THE SPACE ANTS OF TERREN FIVE

You remind me of someone I knew once, Kenny.

Let me tell you about them. -o-o-o- A different year. A different planet. A different universe.

It was supposed to be a routine scouting mission.

A cargo ship sprang a fuel leak and had to make an emergency landing on a moon in a class M asteroid field outside the Taurus conglomerate, and you know how they can get about supply line disruptions.

Our mission: assess the condition of the ship and her crew and rescue as many as could fit onboard, necessitating a small crew. Four of us on a Class-F Fomarian Yacht, a streamlined cruiser built for speed and mobility.

Terren Five, the moon we were headed toward, was reported to be in a Class M Asteroid field. Truly, it’s a miracle they survived the descent long enough to send a distress beacon. It’s the kind of asteroid field you need a special kind of pilot for. The kind of pilot who may be a rogue maverick or just a desperate man with a deathwish.

The pilot we had that day was both, Leth was an Anglosoid, a humanoid with an elongated head, gray-blue skin, and a restless spirit.  I’d personally selected him for this mission for that exact reason.  There were plenty of competent pilots in the Orion Corps. But few that had Leth’s verve. Sure, he had a daring side. But what others took as fecklessness, I took for daring.

It was a mistake I wouldn’t make again.

Leth talked our ears off all trip about ‘masterful swerves’ he’d be showing off in the asteroid field. He was practically bouncing off his pilot’s chair. Imagine our surprise when we arrived at the coordinates and found a lone asteroid, isolated from the rest of the field.

“Ahh come on!” He yelled, right into his headset.

“Calm down, Leth,” I said before addressing the rest of the crew. “Looks like this should be a pretty simple one.”

“BOOOOO!” Leth yelled again right into the headset.

The moon loomed above us, a silver orb hung against eternal darkness.  Scans showed the cargo ship and crew intact. Leth took us down smooth near its landing zone.

I looked out the window as we touched ground, and my mouth dropped open in shock. Most moons like this were barren wastelands, but it was anything but. This moon had life. Beautiful, unstoppable life. Moon beetles crawled along twisting purple vines that threaded their way through grey earth. The result was like a child’s jungle, all brightly colored, intertwining plants that barely made space for our ship to land. Even though we landed a full klick away from the cargo ship, the cargo ship stuck out like a fat metallic finger against the lush environs.

Leth insisted on being on the away team, despite it being against protocol. He said I owed him for the lack of asteroid adventure. I agreed. It remains one of the biggest regrets of my life.

Leth and I set out on the trek towards the cargo vessel. Along the way, an already bored Leth pestered me with questions.

“Hey Bobby, what’s that plant?”

“Don’t know.”

“Hey Bobby, what’s your favorite color?”

“Blue.”

“Hey Bobby, why do you only mate with the male of your species? Seems close-minded.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Hey Bobby, how big’s your debt to the Corps?”

I stopped in my tracks. He stopped beside me.

“Leth…you’re not supposed…”

“You can give it to me in years, I don’t need an exact number.”

I turned off comms so the other crew members couldn’t listen in before I answered.

“…six.” I said after a pause. It was a strange thing to just say out loud. I tried not to think about the number of years left before I was free. It was the first rule of surviving the Corps. Take down your debt day by day, or go insane.

“Wow. Yeah, I got about six too. Six lifetimes.” He laughed a little too hard.

“You’re joking, right?” He must be exaggerating.

“Nope. I was in an accident on Karun, a silver racer crash. They basically had to regrow me from mush. That kinda thing’s expensive.”

It was the Corps’ MO. Find a broken person. Restore them to better than they were before. Put them in debt to Corps for the rest of their lives.

“And if this body dies, they’ll just print out a clone and set him to work,” he continued. “You know how it goes around here.”

I did. I wondered sometimes if I was one of those printed clones made to replace a Bobby who had died alone and afraid in space. They say they don’t tell you if you were.

