by S. A. Lusher
“It’s okay, Greg,” Mertz replied. “I understand. You need to take care of yourself. And I’m sure I could’ve gotten some time off, come out to visit, hang out. Speaking of which, I was thinking that after this whole fucking nightmare is taken care of, a lot of us should get together and just go on a real vacation for like a week or two. It’s been really heavy lately.”
Greg nodded, feeling relieved. That’s probably the reason he’d attached to Mertz so early on and had begun developing a friendship with him: the guy was just so laid back and easy to get along with. He never really made anything difficult.
“That sounds like a great idea,” Greg replied. “What about you? How have you been doing?”
“Oh, you know, same as ever. I’m pretty evened out, I guess. Mainly just working out, training, brushing up on my medical knowledge. I have to admit, I’m kind of excited for this. It’s been a while since I’ve actually gotten to go out into the field.”
“I think you’ll regret that excitement once you actually get there,” Greg said, only half-joking. “Erebus isn’t exactly a walk in the park.”
“Yeah, I remember you telling me about it. And from what Callie was telling us, it’s only gotten more dangerous.”
Greg nodded slowly, remembering facing the thing down on Onyx and Dark Ops’ ships. That thought trailed off into another. He stood up. “I promised Callie I’d meet her in the armory. I should probably get going.”
“Don’t let me hold you up,” Mertz replied.
Greg left the room and made his way down to the armory. He passed the training area and saw Keron inside, working out, lifting some enormous weights. Fuck, that man was a beast. Greg had a flash of seeing him lying on the strange surface of Ash, his neck broken. How long had he been forced to endure that?
A shudder seemed to ripple through Greg’s whole body and he pushed the thoughts away. Coming into the armory, he found his crate, popped it open and began pulling out his gear. His set of power armor and his weapons of choice. As he started laying it all out, preparing to go over it and make sure it all worked, Callie came in.
“How are we doing?” he asked.
“We’re good,” she replied. “The ship is doing what it’s supposed to and we’re just about two and a half hours away from our destination.”
“Good.”
The pair of them settled slowly into the routine they’d spent the past year building, silently going over their gear, preparing for the long haul ahead.
* * * * *
Two and a half hours came and went.
Sometimes the minutes slipped by without him noticing, other times, Greg could feel every torturous second crawling by. He meticulously went over his gear, checking out his power armor, all of its various systems and subsystems. Then his sidearm, the solidly built black pistol. Finally, his assault rifle. It was the same exact model he’d used since the beginning. He’d come to rely a great deal on it and its versatility.
Then, he’d trained. First at the shooting range. Then he’d worked out. Then he’d done some hand-to-hand combat with Callie and later Mertz. Once that was over, he’d showered, eaten and had somehow killed the remainder of the time.
Now, he stood on the bridge, suited up, pistol on his hip in its holster, rifle across his back in its sling, pockets filled with spare magazines of ammo and grenades, medical kit clipped to his belt. He was as ready as he was going to be to face down whatever hellish horrors Erebus had to throw their way this time around.
Or so he hoped.
“Coming out of FTL now,” Callie said.
Keron and Mertz stood to either side of him. As the ship transitioned back into regular space and the shutters covering the windows slid back, they revealed the vast darkness of space and...a blue world dead ahead.
It was completely blue, no variations.
“Is it...just water?” Mertz asked quietly.
“Hold on,” Callie replied, her fingers flying over the controls as she activated the sensors and scanners to reach out with invisible tendrils and squeeze as much knowledge as possible from the space around them and the world before them.
Seconds ticked by, tension mounting on the bridge.
“Yes,” she confirmed after a few moments. “It’s completely water. No land masses. I’m also not detecting any vessels or artificial structures or devices in orbit around the planet. Bringing us in closer,” she murmured.
The ship began to move and the planet started drifting closer. Greg waited, feeling anxiety running through his body. His nerves felt like they were hooked up to electrodes that were periodically delivering shocks. He bumped up the air conditioning in his suit another notch since he was starting to sweat. Waiting wasn’t really his strong suit. Finally, they reached the planet and established an orbit around it.
“Okay...I’ve got an energy signature coming from the surface of the planet. It’s gotta be Erebus’ base. I’m going to bring us in. Luckily, these speedships were built to withstand going underwater as well as into space,” Callie said.
“Come on, let’s get back to the airlock and get ready,” Greg said. “Keep me updated.”
“I will. And once we land I’ll be back there to join you,” Callie replied.
He led Mertz and Keron off the bridge, down the central corridor of the speedship and into the airlock bay at the back. Before long, he felt the ship begin to shudder as it penetrated the atmosphere. Greg looked out the windows in the airlock receiving bay, watching the starscape give way to thin, white wispy clouds whipping by.
As the ship rattled around him in the turbulence and made for the alien ocean beneath them, Greg closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He had to do this. He had to go into this situation with a clear mind, otherwise he would be distracted. And distraction often led to death on a battlefield. You needed to be razor sharp, have all your sensors switched on, fully functional and working together to keep your ass alive.
