“I hate bugs,” she said, wiping the gore of her suit’s armored shoe off on a cleaner part of the carapace.
“I’m not overly fond of them either… or all this shit.”
“You’re going to need more than a shower when we get back to the Intrepid. I’ll sandblast you. I can’t live with you covered in that crap for a week’s L-jump.”
“It’s just an excuse for you to see me naked, isn’t it? Anyways, let’s get a move on. I can see a light from here.” Mach got to his feet and tried not to think about all the slurry covering his suit. He was just glad the suit had enough air for a few days; he dreaded to think how bad it must stink down here.
“Wait,” Babcock said. “Turn around, look back into the pit, get a bit closer if you can. This is useful data. Squid Two and I will be able to use it to confirm our biological models. It’ll only take a few seconds.”
Mach did as he asked while he reloaded the Stinger with a fresh magazine from his utility belt. Adira placed another transceiver on the wall and also reloaded her rifle.
“That’s it; we’ve got enough,” Babcock said.
“Glad to be of service,” Mach replied sarcastically then checked his smart-screen. Sanchez was just a couple of meters through the door, his vital signs looked pretty steady; his suit wasn’t communicating any major trauma. Mach thought it must be something to do with the symbiosite. He wished he could have talked the big man into staying behind, but Mach knew he would only come out here on his own if he tried to do that. Sanchez was one man who could only truly be captained if he happened to agree with them.
“Okay,” Mach said, stepping to the exit: a large carved opening in the stone. He peered in and saw that it was some kind of lab. From his vantage point, he could just make out the end of a steel table hovering a meter off the ground. A shadow moved, growing larger.
“We’ve got company,” Mach said, knowing from the alien shape of the shadow it wasn’t cast by Sanchez. “Follow me in. Ready?”
Adira simply nodded, her face becoming passive again, her eyes narrowing, ready to unleash the violence from within once more in aid of her colleague and friend.
Babcock waved Squid Two out of the way and approached the viewscreen in the strategy room. Sereva returned after having gone out to fetch more coffee and some freeze-dried chicken steaks.
“How are the crew on the Intrepid?” she asked. Babcock knew she was only asking as it was her ticket off the planet. Not that he could blame her. She had been stuck here for over a week, having lost all of her crew. Felix didn’t seem like the best of company during that time either.
“They’re fine,” Babcock said. “Staying out of reach of the gun platforms, but ready to help us as needed. Mach and Adira have sent back some interesting data about the phane.”
He stood back and showed her some of the analysis the bunker’s computers had worked on, the inputs of which were provided by Squid Two. Babcock had built his companion with a full suite of genome- and genetic-analysis software. He needed to know more about the phane. If Mach and the others were unable to set off the weapon, the CWDF and the Salus Sphere planets would need to know as much as possible about the enemy if they were to stop them.
Along with the visual data Mach had sent back, he and Squid Two had used some of Sereva’s own samples and collections that she had gathered during her weeklong wait. Babcock was impressed by her intuition—even if she was unable to do anything with the samples, it showed she was thinking ahead.
Perhaps that was one of the qualities that her superiors saw in her that led them to decide she would be the one to lead the team here with the weapon.
“If you look at the genetic code here, you’ll see that there’s an abnormality. It remains dormant in almost all of the phane creatures.”
“What is it?” Sereva asked, sitting on the edge of the table and crossing her arms as she stood next to Babcock, staring up at the swirling 3D image of the creature’s DNA model.
“It’s the mutation that causes the breeders—I think. I’ve isolated three forms of the phane: the soldiers, possibly what Felix called the controllers given the numbers, and one other. The other has a one-in-a-billion chance of happening. Given the high rate of breeding and the all-consuming nature, my guess would be that these super-rare mutations are actually the main breeders, which would make sense that they’re being kept in the mines. The conditions there would protect them and allow them to set up an efficient hatchery and feeding system.”
