Family from Beyond the Stars, Ch. 12 (Patreon)

CH. 12To Live Forever

'Kenny.'

The voice drove him slowly to wakefulness.  His surroundings were dark, blurry, hazy.  His entire body was so stiff and cold that he felt like he'd turned into a block of ice; he struggled to move at all.  Something stiff and smooth cracked around him where he lay.  Pieces of something fell off of him in tiny shards.  He tried to sit up but couldn't; everything about being alive hurt.  He couldn't remember ever being in so much pain in his life before now.

In his life.

His eyes went open wider.  He was alive.  A chuckle broke through him that quickly devolved into sputtering coughing and full-body trembling.  His body screamed in protest to feel his blood flow again trying to more actively circulate.  Despite the tremendous agony coursing through him, he forced himself up to sitting rather than laying flat on his back as he had been.  He gazed around blearily.  Nothing but polished, cold-blue walls all around.  He touched one, feeling his gloved fingers sliding off of it immediately with no grip.

He pushed his hand flat against the wall this time and waited to see if the adhesive palm would catch.  He felt like it had but then, like a flimsy shower wall suction cup, it popped back off with the slightest tug.  Either the walls were too slick or...  He looked down at his suit.  He tapped his wrist and there was immediately a garbled radio-static sound that pierced his ears.  He turned it back off dully.  That could mean anything.  Damage, low power, or even interference from something else.  Still.  He was in one piece!

Struggling from the effort and pain shooting through him, Kenny forced himself to stand.  There was quite a bit of wavering on his feet before he finally succeeded in doing so.  His balance was completely off, his head swam, and his limbs shook like leaves in a storm.  He leaned heavily on the wall, trying to make sure that he didn't slip and fall.  One leg nearly shot out from underneath him just as he tried to put weight onto it and he caught himself barely in time to avoid toppling once again.

Grunting angrily, he kept moving forward, letting resentment and stubbornness power him through the pain.  He had no idea where the heck he was supposed to go, but something was pulling him along.  He couldn't put his finger on what it was, or why he was following it, but he kept going, slowly and carefully moving up a smooth incline.  He stumbled along down the short, cramped passageway with nothing really to hold onto or stabilize himself with.  He had to be careful to not trip or he'd just slide all the way back down again.

Distant chitters, skittering, and echoes of hisses came from all around him.  Ordinarily, he would have been terrified.  Now, however, he was too cold, and tired, and sore to be afraid.  He was shocked enough that he wasn't dead from falling off the cliff.

His wandering led him to another chamber.  The top was smashed open somehow, jagged edges revealing a shrouded view of clouds up above.  Was this where he had landed?  He looked back down the way he had come.  Probably yes.  He had miraculously survived the fall, smashed his way through the strange, polished material, and then rolled or slid down to the room he had awoken in.  Something fluttered on the broken edge of the hole above.

He reached for it, hands trembling.  They caught on the hem and he pulled it down.  The heavy material nearly knocked him flat as its weight fell around his shoulders.  He staggered from side to side, trying to extricate his face from underneath the shroud.  Admittedly, it was at least very warm.  Finally, he succeeded.

Holding the massive weight in his hands, he looked down at it.  In the darkness of the cave, it was hard to see anything stand out about it.  The only thing that did was that it was furry and soft.  Then a single shred of light pierced through the clouds for a second, dim even as it was, and illuminated a black stripe against a golden coat.

Kenny dropped the fur pelt immediately, hands feeling burned as if by acid.  It fell onto the polished floor and lay there, unmoving.  The empty eye sockets of King Brighten stared up at him.  The jaw was mercifully closed.

Even so, looking down at the literal skin of one of Nova's kind, her actual Mate, made his stomach clench.  He couldn't take it.  He turned and vomited.  Afterward he leaned against the wall, trembling all over with tears in his eyes and unable to look at the sad pile of fur.

'Hey now, that's a little harsh,' came a sudden, familiar voice.  It rang all around the chamber, echoing in Kenny's ears.

He whirled around to look, eyes wide.  There was no one else here.  He looked again and again.  Nothing.  No one.

'I mean, I know it's startling, and yes a bit grotesque, but even so.'  There was the sound of a half-amused laugh, ringing in his head like the sound of wedding bells.  It was a joyous sound as if everything in the world could make the man it came from smile, no matter how grim.  It was indeed a very masculine voice, deep and rich.  Kenny felt warm just hearing it, a distant pang of camaraderie and friendship.

"W-who are you?" he asked the room warily.  He took a wavering step forward and his feet brushed the pelt on the floor again.  He jumped back.  He didn't need to walk all over something so horrific and sad.

'Names aren't that big of a thing for my people,' the voice noted.  'With that being said, I like the one you came up with for me.  It's not as poetic as the one you gave my Mate, or our kids, but even so.  It fits.'

Kenny's gaze slowly lowered back to the pelt of the King.  The dark, empty eye sockets seemed to be staring up at him somehow, despite being devoid of all life.  "K-king...Brighten...?" he asked, unable to believe what he was hearing.  "B-but...you-you're dead!"

'Am I?" chortled Brighten.  The pelt didn't move, but he clearly could imagine Brighten leaning up against the wall opposite him.  A second later...he was!  It was a faded, mental image, almost like a holographic projection, glitching in and out of view every couple of seconds.  It emanated from a single beam of light that came from Kenny's throat sensor of his livesuit.  Except...it wasn't him.  It was Austin!  'Well, why didn't anyone tell me that?'  The image of Austin threw back his head and laughed deeply, teeth flashing.

Kenny leaned back away from the hologram and the pelt equally, unable to wrap his head around what was happening.  His mind was in a whirl, his limbs shrieked in pain, and he felt ready to pass out.  "W-what am I talking to?" he demanded.  "A ghost?  A mental projection?  Why do you look like my best friend?!  Am I crazy or something?"

