Alien Infestation

by Peter Fugazzotto

  Snake fired up the flamethrower on his back. The pack hummed as liquid primed through the tank and into the gun. He could feel the heat warming the rifle.

  He stood alone facing the bugs. They would be on him in moments. Time seemed to slow down for Snake. He could make out the finest details on the bugs – their pincers opening and closing, the hairs on their feet that allowed them to run along the walls, the dull reflective quality of their chitinous carapaces.

  He glanced over his shoulder. His companions were still not at the door. Almost but not there. He hoped they could open it easily.

  The gun vibrated in his hands. It was hot now. He had over primed it. The gauge slipped into the yellow zone and edged towards the red.

  He turned back to the bugs, tumbling, chittering, a wall of insects rushing him like a tidal wave. They were almost beautiful with the coordinated movement of their limbs, their eyes that reflected his image back a hundred times, the song from their mouths. Almost beautiful. But not.

  They were monsters.

  He pulled the trigger and the gun belched out a massive fireball. Heat kissed his face, forcing tears from his eyes. The hall became a blinding mass of flames.

  Even in the fire, he saw the insects still moving, reduced to black silhouettes, their limbs thrashing in a dance of death, their song turning into high-pitched screams.

  He kept his finger on the trigger and stepped backwards. He painted the corridor with flames, blue, yellow, and gold. In that miasma, the shapes of bugs continued to form as new bugs charged mindlessly into the flames, intent on catching him, not caring about their own safety, doing what they needed for their kind to survive, which was to destroy the humans on these ships.

  He stumbled back one step and then another.

  He heard Engstrom calling his name, calling for him to come to her, to come to the Phaethon. Safety.

  The heat was welcoming. It had also become a part of him, the screen of flames retreating with him. He could imagine stepping into the flames and being reborn.

  He was a sun, a destroyer, a demon who reduced lives to ashes. With flame, he could cleanse his world, burn his mistakes, recreate himself.

  Maybe he would have but his gun suddenly sputtered, shot out a massive fireball, then died, a single black puff of smoke belching from the gun.

  Snake slipped and fell backwards, and the wall of fire thinned, the swirling flames dying with nothing to fuel them, and in their place, he saw a long stretch of charred insect corpses, blackened and smoldering. His work.

  Smoke billowed and then suddenly separated and in the opening bugs came. More bugs than he could imagine.

  Snake pulled himself backwards along the ground, desperate to reach the Phaethon, but his hands and feet slipped and he could not move fast enough and he could not stand.

  The bugs were coming and he was running out of time.

  Behind him he heard a shuddering crack, and before he could turn to look, a black shape blurred over his head, the wind of its passage touching the side of his ears and the crown of his head. The shape hit the front wave of bugs and the hall exploded.

  Snake felt himself lifted off the ground and flung towards the Phaethon. He landed hard tumbling, heads over heels, arms and head cracking against the wall, feet thrown hard against the ceiling, and then he hit the floor with a thud.

  He blacked out.

  He woke to the scent of Engstrom. Her hair tickled his nose and he wanted to brush it away, but he could not move his arms. She had slipped her hands around his chest and dragged him down the hall.

  "You owe me, pirate," Engstrom said. "Big time."

  "A kiss maybe."

  "In your dreams."

  He stared past his feet down the hall. The walls had partially caved in and the floors pooled with foul smelling ochre bug blood. Beyond the smoke and the flames, he saw the bugs retreating. They had decided Snake was not worth pursuing.

  Then he was dragged over the threshold, and the docking door slammed shut. He was back inside the Phaethon. The nightmare could end.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  ENGSTROM SAT ON the floor of the compression chamber of the Phaethon, her hands still cupped beneath Snake's arms, him sitting between her legs, both of them staring at the door. They had escaped. Her heart pounded and her arms trembled.

  He leaned back and turned his head, his lips turning up in a smile. "Thanks for the hand there. Guess I got a bit overzealous."

