Fallen Vanguard

Amongst the heaps of scientific equipment, Leo's laptop played Jacksepticeye's Woutube stream. It was nearly lunchtime at the hadron collider space station and all Kyle and Leo could do right now was wait for their laptops to compile the latest particle accelerator readings. Just as they were laughing at Jacksepticeye's foolishness, Dr. La happened to walk in and roll his grey eyes.

"Ahem."

Startled, Leo and Kyle turned and spotted the yellow alien professor.

"I assume all has been covered?" Dr. La drawled, picking up a white hand scanner lying on the side. Leo and Kyle rapidly began fiddling with their laptops while experiencing slight chills. Even after a year, gazing at the yellow alien with hair consisting of translucent quills was daunting.

"Yes, of course. We're just waiting for the anti-matter test. Got 10 more minutes to go," Leo replied.

"Hmmm." Dr. La's reptilian eyes squinted as he peaked at their code. "I trust you two have perfected the calculations to run optimally?"

"Well, we consulted the other professors and so far they told us that, for our RAM, 20 minutes of run time is pretty impressive."

"I see, in that case, both of you come with me. I still haven't taught you humans -"

KABOOM

Notebooks, scanners, markers, and various scientific equipment fell to the floor as the room trembled.

"What in the blazes!" Leo starred aghast as red lights flashed. A hull breach? How was the highest level of emergency triggered? Without giving it a second thought, he snatched his black laptop and tugged on the slim Kyle. "Let's go!"

"The heck is - Eeyy!" Kyle stumbled off his swivel chair.

Scowling, Dr. La fled with them down the white corridor.

<These geniuses better not have made the particle accelerator create a black hole. That would be disastrous.>

As they sped past a set of windows, bright blue flashes drew Leo's attention.

[You have to be kidding me.]

An unknown black battleship had forcefully attached itself to the space station and its opaque blue shields were harmlessly shrugging off the space station's lazers. How on earth was there no warning about this battleship until now? Did it just literally exit a light-speed jump right before ramming into the station?!

As they turned another corner, Katherine's holographic face appeared on Dr. La's wrist communicator. "Dr. La! The particle accelerator is unstable!"

"What? How? I told you humans to fortify it well when you built this place."

"There's a damned battleship that broke through the hull and has started boarding the space station. These idiots even went so far as to fire EMPs everywhere they went after boarding that some of the control room's circuits were fried. Dr. La, if you don't shut the particle accelerator down remotely, our neighboring star systems will be decimated."

Dr. La grimaced. "Don't tell me -"

"You're the one who wanted the particle accelerator to be the strongest there is!���

"Damn it! But I don't have a -" Dr. La spied Leo's laptop.

"Leo!" Dr. La grasped his shoulder, halting them both. "I need your laptop."

"Huh? Why?" Leo hadn't heard Dr. La's conversation over the blaring alarms.

"Ugh, the particle accelerator is unstable." Dr. La reached for the laptop. "And we need to shut it down."

"Guys, you can at least speed walk to the spaceships!" yelled Kyle from upfront.

"Right," Dr. La motioned Leo forward as the hologram cut out. "Hold the computer. I need both my hands to type. I need to hack into the space station's central command."

"Wha - why? Shouldn't you connect to the particle - "

"We don't have time! We're better off rebooting the power quickly for 5 seconds than trying to deal with that thing after the main control circuits have been fried."

"The control circuits have been fried?!"

Dr. La heatedly yelled, "Human, just let me save our lives!"

His claws then wildly typed away as Leo bit his lip. All this turmoil was too much to process. Plus this alien didn't care if he temporarily disabled the space station's defenses against that menacing battleship.

White corridor after white corridor, scientists in white lab coats raced past their speed walking group, leaving Kyle flustered. Just as he was about to bail on their group, all the lights blacked out for a few seconds. Then the back up generators whirred everything back to life.

"Damn it - I forgot about the backups!" Dr. La almost furiously fired another volley of commands, yet Katherine's livid hologram reappeared.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING! WE NEED POWER TO CONTROL THE AIR LOCK AT THE DOCKS!"

Dr. La's yellow skin paled. "Fuck! Is everyone -"

"SHUT DOWN THE DAMNED PARTICLE ACCELERATOR."

The hologram cut out leaving the group standing there blankly. However, Leo's emergency induced anxiety reminded him to reach safety, allowing him to reassure the professor, "the air lock at the docks is hooked up to a separate generator. Even if the power goes out, they should be fine."

"Oh, right." Dr. La pursed his lips, cautiously thinking as he typed again. He should probably reboot all the generators except 'that' one. After a minute of walking down another white corridor, they could see the metal doors leading to the docks.

"Wha - NO!"

The three of them were viciously sucked backwards by a vacuum before rapid metallic thuds resounded behind them. Letting out a small wail, Leo whacked his head against the metallic floor. After a few moments, he dizzily got back up and noticed that the grey airlock door behind them had slammed shut. Wait, was there a new breach near them? Leo cursed under his breath and aided Dr. La up.

