by S. A. Lusher
Sometimes it seemed like someone high up had it in for him.
Or something maybe. And given the kind of paranormal, supernatural and extraterrestrial threats he’d been dealing with lately, it seemed somehow more likely. What if there was some actual, scientific version of a curse that was following him around, subtly manipulating reality against him? It sounded absolutely crazy, but so did the events of Ash or that asteroid he’d lost everyone on. It was some seriously crazy shit.
This was why he was so paranoid about his relationship with Drake. He was actually pretty happy. The relationship was still in its infancy, but so far, it was going really well. They spent a lot of time together, shared enough interests that they could connect but had enough separate interests to show each other new things, the sex was great, they hadn’t had a serious fight yet...like his worries about bad luck, it all felt a little too perfect.
He was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
As he set to work going over his armor and his weapons, Eric tried to put all of this out of his head. It wouldn’t do to be distracted like this during the mission. Instead, he decided that he should try to get to know the new guy, not just for his sake but for Drake’s as well, neither of them knew Stacker all that well. He was relatively new to the group.
“So, Stacker, how’d you get wrapped up in this? Hawkins said you asked for this posting,” he asked as they all worked.
“I did ask,” he replied. “I was in the Marines for ten years, then another fifteen in Spec Ops. Heard a rumor about this outfit and started asking around, eventually got in touch with Hawkins. He was...vague about the nature of the job, but he said it was insane, dangerous, I’ll probably get killed. But it’s got really great pay so I figured, why not?”
“I see,” Eric replied. He had other questions, but at that moment, the rumbling in the ship, which, up until them had been subdued and steady from atmospheric reentry, became a lot more powerful and uneven.
Drake stopped what he was doing and marched over to the comm panel. “What the hell’s going on up there, Weller?”
“Remember how Hawkins advised you to push the engines of this thing to get back faster? And how we didn’t take the proper amount of time to do maintenance and repair on the engines? Well, yeah, that’s biting us in the ass now,” Weller shot back.
“How bad?”
“Not too bad...I mean, I think. I’m fairly sure I can put her down.”
“How the hell sure is fairly sure?”
“You know, fairly sure. Maybe like sixty percent.”
“Sixty percent sure?”
“Maybe like seventy.”
Drake sighed. “Just put it down as quick as you can.”
“Fine.”
He turned and marched back over. “Suit up,” he said. “If we have to bail out of this mess, it’ll be better to do it with a full outfit. We don’t even know if the atmosphere is breathable.”
Eric abandoned his final check, since he’d already performed an extremely thorough one earlier and had found no flaws, nothing to worry about. He quickly started pulling on his suit of power armor. It wasn’t something that was supposed to be done quickly but he’d gotten good at it. The ship continued to tremble around them as they prepped for the mission. By the time he’d gotten his armor on, the trembling had subsided into something more steady. Still enough to be worrying, but at least it wasn’t getting worse.
After finishing a check of his suit and getting confirmation that all was well, Eric did a quick check of his guns and ammo. As he finished that up, the ship stopped moving. All was still and silent. Eric surveyed the armory.
The others looked ready to go.
Drake patched the group comms channel into the ship’s. “I take it we made it down?” he asked.
“Yeah, we made it. But we’re in shit shape and we’re a little farther from the location than we wanted to be. Also, a couple more pieces of news. One bad, one annoying, one weird,” Weller replied a moment later.
“Bad news first,” Drake replied.
“Bad news is that the atmosphere is most certainly toxic. The annoying news is that not only are we about five miles away from the power signature, but it’s underground. The weird news is that LifeScan picked up some strange life signs in between here and there. ‘There’ being a cave entrance that will grant us access to a tunnel that will take us right to the base,” Weller explained.
“Great. Get down here as soon as you can.”
“I’m not done with the bad news yet,” Weller replied.
Drake sighed. “Yes?”
“We’re going to need replacement parts or we’re not taking off. The only real good news is that, if we can find those parts, I can make the repairs and get us out of here.”
“Perfect. Come on down, the sooner we get moving, the better.”
“On it.”
“Everyone ready?” Drake asked.
They all responded affirmatively and he led them out of the armory.
* * * * *
“You see anything?” Eric asked. He and Weller were the last ones out. He’d waited for her while the others had cycled through and secured the area beyond.
“No. A whole lot of nothing out here,” Drake replied.
Well, that was good, at least. The airlock finished its cycle and Eric stepped forward as the outer doors slid open. As he stepped out and laid eyes on the landscape, he froze suddenly, his breath leaving him in a harsh gasp.
All at once, it was like he was back on Ash. The barren, desolate landscape, the distant flows of lava pooling into huge lakes, the ash snowing from the sky…
“Eric? Eric, what’s wrong?” Drake asked, the concern obvious in his voice.
Eric could feel his breath coming heavier and faster. His chest felt tight and it was like he was completely paralyzed.
“Eric!”
He managed to tear his gaze away from the landscape and looked down at Drake, who stood at the bottom of the short stairway, looking up at him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked again.
