by Darcy Coates
She dragged it back to the waste disposal unit behind their station—low gravity had its benefits—and while she was feeding it through the slot, she heard another crack in her headset as Carly bagged her second target.
“Jen, Carly,” Alessicka’s voice said, “I’m getting a reading of a living shape by the weathervane. It looks like a sludge, but it’s a big one.”
“On it.” Carly sounded breathless, but Jen couldn’t tell if it was from excitement or overexertion.
Jen scouted around the perimeter of the station, making sure it was clean, before widening her loop. She could hear Carly humming as she made her way to the weathervane, which was located on an outcropping a kilometre away from the base. Twice, Carly stopped to use her stinger on creatures she found along the way, and once, she swore loudly, apparently having stubbed her toe on a rock. Jen started to tune her out as she focussed on her job—injecting another sludge and a couple of thick, veiny plants that were struggling to survive on the barren moon—so she almost didn’t hear Carly say her name.
“What’s up?” Jen asked, clipping a sludge to her cable and beginning to pull it towards the waste disposal.
“This thing by the weathervane—it’s not a sludge. It’s… hell, I have no idea what this is.”
“Describe it,” Alessicka said.
“It’s… like… big. Maybe four times as large as I am. Black and lumpy, with red veins running all over its body.”
“Red veins?” Alessicka asked. “Not yellow, like a creeping Helen?”
“No, definitely red. They’re pulsing. And there are these… tendril things coming out at its base. Like roots. I think they’re moving, but very slowly.”
There was a pause, and Jen could hear Alessicka typing. “I haven’t heard of a creature like that,” she said, “and the system isn’t bringing up any matches. Should I call Perros, Jen?”
Calling Perros, their ward planet, essentially meant asking for backup. Technically, that was the correct protocol for when they found an unidentifiable alien lifeform, but hardly any station followed it.
“Aw, hell no,” Carly said. “It looks harmless. It’s actually managing to move less than a sludge. I’ll just inject it real quick, and then we can get back to our damn jobs.”
Alessicka’s voice was tight with anxiety when she replied, “Don’t proceed. You don’t have clearance.” She hesitated then added, “She… she doesn’t have clearance. Does she, Jen?”
Jen sighed. Calling Perros was a huge inconvenience for everyone involved. Support wouldn’t reach them for nearly twenty-eight hours, and if Carly was right and the lifeform was vegetation or low-risk, they wouldn’t be happy about having their time wasted.
“Stay where you are, Carly. I’ll come to you, and we can deal with it together.”
“Sure you don’t want me to get it now? It’s an ugly son of a—”
“No.” Jen unclipped the sludge from her belt. “Just stay put.”
“Fine,” Carly huffed, and Jen thought she heard a relieved sigh from Alessicka in the background.
Jen bounded across the moon’s surface, her boots kicking up puffs of dust with each step. Perros rose over the horizon to her left, and she could see one of their sister moons, 384, to the right. There wasn’t any proper day or night on 331, so the moon felt perpetually suspended in twilight; the atmosphere cast a red glow over the already-bronze landscape, dimming the sun’s light and casting strange, leaping shadows.
Jen was still a few minutes from the weathervane when she heard Carly inhale sharply.
“What happened?” she asked at the same moment Alessicka said, “Carly?”
Carly laughed. “Oh, wow. I didn’t expect that. I poked it, and it started moving.”
“Moving?”
“Yeah, these tendril vine-like things are stretching out and waving all over the place. Are you sure we have to kill it? It’s the most interesting thing we’ve had on this moon in months.”
Jen kicked against the ground to leap over a rocky ridge. “Damn it, Carly. Stay away from it until I get there. We don’t know how dangerous it is.”
“Relax,” Carly drawled. “It can’t reach me. I don’t even think it can see. It’s—” She gasped sharply.
Jen heard scraping and rustling, then Carly shrieked.
“Carly?” Jen called. She increased her jog to a run, moving her legs as fast as the thick suit and low gravity would let her. “What happened?”
