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Episode 53: The Aquarius Gate
"They've destroyed the shield unit." Haini reported to Frakken. "They managed to get to the satellite and rig it to explode. Once it was gone, the subspace field hiding the inactive gate collapsed."
"So they know it's there." Frakken said thoughtfully, more to himself than to Haini, then he looked at his second in command and said, "Converge on their position, but tell all ships to remain in subspace. We'll just watch them for now."
"Aye, Captain." Haini relayed the message to the rest of the fleet then looked back at Frakken. "So what's the plan? We gonna wait and see if they can figure out that old gate? Will they even know what it is?"
"I don't know." Wolf replied, "But as soon as we underestimate them, we'll regret it. We've already seen what they can do with a little ingenuity and some luck. They've come this far on it. What's to stop them from making it all the way to Gamilon?"
"The General's forces aren't a thing to be trifled with, Frakken." Haini chided, "I'm sure he'll stop them if it comes to that."
Wolf stared off into a dark corner of the bridge. "I hope it doesn't come to that. Balan is the last line of defense we have against them. If they get through that…"
"If they get through that, then the Ze'evim will hunt them down and stop them." Haini said emphatically. "Besides all we have to worry about right now is sneaking that Iscandarian princess off of the Eratite ship."
"Ha!" Frakken scoffed, "You think this will be easy, do you? Haini, these Eratites have come through assault after assault. Why do you think it will be easy to take someone – who is likely well-guarded – right out from under their noses?"
"Because we can do it when they're not watching." Haini offered, his tone turning clandestine.
Frakken looked at the man strangely. "They already have no way of seeing us."
"They won't be able to see our ships." Haini corrected, "But if we board that ship while nothing's going on, we're sure to be seen."
"You mean we should wait until something else happens that will force the crew to focus their attention elsewhere." Wolf replied, understanding the other man's point.
"Uh huh." Haini nodded, "And just like that, we'll have our princess. I guarantee you."
"Have all ships stay on high alert. We're warping to the inactive gate." Frakken said, a glint of anticipation on his eyes. He could almost smell the coming hunt. It would be a refreshing change to be the one out on the front lines stalking the enemy again. It had been much too long since he'd been able to do that.
"Warp preparations complete." One of the officers announced.
Frakken nodded to the crewman, then ordered, "All ships, warp."
"Hey, watch it!" Derek exclaimed as Nova bumped into him. "Just because there's zero gravity out here doesn't mean you can crash into everything."
Nova sighed into the suit's mic. "I've never used the motion controls on one of these things, okay."
"Wildstar, give me some light over here." Sandor called the younger man over to where he was.
The three had been assigned to go out and investigate the gate floating just beyond the wreckage of the destroyed satellite. Wildstar hadn't particularly relished the thought of going, but when Nova volunteered for this mission three days ago, just after he and Sandor returned from the satellite, he changed his mind.
Now they were all tethered to a scout ship, situated several yards from a curious pod. The thing was floating several hundred yards off to the side of the gate's center, probably so that it wouldn't be sucked into the gate when it was open and active. Around the pod strange metallic designs snaked into space, circling the thing, then shooting out to attach to the main diamond anchor surrounding the entire gate.
"Alright. Coming." Derek called to the science officer before shooting over to the other man and holding his head so that his suit's lamp was shining directly on some kind of control panel mounted on the outside of the floating pod.
"What is this thing?" Nova asked, finally making it over to the two men.
"I think it's the power control center." Sandor said. "It's just a theory, but, do you see how the surface has a pattern on it?"
"Oh, yeah! It looks like a circuit board." Derek exclaimed.
"Right." Sandor nodded, turning his concentration back to what he was doing. "There." He finally said, adjusting something on the control panel that Derek couldn't identify.
The front of the pod disappeared.
"Whoa! Hey, you sure this thing is safe?" Derek asked when Sandor detached his tether and floated right into the new opening.
"No." Sandor replied over the comm, "But we won't know anything about it if we sit outside."
Nova, now also tetherless, bumped Derek again as she floated past him into the pod, following Sandor.
Derek groaned and undid his own connection to their ship, "Great, another dark, alien building – satellite – whatever."
"Keep up." Nova called back to him.
"Coming." He replied, just as reluctant to lose his crewmates as he was to enter the pod. He floated just outside the opening for another three seconds before taking a deep breath and sending his suit slowly flying into the pod's entrance.
