Still Got It

Fire tore from the cave walls in sudden monstrous tongues of orange, spitting molten stone across the jagged floor. Vast black cracks opened beneath the alien rock, widening with every tremor, glowing from below with menacing rivers of lava.

Lieutenant Celeste Marlowe ran through the smoke, her shoulder-length straight brunette hair concealed inside her helmet, her impressive, athletic body hidden under layers of space-fabric and armour. Behind her, Sergeant Lebrinski stumbled, caught himself against the wall, and hurled himself forward just as the section of floor behind him collapsed.

"Ground team to bridge!" he panted into his comms. "We're on our way to the lander module!"

Captain Brown's voice came back from the mothercraft. "Ground team, this is Brown. Disrupting the Jinkilian power source has destabilised the entire planet. The three of you need to evacuate now. Our instruments have never recorded seismic activity like this before. The planet's crust is starting to fail."

Celeste ducked as a slab of black stone sheared from the ceiling and exploded against the ground in front of her.

"Hurry," Brown said.

Celeste vaulted the broken stone and kept running. "Captain," she said, "it's just Lebrinski and me."

There was a tiny pause on the comms. "What happened to Jackson?"

Celeste did not slow down. Ahead, daylight flickered at the cave mouth. "He sacrificed his life for the mission, sir. The Vendians were swarming towards us. They would have gotten their hands on the Jinkilian crystal if Jackson hadn't jumped into the lava with it."

"I was two chambers ahead, securing the exit route," Lebrinski added, ruefully.

"It wasn't your fault, Lebrinski." Marlowe reassured him.

Captain Brown drew a long breath. "I will personally ensure Jackson receives the highest honour for his bravery," he said. "Now you two get the hell out of there."

The lander stood fifty metres away. Beyond it, the horizon was splitting apart. Lava-fountains erupted into the alien sky. The cave entrance collapsed behind them in a thunderous roar as they hit the ramp then slammed into the cabin. Lebrinski punched the emergency launch sequence.

The lander tore itself noisily from the ground just as the entire shelf beneath it gave way, dropping into a widening lake of molten stone. Lava surged upward in a vast wave, licking at the underside of the ship as it clawed into the sky. Below them, the planet came apart. Neither of them spoke.

Far above, the mothership waited.

-oOo-

Three days later, the crew of the starship Protector gathered in the forward hangar in front of a plinth displaying Lieutenant Jackson's spare helmet. There was nothing else to bury. Captain Brown stood before the assembled crew in full dress uniform, solemn and dignified. "Lieutenant David Jackson died in the line of duty," he intoned. "He died ensuring that a Jinkilian crystal could never be used against the free systems of this quadrant."

The crew stood, heads bowed, silent.

"We all know why these missions are so important, despite the risks. A single Jinkilian crystal can stabilise the core of a planet, power a civilisation, or drive an entire fleet of world-killing laser-cannon ships. In the wrong hands, a single crystal could threaten the galactic order and the safety of every living being in the quadrant. This is why we deny them to the Vendians at all costs. Lieutenant Jackson understood that. His sacrifice prevented the Vendians from obtaining the crystal. His sacrifice saved countless lives."

-oOo-

Six weeks later, inside a vast Vendian complex on Tantansonia, Marlowe and Lebrinski crawled through the maintenance arteries of an alien weapons plant. The place was vast, ugly and alive with hostile machinery. Huge pipes pulsed overhead, carrying luminous coolant through the metal ribs of the facility. Far below the grated floor, turbines groaned. The entire installation thudded with the deep mechanical heartbeat of something immensely powerful.

Lebrinski stopped at the edge of a junction and raised one fist. Marlowe froze behind him. Beyond the crossing, a Vendian patrol moved past. Six large, hunched, grey-armoured shapes, heavy limbs clicking against the metal floor, faceless helmets turning from side to side, plasma rifles on standby.

After the last of them had passed, Lebrinski whispered, "We've got less than a minute before they circle back."

Marlowe nodded and unclipped the plasma bomb from her belt. "I'll set this beside the crystal on a short timer," she hissed. "Fifteen seconds. You keep watch." Then she was gone, slipping through the junction and into the corridor beyond.

The crystal chamber lay at the centre of the installation, a cathedral of black metal and white energy. Around the walls, power conduits plunged, all feeding towards the Jinkilian crystal which floated in a containment field, turning slowly. It was no larger than Marlowe's fist, but the light inside it seemed infinite.

Her comms crackled. "Marlowe?" Lebrinski whispered. "Status?"

"I'm in the chamber," she responded. "Crystal located. I'm making space for the bomb now."

She worked quickly, triggered the device, and the countdown display activated.

Fifteen. Marlowe turned and ran, hitting the corridor at a sprint.

Ten. She flashed past the first junction, boots hammering on the grating. Lebrinski saw her coming and pushed himself away from the wall. They ran together.

Five. Four. Three. They threw themselves around the final corner.

Two. One. The chamber became a white fireball. The shockwave hurled them off their feet and sent them skidding across the metal floor. Behind them, the corridor buckled outward. Panels blew from the walls. A chain reaction of sparks raced along the overhead conduits, and then the whole installation began to answer the blast, one section after another erupting in spurts of flame and electrical fury.

Lebrinski rolled onto his back, and forced himself up. Marlowe was already on her feet. "This way!"