  "Wasn't expecting you to be the last one standing in the hall." She felt the gazes of the others on them and reluctantly freed her hands and stood up. Cold washed over her arms and chest where just a moment before she had been embracing Snake.

  He shrugged. "When it's my crew, I'm the last one standing."

  "Those bugs almost got you," said Crunch. "You were lucky."

  "Luck had nothing to do with it," said Fifi. She stood wide-legged in the hall leading to the cockpit of the Phaethon. She patted her gun with her palm. "It was all a good shot."

  "A little too close for comfort," said Snake. He picked himself up off the floor and slapped at his pants as if they were covered in dust. "Thought you were trying to give me a haircut."

  "It was fine," she said. "Plenty of room to..."

  The door shuddered.

  Engstrom leapt back and drew her pistol.

  It shuddered again.

  "Cockroaches trying to bash their way in here," said Crunch. He backed out of the compression chamber and into the main hall of the Phaethon.

  "Not going to get through that door," said Snake. "No way."

  "Let's get out of here," said Fifi. "Those bugs are a bit too sneaky for my taste."

  "Fire up the Phaethon," ordered Snake.

  Engstrom followed him back to the cockpit. She stared at the control panel. The Phaethon was an old ship, one that would have been taken out of commission by the Federation half a century ago. Like other ships similar to this one, it would have been sold in bulk to a transport company usually for short travel among caravans and docking colonies. Snake must have picked it up from one of those transport companies or maybe on the black market.

  She glanced at the dials and screens. Snake had kept the Phaethon in good shape and she imagined if anything he had done some modifications to improve its ability to haul salvage or in some cases to flee pursuing vessels.

  Snake sat down heavily in the pilot's chair and began pressing buttons, flipping switches, and powering up monitors. Somewhere deep inside the Phaethon a rumbling began.

  "Fifi, close off the compression chamber door and begin the process to undock from the Poros."

  "Wait," said Engstrom. "We can't just leave."

  "What are you talking about? We barely got out of there with our lives. I don't see any reason for us to stick around. Had enough of the bugs. Fifi, door!"

  "Stop," said Engstrom. She laid her hands over his causing him to stop with the ship preparation. His hands were warm and trembled beneath her touch. She felt a surge in her palms.

  He lowered his voice. "Engstrom, we need to go. We need to get out of here. We can't take any more chances. You saw them all out there."

  "Others could be still alive in the ship, caught by the bugs. We can't just leave them there."

  His hands tightened into fists. "I'm not going in there. Not for nothing, and there's nothing left back on the Poros. The bugs, they've over run it. You saw that. They broke through the line. They were everywhere. We'd be fools to head back in there."

  "We don't know if there's anyone left."

  The main monitor for the Phaethon crackled to life and the black screen filled with stars. He touched the screen. "That's where hope lies. Away. In the stars. Not back on the ship. We can get free. Make contact with others. Have a full force of space marines sent in to deal with this."

  "But you saw what they did. They would not be enough. Not if they did not know what they were dealing with."

  "Then they could blow the Poros to kingdom come," said Snake. "Fire.
Bombs. A giant nuclear blast for all I care. Exterminate them. That's what needs to happen and I can't do that. So let's get out of here. As fast as we can. I don't even like being connected to a ship full of bugs."

  "They can't get through."

  Snake laughed and began flipping dials again. "You don't know that, do you? Didn't think they'd get from the Acheron to the Poros but look what they did. The cockroaches are smarter than we think." He swiveled in his chair so that his shoulder bumped her back a step. "Find yourself a seat and strap in because we're out of here once the Phaethon's engines are warmed up."

  Engstrom took several steps backwards. Her hands felt cold as if touching him had been like laying her palms on ice. She shivered. It felt wrong to leave like this. Others could still be stuck on the Poros, men and women who needed her help.

  Crunch grabbed her elbow. "Let me help you find a seat."

  She was moving towards a seat when a voice crackled over the cockpit radio.

