Guts

There was a centre to the universe. Just, nobody had any clue what laid there.

Tet stared unfocused at the blinking coordinates on the console. 0, 0, 0, 0. The zeroes flashed, flipping like a scoreboard before landing on their actual coordinates. 12.5, 2,403, -14.6, 1,047. She groaned and leaned back into the cockpit’s polymer seat.

The coordinate system had existed long before Tet’s time. Long before her parents’, and her parents’ parents’ parents’, too. No point in changing what worked just fine.

“Mills,” she said.

On cue, a pale, ponytailed girl appeared on the curved monitors of the cockpit, their avatar camouflaged by mandarin-tinted glitches. Millie. Least, what was left of them.

“Tet!” the virtual assistant chimed.

“Where’re we at, now?” Tet asked.

Millie rubbed a glove against their chin. “Mmm… About eighteen parsecs past the Riba cluster—”

“That’s what you said yesterday…” Tet sighed.

“Did I?”

“And the day before, too.”

“Ah.” They frowned.

Tet sucked in a breath and twisted off the pilot seat. Ordinary space travel was so. Excruciatingly. Slow.

“It’s cool.” She flicked the warm monitor with her finger, making Millie flinch. “I’m checking on our aistra sitch. Can you hold it down here?”

Millie’s digital frown somersaulted. “Of course!”

Tet grinned. She stood up, hunching to avoid the cockpit’s tight roof, and thumped her foot down on the only spot of the flooring not crowded by half-eaten rations, components, and medication. The trapdoor swung open with a hiss, nearly clipping both her shins.

“Be back,” she said.

She swiped a wrench from her overalls, stuffed it in-between her teeth, and shimmied into the hatch.

No matter how much Tet loved her parents, they could’ve paid a bit more attention to ergonomics when putting together the Dalia. It was more cramped than a cheap coffin. Not that she could complain; a free mech was a free mech. Beggars, choosers, or whatever.

Tangles of exposed wires scraped against her jumpsuit as she lowered herself into the Dalia. She pressed her spine against one wall, her feet against the other, and started unscrewing the forge.

A chilly breeze brushed her cheeks as the panel opened up. The aistra hovered inside, surrounded by humming, copper prongs. Issue was, only a single section still shimmered while the rest had turned as dull as charred rations.

Tet scratched her scruffy hair with the wrench. “Yeah. ‘Bout half an astral jump, at best.”

And that was being generous. Just as she reached to screw the panel shut, Millie's voice sputtered out from the Dalia’s staticky speakers.

“Tet, you won’t believe it! I’m reading aistra on that planet!”

“No shot, seriously!?” Tet almost dropped her wrench.

It’d been over a dozen systems since they’d last found a trace.

She fumbled for the tool, barely catching it, before slamming the forge shut. “Take us straight there, Mills! I’m comin’ up!”

The Dalia pitched, slamming Tet’s shoulder against the carbide wall. She scrambled up the hatch, not even bothering to shut the trapdoor, and leaped into the pilot’s seat.

“What’s the gravity looking like?” She gripped the Dalia’s twin handles.

“2.9 G, at least,” Millie said.

“Sounds ‘bout right for aistra.”

Between the Dalia’s curved screens, dotted constellations raced past the windshield. Tet eyed the plummeting coordinates.

“Got any data?” She flipped a control at her side.

Millie’s eyes fluttered shut. They shook their head. “Negative.”

“Ugh. We’re too far out,” Tet said. “Let’s make it quick.”

Millie pouted. “Be careful, Tet…”

“Should be fine. Doubt there’s any hostiles with gravity like that.”

With that, Tet pounded the pedals.

The sudden thrust rammed her flat against the creaky seat as her assorted garbage catapulted off the ground and pelted the ceiling. Outside, a lilac planet waited in the distance.

The cockpit boiled warmer and warmer, and the windshield fogged up with entry heat to the point that Tet couldn’t see a thing. Meanwhile, their carbon fibre frame jangled like it might tear itself apart.

