The Last Encounter

Trying to beat Collin in 3D chess was like trying to stop a large fire from burning your house down using a high-pressure fan to blow it out. It was just guaranteed failure.

Vanin watched as Collin decimated his defenses in the next of five moves. He'd walked right into Collin's trap leaving his king on the third tier which offered no chance of victory. Vanin had originally hoped he could hold off long enough to advance, but it just boxed his pieces into a corner allowing Collin to close the trap before making the killing blow.

"I hate you..." Vanin cursed. He didn't need to see the next two moves to know it was checkmate. 3D chess was difficult as Hell and Collin was a damned genius at it.

"Wah wah. Too bad.” Collin chortled, “How will you learn anything if you don't lose, right?" He flashed that pearly grin of his showing no signs of remorse.

"Honestly. You should sell your sarcastic wisdom as a way to encourage people to commit suicide. I doubt you'd lose any sleep over it." Vanin didn't disguise his indignation very well.

Collin laughed loudly, "You are so pissy. Shit. Just because you’re terrible at this doesn’t mean you give up. Gotta have more than one plan to beat me."

"You know, I wouldn't need to practice this shit if we weren't forced to monitor an E-Class anomaly for weeks on end. Thanks to you again, by the way."

"You whine a lot for a scientist. You know that?" Collin chuckled.

Vanin smirked despite himself. The holo-image of the game board that had hovered in the air now shimmered out of existence showing the cockpit controls again. On the illuminated surfaces he could see a never-ending stream of sensory data was being accumulated in real time. Several miles beyond the ship an undefinable warp in gravity was shifting invisibly and chaotically. The phenomena had gotten everyone at Terran Science Division stirred up which had forced Vanin and his fellow crewmen to study it for an extended period.

Eight months of floating in the inky darkness of space hadn't been easy even with the fair comforts they were afforded onboard. Being stuck with the same people inside a cramped starship for such a long time could make a person go crazy. In fact, Vanin must have gone just a little nuts given he couldn't stand Collin at first. Now though? The guy was starting to grow on him.

Collin was unusually smart. He'd always be showing off his talents, flashing a smile, and kept his perfect blonde hair trimmed and shaped. Even worse than that, he had those blue eyes that melted women to the floor in a single glance.

What a prick. He had everything.

The main console suddenly lit with an incoming transmission. The origin was Earth Comm with a link coming straight from Blacktable Aeronautics.

"Open the channel," Vanin ordered. An acknowledgment of the voice command printed on the terminal as the link connected.

"Vanin here."

The once transparent glass peering into space ahead illuminated to show a man that Vanin had only met once. The project manager was always in a suit and in his older years giving him a grandfatherly appearance. He was known for his shark-like mentality which gave his dark eyes a sense of power. This time though, he had a concerned expression that made Vanin hesitate in his thinking.

"Vanin, emergency orders. Rendezvous at coordinates—age—anger..." The message became scrambled with the image flickering in wild disarray. A data file showed up shortly thereafter with coordinates to a rendezvous point, but there was no way to verify them. The data looked corrupted.

"Repeat last, you're breaking up sir." Collin requested coolly. Silence was all that was left as the visual was lost.

Vanin engaged his terminal to find out what went wrong.

"Collin, there's something wrong. The comm-assembly is not operational and the data we got is garbage. You should head to--" A soft thump in the seat next to Vanin made him look over his shoulder.

Collin's body was slack with mouth open wide and eyes looking at the ceiling. His pupils were the size of pinheads in what looked like pure horror. Vanin felt adrenaline surge through him just as the amber alarm sounded in the compartment followed by an intruder alert protocol.

Vanin was trapped in that split second of time staring at his crewmate in disbelief. He couldn't even tell if Collin was even breathing.

"Collin?" Vanin's voice trembled. No answer was forthcoming. Collin remained catatonic with terror locked into his face.

"EVACUATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE. ABANDON SHIP. REPEAT. EVACUATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE."

The ships verbal warning shook Vanin out of his stupor making him explode out from his seat dashing for the cockpit door. It slid open with lazy ease making the urgency of fear double. The corridor leading out was well lit and had strobing yellow guide lights showing the way to safety. At a full run, Vanin caught sight of Elizabeth laying on the deck awkwardly just before taking the first corner. She had drool coming out of her panicked mouth with eyes locked just like Collin. Vanin couldn't bear to stop so he just kept running.

The entire deck was littered with crewmen in awkward lumps along the way. They'd been heading to the escape pods and had just collapsed in terrified heaps. The doomed vision of his friends and crew created a torrent of horror and grief that forced a mournful sound out of his chest as he pushed his muscles to their limit running even harder.

Vanin had to get off this fucking ship.

At last, he came to the escape pods and he could see the pressure doors were already open.

"There!!" He shouted, unable to contain his desperation. Blood was pumping so loudly in his ears he may as well have been standing in a hurricane.

He vaulted into the first pod without hesitation slamming into the single seat within. The doors closed in behind him as he sat panting from exertion. The safety straps snapped themselves together on their own letting him activate the terminals on the inside of the pod door. Status of the pod and relevant data matrix populated the primary display as overlay powered up.

The breach protocol notification appeared on the screen and Vanin felt the engines engage.

The docking clamps were preparing to release when Vanin noticed a shadow appear on the corridor camera on display. The angle of the footage provided a crisp visual. Vanin felt himself seize completely seeing the inhuman creature approach the closed pod.

With unnerving grace, it peered into the pod's small view window. The sloped head twitched seeing Vanin rigid in his seat lifting his gaze from the screen below. Narrow dark glossy eyes were absorbing everything they saw. Its short angular snout had two slits for nostrils that flared in an unmistakable predatory fashion. It was excited to find prey and Vanin knew it. The fine pattern of scales covering it was mottled black and dark forest green similar to a snake. It placed a hand on the outer airlock doors as if to test it.

A sudden pressure started to build in Vanin's chest like he was being crushed. An alien voice like the digital reverberation of a growl crashed through is mind accosting his every thought at incredible speed. Darkness started to take over when the thrusters burst alive sending the pod free from the moorings. Breath came back into his lungs in hard rasping gasps and his vision refocused allowing him to read the status of the pod again.

STEALTH ENGAGED...

The alien creature that had been assaulting him shrank rapidly into the distance becoming indistinguishable.

After several moments the pod began to tumble lazily causing the stars to move outside the view window. Vanin caught sight the alien ship before long. Its size dwarfed long range frigate he'd abandoned by a large margin and had a chitinous outer hull that was unlike anything he'd ever seen. From its side, three powerful corona's of light burst in a tight sequence.

"Oh shit…" Vanin didn't have to guess what it was.

An alarm sounded at the same time his screen flashed red.

WEAPONS FIRE!

All Vanin could do was scream in crazed terror as destruction hurtled toward him.