“Damn it,” Carly said, over more scuffling. “It’s got me, Jen. I dropped my stinger, and I can’t get it off—” She grunted in pain then yelled something incoherent.
Fear spiked through Jen as she raced for the weathervane. She could hear Carly panting, interspersed with snapping noises. “I’m about two minutes away, Carly. Hang on.”
Then Carly’s screams filled Jen’s helmet, drowning her in the rawness of the other woman’s terror. Jen called to her, but Carly either didn’t hear or couldn’t respond; she kept screaming and screaming. The shriek’s pitch rose–
Then there was silence.
“Carly?” Jen panted into the stillness. “Carly, can you hear me? Carly!”
“Her-her helmet’s disconnected—” Alessicka’s voice was thin with horror. “Audio’s g-gone completely.”
“Damn it!” Jen couldn’t move fast enough, as if she were stuck in a nightmare where no matter how hard she ran she couldn’t move any closer. Then she cleared a ridge and finally saw Carly’s monster.
Clinging to the rocks at the base of a crater was a massive mess of black tendrils with pulsing red rivulets running down them. They were probing outwards, feeling along the ground, seeking something to grip. Jen stopped well out of their reach and started sidestepping the creature, searching for the white suit that held her partner. She couldn’t see it.
“Lessi, can you tell me anything? Do you have any reading on Carly?”
“No.” She sounded as if she were hyperventilating, but her fingers were hitting the keyboard at an incredible speed. “It’s-it’s like her helmet has been separated from the suit. I can’t get any stats at all.”
“Okay.” Jen’s pulse pounded in her head as she weighed up her options. “I’m going to try to sting it. If anything… goes wrong, don’t come after me, but send a message to Perros immediately.”
Alessicka made a strangled sort of noise. “Don’t. Please, Jen. Please don’t—”
The creature’s limbs were tapping at the ground and seeking contact, but they seemed to be slowing their pace.
“I’ve got to try to find Carly. Under no circumstances are you to leave the base. That’s a direct order, Lessi. Do you copy?”
“C-copy.”
“Okay.”
Jen began sliding down the incline that led to the lifeform. Two of the tendrils stretched towards her, apparently sensing the motion. Jen hoped that if she could sting it and get enough neurotoxins in it to kill it, she might still be able to find Carly. She didn’t want to think about the state the other woman would be in, though; the air on 331 was toxic. If she lost her helmet…
One of the arms shot out at an impossible speed and snagged Jen’s ankle. She gasped and tried to jump back, but the creature was too fast. Before she could understand what was happening, she was in the air, held upside down, while another tendril wrapped around her chest.
She swung her stinger towards the nearest tendril. It missed its mark. A new arm came up and wrapped around Jen’s helmet, blinding her. She heard cracking noises as the black pulsing limb strained to separate the helmet from its suit.
Is this what it did to Carly?
She could feel the creature becoming frustrated. She had only seconds before it tried a new method of killing her; she aimed blindly, felt the stinger’s steel needle puncture something resistant, and pulled the trigger.
A horrific wailing noise rose around her, and Jen found herself plummeting to the ground. She twisted around mid-air in time to see she was headed for a crop of jagged rock, whi
ch would certainly puncture her suit, but at the last second, one of the thrashing arms batted her aside. She skidded over a dusty patch of ground and rolled to a stop.
The creature had gone wild. Its limbs waved in every direction, as though it were trying to fight an invisible attacker, and the bestial wailing noise filled her head. The arms seemed able to stretch to impossible lengths, and Jen realised she wasn’t safe where she was. She began scrambling backwards, up the incline of the crater, not daring to take her eyes off the waving, slapping arms until she was over the top of the lip and running for the base.
The terrible noise followed her. The poison had hurt the lifeform, but it wasn’t dead; a single injection probably wasn’t enough for a beast that size, and there was no way Jen was going back to have another go at it—especially now that she knew for certain Carly couldn’t have survived. The creature had tried to pop Jen’s helmet off, just as it must have done to Carly. Jen’s had only stayed on because it wasn’t faulty.
Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. The guilt was crushing; she’d used her power as the team leader to override Alessicka when she’d tried to do her job, and now her partner was dead. This is what you get for cutting corners. This is what happens when you don’t take your job seriously.
She squinted and ran faster. All she wanted, more than anything else, was to be inside the safety of the double-walled metal station. She would never complain about how small it was again.
“Jen?” Alessicka breathed in her ear. She sounded terrified. “A-are you t-there?”
In her rush to get away from the monster, Jen had forgotten to tell her remaining partner that she was okay. Alessicka had heard the fight, but nothing afterwards, and Jen had left her hanging in terrible suspense.
“I’m here,” Jen said, fortifying her voice. “I’m fine, and I’m coming back now. Carly… isn’t.”
“Okay,” was the only thing Alessicka managed to say. She sobbed quietly and discreetly the entire time Jen was jogging back to base. She was young, and Jen didn’t think she’d ever lost a team member before.
Relief spread across Jen’s chest when the hulking metal structure came into view. She approached the airlock doors and asked Alessicka to open them. The girl must have been waiting with her hand poised over the button; they drew apart immediately, and Jen entered the airlock.
They looked at each other through the thick plexiglass screen that separated the airlock from the control room. Alessicka’s face was pale and covered in tear tracks, but she kept her voice from breaking as she stepped Jen through the protocol they’d followed so often that it was like second nature. This time was different, though. This time, Jen stood alone as she waited for the chamber to be filled with breathable air, stepped out of her suit and stored her equipment.
“Central doors unlocking,” Alessicka said at last, as the metal doors separating them parted. Jen stepped into the control room, and Alessicka threw herself onto Jen. Trembling, she hugged her fiercely, and Jen patted her hair until she pulled back. The girl’s red eyes searched Jen’s face, and for a moment, Jen was frightened Alessicka would blame her—tell her it was all her fault for ignoring the warning about Carly’s helmet—but instead, she said, “What do I need to do?”
Ignoring the guilt and the pain had been easier when she had a purpose, so Jen latched on to Alessicka’s opening and led her to the command board. “We need to get a message to Perros. Explain about the lifeform we found. Explain about… Carly. Ask for assistance.”
They would also need to request a replacement team member, but they could do that after the creature was dealt with and Carly’s death was confirmed.
Jen watched over Alessicka’s shoulder as she typed the message. Because of the location of their outpost, communication with Perros was difficult. Their ward planet would receive the message, but it wasn’t likely they would send a reply. Any discussions would have to wait until the backup arrived.
“Sent.” Alessicka swivelled in her chair to look up at her leader. “What else should I do?”
She needed work to keep her mind off Carly just as badly as Jen did. Unfortunately, work was one thing they were low on: the patrols usually took most of the day, so they’d finished all of their regular chores that morning.
Jen opened her mouth to suggest they go over inventory again, but a sharp noise interrupted her. They both jumped and looked through the plexiglass window into the airlock. Something large and dark was pressed against the outside door.
It’s the monster from the weathervane. It’s followed me back to base, Jen thought with a spike of panic, but as the shape moved and she realised what it really was, she somehow felt even more horrified.
“Carly!” Alessicka shrieked.
Their missing team member stood outside the base. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, and her crop of curly black hair was stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her dark eyes bored into them intently, desperately, as she banged a fist on the door.
Alessicka slammed her hand on the button that opened the airlock, and Carly stumbled inside. Jen stared at her, shocked that she had survived the unbreathable air long enough to get back to base, let alone lived through having her helmet ripped off. Alessicka was talking rapidly over the speaker as she changed the settings on her control panel.
“Hang on, Carly. I’m depressurising the airlock—filtering in oxygen—stabilising the seal. Just a moment, and we’ll have you back in the base.”
Jen couldn’t take her eyes off Carly as the woman leaned against one of the walls, panting and shivering. It seemed incredible that she could have made it back. More than incredible, actually. Impossible.