'In order: technically yes, yes, because this is the easiest form for you to understand, as one father to another, and I don't know, are you?  You seem pretty lucid to me,' replied Brighten/Austin.  The Leonine king, wearing the face of Kenny's only friend who had never abandoned him, ticked off his answers on one big hand.  ‘Inquisitive mind, even now.  That's a good sign that the fall didn’t knock your brains around too much. That’s really good.'  He then winked one glowing eye.

"B-but I...you..." stammered Kenny in a rush, barely able to put two words together.  He failed entirely a few moments later, gabbling and waving his hands around.  King Brighten laughed again, the sound echoing off of the walls all around them but not painfully.

'Wow, you're a funny one too!' he stated.   'I completely understand why my Mate cares about you so much.  You've also got a big heart, big as any I've seen.'  He tapped his own chest.

Kenny somehow felt it as if the King had done so physically to him instead.  His chest heaved rapidly and his vision began to blur.  It had been years since he had an anxiety attack this strong.

Brighten’s ghost then lifted his hands up.  'All right, calm down.  Deep breath in...'  He mimed doing so, another oddity, keeping his deep voice calm and gentle.  'And out...'  He mimed that as well.

Despite everything, Kenny did his best to stop freaking out.  He waited until he had taken several deep breaths before he opened his eyes again.  King Brighten cocked his head to the side.  His ears almost looked like they wiggled, exactly like Chander's did.  His smile was 100% Joey though, and the cocky gleam of his eyes, strong but emotionally sensitive, was textbook Phoebe.  It was so bizarre to see such different but warm expressions of children he loved so much in a face he knew so well.

'Better?' he inquired, and Kenny nodded, even if he still was a bit shaken.

"How...are you here?" he asked finally.  "How...can I understand you?  Your species don't talk like mine does, Nova taught me that.  How am I not dead?  How are you talking if you are dead?  What happened to Nova's father?"

Brighten chuckled again.  'Let's start from the top again,' he told Kenny.  He began to slide himself down against the far wall, seating himself the exact same way that Nova did, his arms crossed around his knees.  He gestured at the pelt on the floor.  'Put that on while we talk.  You're half-frozen as it is.'  At Kenny's repugnant and guilty look, he actually frowned.  'I'm dead,' he snorted.  'You think I'm bothered by you using my fallen coat of fur to keep yourself warm?  Your chances of surviving aren't that great right now.  You want them any lower than they already are?  No?  Then put the fur on.'

Feeling embarrassed and ashamed, Kenny tugged the coat closer and slung part of it around and across him.  Immediately, the inner lining began to warm him.  It didn't even seem cold after being on the ice-cold material they sat on.  Shivers set in a few moments later as he snuggled deeper into the fur.

Austin's smile returned.  'That a guy!' he beamed.  His smile was cheesy and big like he had just told a horrible joke or some witty one-liner that made everyone else groan.  'Now, to answer your questions.  I'm here as a mental, empathic projection, using the last of my energy to converse with you.  It's the last dregs of my soul that I had left after the one you call Lord Darken killed me.  Again, wow, I love how good you are at naming us!  Right on the money every time!'  He then settled back after yet another bout of laughter.  'Once I'm done here, I'm probably gone for good.'  He looked down at his own pelt and sighed.  'I'm not upset.  I'm glad that even now I can be of use to someone and help when they most need it.'

Kenny's eyes watered and he looked down at the fur guiltily.  "But...you never got to...be with your family," he muttered, voice close to breaking.  "You lost...everything."

Brighten/Austin shook his head.  'No, Kenny, I didn't.  Everything that matters most to me is safe.  You made it safe, kept it there, protected them.'  He met the King's eyes.  They were startlingly blue now, making Austin's already resplendent ones even brighter.  'I can never truly thank you for that.  It's been my one regret, really, but not one I’d ever hold against you.  I may not be there to hold my family close, but I know that someone, who loves them just as much as I ever could, has been there in my stead.   Since the day they were born, since they all found each other again.  You've been there.'  Brighten blinked once, long and slow at him.  'Truly, Kenny, thank you.'

Kenny lowered his eyes, feeling humbled beyond words.  "I...I just...I love them," he said softly.

'And they love you.  Wow, do they love you,' Brighten's voice glowed with pride.  'I can feel it all, see it, through your link.'  He tapped his head, then his throat.  Kenny felt the device at his neck give a small buzz in response.  'That should answer your second question.  I'm in your mind right now.  You hear me and see me like I'm right here, but I'm literally just a projection.  When my pelt touched you, it activated the transfer.  I'm speaking to you using your natural language.  English, that's what it's called right?'

Kenny nodded, amazed.

'And your homeworld!'  Brighten looked back and up, marveling, as if he were looking right at it.  'What a place!  So many colors, all the time!  Your people are all so different and unique!'  Then Brighten looked down, a bit saddened.  'But sometimes cruel.  And indifferent.  And selfish.  You've known very little love in your life.  Except from this guy.'

Kenny watched as Austin drew himself up slightly, seeming pleased as to the form he was wearing.  He couldn't even begrudge him that.  Austin was just like how he had imagined Brighten would be: full of life, laughter, and love for his family.  He also couldn't help but nod a bit at the King's assessment.  "You...aren't wrong.  But I put all that behind me."

Austin pointed at him.  'That, right there!' he chortled.  'That's your best feature!  You give of yourself to everyone, and even when they do nothing but take, you forgive them.  Yours is a special heart, where there is no room for hate, only a desire for love.  You see light in others that no one else does or wants to’

Those words struck a chord inside of him, harkening back to when Phoebe had once said much the same thing.  “I…just can’t bring myself to hate anyone,” he admitted quietly.  “Even when they would walk all over me, beat on me, or tell me I was nothing, a failure.  It felt…silly to put so much energy into an emotion like hate when the world had so much more brightness to it rather than dark.  That’s how my father raised me.”

