Starck's Lament (The Shadow Wars Book 11)

by S. A. Lusher

  “I know. It doesn't make me feel any better.”

  “I can understand that.”

  Autumn seemed like she was working herself up to say more, but suddenly their radios crackled to life. For a moment, Eric tried to pick out a message through the haze of static, shouts and gunfire. It was clear that Marco and Seth were trying to convey some message. For a moment, he heard, very clearly, Marco shouting run! and something that sounded like a warning. Eric and Autumn took off, hurrying back towards the hangar, their boots coming down hard as they pounded across the deckplates.

  They reached the corridor that ran parallel to the hangar and spied a blood-splattered figure running at them from the opposite direction. Just one figure. Eric could tell from the armor that it was Captain Marco.

  “Where's Seth!?” he called as they approached each other.

  “Run! Run!” Marco screamed in response.

  That was all the incentive Eric needed for the moment. They met in the middle. Distantly, but not distant enough, Eric heard a roar and then heavy footsteps. Getting closer. Marco opened the door to the hangar they'd come out of not but an hour ago (had it been an hour already?! The chronometer in his head's up display confirmed this), and stepped inside. Once they were all within, Marco closed and locked the door.

  “Where's Seth? What happened?” Autumn asked.

  Marco shook his head as he led them to the airlock. “We got separated. I don't know what happened to him. Two of them showed up.”

  “He could still be out there, we have to go back!” Eric snapped, grabbing him.

  “Get ahold of yourself, Starck,” Marco said, pulling out of his grasp. “We'll all get killed if we don't evac, we need to fall back for the moment, find help. If he's still alive, he'll find a way to survive. Hole up, wait for us. He's tough enough for it.”

  “He's right, Eric,” Autumn said quietly.

  Eric knew he was right but that didn't do much to quell the overwhelming urge to go back and find Seth, haul him out of a terrible situation. How many soldiers had he left behind? How many friends? How many good men and women?

  “Seth, can you hear me?” he asked over his radio as they hurried to the airlock. Behind them, the door chimed and buzzed, indicating that it was locked. Autumn's words echoed in Eric's mind: It opened the door. As soon as the door buzzed, it began to be beat on. Eric risked a glance over his shoulder: dents were appearing.

  “Seth, please respond,” Eric said.

  Nothing. Dead silence.

  They reached the airlock.

  The banging behind them increased as the creature tried to tear its way into the hangar bay. Eric and the others hurried into the airlock and Marco hit the button, beginning the cycle. Eric trembled in anticipation, wondering if they were going to get through the airlock before the creature got into the hangar bay and made its way to them. Surely it wasn't that stupid, right? Going outside would kill it...or would it?

  Again, Eric was stymied by the fact that he knew so little about these creatures.

  “Where the fuck did these things come from?” he whispered.

  “I don't know,” Marco replied, switching back over to the suit radio now that they were heading into an atmosphere-free zone. “Maybe they were already on the asteroid and someone found them. Or maybe someone brought them here. This is a way-station, after all.”

  “But if someone brought them here, then where the hell did they find them?”

  “I don't know!” Marco replied. The airlock finished its cycle. “Come on, we need to hurry.”

  The trio of them all but ran out into the great beyond outside the airlock, and all of them almost fell down in the sudden shift in gravity. For several moments, they were moving as quickly as they could up the short access road that led to the ship. It was still there, running lights functional and powerful, punching holes in the darkness. As he laid eyes on it, Eric suddenly realized that he'd been afraid it wouldn't be there anymore.

  A ridiculous fear but something he felt nonetheless.

  But it was there. It was there and he could see it and he was hurrying towards it. His previous feelings of wanting to face this mystery, of possibly wanting to face his own end...he wasn't sure if they were actually gone, but they had certainly been banished in the face of the pure, naked desire for his own continued survival.

  He wanted out.

  The trip up the access road and back onto the landing pad was made almost wholly in silence, broken only occasionally by heavy breathing picked up by the microphones and the occasional grunt of exertion as someone stumbled in the low gravity. Eric glanced twice back over his shoulder and neither times did he see some malignant beast ripping its way through the airlock. They were safe. Or so he told himself.

