“He needs a little convincing.” Bronson answered, and she knew what he intended to do.
***
Cambridge and Lotello were too concerned to roam the ship after the announcement of the stowaways. They had already spent a few hours going over the artifacts they scanned into their handheld data recorders and came to the conclusion the statue they found had to be the effigy of some great evil, the representation of an imprisoned demon of sorts.
“I don’t know the significance this will represent to the colonials?” Cambridge said. “A goddess of destruction, and death who fell from the sky in flames…”
“It is our job to conserve the history of earth…good and bad. It’s not up to our discretion as to what future generations should learn from our past.” Lotello answered, rubbing his eyes then taking a seat in his bunk.
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I wish this alert was lifted. I would like to get some rest before taking another look at all we have.” Lotello said.
“Why would anyone want to stowaway on a ship bound for earth?” Cambridge asked.
“I suspect they are trying to get back to Cielo. We left New Hope and you know the strict inspections the guard conducts on the passenger vessels.” Lotello answered. “Must be some very nefarious characters or they would have just taken an easier route.”
Cambridge nodded, “Perhaps we should ask Samuel to join us until this is all sorted out then?”
“He’s more than likely asleep.” Lotello said then leaned closer to his colleague. “He’s an odd fellow, isn’t he?”
“Yes. I think the ordeal that he went through has left some emotional scars.” Cambridge said.
“I will go fetch him.” Lotello said a little embarrassed at speaking his judgment of their assistant out loud.
***
Tufty closed the door to his room behind them. He stared at the back of the criminal’s head. Arthur was busy whispering about where he should hide until the heat dies down, he asked if Tufty knew anything about the ventilation system of the ship. The old man wasn’t really concerned with hiding the stowaway any longer but instead how he could possibly transport the ticks dead body down to the cargo hold without being caught by the swarm of crew members searching each deck.
“Are you a father?” Tufty asked.
The question caught Arthur off guard and he turned to eye the assistant archaeologist.
“No. Why would you ask that?” he questioned.
“Because you would know the sacrifices that all fathers go through to provide for their children.” Tufty answered. His hand had already searched a small table beside of him and found a sharp tool he used for scraping away centuries of grime from artifacts.
“I don’t have time for a moral lecture, old man. If this is where you swear me to secrecy because you needed the coin, I gave you then hear me now. I won’t rat you out if I’m caught.” Art said. “Now help me hide.”
Tufty stood stone faced, unblinking, studying the walking sack of flesh before him.
“Perhaps the lavatory?” Tufty offered.
“What?”
“The restroom. It has a ventilation duct in the ceiling.” Tufty clarified, pointing to a door at the foot of his bunk.
Arthur went for the door, pulled it open only to find a closet filled with the old man’s spare clothing. He knew that he had been double crossed, as he spun he brought his hands up to fight yet the old man was already there, burying something sharp into the stowaway’s chest. His blood sprayed across Samuel’s face as it came out in a red fountain from the wound.
Tufty pulled the instrument out and drove it into the throat of the tick, his cries were short and ended quickly with the opening of his windpipe, he died with a gurgling wheeze.
“Samuel! Are you alright?” a voice said from the doorway.
He turned to see his colleague, Dr. Lotello, his face filled with concern.
“He attacked me.”
The words came from Samuel’s mouth yet not from his own thoughts, she was guiding him, protecting him. Yet he could feel her sense of disappointment, his head throbbed with her commanding him to feed her.
“I will sound the alarm.” Lotello said.
“Wait.” Samuel spoke again, following the instructions flooding his brain. “I will do it.”
“Are you hurt?” Lotello asked as Tufty went limping by.
In a swift swing tufty arced the blade upward, laying Lotello’s throat open.
His hands worked in quick thrusts, driving the injured doctor to the floor with the tip of the instrument. Blood pooled out around his body as his face turned ashen.
***
Dozer was still on the bottom deck, Ming had taken patrol of the middle floor while Lewis ran for the top. Dozer stalked down the half lit hallway he made not a sound, only his own shallow breathing found his ears. His senses were on full alert, one hand balled into a massive fist while the other held his electro pistol out before him. He wished that he had one of the heavier hitting weapons the captain kept locked away, something strong enough to incinerate the flesh of an enemy. Dozer stopped, his stomach seized at a thump that came from the cargo hold. He approached it with caution, holding the business end of his gun out in a shaking hand. Dozer wasn’t afraid to fight anyone that dared threaten him but the tension was getting to him. He stood outside of the door and heard the commotion again, a heavy bang this time like one of the steel tables being thrown shut. He steadied himself, held his breath and charged in. The darkness of the hold greeted him, like a knife in his gut it stole his bravery especially when he heard the weeping.
“Lewis?” He announced.
It was distinctly female, Dozer quickly followed the crying to discover the statue they had recovered was shattered on the floor. It never occurred to him that there could be something beneath that stone face. He found a woman seated on the floor with her back to him, her dark hair fell down over her naked back.
“Gonzalez?” He hurried to kneel behind who he thought was his crew mate, the fact that she was nude made him sick with rage.
“What did he do?”