“So it’s like bees,” Sereva said. “The worker bees gather food for the queen and the new offspring.”
Babcock nodded his head slowly. “Something like that, yes. It’s not an unheard of form of life, but I’ve never seen anything with this level of replication rate outside of actual bacteria. Their energy requirements are… limitless. And for each additional breeder they create, their growth would explode in orders of magnitude. My estimation for the safety of the Salus Sphere was far too optimistic. At this rate, we could be talking the end of the Sphere within as little as two weeks; the only limit is on their travel time from planet to planet.”
“And we don’t know if these things are somewhere else out here in the greater Sphere region.”
Babcock closed his eyes and ran a few calculations. If there were more than one threat… no, he couldn’t contemplate that. He had to focus on the job at hand. Helping Mach and Adira recover Sanchez and arm the bomb before the phane left the planet.
Squid Two chirped to get Babcock’s attention.
“What is it?” he asked.
The drone switched the viewscreen back to Mach’s feed.
“It’s Sanchez!” Babcock said. “What are they doing to him?”
Chapter 22
Mach paused for a moment and stared at the scene in front of him. Sanchez lay on the hovering brushed-steel table. The top half of his suit had been stripped off and his arms and legs were strapped to each corner with shiny black material.
An eight-foot creature, human in form but not appearance, dressed in a purple robe, stood over him. Its four black soulless eyes, underneath its bony light green brow, glanced across to a screen on a workbench then focused back on Sanchez.
A long thick needle protruded from the center of the hunter’s bushy chest. A yellow solution pumped through a transparent tube attached to the top of it, directly into his body. His eyelids fluttered and his head flopped to one side.
The alien ran an electronic device emitting a white glow over the length of Sanchez’s body. It stopped at his right foot and pinched his big toe with its spindly fingers.
Anger flared inside Mach. Within minutes of capturing his old friend, the phane had started to experiment on him. Adira edged alongside him and motioned her head toward a group of glass cases and electronic equipment at the far end of the lab. She slipped silently to the right, behind a wall of neatly stacked metal boxes, no doubt getting into position for a pincer move.
The sight was too much for Mach to even wait a few seconds. He growled, stepped forward, and raised his Stinger. The alien’s head twisted around in his direction. It reached its fingers inside its robe, produced a small graphite-colored object, and backed away from the table.
Mach fired twice. The first caseless round thumped into the purple robe at chest height. The second hit just below the eyes, snapping the alien’s head back. It toppled over a trolley of vials and collapsed to the ground.
Adira stood from behind the metal boxes and rushed over to Sanchez. She grabbed his chin and shook it. The big man’s eyes blinked open and he glanced around the room.
“What the hell’s happening?” Sanchez said. He winced and looked down at his chest. “What have they done to me?”
Mach breathed a sigh of relief. At least Sanchez’s last action wasn’t dying at the hands of twisted alien scientists.
“Easy, Ernie,” Adira said. She grabbed a knife from his utility belt and cut away the restraints. “Lie still and Mach’s gonna pull that thing out of you.�
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Before Mach could reply, something jabbed into his calf. He spun around and looked down. A one-foot-tall phane, the same type as the larger one sprawled across the floor in a pool of its own crimson blood, also dressed in a purple robe, held a crooked syringe forward.
Mach reached down, clamped his gloves around its neck and raised it off the floor. “Thought you could sneak up on me, eh?”
The little alien squeezed its thin dark green lips together and its four black eyes widened. A stream of sticky saliva sprayed from its mouth and splashed across Mach’s visor.
“Kill it,” Adira said. “We need to keep a fast momentum if we’re to pull this off.”
Mach pinned it to the stone wall with his left hand and aimed his Stinger. He’d never killed a defenseless creature in his life, and something inside made him pause as the alien weakly attempted to kick him. Despite the attempt to inject him, it felt like killing a child.
