by M. R. Forbes
“Relief,” Max said. “I do not believe we did. Hahaha. Haha.”
Chapter 56
Natalia’s eyes jerked open, but she still couldn’t see. The goggles covered them, opaque now that she was back in the real world. Her entire body shook, weak and jittery. She felt sick.
She felt like she was dying.
“Lutz,” she said, the word coming out as barely more than a croak.
“I’m here,” Lutz said. He took the goggles off.
Everything was blurry. Her condition frightened her.
“What happened?”
“I think we did it,” she replied. Could he hear her voice?
“The Ick is dead,” Doctor Hess said, rushing over. “Natalia? Shit. Lutz, we need to get her to a bed. She needs fluids.”
“Fluids?” Natalia said. She could hear the engineer’s running feet as he hurried to get help.
“You look like you’ve been poisoned,” Hess said, grabbing her wrist and feeling her pulse. “Your heartbeat is way above normal.”
“I feel awful.”
“Don’t die on us.”
“Contact Solino,” she said weakly. “Need to know…what’s happening.”
Hess tapped on his badge. “Deputy Solino.”
“Doc Hess?” Solino replied. “Where’s the Governor.”
“She’s here with me.”
“Oooh boy, Governor,” Solino said, his voice joyful. “Whatever you did, you put the trife in a world of hurt.”
“Alpha?” Natalia asked. Could it be? Her entire body started to tingle with excitement. “Is he—”
“Himself again?” Solino finished. “Oh yeah, and then some. He’s pissed off.”
“At us?”
“No. But he’s feasting on the little demon fuckers as we speak. I’ve got Hicks’ feed right in front of me. I wish you were here to see it.”
“Bring it down.”
“Oh. Oh yeah.” Solino laughed. “On my way.”
“Deputy, bring it to the hospital,” Hess said. “Governor Duke will meet you there.”
“Governor? Are you okay?”
“Yes, I—”
“No,” Hess interrupted. “The interlink took a toll on her.” He glared at her. “I’m not sure how much of a toll just yet.”
More running footsteps, and then Lutz returned with two nurses pushing a gurney.
“I’m okay,” Natalia insisted. She tried to get out of the interlink’s seat. Her legs wouldn’t support her. Doctor Hess caught her as she fell.
“Take her legs,” he said to one of the nurses.
They lifted her easily, putting her on the gurney. Everything was spinning. Her head was thundering. It didn’t matter. It had worked. They had killed the khoron, freed Alpha and saved thousands. More importantly, they had saved Hayden.
Doctor Hess ran beside her while they hurried her back to the lift. She could see the concerned faces of her engineers as they pushed her through the lab, all of them in shock and terrified of what might happen to their leader. She tried to smile, to reassure them, but she was too weak.
The lift carried them to the makeshift hospital, and Natalia was wheeled into one of the examination rooms. She was lifted to the table, cold steel on the bottom and a warmed gel pad on top. Doctor Hess quickly began hooking her to the Centurion diagnostic machine while a female nurse stuck cathodes beneath her shirt.
Natalia could hear the beats of her heart in her ears and the rasp of her of her ragged breathing as her lungs failed to pull in air fast enough. Nobody spoke while the machine ran its tests.
“Your brain is overstimulated,” Hess said. “You’re producing too many hormones trying to regulate your body’s demands, and your blood pressure is through the roof.” He looked at her. “Your body is killing itself trying to save itself. I need to sedate you.”
“Wait,” Natalia said. “Not yet.”
“Governor, we don’t have time to fuck around.”
“Wait,” she hissed. She wanted to see.
Solino came to the room a moment later, holding the tablet. His face paled when he saw her. How bad did she look?
Doctor Hess began preparing the sedative. “Give me your wrist,” he said.
She turned it over, and he stuck the IV needle into her vein.
“Solino, show me,” she said.
He came forward, holding the tablet up in front of her face and turning it on. The drone was swinging in wide arcs around Alpha, capturing the devastation as the goliath reached for a mass of trife, scooping them up and bringing them to his mouth. He grumbled, kicking out at another group and crushing them by the dozen.