  Eric let out a sigh of relief as they reached the Liberation. They were going to get the fuck out of here, away from this horrific nightmare. He turned around and kept watch on the looming structure as Marco worked the airlock to get it open. Still nothing was coming out after them. His original assessment was probably correct. These creatures were at least intelligent enough to open doors and be sneaky, they had probably figured out that a lack of atmosphere was bad. They were safe outside. Eric turned back to the ship.

  Marco had the airlock open.

  The three of them hurried into it. As the door shut behind him and the airlock began to cycle, Eric felt another pang of regret and powerful guilt. Ronnie and Amanda were dead, and chances were Seth had joined them...it didn't seem possible that half their squad could get wiped out so quickly and so utterly. But he'd seen worse. The thing that was screwing with him was that Seth could be alive. Still there, fighting, trapped.

  Condemned to face these horrors alone.

  I'll come back for you, Eric promised.

  He'd lost enough people in his life that he'd learned to let go when they died...or that's what he told himself. But he found it almost impossible to accept the idea that someone be left behind if there was even the slightest chance that they were still alive and saving them wouldn't put anyone else but himself at risk. Eric was more than willing to risk his life to save others. Whether it was something he was born with or something that had been hammered into him during his time in the war, he knew it was true.

  The airlock chimed.

  They were through.

  “Come on, we need to get to the bridge,” Marco said.

  “We can call for backup. It'll be a while before it gets here but it'll be better than the four of us against this fucking nightmare.” Not that Jensen was likely to help out anyway, Eric found himself thinking. Though that wasn't a fair thought. The pilot stayed with the ship for a reason, and besides, it wasn't like he knew all that much about the man anyway. Eric fought for control of his thoughts and emotions as he rushed through the ship with Marco and Autumn. Somehow, they'd find a way to deal with all of this.

  “What the f-oh shit!” he heard Marco scream in raw, unmitigated terror.

  They had reached the door that led to the bridge. It was at the end of a narrow corridor. Eric was just behind Marco, so he was ripped from his thoughts as he was given a brief glimpse into the bridge, beyond Marco's still frame.

  All he saw was blood and sparking equipment.

  And one long arm, ending in claws, coated in blackened skin that reminded him of some kind of lizard, reaching for them.

  Then, Marco screamed, a scream of pain.

  Everything seemed to happen in a blur. Behind him, Autumn let out a cry of pure fear. Eric was already backing up as he spied obsidian claws punch through Marco's back, straight through his suit like it was nothing, in a spray of blood. The man's gurgling cry of pure agony was doubled over his suit's microphone.

  “RUN!” Autumn roared, grabbing Eric and yanking him backwards.

  The beast pulled Marco into the bridge, revealing itself. Eric caught a glimpse, just a glimpse, before he turned and began sprinting.

  A grin, a huge, broad, twisted grin that spoke of incoherent, malignant g
lee. A grin half the size of a black-scaled face and twin eyes, like pools of darkness with a faint, twinkling center of crimson light. This was the face of madness.

  The face of pure, lunar insanity.

  Then he was turning, off and running. He heard Autumn running somewhere ahead of him but could no longer see her. The corridor he was in split, one section heading to the mess hall, another to the dormitories, another to the engine room. Eric thought he heard her heading towards the engine room and didn't have any time to think at all. The beast was coming for him. He could hear its heaving, frantic breathing and thudding footfalls. Eric plunged down the corridor, sprinting as fast as he could, using every ounce of his own strength and whatever extra the suit he was wearing granted him. It didn't feel like enough.

  This beast, this...this alien demon from beyond the stars was right on his ass and at any second it was going to grab him and stab him and eat him with that lunatic grinning mouth. The bulkheads of the ship flew past him at a blur as he raced for salvation. The corridor's end appeared before him and he knew it must be some kind of miracle shining down on him because the door to the engine room was open. He threw himself through it and quickly jumped out of the way, twisting back to look over his shoulder.

