The Lap of Luxury 4.6

They emerged from the water, Astrid all but dragging the poor, exhausted little cub. Mishka had almost passed out when she needed to use her white-magic blast to get past the coral - which had tripled in size in the half hour or so they had been in the engineering room.

But they made it, and together they staggerd up the last few steps onto the second deck. The water-level had continued to rise while Mishka had been fixing the engines, and now lapped at the third stair down from the second deck. Unlike the bottom deck, which was mainly storage, there were cabins on the second deck. Astrid tried to get one of the terrified people milling about to evacuate the them, but the geckan woman had just looked at her with glassy, unfocused eyes.

“The angles do not add up!” she shouted at Astrid, making the tired cub cling to her even harder. “The circle does not close!”

Astrid pulled Mishka along. The thing that had been wearing that poor alven man’s form, Callum, had made her more than a bit terrified of anyone who wasn’t Mishka.

That, and the sooner they could get to the bridge, the sooner they could save everyone. Or, at least, she though darkly, those who had managed to survive in this Beneath-tainted space this long.

They reached the seventh deck where the ship opened up onto the park. The trees seemed to have all turned purple and were growing eyes, mouths, and cephalopodic tentacles that writhed and grasped at the air. She saw one pick someone up who was trying to run…

She winced and shielded Mishka’s eyes as they raced upward. Up to the top, start the engines, get out of here. That was what needed to happen. Mishka stumbled on a the last stair to the eighth deck, sprawling on the floor.

“Are you OK?” asked Astrid.

“I’m tired, Astrid,” said the little cub, wipin sweat from their forehead. She didn’t seem to be injured, thankfully, and Astrid helped her back to her feet.

“I know, little bear,” said Astrid. “Not much further, it’s almost over.”

Mishka plodded up, and Astrid helped, moving slower up the switchback stairs and onto the ninth deck, which seemed to be slowly… turning orange? They didn’t stop, hurrying up on the slightly springy stairs and reaching the tenth deck which became somehow, from one moment to the next, absolutely freezing. She felt Mishka’s bracelet activate some kind of temperature shell, but Astrid was shivering violently when they reached the eleventh, where the temperature thankfully stabilised.

Nothing seemed to be happening on the eleventh, but when they reached the twelfth they encountered a problem.

The stairs to the thirteenth floor, the bridge, were missing.

Well, they weren’t missing, so much as they had melted into a kind of sludge that had oozed and congealed in weird, twisting shapes and patterns that Astrid knew she didn’t have a hope of climbing.

“Dammit,” said Astrid, turning and looking for a map. “Is there another stairwell?”

Mishka didn’t answer, and instead slumped down against the wall and closed her eyes. Astrid had never seen the older Mishka get tired from spellcasting, but clearly it had exacted a significant cost on the juvenile ursulan.

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be another way up onto the bridge - which didn’t strike Astrid as amazing design.

“Mishka, we need to get up onto the next level,” said Astrid. “Do you have like… a conjured stairway spell or something?”

Mishka blearily opened her eyes and looked over at the melted remains of the stairs. She nodded numbly and pushed herself back up and wrapping Astrid in a tight hug.

“Oh, well, um, it’s OK…” began Astrid, before she realised that they were floating up into the air and ascending, moving out into the stairway - somewhat shakily, but in total defiance of the ship’s artifical gravity field.

Oh right. Mishka, even as a child it seemed, could fly - she’d seen that back in the department store.

They ascended upward, passing the melted stairwell and arriving on the small ledge outside the bridge’s reinforced bulkhead. Mishka set them down, and sagged. Astrid helped her sit, wedging her so she wouldn’t fall down into the stairwell before bringing out the magnifying glass which, if Astrid was honest, she really hoped Mishka might let her keep.

The bulkhead opened a few moments later, revealing the bridge. It was utterly silent and without a hint of movement. Large and rectangular, with panoramic windows showing the churning blue of the accretion disk in every direction, even above though a largely glass ceiling.

The crew was still present - lying on the ground, unmoving, unmarked, and according to the magnifying glass, dead - although even the ursulan device couldn’t tell what had killed them.