Finally, the Dalia crashed into the lilac surface, thudding Tet’s head against the roof with a surprised yelp. Rubbish rained down from the ceiling, and she shielded her head to keep from thumping it a second time.

The heat clouding the glass cleared, exposing a lush, alien jungle of greens and purples as far as she could see. Bushy trees spiralled like winding stairs, hiding dripping pods that looked close to obscene. They leaked clear, gooey slime into the curling shrubs below. It made her almost want to glance away.

At the edges of her vision, hills of mud disappeared into the fog.

She lowered her arm and began pulling on the rubbery spacesuit. “Weird.”

Millie hoisted a hand up to their forehead, scanning the horizon. “There’s no data on anything…” they mumbled.

She shrugged. “I mean, we’re 10,000 light-years out—“

“10,380, actually!” they corrected.

“Thanks, Mills.”

Tet nudged the handle, crunching a plant underneath. The Dalia shuffled forwards with an unoiled groan.

“Eesh,” she said. “Gravity is pretty rough here, huh?”

“I’m reading aistra seven and a half degrees southwest,” Millie buzzed.

Tet had finished slipping into her suit. She fit the see-through helmet over her head and shoved the Dalia’s handles forwards like a pair of joysticks. “Got it.”

The Dalia crouched down, rustling shrubs, then barrelled forwards. Fast. Fast enough to rattle the loose rubbish on board. Each ear-splitting, mechanical footstep toppled the elastic trees underneath.

Tet never could’ve been a commercial pilot. Ordinary piloting was too slow. But when she closed her eyes, the Dalia was almost fast enough to outrun time itself. Almost.

Branches whipped against the windshield as they headed south.

“Any warmer?” she asked.

“Mmm… We should be.” Millie was still squinting when their orange irises snapped into hexagons. “Watch out—!”

Tet didn’t waste any time in twisting the handles sideways. The Dalia’s engine roared, thrusting them into one of the alien pods. Indigo splattered their windshield, and the smell of spent fireworks flooded the cockpit.

A plant. Or, a plant creature. They’d just narrowly avoided it.

Rotten mushrooms clicked and twitched in place of its face, with stubby limbs hidden under a vined tail that ran across the entire length of its worming, leafy body. It hunkered above a gaping chasm in the field, the drop too deep to even see inside.

Before Tet could form a single thought, its tail lashed towards them.

“What the—?” She smashed the overhead button with a fist. “What is this thing?”

The Dalia rocketed backwards. Its robotic digits clanked and transformed into a machine gun longer than its arm itself.

A visor wrapped around Millie’s startled face. Combat mode. “Still no data!” they shouted.

The creature’s screeches wobbled the cockpit as a round of booming shells sprayed from the minigun, trailing gunsmoke. Its tail shredded through the ashy cloud, swatting away the projectiles mid-flight.

Millie jabbed a finger at the chasm. “I think it’s guarding the aistra, Tet! Should we disengage?”

Tet tapped the knob on her left handle, rounds pattering to the ground. Those vines must’ve been tough as diamonds to shrug off her rounds. She’d never seen anything like it before.

“Like hell,” she scoffed. “I said I’d getcha to the centre of the universe, didn’t I?”

She whisked the handle sideways. The Dalia’s left arm followed suit, whipping out and catching its tail mid-swing. It might’ve been immune to projectiles. But, nothing was immune to being slammed into the ground at mach speeds.

She turned and swung the creature like a makeshift slingshot. As it spun into the air, its stubby limbs deformed, shooting down into the shrubs and hooking around their roots. Its momentum stopped dead, and its tail bulleted towards them again.

“Tch.” Tet rammed the handles, propelling them forwards.

They sailed past the tail, vines brushing the Dalia’s exterior by a whisker. Just moments before crashing into the creature, she slammed her feet into the pedals and came to a screeching halt.

