Sudden light.
It stood before Snake, and he almost screamed. How could he describe it? A giant upright bug. Like a cross between a cockroach and a human. It pressed its face close to his pod, its antennae quivering, gently tracing the broken glass. Its head was a smooth chitinous plate.
It lifted two pincer claws, and slowly closed them on the pod door, crushing the cover so that the glass exploded in clouds. Snake trembled. He fought back the revulsion racing through his veins.
The creature lowered its ponderous head, penduluming mere inches from Snake's face. It opened its mouth, exposing row of teeth set in a circular jaw. Strands of saliva dripped from its open maw.
Snake pulled back ever so slightly. He had nothing left. He was exposed. The creature could end this so quickly.
He tried to imagine if he had a led a different life that he would not have found himself here. If only he had walked the straight and narrow. If only he had done as he had been ordered rather than going after those credits.
But too late for all that now.
Glass shattered to Snake's left and the monster swerved his head. With two sudden steps, he had darted down the row of pods.
"Stay silent," thought Snake. "Don't make a sound and maybe this nightmare will pass us by and we will all have one more chance to live. One more chance at redemption."
More glass shattered. And then a gurgling scream erupted from the lips of one of his companions.
Snake turned his head. The creature thrust its pincered arm through the lids of one of the pods. Glass exploded. The scream burst into a shriek of terror.
The monster backed up yanking Loki from where he hid in his pod. The creature pulled the man close, holding him by the throat, lifting him so that his toes could not quite touch the floor.
Loki fought back, punching, kicking, and screaming, but the creature held him at a distance, almost mockingly so that the man's blows only found empty air.
The creature shambled back towards the pod in which Snake hid. Its pressed its head closer, a foul breath escaping back its myriad shark-like teeth, and then with a hiss and a single bound, leapt up to the catwalk of the next row of pods and disappeared.
Snake stared out over the corridor.
Snake let out a trembling sigh. He reached through the broken glass of the pod to open the lid. His hands trembled. He pushed the door open, stumbled two steps, and then collapsed to the ground. He jaw shook. He felt as if his bowels were about to loosen.
He turned to look at the others. They refused to come of out their pods, eyes wide, teeth clenched. They too had been frozen, trapped, waiting for death to come to them uninvited, and they refused to run. They refused to fight back.
A scream of terror burst from the darkness above and back towards the ladder.
Big T rolled onto his belly and pushed himself to standing.
"It saw you. It marked you. It saw all of us. We weren't hidden. It's coming back for us."
"Loki," moaned Thor. He fumbled at the pod door but could not get out. He ran his fingers into his hair, clutching clumps, and pulling at them as if he meant to tear them from his head. "I did this. He took you for me. I killed you!"
"Quiet, you stupid fool," snapped Fifi. "That bug hears you, he's coming back. Going to kill you just like your brother."
Thor broke down into nonsensical sobbing.
Hatt stood among the corpses, staring up into the darkness. "The demon comes for his own children. The corrupted. Out of the shadows he comes to eat our black hearts. The time for atoning is done. We shall all pay the price for our sins. Behold..."
Big T backhanded Hatt with loud pop, sending the little man off his feet. He was knocked out before hit even hit the ground, and slid several feet in the slippery stasis fluid before coming to a halt against a corpse.
"We should leave him as a morsel. A snack for the bug," said Big T. "I warned him. He wouldn't shut up. How many times a fool going to cross me? How many times in this life? Think a man won't honor his word."
"We need to find weapons," said Fifi. "I need a gun. Even out the odds with this bug."
"We need to find a defensible area," said Snake. "Gather weapons. Find a strong spot to make a stand. It's coming back for us. But this time, we fight back."
Chapter Fourteen
ENGSTROM AND THE others ran. They should have stayed together in the tight formation with the calm and focus that they drilled but panic filled them.
Even Engstrom.
When the bloody torso of one of her teammates fell on her from the ladder above, she lost all control. She had screamed and was the first to run. Not the sign of a leader.