It was dark inside. Derek looked one way, then the other, trying to see what was around him.
He was just about to turn his headlamp's brightness up when light exploded around him. It was so bright that his helmet turned black for five seconds before fading away again.
Just as quickly as it had come, the light was gone.
Derek's vision adjusted enough to see into the dim darkness and he turned to look at the door they'd opened. To his horror, the opening was gone, replaced by a solid wall.
"Uh… guys…" Derek said, "I think we're locked in here."
"Nonsense, Wildstar." Sandor replied, "There's another control panel on the inside of the door. I saw it coming in."
"Oh…" Derek replied, then looked to the left of where the door should have been. There was the control panel, just like Sandor said. "Great, I'm starting to sound like Royster." He chided himself before continuing onward, trying to catch up to Nova and Sandor.
As he went he looked at everything he passed. The walls were grey and pocketed, laced everywhere with threadlike brilliant blue strands. It was like walking through one of the bioluminescent caves back on earth.
"Wildstar, there's a launchpad up ahead. Miss Forrester and I are waiting for you there." Sandor's voice crackled over the radio.
"Roger that." Derek replied and pushed his suit to go just a little faster as he realized how far behind he'd fallen.
Soon he landed right beside Nova.
"Sandor, what're you doing?" Derek asked, a bit alarmed when he saw the science officer rummaging inside an old Gamilon fighter sitting nearby.
"This could be useful." Sandor said simply, standing up in the small plane's cockpit and looking back down at the two younger crewmen. "It needs some work, so we'll have to tow it out later." With that, the XO exited the old plane and joined Derek and Nova once again.
Derek looked up ahead and saw an ominously dark open doorway looming before them.
He steeled himself and followed Sandor as the other man started towards the strange door.
Derek waited and waited for some kind of alarm to go off, or a sentry to appear and open fire on them. But nothing happened.
A few minutes later they came to a fork in the path they'd been following. The low light made it hard for any of them to tell if there were markings beside or above any of the five openings, so all of them turned up their headlamps just long enough to see that none of the doors were marked in any way.
Derek rolled his eyes, and huffed his irritation into the comm. "Why can't we catch a break just once?"
"I think we just did." Nova replied, pointing to something lying just inside one of the doors.
"What is that?" Derek asked, pointing his headlamp at whatever it was. "Wait, that looks like one of the guards from the satellite Sandor disabled."
"It does indeed." The XO agreed, coming over to look at Nova's find. "It looks like it's been offline for some time though. Hopefully any other sentries the Gamilons left will be in the same condition."
"But if they went to all the trouble of hiding this gate, why would they let their guards fall into disrepair?" Nova asked.
"Don't know." Derek said, "Don't care. Let's just get in here, fix this thing – if we can – and get back out."
"As much as I disagree with that attitude," Sandor put in, "I do agree that we must press on – and quickly. If another sentry is here, they may appear without warning. Turn off your lamps. From here on, we go by whatever light is already available. And don't do anything that would make more sound than necessary."
Nova nodded quickly in response, her encounter with the monster-cats on Bemera still fresh in her mind.
Derek reluctantly agreed to keep his light off. He hated trekking through the dark. He wasn't afraid of it, but he wasn't thrilled at the possibility of walking blindly through a den of vipers either.
"This way." Sandor said, stepping over the downed sentry.
Sandor was followed by Nova, and Derek took up the rear, looking over his shoulder every few minutes to make sure nothing was following them. He had the oddest feeling that someone was watching them. Every step he took he could feel the hair on the back of his beck standing up and electricity running down his back. No matter how many times he checked behind them, he couldn't shake the feeling and it made him quite nervous.
"Captain, the video feed from our operative inside the gate control center is live." The officer informed the captain of the dark ship.
"Put it on screen." The captain ordered.
"Yes, Sir." Came the reply.
Immediately the video started streaming on main bridge screen.
The captain looked up, watching as three Eratites stepped over the remains of what was recently a perfectly functional robot guard. He'd ordered his operative to take down any sentries inside the control center to make way for the Eratites to get through unhindered. Thus far, it looked like the operative had done his job.
The Captain watched closely as the Eratites traveled through corridor after corridor, following a trail of broken metal bodies until they came to the core of the control center.
One of the Eratites – it looked to be the oldest of the three – stopped the group and started forward on his own. The Eratite – man or woman, the Captain couldn't tell from this distance – leaned down and examined the panel that would allow access into the center's core area.
