher levels, the wall to their right strangely marked with indented patterns.

"We need to go up four levels, then we head into the middle of the ship," Sakura explained, glancing upwards and searching for movement on the upper ramps. "From there we head towards a big central corridor that leads to the throne room."

Dana had crouched down by the ramp and was brushing her gauntleted fingers across the sloped, uneven surface. Her eyes were shrouded in a golden nimbus as she murmured, "This is a newer construction. It's still old, but the rest of the ship is far older. The craftsmanship is crude too, nowhere near as well-built..."

John kept his rifle trained on the ramp, but glanced down at the redhead. "Any idea why this was built later?"

She looked up at him to meet his curious gaze and shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I can't see any signs of anything else being removed, which seems a bit odd. How would they go up and down levels without any ramps, elevators, grav-tubes, or whatever?"

Rachel traced the grooves in the wall with her hand. "The Vulkat are spiders, they probably just climbed up the wall... until they weren't able to any more."

"God, this place is depressing," Dana muttered with a grimace.

John walked over to the ramp and started making his way up. "You're right, let's get this over with."

They started heading up the spiral surface and as they cautiously ascended, a faint rustling reached John's ears. He knew what it was, having heard it before; the sound of arachnid legs trampling over parched remains of broken chitin. When they reached the fourth level, the noise intensified, enough that the girls could hear it too. They glanced about nervously, weapons raised and ready to fire the moment they were attacked.

It wasn't just the sound of the Vulkat moving around this level that increased when they stepped off the ramp onto the level of the throne room. The creeping feel of unease was growing stronger too, and John felt a shiver run down his spine as that all-pervading sense of dread seemed to settle into his bones. Whatever calamity had happened in this place had seeped into every inch of the ship and John's heart almost felt as leaden as his feet when he followed Sakura into the next tunnel.

"How much further?" he asked the black-clad girl, his voice taut.

She turned to look at him, her whole face rigid as she tried to keep her emotions in check. "J-just a bit more... a couple of turns, m-maybe two-hundred metres, then the central corridor."

He patted her on the shoulder. "I don't know how you managed to explore this on your own."

Sakura gave him a wan smile. "I'm not sure now either..."

John pulled her back and said, "Let me take point now, just let me know if I take any wrong turns."

With a shaky nod, Sakura did as he asked, letting John spearhead their formation. He had three girls with Reaper Cannons covering his advance down the corridor, but he suddenly felt so alone, as if everyone he'd ever cared about had deserted him. He tried not to look back to make sure his companions were still with him, and couldn't help feeling that by checking, he was somehow calling their loyalty into question. However, he couldn't resist a sharp glance to either side and much to his relief, he saw Dana, Rachel, and Irillith's familiar faces. That they were all terrified was not so comforting.

They had made it half-way to the central corridor, when the scratching sounds that had been growing progressively louder suddenly came to an abrupt halt. He froze and aimed into the darkness, his finger itching to pull the trigger on anything that would loom out of the shadows. Out of his peripheral vision he could see Reaper Cannon barrels primed and ready to fire, the girls prepared to unleash a blistering hail of destruction on whatever dared to face them.

"Keep going," Alyssa urged him, and when he glanced back at her, he saw her beautiful face twisted into some unreadable expression.

Doing as she asked, he turned a corner and headed up to the main corridor, expecting an ambush any second. But it never came... He darted a quick look into the corridor then gasped when he saw that a Vulkat was facing him, less than five metres away. They were so close, he could make out its eight milky-white eyes, all of which seemed to be staring right at him. He aimed his gun right into the centre of that hideous alien visage, getting ready to gun it down the moment it pounced... but nothing happened.

"Oh fuck..." Dana whimpered, from somewhere behind him.

John managed to tear his eyes away from the massive spider in front of him and whipped his head around to see what had drawn Dana's attention. He suddenly realised that the central corridor was teeming with Vulkat in both directions, the lifeless arachnids just standing there, watching as if in silent condemnation of these interlopers for trespassing where they did not belong.

"The throne room and Eternity Crystals are that way," Sakura whispered, pointing to his right.