“Carly?” Jen asked. “Are you hurt?”
Carly was unzipping what remained of her thick suit. Jen saw tears in it; one arm had been shredded completely, and Jen thought she saw a splash of red on the inside as Carly shimmied out of it. “A few bruises,” she said, flashing them a shaky smile, “but I’m alive and in one piece, so I guess I can’t complain.”
“Thank goodness,” Alessicka said. She was adjusting the levels in the airlock to filter out the planet’s toxic air before she opened to doors to their base. “We thought—”
“Yeah, I thought that for a moment, too,” Carly said. “I heard you come for me, Jen, but it had me pinned, and I couldn’t help. I’m glad you got away okay.”
“Me, too,” Jen said automatically, raking the woman over with her eyes. She looked fine, completely fine, and that terrified her.
“It’s dead, by the way.” Carly took one of the towels from the storage closet and rubbed at her sweaty face. “The monster. Lifeform. Thing. Once you stung it, it let me go, and I was able to get my own stinger and finish it off.”
“I see.”
Alessika looked ready to cry again, but a wide smile spread over her face. “Okay, Carly, central doors unlocking.”
“Wait.” Jen grabbed Alessicka’s wrist to stop her from opening the metal doors that separated them from Carly.
The girl blinked up at her in confusion. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No. Uh, Carly, I’m sorry about this, but you need to stay in the airlock. Quarantine.”
Carly’s jaw dropped. She walked towards the plexiglass window. “Is this a joke? Because it’s really sucky timing. I want a shower, damn it.”
“I’m sorry, Carly, but you were exposed to that thing. We don’t know what it was or if it infected you with anything. You need to stay in there until the team from Perros arrives.”
Carly swore at her. “This is ridiculous! Let me back in, Jen!”
“Surely—surely she’s fine,” Alessicka said, offering a weak smile.
Jen let go of her wrist. “We can’t take that chance. It’s only twenty-eight hours, Carly, then we can decontaminate and release you.”
Carly stared pure hatred at her leader, and Jen felt her resolve slipping. Maybe I am being over-cautious. We were told the air was poisonous, but not how poisonous. Maybe someo
ne could survive in it for short amounts of time. Maybe it isn’t so unbelievable that she’s still alive.
But then Jen looked at the torn, helmetless suit crumpled on the floor, and she knew, with complete certainty, that she wanted to keep the doors closed.
“Alessicka,” Jen said, “could you bring Carly some food and water?”
The young woman still looked shocked that they were keeping their partner inside the airlock, but she nodded and got up. Carly slouched away from the window to sit against the back wall, scowling. As Alessicka’s footsteps faded down the hallway, Jen said, “Carly, you know why I have to do this, right?”
“I’m your friend,” she spat. “We’ve been stuck on this forsaken lump of rock for three years. Don’t you trust me?”
Not at this moment, I don’t.
The day passed slowly. Alessicka and Jen stayed at the control panel. Carly refused to touch the bottles of water and peach-flavoured slurry packets they’d cautiously tossed through the door, but sat in her corner and sulked. After trying to make small talk for a few minutes, Alessicka gave up and joined them in silence.
When the clock ticked over to the third quarter of the day, Jen turned to Alessicka. “You’d better get some rest.”
She looked ghastly. Her doe-like eyes were bloodshot from crying, and her face was pale, but she still smiled. “I’m fine, Jen.”
Jen sighed. “No, you really need sleep. I’ll stay here with Carly. Go on.”
Alessicka obediently got up and waved goodbye to Carly, who flashed a grin back at her. Jen waited until she heard the bedroom door close before speaking.
“You haven’t touched your food.”
“Not hungry.”
“So you’re going to starve yourself until we let you out?”
Her only reply was a very slow blink.
“Carly,” Jen said, choosing her phrasing carefully. “I don’t believe you escaped from that creature.”
The other woman didn’t say anything.
“I felt how strong it was. It would have torn me in half if I’d given it another minute.”
