Title: Space Madness
Featuring: Tyler Rayne
Date: ReV 250
Location: The Final Frontier

There was nothing subtle about the manner in which Tyler Rayne regained consciousness. This was not a sliding scale that ticked in increments from deep slumber to groggy recognition up to full cognizance. Not the type of slow, Sunday morning awakening that followed a tequila blackout Saturday night. Nothing about the way he came to resembled any sort of human experience. This was the creation of the universe. A bottomless void in which nothing existed. A blackness in which he himself did not even realize he existed. Perhaps he did not. There was the abyss. He was neither part of it nor separate from it. He was not a thing that could be categorized at such a base level. There was just the vast, blank space. The canvas of emptiness.

A flash of white.

The extreme white faded to an intense brightness. His eyes burned. His brain screamed at the intrusion. He scrambled to think of a word to describe the brightness that assaulted him. He felt tendrils reaching through his mind for something that did not exist. There was no word for this. No context in which to process something as wondrous and blinding. He took a step backward, aware of his feet for the first time. His legs wobbled. The muscles were unfamiliar with the concept of walking. The heel of his boot stubbed against the hard metal floor and he stumbled. Fell. Instinct took hold. His arm reached for something to brace against the fall. He understood that he had arms and that the limbs served a purpose, but he could not remember what that purpose was. He felt the digits at the end of his arm moving. Grasping. Fingers. He had fingers. His hand grabbed something firm and cold. It slowed his descent but could not stop it. His back slammed into the same cold and firm surface. Flat. Unforgiving. He breathed in sharply. His lungs burned from the invasion of oxygen. He knew the word but it had no meaning. It was just a random thought with no point or anchor to cement it. His chest heaved beneath thick cloth. A shirt? A tunic? The cloth was dark and it rose with each labored breath. He stared into it. He could not discern its purpose. He could not remember having worn a shirt before. Yes. Shirt. That was it. He had no recollection of wearing…

The beach. He had not been wearing a shirt on the beach. Sand. Sun. There had been something in the sand. He stubbed his toe.

His heel. He had tripped over his heel and fell backward into this… wall. Words and ideas and recognition flashed through Tyler’s mind as quick as his synapses could fire. Forty years worth of knowledge in forty seconds. He could feel a vein on his forehead pulsing. He drew in huge gulps of breath as fast as he could. He felt exhausted from the cerebral barrage. He remembered, though. The pain was worth it to remember. To know. To exist.

“I think I’m going to hurl.”

The voice was strained and tired. No doubt suffering from the same sort of exhausted rebirth Tyler was attempting to recover from. He looked to the source of the voice at his left. The figure was hunched over in what appeared to be a failed attempt at crawling. Hands on elbows planted firmly on the metal deck grating. The figure heaved in breaths much larger than Tyler’s. He wore a dark purple coat of some material that Tyler had never seen before. The figure raised his head from the deck and looked up at Tyler from beneath a brown pilot’s helmet. Tyler’s hands clenched into a fist. He felt his temperature rise at least ten degrees.

“Mills.”

The name came out in a growl. What followed was nothing short of a roar as Tyler jumped to his feet. Boots pounded against the metal grates in two quick steps. He bent and snatched the crumpled figure by the shoulders of his jacket and threw him against the bulkhead.

“I’ll fucking kill you, you little shit.”

Matt Mills slammed against the smooth metal bulkhead with such force that he immediately fell to a knee. The air had been knocked from his lungs. He attempted to take a breath, but found himself thrown yet again against another wall. His head snapped back against thick glass. Fortunately the pilot’s helmet served as protection against concussion. Mills drew in a single breath before a fierce and powerful forearm smashed his windpipe. He could feel himself lifted off the ground just a few inches. The toes of his knee-high boots dangled above the ground.

“The fuck did you do to us?!”