“That’s my boy,” Natalia said.
The drone shifted, angling away from him to capture another shape in the distance. A second, smaller goliath was heading toward the feast.
“Beta,” Solino said.
“And my girl,” Natalia replied.
“That’s enough,” Hess said. “Your vitals are critical. I’m putting you under and getting you stabilized.”
“Wake me when you hear from Hayden.”
“Fine,” Hess said. He injected the sedative into the IV.
Natalia felt it instantly, her body tingling and becoming numb. She closed her eyes. Sanisco was safe. Hayden was safe. She couldn’t wait to see him again.
She began to drift off.
“How bad is it really?” she heard Lutz ask softly.
“I’m not sure she’s going to wake up,” Hess replied.
A sudden panic rushed through Natalia, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the sedative.
She went to sleep.
Chapter 57
“I think maybe we’d be happier if Shurrath were dead,” Isaac said.
Hayden glanced over at the Marine. The cavern was shaking more violently and threatening to release some of the stalactites hanging from its ceiling. Already, bits and pieces of rock were tumbling onto his shoulders and bouncing off the Skin’s shields.
“He’s coming,” Max said. “Hahahaha. Haha.” He grabbed at his stomach, fingers slicing a line through the flesh so he could reach inside.
“What the hell?” Isaac said.
“The cage,” Max said, removing a small black cube from within his gelatinous form.
The cage didn’t look like much of a cage. It appeared as though it was made of densely wound black bramble, with hard, irregular ridges weaving around one another to create the shape.
“Where’s the key?” Hayden asked.
“The key is gone. The nodule is inside to power the cage. When you get close to him, squeeze it to activate.”
“What if I’m not close enough?”
“Destruction. Hahaha. Haha.”
Max tossed the device to Hayden, who caught it and held fast.
“Whatever Shurrath is, he sounds like he’s too big to fit into that tiny cube,” Isaac said.
The rumbling was growing louder, the shaking intensifying. The first of the stalactites did break off, dropping a dozen meters behind them and crashing against the dead worshippers.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t run?” Isaac asked.
Hayden looked back the way they had come, just in time to see the first group of trife arrive. They had managed to get through or around the APC barricade.
“Ike, cover us,” Hayden said, pointing them out.
Isaac turned around, bringing his rifle to bear. “Roger that.”
The trife charged and Isaac opened fire, cutting six of them down in a hurry. More of the demons continued to pour from the tunnel, hissing as they began to spread apart, to take a broader tack in their assault.
“Max, let’s go,” Hayden said. He started forward, rushing toward the large opening in the cave. He made it a dozen steps before pulling to a stop.
Shurrath was here.
He emerged from the mouth of the cave, the most terrifying and disgusting thing Hayden had ever seen. Massive in size, irregular in shape, the Relyeh ancient appeared as some kind of unholy c
ross between an ant, a worm and an octopus. A mottled brown, black and white carapace covered his back and dozens of tentacles poured from its sides. A huge round mouth full of teeth opened and snapped ahead of hundreds of small black eyes while a seemingly endless line of hard-shelled legs covered with spikes and spines propelled him forward.
And he was fast. Too fast for something that large. He scrambled out of the cave entrance, chittering like someone running a bow randomly over a hundred violins.
“Max!” Hayden shouted as he lifted a revolver in his free hand. What the hell was a gun going to to do against this thing?
“I no longer have the battery, Sheriff,” Max said. “I am limited to onboard supply.”
“Well fucking use it,” Hayden snapped back.
Shurrath rushed toward Hayden, mouth opened wide enough to engulf him. Hayden sprinted sideways, trying to escape its path.
A tentacle swept out toward him from Shurrath’s side, slime-covered spikes extending from it. Hayden threw himself flat on the ground as it passed over him. He rolled sideways as a second spike came down where he had been a moment earlier. He jumped back to his feet, still running and trying to escape the monster, careful not to trip over the bodies that littered the floor.