“I’m actually a clone myself,” Lex says. “Had to hack the records to find out. You ever want me to do the same for you?”

“That’s alright,” I said quickly. “I’d rather not know. What good would it do me?”

“Maybe make you loosen up a bit, buddy.”

“You mean, not care about my life as much?”

“Exactly.”

“Do you not care about your life, Leth?”

He didn’t answer. He just turned the comms back on and set himself back on the path towards the ship.

He didn’t ask me any more questions. -o-o-o- Do you see Kenny?

Do you see yet?

Pay close attention to this next part. -o-o-o- We arrived at the cargo ship, and the first thing we both noticed was:

“They’re not wearing spacesuits!” Leth practically screams. “Can we take ours off too?? This thing is so stuffy.”

It’s true. The cargo ship’s crew was walking on the moon’s gray earth in just clothes, barefoot. But nobody seemed to mind.

Nobody seemed to care that two rescuers had just come to get them off this moon. As we arrived, they just went about their small tasks, an impressive coordination that seemed almost well…coordinated.

I saw one man with a bucket of tools hand one out to each repairman with no communication; he just seemed to know what each one needed at any given time. The result was near complete repairs on what looked like a blown-out fuel tank.

In fact, nobody seemed to be communicating, even though everyone was working. Wish my crew were this organized, I thought. Then I noticed the man handing out the tools was wearing a captain’s insignia. Very hands-on.

“Captain!” I yelled. Every crewmember’s head turned in response.  It’s a moment before the man wearing the captain’s insignia stepped forward. I waited, expecting him to say something, but he just stood there, staring at me. I notice the rest of his crew has also stopped their work. They all stood there, still, staring at us like we were strange new creatures come to invade.

Leth tilted his head next to me. “Are these guys alright?” he whispered.

“Captain!” I said again to the silent man in front of me. “My name is Bobby Neptune, Peace Cadet with the Orion Corps. We’re here to inspect the state of the ship and you guys off-world.”

The captain nodded his head like he understood what I was saying, but didn’t particularly care.

He wasn’t greeting us like rescuers, which wasn’t unusual. Leth and I were used to being greeted like the Orion Corps usually was: hired thugs. But they were greeting us like we were nothing at all.

“So…um,” I said. “Could you prepare your crew for depar-“

“BOO!” A scream punctured the order of the scene. Leth had strolled casually to the captain’s side, then let out the shout right into his ear. It was just a joke. The thing that called itself the Captain didn’t take it that way.

Immediately, every member of the crew covered their ears and turned in unison to Leth. It’s then that I realize what’s happening, but far too late.

“LETH! RUN!”

But they were already on us.

Two of them tackled Leth, or more accurately, grabbed him and fell on top of him, pinning him down. Four more were on me, grabbing each of my limbs in an attempt to pull me down. I resisted, relying on my Asari training in shifting weight and balance. It wasn’t until a fifth tackled me out nowhere that they were able to pin me down. Teamwork. Easy when you share a mind.

“Leth,” I said through comms, which were thankfully still up. “I need you not to panic.”

“GET THEM THE FUCK OFF ME, BOBBY! WHEY ARE THEY DOING THIS??” He yelled.

“Because they’re not a crew anymore,” I said as the first few ants emerged from the sand. “They’re a colony.” -o-o-o- You’re such a bright soul, Kenny.

Just like he was.

Maybe that was the problem.

Your souls burned so bright, you couldn’t hide from predators.

You became easy prey.

And now I have no choice but to put you down.

It’s for your own good, Kenny.

Do you see? -o-o-o- The technical name for psychic brain-eating space ants is not “psychic brain-eating space ants,” but that’s what everyone calls them.

Technically, the ants do not eat your brain. Normal space ants are totally harmless, as everyone knows.

These ants were infected by a telepathic parasite that demolishes the ants’ relatively complex social structure into a unified hive mind. Left unchecked, the parasite can infect willing sentient life.

