He was weightless for a minute maybe more but instead of flying into the vacuum of space Addax who was more machine then man used his momentum to scrap his arms and legs into the Skrav starship’s metal hull tearing away his skin. A metal coated his bone and the same metal gears autons used had replaced his muscles. His veins burst spheres of blood floated into the cold but he continued to move. Pieces of flesh burned away from the radiation that surrounded him but he was immortal. The only human parts he actually had left were his heart, brain, a few nerves here and there and bits and pieces of his spine and they were all encased inside metal strong enough to survive the void. He moved slowly but he was still fast enough to take out a few Skrav drones with an assault rifle he carried with him. We could still hear him through the comms. Duv’Mir retreated back to pick him up followed by Trevor who was just getting back to the fight for cover. A part of being on our team meant no man goes it alone. Addax was no different then an auton or caretaker in that he could latch himself onto Duv’Mir’s ship and hitch a ride but he was still human heart and mind and that made him one of us.
-----------It felt like we were racing. Hayden and I were side by side on our way to the finish line - the hub, first to destroy it wins. I had done this a hundred times in my head. Both of us had played this out a dozen times in simulation. We would fire at about the same time then break off in two different directions watching from behind as the hub exploded in a mass fireball that spanned in every direction. There would be no sound. This entire battle had been silent aside from what we imagined in our head. The fireball would expand out engulfing any Skrav that decided to give chase. We would then clear out and watch as the Erebus and Aelita fire endlessly striking the monster in the heart tearing it limb from limb. The archangels will split the demon and rain fire down from heaven above wiping the world clean.
There was nothing. We shot at exactly the same time just as we practiced and watched as the hub broke into several pieces. It didn't scatter. It stood there mocking us almost completely intact. All around us drones continued to swarm. There was no explosion, no fireball. It had to be a fluke. We must have missed. We slowed to a halt and regrouped circling around and taking a second shot. There was nothing. We had been set up. The hub was a decoy, a distraction.
The Skrav vessel began to turn on its side like a crocodile tearing apart its prey. Hayden and I barely had time to grind our ships to a halt on the surface of the dagger. Hundreds of human and Skrav ships were fighting along the trenches and edges of the Skrav starship when it turned on its side forcing hundreds who couldn’t react quick enough to crash into the metal hull.
We began our retreat. The truth was our bodies could only handle so much force from being thrown around before we would collapse of fatigue. It would be easier for another pilot to replace us then for us to keep fighting. As soon as Hayden and I were certain the Skrav weren’t going to turn again we moved. Even when they shifted we made sure to compensate or fly low enough to the hull we could land. Slowly at first but then we picked up the pace. We flew side by side again taking out a few drones here and there but none of the Skrav fighters even bothered with us. We were too far from the Erebus so we made quick plans to land on the Aelita. Each ship acted like an independent nation before and now the borders were lifted. Duv’Mir and Addax (who was hanging on to Duv'Mir's ship with his cybernetic arms) were still flying around the Skrav dagger looking and analyzing it trying to find a weakness. Trevor’s ship had become damaged and he retreated towards the Erebus along with Meddix and Brecca.
Half an hour passed. We were moments away from the Aelita when we saw their hangar open. The hull of the Aelita was badly damaged. Fluid leaked from the immersion core along the outline of the hull like black blood. It was like an animal lay before us in the distance hurt, bleeding wanting to scream but mute. Skrav ships swarmed around it like sharks to the carcass of a whale.
From the bowels of the Aelita we saw it open up. The Aelita was spilling its guts. From inside the hangar we could see hundreds of black ships pour out as if the doors of hell had broken and let loose the spawns of Satan. The Scourge had been released.