He couldn’t have answered the question if he wanted to. Part of him did. Part of him was terrified at what Tyler Rayne would do if he did not answer. Another part of him… a larger part of him, was terrified of what he might do if Tyler let him go. This was not the first time Matt Mills had been in this position, with an arm against his throat. It wasn’t even the first time the arm belonged to Tyler. It could, though, be the last. Men like Tyler Rayne were always pushing him around. Violent savages with no more intelligence than our evolutionary predecessors. The kind of brutes that communicated in grunts and beat women with clubs to drag back to their caves. These men had been pushing and shoving all his life. Mills had never done anything to deserve this treatment. He certainly had done nothing intentional to cause whatever had happened there on the beach. It wasn’t his house or his stupid fucking crystal or even his blood. All of that belonged to Tyler. Mills was just a scapegoat. He was small and meek and easy to blame. Well he was tired of taking the blame. Tired of being the scapegoat. Very fucking sick and tired.

“Tyler.”

These situations resolved themselves the same way each time. Mills would get shoved into a wall. The forearm or knife or more creative threat of violence would be shoved up against his jugular. He would struggle to answer a simple question or squeak out a quiet plea. His efforts would be in vain. A voice from behind would call out for him. A voice of reason that calmed the aggressor and removed the imminent threat. This time was no different. The soft and pleading voice that cooed from behind. There was concern in her voice. A hint of fear. She was confused. Her voice began to rise near the end of his name, almost transforming it into a question. Mills could feel the pressure on his esophagus lessen for a moment. Tyler could have let him go. He could have backed away and turned his attention to consoling the woman. To finding a solution to their problem. He could also ignore Angelica Brooks completely and focus his energy on the pointless task of threatening Matt Mills.

“Whatever you did to us, I swear to Hoyt, I will end�"”

“TYLER!”

Some women refused to be ignored. The scream was an effective mixture of frustration and hysteria. It had the depth and force of something furious. The kind of authoritative boom that commands attention. It was also a shrill and high-pitched cry that no longer attempted to hide the edge on which she dangled. The two syllables alternated between taking control and losing it so fast that he had no choice but to take notice. He could not ignore that kind of distress.

Mills had been in this situation often enough to brace himself. The pressure was released without warning. The strength and ferocity that had held him against the cold metal wall had turned to compassion. It had turned from him and left him hanging inches above the ground with no support. So he fell. Prepared, though, Mills had his feet ready to absorb the slight impact. He would not add to his embarrassment by tumbling to the floor like a buffoon.

Tyler Rayne turned to speak with Angelica Brooks, but found quite quickly that he had no words prepared for what he saw. Everything had been so… intense when he awoke that he had not been able to absorb all of the information properly. There had been no intellectual process. He’d gone into a mad rage the moment he recognized Mills and… that was it. He realized now that the itch in the back of his skull was the careful stitching of details as his mind attempted to process the surroundings. The cool metal walls. The grate flooring. The unusual clothing. The sheer volume of quiet that surrounded them. His senses had noticed all of this and a dozen other things. His mind attempted to place these pieces into some semblance of a realistic picture. Nothing added up. Now, staring through a window the size of most apartment walls into the vastness of space, Tyler had no choice but to accept that there was not a realistic picture to be assembled.

“Holy shit.”

Space. As in outer fucking space. The final gods damned fucking frontier. None of it made a lick of sense. He just stood there and stared, unable to come up with more than the two words. The three of them stood in a viewing room of some sort. It was huge. There was a fully stocked bar on the back wall, not far from where Tyler had been threatening Mills, though at a glance he could not recognize any of the bottles or brands on the shelves. A couple of tables and one long bench all oriented toward facing the window through which Tyler now stared. Angelica was sitting on the edge of the bench, leaning forward with her hands over her mouth. If she knew she had gotten his attention, she did not show it. He stepped forward. It was more walking toward the window than her, but he was aware of her presence in his peripheral vision and put a reassuring hand on her shoulder when he stepped up beside her. Angelica’s hand reached up to meet his.

“Where the hell are we?”

The answer was obvious and expansive. The viewing window looked out on an endless black. The twinkle of distant stars added both light and some slight movement to the otherwise intimidating nonexistence of the dark canvas.

“Space, sugar bear. What’s it look like?”