"Tell him to get closer." The captain ordered his second in command.
The man did as his captain said and told the operative to move closer to the Eratites.
"What was that?" Derek asked, catching a bit of movement just out of the corner of his eye.
"What was what?" Nova asked, her gaze fixed on Sandor and what he was doing.
"You didn't see that shadow move over there?" Wildstar pointed to something on the other side of the corridor.
"No." Nova replied, "It was probably just a trick of the light. There isn't much in here to see by after all."
"Miss Forrester, your lamp, please." Sandor motioned for Nova to come.
The young woman obeyed and walked over to the science officer, shedding light on the panel he was working on.
A moment later, the door before them hissed open.
"We're in." Sandor announced before heading through the now-open door, Nova right behind him.
Derek shot another glance over to where he'd seen the flicker of movement, then followed Sandor and Nova.
This new room was small in comparison to some of the areas they'd passed through to get here. There was a narrow bridge over what looked like a shallow pool of water. At the other end of the bridge an alien-looking interface jutted up out of the floor.
Wildstar followed his crewmates up to the strange thing and watched as Sandor and Nova both started examining it.
Sandor plugged his handheld into the interface.
"This is exactly what we were looking for." Sandor said. "It tells me everything I need to know."
He touched interface screen several times, examined his handheld and looked back at Derek. "I think I know how to get this gate back online."
"'Back'? I thought it was broken." Derek said.
"No, not broken, just dormant apparently." Sandor replied, looking back down at the alien interface. "It needs to be restarted. According to the logs, this gate has been offline for over two hundred years."
"This has been out here for two hundred years?!" Derek exclaimed. "Who made it?"
"I don't know, Wildstar." Sandor replied, "But I've copied the gate's entire log history. We'll look into it when we get back to the ship." Sandor tapped something into his handheld. "I'm about to restart the system."
Derek nodded, and looked around warily, not sure what to expect.
Sandor triggered the reboot command.
A strange-sounding A.I. made some sort of announcement.
"What'd it say, Sandor?" Derek asked.
"It said there's going to be a neutron emission in ten seconds." Sandor replied, motioning for the two crewmen to follow him. "We need to leave. Quickly. A neutron blast will kill us."
Derek and Nova moved to follow, but just as Sandor reached the door, it slammed shut, trapping them all inside.
"Warning. Reboot protocol activated. Neutron venting imminent. Please use the designated – "
Static replaced the video feed onboard the dark ship and the Captain let out a loud curse. "Get the feed back!" He ordered.
"We can't sir, too much interference from the gate reboot." An officer replied.
The captain cursed again, his eyes fixed on the grey snow covering the video panel.
Episode 54: Afraid of the Dark
Derek felt something grab onto his arm and drag him off the walkway. He struggled, flinging his free arm at whatever had him.
He lost his footing, and the grip on his arm suddenly disappeared.
Everything spun around him. Then he hit something. Water?
The murky liquid enveloped him.
"Sandor? Nova?" Derek tried raising his crewmates on the comm.
No one answered.
"Guys?!" He tried again. When no one answered his second call, cold fear started oozing over him. Everything was dark and cloudy. The lack of light in the chamber above – or was it below – him did nothing to help him see farther than a few inches in front of his helmet's face.
Derek looked around frantically, trying to see something other than blue-black, hazy water.
He turned on his head lamp, but all that accomplished was blinding him while his eyes tried to adjust to the sudden brightness. The lamp did nothing to cut through the murk around him, so he turned it back off.
The dread rising in his gut threatened to turn to all-out panic as he tried to figure out which way was up.
He turned his helmet every way he could. Finally, he saw something that he thought might be the light of the control panel above them on the walkway he'd fallen off of.
He tried to head that direction, but he felt the sharp tug of something wound around his ankle. It pulled him down, holding him under the water. He kicked and kicked, trying to free himself, but no matter how hard he pulled against whatever had him, he couldn't get away.
He tried to reorient himself so he could see what was holding onto his leg, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get a good look at it.
"Hey!" he called out through the comm, "I'm stuck down here. Where are you two?"
Still no response came.
If he couldn't get ahold of Sandor or Nova… they wouldn't know he was down here. And what had happened when the reboot cycle started up? Were Nova and Sandor okay out there with that neutron blast?
"You two had better be alive." He thought, trying to take his mind off of his own predicament and failing.