  "Mayday, mayday, this is Admiral Kronos, commander of the Federation Vessel Poros. Mayday. We need help. We've been overrun by an alien life force. We need immediate armed assistance."

  Winn tore free of Crunch and slammed her hands on the radio control.

  "Admiral Kronos, this is Sergeant Engstrom. You're alive?"

  Static surged back, and then his voice emerged, broken, almost as if he were sobbing. "Hide, Winn. Hide. They are everywhere. Find a way off the vessel."

  "I'm in the Phaethon. There are four of us. We are safe."

  More static. She thought she heard a scream and maybe gunfire, then Kronos spoke. "They are coming. They're everywhere. Too late. I never should have towed the Galileo. I should have been more careful."

  "Don't worry about that now. I am coming to get you. Where are you?"

  "Oh no, we're not!" Snake slammed his hands on the radio controls. "We barely escaped with our lives once, and I am not ready to risk my life again. Ain't rolling the same dice a second time. Not when losing is getting my brains eaten by a cockroach."

  She shoved him aside and took over the controls again. "Admiral, where are you?"

  Static. Too long. She wondered if already she was too late. But then his voice crackled through.

  "Too late. Too late for me now. They are at the door."

  Engstrom heard gunfire clearly now and the shouting of men.

  "Admiral, tell me where you are. I'll come for you."

  His laughter filled the airwaves. "You'd find corpses. No time left. None at all."

  Someone screamed. Another burst of gunfire.

  The Admiral's voice changed, echoing, tinny, as if he hid. "Remember me well, Sergeant. Make sure that I am not remembered only as the fool that I was for the last hours of my life. I've lost the whole ship. I've lost all my soldiers. Everything. The colony ship. All gone."

  Engstrom gasped. "The colony ship. They've taken the colony ship?"

  "Not yet. But the controls are fried. I can't release the ship. One door between all the sleepers and the bugs. It'll be a slaughter just like with the prisoners. Only a matter of time before the bugs find a way through."

  "Admiral Kronos, we need to find a way."

  "The only way is death." He laughed now. Someone shouted close to him. The gunfire swallowed everything else. Then silence. The slow rise of whimpering. Kronos laughed again. Behind the laughter, Engstrom heard the chittering of the bugs, growing in volume, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She fought the temptation to spin about and look for bugs behind her.

  "Admiral, we need to find a way to help the colony ship."

  "Bugs everywhere." Static. "If I could get to the control room, I could manually disengage the ship. It would float away, maybe forever, but anything is better than this."

  "I'll come get you. Tell me where you are. I'll come get you and we can fight our way to the control room. Where are you?"

  "In hell, my dear, in hell." Chittering and clacking consumed the airwaves. She heard the cracking and snapping of bones, the screams of the old man, and the thrashing of bodies. Then slurping and crunching.

  Snake moved her hand and switched off the radio. "Engstrom, it's over now. I'm sorry. But we need to go. We need to get out of here."

  "The colony ship."

  "What?"

  "You heard him. We can go to the control room and manually disengage the colony ship before the bugs figure out a way into the ship. All those innocents. Five thousand people, Snake. There are children aboard that ship. Children. I'm not going to let the bugs get them."

  "You're a fool."

  "Better a fool than a coward." She pulled up the schematics for the Poros. She put a finger on the dock where the Phaethon sat and traced her way through the halls back to the control room where the Poros connected with the colony ship. Five minutes maybe. An almost straight run but her finger lingered on an intersection in the center of the ship. That point would be tight. She would need to move quickly and quietly. But more than that she would need luck on her side.

  "You're serious about this?" asked Snake.

  "It's worth the risk. I could save all those lives."

  "You'll die. You know that, don't you? No one is ordering you to do this. Kronos did not order you. You have no obligation."

  She stared at him. He seemed smaller than she had thought. His fingers nervously played across the control panels and he barely held eye contact with her. He was scared. She could see that. She had somehow expected more out of him, as if he might be a shining light in the darkness. But now she realized that she could not count on anyone to be a hero, no one but herself, and that scared her.