Katterina Wylde sauntered down the hall with a confidence that Tyler certainly did not share. She wore a tight black catsuit of the same leatherish material as his coat. Thigh-high boots pinned at the top with holster straps that firmly secured two firearms to her side. From what bits of the stock and grip he could see, the guns did not resemble anything he would recognize. She wore another holster strapped across the back and around her arms, with two much smaller and easier to conceal weapons resting next to her breasts. Katterina smiled as she approached. This is when Tyler noticed that her lips looked a little thinner. Her mouth, in general, smaller. Her teeth much sharper. She brushed her dark hair back with a gloved hand to reveal cheekbones that sat noticeably higher than normal. Her eyes were as black as the expanse of space outside the window. While this was not entirely unusual for her, it appeared to be a much more permanent infliction than normal.

“Like the new look, Ty?”

“It’s… different.”

“I feel stronger. Like… I dunno. Powerful. I can feel it tingling beneath my skin. Plus, I still have a smokin’ fucking body. I could get used to it.”

Just like that, he was back. Seeing Katterina, even this weird slightly alien version of Katterina, was enough to bring him back around. The two of them had been in some weird shit before. This was no different.

OK. It was very fucking different. But the principle was the same.

“Might have to. I’m assuming this isn’t a joke.”

He jerked a thumb toward the window. Katterina shook her head.

“I checked a couple of the other rooms. We have sleeping quarters at the end of the hall. There’s a kitchen beyond that. Small operating room on our side of the quarters. There’s a hatch that drops down into a cargo bay down there, too. And what I’m assuming is a hall that leads to the cockpit just around the corner. Haven’t checked it out yet.”

“So spaceship.”

“Spaceship.”

“And you two are just OK with this?”

Angelica Brooks rose to her feet. She turned and pointed at them. This was ridiculous.

“You fell on the book, didn’t you?”

The question caught her off guard. She struggled to think of what book he might be referring to. Or why it would matter at a time like this. A book certainly wasn’t going to do them much good in the situation now. Angelica closed her eyes. Her head was spinning. None of this made sense. The book. There was a book. The one with the… She looked up at Tyler. He nodded toward the window. Katterina was suspiciously quiet given her rather upbeat attitude a minute ago. Angelica turned toward the expanse once again. She could see her reflection in the thick glass. She looked like herself. Moreso than Katterina, at any rate. No. There was something off. The clothes she, of course, did not recognize. Khaki pants and jacket over a black tunic. Boots and gloves of the same brown color and material as Tyler’s jacket. Perhaps they all shopped at the same futuristic leather store. More than that, though. Angelica moved forward, closer to the reflection. She leaned in to start at herself. At the strange mark on her forehead. The eye. That horrible eye from the cover of that book was now emblazoned on her forehead. It looked like a brand. She now noticed that it burned a little, too.

“What the… Oh. Oh God. What the fuck is… what happened to me?”

Angelica stumbled backward. She wanted to reach up and feel the hideous scar on her forehead. She could not bring herself to touch the damned thing. She almost fell. Tyler caught her and held her steady. No. Angelica felt the hair brush against her face. Not Tyler. Katterina.

“It’s OK. You’ll be fine. We just need to figure out what happened. Then Ty and I can undo it and get us all back to normal.”

Angelica could do nothing more but nod. She was too stunned to manage more than that. So she did not try. She listened quietly as Tyler and Katterina attempted a solution.

“I always wanted to be Han Solo.”

Perhaps solution was the wrong word.

“Well I’m not overly fond of being your Chewbacca. Even if I do make a sexy fucking Chewbacca.”

“You do. OK. What the fuck. We were at the beach house and Mills… shoved me?”

“Where is that little prick, anyway?”

Tyler turned back to the wall where he’d left Mills, but the man was not there. In fact, Tyler did not see him anywhere. From Katterina’s description, the ship did not seem small. Plenty of places for Mills to go. Or hide. Regardless, though, he would not be leaving the ship. Tyler shrugged and returned to the conversation.

“The crystal. I fell and cut my hand on the crystal.”

“So the crystal teleported us to space?”

“Something like that. Best I got. You have any idea what the fuck that thing was?”

“No. I told you. I just grabbed a bunch of shit from The Fallen and ran. I figured most of it was bullshit. For every legitimate mystical object those assholes had, there were like ten fake pieces of shit Ezra bought in Tibet or Bangkok from some creepy little fuck with a strange tale and a cheap price.”

“Well this one fucking worked.”

“Yes. I noticed that.”