Eric took a few deep breaths. The feelings of mindless, blind terror began to ebb away. He wasn’t on Ash. This wasn’t Ash.
“I just...I need a minute,” he replied, stepping stiffly down the stairs and onto the surface. Getting onto the actual ground helped him a little, for some reason. Facing his fear, he surmised numbly, his whole body trembling. He stepped a few paces away from the ship, staring down at the brittle ground, then closed his eyes for several seconds, focusing only on breathing. Finally, it felt like he had more of a measure of control over himself.
He turned around, saw Drake waiting a few paces away, a look of deep concern etched into his features. “Sorry,” he said, “just...kinda...flashback to Ash,” he mumbled.
“Oh...I understand,” Drake replied. “Are you okay now?”
Eric nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Let’s get going.”
“Okay...” Drake lingered a moment longer, checking him over, looking like he wanted to say more. But Eric was sure that he’d reached the very same conclusion that he had just now: they didn’t have time for him to not be okay. They had to get a move on. Every second counted. The others waited a few feet away, looking varying shades of uncomfortable. Eric felt a bit embarrassed by the whole thing but hey, Ash had been a real fucking nightmare. He was still losing sleep over it. He probably would be for months, maybe years to come.
He stared walking towards their objective, and the others fell in with him.
* * * * *
Drake resisted the urge to keep looking over his shoulder at Eric. They’d been walking for four miles now in relative silence and peace. He was worried about Eric. Going into the relationship, he knew it might get difficult. Okay, well, all relationships got difficult from time to time. There was no such thing as a relationship that didn’t sometimes get difficult. But Eric seemed very pensive lately, more than he usually did.
He had an idea of what it was about.
H
e’d asked him, directly, if Drake would be able to handle the switch to monogamy. He’d said yes, it’d be fine, but he wasn’t so sure himself. It hadn’t been a lie, not directly. More of a guess. The important thing was that he was willing to hold himself to a standard that he’d held himself to his entire life: he didn’t cheat.
Of course, functionally speaking, that meant a lot less when you didn’t actually have serious monogamous relationships. Which Drake had never had before. In a way, he’d basically been paying lip service to his firmly held beliefs of not cheating. It had never been seriously tested before. He’d never been seriously tempted to cheat because he’d never been in an exclusive relationship. Or at least not a very long one.
It was like wearing bulletproof armor that was supposed to be great and fantastic...but no one had ever actually fired bullets at it, so you don’t know if it really was as strong as everyone made it out to be or not.
Drake didn’t doubt his own resolve to stay faithful, he more doubted how he would emotionally respond to having to do so. Would it make him miserable? Would the misery outweigh all the positive things of the relationship?
He realized that there was a welcoming distracting up ahead. As they drew closer to the cave entrance, the planet’s surface, which had, up until now, been mostly flat ground, was now covered in large, dark rock formations. Lots of places to hide, lots of places for an ambush. He was leading the team now, moving silently through the rocks and the shadows thrown by the weak, pallid light filtering in through the hazy atmosphere above. He could remember all too well what Weller had said about the curious life signs.
That basically never turned out to be a good thing.
He continued following the simple map of the area on his HUD, extrapolated from the scans they’d done coming down from orbit. The entrance to the cave system was only about fifty meters away now. He pressed on, moving slowly through the natural maze made by the rock formations, listening and watching intently for any signs of life.
Somewhere nearby, something came to him, a scraping sound like rock against rock.
He froze and heard the others do the same behind him. Drake looked around, uncertain of where it had come from, scrutinizing the area. When nothing presented itself, he merely readjusted his grip on his rifle, switched it down to single shot and started to move forward again. He took a few more cautious steps.
That’s when it happened.
Something leaped at him from high up on one of the rocks. Eric called a warning and Drake fell back several steps, tracking it as it came down. He could see why he’d missed the damned thing: it was the same color as the rocks and landscape around them. It landed with a heavy thud before him. As he aimed for it, Drake took the strange creature in. It was a squat beast that walked on four stubby legs. It struck him as some kind of bizarre combination of a dog and a lizard...made of rock. Or maybe it was just meant to look like it was made of rock.
It stared at him with empty, black eyes that reminded him of shark’s eyes and opened its mouth to reveal a wide maw stuffed with serrated teeth. Taking his opportunity as the thing started coming straight at him, moving fast for having such stubby legs, he fired off a volley of shots that went right down its maw.
The beast let out a strangled yelping sound and collapsed. Deep black blood poured from its mouth as it twitched and thrashed, caught in the throes of death. He and the others waited to see if there would be more, but they remained alone. Once he was sure it was dead, he resumed his walk, moving faster this time. If there weren’t more nearby then there probably would be soon. This one had found them easily enough.
* * * * *
The caves were a dark, twisted misery.
Drake found himself almost missing the rock maze. At least it was lit and there was sky above him. His vision filter gave him a view of the area, but it always felt claustrophobic. The tunnel they were walking in was at least broad and tall. It didn’t look natural, like it had been drilled down, down, down. To where? Why? He was sure he wouldn’t like the answer. The only good thing was that they had found some evidence of life.
