Into the Void (The Shadow Wars Book 14)

by S. A. Lusher

  * * * * *

  Awake again.

  This time, as Allan opened his eyes, he felt more aware. He could see more of the room in the reflection of the polished ceiling. He was definitely in a medical bay, though it looked like a custom job from what he could tell. His mind, feverish with fear at being paralyzed and trapped, focused on these details. He was in the center of the room, attached to an examination table, a big one, strapped down with metal restraints.

  Around him, he could see all the workings of a medical arena: shelves, counters, sinks, instrumentation trays of polished silver, and laid out upon them, all manner of surgical gear. There was more, but somewhere, a door opened. The foul stench of rotting meat entered the room and sent a fresh wave of cold fear rolling through him.

  “Allan,” said the voice he recognized as Erebus’, although this time it didn’t seem to be coming through a speaker. It still had an odd metallic, digitized edge to it, but also sounded strangely organic as well.

  Something walked into his field of vision. A naked man with a huge, well-muscled chest, but also strangely thin, delicate, long arms. The head growing out of the neck didn’t seem to match. A number of metal patches had been welded onto the flesh. The man’s eyes glowed, cycling through red, blue and green, then to yellow and a deep orange.

  “I apologize for the state of my body. It’s just a prototype, though. Don’t worry. I have another one being constructed right now. Much better. Less meat. I understand you humans have such a strong sense of smell, and an easily offended one at that. Now, um, we’re going to start with something simple. I just need some samples. Blood samples, hair, skin. And biopsies of your organs. You shouldn’t feel any of this. No, that comes later.”

  Allan closed his eyes, wishing he could pass out again.

  CHAPTER 06

  –Glitch–

  The airlock finished clanging through its cycle and all fell silent. For a long moment, all they could hear was the dripping of water. Then, another sharp clang filled the bay and the inner doors opened. Greg was taking point, aiming his rifle directly at the crack in the middle where the doors would part. They slid open, revealing a long, dimly lit corridor beyond. Several closed doors awaited them along either side of the metal passageway. Overhead, a few of the lights flickered periodically. After a long moment, Greg stepped out.

  Nothing happened.

  He listened intently, but there was just the occasional drip of water from the airlock, the quiet whisper of oxygen and the low hum of power. He could hear nothing else. He moved a bit further down the corridor, his boots banging hollowly.

  “Split up,” he said after another few seconds of nothing happening, “search these rooms. We need to find a map or a general access terminal, anything to give us an idea of what we’re looking at and for, to cut down on our time wandering around.”

  The others split up, making for the nearby doors. Greg walked over to one he’d picked out for himself, studying it for a moment. There was something subtly off about this whole thing, almost like he was looking at an image that was slightly out of focus, or maybe he was looking at a picture of a seemingly ordinary scene, but there was something creepy hidden in the background that his mind was subconsciously picking up on it before he had consciously acknowledged it. So what was it? What the hell were his instincts trying to tell him?

  Greg reached out and opened the door.

  Beyond the threshold was a mostly empty room, about the size of an average storage room. All that occupied it was a rusty shelf and a disused workbench. Nothing here. He left it behind and moved on to the next one, trying to sort through his thoughts and sensory input, trying to ferret out what about this base bugged him. But whatever it was, it seemed buried deep, something fundamental. One of those things was so obvious that he was missing it. One thing, at least, he knew that was bothering him was the utter lack of life.

  In that moment, it felt like they were the only four things moving or alive on the entire station. A crazy notion, given that they’d explored barely more than a few rooms, but it was a hard one to shake. And it was probably intentional.

  After another five or so minutes, Callie finally located an access terminal. She called the others over to her and they gathered around it as she plugged into it and started trying to locate and then sort through all the relevant data. Greg wondered what kind of data was even there, what kind of data Erebus would keep in a general access terminal.

  “I’ve got a map,” Callie said after a few more moments. The others crowded around her, studying the topographical display on the screen before them. “We’re here,” Callie said, pointing to a long rectangle with columns on either side of it: the corridor and the side rooms. “Here’s what appear to be some key locations,” she continued, pointing to different locations on the map. “Judging by the complexity of these areas and the sheer amount of power lines coming into and out of them, I’d say that this is the primary reactor, and these two rooms are auxiliary generators. And I think that this other room, across the base, might be some kind of command structure.”

  Greg considered everything for a moment. “All right, Mertz and I will take the command structure and try to find out more information on whether or not Allan is here and where he might be if he is. Callie, you should take Keron to the auxiliary generators and take them out, then head for the main reactor and find some way to cut power to Erebus, or possibly find a way to set it to overload if we need a quick and dirty way to blow this place.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Callie replied. She looked eager to get a move on, and he didn’t blame her. He wanted to as well, he was desperate to find Allan, desperate to kill Erebus, desperate to get the hell out of here and be somewhere safer.

  They all memorized as much of the map as they could, focusing on the routes that would take them to their locations. Greg had started to consider plugging into the terminal and downloading the map to his suit, to all of their suits, but he immediately rejected the idea. It seemed like an almost suicidal notion to plug a suit of power armor that you were currently inhabiting into a network run by an insane, malignant AI.