‘Then your father was a good man.  I can see that in your memories of him.  He would be proud of the man you’ve become.’  Kenny’s eyes stung even as he forced himself to meet Brighten’s again.  ‘That's not a weakness, to not allow hate to have a place in your way of looking at the world.  That doesn’t make you a failure either.’  Brighten stood then, gesturing widely with his long arms.  ‘Look at what all you’ve achieved, how far you’ve come!  You’ve done and seen things no human ever has, protected children that weren’t yours, saved a lost soul in danger of losing herself forever in despair.’

His cheeks felt hot and flushed.  “I’m…nowhere near as great as all that,” he muttered sheepishly.

‘No, you’re not,’ Brighten grunted, startling him momentarily.  ‘You’re better.  You're ten times better a person than anyone you've ever met, but you never let yourself think that way.  You blame yourself first because you'd rather others be happy, even when you're miserable. Even when others refuse to see the worth in you, you never stop seeing the good in them.'

The ghostly form of the King sat back down then, thunking his head back against the wall of the cave.  'I used to be the same way.  I still am, really.  I've never hated anyone in my life.  Well, except for one.  I earned special privilege for that guy.'  His eyes actually hardened and he cast a look at his own pelt.

Kenny nodded emphatically.  “Yeah, no kidding.  Darken is as much a monster as any I’ve ever seen or heard about.”  Then he chuckled, causing the King to look at him with an amused smirk.  “He makes even Derrick look like a saint.”

Brighten guffawed then, throwing his head back once more.  'No, Derrick is an asshole, that’s plain to see.’  Then his gaze fell once again.  ‘ Darken though…He's the one person I couldn't ever understand.  When I reformed my people, he hated me for wanting something better for us than blindly killing all the time.  Sure, maybe it was because he was the strongest and he didn't want to concede power. To me, power was just the catalyst to bring about the change I needed to save my home.  I never wanted to be anything Kingly, but the mantle had to be taken.  But that doesn't matter.'

Kenny furrowed his eyebrows.  "Why not?" he asked.

'Because as long as my family is safe, that's all I care about.  They can rebuild what I allowed us all to lose.  Sure, my kindness led to the destruction of my entire race.  I don't know how many escaped, and of those rare few, how many blame me as much as I do?  There's a lot of things I could have done differently, but none of them matter to the dead.'  Brighten lifted a hand.  He had begun to flicker in and out of view a bit more now.  'Going to be gone fully soon.  I'm glad to at least have someone to talk to, here at the end.'

Kenny leaned forward.  "Isn't there anything we can do?" he asked earnestly.  "Can't you...shut off the link, save your energy?  Maybe...there's a way to...bring your fur with me if I can escape, so you can speak one last time with Nova, with your kids!"

Brighten shook his head.  'Can't, my little friend.  I was nearly spent when I started this.  Being knocked off Darken's shoulder in that avalanche was a blessing.  I expected to just...be buried down here.  Not the most glorious of endings I'd have hoped for, but I was content to see ol' One-Eye make himself go crazy trying to catch up to my Mate and our cubs.  Our.'  He motioned with his head at Kenny respectfully.  'You're the Father now.’

Kenny wiped at his nose pitifully.  His mind flashed away to the cubs, easily able to see their loving faces, their playful smiles.  He saw Nova too, the way she held him, the soft licks, the warm looks and touches.  He hid his face in the fur, sniffling.  "I'm sorry..." he muttered in a muffled voice.  "I miss them...  I wasn't... afraid that I was going to die...but...I kind of hoped I wouldn't have to live even a second without them.  That maybe...something I did really mattered in the end."

The King's face softened even more than it naturally was.  He faded from view and then Kenny felt a tingling weight settle around his shoulders.  'I know what you mean,' he said, sounding and feeling much closer now.  He could very well have been sitting right next to Kenny on the icy floor.  'But you can't give up hope, Kenny.  Everything you've done has mattered to this point.  Grand sacrifices and little moments between you and our family are one and the same.  That's what life is all about.  So long as you're breathing, life has a purpose.  And where there is life, there is hope.'

Kenny looked up into Austin's unnaturally bright eyes.  They shared a nod, or more rather another long blink on the King's end, but then he looked away.  He tried to adjust his seat but his muscles twinged in pain.  "You say that," sighed Kenny, rubbing at his face.  "But I don't see a way out of here."

'Neither do I,' conceded Brighten beside him.  Kenny hung his head  'But you can't afford to give up.  The cubs need you.  Nova needs you.'  He sat up straight again.  They looked at one another once again and Brighten beamed.  'You need to get out of here.  The walls of this place are interfering with your suit's transmitter.  Get out, get to someplace high, and they'll see you're alive.  They'll come back for you.'

He shook his head at the hologram.  "No!" he protested.  "I...I don't want them to!  They'd be putting themselves in danger for me!  This is my fault!  Darken wouldn't have caught up to us if..."

'Yes, he would have,' stated the King.  'If not today, then tomorrow.  If not then, later.  The chase cannot go on forever.  Eventually, it must end, as all things must.  He cannot surrender now that he is committed to acquiring our children as tools for his campaign of conquest.  One day, he would catch up.  My greatest strength was my weakness as well: if I could just have overcome my abhorrence of killing and done away with him, none of this might have happened.  If I could do it all again...'  He laughed.  'No.  I can't know that I'd have done anything differently.  It wouldn't have been me.  Would you have done anything differently leading up till now?'

Kenny looked away.  He thought about every action that had led him to this point.  He remembered every game, every hug, every glowing smile.  This adventure had been the greatest thing to ever happen to him.  He realized that he mattered.  "No," he stated firmly.  "I wouldn't.  Not for all the pain, the fear, the uncertainty."

'That's because you are, and always have been, a part of our family, Kenny Sissom.  From the day you opened that crashed pod on Earth, you have been our family.  And we do not leave our family behind.  Escape this place.  Be with them.  You wouldn't want to disappoint them all, would you?'