Or whatever passed for life around here.
They’d found some crates containing mining equipment and mineral samples. Spare parts and bits of metal were also strewn about here and there along the rocky, uneven surface of the tunnel. After about ten minutes of walking, Drake realized that it was getting brighter. There was a light at the end of this tunnel.
As they drew even closer, he eventually turned off his vision filter. A bright red-yellow light was coming from the end of the tunnel. Lava. Wonderful. It had been years since he’d had to deal with lava directly, it wasn’t like this mission was crazy or dangerous enough as it was. Drake put those thoughts aside with relative success, thinking about the structural capacity of his suit and how well it might stand up to being immersed in lava as he led the team to the end of the tunnel and stepped into the cavern beyond.
It was huge.
The space they suddenly found themselves was immense and lit by a brilliant red-yellow glow. Drake took it all in, scanning for threats. He saw nothing immediately dangerous but that didn’t mean nothing was there. About thirty feet ahead of him, beyond the expanse of dark rocky ground, was a huge pool of bubbling lava that spanned most of the cavern. To their right, the rock ground continued, curving around the peripheral of the large, roughly circular cavern, providing an edge between the wall itself and the lava pool. To left, however, the ground began climbing at a steep angle, leading up towards the roof.
And directly overhead, suspended over the pool of lava, hanging from the ceiling, was the facility that they’d been hunting.
“What the fuck is it doing up there?” Stacker asked, staring up with the others at the collection of corridors and structures.
“I have no idea,” Drake replied quietly. He looked up the natural ramp to their left. Well, at least they had an easy way of getting up there. “And right now I don’t really care. We’ve got to get inside, eliminate the hostiles, find Allan, shut down Erebus. Come on. We’re wasting time,” he said, turning and marching off.
The others trailed after him.
As he started approaching the ramp, he kicked up his suit’s A/C a few more notches. It was getting really fucking hot. Without it, he’d probably be melting.
“Contact!” Porter called.
Drake spun to his right, searching the immediate area. Today was not his day for being able to spot enemies, although this time he had an excuse, at least.
Two large figures were emerging directly from the pool of lava to their left. He watched in a fascinated kind of horror as the pair of humanoid figures climbed up onto the land, dripping raw molten lava. They stared at the group for a few seconds, then began to come for them, reaching for them with long, dripping arms.
Five guns spoke at once as the pair of creatures advanced slowly on them and the team split up, backing away from them. Drake and Stacker were forced towards the ramp, while the others retreated back to the entrance.
Drake could immediately see a problem: the things were too damned hot for the bullets to do any damage. They were pretty much melting on impact. So what the fuck was he going to do? As they kept backing up the ramp, Drake started running through ideas. What the hell did he have on him? It’d be nice if they had access to something tremendously cold, but there was nothing like that. He kept firing, going through his whole magazine as he backed up with Stacker, hoping to hit something sensitive. At least they were slow.
He ejected the spent magazine and slapped a fresh one in.
“How the fuck do we kill these things!?” Stacker demanded.
“Well, I’m working on it,” Drake replied. “Um...” He hesitated, kept up his rate of fire. “I’ll be honest, I’ve got nothing.”
Then, one of his rounds actually seemed to connect and do some damage. At that same moment, it occurred to him that most of the lava had dripped off the creature, revealing the frame beneath. Up until now, he’d alm
ost assumed that the thing was just made out of lava. And why the hell not? They’d run into crazier shit on Ash.
But it was an actual thing, a strange, seven-foot, humanoid construction of glowing, reinforced metal. And now it was raising its arm and aiming something that looked suspiciously like the barrel of a gun at him and Stacker.
Drake aimed for its blocky, squarish head and squeezed the trigger. About the same time he landed three or four shots into the thing’s head, it loosed a blast of white-hot flame. Warning lights immediately started flashing across his HUD as the flames licked across his suit and it became unbearably hot as he stumbled backwards, crying out in surprise. As he backed away and the creature fell back, tumbling down the ramp, the temperatures rapidly fell until they were something more tolerable, but when he looked down at his armor, he saw that it had warped in several places. Fuck, that thing was dangerous.
He looked down the ramp, towards the entrance, where he saw the others putting down their own fire machine.
“Everyone okay?” he asked.
“We’re fine,” Porter replied over the comms.
“Good. Get up here. We’ve already wasted enough time,” Drake replied. He kept watch over the area as the others moved to join him and Stacker.
“Is this normal for you?” the man asked incredulously.
“This? Oh yeah. This is fucking mild compared to some of the shit I’ve seen.”
“That was a legit monster. Or...robot. Or...I don’t know what the fuck that was.”
“Trust me, it’s only going to get worse. Stay sharp, got it?” Drake asked.
Stacker nodded slowly. “Yeah...yeah, I got it,” he replied.
As the others joined them, they all began moving up the ramp once more as a group, heading for the facility overhead.