There didn’t been seem to be any deadly anomalies or lurking monsters - although Astrid knew first hand that there were plenty of things even Mishka couldn’t find with her magi-tek device.

“It looks clear, come on,” said Astrid, grunting as she lifted little Mishka back to her feet. “Ugh, what do they feed you on Ursulon Prime - sorry, the ‘Bloodmoon Orbital?’”

The little cub was only three and a half feet tall, but had to be sixty, maybe seventy kilograms. Thankfully Mishka did have the strength to more or less support herself as they stumbled onto the bridge.

Astrid found a chair next to a bank of what looked like communication devices, and set her friend down before moving to the helm and flicking the console into life, peering at the controls. It was all rather confusingly laid out, with most of the labels acronyms that she couldn’t decipher.

Thankfully, Mishka’s device was able to basically scan the entire database, then translate everything into clear ursulan symbols which was rapidly becoming Astrid’s favourite language. It was so information dense, and the worm in her brain let her understand it effortlessly.

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Not that she was ever going to tell Mishka that. She’d be too smug.

She found the ignition system, and flicked the switch. For a moment nothing happened, but then she felt the engines far below roar into life - a distant, dull rumble as Astrid pushed the throttle to full, grasped the ship’s joystick and pulled them up and away from the blue hole, locking them onto a trajectory out of the effects.

The decking rumbled beneath them, and Astrid let out a cheer as she saw some kind of projection of nearby space showing them moving away from the blue hole. She’d done it! With the indispensable help of Mishka, she’d done it! They were going to make it! They were-

There was a horrific sound that seemed to ring in her mind, like metal being ripped and torn, and in the swirling blue energy beyond the upper-deck’s airshell she saw a massive shape. It resolved into a single colossal being, easily a third of the length of the three kilometre long Starseeker. Unlike many of the Beneath monsters she had seen before, it wasn’t fleshy so much as… insect-like, with a shining black carapace, ten blade-like limbs, and a maw the size of a house with a million mandibles. It smashed into the side of the ship, and the decking pitched under Astrid as she fought to keep them on course out of the blue hole.

Down below the massive monster’s claws gouged terrible rents into the park, ripping through decks, shredding dirt and wood and metal and the concrete and even the weird, tentacle trees. Astrid grimaced, hoping that most of the people in the park had found somewhere safe.

If there was anywhere safe on this ship. Astrid and Mishka had run into no less than three incredibly lethal things in the hour and a half or so since the had disaster struck. For all she knew, there might be hardly anyone else left. And unless that horrific beetle monster… thing decided to leave as they left the area of the blue hole, or Mishka had something up her sleeve, then they might escape the blue hole only to be ripped apart by that horrific space-monster.

Astrid glanced back at the sleeping Mishka. No, the poor little cub didn’t have anymore tricks up her sleeve. It seemed it was up to Astrid.

She ran her eyes over the controls, searching for something that might be able to repel the creature. A cruise liner wouldn’t have any weapons worth the name, but maybe… shields?

There was a button marked ‘STLR-AUX-SHLD,’ which Mishka’s magnifying glass told her were ‘Stellar Auxillary Shields’ designed to allow for the vessel to make close approaches to suns without burning to a crisp. She flicked the switch and crossed her fingers as the system powered up.

There was a flash of light, and the creature roared in pain as the outside world suddenly became much darker, and vicious, angry red lines appeared across the creature’s body where the shield cut through it. For a moment she thought she might have done it, but then the monster roared and continued to tear at the decking with renewed fury.

Alarms began to blare, warning about ‘structural integrity being compromised’ and ‘damage to ship’s superstructure.’ Astrid grit her teeth and searched for something, anything, that might be able to help them.

“Floodlights?” she said, flicking a switch.

Another roar from the creature, and even more enraged tearing, ripping and cutting and shredding into the ship.

“Fuck!” said Astrid. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Her eyes roved over the controls, but there didn’t seem to be anything else that might even be tangentially helpful.

She looked up as the monster burrowed deeper and deeper. They’d come so far. She’d come so close, and then, out of nowhere, that monster had appeared and was going to kill them. And this time there was no Mishka sneakily placing herself right where she needed to be to save her, as she had against Baelgoroth. Astrid had never had many options on her own, and little Mishka was out cold after getting them up onto the bridge. There was nothing else to do.