The alien opened its mouth wide, baring a set of razor-sharp jagged teeth, and bit Mach’s suit around his wrist. His previous thoughts were quickly eradicated by the painful crushing sensation. He fired his Stinger at point-blank range at the phane’s head and loosened his grip. It dropped to the floor in a heap, joining its big brother.
A low rumbling moan echoed along the tunnel outside the lab. Mach swept his Stinger in the direction of the entrance to greet any new arrivals.
Sanchez sat up and grabbed the needle with both hands. He grimaced, slowly pulled it out, and threw it across the room.
“How are you feeling?” Adira asked with a look of concern.
“Like I’ve just gone ten rounds with a horan bandit,” Sanchez replied. He groaned, swung his legs off the side of the table, and jumped to the ground. His suit lay in shreds in the corner of the room. He kicked it to one side, revealing his bone necklace and rifle.
Mach glanced over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows as he watched Sanchez sling his necklace back on and inspect his rifle. The big man moved with all of his usual vigor.
“What you looking at?” Sanchez asked. He crouched next to Mach and aimed out of the entrance. “I’ll provide cover. Babs might want to see what they were doing here.”
“You seem okay, considering…” Mach trailed off and peered around the lab.
“Considering what? Whatever they put in me can’t be any worse than the symbiosite. Let’s get this thing over with.”
Forty brightly lit glass cases, with a small black data screen under each, drew Mach’s attention. He moved toward them and raised his smart-screen. “Babs, are you seeing this?”
A distorted voice, drowned out by a static hiss, replied through the comm.
“We’re deep in the mine,” Adira said. “They might’ve taken out some of the transceivers—”
“I’ll capture it. He can view it later,” Mach said. “We’re on our own from here.”
Adira gasped and leaned toward the nearest case. Mach also recognized what they were looking at. Some contained thin slices of tissues that could’ve been anything, but the ten across the top all contained cross sections of different human organs attached between two slides in light blue liquid. Strange data symbols streamed across the screens below.
Mach recorded three of the streams and snapped still images of the grisly cases. Sucking a planet to a husk wasn’t good enough for these aliens. They wanted to play the mad scientists too. The phanes couldn’t be allowed a step further toward the Salus Sphere.
“Take a look at this!” Adira said. She hunched over two larger monitors positioned on a silver chest to the side of the cases.
The left one had ten transparent 3D images of Sanchez’s body at different angles. The extent of the symbiosite’s grip became obvious as Mach inspected each one. A thin worm snaked around the hunter’s kidneys, pancreas, heart and lungs. It continued down around his intestines and ended near the bottom of his colon.
Adira captured graphs and data from the right screen and glanced across to Mach. He struggled to maintain a neutral expression after getting his first view of Sanchez’s ailment. The images stirred a mix of sadness and repulsion, and for the first time, he understood why the big man seemed content to be resigned to his fate.
“Something’s coming,” Sanchez said. “Get your asses over here.”
Mach and Adira rushed across the lab and knelt by the side of the entrance.
Dark shadows flickered along the carved ceiling of the dimly lit tunnel. Arachnid legs tapped against the stone floor.
Mach grabbed the edge of the hovering metal table and flipped it over. It attempted to correct itself, but he held it in place and pushed it across the lab’s entrance. Sanchez leaned against the left edge and aimed over it. Adira shoved her shoulder against the right side and extended her laser. Mach crouched in the center and peered through his sights.
The movements ahead stopped. Mach’s heart thumped against his chest as he waited. A low electronic whine increased in pitch to an earsplitting whistle.
Two shiny orange orbs bounced around the corner and rolled to a stop three meters ahead of the table.
Mach ducked behind the makeshift barrier and tensed. The other two followed suit. A horan grenade that size wouldn’t be big enough to take them out, but he had no idea what kind of tech they faced.
Two hollow pops split the air followed by hissing. White smoke collected around the top of the tunnel, increasing in thickness, and billowed into the lab.
Sanchez bolted up and fired. Mach edged up but could hardly see past an arm’s length.