Derek kicked at his captor again, but still couldn't escape its grasp. "Alright, fine!" he exclaimed, fed up with being stuck in this dark pool. He reached into his holster and pulled out his astro-automatic. Pointing it down into the water, he let fly a volley of bolts near where he knew his suited foot was.
Just then the com burst back to life with an exclamation of "Something's shooting at me!"
"Sandor?" Derek asked, recognizing the voice. "Are you holding onto my leg?"
"Yes, Wildstar!" the science officer replied, "Now put up your gun before you hit me."
"Why are you holding me under?"
"Neutrons don't travel well through water. We need to stay down here until the reboot is finished." Sandor replied.
"How long with that be?"
"The computer said the reboot would take about five minutes. It's been four." The science officer replied.
"Where's Nova?" Derek asked, suddenly very aware of her absence on the comm. "Nova?" he called out to her, the dread he'd felt before now rolling back over him again. "Where are you?"
"Oh…" a low moan came over the comm. "Ouch… I think I hit my head on the side of my helmet…"
Derek breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Nova's voice.
"Hey, you okay?" he asked the woman.
"Yeah. Just kinda – oh I'm going to have a headache by the time we get back to the ship." She replied, then asked, "What's my foot stuck on? I can't swim back up to the walkway."
"I have you." Sandor said, "It's the only way for all of us to stay underwater until the reboot's done."
"I don't understand." Nova replied.
"She doesn't know." Derek thought, then to Sandor he said, "You want to tell her?"
"I'll explain later, Miss Forrester. But I'll need both of your help to get back up to the walkway. The reboot cycle is almost over. Another twenty seconds should do it. Then we can go back up and see if it worked."
Derek silently counted to twenty. Just as he got to "nineteen" a brilliant flash of white light exploded above him, lighting up even the murky water. His helmet visor went black for a full five-count before fading again.
"Did you see that?" Derek asked, pointing up towards where the flash had come from even though he knew that neither of his companions could see him pointing.
"Who didn't?" Nova asked. "You think it's safe to go back up, Sandor?"
"Should be." The XO replied, "I'm letting go of the railing I'm attached to down here. Both of you should be able to swim back up to the surface now. Hopefully the two of you combined can pull me back out."
"But why –" Nova began.
"You'll understand soon enough, Miss Forrester." Sandor interrupted.
Without another word Derek and Nova did their best to pull Sandor with them back up to the walkway.
Once the two surfaced, they reached down and pulled Sandor up too.
"You're heavier than you look." Nova grunted as she helped Derek pull the science officer up out of the water and onto the walkway.
"I'm sure." Sandor replied wryly.
"Whew! Glad that's over." Derek said once they were all safely standing on firm ground again. "Did restarting this thing work?"
"We won't know for sure until we get back outside. If it worked, it should be abundantly clear." Sandor replied, "Now to get this door back open." He stepped up to the door that had barred their exit just before the reboot cycle started.
The science officer tapped a few things into a control panel and the door opened again, allowing them to leave.
Sandor, water still dripping off of his EVA suit, led the way out, followed by Nova, then Derek. Just before Wildstar stepped out of the small control room something caught his eye. A glint of metal sparkled a few feet away.
"What's that?" He stepped towards whatever it was.
There, on the ground lay a small silver disc.
Derek reached out and picked it up. He was just about to examine the object when he noticed Sandor and Nova hadn't stopped to wait for him. Deciding he would look at it later, he stuffed the disc into a pocket on his suit without looking at it too much.
"Status!" the captain of the dark ship bellowed to his men. "Get that video feed back now!"
"Yes, sir." The communications officer replied, trying in vain to raise the operative they'd sent into the gate control center. He tried and tried, but no matter what he did, he couldn't get anything on the screen. He couldn't connect to anything the operative was carrying or wearing.
Whatever the man had run into, it had fried all of his communications equipment, and probably everything else he had with him.
The officer looked down at his station as a new set of data appeared.
"Captain…" he said.
"What is it? Why can't we raise him?"
"Sensors are showing extremely high levels of neutron activity."
"Your point?" the captain asked, annoyed.
"Sir, nothing could have survived that high of a concentration of neutrons for that long. Our operative…" the officer paused, not sure how to say what he had to. Then he forged on, "Our operative most likely did not survive."
"Are the Eratites still alive?" the Captain asked.
"They disappeared off the sensors for a while, Sir, but they've reappeared again." Another officer replied.
