by Aaron Bunce
They approached the back of the cavernous space, the makeshift tents giving way to reveal the passage leading to the starboard hold. The place the woman said she saw the missing crew.
The mass of people moved right up to the narrow door. The captain tumbled through first, the crowd heaving him forcefully forward. They urged Fred in just a moment later, the people slipping in and around him.
Cordyczk yelled and cursed, the older man tumbling ass over head onto his back, before clawing and kicking his way to his feet. The captain swung around on Fred, but they were still pushing, and he was once again forced forward. Iliana and the nameless woman waited a dozen steps ahead, trapped between their approach and another mass of refugees piling through door at the opposite end of the dark hallway.
Don’t make the situation worse than it already it. Stay calm. Find out what they want. Listen. Don’t look the part of the aggressor.
Fred turned as the pressure forced them together, the only open path to them now a missing access panel on the wall to their left. It sat like a dark hole in an already dark wall–a shadow within a shadow, a question his mind couldn’t pry open.
The panel. Are they inside?
“What are they doing? What do they want?” Iliana asked, pulling on Captain Cordyczk’s sleeve. He swung around on the young tech first, then turned to Fred, his lidded eyes cold and angry, foamy spittle covering his lips.
Cordyczk didn’t speak, but reached for the pistol on his hip.
“Wait…no!” Fred gasped and grabbed his arm, pushing to pin it to his body, but the crowd jostled them apart. He watched the weapon pull free before he could do anything to stop it, the crowd’s force knocking them together again, the weapon pinned between them. Words could be taken back, but bullets not so much.
“Stop…we have to show them strength…” Captain Cordyczk snarled.
“What are they doing?” Iliana yelled.
“It’s not strength. It’s fear…”
The last voice was his, but Fred didn’t remember forming the words. He only remembered the dark hole in the wall as it swallowed them whole. Everything went black for a terrifying moment, the thrumming voices impossibly loud in the tight space. Then he was free, a sea of hands pushing him towards a weak light just ahead. They were in a maintenance service space of some sort, perhaps directly beneath the main engines or their heat exchangers. Conduit and ducting ran up both walls, big, ugly insulated pipes disappearing into radiators branching out like the arteries of a massive beast.
“Get back! Get the fuck back!” Captain Cordyczk stumbled ahead and swung around, the pistol shaking at the end of his extended arm.
Fred threw his hands up. His eyes locked on the weapon for a moment, specifically the barrel pointing right at him. Not the people gathered around and behind them, but him.
“Djaron…tell them to get back!”
A small red light glowed on the weapon, an indicator that the captain’s finger was not just on the trigger but applying pressure. And the way his arm was shaking, it wouldn’t take much to inadvertently blow off a round.
“Hey, hey! Take it easy,” Fred shouted, struggling to hear his own voice over the droning, buzzing voices. But it wasn’t just them. His heart pounded in his chest, blood surging in both ears as his brain anticipated the shot–flash, noise, and smoke–the pain.
“Bah! Worthless. I knew you were worthless! If you’d been stronger, you wouldn’t have lost the station!”
“What?” His gaze flicked up from the weapon, just over the captain’s shoulder, and caught on the back wall and an image crudely painted on the corrosion-streaked panels. Yes, a painting. Tall and wide, seemingly crude yet strikingly elaborate.
It was a flash, a glimpse, yet somehow the image burned itself indelibly into his brain–a massive, pale orb, scarred with pock-like blemishes, its base broken open by a swarm of dark tendrils, all branching down the wall, dripping, spattered paint stretching towards him on the ground.
The tug on Fred’s eyes increased, searing into his skull as if some invisible force were yanking his brain towards the painting. The crowd’s voices grew louder in the metal chamber, but Fred felt…yes, he felt their voices changing shape, gaining substance and form. The image drilled deeper into his mind, twisting his perception, his understanding about…everything, until it started to move.
He reached up and rubbed one eye and then the other, shook his head, and blinked. The word banged around inside his skull as the pale orb seemed to float, the tentacle-like tendrils slithering and slapping one another in the air.