The Scourge, inhuman clones bred born and made for war. They each share the same collective consciousness and that makes them one hell of a force to reckon with. Created onboard the Aelita hundreds of years ago they have always been a last resort too dangerous for most skirmishes. The last time they were used was the Battle of Colony 5544 where they lost control and couldn’t differentiate Skrav and human from one another. That or as some had come to believe they held a grudge for the way we treated them. The ones that survived that battle were hunted down by cyborgs and augmented humans like Addax and Lore and either killed or recaptured. There were hundreds descending upon us now - far more then what histroy books said had survived. Their ships looked like demons - small swords strapped with devil wings. Maybe this was the Aelita’s idea of ridding the human race of their kind forever. If we were lucky both the scourge and Skrav would kill each other before we even set foot onboard the orbital. We had let loose the rabid dogs of war and now any pilot out in the open such as myself and Hayden had become fair game.
---------------We quickly countered as the Scourge fired at us. Already they had decided anything not a part of their hive mind was to be exterminated. Hayden managed to take one or two out while my shots were dodged instead raining down on the Aelita. I prayed no one was watching. We no longer had a way to fall back. The Aelita began to move closer and closer to the Skrav dagger dragging us along for the ride as its gravity pulled our ships. Caretakers on the Aelita began to let go and disappear into the darkness as if they were giving up. Some were attempting to kamikaze either scourge or Skrav but most simply disappeared into the vacuum.
The Aelita was throwing everything it had at the Skrav while the Erebus retreated further and further away firing from a distance onto both ships. We were caught between visible rays of light, fire, and invisible beams of energy that only our ships could track and warn us about seconds before our atoms would be ripped apart. Both the Skrav and the Aelita continued move closer and closer. It was like being caught between the blocks of tetris. It was obvious they were going to touch. That had been the Aelita’s plan all along. Even if the Skrav ship was destroyed by the collision the debris would tear apart the Aelita. During the battle we had moved so close to the orbital there was nothing neither could do. Both ships would lose but the Aelita could crash-land and still survive. Hayden and I had no choice but to follow suit. If we were going to crash we had to do it all on our own terms.
We pushed our ships to their limit setting the computer to make an emergency jump into the immer that would last less than a second. It would be enough to take us through the orbital’s atmosphere and hopefully disable a few Skrav or Scourge near us.
Over our comms we could hear Duv’Mir and Addax scream as the Aelita tore into the Skrav hull turning both ships and the area around us into an inferno. For one small moment in time everything seemed to stop. The world around us twisted and blurred the blackness of space became the immer and then we were in the clouds. We were on the orbital falling through the air surrounded by snowy mountains. Below us we could see trees and forests covered in snow. No longer a dream, I couldn't help but wonder if I had blacked out and none of this was real. I could never forget this moment. The moment I looked upon Eden. It looked like Earth.
Eden-3 I remember the clouds and before that the blackness of space all around. It was as if time itself had slowed just long enough to show me the beauty of the world I would be leaving behind. I must have been unconscious for several hours. Hayden hadn’t crashed very far from where I had been buried nose first in the snow. Both ships had activated a distress beacon but it wasn’t likely anyone would come looking. Once I dug my way out of my cockpit I could move towards him more then likely though he would track me. He was always much more acute to that then I had ever been. I was more then lucky to be alive. The Aelita and the Skrav ship came c
rashing together falling into the atmosphere above the orbital melting together and then sliding down mountains and hills. It was like I was standing in front of them as they hurled themselves towards me twisting and bending as they changed from one geometric shape to another. They must have been thirty miles away. I felt like I was watching two great cities fall from the sky.
I remember falling through the clouds and the seeing the mountains and snow. Sensors and drones from the Erebus told us we could breath here but I didn’t see a single tree near where I was. I had seen a few on the way down of course but not nearly enought. This place was like Errikus. Buried under the ground there must have been several plants and biomass emitting just the right amount of oxygen and nitrogen creating just enough natural gasses to create the perfect atmosphere held together by gravitational drives and exactly the right amount of force.
