by S. A. Lusher
She spun around, aimed and fired in the tiny window of time available to her. The shots were true: they cleaved straight through its head, piercing its circuitry-wired brain and killing it. It was so weird to see a robot that bled. As it fell, Callie turned and helped Keron clean up the last of his adversaries. Once they were down, she took a look around the area, trying to determine how best to take the auxiliary generator out of commission.
She wanted to blow it up, but they didn’t have the resources.
“Shoot whatever looks important,” Keron said, as if reading her mind.
She shrugged, figuring that was a good a plan as any right now. They both expended the rest of their magazines putting holes through crucial looking pieces of equipment mounted on the walls. After a little bit of laying down fire, the whole room flickered and then died, becoming dark. All became still and silent.
“One down, one to go,” Callie said, reloading and setting off immediately, not wanting to waste any more time than they already had.
Recalling the route they were to take, she and Keron took one of the side exits and moved down the full length of a narrow corridor, what might have been a maintenance passageway. She hit the end, looked left and right, saw nothing waiting for them and broke right, wanting to hurry up. Keron kept pace with her, as silent as death. She’d always found the man an enigma. At one point, she’d ended up pressing Hawkins for details on him, though Hawkins didn’t seem to know all that much either. What she did learn didn’t help.
He was in his eighties, though he looked like a man who had settled very well into middle age and would apparently never come out of it. He had Japanese and Hawaiian ancestry. He had an enormous tolerance for pain. He was skilled in unarmed combat, swordplay, guns, both long and short range, and all manner of explosives. He was an expert driver and pilot. He’d been with Special Operations for close to fifty years.
He seemed perfectly content to have only very casual relationships with everyone, apparently fine with going for days at a time without talking to even a single person. He never seemed angry or anxious or sad, never anything but calm.
Nothing seemed to bother him.
Callie supposed that if she made it to eighty and spent fifty years in Spec Ops, not a whole lot would bother her either.
Part of her wanted to talk to him more, try to figure him out, he seemed so interesting, but they didn’t have the time and that was probably just her brain looking for something to distract her from the constant horror of Allan’s capture.
They reached the end of the next corridor and passed through a junction. So far, so good. They seemed to have exhausted the immediate supply of hostiles. Or maybe Erebus was just saving up for them. Probably the latter. She hoped that Greg was having better luck on his end. She wanted this miserable situation over with.
They managed to make it to the second auxiliary generator without running into another meat machine or elemental. Which just made Callie more worried. As she approached the entrance, she found herself listening intently for any sign of the machine monsters nearby. But there was nothing, save for the creaking groans of the metal hull and the natural sounds of the base running, all was still and silent.
She opened the door.
And realized that her original fears had been correct.
Erebus had been saving up for them.
Standing in the center of the auxiliary generator chamber was a twelve foot horror, a giant version of the elementals they’d been fighting. What really turned her stomach was the fact that all of the skin that was stretched over its metal frame, creepy enough under normal circumstances, seemed to have been pieced together entirely of faces. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of faces all stitched hideously together.
Most of them seemed to be screaming.
Before she even realized what she was doing, Callie had her gun up, flipped to full auto and was spraying the hideous monstrosity down. Keron had joined her, though his bullets seemed more coherent and well-placed.
The beast let out an electronic squeal and raised one huge barrel. Callie watched in horror as her gun clicked empty. A tremendous projectile, what she realized was an icicle, launched from the wide-bore barrel and sailed directly for her. She dove out of the way, crashing to the floor and rolling, knowing she had to keep moving. She heard a small explosion behind her and glanced briefly back as she scrambled to her feet.
The icicle was embedded in the wall where she had been standing. Sparks bled from a large control panel and the surrounding screens flickered weakly. That gave her an idea. Two birds, one stone. She began moving sideways, trying to keep the thing’s attention on her. “Hold fire!” she called to Keron just as the thing readjusted its aim. A second massive icicle sailed through the air and she just barely managed to avoid it. Once more, it slammed into the wall behind her, sending out a wave of sparks. Callie resumed fire.
She went on like this for close to five minutes, making a circle around the entire room while slowly whittling down the huge beast. In a way, she almost found it amusing. The thing never seemed to figure out that she’d probably have no chance against it if it just moved forward and hit her. It seemed intent on using its ice projectiles. By the time she’d made a complete circuit of the room, the generator was offline and the creature was almost dead. Once she had no more use for it, she and Keron put several rounds through its huge, blocky head and sent it toppling. As it crashed to the floor, she waited to see if anything else would show up.
Nothing did.
“Well, that was easy,” Callie murmured. “Come on, let’s get to the main reactor.”
CHAPTER 09
–Situational Analysis–
Eric hesitated as he heard something nearby. He waited, standing as still as he could, sensing Weller at his back doing the same. He listened intently, filtering out the other natural sounds of the base, trying to discern any threats. Erebus was getting sneakier. It was freaking him out. They’d hardly made it a quarter of their way back through the base and they’d been jumped by three different groups of meat machines. No more of those ice or fire shooting things, thankfully. They seemed to be, mercifully, in short supply.