Kenny's brow furrowed, his jaw clenched, and his eyes shone with conviction.  He tried again to stand.  His joints popped, his muscles seized, but he felt himself rising ever higher, almost as if he had a hand on his back, helping push him up.  The fur slid off his lap and back onto the ground.  He looked down at it, wanting to bend down and pick it up.  His fingers flexed to do so and Brighten's glowing, see-through hand closed around his knuckles.  It was not a real sensation, but there was a light to it, a warmth and a tingling through the suit.

Brighten/Austin shook his head.  'Leave it behind,' he told Kenny.  'That scrap of fur is not me.  I will live forever,' he lifted his other hand and touched Kenny right in the forehead.  'In here.'  The finger lowered to his chest.  'Here.'  The hand reached out then and pointed.  'And in them.'

They looked forward as one.  The spectral image of the cubs flickered into being, leaping over one another.  Joey tackled Chandler who flipped them and pinned his brother, only for Phoebe to land atop them both.  They yowled, voices slightly muted and sounding far away, before they turned as one to look at Kenny.  Their smiles made everything seem much brighter.  They faded from view, turning into sparkling pieces of light that trailed back into Kenny's collar.

He turned to look at the King.  Austin's borrowed form was becoming fainter.  He shook his head, trying to hold onto the hand that had touched his but he was literally trying to grab onto a hologram.  Even so, the fallen Monarch smiled graciously, benevolently at him.  He leaned toward Kenny.

As he did, the ghost-projection grew in size.  Austin's features melted away, replaced by the hulking, now kneeling form, of King Brighten.  The leonine face was massive, handsome, scarred, and kind.  His crown shone above his mane.  His forehead met Kenny's in the softest of tingles.  Their eyes closed as one.

'You brought Nova back to the Light,' came that deep voice within his mind.  'You saved my family.  For all the stars in the universe, for all the Light with which they shine: thank you, Kenneth Sissom.  Now.  Go.  Find Nova.  Live, forever.'  The last word faded like the trailing echoes inside of a cave.  The tingle lifted.

When Kenny opened his eyes, he was alone.  He looked down at the pelt on the floor.  It was dark, lusterless, already growing cold when he chanced to touch it.  The golden shine was gone.  A tear trickled down his cheek.  He wiped it away before it could freeze to his skin.

With newfound strength, he started moving.  He didn't know where, but he knew he had to keep going.  He struggled down passageways, shimmied his way in between cracks in the walls, skirted the ledges of vast drops and chasms.  He had to believe he was going in the right direction.

Far off, in the distance, there came a series of loud booms.  He kept going.  He couldn't be sure what was making those sounds but he had to keep his feet moving.  If he stopped now, he might never be able to force himself to start again.  That was when he heard it.  A faint skittering.  A hissing rustle.  He turned slowly back around, having just begun crossing a narrow ledge that spanned a wide, dark chasm.

A...thing stared back at him.  It was some kind of cross between snake and centipede.  The face was insectile but with rattling, multiple mandibles for jaws.  Sharp fangs glistened inside.  It had too many eyes, most of them uneven and perpendicular with one another.  A pair of long, bladed forearms unraveled from its belly.  It hissed again.  Green slime bubbled out of its maw, bottom jaw distending before splitting apart, making the fang-filled orifice even wider.

Kenny started to step back rapidly.  It advanced, dozens of thorn-like claws clicking on the lacquer-like material that formed every inch of this place.  Unlike him, it moved with fluidity and grace.  It screeched then, readying itself to charge.  Kenny turned and ran.  His feet constantly felt like they were about to slip out from underneath him but he kept going.

He heard it racing after him, getting steadily closer.  He threw himself down an incline, forgoing walking to slide along on his butt and legs.  The speed he gained built alarmingly until he was veritably zooming like he were a human toboggan.  He had to tuck his arms into his sides to avoid slamming them against the multiple other cave openings he saw as he continued to zip along with no control of where he was going but steadily farther and farther down.  He glanced behind him.

The thing was still in hot pursuit and somehow was still maintaining speed with him.  And so, to his horror, were what looked like almost forty more!  They were of varying sizes, ranging from as tall as his hip as the first one, all the way to a towering eight feet at the hunched, chitinous shoulder.  The sounds they made were terrifying.

He looked forward again and his eyes went wide, teeth vibrating inside his mouth.  He was coming up to an abrupt lip of a rise and fast!  He had no idea what lay behind it.  He tried to slow himself down by swinging his arms and legs out wide but he had no traction.  He tried to activate the boosts in his legs but his suit still wasn't working right.  He had no faith that his gun would work either. There was simply no time to think!

Kenny's body soared up the slight lip ahead and then he was suddenly airborne.  He sailed through the air with no way to steer or guide himself.  He couldn't help it.  He yelled in panic as his upwards momentum gradually decreased and he started to come back down.  He was still flying forwards, across another wide chasm of yawning blackness.  The lip of another section of tunnels stretched before him on the far wall of the cavern.  Could he reach it?!  He focused all his prayers, hopes, and determination onto his boots just as he saw that the arc of his descent was just going to miss the nearest tunnel opening.

"For Nova!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.  He clenched every muscle he could and flexed his heel down.  The boost didn't work.  His eyes shot open, having closed them, as his speed truly started to fail.  He was just barely going to miss the ledge.  He let out one last shrill yell of defiance and flexed both feet as hard as he could.

"I am not going to die in a place like this!" he yelled at no one as the air whooshed past his face.  "Livesuit!"  There was a distant and barely audible Blip.  "All power to the leg boosts!"

"Ack...nowledged..." sputtered the automated voice.

His fingers just missed the lip.  "Now!" he bellowed.

The boots exploded in a burst of light and energy.  He sailed back up and fast.  Too fast!  His shoulders and upper spine hammered into the upper edge of the hole, accompanied by a heavy crunch.  The breath erupted from his chest in a grunt and he fell back to the bottom lip.  His hands scrabbled for any kind of purchase on the slick material.

