Conversion - Part 15

“Above all else we value our individual free will, controlling our minds will only make us resist you more. Also you will not get an accurate view on humanity, even if it is only sexual reproduction you're after.”

Commander Neil Tesper hoped that a being capable of kidnapping so many of his crew mates with such ease would somehow be reasonable. “We aren't that different, in our past we regarded carnal acts to be taboo too,” he struggled to find a common ground to establish some form of connection with the being. “Sex was something to be hidden and to a certain extent considered 'unclean' by religious groups. It progressed to a point where it bordered on hampering us as a species. But we've been able to pass that.”

Silence.

“Look, I can hear your desperation and I understand. Our world is dying, our species is threatened, we too are looking for ways to survive.”

Nothing.

The image that hovered over Tesper continued to show his crew being abused. The orbs of light changed hue and continued to invade the floating men and women, and the rate of their penetration quickened. Tesper recognized the man foremost on the projection. Lieutenant Jack Hornby was a young medic who had shared his bed with him and his husband. They had shared a lot with each other, about life back on Earth and what they hoped to find in their new home out here in the cosmos. Tesper hated the sight of someone he cared about being tortured. The bright orbs bombarded the young man's anus in a steady pace of two a second. Hornby's face was unreadable, blank like how Tim and Murel's were a few minutes ago. Every time a ball went into Hornby, Tesper could see the veins on his neck and arms surface. He was in pain.

“You have to stop this! We simply would not-” Tesper couldn't finish his words. Hornby's stomach bulged and in a split-second it burst. There was no spark, no fire. And his body continued to explode - his head then the rest of his torso. There was no sound. Remnants of his body and blood marked the blast radius. There was nothing left but unidentifiable chunks of flesh and bone.

Tesper couldn't process what he was seeing. His eyes widened in disbelief. He was sure he screamed, even if he didn't hear it.

Then another crew member exploded, and another, and another - the detonation did not stop until ten men were nothing more than pulverized meat.

…

Standing in the Situation Room, Hunt and Stone studied the data on the holoscreen Lieutenant Wong provided.

“I was collecting readouts of the explosion of the Astral and I found these anomalies, so I asked the tactical team to scan the sector again, this time on a different bandwidth.” Wong waved his hand and another visual appeared. It showed Starlight in the middle and surrounded by blotches highlighted in blue.

“These are pockets of energy?” Stone said looking at the readouts. “What type?”

“Sadly we don't have the technology to know beyond the fact that these pockets are highly combustible and very volatile. They seem to react with everything they come in contact with. Look, this is the debris of the Astral, notice that every piece of metal is setting off small detonations? At first I thought it was just residual explosions from the ship, but clearly it's a reaction to these pockets of energy.”

“And it's these energy fields reacting to the debris that caused the damage sustained on Starlight,” Stone continued, shaking his head slightly.

“Pieces of the Astral is being hurled every which way once it touches these pockets, and unfortunately, we're still within range to get hurt.”

“Can we go around them?” asked the captain.

“They stretch for hundreds of kilometers all around us. We are in some sort of energy mine field. And from these passive scans we can see that they are not uniform in size, we can't say how far each pocket extend with our equipment.”

“Can we recalibrate the sensors?”

“I'll put a team together,” said Stone watching the captain rub his temples.

“I've got to be honest with you Stone, I could do with some good news at this point.”