Hands grasped his arms from behind and he jumped. The people were right up to him, soft, warm hands embracing, caressing, supporting. They were behind Iliana, too, her soft eyes flicking up to meet his.
“You said this was what you do, Djaron! So…fucking do something,” Captain Cordyczk snapped, violently pulling Fred’s attention around. His eyes were wide, red veins framing dark, blown pupils. His mouth was wet, teeth barred as he swept the weapon back and forth. “Argh. No. No. It is you.” The older man lurched to the left, pushed Iliana aside, and snatched the nameless woman’s arm. He yanked her forward, the pistol barrel smashed into her side.
“Captain, stop! This isn’t right,” Fred yelled, but the crowd of refugees only seemed to get louder, more incensed by the threat of violence.
A form moved in the center of the painted sphere behind the captain just then; a gray shape previously hidden in the metal panel. Arms extended, then legs, as it unfolded from the wall. The service lights flared brighter then, the dark space temporarily lifting out of the gloom. A mound came into view at the base of the painted wall, identifiable only by the shadowy forms of hands and legs twisting into the air.
W-W-Who is that? What happened to them?
“Who are you? Why did you bring us down here? Why did you tear your identification off your suit?” Cordyczk yelled, shaking the woman by the arm, “Did you even see my crew? Speak, woman! Who are you? Speak! Why are we here? Speak! What do you people want?”
Fred’s eyes snapped back to the far wall, the light splashing upon and through the macabre figure as it unfolded from the ground and started walking towards them. It looked to be both metal and translucent at the same time, however that was possible, tubes and seemingly inorganic growths branching out of and back into its body.
He wanted to yell, to point at the pile of bodies and the approaching horror, but the figure’s approach did something to Fred’s brain. Everything started to jitter and move, shaking with dizzying speed. Everything except the approaching figure, the pale orb forming an aureole behind it.
“Who…” Captain Cordyczk lifted the shaking pistol right at the woman’s face, the rest of his body quaking in time, “are you and why did you bring us down here?”
The woman looked at the pistol but didn’t scream or pull away. Instead, she turned to Fred, a strange, almost sensual smile spreading across her lips.
“Tell us!” Cordyczk raged.
“My name is nothing. We are nothing. We heard her name. She is all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Cordyczk raged and turned to Fred. “Djaron, do something!”
The woman reached up before Fred could respond, if he were even able, and hooked a finger inside the gauze bandage. She pulled. The material stretched and tore away, revealing a circular wound in the middle of her forehead. No, it wasn’t a wound, but a circle carved right into her flesh, the intervening scars running down like tendrils between her eyebrows.
“Her name is Tal–Nurgal. My name is Tal-Nurgal. It will be yours, too,” she said, finally, raising both hands to cover her face. All that remained visible was the pale orb on her forehead.”
“Tal-Nurgal. She will awaken!” the crowd said around them, their voices ringing out in unison.
The word—that name, their voices, wrapped around Fred’s brain, the dizzying blur shrinking down around the ship’s captain as the crowd all reached up as one and pulled their hoods and ha
ts free. He saw their marks—cuts and angry, pink flesh, oozing blood and plasma against pale skin. It was the painting on the wall, that strange image that grabbed and pulled on his mind. And now it surrounded him.
“Djaron!” Cordyczk yelled, swinging fully in a circle, but stopped on the nameless woman, pushing the pistol clear up to the mark cut into her flesh. “That is not a name. Not a name. Stop it. Shut up!”
“He cannot hear her. He is not worthy of her, like them…” the woman whispered, her voice filling Fred’s ear. She was pointing down the chamber, at the pile of bodies on the floor.
The horrible figure was there behind the captain, arms held wide, the light shining through and backlighting his horrible, squirming innards. Then he met the dreadful figure’s dark, shining eyes and his ailing brain broke the rest of the way. His mind opened, a single image appearing, like a moonrise on a lightless night, a host of corresponding sensations and emotions firing like lightning through his body. It was warmth, security, hope, inspiration, love, and awe, all together. It was everything he had ever craved or needed, and those people, that horrible, blessed figure could give it to him.