“Try ‘n’ block this.” She aimed the minigun dead-centre to its head.

And, she fired. Her fingers mashed the triggers until the barrels plinked empty.

As the gunsmoke cleared, the creature’s fungus-infested, wriggling face remained untouched. It squealed, coiling its tail tight around the gun and aiming it up into the atmosphere. Turned out, its head was just as tough, too.

The Dalia’s monitors flashed cherry-red as vines clamped tight around its joints.

“Tet!” Millie’s voice crackled through the cockpit’s speakers.

Tet battled the bucking handles. “I know!” She tried ripping the Dalia’s arms free, but the creature’s grip was like iron. “How the hell’s it so strong!?”

They swiped at the air frantically, scrolling through paragraphs of flashing numbers and data through their visor.

“I… I’m not sure! This gravity alone shouldn't have… No, it couldn’t have, it doesn’t make sense!” They trailed off, their hands sinking. “The centre… Is it because we’re getting closer to the centre!?”

Vines spiralled around the Dalia’s groaning frame as sweat dribbled down Tet’s arms, glueing the spacesuit to her skin.

Was that why nobody had explored the centre? The planets were infested with monsters? It was just their luck.

She glanced behind. “...You said it’s guarding the aistra?”

“It’s just a hypothesis, I haven’t confirmed—!”

She rolled off the seat. “Good enough.”

Millie squealed as Tet hurdled down the still-open hatch. She snatched the wrench from her suit and tore the forge’s front panel open. If she was wrong about this, then they could kiss their last astral jump good riddance.

“Open the cockpit, Mills!” She ripped the spinning lump of aistra out from its prongs.

“Eh!?” Millie’s voice blasted from every speaker at once. “Have you lost your mind!?”

“I wasn’t asking!”

Tet scrambled out the hatch as the Dalia’s splattered windshield hissed open. Her scattered rations freeze-dried into blocks of ice. Outside air rushed inside the cockpit, colder than even the most arctic habitats they’d visited. Enough to make her shiver through her suit. Good thing she’d decided to slip into it earlier, otherwise she might’ve frozen to death there and then.

Aistra was an unwieldy thing. Negative mass, and all that. It felt like carrying nothing. Or, maybe less than nothing, if that was even possible. Made throwing it awkward as all hell, too.

She reeled back, then hurled the aistra at the creature. The lump shot up into the atmosphere like a runaway helium balloon.

“What are you doing!?” Millie screeched.

Tet vaulted back into the pilot’s seat. The creature’s squeals stopped, and the decomposing mushrooms spotting its head swivelled towards the aistra in unison. For a split second, its tail unhanded the Dalia to snatch the levitating stone.

Tet flipped another knob. “There.”

The Dalia barrelled backwards. At the same time, a metre-long pipe emerged from its other palm. Sparks of electricity crackled at its opening.

Millie let out a gasp like an electronic beep. “Oh! I get it!”

“Mills!” Tet shouted. “Lock on—“

A pixellated scope appeared on the monitor, right above the vines clutching the aistra.

“Already on it!” they buzzed.

She grinned. “Then, let’s get rid of this eyesore.”

Tet had made plenty of mistakes over the course of her twenty-one years. Too many to make up for in a single lifetime. But, the one thing she’d never done was miss a target already in her sights.

They both spoke at once. “Fire.”

The cockpit shook as a blinding beam of electricity reached the aistra. It pierced it dead-centre. The next moment, the monster launched into the atmosphere and burst open with a muffled clap. Blink, and you would’ve missed it.

The Dalia’s windshield zipped shut as sizzling, multicoloured guts showered the field outside. Colours splattered the already-stained glass with fresh entrails. Millie shut her eyes as a quiet static crinkled through the Dalia’s speakers.

It didn’t matter whether it was a mech, a human, or an alien hellspawn. Death came for everybody all the same. Failing might as well have been impossible for Tet.