  So instead he just had to rely on his memory. Not something he traditionally had a lot of faith in, but it would have to do.

  When he felt confident enough that he had it down, he stepped out into the corridor beyond. The others joined him. They began walking down the length of the corridor, which ended up ahead in a T junction. It was where they had to part ways. As they reached the junction, the group lingered. Greg found himself looking at Callie, and she looked back at him.

  “Good luck,” he said after a few seconds.

  She nodded. “You too.”

  He didn’t really want to split up, it felt dangerous and sent a slow, cold dread through him, and he had an idea that Callie felt the same way, but in the end, there was nothing they could do about that. If they wanted to get the mission done sooner rather than later, they had to do this. So, in the end, Greg merely turned and began heading down the left passageway. Mertz followed after him. He heard Callie’s and Keron’s footsteps as they began their own journey. For a little while, the two men settled into their path.

  They began navigating the poorly lit corridors that would take them most of the way towards their destination. The farther along they went, the more uneasy Greg became. Before too long, he found himself looking for a distraction of some kind, any kind.

  “You enjoying yourself so far?” he asked.

  “What? What do you mean?” Mertz replied.

  “You mentioned earlier that you were eager to get back into the action.”

  “Oh...yeah, I suppose I did. Well, it’s been interesting so far. I have to say, I’ve never operated in an underwater environment before. This is definitely something new. Although that shark thing kind of freaked me out. I’d forgotten that bullets lose their velocity almost immediately underwater. I was thinking we might try to find something else in case we have to fight in that environment again,” he r
eplied.

  “Well, we have our knifes, but yeah, it’d be a good idea. Maybe we can find like a crossbow or a harpoon gun or something,” Greg replied. “Not that I’m necessarily planning on going back outside again if I can avoid it...but things rarely go as planned.”

  As they turned another corner, Greg froze. Maybe halfway down the corridor, he spied a figure lurking in the dim light.

  “Contact,” he murmured, raising his rifle. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to have spotted them, because it hadn’t reacted yet. Or maybe it was just trying to lure them in. Either way, Greg felt like taking no chances.

  He took aim and popped off a shot. The shot was good. It connected with the thing’s head, which snapped back in a spray of gore, and the body slumped to the deckplates. But something felt wrong about this, too…

  A footstep sounded behind them.

  Greg and Mertz let out yells of surprise as they spun around. Something had stepped into junction with them from one of the other passageways that Greg had thought was clear. It was a good seven and a half feet tall and seemed to be composed entirely of blue-white skin stretched over a metal skeleton. The skin was decayed and rotted through in some places, exposing bare circuitry or shiny metal. Its face was perhaps most horrible of all, as it was stretched into a grimace over its metal skull, its eyes blazing white light.

  “Fuck!” Greg snapped, backing away, raising his rifle.

  The beast, which had one regular, if large, metal hand and one wide-bored muzzle attached to its other arm, raised the muzzle. Something flew out of it, something that Greg didn’t quite see, and sailed past him, barely missing his head. He tripped and stumbled backwards, which probably saved his life as two more projectiles flew out and sailed overhead. He still couldn’t see what the hell it was that was being fired at him.

  Meanwhile, Mertz had opened fire, hosing the thing down with armor-piercing rounds. Greg aimed from the floor, not bothering to regain his footing in the interest of time, and punched three holes through the beast’s chest. At the same time, Mertz tore away a solid chunk of its skull with a well-placed three-round burst.

  The monster, letting out an electronic squeal that seemed to fill the corridor, wilted under the combined assault. As it fell back, Greg quickly regained his feet and looked down at it. A projectile was half in and half out of the barrel, and he finally saw just what the hell it was that this thing had been firing at him.

  Icicles.

  Very densely packed, very solid icicles.

  “An upgrade,” he murmured.

  “What?” Mertz replied, breathing heavily.

  “Callie was telling me about the things she fought, those...elemental creatures. Fire, acid, ice, electricity. She never said anything about projectiles. They’re getting better. Smarter, too.” He ceased speaking as they heard a clatter of footfalls begin to sound from somewhere nearby. “Come on, we’ve got company. I’d rather get ahead of them than waste time shooting it out with them.” He gave one last look to the creature and then resumed their journey.

  Mertz began jogging alongside him.

  Their luck held for the moment, the sounds of the reinforcements were coming from behind them, not ahead of them, and they managed to make it to the control center without running into any more problems. The corridor they were in ended in a broad set of closed doors, doors that Greg felt confident would be locked.

  But when he hit the access button, just to double-check, they slid open without resistance. He immediately became suspicious, but this was too good an opportunity to pass up and, besides, they had to go into this next room.

  Stepping through, he and Mertz found themselves in large, circular room. The walls were lined with all manner of computer stations and access terminals, covered in screens and keyboards and monitoring equipment. Half a dozen silent drones, naked men and women half covered in metal plating and wires and silently blinking LED lights, tended to the equipment. Without a word, the two men raised their rifles and put them down, three each, one headshot per drone. Greg waited as he reloaded his rifle, slapping a fresh magazine in.