“I will kick every last one of you off this vessel,” Cordyczk snarled, a tendon knotting up in his forearm.
Fred knew it, he felt it, the impulse to pull the trigger. Because the captain was not like the others around him. Was not like him. He couldn’t hear or feel it.
He was cold and uncaring. He was death.
“Tal-Nurgal.” The word wrapped around his tongue, his lips caressing it like lifelong friends, just as he snapped the pistol out of his holster, squared it on Captain Cordyczk’s face, and squeezed the trigger.
+:04 After Entry
TITAN
Lex cradled her head and ears through most of the descent. Yes, her neck hurt from the jostling, but she couldn’t watch another crew torn apart. Couldn’t stand the sound of their pain. She didn’t know how they sat there, motionless, before she finally peeled her hands away and opened her eyes.
The screen on her watch glowed to life, awakened from the movement.
+00:04:25
The number jogged her mind loose, and she sucked in a breath.
“Fuck yeah! We’re still alive! Woohoo. Yeah, baby!” she screamed and unbuckled the straps. Soraya unbuckled and they met in the, embracing and patting each other on the back.
“I didn’t think we’d make it,” Soraya yelled.
“I know. I was sure we were dead! But we’re not. I’m okay with that!”
“What do you think we should do now?” Soraya asked, squeezing her until her ribs popped.
“I honestly have no idea. But you know what? I’m not going to stress out about that right now,” Lex said. And together they looked over at Emiko and Shane, still hanging limp in their flight harnesses. The sight sobered them both. “Maybe we get some power back to heaters and stuff like that. Try and get the radio working and see if we can’t contact this Russian station. These two could use a doctor.”
“It’s not a bad start,” Soraya said, nodding. “Meanwhile, maybe we look into getting that message out. Get a warning into the right people’s hands so they can start cleaning up this mess–Hyde, the freighters, all of it.”
“I wish I would have had officers like you, Soraya. You would have made a kick ass soldier.”
“Damn straight,” Soraya said, and then her eyes widened. “Anna! She did this. Anna you are a freaking badass.”
They turned to find Jacoby by himself, slumped against the ground, his arms shaking.
Soraya got there first, but Lex jumped in right after, and together they picked him up off the ground.
“What…how?” he stammered.
“You two did it. You and Anna. We don’t know how, but you got us on the ground. We’re on Titan,” Soraya explained.
“I had to hold her up. But so much…passed through her. It was everything I could do…just to hold on,” Jacoby said, then winced and turned over his hands. The light revealed curled fingers and blackened, charred palms.
“Damn sakes,” Lex cursed, “come on, let’s get him to a seat.”
Lex and Soraya hefted Jacoby aloft and deposited him in a chair. He groaned and doubled over.
“Was it the entry or before, with Erik?” Lex asked.
Jacoby cleared his throat and took a shuddering breath. “All of it,” he said, and chuckled.
“This hasn’t exactly been a luxury cruise, has it?” Lex said and squeezed his shoulder. Something banged loudly from beyond the galley—something hollow and metal, like a breather tank, tipping over and rolling against the wall.
They all turned as one to the dark galley, the bridge instantly going quiet. A pregnant pause later, the air pressure changed. It wasn’t much, but Lex felt it immediately in her ears.
“Anna?” she yelled and jumped to her feet. Lana had unbuckled from her seat and was halfway towards the galley door, but stopped. Lex met her gaze and pointed towards the ladder to the hold. “Did you see her go down there? Did you see?”
Lana glanced down ship and then back to her before speaking. When she did, it was quiet and hard to understand.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I think.”
“I put Erik in the airlock. Damn it. Why would she go down there?” Lex was up and running, her enhanced vision kicking in barely two steps into the dark galley. She grabbed the ladder, swung around, and hooked her feet on the bars. Then with far less weight than she remembered from the previous time, she slid down.
Her knees barely bent as she landed and spun, just as a figure in a pressure suit moved before the airlock control panel.