For one heart-wrenching second, he felt like he was going to slide right back off the ledge and fall into the blackness of the chasm.  Bursts of foggy breath clouded the air before him in his panic.  Then the adhesive of his palm caught with a sharp jerk.  His arm wrenched hard, almost feeling like it was nearly pulled out of the socket.  But he had finally come to a halt.

Using every ounce of his strength, he pulled himself up and over the lip and into the mouth of the new tunnel.  The suction of his hand popped free at the last second, almost causing him to slip backwards but he jerked up and away from the rim, sitting up and looking down into the void below.  New waves of pain and numbness swept through his body, battling against the adrenaline coursing through him.  When he looked across the hundreds of feet wide chasm, he saw the vast crowd of weird bug-aliens chattering and screeching on the far edge.  They had no way to cross.

He let out a relieved, shuddering gasp.  Wasting no time, and ignoring his pain, he scrambled to his feet and resumed limping down the new tunnel.  He had even less idea where he was going now, and it felt somehow colder here, but it didn't matter.  Always forward.  Never look back.  Eyes always ahead.  That was the way.  Otherwise, you could never see the Light.

And speaking of light...things certainly looked a lot brighter the farther down the tunnel he went.  He even had to shield his eyes a little bit the more he walked before they gradually adjusted.  The nearest opening to him was a sloped curve that he had to haul himself up to even look over.

A vast chamber stretched before him.  The floor was flat for the most part, sloped only slightly over the span of about eighty feet, and on all sides was uneven terrain.  But that wasn't what stuck out to him.  He looked up to the vast ceiling overhead and saw a hole.  Through it, he saw the mountain.  The walls of the cavern were pocketed like the floor in various places, spaced out in such a way that could take him up there!

He weighed the options; what with no other idea where else he might find a way out of these creepy tunnel systems.  Sure, a fall from that distance might kill him, but so could everything in here, and he couldn't risk being indecisive.  The black hole was still a factor for time.  He had to get out of here and up to the top of that mountain peak.  If Brighten had been right, his suit's tracker would work there.  All Nova had to do was notice and...she would come back.  She would come back, right?

He shook his head fervently.  She would come back.  Family did not abandon their own, not until all hope was lost.  Where there was life, there was hope.  He couldn't stop or give up now, right when the end goal was in sight.  All he had to do was cross that open area, get near the wall, and start the arduous climb.

Hauling himself up over the lip, Kenny slid down the sloping edge that led to the cavern floor.  It was a gentler slide this time, leaving him to stumble only mostly gracelessly back to his feet by the end.  As they touched the slightly rounded but also flat dome that made up the majority of the floor here, he felt the ground reverberate yet again at another massive crash from somewhere.  The sounds echoed all around him, putting his nerves on edge.

Even the ground itself here seemed to shudder a bit beneath his feet as if it too had felt the aftershocks of that one.  He kept going.  It wasn't until his feet left the dome that he realized the rest of the ground, all of it uneven and covered in deep pockets and gouges like the walls he would have to climb up, did not tremble like that flatter, smooth part had.

Then came a soft rustling from somewhere, unlike anything he had ever heard before.  And what on earth were those popping sounds, like packing peanuts?  There was also a weird smell here as well, like rotting fish, growing steadily stronger by the second.  Then the ground buckled beneath his feet suddenly and he was thrown wide.

He landed against a ridge and his back spasmed in pain.  However, since he seemed still able to move, he ascertained through his cloud of new agony and soreness that his spine was still in one piece.  Without the suit, somehow still able to absorb some of the impact, he might have snapped his bones right there.  His breath fogged the air much more heavily now.  Why was it suddenly getting colder in here, along with that monstrous collection of sounds?

“S-suit…” he choked out.  The Blip came, barely even audible.  “Status?”

“Augments currently unresponsive.  Assessing damage to systems,” it responded tinnily.  A second later, it spoke again.  “Damage level: Severe.  Life support systems listed as critical.  Power reserves, failing.  Repairs are needed.”

“Great, thanks,” he groaned, forcing himself to sit up again.   Wincing, shivering, he tried to stand, footing none too stable when he saw the domed ground he had walked across was curving up even more before his eyes.  It was bowing up and out from the plain it had been before as if under incredible pressure.  Cracks formed along it in long, jagged arcs, from which emitted small streams of misted material and tiny shards that peppered the surrounding area like shrapnel.  Was this some kind of build-up of natural gas?  A geyser covered in the lacquer, shaken to wakefulness by the rumblings and crashes from elsewhere in the complex?

A second later he had his answer.  Something definitely was waking up, but it wasn't a geothermic reaction or anything so benign.  The cracking continued, growing louder and louder.  A hiss, loud as the whine of a jetliner coming into land, began to reverberate around the room, bouncing off the walls and magnifying itself until it was deafening. 

He clapped his hands over his ears to try and block it out!  The suit was seemingly unable to dampen the noise.  Was it that low on power?  He checked his boots, but the displays on them were cracked and dark.  No jumps here.  Had he overdone it while jumping the chasm?

The dome split apart suddenly into ragged plates.  Chitin.  It rose vertically, higher and higher it climbed, distending even further.  Over a hundred feet it rose until the jagged tip brushed the ceiling up above.  It began to slowly turn.  A pair of tendrils extended from the very top.  Rattling claws lifted a cumbersome, serpent-like bulk up out of the pocket it had been resting in.  Scythe-claws, eight of them, unraveled from beneath the belly.  Over a dozen eyes, glowing like lanterns, turned slowly to look down at the intruder to its lair.  The mandibles slowly opened.  They were covered in scars and festooned with hundreds of barbed teeth.

The Matriarch of the caves let out a chittering howl as it saw the lone Human.  Its hundreds of clawed feet began stomping toward him.  Each one drove an actual hole down into the material from its immense weight, cracking and deforming the ground even more.  It looked like some horrifying combination of mantis shrimp and a hooded cobra, eyes distending from the skull on stalks to fixate squarely upon him.  Kenny stood as much chance against this thing as he did in a shooting match with Lord Darken's battleship!