The Captain's eyes narrowed. "Keep a watch on them. Make sure they make it back to their ship."
An alarm screeched, ripping into the moment and sending several crewmen's hands flying to cover their offended ears.
"Report!" the Captain barked.
"Sir, warp signatures nearby – at least a dozen of them." The radar officer replied.
"Identify!" the Captain ordered.
"They're –" the radar officer started to say, then stopped, confused, "They're gone." The alarm quieted instantly.
"This is troubling." the Captain hissed to his second-in-command. "We don't need any more setbacks than we've already had."
"Of course, Captain." The XO replied, "I'll have men assigned to investigate this anomaly."
"No." the Captain stopped the executive officer, "Send no one out there." The Captain's eyes narrowed again as he looked out into the void stretching out all around his ship. "I may know what this is…"
"What, Captain?" the XO asked, voice low.
"Something more dangerous than we bargained for." The Captain replied, "Something that, once loosed, won't stop the hunt for anything…"
The XO looked at the Captain in horror and whispered, "Wolves…"
"Yes." The Captain hissed, "Get us out of here. The Eratite ship will have to fend for herself this time. I value my vengeance, but I value my life more."
"Yes, Sir."
"That's really something." Derek breathed, looking out the cockpit window at the magnificent sight now laid out before them all. "So that's what these gates are supposed to look like."
"I don't like this." Nova said, sounding a bit nervous. "Something's off about it."
"I agree." Sandor said, "It's like…" his voice trailed off.
"It's like the engine room…" Nova whispered, and, had she not been talking into the comm system, neither Sandor nor Wildstar would have heard her.
Neither man answered. Derek thought it better not to say anything, so he turned the plane around and flew it back to the ship.
"Captain, I don't know what we've found, but… I can't say I'm comfortable using it now. There's something very wrong about this gate." Sandor sat across from Avatar in the captain's cabin.
Avatar nodded slowly. "I understand." He looked out at the gate looming before the ship. "I sense it too…" the old man looked away from the gate, now glowing with blue-white light. The black hole in the center of the gate gave both men a feeling of unease every time they looked at it. "But…" he began, looking at his XO, "What other options do we have?"
Sandor nodded, even more slowly than Avatar had, "I know. Starsha's map takes us straight through here. If only we could ask her about this gate. Perhaps she would know more about it."
"But we don't have that luxury." Avatar said soberly. "We have to decide if this is a risk worth taking. And if it is, then how are we to go about it?"
Sandor thought for a moment, then an idea came to him. "Captain, I'll go through it first."
"No." Avatar said simply. "Your limbs need repair."
Sandor grimaced as his left leg suddenly went limp, then stiffened, followed by his left arm doing the same thing. "I can repair the shorts in my leg and arm, Captain. After that, I can go."
"I said, no." the captain repeated. "I can't have you out there in this condition. Someone else can go."
"Who would you suggest?" Sandor grudgingly accepted his fate.
"Our combat chief should do." Avatar replied.
"But Wildstar's been out with me for hours already. This will be too much for him, Captain. He hasn't slept in two days."
"And you haven't slept in four." The captain replied, giving his younger friend a pointed look.
The science officer looked at the floor, avoiding the captain's eyes. "True…" he mumbled. "But it was… necessary."
"And it's necessary now for you to stay here onboard ship. Wildstar can take care of himself. He's made that abundantly clear." Avatar said.
"Yes… Captain. I just –" Sandor stopped, casting a glance over at the foreboding gate.
"What is it, my friend?"
"I just don't want him to get into something he's not equipped to get out of." Sandor replied quietly.
Avatar nodded, "I know. That's why Miss Forrester is going with him."
Sandor sighed in relief, "Good. Very good."
"You ready back there?" Derek called back to Nova who was just getting strapped into the back of the plane.
"Ready." She replied.
Derek did yet another quick pre-flight check, then got his confirmation to take off.
The plane followed its autopilot as it sailed out of the hangar bay then switched to manual piloting once it cleared the Argo.
"Here goes nothing." Derek said, pointing the plane towards the gigantic glowing spectre hanging in space before them.
"How do we know we'll be able to get through the gate at all?" Nova asked hesitantly.
"Sandor says it's open. He got some kind of signal from the other side of this crazy thing." Derek replied. "We'll be there soon. You ready to do this?"