The Vulkat had left a narrow path between them that led towards the huge arch at the end of the corridor. John took the lead, with the girls following in single file as they walked past hundreds of the long-dead creatures. This close it was easy to see how badly decomposed some of the spiders were, with parts of their dried and cracked bodies replaced by glistening black cybernetics. All the Vulkat were armed, with some kind of double-barrelled weapon mounted above their thorax. There was a quiet rustling as John progressed up the corridor, hundreds of glaring Vulkat tracking his progress with those unblinking eyes and the muzzles of their guns.

Walking beneath the huge archway, John saw that the corridor opened out onto a gallery, which wound around the massive room beyond. The awful sense of imminent doom was almost overpowering and he had to use all his willpower to approach the balcony, his eyes widening when he finally got a good look into the chamber. Just like the corridors, the walls were indented with ribbed structures that gathered together in the lofty shadows high above their heads. Silent Vulkat guards lined the walls of the gallery that sloped all the way down to the floor of the eerie cathedral, a huge dais taking pride of place in the centre of the vast room.

Nestled amongst a dense tangle of black cybernetics was a monstrously huge creature, an arachnid just like her brood, but many times larger. There was faint movement within the Vulkat Queen's chest, each expansion and contraction accompanied by a strange series of mechanical clicks. Her hide was wizened and venerable beyond measure, coloured a pallid grey with faint orange stripes around her upper limbs.

Past the crippled remains of the Queen, the far side of the room was carpeted in a dense forest of shining crystals, each one catching and amplifying the faint spectral light. Most were relatively small and no more than a foot tall, but there were a handful which towered over the others, casting colourful prisms over the grim sepulchre.

John heard a whimper behind him, and he turned to see Sakura quivering under the strain of holding formation. Her face was twisted with fear and he realised she was on the verge of bolting, her resistance to the terrible oppressive atmosphere already worn down after her first visit. He went to the terrified girl and wrapped her in his arms, for once completely unsure how to proceed. If the Vulkat had tried to kill them, John would have felt justified in fighting back, eventually storming this place to put down their Queen and her broken, ghastly brood. But they hadn't attacked... they seemed to be waiting for something.

Holding Sakura close, he turned to look at the girls. "I better go and try and communicate with the Queen. Will all of you be alright up here for a few minutes?"

The girls nodded bravely, all except Alyssa, whose eyes were now ablaze with an incandescent light. "Let me..." she said softly, shouldering her rifle and walking towards the edge of the gallery.

"Alyssa, wait! What are you doing?!" he called out to her as the blonde vaulted up onto the waist-high balcony.

Alyssa turned and gave him a sad smile. "She needs me to know her pain..."

John called her back but she swathed herself in a soft nimbus of white light and lifted off the balcony, her armour sparkling as it reflected the light. Alyssa shone like a dazzling beacon amidst the oppressive gloom and she floated down towards the Vulkat Queen. Her companions rushed to the banister, watching spellbound as she landed beside the ravaged creature. Stepping forward, the blonde placed her hand against the enormous spider's head, seemingly unconcerned about touching the hideously ugly alien.

Focusing her will, Alyssa gently probed the Queen's mind, testing the strength of the mental barriers she found there. It didn't come as any surprise to her that Nkkrrit, for that was the Vulkat Queen's name, was a potent psychic with defences to match. She could have smashed her way in, but that would have been counter-productive and not what either of them wanted. Nkkrrit was reluctant at first, the spider's well-justified terror of this strange bipedal female warring with her desire to make contact with a friendly mind. Alyssa simply pushed her consciousness against the Vulkat's, giving Nkkrrit's mind a kindly nudge.

Just like that the resistance fell away and Alyssa felt herself being drawn into the alien's subconscious. Nkkrrit was very alien, there was no doubt about that, possessing the most unnervingly different mind that the psychic blonde had experienced so far. Although she had prepared herself for it, a howling hurricane of terrible loss slammed into Alyssa, threatening to drown her in an unending cacophony of self-pitying wails.

It would have been easy to succumb, losing herself to her own feelings of loss for her parents, but she focused her mind on John and the girls, taking strength from the love she shared with them. Eventually, the intensity of the emotional storm subsided, and Alyssa managed to stand strong, buffeted but not bowed by Nkkrrit's tremendous outpouring of grief. Staring out across the Vulkat Queen's mindscape, she studied the webbed clutches of immaculate orange eggs, which lay everywhere in neat well-tended clusters. Every time she focused on a nest, the eggs cracked and dried out, withering away to dust and ash.

