by T. Y. Carew
In her head, Matt recalled how troubling the hallucinations she had faced on the planet Anathema had been. She had seen people who weren’t really there. They had spoken to her with voices she thought real. They made her do things, bound her to their will. At her worst, when her mind was near-rotted by the insidious powers of Anathema’s atmosphere, she even believed herself tied up and tortured by phantasmal illusions. Whatever the other soldiers on the planet were experiencing right now, she hoped they did not have to suffer the kinds of horrors she and the rest of her team had faced on that hellish world.
“Colonel, I believe I have something,” Cardew’s voice interrupted Matt’s train of thought, and she turned to see what the woman’s breakthrough was.
“I have isolated the cause of the breaks in our system controls. It seems the hive ship launched a virus into our planetary network, and probably into the cruisers in orbit. It seems to be a virus used by the military once upon a time and designed to cripple pirate vessels and the like. Conceivably the Beltine could have begun taking an interest in our data networks and begun searching for—”
“Explanations later, Doctor,” Xander interrupted. “Can you get the communications network back up?”
“Already done. As soon as I noticed the errant code in our systems, I flushed it. You are free to make a distress call as soon as you like. I will open channels with the other facilities on the planet and let them know to look for this virus in their systems. With any luck, we can have all planetary systems operational again within half an hour.”
“Thank you.”
Xander moved over to one of the larger terminals and began to open a hailing channel into the void.
“Attention, this is Colonel Xander Finlay, acting under General Tallow. The planet Icarus is under attack. Repeat, Icarus is under attack from a Beltine fleet. Requesting immediate backup from any ships in the area. Be advised, the planet had been subjected to chemical weapons and no ground forces should deploy without appropriate breathing apparatus.”
“How did she find that bug in the system before you, Drew?” Tyra asked, putting a scaled hand on the techie’s shoulder.
“I have no idea.” Drew shrugged his shoulders, still staring into his blank screen as though paralyzed by disbelief.
Matt frowned, and her eyes narrowed as a suspicion crossed her mind. She made a mental note of it; something to return to when they were safe.
As the group listened to Xander’s call for aid repeating on a loop, Matt thought she heard something down one of the side corridors. It was possible one of the soldiers had gotten lost on the way to the mess hall and had meandered back on themselves. She put the noise from her head and continued to focus on the screens, praying that someone out there in the wider galaxy would answer them.
“Colonel Finlay. Come in, Colonel Finlay.”
A collective sigh was released as at last someone responded.
“This is Colonel Finlay. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Lt. Davies, flight officer aboard The Indomitable.”
“That’s one of the cruisers in orbit,” Drew whispered, brow knotting in confusion.
“Lt. Davies, is your cruiser operational?”
“Negative. The entire ship went dark several hours ago and attempts to restore power don’t seem to have worked. We’re in the shuttle crafts, which run independently to the cruiser.”
“Do they work?”
“Yes, they work. We are trapped in the docking bay, though. The bulkhead doors are sealed and—”
“Listen to me, Davies,” Xander said. “I want you and any other cruisers in that hangar with you to find a way to breach that hull and get out here. We need evac for as many of the personnel on Icarus as we can. Your priority should be the party of dignitaries invited to Icarus for the arms development conference. We need them out alive at all costs.”
“Y…Yes, sir. We’ll attempt to breach the docking bay with our lasers and make planet fall as soon as we can.”
“Good man. I’m going to transfer you to my colleague, Dr Cardew. She might have a way to bring the Indomitable back to life again. Listen to her and have one of your men remain on the cruiser to see if you can wake her back up again.”
Cardew made herself available in an instant, slipping into Xander’s place and talking the pilot through whatever procedures she had used to bring the comms relay back online. As she talked in her usual authoritative tone, Matt once again heard a sound coming from down the corridor. This time, however, it was not the sound of a soldier wandering in a daze. Something was moving down the hallways at a pace, its heavy footfalls drawing the attention of the others in the room.
Xander moved to the bridge door. He looked out down the hall for only a moment before being thrown backwards. Something large and powerful, brown bodied and with a bejeweled carapace threw itself at the colonel, tackling him to the floor and trying to gouge his face with its claws.
“Kyraos!”
Chapter 6
Matt pulled out her pistol and began firing at the monster that held Xander pinned to the floor. Each shot burst upon the warrior creature’s plated backside. It cried out in pain, but the thick shell of the alien was too durable to be overcome by small arms fire. Matt cursed her own ineffectiveness and gritted her teeth.
Trey ran at the thing, slamming his weight into the monster’s side so that it fell off Xander. In the blink of an eye, Trey had his own gun leveled at the creature and fired two rounds. The crack shot hit a perfect bullseye right between the Kyraos’ eyes. The monster spasmed for a moment, limbs twitching uselessly before finally falling dead.
Matt rushed to Xander’s side, helping him to his feet. There was blood on his face, and she put her hand to his cheek, expecting to feel some great tear. There was none. Whatever blood was on the colonel’s face, it came from some other unfortunate the Kyraos must have killed. Matt sighed with relief and pulled her commander to his feet.
