“Dr. Jung?” asked Dr. Rogers, dread in her voice.
“Yessss,” hissed the half creature. “And you are the one who calls herself Dr. Rogers.”
“Don’t get any closer,” Max instructed Jung. “Stay right fucking there.”
“Of course, Mr. Ahlgren.” How does he know my name? He motioned expansively about the command center with all four of his arms. “Please, join me. We have much to talk about.”
“Doctor Jung?” Dr. Kumar asked. “What happened—?”
“Shut it, Kumar,” Max ordered.
The invitation was a trap, of course, and Max prepared to open fire. But he stayed his trigger finger and swallowed the order. It would be dicey at best, questioning Jung—and he had no doubt how it would end—but with LT and the others missing, he had to try. Maybe Jung would reveal something to help him reunite his team.
The command center lay on the far side of the extended access bridge, which had no railing against the thirty-foot drop. The tower had obviously been designed to isolate the captain and officers for both privacy and security One of Jung’s hands hovered near the holographic control for that bridge, a not-so-subtle reminder he could retract the arch whenever he liked.
“Don’t worry.” Jung locked his maniacal silver eyes on Max. “I wouldn’t kill you like this. You deserve a more heroic end than that.”
Either dance with him or shoot him. Max called Red to the front. They stepped onto the bridge, with Dr. Rogers behind them.
“I’m coming too,” Dr. Kumar panted from behind. “I want some goddamn answers!”
“Get back!” Max ordered as he stalked forward, never averting his glare from Dr. Jung. “I’ll throw you off this bridge if I have to.”
“No! I want to hear this twisted thing try to justify its actions.”
“Whatever. That’s on you.” Let the fool play the righteous researcher.
Max and Red stepped onto the command center platform and stood face-to-face with Jung, about twenty feet separating them. Dr. Rogers came forward and stood close to Max’s left.
“What the hell happened to you?” Max asked.
Jung didn’t look the least bit concerned about having three deadly weapons pointed at him. “Isn’t it obvious?” He smiled through rough, fishlike lips surrounding an abnormally large mouth with two rows of black-needle teeth. “I have melded with the substance, a symbiotic agreement. Through its generative powers, I’ve grown new brain cells and increased my IQ tenfold. In return, it has partaken of my knowledge. It is learning to think logically, a process it will pass along to others of its race. Their numbers increase rapidly. Once they gain the power of analytical thought, there will be no stopping us. We will be the master race on this planet within a few years.”
“You delusional fuck,” Max spat. “What the fuck do you think you are doing?”
Jung coughed out a laugh. “Oh, not a delusion, just a fact. You’re seeing it with your very eyes. This is the future.”
“Why?” Dr. Rogers asked. “Why unleash these creatures into this world? Why do you want to destroy humanity? Why betray the human race?”
Jung opened his fish mouth and bellowed laughter that reverberated off the glass dome. “Humanity is but a primitive speck in the universe. This alien life form is as old as the universe itself, a collective intelligence that has infinite potential. It does not war against itself, quite unlike humans. It is geared toward one thing only: survival through any evolutionary means necessary.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” Dr. Rogers stated flatly.
Jung scratched his chin with his left arm, the upper one. “You of all people should know better. This is both the beginning and the end for humanity. You must understand that. The madness, as you call it, is a mere side effect of melding with an advanced alien organism who, at present, lusts for blood and wants to break free from the bonds of this ship.”
“Max, look!” Red pointed to one of the holograms projecting above Jung’s head, where an amber-and-black image showed LT leading his men into an elevator.
“Holy shit.”
To look backward, Jung rotated his head farther than any human possibly could. “In full color, if you prefer.” With his lower right hand, he tapped a touch screen prompt on a computer built into the arm of the command chair.
Max watched with rapt attention. The resolution of the three-dimensional image put HD to shame. Sugar had lost his right arm, the stump tied off with a belt tourniquet. Gable and Ball supported his bulk as best they could between them, ready to walk him into the open elevator. Max saw no sign of the other civilian. Just as LT made to step over the threshold, the curved door slammed shut with a resounding boom.