He placed his hand on the cold shoulder of the woman before him, her hand gripped his fingers, squeezing them as if she sought comfort. He intertwined his fingers in hers and holstered his weapon, with his free hand he gently spun her around.
“I’m goin’ to kill this motherfucker.” He promised.
She turned to face him, still clenching his hand. He realized then that it wasn’t Ayana Gonzalez. Her touch burned him, the pain in his hand didn’t register until it was too late. He watched her face, a beautiful one that was human yet strangely not, her nose was like a snout with two deep nasal passages, her eyes large and black. Her skin split down the center and began falling away as something dark broke through. Dozer yanked his hand away and slid backwards on his ass, trying to get the footing to push himself up onto his feet to run. She leapt on his chest, forcing him down onto his back, he got a glimpse of her entire body, it was humanoid yet her fingers and feet were elongated. Her stomach hung like a sack, it wiggled as she leaned forward into his face. Her coccyx was elongated into a boney tail-like appendage that whipped back and forth in agitation. The beautiful visage was gone, like a shredded mask. The head hovering over his was slick with bloody remnants of being concealed beneath flesh, it was covered in thick black fur, it had a very short muzzle lined with sharp teeth, like the last living hyena he saw in a colonial zoo on Cielo. Drool slid from its maw as it opened wide over his mouth, she held his arms over his head as he tried to fight her away, to reach for the gun on his hip. Dozer couldn’t push her back, he screamed as she bit into him, removing his bottom jaw in a sickening crunch. A burst of agony coupled with the hot spray of his blood were last the things he felt. Selene ate ravenously, her gut swarmed into a feeding frenzy as her children dined. Her strength doubled, as did her perception. Amid the other steel crates, a feeble heartbeat registered. She was too busy tearing the bulging muscle f
rom Dozer’s bicep to face him yet. She grinned, her muzzle slathered in blood, knowing she would be far too strong for him this time. Once she was satisfied she hovered her mouth over the dead man’s and deposited three of her children in his windpipe, the skin of his throat bulged as the wormed down into his body, their cocoon, his corpse’s purpose was threefold…to fortify her and to serve as an edible incubator to protect her ravenous young.
***
Peter was forced into restraining cuffs and made to kneel at the point of a percussion pistol, something much stronger than the weapons Bronson usually allowed his crew. A single shot from it would cut the drifter in two so he obeyed with wide fearful eyes. The Captain had seen his type before, all brawn and no balls.
“You’re going to talk to me now.”
The prisoner shook his head defiantly. The act he kept up nearly made Bronson laugh as he walked around behind Peter and grabbed his meaty pointer finger.
“Who else were you camping with?”
Peter groaned as Bronson began bending the digit over backwards. The stowaway clenched his teeth together but it wasn’t long that a scream escaped him as the captain snapped his finger.
“You crazy fuck!”
“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” Bronson said punching the tick in the back of the head.
“If you two hadn’t ran over Gonzalez and acted like humans then I would’ve just locked you up. A free ride to the weigh station at Cielo to wait for the patrol but you had to act like assholes.”
He yanked the broken finger, listened to his captive scream.
“But instead you assaulted a member of my crew, punched her in the face…”
“Please stop! I didn’t know she was a lady; it was dark down there!”
Bronson gripped Peter’s middle finger and began to bend it when the stowaway cried.
“It’s only me and Arthur!!”
“Just the two of you, eh? You on your honeymoon?” Bronson asked straining the joint of the tick’s finger.
“It’s the truth!” Peter screamed.
Bronson released him then stepped out to talk with Gonzalez. “Only the two of them.”
“Are you positive?”
“Absolutely.” He answered.
***
Lewis found herself at the controls after searching the top deck of The Maiden. She pulled up the cameras recording the hallways. The lighting on the bottom deck was in energy conservation mode, making the view very poor. She selected real time, scanning for anything unusual. She found Ming on the second deck, checking each room with his weapon drawn. The anxiety in his young face was clear, it made her wonder where Dozer was. The cameras only shot the walkways and not in every separate room, she guessed he was busy surveying them one by one. They were mostly for storage, the guest quarters were up top with the crew’s, those rooms she already checked yet it had been sometime, when Tufty stumbled in front of the camera in obvious distress she went immediately to the intercom. Bronson and Gonzalez sprinted into action at her distress calls. She watched Tufty fall against the wall as he waited for assistance, it felt like forever though it was only minutes. Her stomach lurched when she noticed his hands were covered in blood.
***
Bronson stepped into Samuel’s room to find the body of Dr. Lotello laying in a large pool of blood, over by the end of Tufty’s bunk lay the second tick, he too was obviously dead.
“He attacked me. Lotello came to my aid but he was stabbed. I had to do it…I had to kill that man.” Tufty said shaking.
“You did what you had to do.” Bronson reassured him.
“Get Cambridge out of that room, Gonzalez. Take him and Samuel up to the bridge. Have Lewis call our boys in too. We’re heading back to Cielo as soon as we can.”
