Woyu stopped yelling.
It was quiet. The air was filled with nothing but the imperceptible whirring of Exodus’s engine. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and looked at the control panel. He pressed several times on the “system control” button; however, the maglev pod remained silent.
Silas was gone. That thought rammed into Woyu’s head like a stone that dropped into a pond. It caused a ripple in his brain, and more and more thoughts began to appear.
He cast all the thoughts away, as he did not want to know why Silas suddenly went offline. His muscles pulled taut, he continued to slowly move forward towards the direction of the bridge. As his eyes traced the warm white lamps on the wall that shed a uniform glow into the surroundings, he spotted the door to the bridge at the end of the corridor. It looked thick and heavy, and effectively cut off all the sound, so Woyu did not know what the man was doing on the other side.
He stared at the door and thought for a long while. Even though it might be quiet right now, he knew it wouldn’t be so when the door opened up. After ascertaining that the creaking of the door opening would serve as an alarm for him, Woyu turned the pod around and went for the hangar bay.
He remembered that there was a remote operating station next to the door, so he figured that he had to try to open the hangar bay even though Silas was not with him right now. Be that as it may, he only realized how difficult it was when he found the operating station. He couldn’t recognize most of the buttons. As his eyes ran across the panel, he caught sight of a black lever that leaned towards the word “CLOSED”.
Woyu’s eyes glowed. He went closer to the lever and pushed it up.
He waited with bated breath for a while, hoping the door would open up; however, it remained unmoving. Dumbfounded, Woyu craned his neck and looked at the corridor towards the bridge. Nothing stirred in the corridor. It remained quiet like a beast in slumber. He retracted his gaze and moved back to the panel. As he studied the panel, he chided under his breath, “How come they don’t put any marks on these buttons? How am I supposed to know which is which?” Then, he went closer to the nicely polished metal panel and began to meticulously examine each button.
He cast a long shadow on the metal panel; his eyes hopped from one button to the next. As he was trying to figure out what each of the buttons could do, the warning bell in his head went off and prompted him to move out of danger’s way. No sooner had the maglev pod glided away than the remote operating station let out a brassy metallic scream as a chain of fire sparks jumped into the air. The lever, the buttons, and the other settings on the panel that he couldn’t understand were destroyed by a streak of silvery light.
Woyu turned his head around and locked his gaze with a blade that was buried deep in the operating station. It was an axe, with an extremely intricately patterned long handle. His eyes trailed along the long shaft and stopped momentarily at the hand that gripped tightly at the end. He gulped nervously before looking up. There, on the weather-beaten, decent, rectangular face, a grin was tugging at the corner of his lips.
“Yo,” the man chuckled, though the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, “I have to say that given your current body condition, it really surprises me that you were able to dodge that hit. Perhaps I didn’t punish you well enough?”
Woyu gulped again, and he could hear his saliva glissade down his throat and drop into his stomach with a plop. In the distance, the symphony of the engine of Exodus and the whirling of the air-conditioning system continued to ring through the air. He was certain that he did not hear the opening of the door behind him, so how did the man get out of the bridge?
As if he saw the confusion on Woyu’s face, the man pulled the axe out from the remote operating station. He swung the axe half round and then it disappeared, leaving only his bare hand behind.
“Thanks to you, my bridge will not have a door anymore,” said the man as he took a deep breath. He was trying to keep his calm, but it seemed like he was failing.
Woyu stared fixedly at the man. Through the corner of his eyes, he could see electric sparks spilling out from the wasted operating station. It was apparent that he could not use the station to open the hangar bay anymore.
“How… How did you get out of there?” he asked through a trembling voice.
“Don’t worry. You will know soon,” the man replied as he offered Woyu a toothy grin. If it weren’t for the situation, it would have actually been quite an assuring smile.
“What did you do to Silas?” Woyu asked again, trying to buy himself some time. “Why won’t she respond to my call? Where did you get the emergency recovery code from?”
“Hoh?” The man stretched his neck and answered, “So you know about it.”
He swung his hand, and Woyu’s eyes blurred for a moment. By the time his vision returned, the man had already put on a glove. Woyu stared fixedly at the glove, attempting to figure out its material but to no avail. The glove looked like water with a shape; whatever was reflecting on it would then become its texture. Sometimes it would become metal while other times it was light. When the man lifted his hand and pointed at Woyu, it slowly became the color of his skin.
