by Aaron Bunce
Her earpiece crackled and a moment later, Soraya’s voice filled her ear.
“Hey, Red, can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear, corn cakes.”
“Copy that. The station is close, maybe nine hundred feet dead ahead of the Betty. We can see it from the bridge. Can you?”
Lex turned, braced through another angry gust of wind, and found the Betty. Then she traced a line straight off the nose and spotted a low, dark shape on the ice.
“I see it. Headed that way now. By the way, the wind out here sucks. Stay warm in there.”
“Lana is already going through Erik’s mess of wiring in the back. Hopefully, she’ll get a few heaters working soon. You just worry about you.”
“Roger that,” Lex said, and started moving towards the distant structure. She tried to run but found the gravity too light. Walking was hard, too, so she bounced. It was awkward at first, so she took her time, but after a few moments Lex was bounding twelve to fifteen feet forward at a time.
“What is the plan if she isn’t at the station?” Lex asked, grunting as she landed from another jump. Soraya was quiet for a long moment, but when she finally spoke, Lex could hear Jacoby’s voice in the background.
“I think we need to take this a step at a time.”
Why not, it’s worked up to this point, she thought and continued her bouncing trek across Titan’s windswept icescape. Lex worked through everything in her mind as she moved–what she’d say, where she’d look, what she might say to try and rationalize with an irrational person. Really, anything to keep from thinking about the worst-case scenario, that they’d never find Anna and Erik. That they would freeze to death.
As Lex approached the low structure, she noticed a film of crunchy deposits on the ground. The orange particles gathered like sleet on the ice. And after landing from another long jump, she spotted a footprint. Then another, framed in by a distinct drag mark.
“Soraya. I’m almost to the station. I found footprints. Anna definitely came this way,” she said.
“Good. Good. Be careful. Jacoby wants me to tell you something. He said, don’t put yourself in risk. If you can get to Anna, good. If not, find help. See if you can bring back some extra pressure suits.”
Lex snorted and bounded up to the low building. Put myself in risk. When have I ever done that? “Roger that, corn cakes. Help and pressure suits. I’m on it.”
The building was modular, with dull-gray walls and round bulbous windows. Exactly the kind of building she saw the military drop in every third world country she’d ever visited. They airlifted them in, dropped them into place, and without taking the time to clean the nasty funk out from the last command team.
This was larger than most she’d seen, spanning a total of perhaps thirty to forty feet wide, and at least equally deep. At least she wouldn’t have to go far to find Anna. Another thought fired off in her head as she reached the airlock and considered the control panel. Where was the communications array?
Two buttons occupied the small screen on the wall, one green, and the other red.
[Открыть]
“They look like letters, but beyond that…nothing. Green is good, right? We’ll go with that,” she mumbled and poked the button. A small circular icon spun in place and a moment later, the door slid open.
Lex stepped tentatively inside and looked around, but there wasn’t a control panel on either wall. A crackly, deep voice spoke through a speaker overhead. And she had no idea what it said.
“Пожалуйста, подождите.”
The voice repeated the command several times, before a red sensor flashed on the ceiling and the outside door slid shut behind her.
“Okay. Scary voice. I’m just going to walk in with my hands up,” Lex muttered. The interior door ground open, unhealthy metal sounds echoing out of the wall.
Silence greeted her as she stepped forward out of the airlock and into a rather utilitarian changing room. Gray lockers covered both walls to her right and left, a mess of trampled clothing and modesty clothing covering the floor.
A fluorescent light ticked on overhead, immediately revealing a ticked layer of dust covering everything. She spotted footsteps moving forward, so Lex followed.
“Hello? Anna? Scary Russian voice?” she called out, moving slowly forward. “Erik? Is anyone home?”
The changing room ended, and Lex moved through a doorway into a wide hall. Anna’s footsteps continued in the dust ahead, the long, scraping drag marks next to them. She took the wide space in with a quick glance, noticing four total doors, all closed save for two. The door to her left featured a crest on the glass, just beneath yet another word she couldn’t say or understand.
Безопасность. The door looked official, but she looked down and followed the footprints to the right. Six feet from the partially open-door Anna’s footsteps abruptly stopped and circled. The drag marks circled as well, and Lex struggled to make sense of the movement.
But it wasn’t just Anna’s tracks that left the swirling mess and disappeared through the doorway, but two sets of prints. And the second appeared to be barefoot. She slowly crept forward and through the door.
Lex jumped as a light buzzed angrily above, the blueish light filling the tight confines of a stairwell. Grated, metal stairs extended below, disappearing into shadow far below.
“What in the fuck?” Lex whispered and reached up, unclasping her helmet seal. Warm, humid air rushed in and over her face. She sniffed, the hot, salty air burning her nose. Lex almost called out Anna’s name, but held her breath instead, and listened.
Nothing. Lex inched forward and reached for the handrail to descend, just as an updraft hit her. The air was hot, that peculiar odor immediately making her eyes water. It was salt, brine, like the brackish water trapped in coastal coves.
The wave of air pushed Lex back and she pulled out of the stairwell. She wiped her eyes and forehead. The temperature already had her sweating, her skin uncomfortably damp against the thick suit.
“Anna, what are you up to?” she whispered. Then her gaze caught on the door straight across–the crest, the big word. She kicked forward and pushed straight through, taking in the dark space as she closed the door again behind her.
“Soraya, come in. Can you hear me.” The headset crackled in her ear.
