Alien Infestation

by Peter Fugazzotto

  He fought off a shiver running up his spine. He could feel the press of the empty space behind him. An eternity out there. If he lost his grip, he would not be able to swim his way back.

  The damned cold pressed at him. So hard to move his limbs.

  Eventually, he reached the end of the Acheron. The connector tube between the Acheron and the Poros stretched only a short distance, maybe fifty feet but it seemed like miles. The Poros seemed so far away.

  But worse, though, the connector had no handrails on the outside and he was at the end of the rail on the Acheron.

  Roy gasped. How could that be possible? How was he supposed to cross along the outside of the connector tube?

  Despite his shivering against the growing cold, a sudden sweat covered Roy's brow. To come this far, and to not be able to make it the rest of the way. He turned back to look at the Acheron. He laughed. He had the vessel codes. He could open any of the exterior doors on the prison barge and climb back inside.

  They would be waiting for him. The bugs. They were like hounds. He was sure of it. Bloodthirsty beasts scenting him, tracking along the halls. He would not be safe. Not for long.

  He shook his head trying to clear out the images of the slaughter of Engstrom's crew. Why would his end be any less bloody and painful? Would he scream even louder than they had?

  Roy needed to cross the tube and get to the Poros. There had to be a way.

  He spotted a handhold at the point where the Acheron joined with the tube.

  He stretched out his hand.

  He could not quite reach it. He slid his hand further along the rail and stretched again. His fingertips touched the handhold, and then almost without thought they clamped hard on the metal. He hung suspended between the rail and the hold.

  Three deep breaths, and then he let go of the rail.

  He held the handhold so tightly that his whole arm shook. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Relax. Don't burn your grip out. He scanned the exterior wall of the tube.

  Another handhold lay more than ten feet ahead. He shook his head. He did not have the arm span for that. Maybe if he hooked his foot, he might be able to stretch out long enough to just reach it again with his fingertips.

  He could not contain the maniacal laughter. Tears streamed out of his eyes. The blanket of stars blurred to black.

  Finally he caught his breath. He could not do that. There was no way he could reach that far. He was running out of choices.

  He looked back at the Acheron. Returning was not an option. Not with those bloodthirsty beasts.

  He stared at the Poros, so close but just out of reach. The oxygen indicator lights in his helmet dropped to red. Text scrolled across the bottom of his helmet. WARNING 5 MINUTES OF OXYGEN REMAINING WARNING.

  Roy gritted his teeth. He was not going to die out here. No way he was going out like this. Not here. Not alone in the darkness.

  The Poros. An idea slipped into his head. It was a long shot. Or maybe it wasn't. It was his only choice he had left. So therefore it was his best choice.

  He adjusted his grip on the handhold and positioned himself so that it was behind him. Then he backed himself against the hull of the connector tube, gathering his legs beneath him. He pointed his hand in the direction of the Poros.

  A straight shot. He just had to push off evenly and with enough force. He deepened his squat, released his grip on the handhold, and sprung into the void.

  He glided quickly along the surface of the connector tube, faster than he thought he should be going, but he did not care. He was getting away from the Acheron, away from the monsters inside the tube. Tittering laughter escaped his lips.

  The Poros grew closer and closer. But as he neared it, he saw that he must have pushed off unevenly because he was angling off slightly to the right, almost imperceptibly, but with the distance he had to cover the slight error became magnified. He waved his hands and kicked his legs, but he continued along the same trajectory. He felt suddenly limbless, as if his arms and legs were no longer under his control, flapping uselessly like banners in the wind.

  He was almost at the Poros and with each passing second he drifted further off course, the angle getting worse with the distance. Maybe he could reach it.

  The hull also had a rail along the hull to help the technicians and engineers inspect and maintain the ship. Closer and closer but drifting more. He would have one chance, and it had to be at the exact right moment.

  Everything depended on this. Wait. Wait. Wait.

  He threw his hand out. He touched the ship, but not the rail and continued to slide. Another moment and he would drift out of touch with the metal, then at the very last moment he touched the rail and closed his grip on it, barely holding on, and for a moment, his hand almost opened, the rail almost slipped through, but somehow he held tightly onto it.

  Roy closed his eyes and laughed. He had done it. He had done the impossible.

  He looked back the Acheron. He could imagine how maddened the aliens would be, having scented him but him forever slipping out of their clutches.

  He lifted his hand back to the Acheron and stuck out his middle finger. He laughed again, then sputtered. The air was heavy, warm. He had a hard time drawing in a full breath.

  The oxygen indicator in the helmet flashed red. OXYGEN DEPLETED.

  Roy choked back a curse. He tried to slow his breathing to nothing.

  Remain calm. Worse comes to worse, get an urgent message through and hook himself to the rail. They could drag him inside. Revive him. He would be reborn after the nightmare.

  Hand over hand, he dragged himself to the window the compression chamber door that connected to the tube. He pressed his face to the window. Someone was in there. A man bent over. Roy pounded his fist on the glass. The man looked up, shocked. Tears streamed down his face. He yelled something at Roy but he could not make out the words. A long string of saliva stretched between the man's lips.

