the space between times

A lateral jump out of the Hive fleet was out of the question, and we knew it. Not with a hellgate that large and so close. We could have easily emerged on the wrong side. At the absolute worst, we could have caught on the portal boundary and ripped it wider in our wake.

Koen was right. A forward jump was our only chance. And now this entire clockwork ship is sailing through the torrents of time. Somehow, Koen knew our powers combined could make this happen. I have retrofitted myself to the ship's helm like a living masthead. For all intents and purposes, this ship is now a TARDIS, with myself as its core. Koen's alchemy is shielding us from the energies swirling around us, and he is using the Time Window technology our vampiric captain pioneered to navigate us to a city outside the Age of Steam.

I can hear Aleister cursing at Koen for shredding his carpet in shrill squeaks while he nails copper plates over the holes the Hive ripped out of the hull. He is clinging to underside of the ship in his giant bat form, wings stretched over the hull for support while while he hammers away with digigrade claws.

I have never stopped to admire the beauty of the vastness of hypertime while tesseracting alone. Certainly not when Nova and I were holding onto each other for...

Of course! I'm activating a homing beacon to the frequency only my sister Qli-2 shared. She vanished without a trace during the Pogrom. She must have escaped to hypertime.

Qli-2? Sister? Are you there? Did you find a safe place? Did you find your way back to your homeline as Nova? We have regrouped. Things are not the same. But we are strong again.

We would miss you for the trials ahead. Follow this beacon to our ship if you can. Or meet us in Seraph City. Or just give a sign you still exist.

Qli...Qlippothic Prime signing off. Message set to repeat.

the swarm

I could have dispatched the wasp-creatures myself, but the steering mechanism for the Bloodwing's Revenge was so dilapidated that I linked my nervous system directly into the ship to handle the navigation entirely by myself. If I disengaged, the hundreds of gears connected to chart our course would spin out of control. It would take me weeks to recalibrate while floating helplessly at the cloud level.

"YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL AIRSHIP TREATIES! DISEMBARK IMMEDIATELY!", I thundered in my most authoritative tone. I am not sure that they understood human speech, but the amplification of my warning and the glare of my arc-light only served to anger them. They advanced towards me, their wings droning menacingly as they drew their revolvers.

"QLIPPOTHIC! LIGHTS OFF!", shouted Aleister from below deck. I complied, shutting my cranial aperture and surrendering the deck to the absolute darkness of night inside thick enveloping clouds. Perhaps it would be better if I did not see my own demise and and that of the rest of the crew.

I glimpsed the pale blue sparks of enchanted rapiers slicing between an invader's segments. Aleister's fanged scowl hovered in my optic sensors between the split seconds that the cloak of the cloud's total darkness again descended upon the deck. A panicked shot from a wasp-revolver deflected off my shoulder harmlessly.

He seemed to be everywhere at once. There were so many flashes of light that the battle unfolded like a flipping roll of pictures inside a penny-arcade booth. Aleister was soon surrounded by dozen of the wasps, each lunging and slicing the air with four arms clutching straight blades in their talons as long and as sharp as the stingers glistening with venom that curled forward from their abdomens.

"GET OFF MY SHIP!"

In rapid succession the wasp blades - and the chitinous arms clutching them - fell clattering to the deck. Severed sheets of gauzy wings caught their last fight in the airship's wake and vanished. The drones of the wasps with their abdomens slashed open were louder and even more unsettling as they spent in a last series of bitter clicks choking from their bloody mandibles.

Aleister flipped up the shield on a gas lantern built into the deck. He surveyed the carnage of a score of the beasts mangled and twitching in pieces, oozing black liquid across the boards. The vampire examined the tarry substance stretching across his off-hand sword, flaring his nostrils in mild disgust.

"Zis...zis ist ichor. Zey are from der untervurld."

A brass periscope bounced upwards from behind the speaking horn that arched over the ship's wheel. I spun my head forwards again in alarm to see the slitted cornea of Koen's red eye staring back at me through the fishbowl-shaped lens. The universal joint craned past me down at the corpses, and judging from the erratic turns of the lens, Koen was twitching excitedly.

"Their equipment is uniform and customized to their species", I noted as I looked down at a wasp revolver from where it skidded to rest by my ankle. It was little more than a hexagonical puzzle-tube of steel, obviously mass-produced by a race fixated on utility and with no concept of a comfortable grip, since it was of course perfectly designed an exoskeletal claw. "Decidedly not a hodgepdge of human pirates' tools."

"Und zey reek of sulphur...just arrived...zere ist a Hellgate near here!"

The vampire was correct. Even through the freezing winds I could now detect the highly elevated levels sulphur in the atmosphere.

"A hellgate in the middle of a cloud?" chirped Koen. "Don't you need a cave for that?"

"Qlippothic. Climb over der cloud cover."

"Aye, Captain."