But a primal fear had overcome her. She had not been able to contain her scream. The hot blood coated her, smothered her, and sent a deep trembling revulsion into her bones.
All she could think about was getting away, running, and she had not thought about the example that she would be setting for the others. She just needed to get away.
Even as Engstrom ran, she swatted at the blood and guts that clung to her helmet and shoulder. She could barely see. The blood smeared across her visor. Shadows flitted in the gloom of the prison cell. Shadows leaping from the walls, crossing the hall in front of them.
She darted to a hall to the left, more shadows emerging. She barreled through them, firing off several shots, which seemed to do nothing to slow or stop the movement of the shadows.
She turned down several more halls and always the shadows in front of her, unfolding from the walls. What kind of hell had they descended into?
Harrison called for Engstrom to stop.
She did so reluctantly.
"We're clear, Sarge."
"But those shadows. They're everywhere." That was when Engstrom realized that shadows had been their own, created by the lights on their guns. She had been running from her own shadows. A hopeless thing.
"Sorry," she said. "That body. It hit me. I panicked."
Harrison pulled out a cloth and wiped the blood from Engstrom's visor. "If I got hit with that, I would have run for the hills too."
Engstrom retreated the group into a small alcove that led to an electrical closet. Only four of them remained. Her, Scully, Li, and Harrison.
"Is this it? Where are the others?"
Scully shook her head. "I think they might have run the other direction."
Engstrom touched her earpiece. "This is Engstrom. Give me signs."
Static rolled back through her earpiece.
Scully hunched at the corner of the alcove weapon pointed towards the shadows of the facility. "Whatever is out there is a monster. How are we going to get back?"
"We need to find the others. Regroup. Take back our position slowly. Retreat to the entrance and then come back with more men."
"We just need to hide," said Scully. The others nodded.
"Can you find our way back to the ladder?" Engstrom wanted to wipe the blood from her arms, but the repulsion froze her. "I lost track of where we were going. We need to get out of here."
"Back to the ladder? The bloody ladder. You've gotta be kidding me, Sarge." Scully brought her gun closer to her chest. "You think we'll do any better getting through there than the rest of the team did. I say we hole up here and wait for reinforcements to be sent for us. Roy saw what was going on down here. He had to have seen what happened to the other half of the team. We can defend our position here." She pointed her rifle up and down the hall. "We've got a clear view, clean line of fire, nothing can get at us from behind. Anything comes we fill it full of ceramic."
Li and Harrison grunted agreement.
"Sit here and wait for whatever it is that already is hunting us down?" asked Engstrom. "I'm not going to wait here to die. This thing took our men. Waited for us. Ambushed us. Killed our brothers. And now we wait for it? No, we keep moving. We find a way out of here."
Chapter Fifteen
SNAKE WANTED TO stop running but knew that they needed to keep moving. They needed to find weapons. The two axe
s they had were not enough. Not for whatever it was that killed Loki.
"We need to find somewhere to hide," he said to Fifi. She tagged along at his heels as he tracked along the edge of the broken pods.
"Should we go back down to the bottom level again?"
"I'm not going back down that ladder," grunted Big T. He carried Hatt over his shoulder. Despite the blow he had struck the man, he was still not going to leave him behind to the monster.
This gave Snake hope.
"They locked us down and released some monster on us," said Big T. "Why did they do that? What kind madness is this?"
"What are they?" asked Fifi. "They look like bugs. Giant insects. But insects don't walk upright."
"And that thing looked right at me," said Snake.
"Aliens," whimpered Thor. "What else could they be? Oh my god, my brother. He stumbled and Crunch pulled him back to his feet.
"Some experiment gone wrong and someone's going to pay for this," said Crunch.
Big T dropped Hatt to the ground. "Enough. We're running. Where are we going? I'm not carrying him anymore. Leave him for the monsters."
"We just need to find a place we can hole up, defend our backs," said Snake. "If we can see that thing coming, we'll have a chance to fight. Our axes can split bug heads."