“Aira was on the Aelita,” I cried no one around to listen. It had been years since I had spoken to her. I hadn’t even seen her since Errikus and now she was gone. The three children of Errikus were down to two. Constantly I had dreamt of finding her once we were no longer chained to the stars. When we were young there were days she would get Hayden, Dom, and I to play house. Her and I were husband and wife and they were our children. Even Hera knew the lengths I would go to save a friend. I had told her how if I could go back and rescue Dom or somehow stop Aira from being forced aboard the Aelita that I would. “Hera,” her name flew out of my mouth. I could feel tears beneath my eyelid but I didn’t cry. My body was too cold for that.
I could see my re flection in the shield that surrounded me light from the horizon from where the stars were setting. The horizon was curved in a strange way that the land seemed to raise itself upwards as if I had fallen down inside a well. All around me red and yellow light saturated my eyes. It had been years since I had seen a sunset. My eyes burned, I had adapted to life onboard the Erebus and forgotten how it felt to stare directly into a star.
There was something else all around I could hear such familiar sounds. The world felt chaotic. The most familiar of which was a sound I knew from Errikus; a sound from my childhood. It was the sound heard outside the walls late at night and sometimes during the evening. The sound that would have us lock doors and sit by our guardians or play inside simulations when we were so afraid the only thing we could do was lock out the world around us. The Eek never feared anything. It was one of the reasons they decided to put a colony on Errikus in the first place – aside from the fact there was plenty left to build on. They were afraid of one thing though - the sound of nightmares of animals that were part wolf part dragon with hair that matted and dreaded and ran down their backs across their black and grey bodies. Beasts that hunted with several eyes on either side of their face and sharp jagged teeth across their long snouts. The sound of a hellbeast.
Animals that stood on two legs or run on six and stood between eight and twelve feet as adolescence and forty sometimes fifty feet as mature adults covered in eyes and sharp spines. Like dragons bred with demons their tails alone could whip and kill a man. The walls on Errikus were built solely to keep them out along with drones and automated turrets but every once in awhile their would be one or two that would break in and kill several dozen Eek, even the Arr7 had a hard time standing their ground against them. Monsters without weakness. The were the top of the food chain on Errikus.
I remembered one night my mother and I had to lock us inside the basement of one of the trade offices owned by an elderly Pok, a furry little guy named Talvor. We heard the sirens and hid away in the dark. We were there for several hours before Talvor went above ground to try and see what was happening maybe even find help. The sirens continued to blare. I never saw Talvor again but soon after he left the sirens stopped. Eek security forces gunned down the single hellbeast that made its way into the city.
The Seraphim was the worst creature I had ever seen on Errikus but it was a creature of the immer displaced and afraid. For all it knew it was fighting for its life against a world that was trying to swallow it whole. The hellbeasts were the worst thing on Errikus. Why were they here? Why would the Lethe or whoever had made this place move them here to an orbital when they were bad enough on one planet? Again I heard the hellbeast howl and this time it was unmistakable. The beast was coming closer and closer. Hayden’s distress beacon was a few miles away. I could make it there before morning once I gathered my gear. As far as the hellbeast was concerned we probably weren’t that interesting but if one of us – if Hayden was bleeding that would draw its scent.
I tore the material that made up my seat and made a makeshift jacket and hood. I also had some of my space suit and facemask still left intact. I had created something out of junk and wreckage like this before it was something Duv’Mir had taught me and showed all of us several times how to do one night out of boredom. Now it was saving my life. The spacesuit hood and jacket would keep me warm and allow me to survive. My M44 rifle and rations had survived the fall well enough I wouldn’t be searching for food or fighting with my bear hands. That was good considering I had no idea what would be out there in the cold. Hellbeasts would hunt day or night but this was a new world. If hellbeast were here from Errikus what other horrors had become displaced?
I felt like I had crashed down inside Pandora's box. I grabbed what I could and then started to move towards Hayden’s signal making sure to download all I could from my XA-2 into my wrist PDA. Both of us must have seen the Aelita crash. If we were lucky we could get there in a few days and maybe there would be survivors. At the very least it was in the opposite direction I had heard the howl. That was good enough for me. Without Balkava or Duv’Mir I had to give myself the orders, my personal mission, “Find Hayden and get to the Aelita.”
