Isle of Dreams:

Awakening

Darkness.

Soft, quiet darkness. There is a strange welcomeness to it. No strains, no pulsating pain, no hard surfaces, no jabbing edges poking where they don’t belong.

A pressure on his shoulder, trying to draw him from the peace.

Go away.

A loud bang forces him out of the world of unconsciousness, though not fully to waking. The blurry image of a blue-eyed, dirty-blond-haired woman slowly coalesces in his blurry vision. She’s shaking him, trying to get his attention.

“Jeff! C’mon, get up.” She looks at something behind her. “Damn it, I didn’t even finish repairing the cerebral contusions.”

“What?!” Jeff tries to get onto his elbows so he can leverage himself up, and he can hear the moaning of wounded around him.

Another BAM punctures the chokingly tense atmosphere, though this time he detects the trace of metal screeching through metal and Jeff shoots up to sitting and sees a narrow puncture in the door before his vision blurs. He clutches his head and struggles to keep from passing out again. His neck feels stiff. Wait a moment, there’s something wrapped around his . . . A neck brace?

A plate of metal hits the floor with a clunk. The woman grabs him and pulls him off the table, shouting, “Come on!”

Jeff can’t get his wobbly legs underneath him fast enough and crumples, his head pounding. The room starts to swim around him and his vision blurs again. At least the neck brace keeps his head from bouncing around anywhere.

As the woman helps him up, he asks, “What happened?”

“The Tos-Loven broke through the pressure door on deck nineteen, but at least we still have the lifts locked on deck one.” The woman continues pulling him to a crawlspace, the panel once hiding it now discarded to the side. “C’mon, hurry! Before they break through!”

Jeff glances back, two soldiers prepare positions behind a table overturned for cover, one setting up a heavy machine gun. Another bang sounds as the Tos-Loven strike the door again, something like a flattened, giant needle piercing through the door just beside the midway break. It holds for a moment this time, and there is a groan of protesting metal as it tries to force the doors to slide open. The machine gun roars to life briefly and there is an insectile screech before the needle-blade suddenly withdraws and the doors slam back closed.

“Jefferson!” He jumps slightly, he forgot she was there. What was he doing here? “I’m sorry I couldn’t finish treating you, but hurry or it’ll be permanent.” She motions at the entrance to the crawlspace.

He kneels down and enters the small utility access tunnel, making fair progress for not being able to tilt his head properly forward, but he hesitates when he runs into a T-intersection almost immediately.

The woman behind him, presumably a doctor, teases, “Problem in the jeftun?”

This time he can’t keep squelched the “Huh?” that slips off his tongue.

Her expression becomes serious and she asks with slight incredulity, “You don’t even remember that? You’re so good at getting through these crawl-spaces – fast – that we named ‘em after you. Left.”

Gunfire erupts again from the sickbay behind. Strangely enough, the sound of the rifle is so . . . familiar, like his own breathing.

The burst of sound seems to have the opposite effect on the woman. She curses as she looks over her shoulder, then looks at the non-moving Jeff and shouts, “Go! Hurry!”

Jeff turns his attention back to the front and speeds up, feeling a strange anxiety wash over him. The machine gun bursts alive again, then the bursts pause and break into solid fire, and the rifle’s bursts lengthen. Up ahead, a locked plate “door” panel lies right in his face. Pushing on it doesn’t make it budge.

“Open the latch! Stop wasting time!” The woman’s voice is clearly panicked now.

Still, Jeff is lost in a strange place with everything going mad around him. “I don’t know where . . . !” He cuts himself off when he sees a small latch hidden against the corner of the inside. It clicks back and the plate falls forward. He hears two rifles whine as they charge active before the plate hits the floor.

Jefferson slowly crawls out and stands up, his hands up, silently cursing the neck brace that won’t let him look up. Two armed people, blond and black-haired, wearing a uniform like his, point rifles at the disturbance of his entrance. The two soldiers recognize him and sigh in relief before he gets halfway up. The rifles whine down when the safeties click back on and the blond one speaks as he helps the injured man out of the crawlspace, “Damn Jeff, it’s good to see you. Looks like you brought doctor Sarah safe and sound.”

The standing doctor snorts in a very unladylike manner. “More like I brought him. I just gave him counter-sedatives, he hasn’t received treatment for his concussion.”

“I thought the nanomites were supposed to go after the most serious wounds first.”

Sarah makes a motion like she can’t decide whether to hold her head or wave the dark-haired soldier off. “We ran out of the reprogrammed stuff just before he came in. At least he . . .” She turns to Jeff. “Is your nose runny or does it feel like a fluid is running down the back of your throat?”

He looks at her suspiciously for a minute. “. . . No.”

“See? I stopped the spinal fluid leak.”

Now Jeff explodes. “I was leaking cerebral – spinal fluid?!” A slight wave of dizziness washes through him and Jeff leans against the wall, pressing one hand over his head in a vain effort to stop the pounding. Nausea churns in his stomach and he thinks he’s about to fall. “Will somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?!”

The blond soldier looks at Sarah asks, “You didn’t give him a sitrep?”

“Tos-Loven were breaking into sickbay! I had more pressing concerns than giving him a briefing.”

Now Jefferson’s worn patience breaks and he snaps, “All right, doc, that’s the second time you’ve mentioned ‘Tos-Loven’ without explaining what it is.”

The sandy-blond-haired soldier doing most of the talking shoots a critical look at Sarah. “. . . It? Doc—”

“He had a level four concussion and I barely had the chance to close the surface damage. It’s no surprise that he’s got widespread memory loss.”

