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  Hanniman decided to be the neutral party in this encounter, approaching Phil with a studious expression. 'Mr. Jones, if you'd like to follow me into the chamber we can begin the tests. You will not be able to determine how you fared until after the completion of every exercise. Do you understand?'

  'Yes.'

  Agent Smith's smile widened noticeably at that.

  'Then we shall head to the chamber now.'

  'Okay,' Phil replied, slowly degenerating toward monosyllabic responses.

  He followed the man he had previously thought was a doctor to a strangely shaped object. Phil had never been the best in school so he had no idea what to call it other than a big foam polygon with a hatch.

  'So this is the chamber we will be using to test you Mr. Jones, if you'd kindly like to step inside and wait for further instructions.'

  It wasn't a question, Phil pressed a foot down on the foam ramp leading up to the hatch and slowly guided himself into the darkness.

  The hatch slammed shut with a muffled thud, he was alone in the dark and had no idea what was going to happen.

  'Mr. Jones,' the voice of Agent Smith rang out across the intercom, startling him, 'can you hear me?'

  Phil nodded.

  'Mr. Jones, are you there?'

  Phil nodded once again, he could indeed hear him.

  'One moment Agent Smith,' Hanniman said, approaching the mic. 'You need to turn on the viewer like this.'

  A faint humming sound could be heard now, the foam walls started to glow slightly.

  'Mr. Jones, we are now warming up the holopads,' the voice of Hanniman said. 'Can you hear us?'

  Phil nodded.

  Agent Smith cut in. 'You were nodding the whole damn time I was asking if you could hear!'

  Phil nodded again, hearing a muttering over the intercom he couldn't quite make out.

  'Mr. Jones, the images you are about to see will be graphic in nature and most life-like. I just wish to assure you that none of it is real, do you understand?'

  'So it's a holodeck, got it,' Phil replied, giving a thumbs up at nothing in particular.

  'A holowhat?'

  He heard a female voice whispering, possibly Annika's.

  'Ah, yes, one of those contraptions from a TV show, yes. It is a bit like that.'

  Phil's heart pounded in his chest. Annika had known what Star Trek was. Annika knew what a holodeck was!

  A table appear in front of him, lit by a bright white light.

  The bright white light was in his sight, it caused him no end of fright the bright white light of fright.

  'Mr. Jones, on the table there will be a selection of weapons. You do not know who you will oppose, which weapon do you pick?'

  Phil looked over the weapons that had materialised on the table, ignoring the sight of the bright white fright light. There was an axe, a crossbow, some kind of laser pistol and a huge laser gun.

  Phil picked up the laser pistol and the other items vanished, including the table. The light remained.

  'You have chosen... poorly,' the voice said. Phil found himself wishing there had been a whip.

  The lights started to dim, leaving him in darkness once more. The next thing he knew he was in a desert of unknown origin, still clutching his pistol for protection, this wasn't a good sign.

  A strange gurgling sound came from across the desert floor, it reverberated disconcertingly off the canyon walls as a beast of unknown origin stepped out from hiding.

  'rrrzzarrgghhzzz,' said the beast, thumping its green chest and hissing at Phil.

  'arggghhhhh!' Phil replied, pressing frantically at multiple buttons on the pistol in the hope that they'd do something.

  'rrrrzzzzzargggghh?' the beast asked, seemingly confused at Phil's lack of running.

  Phil stared at the ground in despair... then noticed a small thin piece of tubing and several diamonds, perhaps he could fashion some sort of...

  The tubing exploded, sending a shower of sand over both Phil and the lizard creature.

  He watched through a curtain of sand as the beast proceeded undeterred toward him, this wasn't going to end very well.

  Redoubling his efforts he mashed as many buttons as possible in the hope that something would happen to dissuade his opponent from tearing him to pieces.

  'rrrrrzzzzarggghzzz,' intoned the beast ominously, now mere feet away from a very tasty banquet.

  Phil found himself in fierce disagreement with the creature's previous statement, he very much wanted to live at this point. He wasn't entirely sure how he was going to go about prolonging said life but he was determined to do so.