  Roy mouthed "Help" and the man responded with uproarious laughter.

  Roy pounded harder on the glass.

  Then the bug burst around the corner, plunged a claw through the back of the laughing man, and dragged him into the hallway of the Poros. Through the opposite window, Roy could see the blood-splattered hall. People ran everywhere and behind them the beasts hunted their prey.

  Each breath was as if he sucked air through a towel, thick, slow, hot.

  The oxygen indicator was a solid red.

  Dark blotches began to spot his vision.

  He could not get back inside the Poros. He would not be able to make it back to the Acheron. Not enough air for that.

  He slid one hand over the other until he grasped at a handle on the outside of the connector tube. He reached a window and peered inside.

  Something moved inside the connector. Roy froze. It was hard to see through his fogged up helmet, and then through the thick window of the connector tube. But he saw something move.

  A bug's face pressed against the glass. It scraped a pincer along the glass window of the connector. It looked for a few seconds more and then vanished. Roy released rolling laughter.

  Then the claw slammed against the window. It knew he was here. It was waiting. It was hunting him.

  Enough waiting. He was going to die. Drift away breathless.

  But he did not have to die alone.

  He cackled.

  To his right was the emergency vent for the connector tube. He typed in he code on the panel. The lights flashed green.

  He could barely see through his helmet. He breath was short and shallow. The vision out of one eye went completely black. His hands felt weak, but still he found the emergency venting handle.

  The bug smashed against the glass again, its slavering mandible clacking.

  Roy wanted to say something pithy, something biting. But he had no air.

  So instead he yanked the venting handle as hard as he could.

  The air exploded out of the connecting tube catapulting Roy from the hull. He tu
mbled head over heels, the stars spinning around him.

  The black spots consumed everything. But at the last moment he saw the shapes of the bugs sucked out of the tube spinning madly into the darkness.

  Roy gasped. No air came into his lungs. He grabbed his throat but found only the hard glass of the helmet. He clawed his hands for the rail but it was out of reach and he was drifting away, the blackness consuming the stars.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  SNAKE COULD NOT swallow. He watched through the portal window as Roy floated away, arms no longer milling, legs no longer kicking. An escort of bugs drifted away from the ship as well. Snake's breath fogged the window.

  The others too had seen what Roy had done for him and one by one they had stepped away from the windows, silent, staring at their feet, retreating into their own space.

  Snake muttered under his breath. "Roy, why'd you do that?"

  "He saved us," said Engstrom. He felt her warm breath on his neck. She gently gripped his elbow. "He sacrificed himself for us."

  "He didn't need to do that." Snake blinked back tears. His breath shuddered suddenly. He turned to Engstrom. She had not fought back the tears and they streamed steadily down her cheeks.

  "He made a choice," she said.

  Snake looked once more at the body slowly drifting away. "I could get him. We could find a line and reel me out and then I could bring him back. We could revive him. There's still time."

  "Let him go."

  He turned back to her, his voice sharp. "Give up? Is that what you want me to do? What happened to the grand old slogans about leaving no one behind? If this isn't leaving someone behind, I don't know what is. He's there. In our sight and we are doing nothing."

  "He sacrificed himself. He cleared the corridor so we could get through. Our time is short. The bugs will be here soon. Do we bring back a corpse and have his death mean nothing?" Engstrom squeezed Snake's arm. "You know I'm right."

  "We get a rope. I can suit up. I go through the compression chamber. I jump off in his direction. I can catch him. Reel him back in."

  Engstrom turned to the others. "Suit up. We need to get back to the Poros before the bugs get to us."

  Snake's face filled with heat. His breath shortened. He tore his arm free. "Leave no one behind!"

  "Snake, he's dead. By the time we organized what you want to do, and where is there a long enough length of rope around here, by the time we launch your rescue operation, by the time we get to him, he'll be past the point of revival. You need to focus on the clearest objective. We need to get back to the Poros. We need to join up with the Space Marines. And then we need to exterminate the bugs. Chasing after a corpse isn't going to move us along the path we need to move along."

  "A minute." Snake turned back towards the portal. Roy drifted further away. Engstrom was right. He doubted they could find a rope long enough for him to even reach him anymore. Roy had given himself up for them. He had died for them.

  Snake pressed his fingers against the window and mouthed, "Goodbye."

  Then he stepped away and back towards the lockers. He grabbed one of the pressure suits from the shelf and pulled it on. It took a few minutes for all of them to get suited up. Suits needed to be zipped up and sealed. Compression seals needed to be made around gloves. Helmets had to be secured and the oxygen supplies checked and double-checked.

  Crunch had to try on three suits before he got one with an adequate oxygen reading. The other two showed signs of leaks or empty tanks. The Acheron had not been kept up to date, but maybe it did not matters since Roy and Abel only needed two suits to be working, and a few extras. It was not like they needed suits for all the passengers of the prison barge.

  The plan for moving across was simple.