  Nothing happened.

  “All right,” he said, making for what looked to be the biggest, most important console, “let’s get this over-”

  “Hello, Greg.”

  He froze, instantly remembering that familiar voice. The voice that had haunted his dreams. He’d been dreading this moment, then moment when Erebus would officially turn its malignant gaze upon him, acknowledge him, try to talk to him.

  “What do you want?” he snapped, continuing towards the console.

  “Lots of things, my old friend. But, I admit that, right now, I’m a bit embarrassed. I actually had a trap in place for when you arrived here, in this room, but it has failed to manifest. So I suppose I’m going to have to try something else.”

  “What-” he began, then, suddenly, all of the screens around them began to pop and shatter. A loud, metal groaning sounded.

  “Get the fuck back to the door!” Mertz roared.

  Greg turned and bolted back the way they’d come, following Mertz, but it slammed closed. Greg skidded to a halt. The whole room was trembling now, more screens were bursting and cracks began to appear in the hull and the windows.

  “He’s increasing the pressure!” Mertz shouted. “This room is going to-”

  The room burst like a bubble and water began crashing in through the huge holes and cracks. Greg closed his vents at the last second and then grunted as water slammed into him. For the next few minutes, everything was a confused, swirling mess of darkness and rushing water as he was spun around, slammed into the walls and pieces of debris, and then, finally, everything seemed to settle. He activated his vision filter and looked around, trying to determine where the hell he was, if Mertz was alive and if anything was coming to kill him.

  “John?! You still alive?!” Greg called.

  There were few ominous seconds of silence, then he heard coughing. “Ugh...yeah. I’m here.”

  “How’s your suit?”

  “Fine. No tears, I’m fine. Although...oh fuck, I think I see something.”

  Greg felt his fear, which had just begun to settle, rise back up within him. He looked around, studying his environment in more detail. He and Mertz, who was about five meters to his left, had been blown into a kind of courtyard area created between sections of the base, a roughly square area a couple dozen meters across, bounded by walls on three sides and plant-filled darkness to another side. Shapes were emerging from those plants.

  The sharks.

  His radio crackled suddenly. “Greg, are you okay? We heard an explosion,” Callie asked.

  “Busy right now, call you back,” Greg replied as he groped for his rifle. It had been lost in all the confusion. Fan-fucking-tastic. The tri-finned horrors were coming for them both, gliding silently through the waters, looking like death personified. His hand dropped to his pistol. It was still there. It would have to do. Time to get up close and personal again.

  “You remember what to do?” Greg asked as two of them broke off towards him, the third making for Mertz.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Mertz replied.

  Good. Greg couldn’t looked out for both of them, but he knew Mertz was a competent warrior. He focused on the shark things. One of them surged into the lead, apparently impatient to die, and Greg readied himself. Just like last time, he had to wait until basically the last second. Only this time, he misjudged the timing. Cursing as he fired wildly into the thing’s head, he tried to dodge but it got a solid grip with its big jaws and teeth on his leg. White-hot pain erupted in his legs as the teeth punctured his suit and bit into his legs.

  “Fuck!” he roared, pushing the barrel of his pistol into the thing’s big black eye and emptying the rest of the magazine into it.

  The beast released its grip on him and thrashed away. Panic ignited in him as he felt frigid water rushing into his suit. While groping in his pockets for suit repair patches, he kept an eye out for the
other shark, but it was swimming away at high speed now. Why? No time to answer that, maybe it had just gotten scared off by the death of its comrade. Although animals weren’t usually that smart. Whatever, he needed to repair his suit.

  Greg got out the patches and slapped them over the three puncture marks in his leg, then started a pressure check running.

  “Greg, you okay!?” Mertz called.

  “Fine,” Greg replied. “You?”

  “Yeah, did it just like you did earlier. It’s dead. What happened? I heard you scream.”

  “Fucker bit me.”

  “Where?”

  “My leg.”

  “Fuck. Your suit?”

  “Patched,” Greg replied, checking over the scan he’d just run. The suit was damaged, but it would hold up.

  “I need to look at your leg, it might have hit your femoral artery.”

  “Well, we’ll probably know that before we manage to get back inside. Right now...” He hesitated as he saw more movement emerging from the plant life. Okay, maybe the shark wasn’t so smart after all. Greg prepared himself for another attack...then hesitated. “What the fucking hell is that?” he whispered.

  Long, slender things were emerging from the darkness.

  Greg felt ice fill his veins as he realized what they were.

  Tentacles.

  “Oh fuck!” he snapped. “Get inside! Find a fucking airlock!”

  He hit his jets and started retreating back towards the structure, hoping to find some way in. Whatever it was, it was fucking huge. Its tentacles were extending a good twenty feet into the courtyard now, eight or ten of them, with no apparent signs of slowing, reaching for him and Mertz as they frantically backed away.

  Killing alien sharks was one thing, but this creature?

  He’d rather just run.

  Greg turned and hit the boost on the jets, sending him shooting forward toward one side of the courtyard. He’d almost made it when, abruptly, he ceased his forward motion and began to go backwards. Then he felt a pressure around his ankle.