These were facts Leth did not want to know as the ants began to swarm the outside of our space suits.

“HELP!! HELP!!” Leth screamed.

I had already sent our distress signal.  The other two members of our crew would be arriving with blasters soon. But they were an entire klick away. They would not arrive soon enough.

The ants’ acidic pincers, sharp like a Terranian battle-edge, were slicing through the fibers of our spacesuits like jelly. I struggled helplessly against the colonized crew, but it was no use. The ants swarmed the visor of my helmet till all I saw was a black mass of skittering bugs.

“Breathe, Leth, the bugs will only eat the mind of a willing host.”

“All these people wanted to be eaten?”

On some level, yes. Remember, the ants are psychic. They can read and communicate thoughts, patterns; it’s how they maintain the hive-mind. If any, any, part of your mind craves oblivion, the parasite will seize it and infect it.

“You need to steel your mind, Leth. If there’s any part of you that wants the hive. They will feed on that.”

“Wait, you’re saying that they don’t just eat our brains?”

“No, Leth, if the parasite infects you, you join the Hivemind. You’ll still be alive, you’ll just be like one of these crewmembers.”

Those loping, empty-eyed crew members. Not a survivor among them. One must’ve surrendered to the ants, and after that, one fell after the other, till all was one.

The ants were getting closer to breaking into the spacesuit. I looked inside myself to see if there was any part of me to feed on.

To my horror, there was a part, deep inside myself, that wanted to join them. I was tired. I had six years that seemed like a lifetime to pay off. But no, I reminded myself. For after all, I was Bobby Neptune, one with the wonder of the stars, Asari warrior of Titan. I refused to find my end as an ant.

Suddenly, I felt a warm glow, a radiant feeling of oneness. I reached out towards it and heard many voices cry out in soothing unison ‘joooooooiiiiiiin ussssss” And it was so peaceful. Blissful.

How could nobody want this? I thought. Like a thousand fireflies buzzing in unison, making new constellations against the night. I didn’t see ants anymore. I saw the colony in all its monolithic oneness, and it was glorious.

An equally enthralled voice in my ear snaps me out of it.

“Hey Bobby, do you see it?”

“Yeah, Leth.”

“Hey Bobby, it’s pretty beautiful, ain’t it?”

“It’s a lie, Leth, don’t listen to it.”

But the light was getting warmer. Closer. I no longer saw a black swarm of insects. Instead, I saw a thousand suns dancing on the visor of my helmet, begging me to join them. And by all the gods I knew, I wanted to.

“Hey Bobby…I’m gonna let them in.”

“What?” For the first time, my pulse starts to race.

“What am I doing here, Bobby? Making jokes and dodging asteroids to use up corps time. I’m tired.”

“Don’t listen to them, Lex.”

“Six lifetimes of debt, Bobby. What’s one extra gonna cost?"

“No, this isn’t the way, Leth.”

“All I’ve got is a lifetime of paying off the Corps. A few of ‘em actually. And besides…the light…it’s so warm…so….This is really how they feel all the time…so warm…it’s the feeling I’m always trying to get to, you know? So why not here?”

“AS A DRONE???”

“No, not a drone. A Colony.”

Silence. I tried to think of something to say, I swear. But nothing came out. It was the moment I could’ve saved him, and I failed.

In his last moments as himself, I like to think Leth was happy. I never judged him for what he did. He was too bright a soul to be contained. So he had to be consumed.

“Tell the stars I loved the way they made me shine,” Leth said into his radio and opened his helmet.

I heard the opening of Leth’s helmet and the skittering of hungry insects. I closed my eyes. Soon, they would be inside my suit. Soon, they would eat my own brain.

I feel the first one crawl up my leg and squash it. The piles on top of me howl and recoil as if in pain, but keep me firmly held down.

Then there were more. One, two, three, soon I don’t know how many sets of legs are crawling up my side. They crawl from my leg to my stomach to my chest, then up my face.