Then, right as one of those scythe claws reached for him, so big that it staggered beyond all concept of size, there came a booming explosion.  The force of it was greater than those before, visibly shaking the walls all around them.  Even the Matriarch paused as it reached for him, looking around in chittering confusion.  Another booming impact came, and another, and another, steadily drawing closer.

What the hell else could be so big and powerful that it was shaking the very walls and ground?!  Even worse than that, from the steadily increasing volume and reverberations of those shockwaves, it became obvious to him that whatever it might be was barreling straight towards their location.

Kenny drew himself up, or tried to.  It was so cold that standing up straight seemed an impossible task.  He looked down at his hand.  Could he even fight back?  He flexed his frozen fingers and the gun formed, sparking and fading in and out.  No ammo.  His suit was barely functioning.  He realized then what the crunching sound had been.

The upgrade Nova had placed on his back had been right where he had hit when jumping the chasm.  Alien technology could only do so much.  It was so cold in here, rapidly setting his limbs to shuddering.  His breath felt like he was sucking on ice and he trembled so violently that he could barely think.  He was cornered by the world's biggest nightmare centipede, his suit was damaged, and something else was smashing its way towards them.  Death by the unknown, death by monster, or death by freezing?

Then the wall in front of the Matriarch exploded outward.  Hurtling through the air, in a cloud of shrapnel, billowing dust, and flying pieces of lacquer was a multi-limbed figure, dark hide blazing in a rainbow of fiery color, a hulking, vaguely bipedal cat-like creature covered in glittering plates of armor.

At one arm, or rather a pair of conjoined arms, was a flat-nosed weapon that emitted a burst of pink flames in a searing column.  It struck the giant monster’s hide and clung there like napalm, scorching a section of the Kaiju-sized insectoids armor into blackened, melting goo.  The other pair of arms held aloft a glowing, double-bladed pair of swords that extended from behind the knuckles, each brightly blazing length as long as a station wagon.  The beautiful, terrifying face was feral, angry, and roaring at the top of its lungs.  Hair streamed out behind the feline skull, colored throughout that dark mane and across the armor in vivid, fiery stripes.

Kenny sagged to the ground, unable to believe what he was seeing, as Nova hammered into the side of the monster.  It screeched and swiped with claws, snapped with its fanged maw, but it was too big and slow to catch the swift alien warrior now scaling its hide in long-legged strides.  Blade arm hacked from side to side, severing claws as they reached for her, while flamethrower spat out globules of liquid flame that burned and clung to anything it touched.  Globs of melted Matriarch already dribbled down its flanks, the flames ceaselessly burning whatever they touched as if alive.

Their grappling, frenzied combat stomped all over, back and forth.  The Matriarch couldn't reach back to attack the harrying Nova, but it was so massive and its hide so thick that even the advanced weaponry of the Mother Alien avenging could barely crack it with individual swipes and bursts of her firearm.

The clawed feet turned the whole area into powder and shards.  Kenny knew he had to get out of the way, or, freezing or not, he'd be trampled.  He slid back, body refusing to obey him in nearly every way until he felt an opening behind him.  He forced himself back and into it, falling only a foot or so before he lay inside.  It was a low shelf, mostly overgrown by the lacquer.  In his little pocket, he looked out at the melee.

Nova rode the Matriarch like some kind of rodeo clown on a bull, sawing away at its spine with her blades.  Her flamethrower launched salvo after burning salvo of its volatile incendiary blasts, casting beautiful colors to dance across the walls of the chamber.  It was almost like the Northern Lights, back on Earth, for how they shimmered and sparkled.  Her hair streamed behind her as the monster bucked and roiled beneath her paws, moving like waves of the ocean.  All of it was like the world had slowed to a crawl, each detail vivid and perfectly captured.

His eyes felt so heavy.  Each blink seemed longer and slower.  It wasn’t even as cold anymore.  He just felt tired.  So tired...His head slowly thudded to the ground.  His eyes closed, eclipsing his last view of Nova as she sank her blade into one of the Matriarch's eyes and pushed it wrist deep.  The flamethrower aimed right down that gaping maw, one half of its bisected lower jaw shorn away, filling its throat with a sustained spray of fire.  The screams and roars faded to darkness and the night.

***

A fist hammered through the lacquered wall of the small alcove.  Nova, panting for breath, having disengaged her weapons, reached in for the small, silent bundle within.  Behind her, the Chiteling Empress writhed at the rear of the cavern in its death throes.  That had been the biggest one she had ever seen.

Ordinarily, she never would have taken on such a creature.  But when she had felt and heard Kenny's suit flare to life in a massive burst on her sensors just a little way up ahead, she had abandoned all caution.  Even a second later and all of this would have been for naught.

The Mother Alien held Kenny in her paws.  He hung limply, face completely blue.  His livesuit's marker was so dim that it was nearly completely out.  She shook her head, beginning to panic.

No.  No, he couldn't be dead!  She touched his throat sensor with her one tentacle, clenching her eyes shut tight.  There.  She felt the pulse, but faint and fading.  Relief washed into her before she assessed his life signs in a rush.  He was frozen nearly to his core by the subarctic temperatures of this place.  His suit must have been damaged somehow.  That didn't matter.

She took one look at her little Kenny and sniffled, overjoyed to have found him.  Then her eyes hardened; no time for sentiment.  She had come here to save him, and she knew how to do that.  She tapped several buttons at the neck of her cuirass with a spare paw.  With a hiss, it opened slowly forward.  Sliding his body very gently inside, she wedged him against the swells of her chest.  She actually gave a slight jump as she felt how cold he was, a literal block of ice against her fur.

She acquired one of her remaining vials of bio-fuel and injected it as gently as possible into the receptor at his throat.  Discarding the tube, she then closed the suit back up.  The insides had begun reforming to fit the new addition to the interior almost immediately, which meant Kenny wouldn't be crushed as the precious injection went to work reviving and warming him back up by a direct infusion into his bloodstream.