"We don't know that," said Big T. "The only thing I do know is where there's one bug, there's a hundred. What makes you think there's only one of these things out hunting us?"
"We need to keep moving..." muttered Fifi.
"So what are we going to do?" asked Big T.
"We gotta find..." started Snake.
"Yeah, yeah, a defensible area! So where is that and how do we get there? You want to be in charge here but you are leading us down a black hole here. I'm a tolerant man. Really am. Despite everything they wrote about me. But my patience is wearing thin. We gotta get out of here."
Hatt stirred from the ground. He rubbed the side of his face and shook his head. Crunch helped him to his feet. Hatt was unsteady, one hand resting against a pod. He glared at Big T. "You're a fiend and you will a pay a price for your sins."
"Ha. That's what the judge said. And here I am. Not quite free, but no longer in that prison pod." He cupped the back of Hatt's head and dragged him close to him. "You speak that crazy demon-devil stuff again and I'll clean knock your head off your shoulders."
"Enough!" said Snake. "We need to stick together to get out of this. Let's go! Let's find another of those holding rooms. We seal one of the doors, we should be safe until they send help for us."
Big T chuckled. "You are an optimist. If they know what's going on here, I can bet they won't be coming in after us. Probably just jettison us towards the sun. Two birds with one stone. Amazing anyone would follow a fool like you."
Chapter Sixteen
THEY WANDERED THROUGH the halls of the prison barge, Snake hopeful that they would find a holding room where they could make a stand. They had come across one already, but they could not open the door. The handle had been torn from its seating. Snake wondered if the bug had done that. He could not imagine who else would have, or who would have even had that kind of strength.
Snake allowed his mind to wander as they crept through the halls.
This was not the first time he had taken a team of men and women through danger. The last time though had not turned out well. In fact, it led to his court martial, his time in jail, and his choice of career as a salvage pirate living at the furthest edges of civilizations.
He remembered the mission in the Martian 5 Industrial Complex. The whole operation on Mars was a mess to begin with. Former soldiers in arms, a rebellion, and Snake, young, fresh-faced, on the side of the Federation, back when he believed in something. But maybe that belief was in his self. Maybe it was no different from how he lived now.
On Mars, he was a good soldier, or at least he had started that way.
In the dying days of the rebellion, the Federated troops had descended on the M5 Industrial Complex, and after a week of bombardment and ground attacks, the military leadership had destroyed the rebel stronghold.
Snake was sent in, part of a convoy, to clean up. To take any remaining rebels prisoners, to secure roads, to drive families who aided the enemy out of their homes. He remembered the first moments entering the M5: the twisted metal girdles, the piles of concrete, the smoldering ruins, and the stench of death. A great industrial stronghold decimated. The hopes of the people smoldering.
With that final week of bombing, the rebellion had been crushed. Their seat of power upturned. Most of the traitorous soldiers dead or in chains, on their way to field court martial and prison mining planets. No mercy would be shown to those who had raised weapons against the government. Insurrection was never to be tolerated. Order was of the highest importance.
During those days after the bombings, Snake led a small patrol, clean up really. They were to capture any remaining rebel soldiers and bring them back to Central Command and quick justice.
But despite his charge, Snake had his eyes on a bigger prize. Philipus, the silly voice of the Luminous Way, had not been captured when M5 had fallen. Footage showed him and a handful of men slipping out of an escape tunnel several blocks away. A manhunt was underway. The Special Forces were hunting. A million credit bounty laid on the head of the leader of the rebellion. A million credit for his head. No body required.
But this was the work of those outside of the law. The former soldiers. The mercenaries. The hit men from the underworld. Even with as much of a threat as Philipus presented, the Federation still wanted to at least have the appearance of order, due process, and civility. Soldiers needed to soldier. The face of the Federation needed to be displayed.