When he opened up his eyes again, the last of the atmosphere had dropped away. Now, out the window in front of him, he saw a deep iron gray sky. It was raining heavily and below them, the endless ocean was whipped into a frenzy. Waves, dozens of feet high, churned towards them. The speedship kept going, plunging down and then through the surface of the ocean. It shuddered briefly, then settled.
They were down, below the waterline.
Greg continued watching, but he could see nothing but darkness now. Frowning, he walked forward and activated a vision filter. The window seemed to shift, and then he could see more clearly. Not perfectly, but he began to make out shapes rushing by the window occasionally. Fish. Alien marine life. He only caught glimpses of them. Things with elongated eyes and teeth and drifting fins. They kept going even further and in the distance, just at the edge of his vision, he could see much larger shapes, dark ponderous things moving slowly.
Keron and Mertz crowded in beside him, joining him as he stared out the window.
After what must have been a mile or so, Greg finally began to see a landscape take shape. He saw the dark curve of the rocky surface beneath the ocean spreading out beneath them. Another minute passed and they finally settled down on the surface. The ship became completely still and silent as the engines powered down.
Another few moments passed and Callie joined them.
“What’s the situation?” Greg asked.
“I found what we were looking for. There’s a complex built into a trench about a quarter mile from here. There was a lot of power coming from it and I don’t know what kind of defenses it has, so I decided it’d be best to set down here,” she explained.
“Good idea. We can hoof it the rest of the way. Everyone ready? Any questions?”
They all nodded. There were no questions.
Greg went first into the airlock.
* * * * *
It had been a while since Greg had been underwater, and even in the very few times he'd done so, he'd never been operating intentionally in the submarine environment. Stepping out
of the airlock, he played with his vision filters until he could see the whole area lit up around him. Strange plants grew across the surface he stood on and alien fish darted among them. As he moved a little bit further away from the ship, doing a three-sixty and trying to scope out and secure the area, he found himself wondering what dangers might be awaiting them down here. He knew enough about oceans to be concerned about the local wildlife.
One by one, the others joined him.
Soon, the quartet had gathered outside and began to mobilize, hitting their jets and gliding silently across the eerie aquatic environment. Greg thought back to probably his most memorable time underwater. It was fairly brief, but he'd awoken into a black void after getting shot down when he was investigating that research facility with Enzo, back when they were still dealing with Rogue Ops. Not exactly the most pleasant memory.
He crested a natural rise in the land and as he reached its apex, realized that it was brighter up ahead. He also noticed a dark blur of movement off to his right. Looking over, Greg scanned a thick snarl of long, gently swaying seaweed that looked black through his vision filter, trying to determine if his eyes were playing tricks on him or if he had actually seen something, and if he had, whether or not it was dangerous.
Whatever it was, it had made him nervous and rubbed his combat instincts in the wrong direction, making him distinctly uncomfortable.
“Anyone else see anything off to the right?” he asked, slowing a little bit. The other three reported that they hadn't. So maybe it was nothing. Either way, they were all more alert now and more likely to catch it if something was lurking around.
They kept going, jetting slowly along, heading for the trench that Callie had said the installation was built into. Greg's mind was cycling through worries and concerns about the mission, but in a way he was grateful. He was actually able to focus. None of his current concerns were about himself and his collapsing life, they were about how they were going to get into the base, what they might find in the base, what kind of defenses the installation might have and how in the hell he was going to take down Erebus a second time.
The AI had really given him a run for his money last time.
As he was thinking this and they closed in on the side of the trench, Greg caught another flicker of dark movement. Only this time, as he looked over, the movement didn't go away. Something detached from the general collection of plant life and began to glide for them as silent as death. It looked disturbingly like a shark.
“We've got incoming, right side!” he called as he spun his suit around and groped for his rifle. He was happy as hell that the things were airtight and could work in basically any environment. He began to take aim, deciding that yes, whatever this thing was, it was definitely coming straight for him. He couldn't get a clear look at it as he zeroed his sights. It was big, that much was obvious, and he caught sight of fins surging in the water, propelling the creature along at an alarming speed. Greg squeezed the trigger, sending a spray of bullets its way.
Unfortunately, the thing was too far away for them to have any effect. The bullets almost immediately lost their velocity. He realized he needed to be basically pressing the barrel right up against the beast.
Of course, because why fucking not?
“Stay back! I've got it!” he snapped, standing his ground. The creature seemed to be interested in him and him alone for whatever reason.
He continued tracking it with his rifle, forcing himself to stand still, preparing himself for the crucial timing that was required. He doubted they could outrun this thing. The seconds slammed by. The creature became clearer as it drew closer. It definitely had a shark-like shape, though he saw three distinct fins coming out of the top and a squarish jaw and what looked like one big, black monstrous eyeball in the center of its forehead.
That's what he aimed for.
The shark-thing charged straight for him. Greg jammed his gun forward, pushing the barrel into its eye, and squeezed the trigger, then pushed himself to one side with the jets. The creature kept going past him, thrashing frantically, then abruptly seized up and was still. It began to drift down to the surface beneath them.