They sprinted through smoke and falling debris, past ruptured coolant pipes and burning control stations. The exit doors were visible ahead, half-open to the orange sky of Tantansonia. Lebrinski reached the doorway first and stopped so abruptly that Marlowe nearly collided with him.

A monstrous, vast sound greeted them, a rising chorus of alien shrieks and charging weapons. Lebrinski stared out in horror. The lander was covered in Vendians, like a swarm of gigantic insects.

"Vendians," he reported. "Hundreds of them." His voice cracked. "We're fucked."

Marlowe smiled. "Not quite."

Lebrinski turned to look at her.

"You're fucked," she said. "The Vendians are fucked. And that's just to begin with. But I'm not."

Lebrinski stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

Marlowe looked past him at the Vendian hordes forming a ragged semicircle outside the exit doors. Behind her, the installation burned.

"Jackson," she said.

Lebrinski blinked. "Jackson?"

"He didn't jump into the lava."

For a moment, the alarms, the flames, the shriek of metal and the snarling horde outside seemed to fall away from him. "What?"

"He caught me taking something from his holster," Marlowe said. "We had a scuffle. I hit him with a rock and kicked him into the lava."

Lebrinski took a half-step back. Shocked. Sickened. "You murdered him!"

Marlowe did not answer the accusation. Instead, she changed subject. "Of course, the real power of Jinkilian crystals isn't one crystal powering a planet, or a Vendian armada."

Lebrinski shook his head, confused. "What?"

"The real power," Marlowe calmly explained, "comes from using two crystals to power a single being."

"What?"

She opened one hand, revealing a Jinkilian crystal. Even in the smoke and fire, its light was impossible. Pure, white, alien. Lebrinski stared at it.

Marlowe smiled. "The one Jackson supposedly carried into the lava? Seems I've still got it." Lebrinski gasped. Marlowe continued. "Now you remember what I said in the chamber just now? That I was making space for the bomb...? I never said how I made room. I never said what I removed."

She opened her other hand. A second crystal shone in her palm, identical to the first. "The one you thought we'd just blown up? I've still got that too."

"Celeste, don't—"

Marlowe laughed softly. She brought the crystals together. Their light combined and spread out over her body. The corridor briefly became a perfect white void. Lebrinski saw only Marlowe's silhouette, standing at the centre of unbearable brilliance, her head tipped back, her arms spreading slightly. The light poured into her skin, ran through her veins like liquid lightning, and filled her. Marlowe's armour plates cracked and fell away from her body. The black undersuit beneath tightened over her, remade by the same impossible force that was remaking her, revealing a form made into feminine perfection.

The light faded. The crystals had vanished. Marlowe stood with relaxed, flawless certainty, shoulders back, chin lifted, her body now glorious in every conceivable way. She flashed a goddess' grin at Lebrinski then turned away. Outside, the Vendians howled. Marlowe casually walked through the doorway and out towards them. Hundreds of plasma rifles raised and pointed at her. And then fired.

Red energy bolts burst across her chest, shoulders and stomach. Others hit her thighs, her arms, her face. The landing field flashed with weapon-fire, every Vendian rifle emptying itself into the woman strolling towards them.

Marlowe stopped when she chose to. Smoke curled from her now indestructible skin-tight bodysuit. She was untouched by the barrage. She glanced down at herself, brushed one hand lightly across the awesome swells of her magnificent chest, and laughed.

"Let me show you how it's done," she grinned. White fire lanced from her eyes in furious arcs. The first sweep cut through the Vendian line from left to right, carving through armour, weapons and bodies with contemptuous ease. The second sliced upward through the creatures clinging to the lander, reducing them to burning fragments.

The remaining Vendians turned to flee. Marlowe flashed her heat-vision again and again, long savage strokes scything across the landscape. Plasma rifles exploded. Armoured bodies vanished in flame. As the last Vendian fell, she let the heat fade from her eyes and laughed again, then turned back towards the exit doors.

"You can come out now, Lebrinski," she called sweetly. "I saved you from the horrible Vendians."

Lebrinski stepped out slowly. Marlowe stood in the centre of a scene of burning carnage. She smiled at him. "Of course... I never said you were safe from me."

Lebrinski raised his rifle. His hands were shaking so badly the barrel wavered as he tried to point it at her.

Without warning, she seemed to vanish. A rush of air slapped Lebrinski's face. Suddenly, she was behind him, one hand resting on his shoulder, her perfected lips close to his ear.

"I'd say it was an honour serving with you," she breathed, "but, let's be honest, all the honour was yours. See ya." She gave him the smallest shove. Lebrinski flew a hundred yards parallel to the ground and hit the side of the ruined lander with a wet crunch.

Marlowe watched what was left of him slide down and leave a dark streak in the ash.

High above, the Protector hung in orbit. Marlowe's goddess eyes saw it clearly. And beyond it, the galaxy. Her feet left the ground. Flight came as naturally as walking to her. She rose above the burning lander, the hundreds of dead Vendians and the collapsing weapons plant.

"Captain Brown and the whole Admiralty were so worried about just one crystal falling into the wrong hands," she mused. "This is what happens when two fall into exactly the right hands."

Marlowe glanced at her fingers, admiring them. Feminine, flawless, beautiful. And strong enough to tear ships apart. She turned towards the sky. "I'm going to fucking love ruling the galaxy!"

Conceptfan, July 2026.