“The Shandarla Shard.”

Angelica did not know how she knew the name of the crystal. She just did. Tyler and Katterina both looked at her. No. Not her. The brand on her forehead.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Bloody hell. I know that name. Shandarla. She was a goddess. You know, supposedly. Goddess of vengeance and wrath… but personal. Like blood feuds, I guess. It’s weird to explain.”

“Try.”

“There was a cult in Belfast back in… ’98? I had a friend who called me in about some murders out in some of the outlying villages. Her sister lived out there and she was afraid something would happen to her. It had all been kept quiet, but an unusual number of women had been found murdered within this like two or three month span. So we start digging around. We found a cult. The Sisters of Shandarla. Wacky bitches, obviously, but they believed that everyone on the planet has a nemesis. It’s like a soul mate, but someone you hate.”

“Like you and Devin.”

“Yeah. Like that. Bitches believed that all of us were tethered to this other soul. This person we were destined to despise. The Sisters believed that those who killed their Nemesis were given the power of that person. Their essence or soul or whatever. The goddess Shandarla blessed the victor of this eternal conflict with the power of their fallen nemesis. Seemed like bullshit at the time. Fucking women just went around and hacked up anyone they’d ever fought with. There was nothing mystical about it. Seemed like another bullshit cult at the time, but…”

“But?”

“Well I don’t fucking know. How many Shandarla’s can there be, though? It’s gotta be something.”

“He’s right.”

Angelica turned from the two of them in an attempt to hide the pain. She could feel tendrils reaching through the darker places of her mind. Knowledge she had never intended to possess shoved into the cracks and crevices of her brain when she’d fallen on that book. It was… uncomfortable, accessing the information. But she could feel it in there. The nagging feeling that she knew something but could not remember. So she attempted to remember. And attempting to remember something she had never actually known, but suddenly knew, caused a fair amount of discomfort. Tyler would have been too concerned with that to see the bigger picture. They needed to know. So she turned away and hid the mild contortion in her face as she pressed into darker and unknown corners.

“The shard… it… fuses with a, um… a… Seeker, by a blood sacrifice.”

Tyler closed his fist in reflex to that last bit. The crystal shard had cut straight through his palm. So that’s what started all this. Blood sacrifice.

“Wait. Fused?”

“Yes. Like… me and the book.”

Tyler rushed to pull the glove off his hand. He stared down at his palm. The wound remained wide open, though he felt no pain. The purple crystal rested right inside his palm, shining out from under the wound. Even the skin on the back of his hand glowed a faint purplish hue.

“Mother fuck.”

“The blood is a tribute. It proves that the Seeker is willing to sacrifice to Shandarla to gain the powers of his enemies. It proves he is willing to do whatever it takes to seize that power. The shard is a portal and a vessel. It transports the Seeker to another realm.”

“Realm?”

“Yeah. Ugh. Um… dimension, maybe? This is… I can’t find all of it. Each realm is an incomplete duplicate of the other. The same life force. The same spirits. But the realms… evolve along their own lines. The gods do not interfere in the course a realm will take. The Seeker is taken to another realm where he replaces the spirit of his… Other.”

“This is getting weird. Even for me.”

“No shit. OK. So Mills cut me and the blood opened this fucking portal to another realm. Dimension. An alternate timeline or universe or some shit. Right?”

“I think so. Yes. Maybe.”

“And I assume by proximity you all got sucked along with me. So we come to this dimension and possess the body of our alternate dimension selves. I’m guessing that’s the Other.”

“Sure. Um… uck. Sorry. Yes. I can’t translate exactly, but that seems… that feels right.”

“Shiny. So how the fuck do we get out of here?”

“The Sisters were right. If you kill your Nemesis, you inherit their power.”

“Like Highlander.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Way before your time, kid.”

“The shard opens a portal to different… realms so that you can kill your Nemesis and take their power.”

“So there are alternate realities with alternate versions of all of us. And I can go into any of them and kill my Nemesis to gain his power? So for every reality I enter…”

“No wonder Jakob was such a tough piece of shit.”

“OK. No problem. All I gotta do is find my Nemesis and kill him.”

“We’re in the middle of fucking space. He could be anywhere.”