  The beast decided that it was time to advance, placing one scaled foot in front of the other in slow succession. It dawned on Phil that it might actually be possible to run from this thing.

  He looked around him frantically, run to where? There was nowhere to go, the sand lasted as far as the eye could see. Was this test to determine how physically capable he was at defending himself? Why did they even need to ask that question of him? Phil's was the face that launched a thousand fast food commercials.

  His ruminations cost him, the beast was towering over him now, blotting out the sun. It swung for him with a clawed fist, looking to end Phil's life altogether for some unknown reason. Phil had surmised that it was probably for food, even in a crisis he did his thinking with his stomach.

  He watched the scaly appendage approach and frowned, did the beast really think it was going to hit him with that? He ducked slowly, making sure not to put any undue pressure on his knees in the process, watching for the next few seconds as the fist passed over his head.

  'rrrrrrrzzzargghhhhz!' the creature cried in frustration, sending a second scaled fist out to crush the life from Phil.

  Phil side-stepped the fist and watched idly as it impacted upon the sandy ground with all the speed and pacing of a Robert Jordan novel. He suddenly began to feel less afraid of this thing, was this truly a Voravian he was facing?

  He continued to press buttons on the pistol, none of them appeared to work in his favour. Phil knew that even at the speeds the Voravian was fighting at, he couldn't keep dodging forever.

  'rrrrrrzzzargggh! the Voravian shouted as his ponderous double axe-handle landed wide. Phil doubted that the creature had watched as much wrestling as he had.

  He was running out of options though, dodging the increasingly irritable Voravian was becoming irritating and unpleasant in this heat.

  'Go away!' he shouted at the beast.

  It cocked its head, as if listening, then when Phil failed to communicate further it let out another roar and advanced.

  'Stop trying to kill me!' Phil said, avoiding the latest attempt to crush his head.

  The Voravian had apparently lost interest in negotiations, intent on his manifesto of bringing about the destruction of all things Phil Jones.

  Frustration at the lack of options left to him in what was an extremely drawn out fatal scenario, Phil decided to chuck the bloody useless pistol at the Voravian's head.

  'rrrrrzzzzzarrrgh!' the Voravian savagely inferred, shaking his head as the pistol landed with clunk against his ridges. He then proceeded to stagger, roll his eyes back and collapse backward in a heap.

  Phil blinked. Really? That was the mighty Voravian? The scourge of the human race that they were all fighting an uphill battle against had just been taken out by a hastily thrown pistol to the head.

  Realising now that this was all a simulation, Phil brushed the sand off his hands with a smug look on his face. His first test was completed, all that was left was the natural high pitched whining of the desert sands.

  He looked over in confusion toward the whining noise, the pistol had started to glow a bright white light, from what little he knew of space-age weaponry that wasn't a good thing.

  An explosion of bright white light caused Phil no end of fright, he closed his eyes as his corneas were seared by the intensity of the detonation.

  'Mr. Jones, are you ready to b
egin the tests?' a voice asked over an intercom. It was Hanniman, he was back in the holo chamber thing.

  Phil opened his eyes and stared around him in disbelief.

  'What do you mean begin?'

  Chapter 5

  Gravity! Caution! Ventilation!

  'The table in front of you should contain a number of weapons, we'd like you to choose whatever you feel most comfortable with. The test shall then proceed.'

  Phil didn't like the sound of this, the empty space where the pistol used to be suggested that either a very poor practical joke was being played on him or he had been somewhere else entirely.

  'Did you take the pistol away from the table?' Phil asked the empty space from which the intercom rang.

  'No, you're not expected to know how to use such technology anyway, is there a problem?'

  Phil scratched his head, thinking wasn't his strong suit but he was beginning to piece together that something wasn't right here. 'The pistol is gone, I took it and killed a Voravian with it.'

  Silence from the intercom, clearly they didn't know what to make of that assertion. A faint whirring sound and then further silence, he had given Hanniman food for thought. Now he felt hungry again.