“Anna? What are you doing?” Lex asked, moving forward. “Hey, I put Erik in the airlock for safe keeping. I wouldn’t open that up if I were you.”
But she didn’t respond, nor did she stop. She reached up, punching buttons on the airlock control panel. Concerned that the other woman simply couldn’t hear, Lex hooked her right arm and pulled it down, gently swinging her around.
“Hey, seriously. Something’s wrong with him. He could be danger—”
Anna lashed out, her hand bunching up in Lex’s suit. She felt the fabric tear, the gloved fingers dig into her skin, and then she was wrenched up in the air.
“It was agreed. We go to her now,” Anna said, her voice muffled by the breather helmet. Lex locked onto her eyes through the fogged faceplate, and she knew something was wrong.
Anna jerked her left, then right, and Lex was flying. She hit and tumbled, the lower gravity making her bounce and skip all the way to the wall before stopping.
“Low…fucking shot,” Lex growled and clawed her way to her knees. The inner airlock was opening, and Anna tromped inside. The pressure hissed as regulators kicked in.
Lex pushed off and ran right at the doors, but it slid shut and she hit hard. She pushed up to the window and banged her palms against the cold metal. Anna moved, sliding a collar down over Erik’s head, then pulled on the helmet and clicked it into place.
“Anna, stop! What are you doing? What does that mean, ‘we go to her now’? Stop!”
Anna didn’t turn or acknowledge her, but moved right up to the outside door panel and started tapping.
“Shit. Anna. He’s not wearing a suit. The cold…Anna, the cold will kill him!” Lex screamed and slammed her fists into the door again and again. The outer airlock opened.
She spun and sprinted for the ladder and screamed up the well for help. Then spun and pushed to her left. Lex ripped the last pressure suit from the hook, kicked her right foot in, then her left, and pulled it to her arms. She made to pull the zipper up, only then realizing that Anna hadn’t just grabbed her by the suit, but she’d practically ripped half of it free. Aside from the reinforced waistband and the collar, there wasn’t anything covering her chest.
“What is it? What happened?”
Two voices tumbled over each other as Soraya and then Lana appeared down the ladder. Lex screwed the breather bottle into the
hose and tucked it into her suit’s pocket, pulled on her gloves, picked up the helmet and made for the door. Soraya cut around her before she could make it to the airlock.
“What happened?”
“Anna had a pressure suit on by the time I got down here. She…” Lex paused, determining how to continue, “shoved me out of the way and made it into the airlock. She put a breather mask on Erik, but no suit. I have to go out. I have to bring them back. Now!”
“Hold on, I’ll go with you,” Soraya argued and made for the suit rack.
“There’s no time. We’ve got one suit left, but the helmet is on Erik. Try and get the Russian station on the radio. Make contact. I’ll come right back.”
Lex moved to pull on her helmet, but Lana pushed around Soraya. She took a breath and prepared to argue. But Lana dropped a radio into her hands instead and stepped back.
“They’re short range. One to two miles of open ground is it. Be careful. Please.”
Lex nodded, popped the mic into her ear, and then pulled her helmet into place. She cycled the inner airlock open and stepped in, just as Jacoby appeared down the ladder. His gaze met hers as she cycled the door closed.
“I’ll bring her back,” she said, although Lex knew he couldn’t hear her. The airlock pressure equalized, and then she opened the outer door.
Lex jumped out of the Betty and floated for eleven or twelve feet before gravity managed to bring her down again. Her boots hit and she tried to step to correct her balance, but only managed to launch forward for another substantial leap. She hit, slid, and crouched.
“Okay. The gravity is weird. Gentle. Be gentle.” Lex looked up and tried to orient herself, just as a substantial gust of wind billowed over her. Lex braced as bits of ice and orange dust pelted her suit, the gust effectively pushing her along the ice.
When it cleared several long moments later, she was graced with a breathtaking view of Titan’s frozen landscape. The blue ice extended as far as she could see, only the shadow distant mountain ranges breaking the horizon.