“No. The shard brings the Seeker within reach. Shakur has to be close.”

Tyler and Katterina exchanged a quick, but doubtful, glance. Not quick enough. Angelica noticed and went on the defensive.

“He’s here. Or… somewhere. He has to be.”

Another look between the two.

“He’ll be here. In the meantime, we need a plan. Anyone know how to fly this fucking thing?”

“You should. We absorb some of the memories and knowledge of our Other.”

“Yeah. C’mon, Ty. How did you not know that? Dipshit.”

“I will drop your ass out a fucking airlock like a gods damned xenomorph.”

“You don’t have the power loader to try.”

“I… really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Wild Rain.”

“What?”

“The name of the ship. We named our ship Wild Rain.”

“Of course you did.”

“He’s right. We did. I… remember it. This is fucking weird.”

“OK. So if we bought this ship, we can fly it. Just need to remember how. B, go see if you can find Mills and the both of you get ready to GTFO. Katt and I are gonna figure out how to remember to fly a spaceship.”

“We’re also going to figure out how to open a bottle of space tequila.”

“Also that.”

“But I want some space tequ�"”

“Nope. You’re our prophet. Gotta keep your head clear so you can remember all the mystical bullshit for us.”

“I really hate that fucking book.”

“Mills. Please.”

“Fine.”

Angelica grew sullen, but marched down the hall nonetheless. Tyler turned back to Katterina, but the Dark Angel (Alien?) was three-quarters of the way to the bar. He sighed and followed.

“So this is a right fucking mess.”

“Why you think I’m going straight to the booze?”

If there was anything the two of them knew, it was alcohol. Also sex and violence. But booze, too. There was no bar, no matter how futuristic or foreign, that Katterina could not master. She threw down two shot glasses that hovered just above the bar and poured out a blue liquid. The alcohol fizzled and smoked when it touched the glass. She smiled.

“So Uni and I got approved.”

Katterina choked on her shot. A little lead-in would have been nice for that one.

“You’re shitting.”

“No. That’s why I asked everyone to come over. Was gonna tell you all at once.”

“Jesus, Ty.”

“Uh huh.”

“So when’s… um… when’s it official? Or whatever? Do they just, like, put the kids in a basket on your doorstep?”

“Something like that. Couple weeks, I think. The preliminary papers are through. So we can do it. Now we just have to… find ones we like.”

“I hope you don’t talk to Lindsay like this. It makes it sound very weird.”

“She said the same thing.”

Katterina pushed the shot forward.

“Celebration drink.”

He chuckled. The two tapped their glasses and swallowed their drinks. Strong. Definite burn. Slight peppermint aftertaste. Also… blueberries.

“Thanks. We should, uh… get this thing moving.”

She nodded an agreement. Tyler left t he bar first, marching straight toward where she had suggested the cockpit might be. Katterina followed. She brought the bottle with her.

“You remember why we’re out here?”

“I remember running from something. That’s about it. Something… black.”

“The Black Tide.”

“You think it’s him?”

“Who else would it be? You know how he is. Loves to make me suffer.”

“So he’s probably looking for us right now.”

“Yep.”

“We have a plan?”

“Nope.”

“So same sitch as always.”

“About that. Yeah.”

“Nice to know that even in an alternate reality, things never change.”

The cockpit was exactly where Katterina had thought it would be. There was a surprising sense of familiarity when the two of them walked in. They went right to the appropriate seats and started flipping switches and dials. Katterina’s fingers blazed across the command console to bring up a holographic chart of some sort. She put her hand up to the chart and began swiping through readouts. Tyler continued to push buttons and turn dials and do other sorts of things that looked like he might actually know how to fly a spaceship.

“The worm drive is overheated. No permanent damage, but we’ll have to change out the core before we can make a jump.”

“OK. Assuming I can remember how to do that, sounds easy enough.”

“We’ve got an extra core�"”

“In the cargo hold.”

Tyler pushed himself out of the seat and moved to exit the cockpit just as Angelica Brooks was entering.

“I can’t find him anywhere.”

“Whatever. It’s not like he could go far. I gotta make some repairs. Sit tight here with Katt and we’ll be up and running in no time.”