Shurrath’s mouth lowered, his bulbous tongue scooping the bodies in and gulping them down before he changed direction, still not completely out of the tunnel but focused now on Hayden.
Gunfire echoed in the cavern. Isaac had spun away from the trife and started peppering Shurrath, hitting the Relyeh in the mouth and eyes, trying to get his attention. The gun clicked empty and he expertly dropped the old magazine, grabbed a new one and slapped it in.
Two seconds. It was nearly too long. Isaac pivoted around again, catching a pair of trife only moments before they clawed him in the back.
“Max!” Hayden shouted again. He had lost track of the Intellect. How could the cage be enough to handle Shurrath, when he seemed nearly a million times the size of it? Too large to possibly carry through a portal back to the Axon homeworld.
Isaac was right. They would have been happier if Shurrath were already dead.
Another of Shurrath’s tentacles reached out for Hayden. He turned and grabbed it, tugged from his feet as it began to pull him away. He kept a tight grip on it even as he was lifted and swung toward Shurrath’s open mouth. Hayden dropped his revolver and pulled a microspear from his pocket. He grunted as he stabbed the tentacle, which shuddered and released him. He tucked his shoulder as he fell, hitting on his replacement arm and rolling onto his back. Shurrath shrieked above him, mouth darting down to bite.
Max appeared over him, a blast of plasma spewing from his hand and into Shurrath’s face. The Relyeh ancient screeched again, lifting his head and stabbing out with a spiney foot. Hayden grabbed Max, the two of them rolling away as Shurrath’s foot speared one of the worshipper’s corpses and sank deep into the earth.
“Max, how are we supposed to catch him?” Hayden said as they struggled back to their feet.
“It is a host,” Max said. “A shell.”
“That’s not all Shurrath?”
“Affirmation.”
“So where is the bastard?”
“Somewhere inside.”
Shurrath shifted again, charging forward and scooping up more of the follower’s bodies and devouring them. It was strange to Hayden that the Relyeh was so focused on consumption amid everything else. Then again, what did Shurrath have to fear from the three of them? Losing Cyrus had supposedly weakened him, but Hayden didn’t see any evidence of that now.
Unless the feeding was an effort to regain the strength he had lost? Had disrupting the Collective helped Shurrath more than it hurt him?
Hayden noticed the report of gunfire had faded from the mix of sound in the cavern. He scanned desperately for Isaac, finding him running away from the trife. He had dropped the rifle, likely out of ammunition, and was doing everything he could to keep them distracted and on his tail.
“Max, what if I need this thing to be a bomb?” Hayden asked, holding up the cage.
“Pull it apart,” Max replied calmly.
“You built it both ways?” Hayden said.
“Of course.”
He looked down at the cube, his mind flashing to Natalia and Hallia. The khoron were dead, which meant Alpha was free. Odds were good that she was safe. That they were all safe.
He didn’t want to use the nodule as a bomb. He didn’t want to die.
But Shurrath was right here. Right in front of him. A monster of proportions he could hardly believe. An unstoppable force, eager to feed on the fear and the flesh of humankind. He didn’t understand the origins of the Hunger, but he understood their motives. He understood they were incompatible with the future of Earth and the survival of his people.
If this was the only way to stop him, then so be it.
Shurrath turned his body, swinging his massive head toward them. His mouth was covered in the disgusting debris of his feeding, dark and rank. Tentacles swung wildly around it, preparing for the attack.
You will die here, Sheriff. And then your people will die too. Your wife’s success will be your ultimate failure.
“What the hell do you know about my wife?” Hayden said.
I know what she did to my khoron. And I know the price she paid. The human mind is too weak to access the Collective unmediated. If she isn’t dead already, she will be soon.
Hayden’s entire body went cold. “What?” he hissed.
There it is. Fear from the fearless. Weakness from the strong.
Hayden glanced over at Max. The Intellect nodded. He looked back at Isaac. The trife had stopped their pursuit, waiting for Shurrath’s command. The Marine seemed to instinctively understand the questioning look. He nodded too.