Astrid turned away from the helm and moved over to Mishka, hugging her friend.

“I’m sorry,” said Astrid, crying into the little girl’s soft, thick brown hair. “I’m sorry, Mish. I did my best.”

Outside the creature roared, and struck something that was probably rather important, shaking the entire ship with an explosion. More alarms began to blare, Astrid pressed her eyes closed, and her hug tightened.

A hand patted her on the back.

“As nice as this hug is, I think I should deal with that,” said Mishka.

Astrid jerked back, her eyes widening as she saw the older, the real Mishka staring back at her.

“Mishka!” said Astrid, standing up and pointing at the monster. “There- there’s a thing!”

“I can see that,” said Mishka moving over to the edge of the bridge and looking down on the shattered remains of the park. Astrid joined her and stared down, noting that the tentacled growths had gone, the remaining leaves were once again green, and the grass was back.

The monster, however was still there, ripping at the ship in an unholy rage. But, despite the horrifying eldritch terror, Astrid’s heart swelled. Mishka was back; her friend was back.

“Well, that’s bad!” said Mishka, her voice cheery as she rushed back to the navigation controls and began flicking switches and turning dials. “Hmm, let’s see… ah, there is it.”

The decking jumped underneath Astrid’s feet as they suddenly accelerated, and she looked back to see massive plumes of plasma shooting out into the still blue, but already clearing space behind them. The creature roared and scrambled to keep its purchase as Mishka viciously wrenched the yoke sideways and around, and the ship began to spin wildy, forcing Astrid to grab onto the fixed chair to avoid being flung across the bridge.

“Ooh, shields!” said Mishka as the ship continued to spin. “Hmm, a bit under-powered though…” She pressed a few buttons.

“Warning, ship safeties have been disabled,” came a pre-recorded voice over the vox-boxes arrayed around the bridge. “Shield emitters exceeding maximum safe tolerance levels. Please be advised, this action is in violation of company policy and may result in disciplinary action and fines-”

“Nyehhh!” said Mishka, cutting off the warning and the alarms by ripping something metal out of the console and tossing it over her shoulder. “Ah, here we go!”

A high pitch whine filled the air as the shield that had been darkening space outside began to wildly strobe through a raindbow of colours. The beast screamed, and began to thrash wildly as great burns dug deep into its carapace.

“Go on, off you go!” shouted Mishka, wrenching the helm even more. The creature, slipped and skidded from the sideways force, and then, with a rip of metal the last of its claws came free and it vanished, falling away into the void beyond.

Mishka levelled the ship out, and turned back to give Astrid a maniacal smile as they cleared the last of the blue-hole. She flicked the throttle back down, and the decking stopped shaking quite so hard.

“We did it?” asked Astrid weakly. “We’re safe?”

Part of her half-expected something else terrible to happen, another disaster to erupt from nowhere and try to kill them.

“Looks like it,” said Mishka, playing with the communication’s console. “Now, they must have some kind of distress beacon, ah, there.”

“We’re alive!” said Astrid, leaning heavily against the chair.

“Oh, and thanks for looking after me when I was a kid,” said Mishka. “I wouldn’t have gone into that water without you.”

“You remember that?” asked Astrid.

“It’s in the wrong place in my memories, just sort of… wedged in between two ends of a class on thermodynamics — it it feels like it was centuries ago,” said Mishka. “But, yes, I remember the gist.” She scratched an ear and glanced sideways at Astrid. “Little Bear?”

“Well you- you are a little bear,” said Astrid, standing up straight and putting a hand on Mishka’s head and bringing it across, where it ended at her mid-throat. “See? Face it Mishka, you’re still little.”

Mishka grumbled, but didn’t object when Astrid hugged her, in fact, she returned the embrace with more warmth than Astrid could remember. At least from the adult woman. For some reason that made Astrid feel all fluttery inside and-

Astrid’s eyes snapped open.

Oh Saints, she didn’t actually fancy the maniac, did she?