Alarm klaxons began to sound throughout the cockpit. Katterina was quick to shut the sirens off, but the flashing red lights persisted. Tyler was about to ask what was happening, but the view from the cockpit gave a very clear impression of the situation. A large ship had just appeared on the far end of space. Well, the space they could see. It had to have been a battle cruiser of some sort. At least ten times the size of Wild Rain. It loomed over a quarter of the open space they could see from the cockpit. The battle ship lumbered forward as smaller ships dropped out of lightspeed behind it. A half dozen medium-sized frigates (making them about five times that of the Wild Rain) and another three or four small freighters (about the same size as their ship). The three of them stared at the flotilla in disbelief.

“I think we’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“That, my dear, is The Black Tide.”

“Oh. Well… of course. That explains everything.”

“You said the shard dropped us close to my Nemesis. There he is.”

“I really, really fucking hate being your friend sometimes.”

“Me too.”

“Yeah. It sucks. So… out of curiosity, B, what exactly happens if we die here?”

“I, um… I don’t know. Is that… is that a thing we’re concerned about?”

“You did look out that window, right? You really think any of us are going to survive this?”

“I might.”

Katterina was flashing through displays and readouts to bring up some sort of map that would give them an idea of what was going on. The Wild Rain represented the focal point of the expanding cone. There was a purple cone that extended out from there representing the ship’s offensive range. The giganamous battleship and the navy of doom stopped about a freighter’s width outside of range. The three of them looked out and watched as thousands of silhouettes poured from the ships like a flood and raced straight for the Wild Rain. Katterina was at the controls again. Missiles launched and laser turrets pounded from the front of the ship.

“This is a stationary turret, Ty. I doubt they’re just going to fly straight into it. We need a fucking plan. Now.”

“What the hell are those things?”

A secondary holo display appeared with the scanner results of the hostiles. Not ships. Creatures. The silhouette appeared humanoid but also bat-like. Powerful arms and legs with barrel chests and large wings that extended out from their backs. Each of them appeared to be carrying a laser cannon of some short. Most of them were firing at the ship right now.

“Gods damn Annihilus wave. We need shields.”

“We need a plan!”

“Oh sweet baby Jesus…”

“B, relax. We have turrets. Do you know how to use them?”

“I… I don’t know… I can’t…”


“DO! YOU! KNOW! HOW! TO USE THEM!”

“Ye… yes? Yes.”

“Then get to them and blast any of those Annihilus lookin’ fuckers out of space before they tear us apart.”

“But… I…”

“GO! NOW!”

Angelica took another second to look back at the ships. She could see nothing but the flapping wings of the aliens. That was motivation enough for her to run like hell toward those guns.

“Plot us a course. I don’t care where the fuck we’re going but we need to go somewhere. I’ll fix the worm drive and then we’re the hell out of here.”

“We don’t have a lot of time, Ty.”

“There’s an intercom in the engine room. Soon as that drive’s fixed, I’ll give you a call. You hit that button soon as you hear my voice. And get us turned away from those ships. These gods damned freaks shouldn’t be a problem but we’re not about to jump through a dreadnaught into hyperspace.”

“Ty, if something…”

“It won’t. You know a few maneuvers. You can lose them.”

“Sure. Just list lazily to the left.”

“Now you’re talkin’.”

He sure as fucked hoped those wouldn’t be his last words to her. The ship was jostling with the impact of a thousand handheld cannons. The shields would hold for awhile, but not long enough to get out without that drive fixed. He hustled over down the hall to the hatch that Katt had mentioned earlier. Without thinking, he jumped right down the hatch and into the cargo hold. The drop was a little farther than he had anticipated. Tyler rolled his ankle when he hit the cargo deck. He choked back a squeal of pain and forced himself to push forward. He limped as fast as he could over to a secured locker in the corner. He punched in Lindsay Troy’s birthday on the holographic keypad and the locker opened. Without even bothering to take inventory of the other stock, Tyler grabbed a spare coolant core and reeled around… right into the barrel of a high-powered laser pistol.

“Mills.”