“Doctor, what was that?” Xander rounded on Cardew as soon as he had recovered his wits.
The woman turned and looked at the half-insectoid alien on the floor. Her mouth opened as if to speak but no words came. Her chin was trembling.
“Doctor, an explanation if you please,” Xander demanded again.
“Ahem… Yes.” The doctor moved forward and crouched over the Kyraos. It seemed she had recovered some of her faculties, but her skin was far paler than it had been before. “This could be anything. Resistance to Anathema’s effects, maybe? The dose in the missiles might not be sufficient to hold the Beltine enthralled for long periods. It’s also possible that this is just another side effect of the new formula we used to modify Anathema’s effects.”
“You mean the Beltine are waking up? Every soldier on the planet breathing in that poison you created is now acting like a child and wandering away from their posts in search of pudding, and now you’re telling me the enemy is coming round.” Xander strode up to the doctor so that his nose was only an inch from hers.
There was violence in his eyes, but neither Trey nor Tyra, nor anyone looked to stop him lashing out at the doctor. At this point, it didn’t matter how important she was to the military. If Xander wanted to shoot her dead in cold blood, none of them would have stopped him, and no one would have breathed a word of it to their superiors.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t rip that mask from your face and let you breathe in some of that foul air you’ve been forcing everyone to breathe.”
“I have the knowledge to counteract the viruses the Beltine used to override the planet's defense systems.” Fearful though she was, the doctor did not miss a beat when it came to her own survival.
Xander took several deep breaths. Little by little his muscles lost the tension he held.
“Colonel, if the Beltine really are coming back around, I think we should look to beat a retreat now. Lt. Davies is going to attempt an evacuation at the reception buildings for the dignitaries and military investors. I don’t think we
have time for petty recrimination right now if we want to make that shuttle.”
Xander turned on his heels and nodded to the others. “We’re moving out. Have weapons ready.”
The group moved as fast as they dared back through the communications array. All around them, the Dairos that were once so still and lifeless were slowly rousing back to life. Arms twitched, and heads moved. Some shambled forward with slow, uncertain steps. This time, Xander and Trey did not look to spare a single one of them. Taking advantage of the groggy state most of the Beltine seemed to be in, they took them out with disciplined laser fire.
Only one type of Beltine was fully awake, it seemed. The Kyraos. As the group neared the shuttle bay, they could hear the screams of one of them. It was a terrible dirge, and Matt knew the creature could not be in its right mind to make such a sound.
Xander and Trey called a halt and hugged the wall close as they peered around to see what they were up against. Matt, forced to remain at the back with Dr Cardew, wished she had her drones with her so she could see what the colonel saw. There was another sound echoing down the same stretch of corridor ahead. It was a wet, tearing sound, and Matt did not even like to consider what it may have been.
All at once, Trey and Xander stepped out from hiding and the only sound to be heard was laser fire. Matt held her pistol firmly in hand and moved to the turning, peering out from cover to see if she could offer any support at all. Her eyes widened when she saw the Kyraos.
Despite being shot in several places, its one arm hanging by the bone, the warrior creature had made it to Trey. It had struck the Lentarin in the stomach with a mighty blow and then thrown him into the wall.
Trey was in a daze, hunched on all fours and struggling to return to his feet. Meanwhile, Xander was faring little better. Her commander continued to pepper the creature with disciplined rounds of fire, but the monster kept coming forward, pushing on through injuries that would have felled any other of its kind.
Another swing from the creature’s one good arm connected with the colonel, a backhand that sent him to the floor. Seeing Xander in danger was enough to make Matt break cover, and she let out a string of shots with her pistol, not even caring to check the charge in her magazine. Several shots clipped the creature in the neck, searing through the weaker flesh above its protective shell. Matt had thought it might be enough to bring it down, but still, the monster persisted.
The creature turned its attention from Xander, making Matt realize she was now its target. She pressed the trigger on her gun again, but this time no hot flash came from the muzzle. It was empty and she now had nothing to defend herself with.
The creature moved forward, but before it could gain any distance, the colonel kicked out, sending the monster tripping to the ground. Xander rolled onto the thing’s back, pinning it down with his weight as the monster bucked underneath him.
“Trey!”
The Lentarin scrambled to Xander’s side, gun back in hand. He growled as he shot five rounds into the Beltine commander, the shots severing the beasts head from its neck.
“They’re crazed,” Xander gasped as he pulled himself off the dead creature. “I don’t know what your damned poison is doing to them, but it has broken their minds and sent them on a rampage their Anassos normally keeps in check.”
“You’re sure of this?” Dr Cardew asked, emerging from around the corner. She looked down at the dead body before her, nose wrinkling a little at the sight.
“No doubt about it. The Kyraos was using its own gun as a bludgeon, and when we rounded the corner on it, it was busy ripping apart one of its own kind, the Dairos over there.”
Matt glanced farther down the mess hallway. A worker Dairos lay on the ground in pieces, blood and chitin everywhere.