Until one found my ear, and made its way inside. -o-o-o- Obviously, you know I survived. But not in the way I thought.

I wish I could tell you my mind was too strong and the ants took one bite of it and knew this was a man whose brain could not be eaten. But I’ll never know if my brain was strong enough. For just as one crawled in my ear, the colony stopped. The crew members lying on top of me stood up and looked at me indifferently, like I was no longer prey, but an insect.

I was special enough to let go that day. Only…I wasn’t. Rather, Leth was special enough that when he joined the hive-mind, he changed it in some fundamental way. Even if that way was just sympathy for me. It showed how brightly he burned.

Months later, I got wind that the Orion Corps had indeed reprinted Leth and assigned him to a different sector.

One lifetime down. Five more to go. -o-o-o- Bryan Dawkins once told me Ivan Stanislav was a parasite.

Do you see yet, Kenny?

Do you see yet why I told you about Leth?

A man who yearned for adventure but ended up trapped.

Because you are a prisoner of Ivan Stanislav, Kenny, make no mistake.

In a way, we both are.

Ever since I was picked for Ivan Stanislav’s team, I have wondered if it had anything to do with you. And it did. Everything to do with it, as a matter of fact. If you thought your leader was disloyal by not picking you, you’re mistaken. He picked me to ensure I’d know that if I beat you at Culture Shock, I would be "put in the ground."

That kind of action must inspire great loyalty in you. I can understand the appeal of such loyalty. Like being in a hive-mind, it frees you from the responsibility of choice and thus the responsibility of consequence.

It must also inspire fear. That’s why Ivan does what he does, of course, to inspire fear. And he is a master at it.

After all, you don’t want the same fate as Bryan Dawkins, do you?

I think the fear is what drives you to explore the multiverse. You’re not seeking great discovery or inspiration; you want escape. You want to find a place where Ivan could never find you, just in case. And I don’t blame you. Being in the same room with that behemoth would put the fear of Jupiter in anyone. But it’s not an excuse.

So which is it, Kenny? Are you trapped by your fear or your blind loyalty? Neither is a good answer, unfortunately. And neither answer gives you the right to play with people’s lives by playing with the multiverse.

You insist on seeking oblivion at the expense of the rest of us. It would be charming if it weren’t so deadly.

I am an example of what can happen when one is careless with the multiverse. I am stranded in a universe that isn’t mine. To all my friends and family back home, I am dead. And since my odds of finding my way back home are minuscule, I might as well be. I don’t know if you had anything to do with that, Kenny, but the possibility that you might’ve is enough to show the potential consequences of your actions.

I don’t know why you chose to become infected by the Red Army. I don’t know if you were lost, desperate, or simply craving the power of a terrestrial leviathan. But it’s not too late for you, Kenny. I lost Leth forever, but your mind isn’t gone yet.

And if I do nothing, one day it will be.

If you or god forbid, Randall, get a hold of a portal gun and do something catastrophic, I would not forgive myself.

Because Kenny, you’re not just like Leth; in fact, you’re trapped.

You’re also similar, because I could’ve saved him.

And I can save you, too, Kenny.

Leth insisted on going out. Just like you insist on your multiversal tamperings. I knew he was irresponsible, and I let him roam too freely. He’d still be here if I’d…if I’d followed protocol. If I’d just kept him on that ship.

That’s what I’m doing with you, Kenny. You may see it as clipping your wings, but I see it as taking titan-grade munitions from a toddler. The potential for damage too great.

When I am done with you, Kenny, you will never want to approach another gate. And I will stand as its reluctant guard. A being of Earth, but not of this earth, guarding his only gateway home. I suppose that is my destiny for now. So long as there are Kenny Freemans who seek to add chaos to the world, there will be Bobby Neptunes to restore order. Let us play our roles in the cosmic game, Kenny. A game that, for you, will end at Culture Shock.

For the good of all mankind.

And yours too, Kenny.

I refuse to let you become another regret.