Lex flipped a wall switch, one out of a long line of overhead panels lighting up in response. She’d seen enough security checkpoints in her life to recognize one. Two desks sat just inside the door to her right, while a door to the left led into a small office, dominated by a large wood desk.
“Soraya. Come in.”
She pushed past the desks and further into the check point. She flipped a switch before moving down the hall in the back, but nothing happened. The first door opened to reveal a bathroom, the small, porcelain sink dripping into an ancient-looking hardwater stain.
The second door opened to a ready room, the overhead light flickering on and off. The last door in the hallway moved when she turned the handle, but refused to swing in. She put her weight into it, and it moved but pushed back. Something was just inside, blocking the door.
Lex braced and rammed forward, the door finally opening enough to let her slide through. The light popped on and she spun, cursed, and almost swung a fist. A body lay against the door–evidently a man, but skin gray and severely shrunken. He wore dark pants and a tan shirt, with a badge pinned to the left breast. A strange weapon sat in his hands, long and black, with a double ram’s head magazine under the blunted barrel. She’d never seen anything of its configuration before.
The mic crackled again, this time Soraya’s voice echoing distantly.
“Soraya. If you can hear me. I have not found her yet,” Lex said, and turned to find shelves of supplies. She saw boots, pants, belts, shirts, as well as cans and boxes of food.
“Hey, you watch the door for me. Heh?” Lex said, immediately rifling through the piles of clothes.
She st
ripped out of the pressure suit, the sweat already running down her back and chest. Then off came the shredded suit. She pulled on a pair of camo bottoms, a black modesty top, synched on a belt, and lastly, laced up a pair of boots.
Lex hung her pressure suit up to dry out and leaned over the dead man by the door.
“Thanks for watching my back, comrade. I don’t suppose you happened to see a hot blond traipse through here. Maybe dragging a crazy kid behind her? No. Okay. Well, I’m just going to borrow this, if you don’t mind,” she said, grabbed the rifle and gently pulled it away, his desiccated hands crackling in protest.
Lex pulled the door open and slipped back outside, then paused beneath the single working light in the hall. The rifle was advanced. What she’d thought to be a double magazine up front turned out to be a battery. She pulled it free, taking note of a charge indicator on the back, then quietly popped it back into place.
The rifle hummed in response, a series of lights glowing to life along the receiver. Once all four were illuminated, a switch near her thumb glowed green. It was a safety selector, toggle style, with a red x, single round, and what looked like burst above it.
“Easy enough. Let’s hope I don’t need you.”
Lex moved out of the security office and out by the entrance to the changing room.
“Soraya. I’ve found clothes, supplies, and a weapon. I’ve also found a stair leading down. I’m going to go down and check it out, make sure it’s safe before I come back to get you guys. Sit tight. I won’t be long.”
Lex made for the stairs, the mic crackling as she passed through the doorway.
“…I’m having…hearing…be careful…pressure sui…get back…ere.”
“Anna, can you hear me?” Lex whispered, swinging the rifle down the stairs. The light popped on again, the harsh light burning almost as much as the strange smell.
She started down, moving much more confidently now that she was out of the bulky pressure suit. The light grew dimmer with each level down, the heat and salty smell just growing thicker in the air. After five or six levels of descent, the light overhead popped and abruptly went dark.
Her vision responded almost immediately, the night vision peeling open the darkness. She found a switch on the rifle’s receiver, just above her trigger finger. A red dot sighting aid appeared on the wall ahead.
“Shit yeah. We’ve got this. Nothing to be afraid of. We’re good.”
The stairs continued down the equivalent of ten to twelve more floors, and Lex finally stepped quietly off grated metal and onto concrete. She moved through a double door and into a passage. She paused a moment on the threshold as even her enhanced night vision struggled to pierce the gloom.
The smell was stronger here than in the stairwell. An almost unbearable brine tinging the air. Lex flashed the laser over the ground and walls, the stone jagged and irregular. Or, lumpy.
She moved forward a step, blinking and focusing, then her boot struck something on…no, sticking out of the ground. She paused, stepped back, and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, her night vision had increased.
Dark, globular shapes appeared from the walls and floor around her, the ceiling radiating energy and glowing red in her vision. Lex blinked again and things clarified further. She cursed and tightened the rifle into her shoulder.
The walls weren’t lumpy stone. They were people, somehow fused into the stone, their heads, arms, torsos, and legs hanging into the air. And there were dozens of them, stretching all the way down the tunnel.
NecroVerse Continues in…
About The Author
Aaron Bunce
Author Aaron Bunce started his academic career in criminal justice, but eventually connected his life-long love of literature with his passion for writing. He attended and graduated from Southern New Hampshire University’s English and creative writing program. His first novel, The Winter of Swords, is an introduction to his lush and dark fantasy world, Denoril, and the first entry in the six-part series, Overthrown. The second and third installments, Before the Crow and A March of Woe are now available, with the fourth, The Prince of Orphans due next. 2019 marked the release of The Delving, the first book in an all-new supplementary series, helping to build the lore and world showcased in Overthrown.
Beyond fantasy, Aaron also introduced readers to his new science fiction horror series, NecroVerse. Detailing the struggle of miners extracting ore from the asteroid belt, Unleashed (August 2019), and then Exodus (December 2019), tells a delightfully dark story, weaving together strands of rich science fiction, gruesome horror, and adventure along with some beautiful, kick butt ladies. The third novel in this science fiction series, Titan, is due out in 2021, with many more titles planned.
Besides writing, Aaron is constantly searching for a portal to other worlds, working to keep his two daughters from taking over the world, and supports his wife’s desire to vacation in Skyrim.