Nova swallowed hard. The closer they came to the gate, the more uneasy she became. The feeling of dread that rose in her when the crew had been in comas came back.
"Get us through, God. Please, get us through." She prayed, then took a deep breath and answered Wildstar, "Yeah. Let's go."
Derek pushed the plane onward, zooming towards the black maw that opened wide to receive them into the gate. Just before they hit the threshold, Nova heard something odd. She had never heard a voice like this before. It wasn't like the voices she'd heard in the engine room when those dark spirits had taken it over.
No, this voice was something entirely different. It was like the sounding of a horn, full and clear – like a blue sky after summer rain.
"A land of darkness, as darkness itself;" the voice began.
Nova stared out at the gate whose event horizon drew ever closer.
"and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." The voice continued.
Nova didn't know what to think - this wonderful voice telling her such dreary things. Then it continued.
"He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to the light the shadow of death. He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light."
With those words, Nova felt her courage return. She remembered that dark day when she and her crewmates had faced down that demon horde, and now she would go through this gate. There was something horrible on the other side of it – she could sense that much, but whatever it was, God would bring them to the other side. That she knew with a certainty.
Nova squeezed her eyes shut.
They hit the event horizon.
"What're they doing?" Haini asked, watching the video feed from the sensors on a small screen he held out for Frakken to see too.
"Testing the gate it looks like." Wolf replied soberly.
"Well, you were right about not underestimating them." Haini said, "They got this old gate up and running in a few hours. We couldn't have done much better ourselves."
"But how did they get past the posted guards?" Frakken asked, lowering his voice so that only Haini could hear him. "Something isn't right."
"Warp signature to port." The radar operator said, pulling Frakken and Haini back into the moment.
"Identify." Frakken ordered.
"Unknown, Sir." The crewman replied. "No known class of vessel matches these readings. It could just be a sensor echo off of one of our own late arrivals."
"Let's hope that's all it is." Frakken muttered. "What was its vector?"
"Out towards Eratite space, Captain." The crewman replied.
Frakken eyes narrowed, "Keep a watch for it again. Whatever it was, it had better not interfere with our efforts."
"Aye, Sir." Came the reply.
Frakken turned back to Haini and continued in a low voice, "Something else is out there. I can almost smell it."
"Ah, the Wolf of Subspace has caught a trail." Haini joked.
"But it isn't a trail we can follow right now." Frakken growled, a cold dread tugging at his mind. "If the Eratite ship goes through the gate, we have to follow them, no matter what else may be out here."
"Of course, Frakken." Haini replied, "You seem to have grown more suspicious since the Usurper was dethroned."
"Who can help but be suspicious? I've seen what happens when people forget to be wary. The price…" Frakken's voice trailed off as he remembered all the lives lost during the war against the Usurper, "The price is too high."
"Well, we're all with you, Frakken. Every man on this ship – and the others – would follow you through Gehenna itself if you asked them to."
"I know." Frakken said. "I just hope their trust is not misplaced."
The instant the plane crossed over the threshold of the gate, Derek knew something was wrong. His cockpit was instantly crawling with snakes of all shapes and sizes. He fought the urge to scream and stomp on the things. Everywhere he looked, there were scales and forked tongues slipping in and out of snake mouths.
He shuddered and closed his eyes so tightly that he saw white streaks. A second later he opened them again.
The snakes were gone.
He sighed in relief.
"I've gotta get more sleep when we get back." He thought, "Now I'm seeing things." He rubbed his tired eyes wearily. "You good back there?" he called back to Nova.
"I'm fine." She replied thinly. "You?"
"Just ready to be done with this." He replied, "Maybe it won't take long to get to the other s –"
"It is time." A foul voice wrapped around Derek's mind, interrupting him and whispering words of the most gruesome deaths Wildstar had ever heard of. Then it hissed, "You are here in my domain, man. It is time you learned what the host of darkness can do."
Derek's eyes widened and he looked around frantically for the source of the voice, his conversation with Nova completely forgotten.
"Derek, what's wrong?" Nova asked.
Wildstar tried to answer her, but just when he opened his mouth to speak a hideous face appeared right in front of him. Gnarled hands reached up and took him by the helmet. "No one can save you this time, foolish one. This time, you are mine."
Fingers, old and withered, reached up to touch his forehead. They passed through his helmet. The instant they touched his skin, Derek felt like his face was on fire.
Half an instant later, Nova was deafened by a tortured scream.