  But she could live with fear. She could use it. It would fuel her in the dark hallways.

  "Even if you get there, you be hard-pressed to make it back here," he said. "And when you get back we'll be gone. I'm not waiting around for this. The bugs will find a way through. I'm not going to die for the Federation."

  He was still talking when she left the cockpit and returned to the compression chamber. Fifi and Crunch helped suit her up with armor they had on their ship. They also gave her a breather in case the hull of the ship got breached.

  "Here, take this." Fifi slipped her gun from her shoulders and slipped the strap around Engstrom's shoulder. "Don't be afraid to blow these bugs to pieces." She looked back towards the cockpit where Snake was running through the system operations. "I'll hold him off as long as I can, but in ten minutes, he's going to push this can of tin off into the deep black. So go as fast as you can. I'll hold him as long as I can."

  Crunch grabbed her hand in his and squeezed hard. "Good luck."

  Engstrom nodded, her words caught in her throat, her knees weak and trembling, and she stepped into the compression chamber, and even though she knew what would happen next, she could not help but jump a little when the door slammed shut behind her.

  She swallowed hard and balled her fists, and watched as the light cycled from red to yellow, and she waited for what seemed like an eternity. Then the light turned green.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  SNAKE STARED AT the control panel, fists balled, jaw clenched.

  Behind him the Phaethon was silent. The door to the compression chamber leading back to the Poros had slammed shut, and he had heard the whining of the chamber as its atmospherics cycled. After a few moments, he heard the muffled blast of a gun, and he wondered if Engstrom had walked right into her death, but then he heard the dull thud of the docking door shutting. She had made it back into the halls of the Poros and closed the door behind her.

  She had gone to rescue the five thousand colony ship sleepers and Snake sat alone in the cockpit, lights blinking, screens flickering, the room filled with the faint scent of sulfur from some overheating component that he and his crew had never been able to identify.

  His breath fell heavy from his lips. A distant pain burrowed from inside his skull, deep in his eye socket, that scarred mass of flesh where he had lost his eye. Usually it did not bother him. T
he pain usually lived in the background, had become the normal. But now, for some reason, he felt a sharp burning in the middle of his head.

  He pressed his palms hard against his temples hoping the pressure would help alleviate the pain, but it did nothing. He shook his head. He tasted the coppery tang of blood and realized that he had been biting down hard on his cheeks. He relaxed his jaw.

  He circled the heels of his hands on his skull, dug his fingers into his neck muscles, and sucked in a few breaths. He lifted his patch and massaged around his eye socket.

  "You alright, boss?"

  He jumped up from his seat.

  Fifi stood in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. Behind her, Crunch was on his knees, bent to an open panel, a soldering iron sending a trickle of smoke towards the lights above.

  "Let's get this bucket out of here," he said.

  "Gonna be a bit," muttered Crunch, his head lost behind the panel door. "They've inserted an override into the system and I just need to wire a work around."

  "How long?"

  "Give me a few minutes."

  Snake kicked the chair so loudly that Crunch peeked out around the panel door to see what happened. Fifi did not move, arms still crossed.

  She shook her head.

  "What?" barked Snake. "What are you going to tell me? Huh?"

  Fifi shrugged.

  "Are you going to tell me that I'm making a mistake? Are you going to tell me that I'm supposed to do something heroic? Go back for the girl?"

  She turned her nose to the air.

  "Well, I am doing something heroic. I'm gonna get us out of here. I'm going to save our lives. That's gotta count for something. It's not like I am not saving lives. I'm just saving ours."

  Fifi lifted her eyebrows.

  Snake smashed both his fists on the back of the chair. "Oh, don't you make those faces at me, little lady." He thrust a finger at her. "I know what you're thinking. Yes, I do. Well, it doesn't matter what you're thinking. I'm going to do what's right for the crew of the Phaethon, and, yes, that includes you and the big lug. I got you all into this mess and now I am going to get you out of it."