He looked back at Shurrath. The Relyeh hovered over him, taking in his fear and feeding on it, the way it had fed on countless others over the centuries. The way he needed to feed to survive.
He refused to be afraid. Of Shurrath. Of death. If the ancient was honest and Natalia was dead or dying, he only had one purpose left.
To avenge her.
He breathed in, cutting off the anxiety, the fear, even the anger and pain and sadness. He became cold and calm, like the Intellect beside him. Maybe even more so.
He clutched the cage in his hand, out of Shurrath’s sight, and started walking toward the massive Relyeh.
“Do you hunger?” he asked.
Yes.
“Here I am. You can consume me. You can kill me. But I refuse to fear you.”
You’re a worthy opponent, Sheriff. You have my respect.
“Just do it.”
Shurrath groaned softly. Then his head snapped down, mouth open and coming closer by the millisecond.
Hayden watched it descending. He didn’t try to escape it. He clutched the bomb in both hands, ready to activate it.
The monster’s foul breath washed over him and then its mouth scooped him up, enveloping him in darkness as the confines of Shurrath’s mouth began to compress on him.
He closed his eyes.
And pushed farther inside the bloody wet cavity, trying to stay away from the monster’s enormous teeth.
He didn’t know what was going to happen, or how. He wasn’t sure he would survive long enough to witness it. He pressed on the cube, activating the cage instead of the bomb, pinning the entire future of the planet on what amounted to the flip of a coin.
The dark brambles of the cage immediately lit with blue light, unfolding from on top of themselves and spreading outward. Shurrath’s jaws might have closed on him, but the cage tore through its flesh and bone, shredding the back of Shurrath’s mouth into pieces as it spread apart, spraying Hayden with Shurrath’s blood, muscle, bone and sinew.
It continued to expand in front of him, bursting through Shurrath’s mouth and allowing the dim light of the cavern to filter through. Hayden took the opportunity to leap to freedom, tumbling to the cavern fl
oor. He rolled when he landed, coming to his feet to watch the spectacle taking place in front of him.
The cage continued to increase in size until it tore through the top of the creature’s mouth and up through its eyes, bursting them and blinding Shurrath. Still the cage expanded, growing in size until it had wrapped completely around the creature’s head, severing it from its huge body.
Noooooo!
Shurrath’s mental shriek caused Hayden to wince in pain. He fell to his knees and grabbed hold of his head, blood leaking from his ears.
You can’t do—
Shurrath was cut off suddenly, and Hayden’s pain immediately subsided. He opened his eyes and looked up just as the creature’s head smashed like a dropped watermelon on the cavern floor. Blood and brains splattered everywhere.
Hayden continued to stare at the cage, its black lines pulsing with blue energy as it floated in mid-air. Almost as quickly as it had grown, it contracted in on itself until it reached its former size. Hayden could see something inside it—a dark, worm-like shape not all that different from its larger host. Tentacles whipped and twirled, touching the edges of the cage and withdrawing at the flash of energy. A round mouth opened and closed, while stiff legs tested the barrier.
The cage succumbed to gravity, falling to the ground, tumbling over to one side and remaining still.
An uneasy silence fell over the cavern as the remains of Shurrath’s headless host slumped to the floor.
The gathered trife began to hiss. Hayden spun around, reaching for guns that weren’t there. Max and Isaac turned to face the creatures too. They didn’t attack. They seemed almost lost, rocking in place for a few seconds before heading back through the tunnel.
“Did we win?” Isaac asked.
Hayden looked at Max for confirmation.
“Affirmation. Shurrath is in the cage.”
Hayden turned back to the cage. “Can I touch it?”
“It is harmless from the outside.”
He bent down and scooped it up, lifting it to his face. Shurrath was inside, barely ten centimeters in length. It was incredible how something so small could be part of a scourge consuming the universe.
A tentacle shot out toward Hayden, trying to hit him. It struck the cage instead and snapped back.
