“Portofino!” Baker yelled as the pilot made her way from behind the ship.
Portofino stopped, her gaze turning terrified as she stared at them. Then she turned and darted inside the open hatch.
“NO!”
Baker flinched as a shape moved past him, a frantic blur that was Hawkes.
“I can’t stay here!!!!”
“Shit!” Baker shouted, moving forward in an instant.
Before his foot landed against the titanium beneath he was thrown backwards by a blast of heat and debris. The sky lit up, ignited by the ship as the charge exploded the fuel cells. The entire deck turned into a plume of fire, rising up before extinguishing almost instantly in the alien atmosphere.
In a flash he was slammed backwards against the outer hatch of the facility, his ears ringing from the sound of the close range explosion. He lay on his side, stunned from the blast, staring up at the plume of fire and smoke that disappeared, sucked into nothingness. All that was left was the crumpled wreckage that had been TS-163; their only ride home, sitting in a heap on the tarmac.
He slowly raised himself to a seated position, staring at the destroyed ship as shock swept through him, pieces of scorched titanium and warped steel scattered as far as his blurred vision could see. His hands shook and he could feel his breaths coming short and quick. He couldn’t hear anything other than the loud ringing piercing in his helmet.
Slowly he brought himself to his feet, his gaze still locked to the crumpled wreckage. Behind him, Fascio and Vuong had moved closer together, their arms hanging limply at their sides, rifles dangling loosely in their grasps.
“Sergeant,” Talmadge clicked across, pulling his gaze from the ship.
Baker turned his head and saw Talmadge two meters away, knelt down in front of Mills. Slowly he shook the last of the ringing from his ears and made his way over to the slouched marine who was lying with his back against a metal crate. As he approached he could see the man was badly injured, a large piece of metal protruding from his suit. Fascio and Vuong moved next to him, leaning down quickly.
“We need to get him to medical,” Vuong said, moving closer to inspect the wound. He could see where a large piece of metal had punctured the man’s chest, and the nano-fabric had sealed it instantly, melding against the metal. He could see his companion struggling to gasp air as the jagged steel pushed against his remaining lung. It had punctured directly through the other and he was quickly drowning in his own blood. He looked up to Sarge who stood a few feet away, his fingers pressed into his temples. “Sarge!” he shouted, snapping the officer back to them. “We need to get him to medical.”
Baker moved closer, kneeling down to look into Mills’ eyes. The soldier whispered something inaudible and then slowly slumped to the side, his pupils dilating beneath the helmets visor as he took two more hitched, liquid filled gulps of air before his chest went still.
“He’s gone,” Baker whispered, still affixed to the dead man’s gaze.
“What are gonna do?” Fascio said, rising to his feet and turning to the burned ship. “That was our only way off this rock…”
Silence hung between the group, the crimson and orange surface reflecting across their faces, casting a sickly tone to their skin.
“Not necessarily,” Talmadge said, his voice barely heard through the comms.
“What are you talking about?” Baker hissed, turning his gaze to the rep who stared down at the dead soldier.
“There’s an emergency ship. It’s held here specifically for Xenocorp personnel, in case of an emergency evacuation or, unforeseen disaster.” He paused, his gaze moving from the dead soldier to the sergeant whose eyes bored into him. “It’s in the cargo bay at the other end of the facility.”
Baker stared at him for a moment before speaking. “Well I’d say this is pretty fucking unforeseen to me. Fascio, Vuong, we’re moving out. Talmadge, why don’t you just go ahead and show us where that ship is.”
The others stood reluctantly, tradition and morals holding them to their dead friend’s side. Everything that was happening around them was indescribable, but the feeling even worse than that, was leaving their brothers lying where they died and simply walking away. They both knew the response if they asked, and simply exchanged a glance that shared their pain.
“This is fucked,” Fascio whispered as he made his way back to the hatch.