Finally, he decided that he was just hearing things and set off again. He could sense Weller following alongside, unhappy with the decision to send her back out, though not for the reason some people might think. Eric had the idea that she had no problem walking back through dark, potentially enemy-infested underground environments, by herself, to the ship. In fact, she saw it as the easier assignment. Fortunately, she was still beholden to reason, and understood that, logically, it made the most sense for her to go back and fix the ship.
They might need a fast way out of here or even a pick-up. Given how all their other missions went, it wasn’t an unreasonable concern.
Eric moved down the length of the passageway he was in, coming to a T junction. As he began to peer first left, seeing nothing, then right, he heard a loud metallic buzzing sound suddenly kick to life and he snapped his gaze right.
“Fuck!” he snapped, backing up so abruptly that he ran into Weller, knocking them both unceremoniously to the deckplates.
Something completely new was coming for him. A larger, more sturdily built, meat machine, a good six and a half feet tall, its chest broad, arms thick with muscle, its body crisscrossed with big dark stitching and piecemeal with metal plating, was rapidly approaching him. It had two big fucking giant drills for hands that were now spinning steel death. As it rounded the corner, it zeroed in on him and Weller, who were desperately trying to untangle themselves and get to their feet. One of the elongated spinning drills dripped for him.
Eric let out a scream of fear and jerked backwards. The drill bit hit the floor between his legs and there was a metallic squeal as it started cutting into the metal. Weller managed to get out from under him and he grunted as he dropped a few inches onto the floor. Then he let out another yell and dodged yet again as the second blade came right for him. He rolled, twisted
and dodged away, managing to lurch violently to his feet.
Weller was already opening fire on it as Eric leveled his gun. The beast yanked its arm free of the floor and took a step towards them, then another as the bullets opened up ugly wounds across its broad chest. The thing took another swipe at Eric and he leaped back. There was a shriek of metal on metal as the side of the drill made contact with his chestplate and sparks flew. Cursing, he took the opportunity presented to him as the thing tipped forward, as if bowing, in its attempt to kill him. Its twisted, malformed face was in his.
Eric shoved the barrel of his gun into its face and put half a dozen armor-piercing rounds straight through its head, wilting flesh, metal skull, brain and all. The thing let out a loud electronic squeal as it pitched forward. Its body jerked several times as black-red liquid seeped out of its head, making a nasty, widening pool around it. The drill bits continued spinning, but abruptly shut off, then started up again, then shut off again, stuttering until at last they were silent. Eric took a deep breath and let it slowly out.
“That was-”
He grunted as a bullet hit him in the back and he stumbled forward several feet. Fear and fury rose up in him and he spun around, spying a half dozen more regular meat machines headed his way, plinking shots at him and Weller. She joined him as they retreated and opened fire. Eric couldn’t tell if the bullet had gotten through or not but he didn’t think so, he didn’t feel wet from blood and given how close it was to his heart, it would have killed him had it penetrated his suit and skin. He kept backing up, putting down one, then two of the things, then running dry. As he ejected the spent magazine, he caught a blur of movement to his right.
“WHAT THE FUCK!?” he heard himself scream as he shoved Weller away and threw himself backwards, narrowly avoiding being brutally murdered by the seven foot tall meat machine wielding a tremendously huge blade. It slashed down through the air and cleaved into the deckplates with an immense, powerful bang.
“Where the fuck are they all coming from!?” Weller demanded as she turned, aimed and hosed the latest threat down with gunfire.
Eric had dropped his spare magazine but he snatched it up, shoved it in and joined her. The blade-wielding terror wilted under the gunfire and collapsed backwards, but then another shot whizzed by his faceplate and Eric remembered they hadn’t finished putting down the gun-toting meat machines. He turned back to face them, raising his rifle from a sitting position, and let out a fresh string of curses as he saw that they’d received some reinforcements. Weller was right, where in the holy fucking hell were they all coming from!?
“Fuck this,” Eric snapped, priming and tossing a grenade.
As it landed in the midst of the now eight meat machines marching towards them, he scrambled to his feet yet again, turned and started running with Weller. The pair made it about a dozen steps before the grenade blew and sent metal fragments and bits of gore all over the corridor. They kept running until they’d reached another junction, then broke left, pushing down the next corridor in a light jog. After another half minute, Eric and Weller slowed to a stop, checking behind them. The way was still clear.
“That was intense,” Weller muttered.
“Yeah...the good news is that we’re about halfway there now thanks to that little run,” Eric replied. “Let’s get back to-”
He paused as he heard a new sound coming to them: an uneven banging sound and a loud, zapping electrical arcing noise.
“Now fucking what?” Weller growled.