"Let me help you!" Alyssa called out, turning her face up to the swirling sky. "I want to learn about your people... I'm here to listen to your story!"

There was a long shuddering sigh and the mourning winds abated, a spirit-form projection of Nkkrrit appearing before the blonde. The Vulkat Queen had been a renowned beauty in her heyday, her black carapace glistening under what was now a tranquil sky, the orange bands around her body vibrantly bright as they caught her eye. Skittering closer, Nkkrrit held herself with composure... but Alyssa could feel the internal struggle, the Vulkat Queen yearning to rage at the universe for what was taken from her.

"What happened to you?" Alyssa prompted gently.

Those eight black eyes all snapped to Alyssa's face; sharp and alert, they revealed a potent intelligence behind the arachnid's frightening stare. Nkkrrit conveyed her meaning with emotions rather than specific words, each filled with a terrible yearning for days long-since passed. The images and feelings swept over Alyssa, pulling her into the remembrance.

***

Alyssa stumbled a step then looked around in awe as she got her balance. She stood amidst a city of towering spires, a place of beauty and artistry, with delicate sculptures lining the wide boulevards. It appeared to be market day of some kind, with all sorts of aliens bartering and trading under the bright warm sun. There was a sense of harmony amongst the strange-looking aliens she saw there, none of whom she recognised.

Bliss, happiness, contentment...

Nkkrrit emerged from one of the nearby dwellings, her home on the planet Uxturo, a smaller Vulkat appeared beside her -- Ixxttranao, her mate. They nuzzled affectionately, while dozens of spiderlings capered playfully around their legs before the lovers parted for their day. Her first brood... so good, pure, and innocent, their childish games an endless source of amusement to the mated pair. The parents shared such fond hopes and dreams for their young, each of the babies brimming with potential, so bright and keen to learn.

***

The sudden shift in scene threw Alyssa off-balance again and as she struggled to stay on her feet, she gaped at the rapid shift in memories. The city burned all around her... what had been exquisitely beautiful now lay ruined, left blackened and scorched by the invaders. Vulkat and off-worlders alike attempting to flee from pitiless killers, the burning dead piled high in the streets. Two-legged females in their black armour scoured the city, hunting and killing without provocation. Nkkrrit ran through the chaos, desperate to be reunited with her family.

Horror, grief, loss...

Nkkrrit found Ixxttranao blown to pieces, limbs still glowing from the dozen laser bolts that had brutally dismembered him. He'd died trying to protect her family, but no matter how valiant his sacrifice, it had been in vain. Nkkrrit found her first brood gunned down without mercy and her heart threatened to break into a million pieces.

***

Alyssa was expecting the next shift in scenes, so she was better prepared this time. The disorientation passed quickly and she looked around, trying to get her bearings.

Determination, loyalty, revenge...

Nkkrrit boarding the 'Dream of Salvation', the vessel that was built to fight a war the Vulkat had been ill-prepared for. It was the vessel that was to become her eternal tomb...

Now settled into her new home, Nkkrrit prepared herself to do her duty to defend the Vulkat Empire against the merciless invaders. She still carried Ixxttranao's essence within her body and used it to grow more clutches of spiderlings... all the while trying to fill the void in her heart by letting her lost mate live on through her children. Those children became adults, adults became crew, the crew fought and died, which meant yet more sharp daggers of grief to tear at her shredded soul.

***

The scene swirled and moved on yet again...

The Vulkat fleet assembled and was sent to the borders, to defend against the invaders and their sleek black ships. Images of terrible battles assaulted Alyssa's mind, full of flashing beams of energy tearing Vulkat ships to pieces, the hulls not strong enough to withstand their hateful caress. All that ferocious fighting led to horrific losses, the Vulkat losing a dozen ships for every invader vessel. While each of the enemy's losses were tremendously satisfying, stoking the fires of revenge, they proved to be little more than pyrrhic victories. There was a brief lull in fighting, giving hope that the attackers had relented; but those hopes were soon dashed...