  He'd just barely made it, a long-clawed hand was grabbing where he'd just been. Well, now what the fuck was he supposed to do? There was only one way out of the engine room and he'd just come in through it. The creature pulled itself through the open door. Now, in a larger space, it straightened up to its natural height, towering over him. It must have been a good eight or nine feet tall. How could it move so quickly through the tight corridors of the ship? How had it even gotten onboard!? No time for questions.

  It was coming for him.

  Eric ran to the far side of the room, dodging it as it took a swipe at him, trying to spear him on its great, obsidian claws. Instead, it smashed into a big, important panel. Eric hit the far wall of the bay and spun around as he heard a loud shriek begin to pierce the air. Incredibly, the thing had hit a very powerful conduit of the engines, a conduit through which a shitload of energy flowed. Said energy was now frying the creature. He could literally see blue-white static writhing and bouncing across its black, pebbled, scaly flesh.

  For a second, Eric felt an elation of triumph. No way it could survive that much raw energy shooting through it! It was smoking now. Then, fear returned in earnest as he realized that there was also no way the ship could survive what had just happened. This was going to cause a cascade overload of the engine core itself and there was no way he had the time or ability to fix it. Sure enough, within seconds, an alarm sounded.

  He had to get out of here, now.

  Eric hurried towards the door, coming uncomfortably close to the creature. For a second, he was terrified that it would reach out and finish him off right there, but it was too busy getting fried. In fact, he wasn't sure the thing was even still alive at this point. It could very well merely be doing the dance of the dead, its nerves twitching from electrical input. Either way, this was an academic question that oddly bubbled to the surface of his mind as Eric raced past the thing, back out into the corridor. For a moment, he merely ran.

  Where was he going?

  The airlock. He needed to get to the airlock.

  Where was Autumn?

  That thought exploded into his mind like a flare. He activated his radio. “Autumn?! Where are you!? Get off the ship, the engine is going critical!”

  He received what might have been a static response that was quickly overloaded by a tremendous explosion that tore through the hull of the Liberation. For a second, he thought that surely this was it, this was how he was going to die. The engine must have blown prematurely. But the rumbling subsided and he was still alive. For the moment. The airlock was very nearby now. Eric hurried along, keeping an eye out for Autumn.

  Where had she gone?!

  He could feel that panic settling in on him and even as he prepared to say damn the consequences and search the ship for her, a maddeningly calm voice informed him that the ship's engine core would detonate due to a core meltdown in one hundred and twenty seconds. That was, perhaps, barely enough time to get out and away from the ship. If he was lucky. It was either go right now or die. Spurred on by his sudden desperate desire to live and the hope that Autumn had managed to get out before him, he raced on to the airlock.

  It took thirty seconds to get there and then another twenty seconds to fully cycle through. The process was painful and maddening. He could feel every awful second ticking by. Finally, the airlock outer doors cycled open, showing him a grim, gray landscape that, for the moment at least, represented survival and freedom. He practically flung himself out of the airlock, landing with a delayed grunt on the pad beyond.

  Clumsily, he made his way back towards the structure that he had been so eager to escape mere moments before. He stumbled down the steps, calling out to Autumn over the radio, desperate to hear any kind of response, to hear anything at all.

  Instead, what he heard was sudden silence over the radio. The countdown had ended. And he felt the explosion.

  It was so powerful that it briefly whited out his vision, despite the fact that he was facing the other direction. The force of the blast picked him up and bodily threw him forward. The low gravity meant that he kept sailing until he crashed, hard, into the front wall of the installation itself. It was pure luck, though it didn't feel like it, that he got turned around and hit the wall with his back. If he'd been facing forward, it would have shattered his visor. Even so, as it was, Eric heard the terrifying alarm that all feared to hear.

  The suit rupture alarm.

  His suit had been compromised.