I made my way closer and closer to Hayden’s beacon falling down into a trench. It was like something from World War 2, it felt just like something I had seen through the eyes of Joseph Everett but it was still so very alien. Along the walls I could see small hieroglyphs etched into the rock and stone. I couldn’t decipher any of it and didn’t recognize it as anything we had come across. Holding my rifle in front of me I made my way through crossing corners and watching my back. Then I heard the hellbeast. It wasn’t a howl this time it was a growl. I had crossed its field of vision and been found. A shadow jumped over me for a second. The Earth once had monsters in the shape of giant reptiles and birds and dinosaurs – Errikus had the hellbeast. It was hunting me from above leaping over from one side of the trench to another. I could feel my right eye twitching as if I had been staring at a monitor for too long. The cold breeze hit my face making my teeth hurt and my cheeks feel numb. Any moment the Hellbeast would reveal itself. Hellbeast were a conceited predator always staring down and toying with their prey the way a child would play with food.
I continued walking through the trench. My eyes were heavy now. I wanted sleep. How nice it would be to just lie down and let it all go. As far as anyone knew I died in the space fight far above the clouds and the surface. The snow would probably preserve my body just like these ruins and years from now some expedition human or otherwise would find my corpse in perfect condition. I could be the scientific discovery of a century. The man frozen in ice trapped in time it would be an ironic end for someone who has seen into the passages of time. - Likely though I would just be another meal a feast for one night probably not even enough to stave away the beast’s hunger.
Something inside myself made me move forward. Perhaps I should give myself more credit. I wanted to persevere. My instincts pushed me forward as I entered a small dark tunnel. If I weren’t being hunted it would have been a perfect place to settle in for the night. Snow fell to the ground like ash. Perhaps that was what it was, small pieces of the Aelita and the Skrav ship that broke off during the battle burning up inside the atmosphere.
I made my way inside a cave. It was something that seemed dug out but the inside was huge. I had never heard of hellbeast on Errikus burrowing but this
world was different and if that was what this one did I might be walking right into its lair. It didn’t matter. I needed immediate shelter at least till I could get my thoughts together. I could smell something akin to rotten meat the moment I stepped into the hollow. My theory was correct. I had walked into a nest, the beast's lair. The light from the rifle revealed the soft porous eggs six seven feet in diameter stuck to the wall. This wasn’t like Errikus. The hellbeasts on Errikus would lay eggs but they were never larger then two maybe three feet and they didn’t stick to surfaces like this. The eggshells were soft and covered in small veins. Moving closer I could see through the opaque surface and inside to the multiple eyes and claws that were forming along soft tissue. Each claw was longer then the length of my hand. If even one of these hatched it could tear me in half. If I had any sense I should destroy them now. Destroy them before they grow old and hunt us down. They were so fragile. I would probably give myself away but I would ensure the protection of any survivors. Any creature human or otherwise these beasts snare would be on my hands for not putting a stop to them. It probably wouldn’t matter. If I destroyed the nest here the creature hunting me would know exactly were I am. I would probably infuriate it sending it into a rage. Once I was gone it would just pick up were it left off and lay another batch of eggs to hunt, kill, and maim. We were so low on the food chain I needed to kill the creature now or risk it hunting me forever.
I had one charge tucked away inside my suit. I was small no bigger then the palm of my hand. I could set it and run. The explosion would cause the hellbeast to run to its spawning ground and in its moment of anger I would be ready to strike my M44 should have enough of a charge to send the beast to it’s grave. Even if it didn’t die I knew its weak spots; the eyes and joints just above the legs. I could maim it enough it would bleed out into the snow. I would end this threat once and for all.
Pull (Deep Darkness Book 1) Page 21