The electric whine gained in volume. Two blue beams stabbed through the shroud and moved around at different angles, like the crappy disco lasers in the Nebula Bar on Feronia Prime, although these were probably searching for targets.
“Fire at the source,” Mach ordered.
Adira’s laser zipped four times, creating a thin red glow in the smoke around her beam. Sanchez let off two shells. A talon lashed out and disappeared. Mach aimed at its former position and fired.
A bright projectile shot out of the gloom, smashed through the table between Sanchez and Mach, and exploded against the far side of the lab. Shattered glass and small pieces of electronic debris sprayed against the back of Mach’s suit.
“Away from the entrance,” Mach said.
Adira sprang to her feet and ran for the stacked row of metal boxes. Sanchez followed, showing no ill effects from his phane-administered injection.
Mach let go of the table and backed away, maintaining his aim at the tunnel. The table flipped up, correcting itself. The projectile had blasted a neat circular hole through its center.
Both of the light blue beams settled on Mach’s chest. He ducked to his left and scrambled behind the boxes.
“Whatever’s coming, I don’t fancy our chances in a shoot-out,” Adira said. “We need to find a weak point.”
Sanchez nodded while loading his incendiary rounds. Adira, with a laser in each hand, silently disappeared into the gloom.
“Never say I don’t know how to show a girl a good time,” Mach said.
She didn’t reply from her new unseen position. Mach could always count on her bravery, professionalism, and full use of her skills in situations like this.
A dark mechanical arm thrust through the entrance and punched the table out of the way. It clanked against the opposite wall and dropped to the ground.
Mach switched the sights to heat-emission mode and peered through the scope. A figure stepped into the lab in a plate-armored exoskeleton suit. Both beams came from the top of its helmet. A hot barrel was attached to its right arm. Two arachnid phanes scuttled on either side.
The figure swept the barrel around the lab and turned its head back and forth, casting the beams around the room.
“Spiders first,” Mach whispered. “Fire and move. Then all in on the suit.”
He received two clicks through his speaker in reply: an acknowledgment from Sanchez and Adira. A procedure they used to avoid chatter when facing some
thing searching for them at close range.
Mach positioned the legs of the right arachnid in the center of his sights. The plan was to knock it off balance to expose its softer underbelly. He took a deep breath and fired on automatic, and one of his tracer rounds struck the rear joint of the back leg.
Sanchez’s rounds burst on impact against the left creature, coating it in white-hot flames. It dropped to its side and writhed on the ground.
The figure aimed its barrel at the boxes. Mach and Sanchez split in opposite directions. An explosion ripped through the central section of the wall. The force split the other boxes apart, exposing Mach’s position.
Two lasers flashed above Mach’s head. The right arachnid hobbled through the smoke and howled. He fired at its snarling face until his rounds ran dry and reached down to his belt for a fresh magazine. The rounds checked the creature’s movement, but only for a moment.
The arachnid reached within two meters, raised a talon and hunched down. One of Sanchez’s incendiary rounds hit the side of its torso. The temperature reading in Mach’s prosthetic eye rose considerably as the creature burst into flames.
Both of the blue beams cut out. Through the flickering flames, the exoskeleton thrashed around. It fired and the projectile slammed against the ceiling. Adira clung to its back and repeatedly shot her laser into the base of its helmet.
Sanchez raced through the smoky air, skidded to one knee and fired. Green fire flashed from his muzzle, a sign he’d switched to armor-piercing rounds.
The high-pitched electric whine decreased, like a winding down fusion motor of a CDWF shuttle after landing. The suit had jammed in position as if it were just about to throw a punch.
Mach reloaded and edged forward. Green blood and chunks of matter spattered across the inside of the visor. Adira drew her knife and jabbed it against two smoldering thick cables at the side of the neck. Sparks crackled out and raced across the floor.
The Lost Voyager: A Carson March Space Opera Page 17