19
The air vented back into the room with a loud gush. As soon as the inner hatch was opened, they removed their envirosuits and started their way back into the derelict facility. The smell of death hung in a putrid cloud all around them and the floor had gone from slippery, to a light tackiness that clung to their boots as they stepped down the hall. As they made their way down the empty halls they could feel the invisible eyes of the station piercing through them, blood splattered walls stalking them as they passed. Thoughts were kept to themselves, no words shared as they silently traversed the lonely corridors. The events that had unfolded and everything leading up to it smothered their words in their throats. All that was left was getting to the emergency ship, and making it off planet before whatever had murdered their friends managed to take them out as well. They found themselves having quickly transitioned from hunter to prey, and whatever it was that was now beginning to pick them off was growing ever hungrier with each kill. Time was running thin and a quiet desperation worked through their steps.
They passed admissions when Fascio’s gaze fell upon two men who had been beaten to death. His eyes stayed glued to their corpses as he stepped past when the emotion that he had held stifled deep in his chest, one that was beginning to smother him, burst free. “We’re gonna die here,” he said, the subconscious thought crackling across the comms.
“You stow that shit marine,” Baker growled, his gaze locked to the empty air in the hallway. “Ain’t nobody gonna die. We’re gonna get to that ship, get to orbit and let someone else come put out this smoldering shitstorm.” He struggled to allow his words to convince him as they fell out. Even he was beginning to struggle.
Fascio hadn’t realized he had spoken out loud.
“Hawkes just had a baby girl last month,” Vuong said, the image of the soldier exploding in front of him flashing past his eyes.
Baker stopped, turning to look at the three men. “We all have somebody we want to get home to. But we also have an entire planet of people that are depending on us holding it together here. Remember, whatever the fuck it is that’s doing this… if it gets off this planet, there’s gonna be a lot of newborn babies without fathers. There’s gonna be a lot of fathers without their newborns, because the whole planets gonna end up just like this colony. So for the last time, pull your shit together.”
Vuong stared at him for a moment, staring deeply into the two swirling black portals ringed by a thin strip of deep brown. Then he rubbed his nose with a sniffle and nodded. “Aye Sarge.”
“Good,” Baker continued, shooting Fascio an irritated glance. “Now if you could do us a favor, and pull up the station schematics again, and find us the quickest route to the cargo bay, I would very much appreciate it.”
Vuong felt a deep loss wrapped around him like a cold suit of iron. Desperation smothered him and his stomach worked in a series of twisted knots as he pulled up his holowrist and projected a blueprint schematic of the facility in front of them. He couldn’t get the faces of his friends and fellow marines out of his head. He could hear their laughs, and their jokes, he could almost feel them still standing in the hallway with him. There was a moment where he had to fight the urge to click them on the comms. It was surreal—unreal. Fear and unease coated him in a waxy layer of hot perspiration, wrapping him tightly as he moved his arm up.
“It’s there,” Talmadge said, pointing his finger into the thin strips of blue and white. “Aft section of cargo, single hold. It’s a one of the newer model transport vessels, capable of holding up to twenty-five comfortably and reaching safe distance in less than three minutes.”
He paused, catching himself pitching the company product again, a habit perfected over the years. “We just need to get there. I have the door code.”
“And what do we do if that thing finds us first?” Fascio asked, pulling the man’s attention to him.
“Vuong,” Baker asked, turning his attention away from the rep. “Did you finish sealing off the unused areas in the facility?”
“Sorry Sarge, everything started happening. I didn’t have the chance. We’re still wide open.”
Baker nodded, glancing to Fascio for a moment.
“Then we’re gonna get back to security, and finish that. Then we get through this station as quickly as possible, and we get the hell out of here.”
“Yes sir,” Vuong said, a small portion of reserve building back up at the thought. “Linear and smooth, no surprises.”
“That’s what I wanna hear, now let’s get a move on. We’re not getting paid by the hour.”