  Slowly, he was drawn back to the surface. Fighting through a wave of pure pain as he hit the ground, he groped blindly for a suit repair patch, forcing his eyes open and studying his HUD. It showed him a simple display of his suit. A section on his right thigh was blinking red. Before he could get to his feet, he tore the patch out, ripped the back off and located the rip. He slapped the patch over it and spent a moment studying it, still fighting not to pass out from the agony wracking his body. On top of that, he was hyperventilating.

  No, he wasn't, he was having trouble breathing, he realized, because that wasn't the only tear. There were more. He looked around. The airlock was nearby. Struggling to his feet, he hurried towards it, losing oxygen as he went. There just wasn't enough time to fix them all. By the time he reached the airlock and got inside, darkness was welling at the edges of his vision. Eric smashed his fist on the cycle button.

  He just had time to finish the cycle and open up his vents before passing out.

  CHAPTER 05

  –True Terror–

  Eric opened his eyes.

  He was being moved. Carried. Directly in front of him was a gritty, industrial bulkhead. The wall of a corridor. His right arm hurt, it was being held by something with a powerful grip and that's how he was being dragged. In a flash, he realized that it was one of the monsters, the demonic alien creatures had gotten hold of him. Terror seized him so powerfully that he continued not to move, allowing himself to be dragged along like a limp doll down one of the random passageways of Theseus Station. It was probably for the best.

  So far, it didn't seem like they'd tried to take anyone alive.

  It probably thought he was dead. And the second he let it know otherwise, he was sure that it would do whatever it could to make him dead. The beast turned a corner and he suppressed a grunt as he was shifted, now he was facing the floor. His faceplate grated against the deckplates as he continued to be dragged along.

  Where was it bringing him?

  More importantly, why?

  Okay, actually, most important of all: how the fuck was he going to get out of this? Wherever he was going, he imagined something bad would happen when he arrived there. Now he was in the awful purgatory of being technically safe so long as he didn't move, but not moving would ultimately result
in his death.

  How was he going to get out of this?

  Just as he was considering doing something stupid, an array of gunfire exploded into existence, pounding the corridor with strobing lights and pulsing rattles of a high caliber machine gun. Eric was released at once and he thanked god because it felt like his arm was about to come out of its socket. He moved quickly, ignoring the pain that wracked his body from his experiences so far, scrambling to get away from the beast as it roared with a fury unmatched by anything else he'd ever heard. Who was rescuing him?

  Autumn? Some survivor from the installation?

  As Eric managed to lurch to his feet, he spied a familiar figure further down the hallway, wielding a huge machine gun: Seth. The man had survived and come to his aid. Eric began to pat himself down for a weapon, his pistol, something to help Seth combat the creature, which was racing for him, arms outstretched. But he had nothing. Eric stood, helpless, preparing to watch yet another friend get cut down by the beasts.

  But then Seth dodged at the last second, diving forward towards Eric, beneath the reaching grasp of the hideous thing.

  “Eric! Here!” he called as he scrambled back to his feet.

  He tossed Eric a submachine gun. Eric tried to catch it, missed, heard it clatter to the floor and hurried to snatch it up.

  “Keep it busy! I need to get behind it!” Seth shouted.

  “Got it!” Eric replied.

  No time to think, merely to act. How familiar. He brought the SMG to bear and took aim at the creature, Seth standing beside him. It had swung back around and was now coming for them. He found himself yet again staring into that lunatic grin and those huge, black eyes. It reached out at them with its long arms, its black, pebbled skin glinting in the lights of the corridor. Eric centered the barrel on its big, ugly face and squeezed the trigger. A few of the shots hit home, punching into its open mouth and blood as black as night sprayed out.

  The beast loosed a roar and charged.

  “Back up! Run!” Seth screamed.

  Eric did as he was told, backing up several paces as the thing charged for him. It had locked its eyes onto him. It was coming for him and him alone. Which was probably what Seth had been hoping for. Eric kept firing in short bursts while quickly backing up, though he couldn't seem to draw a bead on any of the creature's vulnerable parts. Instead, he just kept hitting its flesh, which practically seemed to absorb the bullets.