“When the doomsday arrived in my world, I accepted it faster than anybody else,” the man said as he began to approach Woyu. Woyu looked to his left and right, and he realized that he was trapped by the man in this corridor. If he wanted to escape, the only way was the bridge behind him.
“It was total chaos in the Starfleet Federation. Everybody was thrown for a loop. Luckily, my employee pass was still valid, so I was able to work myself into the colonel’s… Oh, silly me, you don’t have to know about the details.” He chuckled again. “Anyway, I got everything I needed in the end. When I got to the dock, there were a dozen starships there. Each of them was larger, sturdier, and more secure than the last one. Funny right, as a ground staff, I couldn’t imagine that I was the first one to realize the value of these starships.”
‘Very good… If I can make him talk more, then…’ Woyu thought inwardly as he gripped tighter at the steering wheel. It occurred to him that the man was not really worried about him running towards the bridge. ‘Perhaps he has laid a trap in there? In that case, I’d better not run there.’
Woyu continued to shoot more questions at the man, “How did you survive with Exodus?”
It would be another long story, but the man seemed to have seen through Woyu’s plan. He ran his fingers across his chin as a sardonic smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You want to hear about it? It will be the most fantastic, riveting, and touching story you’ll have ever heard in your life. I promise I will tell everything to your corpse… Oh, silly me again. How can I forget that?” Then he paused. He raised his head and looked into Woyu’s eyes, his gaze so intense, Woyu’s heart went pit-a-pat. “There won’t be any corpse left behind.”
With those words, the man suddenly lunged forward. He was so fast that when Woyu recoiled along with the pod, the man’s hand had already touched the nose of the pod.
If he was slowed for a second, the hand would fall on his shoulder.
However, before Woyu could take a breather, the pod suddenly tilted to one side as a burst of creaking noise rang out. He turned around, and then he froze.
The spot that the man touched was gone. The pod now looked like a piece of meat with one of its sides chipped by a beast. The pod was tilting even further. There was a maelstrom of what should be metal and whatnots lying haphazardly in front of the pod.
“What… what…” Woyu was stunned as he stammered.
“These are the raw materials that constitute your maglev pod.” The man kicked a metal piece on the ground and laughed. “Never seen them before, right?”
The man then slowly lifted his head up. His eyes glowed menacingly in the dark. “When I touch you, you will become a pile of raw materials as well. Do you know that 70% of the human body is made up of water?”
Woyu wanted to scream, he wanted to spit at the man, but he knew he could not do that right now.
The maglev pod tilted even further and Woyu almost slipped out of his seat. He yanked the steering wheel hard. He looked over at the man and then, an idea took shape in his head.
‘Raw material? I guess I have an idea…’
He forced himself not to look at the door towards the hangar bay and not to think of the consequences should his plan fail. The feeling of fear twined and twisted his heart like the tentacles of an octopus. Just when the man threw himself at him again, Woyu let out a loud cry. The maglev pod soared high into the air and he knew the man had touched some part of the pod. Before he hit the ceiling, he saw there was white smoke billowing underneath the pod.
Without wasting a second, Woyu yanked the steering wheel hard towards the right. Since the pod had lost part of itself, it couldn’t maintain its balance and skidded out as if it was riding on top of a wave. However, Woyu successfully worked his way out of the corridor to the bridge and arrived in front of the door to the hangar bay.
The man quickly followed after Woyu, his steps heavy like thunder on a rainy day. Woyu pulled the pod up again. The pod screamed and moaned like it was being torn apart. Woyu’s chest tightened. Seeing the man had stopped with his hand raised high in the air, Woyu quickly glided to the back and lowered the pod back on the floor.
“You little rat…” The man couldn’t finish his sentence as he saw the pod was coming straight at him. Woyu stamped on the accelerator and rammed himself into the man like a runaway bull crashing into a red cloth. The man’s reaction speed was fast, but it was not enough to steer himself entirely out of the way of the maglev pod at full speed.
Along with the pod, the man crashed into the door to the hangar bay.
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