  'Is this some kind of joke?' the voice of Agent Smith asked. 'Where have you put the pistol, Jones?'

  He held up his hands and turned his pockets inside out. 'I don't have it, I took it and killed a Voravian with it in a desert.'

  'We were watching you the whole time.' Smith's voice replied. 'You haven't stepped near the table much less left our sight to battle Voravians.'

  Hanniman seemed less convinced though. 'Be that as it may Agent Smith, the pistol is clearly missing. If Mr. Jones has not tampered with the table as you suggested then the only explanation is that he is not at fault. Either the story he is telling us is true or there is a glitch in the system that we have been unaware of until now.'

  'He is the chosen one.' Annika offered proudly. 'That this has happened is no mere coincidence, it is a sign!'

  Phil didn't like the sound of that, he wasn't overly keen on signs in general, especially ones that related to more work on his part.

  'You say you left the simulator?' she asked him.

  Phil nodded.

  'What happened?' Unlike Smith, Annika seemed to have a degree of patience with him. Phil found himself appreciating that in between the gouts of butterflies.

  'I..er.. I was in this big, rocky, dusty desert place and this big green chap was making angry noises at me so I shot him.'

  'Was the Voravian you speak of the aggressor?'

  Phil looked blankly at the intercom, vaguely overhearing some frantic whispering.

  'Did you aggro the Voravian or did you just shoot him first?'

  He nodded knowledgeably at that. 'The guy seemed to be very interested in my pink glove, when I wouldn't give it to him he attacked me.'

  Hanniman made a few musing sounds that came over the intercom. 'Interesting, most interesting.'

  'What does this mean?' Annika asked him. Phil felt painfully excluded from the conversation.

  'It would appear that forces beyond our control have conspired to transport Mr. Jones through time and space to a distant planet. I suspect a ghastly Voravian plot to acquire the glove.'

  'So he is the chosen one!' Annika crowed.

  'Not necessarily.' Smith's voice interjected. 'I think you're reaching. Certainly he has the glove and the Voravians want it, that doesn't mean that he's been chosen by it. It could be coincidence that the glove landed there.'

  'You think the glove just happened to land exactly on his hand and attach itself there, incapable of being removed by any conventional means? It sounds to me like you are the one who is reaching.'

  'Please, may we have this argument elsewhere?' the irritation in Hanniman's voice suggested he clearly didn't want any bickering around the apparatus. 'What matters is that the glove has found a bearer and he must be protected from the Voravian threat at all costs until central command has decided what to do with him. Shall we continue the test?'

  'What? You can't be serious, he's just been abducted!'

  'I'm willing to bet it will be some time before the Voravians make another attempt.' Smith replied, his voice sounding awfully smug. 'I'm personally looking forward to seeing Mr. Jones's progress through these tests. Let's not have something as silly as an abduction interfere with the process.'

  Hanniman agreed and Phil found himself wishing that there were more people than Annika fighting his corner. The last thing he wanted to do right now was complete a barrage of tests after a fight to the death on an alien world.

  'Mr. Jones, we shall be carrying on with the tests in spite of the absence of the laser pistol from the table. Please choose a weapon.'

  Phil promptly picked up the giant laser gun, hoping that it would work in a similar way to the pistol he had just used.

  'The test will commence in five seconds, Mr. Jones. Prepare yourself.'

  A strange beeping noise ticked off the remaining seconds and the walls of the simulator vanished, replaced with the tilting deck of some perilously unstable starship. A reddish hue cast itself over everything and the alarm sirens wailing to his right suggested that he would have to do something rather fast.

  The far bay doors opened and seven Voravians crept in, the decking he stood upon was part of a gantry suspended above what looked to be a cargo hold. Clearly the aim of the test was to blast those green guys and hope they didn't blast him in return.

  Suddenly one of them pointed up at him. He had been standing and thinking for so long that he had forgotten that he was entirely visible.

  'Rrrrrrrzzzargghhhhz!' The Voravian leader announced, sending two men leaping through the air with guns pointed at Phil's head.