I heard a clatter from below deck as I altered course and the periscope dropped. A second later I heard a scrambling of claws and the periscope hopped up again. "Guys..." interrupted Koen as the redundant wheel of the ship leaned towards me on its own accord. "These insects look like Vesprium soldiers, they come from the Great Hive that borders Erebus. But they've never been known to stray from the..." As we broke through the roof of the clouds, the periscope unexpectedly jerked upwards, swerving about unevenly as it scanned the skies. The blanket of stars and the bright artery of the Milky way coated the deck in soft light. Koen's utterance of "Oh...shit..." was barely heard under the deafening buzz.

We erupted from the clouds in the middle of throng of airships, each one dwarfing the Bloodwing's Revenge in size, suspended from hive-shaped balloons, all pointed westward in tight formation. Their courses could be traced back to the hovering red disc burning angrily in the night sky. Even as we watched, another pair of Vesprium ships passed through the portal from the skies of Hell into our own space.

Captain Aleister broke the silence. "Zis ist no pirate's armada, mein kinder...ist an invasion fleet..."

a hive of scum and villainy

I manned the wheel at the helm of the old skyship at the evening shift. Each time the Bloodwing's Revenge skimmed through a heavy cloud that reduced my visibility to the wheel, it left a sheen of ice on my metallic frame that quickly evaporated from the heat of my internal combustion. A garish brass horn curved over the wheel for the convenience of barking orders below deck, or in Aleister's case give orders to the pilot during daylight hours. I can understand the life of a vampire being a lonely one, but I already had my share of his rambling when I was his thrall.

"...und I must say, Herrin Qlippothic, you are handlink der gallon very vell. Vere did you learn such tings?"

"One of the most fearsome pirates of this age taught me how to handle a ship, Captain..."

I could hear a bit of my pride showing through. Before I met Captain Bohemia I was afraid to even go near the water.

"...and it was easy enough to carry that knowledge to airships. I flew many of sorties of CIRRUS Fire Brigade dirigibles for Caledon."

Indeed, I was used to having an air balloon looming over me as I navigated. Though I never would have used a canvas this vessel used, which was in such dilapidated condition I was amazed it held air at all.

In a fit of nostalgia I accessed my memories of Midnight. She taught me the name of every rope and sail. Leather gloves pressed my brass hands to the spokes of the wheel. Hard to port...Starboard...

I shook my head. Something else was making a wrong noise on the ship. "Captain Aleister? Why are the propellers buzzing so loudly? Do we need more oil?"

"Vas? The propellers are off! Ve are sailink on a strong vind!"

"Then what..."

I heard several sets of legs land on deck behind me. I rotated my head fully and opened the chamber in my forehead, letting my Sephiroth illuminate the fog.

Several human-sized bipedial insects flinched as I blinded them. Their chitin were black and yellow. Their double-sets of wings jutted from their backs like blades in an intimidating X. They wore only leather harnesses, from which they drew their straight blades and pistols...

there's no telling just now what we have in store

Qlippothic lay in the table for weeks as his father and his gas-fueles urchin toiled day and not upon rows of machinery. She had tried to reason with him, to tell him his theories were not sufficiently tested. That the results could not be controlled. For this he immobilized her. For daring to try to contact outsiders for help, he had disconnected her voice.

Even though she had free will, she had never defied her creators, save when the fate of the Earth itself was at stake. Now, she was beginning to regret her obedience.

"Qli? You awake?"

[[AUDIO: YOUNG MALE NEKO. ACCENT NEW BABBAGE URCHIN HIGH STEELHEAD TRACE- CONSISTENT. TONE OF FAMILIARITY - CONSISTENT. AGE - INCONSISTENT. IDENTITY INCONCLUSIVE.]]

The scruffy urchin's face leaned over, into her field of vision

[[VISUAL: YOUNG MALE SPECIES NEKO. EYES CRIMSON FELINE - CONSISTENT. FACIAL FUR NONE - INCONSISTENT (Developmental?) FACIAL: 80% (ADJUST FOR DEVELOPMENT) WHISKER PATTERN - CONSISTENT. EAR PATTERN BLACK WITH RED TIPS - BLOODTAIL CONFIRMED. TAIL UNSEEN. IDENTITY CONFIRM: 75%?]]

"Can ya hear me Qli? Flash your eyes again or somethin' Hun!."

[[ACCENT TRACE BALTIMORE VIA FATHER ID 80% - PREVIOUS ROOF INTERLOPER CONFIRMED THROUGH ADMISSION TRESSPASSING BEHAVIOR: CONSISTENT ID 85% - ACKNOWLEDGING COMMUNICATIONS.]]

"Great! Listen, I don't know how to fix you, but I know someone who can. We were gonna break in and bust you out later, but since Dad and his walking oven kid are out of town..."

[[WE...?]]

"...we're busting you outta here before he breaks you and blows up the whole city. No, really. You can thank me later."

He drew a knife of dull grey metal from his boot and began cutting the cables linking her to the machinery in a shower of sparks. Qli's eyes began to pulse furiously in Morse Code to chastise him.

"Not listening!"