The group continued their way further in, passing the corporate offices and turning into the housing and security hallway. As they passed environmental a thin whisper wafted past Baker’s ear. “Come home.”
He stopped, his gaze whipping to the sealed door. ‘That’s not possible. It’s the station. You’re not real.’ The voice behind the door smiled. “Take us home daddy, take us home with you.”
“Everything ok Sarge?” Vuong asked, turning to see the sergeant staring at the sealed door to environmental. The look on his face was equal parts fear and recognition. He could see where the lack of sleep was starting to build in dark rings under his eyes, and the shadows cast in the hallway eluded to his true age. An air of confusion filtered past his features for a moment and then he blinked heavily and turned his gaze to him.
“Sarge?”
Baker tore his gaze from the doorway, his eyes locking to his men. “Yeah. Just, double checking the seal. Wouldn’t want enviro going out as we’re making our way out.”
Above them, silent on the ceiling a formless shimmer watched their every movement from the dark, studying its potential hosts as a thin ripple of excitement ebbed through it. Slowly it tested their strengths, their compatibility. It needed them weak. It needed them desperate and on the verge of collapse. By the time more arrived it would be ready for the journey to whatever system these creatures were from. Then the true feast would begin. Then…
Vuong nodded, his gaze still held to the sergeant.
Baker stepped past him, taking point and moving further down the hallway to the security room. As Vuong approached he tapped Fascio on the arm and nodded, his brow scrunched together as he did. “You catch that?” he whispered.
Fascio nodded, glancing to the door Sarge had just disappeared into. “Yeah.”
Vuong nodded silently, moving to make his way into security. He’d caught it alright. Sarge had been looking at something. Something had caught his attention, and whatever it was, he was hiding it from them.
“So I’ve sealed off every possible section we don’t have to go through. As far as lockdown goes, we’re as secure as we’re gonna get. It’s one straight shot from here to mining, and from there, past hydroponics to the cargo bay. If everything goes smoothly, we can be there in twenty minutes, and off this station within the hour.”
“Good,” Baker replied, staring at the red lines across the screen.
A loud groan warped through the facility, steel grinding against steel as the structures frame flexed. The building heat inside pressing against the frozen environment beyond bent the beams around them, stressing them, pressure building up as the temperature continued to slowly rise.
“It would be a lot quicker just to go past the sci-labs straight to cargo,” Talmadge said, pointing to the monitor.
“Somebody blew the entrance,” Vuong says, clicking his fingers across the keys to pull up a surveillance image of the hallway.
A pile of rubble and twisted metal crates were piled in the doorway to the science labs. The doors had been blown inwards, with the walls surrounding them completely scorched. He panned the camera to the other doorway to cargo and showed them why that route wouldn’t work. The explosion had casted debris to the other side of the hall, and collapsed the ceiling around the entrance to cargo.
“No way we’re getting through that,” Vuong said. “We gotta go around.”
“Ok,” Baker replied, bringing his hand up to the pounding that pulsed behind his right temple. “Then what are we still standing here for?”
20
Central housing stood empty, the vacant silence mocking their loss as they made their way past the tables they had broken bread together at that morning. A claustrophobic stillness stalked them, the whisper of groaning steel creeping just behind. As the passed through Vuong could hear Corlin making wisecrack comments, and Mills taking usual offense, phantom traces of their voices hanging on stagnant air. Fascio glanced in one of the rooms and saw the little boy standing near the wall at the back, face bloated and grey, wet hair dripping down his face to the shoulders of his striped shirt. He realized he had closed the door prior, and the fact that it now stood open, almost inviting, dug into him, images of faceless monsters and hidden horrors leaping to the surface. “We need to get out of here,” he said, increasing his pace to get quickly out of reach of whatever it was that lay just inside.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Vuong replied, pushing the sounds from his ears. “You starting to see things too?” “Yeah,” Fascio replied, his tone just quiet enough to evade the sergeant’s ears. “It’s time to go.”