  'Arggghhhhh!' Phil found himself replying, noticing that the gravity on the ship had been severely weakened.

  'Warning, gravity levels at fifteen percent of established norms. Caution is advised.' apparently the computer agreed with him.

  Gripping the large laser gun with the gloved hand he started punching frantically at the buttons in the hope that one of them would make the trigger do something.

  'Rrrrrrrzzzargghhhhz!' a Voravian said mockingly as it landed on one side of the gantry.

  'Rrrrrrrzzzargghhhhz.' the second Voravian told him, as it landed on the other side of the gantry, trapping him with weapons levelled.

  Phil panicked and dropped the gun, causing it to go off with a loud hmmmfing noise. He found himself falling slowly through the air and watching laser beams pass over his head and embed themselves into the Voravians. They had somehow managed to shoot each other by accident.

  Phil landed with relative grace on the plating of the cargo hold floor. He thought he heard a female voice cheering over the intercom but if there had been it was quickly silenced.

  'Rrrrrzzzzzarrrgh.' the Voravian leader said with finality. He wasn't best pleased that Phil had inadvertently cost him the lives of two of his men.

  The large laser gun floated down just out of Phil's grasp. He looked at it briefly but saw the leader shaking his head. There was no way he was going to make it to the weapon in time, they'd shoot him dead before he could possibly try and make it work again. Assuming that he could get it to work at all that is.

  A Voravian rifle slid down into his gloved hand and pulsed warmly. The leader of the Voravians had spotted this at about the same time as Phil and Rrrrrzzzzzarrrghed his soldiers to attack.

  'Warning, gravity levels at ten percent of established norms. Caution is advised.'

  They didn't leap forward this time, instead they pointed their guns at him and pulled the trigger. Phil found himself diving up but it was far too late to avoid the deadly lasers.

  His finger slipped and hit the trigger of the Voravian weapon he was carrying, it pulsed and moaned at him and he relinquished hold of it. A gout of energy surged out of the tip and sent him soaring through the air and away from his foes.

  'Rrrrrrr
zzzargghhhhz!' was the Voravian's unsettled reply, their guns were now trained upon his trajectory and Phil had the feeling that they wouldn't miss this time.

  'Warning, hull breach detected in cargo hold. Caution is advised.'

  He felt a sucking, much like that of the box he had stuck his hand in before these tests began. Instead of being over his hand it was through his entire body, the air seemed to whistle past him and his upward momentum started to slow. Phil found himself wondering how powerful the air conditioning in the cargo hold must be in order to simulate a living breeze like that.

  'Rrrrrrrzzzargghhhhz!' came the frenzied screams of the Voravians below him as they dug their claws into the metal floor plating and tried to avoid being sucked into what looked like a large black hole in the middle of the ship. The floor seemed to bend outward like a tin can turning inside out and the creatures were being dragged inexorably toward it. Unfortunately for Phil Jones, it would appear that he was also being sucked in that general direction.

  It finally dawned on him, his unfortunately aimed Voravian laser thing had blasted a hole out of the ship and into space. If it was one thing that Phil was painfully aware of it was gravity. The air was being sucked out of the cargo hold faster than the ventilation systems could supply it. It would only be a matter of time before the Voravians were sucked out into space and he with them.

  He tried a mid-air doggy paddle in an attempt to reach the ceiling, it did little to aid matters. He wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do if he ever reached the ceiling, every Star Trek fan knew that a hull breach needed to be sealed by a force field or else all the air and moveable contents of the room would be sucked out into space.

  Abandoning his attempts to swim through said air, Phil attempted to think of a way out of his predicament. A blaster bolt seared past his head and erupted in a shower of sparks on the ceiling above him, the Voravians were still firing at him even though they were being drawn out into space!

  Realising that there were now three potential ways to die very swiftly, Phil did the only thing he could think of and reached out for the spinning deadly weapon as it arced closer to him. Swivelling awkwardly in mid-air, he started punching buttons and hoping that one of them would make everything better.