“I’ve seen Beltine enter a frenzy before when they lose their connection to the hive, but this is something else. They don't even recognize their own kind anymore, just killing everything they can with tooth and claw.”
“Then this might well work in our favor,” the doctor said as she navigated the dead bodies. “If the Beltine are making no differentiation between themselves and us, then we have a better chance of surviving this unfortunate predicament. Fighting each other, the Beltine will decimate their own ranks.”
“They’ll still be killing our soldiers, Doctor,” Matt reminded her. “Don’t think you can use any of this to sway people into thinking your experiments with Anathema were a success. After this, I’d be surprised if the military will grant your people even a single credit to conduct your research. And as far as things go for you, I think there have been enough violations of weapons treaties and endangerment of service personnel to see you locked up in some hole for several millennia.”
“If it gives you comfort to think so, I will not look to dash your hopes, Captain Adair. Tribunals and investigations can wait until we are safely off-world. Might I remind us all, the longer we linger, the quicker our oxygen tanks will run out.”
Xander moved to Matt’s side and took her arm. “Come on, help Trey walk. No point wasting your breath on her. I don’t think she cares how many soldiers’ deaths are on her hands.”
Tyra moved ahead, opening the door to the hangar. Matt pursed her lips as she took in the swarm of Dairos shuffling toward them. They still seemed to be shambling in the grip of some torpor, but they staggered toward the group with growing speed. Several were already fighting each other, arms flailing against their fellow slave drones as they lashed out at whatever was closest to them.
“They're still recovering. Forget kills, just make a break for the shuttle and don’t get close to any of them.”
Xander stayed by Matt’s side as they pushed forward, ducking and weaving through the mess of slowly moving limbs that grasped and groped through the air.
Chapter 7
Once in the air, Matt was able to get a good look at the carnage and madness wrought by Doctor Cardew and her team. As Tyra sped their vehicle across the battlefields, the team realized that there would not be many survivors making it off world. Even if Lieutenant Davies and the other pilots from the Indomitable were able to effect an evacuation, there would be very few soldiers left alive and in the right state of mind to be rescued.
On the ground, Kyraos were laying into everything about them. They killed swathes of their lesser brethren, the Dairos, only being felled when several of the weaker Beltine swarmed over them en masse.
As for the human soldiers caught up in the madness, there was nothing to be done and no hope of survival. Addled by the strange effects of the Anathema air, they meandered aimlessly and unawares through the carnage around them. The only consolation, if it could be called that, was that their deaths would be quick.
After only a few moments of looking out through the viewport, Matt felt a strong hand grasp hers.
“Don’t look at it. You know there’s nothing we can do for them, and I don’t want you burdening yourself with guilt over this.”
Matt stared at Xander’s hand, which gripped hers so firmly. She wanted to believe his assurances, but she could not.
“We should have done more. We’re the ones who have seen Anathema first-hand. As soon as the doctor suggested using it as a weapon, we should have been on our feet warning the investors. When the general agreed to let her fire the weapons, it would have been better if we had broken rank and mutinied, rather than let this happen.”
“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” Xander said as he shook his head. “If we had mutinied, the general has plenty of ranking officers to take over from him, and we would have found ourselves either thrown in a brig or shot dead where we stood. One way or another, Cardew would have fired her missiles. This is all on her, and you need to remember that.”
Matt closed her eyes and tried to keep her lips from trembling in grief and rage. Xander’s hand in hers was the only thing keeping her together at that moment. It was the only thing keeping her from falling apart at the feeling of failure, and the only thing k
eeping her from lunging at Dr Cardew.
“Colonel, we’re coming in on the reception buildings, but we have a problem.” Matt opened her eyes and listened to Tyra’s voice on the comm.
“What’s the situation?” Xander asked, letting go of Matt’s hand.
“The Beltine are swarming the hangar. I can see laser shots coming out of there, so there have to be some defenders keeping the horde at bay. I can bring the shuttle into the hangar, but we’ll be stepping out into a combat zone. You’d better have your weapons locked and ready to go the moment we hit the ground.”
“Understood.”
“Think you’re going to need something a little better than that peashooter you were using before.” Xander reached over and grabbed two rifles from the remaining supply they had brought with them.
“After this, I am never leaving my Adamanta behind anywhere again. I don’t care if we’re entering a war zone or a day spa, my swords and equipment are going with me.” Matt took the rifle and grimaced as she tested its weight in her hands.
“Just stick with Drew behind me and give suppression fire. Trey and I will bag the money shots.”
Opposite them, Doctor Cardew had grabbed a rifle of her own and held the thing with a grim look of determination on her face. “So you know, Colonel, we have about forty minutes of oxygen left in these tanks. If the evacuation shuttles do not reach us in time, this whole stand will mean very little.”
“You seemed happy enough to believe in the power of your weapons before. You want to lose hope now, feel free to put that rifle to your head and take the easy way out. But if you want to try and survive this, I don’t want to hear another word out of you unless it's helpful.”
Matt had to assume that Dr Cardew’s silence could be taken as an affirmative to the Colonel’s orders.
“Brace yourselves in the back; I’m taking her in,” Tyra warned.