The creature was getting stronger, each death feeding its strength, giving it more energy in which to expend against the delicate minds of the fragile beings it stalked.
They made their way into the hallway, turning to go past medical where rows of black bags and fresh memories of the three dead marines at the end clawed at them. They continued past quietly, the corridor running a hundred feet before turning sharply to the right. Baker realized his gaze was locked to the floor as he walked, subconsciously avoiding lifting it in fear he would see his wife and daughter standing burnt and broken. He could hear them whispering just behind him, following just out of view, their presence reaching out to touch him with every step. Their presence had become increasingly stronger since they had left the pyramid, persisting to the point of him even getting wafts of perfume mixed with burnt rubber and oil. He struggled to press them back, repeating like a mantra that it was all in his head, that the facility was making it seem real, but he could feel the reality of it slowly slipping away as he whispered his responses silently under his breath, conscious not to let the others hear. They wouldn’t understand. This facility had allowed him a way to bring them back, a means of being with them again. This station was becoming the key to him having a family again.
As they entered the next hall, the walls became bare, save for a single handprint that had been slapped against it. There was no blood, no rotting corpses, no scenes of carnage or coppery stench hanging in the air, just tan walls with recessed lighting shining clearly around them. Their steps echoed lightly as they made their way further, pausing before they continued past the corner into the end of the hall. There, at the end, thirty feet away, everything they had prepared themselves to encounter in the pristine hall, waited for them, a visceral mass at the end of the corridor.
The four of them paused, slowing as the sight before them registered. Just outside the door to mining was a jumble of tattered clothing and flesh, a matted patchwork of colonists, gunned down as they piled into each other against the sealed door. Whatever it was that they were trying to escape, cornered them at the end of the hall, and unloaded every round of ammunition it carried into them.
Vuong stepped forward, his feet sending dozens of spent casings across the floor, the light tinkling bringing a ripple to his skin. The group had been massacred, some of them lying shot at the top of the pile as they apparently tried to scramble over others to escape, but the locked door hadn’t allowed them to. There w
ere nearly twenty colonists sprawled outwards from the barred door, a fetid knotwork of black and purple arms and legs now moist and covered in a thin layer of slime as the environment continued to level out.
“We need to—” Vuong started, pulling his gaze away as the urge to vomit rose in his throat.
“I’ll give you a hand,” Fascio said, staring at the mountain of corpses that blocked their way forward.
“Let’s just get it done so we can get the hell out of here.”
“Just give me a second,” Vuong replied, kneeling over to take deep breath before rising straight and turning to make his way towards it. He could feel the bile rising as he stepped closer, and his skin began to crawl as his fingers clasped around the first ankle. He forced his thoughts to wander, focusing on anything but the carnage before him. He thought about his youth, his family, the ride to the air base where they had launched from. He rerouted electronic components in his mind, recalculating for different load specifications. He and Fascio worked silently, hauling the corpses one by one away from the door until the area was clear enough for him to access the panel.
Baker stood silently next to Talmadge as his men cleared the dead, one by one, carrying them into the hallway so they could make their way past. When they finished, Vuong approached the door and pulled the cover from the keypad, exposing the wires. He ran the bypass cable from his holowrist to the panel and typed a series of numbers in. The light on the door switch clicked from red to green, signaling their path was open. “We’re in,” he said, pressing the door switch and stepping back quickly.
The door to mining opened up with a groan. The lights inside were off, and the massive space cracked with soft metallic creaks, the sound of the door scraping against the floor echoing loudly an audible glimpse at the enormity of the space they were entering. Fascio clicked his headlamp on and stepped inside, the flashlight on his rifle coming to light and illuminating the mining bay. Vuong followed immediately behind him, stepping in quickly, his rifle light flashing from one dark corner to another. Both men were scared, a fear surpassing their hairiest firefights drilling deeply within them. Neither of them spoke it, but they could each tell without asking by how shaky the beams of illumination skipped across the surfaces.
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