The boy stood over Qli's table and waved his arms upwards. A black box on a cable lowered with a crash, sounding the alarm systems of the Consulate.

The neko tugged at the sides of the box that fell beside them until it began to unfold by itself into a spider-like machine that leaped onto her table and braced it securely.

[[CLANK CONSTRUCTION: WROUGHT IRON. DESIGN: ANTIQUATED]]

The boy in turn hopped onto the iron construct and held fast to the cable as it spooled upwards, lifting him and Qlippothic.

[[TAIL PATTERN CONSISTENT: ID 95%. CLANK IDENTIFIED: EARLY DESIGN SKYSHIP CLAW - CUSTOM DESIGN]]

From her vantage point, she could see the wooden hull of the airship looming larger as the sky slowly rotated.

[[SHIP ID CONFIRMED: BLOODWING'S REVENGE. LAST KNOWN OWNER: ALEISTER MASON. CHANCE OF MISFORTUNE ON CURRENT MISSION: 100%]]

Reunion

I finally managed to get a lock on the Caravel's homing signal, just as the flames overtook Ash and myself. The heat almost compromised my armor before my galvanic energy field encircled us. We reappeared outside the airlock. Had we materialized in inside the ship, our radiant heat would have sure caused an explosion inside the vessel. As the absolute cold of space dissipated the red heat of our glowing shells, Ash tried to hail Dr. Mason through Marconi transmission.

[Gematria, no response.]

We opened the airlock manually. Dr. Mason was not on board. We did however find his final transmission.

"Five months, Ash? He's been gone for that long? And you made no attempt to recover him?"

"I had strict orders to find you first, Gematria."

I shook my head. "I had to endure the taunts of those selfish creatures mutilating my name for far too long. Since, it seems, my Sister Qli-2 is no more, I will re-assume my given title of Qlippothic Projects."

"As you wish. We may now begin our search for Dr. Mason."

The video link buzzed as a wavering image took shape on the cathode ray monitor. "That will not be necessary, my children!"

I pressed my hand to the screen, staring up at his magnified features. Even through the distortions, facial recognition was stable at 85%. I recognized most of the laboratory equipment, and was surprised by the familiarity of the artwork behind him.

"Father? Can this be? Instrument readings tell me your coordinates are..."

"Yes, Qlippothic. They are correct. Do you honestly think I would let a bumbling world-dictatorship permanently derail my research? I need your assistance here, Qli. Ash, please monitor the energy readings from the Caravel. This shall be our family's finest hour!"

Extraction

Against my will, Ash tore me from the morass of circuitry and fluid-lines of the my charges. To be honest, he nearly tore my arm from its ball joint! My brother had used his exo-suit to drill his way straight down to intersect with the tunnel accessing the chamber where I was held. We could only estimate the size and speed of the nuclear self-destruct sequence, so Ash left his exo-suit behind in our haste. We fired our galvanic engines and shot upwards out of the fissure Ash had created.

The Timekeepers left a crater over where their factory once stood as their sole legacy. The ambient radiation from the fallout of the Timekeepers' first and final war interfered with the homing signal from the Clockwork Caravel. Without a solid lock, tesseracting to orbit was far too dangerous. We raced upwards through the toxic soup that was once an atmosphere. A flash below us signaled critical mass. The shockwave wreathed in nova-heat flames rippled in a hemisphere from the crater, rapidly consuming what air was left, and threatening to overtake us in a matter of seconds.

Flatline

The torso carapace of the intruder hinged upwards, beaming the light towards the domed ceiling. The refraction downwards was more diffused, equivalent to a Caledon summer day. I smiled as I recognized the figure at the controls.

"Hello, Ash." He nodded as he smiled and removed his goggles. True to form, he stuck to formalities while on assignment.

"Identification positive. Commencing extraction." He extended an iron claw, offering a lift into the rather cramped cockpit of the mecha.

"Negative. I cannot abandon these sentients. To do so would constitute genocide..."

"Your agreement with the Timekeepers is null and void. They have already committed genocide."

I gasped. "Against whom?"

"Themselves. Soon after we lost contact with you, the Timekeeper cities shifted operations from research to weapons and countermeasures, and attacked each other. Without their prime directive they assumed the selfish traits of the organics they were once sworn to protect."

As I pondered the hubris of the Timekeepers and prepared a profound monologue on the foolishness of artificial life forms mimicking the faults of their creators, the medical equipment in the room begin to flicker and throw off sparks.

"Ash," I cried. "When you breached the vault you compromised the environmental containment unit! The survivors are dying!"

In their tanks, they flailed their tentacles helplessly as the wailing grew to a deafening shriek, cut short piece by piece with a quick rattle and silence.

"It is their fault for becoming overdependent upon their machines to begin with," Ash said coldly. "Their fate no longer concerns...is that a nuclear chain reaction detonation sequence I hear?"

"Yes, Ash. Did you conclude that I remained here solely out of compassion? That is exactly why their health concerns us!"

TO BE CONTINUED