  Half of them would climb into the compression chamber, let the room acclimate to the space outside, close the door, and then they would move through the connector to the Poros and reverse the process. Those who were waiting – Snake, Engstrom, Thor, and Li – would give them two minutes once the door to the Poros's compression chamber was closed and then they would make the same journey.

  Neither half of the group would be safe. Snake's half would face the very really risk that the bugs would find them and attack and if that was the case, he doubted they would be able to get into the compression chamber. Fifi, Crunch, Scully and Harrison would face the risk that the compression chamber on the Poros would not open. Or worse that something else was waiting for them on the other side. Snake predicted it would be the latter. He told them to come out guns blazing and asking questions later.

  After a few moments, the first group was in the chamber and waiting for the pressure to equalize between the chamber and the cold stretch of space between the two ships.

  He touched Engstrom's arm. She looked at him with an expressionless face, almost as if she had had enough of him, and looked to be rid of him, once they crossed back to the Poros and she was among her marines. He wondered what they would do with him and his crew. Would they throw them into stasis sleep on the Poros or would they cut them slack until they dealt with any threats?

  "You want to say something?" she asked.

  "I don't know if I could have done that. What Roy did. I don't know if I have it in me. How do you put others first when you know that you will likely die? Is that even the right thing to do?"

  She stared at him, and he almost thought that she would not answer, but then she spoke. "I can't tell you how to live your life, Snake. I can't give you the answers that you seek. I just know that you are always chasing those credits, you always looking out for yourself first, it won't give you anything. In the end, those things will have no meaning."

  "And sacrificing myself for people that I hardly know is that supposed to mean something?"

  "In the end, we make choices about how we live our life. That is who we are. Not who we dream we will be. Not who we should have been. We are only what we do."

  Li cut in. "Two minutes since they closed the door. Our turn."

  Chapter Thirty

  ENGSTROM CHEWED HER lower lip and stared through the window of the compression chamber. She, Snake, Li, and Thor had crossed the connecting tube and were now waiting for the air in the Poros's compression chamber to equalize. The quick journey through the tube had been uneventful. They had only slowed for Snake to lay a hand on where Roy had opened the tube and flushed out the bugs. Now they waited for the lights to turn green.

  She looked through the window. The halls of the Poros were empty. An emergency light flashed coloring the hall in beats of red. Her hands were surprisingly steady on her gun. Despite what she saw. The halls should not have been empty. Especially not at one of the potential entry points for the bugs from the Acheron to the Poros. Guards should have been stationed outside.

  "How much longer?" she asked not turning from the window. On the other side of the glass, Fifi, Crunch, Scully, and Harrison crouched along the walls, guns pointing down the hall. She wondered if they had seen anything.

  "Half a minute until the pressure is equalized," said Snake.

  She squinted. Was there something down at the end of the hall? Was it a swarm of bugs?

  "What are we looking at?" asked Snake.

  "I don't know."

  "My crew still there?"

  She nodded.

  "And they're not filling a bug with holes."

  "No."

  "Then we're probably okay."

  The status light turned green and Engstrom wasted no time opening the door.

  "A ghost town," said Fifi as they approached her. She did not take her eyes off the far end of the hall.

  Engstrom saw that the darkness at the end of the hall was just that. A spot where the ceiling had collapsed and the lights had gone out. They could get past that and move to one of the other levels of the Poros.

  She pressed the intercom on the wall. Static washed like waves.

  She tapped her helmet earpiece. The line was completely dead.

  "Th
e command center is two floors above, and one quadrant over. We move slow and steady down the hall. Stick together. At the second intersection, we turn left, and the next one, we go right. We'll find stairways, leading to Level 2. I don't trust the elevators. Then it is a fairly straight shot to the command center. We can find out what's going on."

  The team set off down the hallway. Engstrom took the point position. She knew the ship. She knew what other ways to take if they encountered trouble. She knew the best places to retreat in case they came across a swarm of bugs. It was good to be back on familiar ground.

  They reached the second intersection and turned left.

  "Where is everyone?" asked Snake. "This place should be crawling with marines."

  "Something must have happened. They retreated to a tactical position from which to either defend or counterattack. We'll find them soon enough." Despite her words of confidence, Engstrom's stomach tightened. The ship should not have been this empty. The intercom should have been working. The walls should not have been collapsed.

  Snake cleared his throat. "Look, Engstrom, I appreciate all you've done for me, and some day I'll pay you back. And I'm willing to fight my way to the command center with you. But, get one thing straight. I'm not here to fight for the Poros or the Federation. Once we get to the command center and you're safe, I need you to point me towards the Phaethon. I can't fight any better than the famous Space Marines, and if I stick around I'm back in stasis. I didn't fight my way out of that hole to be stuck in prison again."

  "Not sure Admiral Kronos is going to let you run off by yourself."

  "Me neither. That's why we have to part ways."

  "Always looking out for yourself, huh, Snake? When the going gets tough and all that."

  He laughed. "Girl, I never said I was a hero. I got no stake in this. What's the payoff for me? Best-case scenario, I help you defeat the bugs. Then what? Back in the tank for me. Or another mock trial. Makes no sense to me."