Internal wiring plugged into his livesuit as well, lending it her own power-cells to allow its reserves to recharge enough to sustain itself once more.  She had her internal server perform a scan of his lifesigns, watching them ever so slowly start to level out and then ascend back up to acceptable levels.  With her precious cargo stored in the warmest, safest place possible, she stood back up.

Nova pressed a button at her wrist, then looked up at the ceiling where she could just barely see the planet's sky through it.  She couldn't see anything past it, however, as dark clouds had gathered above the opening.  For one second, she was terrified to her core.  Had the stealth systems not been enough?  Were they out of time?  Was her father here again?!

Then she noticed that the clouds were wrong.  It was no atmospheric shroud.  It was just a blizzard.  Her sensors read off the particulates in the air; containing trace elements of the lacquer that blocked her equipment from working at long range.  She tuned her scanner to account for this and instead look past the snowstorm.  The mountain's distant peak greeted her, just barely sticking up out of the clouds.  There.

Gathering herself, Nova primed her armored suit in preparation for a boost.  She pulled out the last of the vials and injected it into her suit as well, repowering the internal banks as much as she could.  It would be enough; it had to be.  With the vial empty, she gathered all the energy she could into her footpads.  She jumped, releasing the boost of force behind her to propel her up through the air towards the hole in the ceiling.  She smashed through it easily and landed on the outside.

Immediately, she was in the midst of the snowstorm.  Her sensors flickered and flashed rapidly.  She turned them off and her helmet engaged itself, covering her skull once more and shielding her from the blinding debris gusting around her.  Another boosted jump and she was sailing through the air towards the mountain.  She could feel the slowly warming shape of Kenny inside of her armor.  That gave her hope.  She just had to get up and out of the snowstorm, climb to the top of the mountain, and activate the tractor beam.

Each time she landed, she would stride forward a few steps and jump again.  The sounds her heavy landings caused shook the surrounding area but she didn't care for the noise.  All that mattered was getting out of here with every member of her family safe and sound.  She jumped one more time and this time, the mountain appeared clearly in her vision.  She sailed towards its side and impacted the hard rock.

Her claws sunk in and she started to climb once the burst of energy from her stabilizers tuned back down to normal.  She made good time; her species were made for all kinds of terrain.  Climbing especially was easy given their multiple limbs, natural strength, flexibility, and their adhesive paw pads, a trait they transferred into their armor and tech for easy use.

She was several hundred feet up from the lacquered tunnels below when she heard a new sound coming through the howling gale.  Hisses and clattering.  Rapid clicking of clawed feet on stone.  She looked down.

Chitelings.  A whole swarm; almost an entire colony.  They somehow had sensed or heard her, who knew which, and come up in their thousands to follow after her.  Their one-track minds were usually only ever set on the acquisition of food.  And now they were also fueled by revenge.  Her slaying of the Matriarch would have sent psychic shockwaves throughout the hive.  These creatures would be out for blood.  Her blood.

She turned her gaze up and kept climbing.  The Chitelings were faster climbers than her but she had the advantage of being climbing before they had started.  She put everything she could into hauling herself up the walls, grabbing handholds, and nearly racing up the mountainside.  Behind her, she felt the horde getting closer.  A thousand feet more.  She didn't look back, keeping her gaze forward.  Her teeth gritted as she nearly lost her grip when a rock cracked underneath her.  It went sailing down and out of sight but she didn’t waste any time, and just kept going.

Finally, at long last, she reached the peak of the mountain.  She panted for breath inside of her helmet then opened the front of her armor briefly to check on Kenny.  His skin had color again but he was still out cold.  She closed the cuirass back up and pressed a button on her wrist.  Slowly, very slowly she felt the ship's distant engines respond to her remote call.  She turned, tentacle extending to cover her in the transport gel.

The first of the Chitelings had just crested the rise.  Her eyes narrowed.  There was no time to wait.  She roared and extended her double-bladed arm again, forming the flamethrower with the other pair.  The warrior Male lunged at her but she cut it down.  The horde began to pour in onto the top of the mountain, swarming toward the lone Mother as she fought as desperately as she ever had in her life.  Their claws couldn't breach the armor, but they were weighing her down, slowing and restricting her movements.  The larger ones were closing in.  Still, she fought.

Sword arm flashed, severing limbs, heads, even whole bodies in two.  Flames belched out from her firearm, coating entire crowds of the creatures in light and heat.  The screams filled the air, adding to the frenzy of the howling storm winds all around them.  The peak was a single tip of rock that stuck up like a dagger out of that swirling vortex of clouds.  Every inch of it was covered in the writhing, smoking bodies of the Chitelings as they continued to surge up over the lip and toward their hated adversary.

Nova felt claws biting through her armor, the weight of their bodies starting to drag her down.  The flamethrower sputtered and went dry.  Her armor flared inside her mind, multiple system warnings as her power cells and armaments were running on empty.  A scything claw stabbed into her chestplate, piercing the cuirass and stabbing through into the flesh just above her collarbone.  She felt it very nearly miss Kenny.

Fire surged inside of her, the rage of the Light burning away her agony and exhaustion.  Her armor’s power supply, nearly depleted, suddenly blazed with newfound energy.  Her stripes glowed so brilliantly that the Chitelings were briefly stunned.  She roared, as loud as the storm.  No one, no thing, not monsters, not the black hole, not even her Father, would take him from her!

Her other arms formed the second pair of swords.  She became as a whirlwind of slashing, sizzling, howling blades, slaying them by the dozens with each stroke.  Their chitinous forms could not stand up to the fury, the fear, the sorrow, and joy of a Mother determined to return to her family, to bring back her Mate to their children.  No army could stop her, no screeching force or monstrous tide.