But Snake knew the truth. They wanted Philipus's head served to them on a silver platter. They wanted the leaked footage showing the once proud leader begging or his life; they wanted to show him soiling his pants and praying for another chance; they wanted the gritty kill shot and the throngs chasing after his body as it was dragged naked through the streets. They wanted the theater of death to show that lies were the foundation of his rebellion, that he was a dog, and that the people cheered his dirty demise. They wanted to show that the Federation always won.
Snake did not care about any of that. He was tired of his role in the spectacle. He wanted the credits. A million credits in his account and then he would be done with the Space Marines. His service had been fine. It had fed him. It had delivered him from the despair and earlier deaths of the Southeast Asian factories where he would have been doomed to die, penniless, broken, a shell of what he once could have become.
So when the bribes finally paid off, and one of his street informants woke him in the darkest hours of the night and told of a rumor of armed men seen retreating to the abandoned methane facility at the edge of the Fisian Quadrant, Snake made a choice. He did not pass that information up the chain of command. He had no need for useless praise, a fake medal pinned to his chest, another meaningless promotion that would most likely lead to his death on some far away rock.
Instead of passing along the information, Snake woke his crew from their bunks. They looked at him, expectant, blinking out the sleep. He had orders, he had said. Orders from above. Run silent. Vermin to clear out of a nest. A chance for glory.
When Snake's armored transport reached the broken fence of the methane facility, Central Command squawked in. "Walker, hold your position. We just received intelligence that the primary target is holed up in the facility you are approaching. Do not advance. Maintain a perimeter, and wait for the arrival of back up. I repeat. Hold your position."
Snake shot the radio. His men looked at him with a mix of fear and hunger. They knew what lay beyond the fence. They too saw a chance at glory. They thirsted to pose with the head of the rebel. A story to live for generations. An achievement to guarantee endless drinks at every R&R.
The armored transport crossed the fence line. Snake led his men towards glory.
Snake was pulled out of his memories by a sharp jab of Fifi's elbow in his ribs. He grunted his displeasure.
"Wake up! There..." She pointed further down the cellblock. A light reflected off one of the pods.
Thor began to shout, but Big T muffled him quickly. "Quiet, boy."
The light suddenly turned off.
"I was calling for help."
"How do you know what's out there?"
"Aliens don't carry lights."
Big T shoved the boy away from him. "What do you know?"
Snake pressed himself against the wall of pods, slowly opening one of the doors so that he could hide behind it. It might not have been the strongest barrier to put between himself and the bug, but he was not going to hide in one of the pods again. He would make sure he always had a path of retreat.
He wanted to swallow but his throat was dry. It felt like was sucking on cotton balls. That bug had looked right at him. God, he could swear that it scented him. Like some hound. Saving up his scent for tracking him down later.
He clutched the axe in both hands. He wondered if that time was now.
"Hide," he hissed to the others.
Down the corridor, a shadow separated from the wall, then disappeared on the far side of the hall. A shadow lost among shadows. Then another figure separated. Then two more.
"How many are there?" asked Fifi. "Odds are suddenly looking rotten."
"Odds were never in our favor. When have they ever been?"
"So how are we going to fight them? You saw what one of them did. Six of us, two axes, a couple of lengths of pipe." She pointed to the near side of the hall. "Who's to say there aren't more on that side? We need a plan. We need a way out of here."
Snake's stomach tightened. He wanted to be the leader. He wanted to tell them what to do, but he did not know. All this madness had finally gotten to him, the near death in the pod, the running through the halls, the chambers filled with blood, and the killing of Loki by that beast. What kind of nightmare had he awoken to? Maybe Hatt wasn't wrong. Maybe they were all dead, and this was hell and the devil was hunting them done, one by one, making them pay for the sins that they had committed in their lives. It made sense. It wasn't like he was creeping through these halls with a bunch of saints. These were criminals and killers and traitors to the Federation. Only the worst of the worst got sent to Telemachus-4. They claimed it was a just sentence to be sent to the mines, but Snake knew it was a death sentence.
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