***
Once again, after centuries, sight came to Thorne’s eyes, utter darkness surrounded him. His joints were stiff with the atrophy of hibernation, his mind longed to be dead. He knew that with renewed life only came the crushing defeat of knowing he hadn’t succeeded the first time. Apparently starving the woman from the sky fire did not work and now with her return he too would be granted life. His arms were rigid at his sides, his fingertips buzzed with the prickling feeling of awakening from a long sleep. He could feel the hilt of the blade in his belt, the thirsty steal he had used to strike her down. He wasn’t sure who opened the door to the tomb he had sealed her up in but they had to be a fool. She was Armageddon walking, a devourer of cities. His sense of smell gradually returned and even through the thick casing he found himself imprisoned in he could smell blood…a lot of it. Like her, he too had a hungry child that cried to be fed, the short sword of the cross, his only defense against the demon that had awakened. His mind could not recall her first coming, only that out of a lightning filled sky fell an unholy thing, a fallen angel the priests speculated, Lucifer’s bride, the villagers named her…Thorne cared not what appellation she answered too. To him she was a nameless darkness, a raging plague that fed upon the young and old alike, a flame that must be extinguished before it reached the underbrush of the forest. His hand weakly gripped his sword, the leather sheath fell apart as shakily he brandished it in the tight space, it tapped the side, giving off a metallic clink before falling back down to his side, making a much louder sound. A soft screech answered him from beyond the steel coffin he awoke in. She had already begun to give birth, the notion filled him with frustration as he battled to gain any semblance of control over his decrepit body. His master warned him of the reawakening, he wouldn’t regenerate as quickly as she, he was already at a disadvantage but to Thorne it only made him more determined. That stubborn strength kept him alive for centuries, it would sustain him much longer than he cared to draw breath. He slid his hands up the sides of the crate and at its edge was a thin gap in the seam that held the lid closed, he slipped the tip of his sword through it and slowly pried it open. He was met by faint red light, he thought they might be candles yet he worried about the hue of the flame. His bones popped and crackled as he expended what little strength he had to hoist himself up to peer over its edge.
The young squirmed their way out of hole in Dozer’s face, one ate its way out of his stomach. Newborns that were ravenous, their bodies would grow rapidly with each bloody meal they consumed. They were born blind and used their sense of smell to locate more of the raw flesh of the man they were birthed into. They would soon be the size of hares with the eyesight that would outmatch many large predators. Thorne struggled to bring his leg over the side of the crate and for a moment he thought he would fail until he managed to push himself forward, sending him tumbling over onto the floor. His body seized up after jarring against the cold surface and he sat frozen as his brain demanded his limbs to follow its commands. A wet slithering headed his way as Thorne gained usage of his right arm, it felt blindly around himself for his sword that disappeared with an echoing clang. His boots had worn to nothing, the soles of his feet were just coming to life when rows of teeth sank into his flesh. He kicked out at the little beast that looked like a cross between a sickly fox and a hairless rat, it skidded back into the pool of Dozer’s blood before attempting to stand unsteadily on its legs. It came for him again this time accompanied by one of its siblings when the ancient knight found the hilt of his sword. He swung it like a child might, with a quavering arm but it cut the first of the children in two. The blade blazed with white electricity as it fed from the life of the beast pup, transferring that life to its wielder. Thorne felt it rush up his arm, it hit him like a raging tide then wash over him, replenishing a bit what time had ravaged. He had no time to relish it for the other two of the sky demon’s children began their assault on his legs, biting through the cloth breaches he wore. He sat up, thrusting his blade through them one by one then held them aloft as his weapon drank of their energy. He slung their corpses from his sword, wiped the blade clean on his tunic then rose to his feet as his vitality was charged. He knew his body was still in very poor shape but he had hunti
ng to do.
***
Ming helped Dr. Cambridge wrap the bodies of his colleague and the tick in fresh linens while the Captain went to the bridge. Bronson set a countdown to launch back into the black, feeling completely finished with the doomed planet after what had happened aboard his ship, he wanted nothing more than to leave earth, the tomb of his mother and father. He instructed Ming to place the dead men in the cold storage on the bottom deck opposite from the cargo hold then went to check on Lewis who was searching for Dozer while Ayana sat with Tufty and Cambridge, anxiously awaiting their departure.
“He can’t be on the bottom deck. He must be working his way up.” Lewis said as he approached her.
“Call for him again over the intercom.” Bronson suggested, knowing that his second in command was troubled though she tried to hide it.
“I just don’t know where he could be. Do you think that bastard knocked him out?” She asked, her voice teetered between frustration and fear. Bronson had never seen her that way, she was seasoned and usually very calm.
“It’s our fault they were on board. We should have been paying more attention and not…” tears wet her eyes and she brought a shaking hand up to wipe them away.
“Don’t blame yourself.” Captain Bronson said. “We all should have been more alert.”
“Go. Use the intercom.” He said.
She nodded and walked towards the control room. Bronson watched her go, the regret that hung in her wake was like a cold mist, an entity all its own. He knew the truth to her words yet refused to scold her in such a dark moment, he too felt his stomach tightening with anxiety…Dozer should have already returned to assist in the Captain’s orders, something very wrong was going on.
Galactic - Ten Book Space Opera Sci-Fi Boxset Page 151
