Book One - Chapter Three: ii

One hour later, Captain Rivik’s VZUS ambwe landed on the planet at the temporary landing area that had been set. The pirates that had formed the exploratory mining party were all presently huddled together on the entrance platform of an Armstrong IMP Tap. They were suited up with their helmets on, but appeared to be too scared to set foot off the ship. Several Armstrong IMP Tips stood around, idle and pilotless.

Captain Rivik growled at the sight. He clicked on his mic.

“Lieutenant Beol. What the fuck is going on here?”

“It’s the ground, Captain.”

“What about it? I’m standing on it. It’s just goddamn dirt. What’s got everyone scared shitless?”

“Well, our chief botanist said that they don’t think it’s actually dirt. They said that there may be soil deeper down, but what we are standing on right now is not actually dirt.”

“Then what the fuck is it?” yelled Captain Rivik, becoming exasperated by the exchange.

“We don’t know exactly. The chief botanist went to get a sample and… well…”

The Lieutenant’s words trailed off. He raised an arm and pointed it towards something that was sticking up out of the ground. The Captain set off towards the object. It was less than twenty metres away, so he quickly closed the distance. However, as he got closer, his steps began to slow as comprehension dawned on him of what he was looking at. The protruding object was an outstretched arm. An arm belonging to one of his pirate raiders. His chief botanist, to be precise. All that was visible were the forearm and hand. No other portion of the body was visible.

“How long has it been like this?”

“The body has been slowly disappearing over the past hour, almost like it is sinking, or being swallowed by the ground. Before she collapsed, the botanist mentioned something about a mycelial network, whatever that is. Then she started screaming. But the screaming didn’t last long, though. Pretty soon she went quiet and just collapsed over where you are standing. None of the boys were game enough to venture out to get her.”

“And what about you, Lieutenant Beol? Were you also not game enough?”

“Safety protocol demanded that at least one ranking officer should remain back in case of an emergency.”

“Of course,” growled Captain Rivik as he knelt down to examine the hand. He had a custom-made space suit that allowed for his cybernetic hands to extend out of his suit. Instead of extending down to form gloves like most space suits did, his suit stopped at the wrists and attached to sealing attachments that were permanently fitted to his cybernetic hands. This allowed him the freedom to use his hands without the impediment of gloves, even in environments requiring a space suit.

He reached down with his right hand and brushed the ground. It felt solid enough.

“Mycelial network, you said?” asked the Captain.

“Yes, Captain.”

Whilst the Captain was undoubtedly a bloodthirsty tyrant and a nefarious criminal, he was not uneducated, nor was he stupid. He knew what a mycelial network was.

What would a network of fungal hyphae be doing out here? This planet is supposed to be barren and lifeless, he thought to himself.

“What was the botanist doing when she collapsed?”

“She had been digging with a shovel to try to get a sample. She had complained that it was very tough ground and had been hacking away at the ground. It was not long after this that she screamed and collapsed.”

“Interesting. And now to test my theory,” said Captain Rivik.

He let his fingers of both hands slowly slide into the ground. There was very little resistance to this motion. Once his hands were almost fully submerged in the soft ground, he slowly began to curl his fingers until they were in a claw position beneath the surface. He braced himself, straddling his legs wide, and then activated the micro-actuators in his hands and made to tear his clawed hands as fast and as hard as he could up through the ground. But instead of effortlessly pulling up and out of the ground like one would expect, there was incredible resistance, overwhelming resistance. So much so that several hundred micro-actuators automatically switched off, because of the triggering of neural circuit breakers, which triggered whenever the actuators were at a critical breakpoint.

Captain Rivik was staggered by the resistance and only just caught his balance as his hands finally broke free from the ground.He was also peripherally aware of a high pitched buzzing sound that lasted a few moments and then vanished. This was a sound that he was familiar with. It was the sound generated by the Anti-Psyche device within his brain. This device was designed to prevent over the air hacking of his neural brain implants. It also prevented psychic manipulation, hypnosis, and hallucinations. And it had just activated.

“Are you okay, Captain?” asked Lieutenant Beol.

Captain Rivik ignored the question, busy as he was on regaining his footing once again.

Just as I suspected. It only reacts defensively to perceived threats such as sudden, violent motions, thought Captain Rivik to himself.

“What is it Captain? What is this planet?”

“Lieutenant Beol. We have ourselves here, the galaxy’s largest mushroom.”

“What?”

“The botanist was correct. Somehow, this planet has been consumed by an entire mycelial network, a fungal network. Where it came from, I don’t know. Where did the scans indicate that the Verudium readings were originating from?”

“It is hard to say. The readings were so inconsistent, but the Science Officer seemed to think that the Verudium was located in the core of the planet itself. But that can’t be right because Verudium has never been found in a planetary core.”

“Hmm,” said the Captain as he set back for the ship. “It’s not inconceivable that the mycelial network has extended right into the core of the planet and is somehow feeding off it. I suspect it may be the source of the Verudium, somehow synthesising it. Possibly as a waste by-product.”

“I don’t follow you, Captain.”

“Don’t worry about it. This planet has been taken over by some alien life form that appears to be related to a fungus, except that it is sentient, and it is most definitely hostile towards us. It will resist any efforts to mine the planet’s core. There is no way we will be able to mine the Verudium in the normal way. Instead, we can destroy the planet from the safety of space. Prime the nuclear warheads on the VZUS ballad. I want to blow this fucker of a planet to pieces. We can collect the Verudium from the debris field that will be created in the aftermath of the explosion. Best we get off the planet’s surface and back —“. But Captain Rivik got no further in his sentence, for suddenly his head was filled with the loudest and most intense high frequency buzzing sound that he had ever heard. A moment later, the thunderous clap of a sonic blast shook the ground.

Screams filled the air as the other pirates who did not have the protection of the Anti-Psyche implant devices were blasted by an immensely powerful psychic wave that had risen up from the planet itself. It swept outwards in an ever-expanding sphere in all directions at the speed of light. So tremendously fast and powerful was the force generated by the blast that it actually distorted the fabric of space itself, generating countless tiny wormholes in its wake. Portions of the psychic blast slipped in through these briefly existing wormholes, to then randomly reappear all across the universe in the next instant.

The entire landing crew, save for Captain Rivik, were rendered immediately and permanently brain dead, and they collectively collapsed to the ground. As the buzzing subsided, Captain Rivik surveyed the scene before him. A quarter of his entire crew, including his second in command, had been taken from him. And most of his best mining ships, which were still here, would have to be abandoned. 

There is no way I am going to risk the lives of any more of the crew trying to recover these mining ships, he thought to himself. Assuming anyone is still alive aboard my flagship. But he quickly reprimanded himself for this thought as he well knew that the VZUS ballad had its own protective shields which would have blocked the bulk of the electromagnetic pulse.

He began to growl, a deep burning anger growing within him as he set off towards his VZUS ambwe.

Once aboard, he keyed his mic and hailed the crew aboard the VZUS ballad.

“Is anyone still alive?”

There was half a minute’s silence before someone finally replied. “Yes, Captain. We are alive but pretty shaken. And we all have splitting headaches. What the hell was that?”

Ignoring the question, Captain Rivik lifted off the planet in his VZUS ambwe and said, “Prep the nuclear warheads. We have a planet to destroy!”