Alive In New Light

Disposition

The general turned his gaze back to the wormhole. In a way, it was beautiful. The serene pink and purple light shimmered like the northern lights in a rich evening sky. But he knew from viewing the footage of Krei's and Callaghan's attempts that it was highly volatile.

About halfway down the track, a rocket on the probe ignited and greatly accelerated the whole device, making it rush toward the portal at breakneck speed. Where it had taken around 20 seconds for the probe to travel half the distance to the portal, it now covered the second half in barely 5. They heard a roar and the control room shook before, at the last possible millisecond, the probe detached itself from the tracks and zoomed into the mouth of the wormhole and out of sight.

"We have a successful launch!" Cried one of the engineers behind the general. The declaration was followed by cheers, but Carrey didn't join them, being too focused on the portal.

"Receiving images and readings from the other side now," called a different voice.

More cheers.

Their celebration was short-lived, however. General Carrey didn't believe in superstitions or premonitions, but a second before it happened he felt the back of his neck prickle. His body went cold and his bones ached like they sometimes did before a storm.

Then a deafening voice rang through the hanger, over the intercom. It was cold, like a chain in the winter, and dreadfully familiar. The voice was dripping and fancy and southern. And it only spoke one word.

"Activate."

For a moment, nothing happened. The general turned to his scientists, eyebrow raised while his left hand tapped nervously against his trouser pocket. He patted it down in an unconscious search for the familiar feel of a hard, round barrel, anything for self-defense. But he'd elected not to wear his weapon, feeling it didn't go with his formal attire or secure setting.

"What was-?" he started to ask.

Then all hell broke loose.

A shape sped out of the portal. Carrey turned just in time to see it emerge. Something big had burst through their side of the rift, smashing one side of the machine as it went. The thing, only a shadow from this distance, appeared to leap off of something which kept speeding away from the portal.

Too late, General Carrey realized that the thing had ridden through the portal on their probe, whose rocket was still active! And now the probe was hurtling directly at them even as the thing from the portal escaped to the side of the hanger.

"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" Carrey screamed, whirling away from the front of the control room and diving behind one of the stations. But it was no use. The probe hit the outside of the command room and exploded. The protective glass did nothing. The entire room was ripped apart in half a second before the millions of disparate pieces crashed onto the floor of the hanger two stories below. Smoke billowed thickly, concealing any potential trace left of General Carrey and his crew. Alarms started blaring and red emergency lights flashed through the dark hanger, but over the sound of the explosion the alarms could barely be heard.

The round, voluminous and vaguely man-shaped thing which had emerged from the portal raced with speed it shouldn't have had the rest of the way to the hanger wall. It raised a fist which then detached, rocketing at the wall and bursting through it like it were made of cobwebs. It exited through the freshly made hole, reconnecting its fist. And not a second too late! Behind it, the portal device had been damaged. Part of the machine had been bent, with many sparking wires torn free. The portal crackled, fizzing in and out of existence. And then the whole machine erupted.

The explosion from that dwarfed the one the probe had caused. The hanger and its surrounding buildings were leveled. The shockwave from the blast took care of everything else at the compound save for the walls surrounding it. Even still, part of the wall crumbled in places, allowing an exit to the thing which had come through the portal. Miraculously it had survived, it being both lightweight enough and armored enough (though only just) to be carried by the shockwave rather than destroyed by it.