Eric looked around at the four corridors surrounding them, trying to determine where the sound was coming from. Finally, as it drew closer, he found the location and turned to face it, trying to figure out if he should stay or run. He didn’t like being chased by things. He’d had enough of that on Ash. He liked facing enemies he could kill. He and Weller maintained their position, reloading again, waiting as the uneven footsteps grew closer and closer.
A few seconds later, another new horror stepped into view.
“What the hell is that?” Eric whispered.
It was uneven. That was the first thing that came to mind. Uneven. It was a thickly built, eight-foot thing. The most immediate features included the fact that it had no left leg and, instead, used an elongated, club-like left arm to crutch along. It also had no right arm. That was strange enough, but what was really odd was the fact that it didn’t have a head. Instead, growing out of its neck, was a metal cone that rose up about half a foot and was topped by a silver sphere. Blue-white energy was arcing off of it.
The total effect of this was incredibly disturbing and sent a wave of cold terror creeping through Eric’s body.
As both of them prepared to start blowing it away, the creature suddenly bent forward, aiming the strange metal device straight towards them. They both cried out and dove away as a bolt of pure white energy shot down the corridor. It passed between them, narrowly avoiding them. Eric could feel electrical discharge washing up and down his body and static moved across his HUD like a wave, disrupting it momentarily.
Eric sat up and opened fire from his prone position, blasting away at the creature with everything he had, sinking three-round burst after three-round burst into it. Weller joined him. The thing, while taking so much fire, started to charge straight for them. Eric let out a startled sound and stopped firing. He got to his feet and began backing up, pumping more shots into the horrid, silent thing. For some reason it was deeply unnerving and he was fighting every instinct to just turn and get the hell out of there. Of course, it would be scarier to have that thing chasing him. Better to kill it now. The creature looked like it was building up a huge charge.
Both of them continued to open fire on the awful, loping beast.
Before it managed to shoot that charge, one or more of the rain of bullets finally managed to hit something sensitive and the malformed monster lost its footing and crashed to a halt. The energy buildup discharged all around it, frying itself. Eric and Weller backed up several paces, watching in horror as the flesh blackened and crisped, the whole body jerking and trembling until finally the energy ran dry and it was left a smoking hulk on the deckplates. Eric swallowed and felt his stomach lazily turn over.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “Let’s get you back to the airlock before something else shows up,” he added.
Weller nodded slowly, her eyes still locked on the smoking creature. They both quickly continued making their way through the wretched facility. Eric was beginning to get more paranoid than usual. That slew of onslaughts had been pretty brutal and unexpected. Then again, pretty much everything was unexpected in situations like these. They made their through a pair of storage areas, in between haphazardly piled up rows of crates, down another hallway, through a junction and at last came to the airlock through which they’d originally entered. Grateful to have at least made it this far, Eric moved into the airlock.
Once Weller was with him inside, he hit the cycle button, hoping that nothing else went wrong. The airlock finished its cycle and they stepped back out into miserable atmosphere of the lava-lit underground cavern. Before heading down the natural, curving ramp path that they’d originally walked up to gain access to the base, Eric moved carefully to the edge and surveyed the area. From what he could tell, there was nothing waiting for them. Hoping everything was as it looked, he and Weller began making their way down the ramp.
“You going to be okay on your way back?” Eric asked, more for something to say than actually wondering. He knew she would be and...well, honestly, they had no real choice otherwise. He supposed she could stay behind, but he sure couldn’t come with her. They were understaffed enough as it was. He supposed he could walk her to the ship and then come back by himself, but enough time was passing as it was just by doing this.
“I’ll be fine,” Weller replied. “I’ve got this suit, lots of ammo and a good reaction time. Don’t worry about me.”
“You’ll get it working?”
She rolled her eyes. “Yes, Eric. I’
ll get it working. Just make sure you guys stop that fucking AI and keep it from working. I’ll be ready to pick you up when you need me, I know what I’m doing,” she replied.
He laughed. “Good to know.”
They reached the base of the ramp. Still nothing had attacked them or appeared. He moved with her along the rock pathway until they had made it back to the original ingress. Spread out before them was the dimly lit tunnel that ultimately led back up to the surface and their ship. Eric did not envy her the long, lonely walk through the dark that Weller had ahead of her. On the other hand, he didn’t envy his own trek back into the facility.
“Well...good luck,” he said, looking back at her.
She smiled and nodded. “You too.”
Without hesitating any further, she began walking into the dark tunnel. Eric remained for a moment longer, watching her go, then made himself turn around. He had to go back into the installation, there was no way around it. He had to face this down, had to keep pressing, keep running headlong into the howling darkness.
With a soft sigh, Eric began trudging back up to the airlock.
* * * * *
Drake finally decided that there was nothing out there. He hated hiding and waiting, but there’d been more than a few of those damned drones around and he didn’t want a prolonged firefight to draw the attention of that unstoppable killing machine. So they’d found a mostly empty storage bay with two other exits. It had been about fifteen minutes and nothing had come looking for them. They’d been quietly discussing the information they’d gathered and Drake wasn’t entirely sure he liked what they’d learned.