“I’m still here!” Jeff bellows, then suddenly feels very tired and has to lean against the wall to keep upright.

The blond soldier explains, “The Tos-Loven are an insectile race, obsessed with merging living and machine. The inside of their ships are freaky.” He pauses and looks Jeff straight in the eye, not getting the eye contact back. “You don’t remember anything?”

Now the eye contact is returned, fire burning behind Jeff’s. “No, I don’t. I wouldn’t be so confused if I did.”

The blond-haired soldier gives a long, loud exhale. “Okay . . . well, most of the Tos-Loven you see are base drones . . .” Jeff’s expression turns into a clear glare, and the soldier elaborates, “Think of giant ants, with metal slapped on here and there.”

Jeff calms a little now that he’s actually getting a little information. “Okay, so that’s what they look like. Why are they here?”

The three soldiers and Sarah exchange glances, and Sarah snaps bitterly, “To kill us all, what else?”

The blond soldier sighs. “This used to be Tos-Loven territory. Up until we started colonizing this space, they were the only ones in this arm of the Milky Way. They’re trying to take over the galaxy, and we’re in their way.”

A tremor passes through the ship, accompanied by the sound of groaning metal. A shaky voice emanates from the crawlspace, “That can’t be good.”

All four occupants of the room look at the source of the new voice, another soldier coming through the cramped access tunnel. He looks up at the others and sets his rifle against the wall as he gets out of the crawlspace and picks up the panel.

“Where’s Forde?”

The new soldier answers as he locks the panel back to the wall, “He . . . didn’t make it.” He grabs his rifle and stands up. “C’mon, we need to get up to deck eighteen.”

The black-haired soldier clambers up the rungs in the wall and opens a square hatch to the next deck. As the blond climbs up, he asks, “So, what else do you need to know?”

Jefferson takes the rungs in his hands, pausing at a disturbing familiarity with the metal against his calloused palms, but no memory other than the ease and sense of familiarity comes to him as he shoots up to the next deck. “Uhh . . . well, we’re fighting these ‘Tos-Loven’,” The amnesiac man steps onto the floor and takes in his surroundings as he continues, “so I guess I need . . . heeeyaaahhh!” Jeff whips out into a defensive pose at the sight of what appears to be a giant lizard.

The others chuckle and the blond soldier smiles widely as he states, “Well, that was a unique cry of surprise.”

The giant lizard turns up his nose and looks towards, but not precisely at, the blond-haired soldier. “Would you explain why your crewman is greeting an ally with hostile provocation?”

The blond sends a look of venom back. “As soon as I see an ally.”

The lizard rears up on its hind legs, still about a foot short of eye level, and its wide transparent inner-eyelids blink. Never losing a shred of haughtiness, it replies, “You are renouncing—?”

“Gentlemen, stop it!” Sarah breathes hard as she physically steps in between the soldier and giant, talking lizard. “We’re being boarded by a Tos-Loven Shrin’ga, we have more important things to do than petty, ego-inflating bickering.”

Jeff almost hugs her, she actually came straight out and said something clear! “Now that made more sense than anything else I’ve heard today.” The giant lizard drops back to all fours and he looks at it. “You’re not a bug, so I’m guessing you’re not Tos-Loven?”

The lizard looks at the blond and snidely snaps, “If this is your standard level of training, then it is no wonder why your ‘brotherhood’ has lost so many against Tos-Lena.”

The soldier looks about ready to shoot the lizard and explodes, “Don’t you ever speak disdainfully of the dead in the Campaign of Light!”

The giant lizard is about to say something at the blond when he notices that Jeff is openly gawking. “Why are you staring at me, Terran?”

Jefferson tries for a half second to look innocent before he sees that the lizard isn’t buying it. “What . . . are you?”

The overgrown lizard turns up its nose. “I am of the noble race of Halpa. To be specific, I am one of the elite Snairab.”

Jeff hesitates, but then decides that with the rate things have been going, if he doesn’t ask now, nobody’s going to tell him. “Do you all speak English?”

The lizard – Halpe – scoffs. “I am one of the region relation officers, knowing your grating language is a requirement of my job.”

By now, Jefferson is fed up and almost ready to strangle the arrogant reptile. “Is it a general characteristic of your race to be condescending to everyone you meet?”

“Only to outsiders.”

The Halpan drops back to all fours and the black-haired soldier steps over his tail, pausing as he briefly considers stepping on it. Instead, he passes the condescending creature and opens the door. “Come on, guys. Let’s go.”

The Halpan speeds off at a remarkably quick pace, his thin tail bobbing back and forth until he rounds a corner out of sight.

The Terrans exit the small utility junction room at a lazy walk and Jeff taps the blond soldier’s shoulder. “Are they all that unpleasant?”

The blond sighs. “He probably doesn’t mean it. Halpan are a xenophobic race, thousands of years ago their home planet was destroyed by some alien species, and they’ve never trusted an outsider since. The problem here is that we need each other. Nobody can hold off the Tos-Loven alone. Heck, as it is it’s taking the combined strength of four races to hold them off – granted, the Kle’tak are still recovering from the first Galactic War.”

The blond opens his mouth to continue, but Jeff interrupts him, knowing that he’s about to skip over a few possibly important things like ‘Galactic War’. “Ho, Kle’tak?”

The blond groans softly and looks up at the ceiling. “This is gonna be a long day.”