“I want off this thing.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Look. I don’t care what fucking game you guys are playin’, OK? It’s not funny anymore. I just wanna get off this stupid thing and go home. I don’t care about your jokes. I don’t care about your games. I just want the fuck outta here. I just wanna go home, Rayne.”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to do, man. Just let me pass and…”

“NO! You fucking get me of this thing right FUCKING NOW! I am tired of you assholes pushin’ me around and picking on me like I’m some kind of�"”

The ship rocked to the left from a rather concentrated impact.

“Really not the time for this, Mills.”

“I. Want. Off.”

“I get that this is hard to believe, but we’re really in fucking space here. This is like some sort of alternate dimension or some shit. I really just need to get over to that room there and replace this here coolant core on the�"”

“SHUT UP! JUST… shut up. This can’t be fucking real. OK? OK?! We can’t just magically fucking be in space, you fucking cock bag. Just… just let me off, man. I just want to leave. Let me go home.”

“I’m trying.”

“BULLSHIT!”

“Oh fuck this shit.”

Tyler jumped forward, leaning toward the left and out of the barrel’s firing range. Which was a great idea because, no shit, Matt Mills pulled the trigger on that sidearm and loosened a red laser right where Tyler’s head had been. Tyler couldn’t move so well with the sprained ankle, which he had forgotten about until just now. So he fell straight to the floor. As he did so, he smashed the coolant core into the side of Matt’s knee. Mills crumpled to the ground, dropping his weapon. He scrambled toward Tyler, but a punch to the side of the head with that core made short work of the interviewer.

“Sorry, Mills. I really, really am, man.”

Tyler pushed himself up through sheer force of will, gritting his teeth through the pain and agony racing up from his ankle. The hobbled as fast as he could to the engine room. The worm drive was in the back corner. Tyler’s leg gave out just over the threshold, and he fell face first to the floor. The core slipped out of his hands and spun across the engine room floor. It stopped right at the corner of the drive. Convenient. Tyler used some of the machinery in the room to pull himself vertical again. The ship was blasted to the right this time and he tumbled toward the wall. Away from the worm drive.

“Fucking hell. C’mon, Katt.”

“RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!”

That certainly did not sound good. Matt Mills was through the door and on top of Tyler before the latter could even turn to face. Mills tackled him at full speed. Tyler tumbled back, his shoulder slamming into the wall. He collapsed to the ground with Mills on top of him. Mills unleashed a fury of punches down on Tyler from the mount position. This was, in any dimension, a first.

“I. WANT. OUT. OF. HERE.”

Each word was a brutal fist to the cranium. The punches were wild and uncontrolled. One on the forehead. One behind the ear. One just below the temple. Mills was just swinging. Not as effective as it could be, but with the adrenaline and anger fueling him, he still had Tyler Rayne seeing stars. Rayne was losing it. One moment he could see Mills, the next was all black. He couldn’t remember why he felt like shit until the next punch landed. Concentrate. Tyler forced himself to concentrate. The attack seemed wild, but each punch was measured. Pull back. Pause. Release. There was a slight arc to his punch that added a little time between the release and the contact. Tyler took three more blows to the head while he measured. The fourth never landed. Tyler’s palm flashed upward, slamming into Matt’s nose with bone crushing force. Literal bone crushing force. The explosion of blood from the broken nose was immediate. Mills stumbled backward, scrambling for an escape. Tyler pulled himself back to his feet. Mills was standing, too. Once again with that laser pistol in his hand. Tyler grabbed the pistol with his left hand. Mills fired again. The laser tore through Tyler’s jacket. Both of them smelled burned flesh. Tyler yanked the pistol forward. And Mills with it. A half step to the side and a quick maneuver gave Tyler the advantage. He stood for a second with Mills in a front face lock. Mills tried to push against Tyler’s chest. His arm. Anything to get free. But Tyler had a firm grip. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and kicked Mills in the same knee he’d injured earlier. Mills dropped as Tyler pulled upward. A much louder cracking than just the nose echoed in the small engine room. For a moment, Tyler held the limp body in the front face lock. He whispered a small apology to Mills and then let the body fall to the floor. Tyler stumbled over to the worm drive and pulled out the old coolant core. He shoved the new one into place and reached up for the intercom.

“Get us the fuck outta here.”

The ship lurched forward. The force was so great that Tyler was thrown right out the engine room door. The walls of the cargo bay began to blur. The world went black…
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