"Ugh, now I got a migraine," mumbled the professor as he glanced at the laptop he had clutched onto tightly. "Just hope that the particle accelerator still takes a full 10 minutes for running diagnostics before officially starting." Sighing, Leo silently pleaded the same. Why did he have to go through another life and death experience?

When they finally stepped into the ship docking area, they could see that the majority of the orange research spaceships had already departed. Probably because their group had speed walked their way over.

"Dr. La!"

Kyle, Leo, and Dr. La turned to see the research division's supervisor, Katherine, dash over.

"Why isn't the particle accelerator off yet?"

"10 more seconds." Dr. La held up a yellow hand.

Katherine nodded and then focused on the despondent Leo and Kyle. "Why are you two still standing here? Board the ships!"

Without a second thought, Kyle rushed off, leaving a dismayed Leo holding the laptop. "I can't leave until he's done."

"Hmph, right. But when he has -"

KABOOM

Everyone stumbled as the space station quivered again and knocked over two spaceships. "What was -"

"Wait, wait! No no no!"

Dr. La punched the keyboard as the whole screen went black. "Bastards hacked the laptop!"

Shaking in rage, he tugged Leo forward. "There's no point now - let's leave!"

"Wait, DR. LA!" Katherine seized his other arm. "Don't you have another way of -"

"No, I do not. If you love your life you better -"

SWOOM

Green, red, blue, and other particles zipped everywhere while random portals materialized. Before Leo's group reacted, they were bombarded by these particles and swallowed by a gaping portal. Air ripped past them as their surroundings went from mountains to darkness, green seas, and stars. Before Leo could even yelp, a gale of wind yanked them away from each other. The last thing Leo remembered before suffering from the Gs was rocketing up the side of a skyscraper.

***

Beep … Beep … Beep

White lights fuzzily came into view.

"Ughh," Leo moaned. He felt like a stampede had run him over. Wait, hadn't he been flying a moment ago? Leo tried getting up, yet cold metal restrained his wrists.

"Huh?" He spotted handcuffs confining him to his hospital bed.

[What the?]

He noticed a thin tube inserted into his light brown arm and heartbeat monitor wires attached to his plump chest.

At least he wasn't surrounded by random portals now. Groaning, he relaxed back onto the blue bed. He somehow must have made it out alive and was now recovering in a hospital. But why was he restrained? He flicked his wrists, and sure enough, those handcuffs weren't just his imagination. This isn't right.

He then caught beeps and occasional footsteps from the oak door on his left.

"Hey, anyone there?"

After a few seconds, he heard a small creak followed by footsteps. A black suited man came in and gazed at Leo. "You're awake."

"Yes… where am I?" Leo asked while surveying him. He was an African American with a slim build and military haircut.

"You're in a hospital. You were found in a small crater on top of one of the skyscrapers here in Nye city."

"Huh? Nye city? Small crater?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "Tell me, do you know how you got to the top of the skyscraper?"

"Uh, well… A bunch of portals appeared when the particle accelerator malfunctioned and I along with - wait, where is Katherine and Dr. La? Did you find them too?"

Frowning, the man pulled up an opaque holographic screen on his wrist communicator while replying, "We only found you." Leo then watched him quickly send a text.

[Wait, was I the only one who survived?]

Dread seeped in, but Leo refused to believe it. He had to hope that they were alive. Surely, if he was found, the media now-a-days in the 3040s would find them. But that didn't explain why he was detained.

"Why am I handcuffed?"

The man contemplated Leo's words, yet ultimately ignored them. "What is your name?"

"Wha - why? My name is Leonardo Vazquez." Leo started getting a weird vibe.

"Right, and where were you born?"

"... What's with all the questions?"

"Where were you born?" The man emphasized, taking a step closer to Leo.

Yup, definitely bad vibes.

"Earth, in San Francisco, American Commonwealth."

The man raised an eyebrow and scoffed. First this 'Leonardo' guy appears randomly and now he spits lies? The man wanted to retort, but mulled over the past events instead. Everything surrounding Leo didn't make sense. For all he knew, Leonardo could be brainwashed into believing this nonsense.

It's best to quickly determine this. He didn't want to deal with another sleeper agent. Pulling out a purple slip of paper, the man revealed it to Leonardo while mentally tuning his eye's contact to scan Leo's brain waves.

Perplexed, Leo recognized it as a movie ticket.

"Why are you showing me this?"

"Read the planet and civilization names out loud."

Odd request. "Planet Spirit of the Lyra Federation… huh?" Leo peered at that again and back at the handcuffs. "Is this a joke? Let me speak to an officer."

But nothing happened again, except Leo could swear the man's right eye flashed red.

"Detective Jean," the man summoned. A second later a pudgy woman in a black suit walked in. "He's safe."

"Are you sure?" She asked.

"He's… normal. You should be fine. We will transfer him at night today. Until then, he's in your care."

Transfer him? Lyra Federation? Don't tell me those portals… led to another universe.

"Of course sir." She then whispered in his ear, but the man shook his head.

"Just answer his questions."