“The fuck was that?” Callie muttered.
“Hopefully alone,” Greg replied. “Let's get out of here.”
They picked up the pace, pushing their jets harder, and continually scanned their areas. Luck stayed with them and they managed to get to the edge of the trench without further incident. As he looked down into the trench they would soon be descending into, Greg found it strange that he was actually looking forward to getting inside. Dealing with Erebus was something he at least knew how to do. Well, he hoped so.
The insane thing could have cooked up all sorts of new monstrosities.
Spread out below them was an immense facility. Essentially, they were looking at several dozen, probably over a hundred, chambers of varying sizes connected by tubes and tunnels. Some seemed no larger than a single room, others were big enough to constitute individual buildings. The whole place was covered with work-lights that pushed back the obsidian darkness of the deep ocean. The networked facilities took up most of the space inside trench. After a long moment of observation, Greg determined that there didn't seem to be any actual guards.
“Come on, let's get down there,” he said, taking off.
The quartet jetted silently down from the top of the trench. As they glided through the water, Greg kept expecting something to happen. Automated defenses, drones, hell, even more of the strange shark creatures. But there was nothing. Only the continued ominous silence of the void that was the ocean. They pressed on, sinking lower, cutting through the water, maintaining their silence. A few moments later, they landed back on solid ground, not far from what definitely resembled an airlock. As Greg led their approach, he hesitated.
“Why is this so easy?” he asked.
“You have to remember: Erebus said it wants us here,” Callie replied.
Greg felt a tremor of cold fear ripple through him. She had a point. The malignant artificial intelligence wanted them here, wanted them inside, where it would be easier to get at them without killing them accidentally.
But why? What did it want?
Greg wasn't even too sure on what Erebus had wanted the last time around.
Seeing no other option except to just give up and leave, which was no option at all, he approached the airlock. There was a simple waterproof keypad next to it and he hit a button, causing the exterior doors to slide open.
“Callie and I will go in first,” he said. “Then Keron and Mertz.”
The group responded affirmatively. No sense in risking them all at once. Callie joined him as he stepped into the airlock.
Time to see what they could see.
CHAPTER 05
–Ashen Skies–
Eric frowned as he laid eyes on the planet before them.
They had finally arrived at the set of coordinates Callie had given them and although he was glad that they hadn’t flown into a black hole or a trap of some kind, (so far, anyway), he didn’t like the looks of the planet they’d found. It was mostly black with crimson lines running through it, what looked to be a very volcanically activate planet. It made him think of Ash. He tried to shake off those feelings, instead focusing on the screens before him and Weller as she brought them in closer to the unknown world, running various scans on it.
“Well?” Drake asked, who stood at her other side. Stacker and Porter were back in the armory, suiting up for the mission ahead.
“So far, I don’t detect anything in the region or in orbit around the planet,” Weller replied.
“That’s a good start,” Eric muttered.
“Is it a dead end? Is Erebus here?” Drake asked.
“Hold on,” Weller replied.
She finished bringing them in closer and settled them into a high orbit over the planet. Eric’s eyes drifted back up to the windows and to that wretched, barren surface. He hated the feelings of ominous d
read it gave him, the way icy horror crept through his body. But he also felt drawn to it, as if he had to keep watch on it.
Just in case…
In case what?
With an effort, he looked back down at the screens, scrutinizing the information being displayed from the sensors and scanners.
“I’ve got a power signature and some communications, outgoing and incoming,” Weller replied.
“Can you decipher them?” Drake asked.
She paused, then shook her head. “They’re too tightly packed and complex to figure out, at least in a short amount of time. With several days, maybe. And I can’t trace where they’re going or coming from, either. Otherwise, this whole planet is dead, civilization wise. No other power signatures, no other communications, nothing I can see. Of course, our sensors are having a difficult time punching through the atmosphere.”
“Bring us in and get us as close to that signal as you can. And rescan the area once we get down there, through the atmosphere,” Drake said.
“Got it,” Weller replied.
The planet began to grow again as they headed for the atmosphere. Drake turned and headed out of the bridge. Eric followed him.
Neither of them spoke as they made their way back through the small ship and into the armory where they found the others prepping themselves for the mission ahead. Eric was still thinking about what Porter had told him. He tended to be a worrier, but in all fairness, life had given him a lot of reasons to worry. It had shit on him so many times that he’d just basically come to expect more shit to be coming his way. Honestly, it was kind of what had provoked him into taking this job. If his life was going to be shitty all of the time, then he might as well be doing something worthwhile. Tons of great people had had miserable lives.
Taking care of these threats, eliminating these lethal creatures or defusing these strange situations, they were pretty unquestionably good. He had rescued a lot of people. But this whole idea of life being out to get him, well...he couldn’t exactly abandon the idea. It just felt too perfect, all the things that had happened to him. Logically speaking, he could usually write it off as bad luck. But when he laid awake at night, thinking of it all…