At a lull in the combat, the Chitelings hung back for fear and confusion as to how they had not subdued this creature; she wasted no time.  She pressed the tractor beam button and the gel spread over her bulk from the tentacle’s tip.  Its foul-smelling stench was a welcome sensation.  Then her feet left the peak and she began to slowly float up.  The Chitelings howled in fury and rushed at her again but she was already gone.  She sailed up through the air towards the rapidly approaching hull of her ship, the glowing light of the access port beckoning her home.

Her swords had turned off by the time she flashed up through the barrier and landed with a massive impact on the hanger floor.  The claxon sounds of the doors blared in her ears mutedly before they ceased.  There was nothing but the hum of the engines beneath her armored bulk and the beating of her frantic heart.  She lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling of the bay.

Then she felt paws pushing and poking at her.  Wearily, Nova sat up.  The cubs growled out in joy to see her.  Their eyes furrowed and they looked all around.  Phoebe met hers first.  'Daddy?' she asked, voice quavering with a combination of fear, hope, grief, and joy.

Nova disengaged her helmet and let out a long, growling sigh.  Her hair hung around her face for a long few seconds and then, smiling, she reached up and opened the front of her cuirass.  The cubs' eyes all went wide as their Daddy was revealed, still laying against her chest.  His cheeks had color in them, his expression drained but peaceful.  They all saw the rise and fall of his chest, weak but there.

The cubs let out unanimous roars of joy.  Nova silenced them immediately as Kenny groaned against her.  Even unconscious from his ordeal, he reached out toward the outside of the suit as if to placate the cubs.  Nova extricated him as gently as possible before she instructed them to form a living bed for him.  They did so, crowding in around one another so that their Daddy could be lain atop and between them.  They huddled around his slender frame, taking over keeping him warm as Nova stumbled and limped to the armory locker.

The removal of her gear took a while since a lot of it was even more damaged than it had been before.  As the last piece slid off, she sagged against the wall.  Everything hurt.  She numbly injected herself with another vial of bio-fuel for first aid from inside the locker and then turned back to the pile of cubs.  She reached into their purring mass of bodies and once again cradled Kenny in her trembling arms.  She inspected him all over, looking for injuries, cuts, bruises, or anything of the like.  To her complete and utter relief, he looked no worse for wear than his exhausted stupor.

Then Nova blinked.  There was something different to him now, something new but barely distinguishable.  She sniffed at him and her eyes went wide.  It was a familiar scent, combined and intermingled with his, barely identifiable but undeniably there.  She dismissed it for now.  She jerked her head at the cubs, instructing them to go to their pods.  They yowled unhappily but complied, allowing her to close them all in before she left the hangar bay.  There was yet more to do.

In short order, Kenny was placed in her private quarters on her bed.  She made sure he was laying peacefully before she climbed to the cockpit, strapped herself in, and powered up the engines.  She turned the ship around and boosted away from the planet, leaving the atmosphere in seconds.

She looked back only once she was safely on the very outskirts of the solar system.  The planet had just then started to drift actively towards the black hole.  Before her eyes, it fractured and split into pieces, crumbling to its core before every bit of it was swallowed up in the dark maw of the universe.  Nothing remained.  They had barely made it in time.

Only once the corridor had opened and they were safely blazing through its dark tunnel of flashing stars and galaxies, surrounded by its merciful, comforting hum, did she finally relax.  She clambered down out of the chair and back down the hall to her room.  Kenny had not moved since she had left him.  She climbed up, very delicately, and closed the doors behind her, not even bothering to refresh herself fully on the bio-fuel.  Other things needed recharging right then.

As carefully as she could, she climbed up and into the bed to join the little Earthling laying as if dead atop the padded interior.  The bunk’s door panel hissed closed behind her, shrouding them in darkness even as she curled in around him, lifting him gently and settling him once again on her chest.  It was the only natural place for him to sleep after all.  He murmured then, startling her as she had just settled in, holding him against her and idly stroking his hair and back with a paw.

"Dream..." she heard him whisper.

She licked his cheek softly, soothingly, trying to calm him back into his much-needed rest.  They would have all the time in the world to talk and celebrate their reunion soon.  She felt him shudder underneath the warm touch and she smiled joyously to have her Kenny back in her arms.

Nova would never let him go again.  She could never lose her Mate ever again.  She saw Brighten in him, more so now than ever.  It was as if his very will, his light, everything about the man that she had learned meant she loved him, had transferred to the Human whom she had fallen for completely.  It was a silly idea, and one that made her treasure him all the more.

Kenny's head lifted and, even mostly unconscious, he looked up at her through barely opened blue eyes.  Bright blue.   Like hers.  Like the cubs’.  Her own went wide in shock and amazement.  What was more, they glowed, far brighter than even theirs were.  There had only ever been one whose eyes shone so brightly as his did now.

She saw something in them, almost like an old, familiar smile.  A gentle laugh echoed in her head, and she almost could have sworn she felt a paw brush the back of her head.  That phantom touch caused her, almost without meaning to, to lean more down toward him to hear what his lips were muttering so softly.

"A dream..." Kenny whispered.  Then he leaned up.  His mouth pressed flush against her muzzle, against her lips.  She started, ears going up and stiff, and then her eyes softened and drifted closed.  This...was something very new to her.  She had kissed him before, in the way she read from his memories and how he had shown her, but she hadn’t entirely understood it then.  She understood it perfectly now.

Neither of them moved; they just kept that warm pressure of taste, heat, and soft texture, drawing it out for several long, glorious, perfect moments.  Then Kenny finally sagged back down from her.  His glowing eyes drifted closed once again as hers blinked back open.  He was smiling.  "A good dream...now I can live…forever..."  He collapsed, going completely limp.  The way he phrased the oddly melancholy words had her checking him over hurriedly before she sighed in relief.  He was alive, just asleep, out like a light.

Nova mirrored the smile, tears in her eyes threatening to overflow, and she stroked Kenny's cheek with one thumb as he slept in her arms.  Curling in around him, she pressed her forehead to his.  Her Kenny was back.  Her Kenny.  Her love.  Her Mate.  All was right in the universe once again.

Their family was whole once more.