“What the fuck!” LT shouted.
Ball threw his left arm up in frustration.
“Shit!” Gable cried, tobacco juice spitting from his lips.
Sugar’s head hung low, his chin on his chest. He shivered once, jerking violently. Half awake, dying from blood loss.
Jung’s laugh started low. His lower right hand hovered over the control panel in the chair arm. “You will all die. It is the end and you don’t even know it.”
Max leveled his rifle at Jung’s mutated face. “I’ve heard enough of this bullshit.” And squeezed the trigger.
Red joined in with his flamethrower. The combined force of their firepower blew Dr. Jung through the holograms and off the command center tower. Max ran around the command chair to the other side of the platform, Red running beside him. He didn’t see Dr. Rogers or feel her presence as he had before.
Jung appeared again at the platform’s edge. He had doubled his mass in mere moments. His face sprouted insectoid features including compound eyes the size of dinner plates and a needle-sharp proboscis two feet long. His legs were breaking and re-knitting themselves, elongating. His fingers extended into long, sword sized claws. A bony, multi-jointed, tail protruded from his thorax, tipped with a stinger that dripped black acid, the fumes burning his nasal passages.
Jung let out a defining roar. It sounded like a demon’s in a horror movie.
Movies had never scared Max; however, this aberration struck a primal cord inside him, making his hands feel cold and the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Max learned long ago to control his fear and channeled it into something else – rage. He was more determined than ever to slay one of the beasts.
“Allow me,” Red shouted, throwing a column of fire its way.
Napalm flames scorched the creature for only an instant before it scuttled away, dancing deftly across the tops of the computers ringing the platform. Max led it with his rifle and fired, almost every bullet striking home as it tried to circle around to their rear.
This creature was marked for death. Max had never shot so accurately as he did emptying his rifle. Despite its lightweight and advanced design, Max’s HK416 rifle was still an ungainly weapon when firing at rapidly moving targets in close quarters. As he grabbed a fresh magazine, the creature hopped from atop the computers.
It charged, dodging Red’s stream of fire. As it landed next to him, it swung with its bladed arms. Red blocked the claw aimed for his neck with the flamethrower, but it was fast and another claw raked him across the chest, his plate carrier taking the damage. Red pivoted attempting to avoid the onslaught. The third claw barely missed his shoulder and punched a hole in the flamethrower’s fuel tank, the force of the blow knocking him over.
The creature raised up its arms to strike Red again when Ms. Quinones opened fire with her rifle from the retractable bridge. The rounds punching into the creature’s head, making it shriek, and temporarily distracting it from finishing off Red.
The creature lunged towards Ms. Quinones as she continued to pepper it with rounds until the bolt locked back on her weapon. She stood paralyzed in fear as the creature towered over.
“No!” Kumar yelled as he yanked her away from the creature and stumbled backwards, landing on his back, his jaw slack with fear, as the creature rapidly closed
the gap. The creature’s scorpion-like tail swung over its head with blinding speed and jerked spasmodically as it drove its stinger deep into Kumar’s abdomen several times. Kumar’s organs bubbled and dissolved, the process shrouding him and the creature in a fog of sickly sweet white smoke. He screamed only briefly, then went silent as the acid consumed his lungs.
Ms. Quinones let out a piercing scream as she saw the doctor’s body dissolved.
Max slapped a full magazine into his rife, found the creature in his reflex sight, and unloaded into its thorax. Each striking round kicked up a spurt of black blood and pulpy flesh.
“Shit!” Red cried as he removed the leaking flamethrower from his back. The smell of the leaking diesel further energized Max, though he had no idea why. And he had no reason to ask—his aim was dead on, and there was no stopping him.
You are mine, asshole.
The creature jumped off Kumar’s smoldering corpse. It swiftly bounded about the domed bridge chamber, defying gravity and all attempts to kill it. Max kept shooting it, but it recovered from the shots so quickly that they barely affected it.
Red reached for his machine gun.
Again, Max exhausted his ammunition. The creature climbed to the apex of the dome and dropped on them. Max hurried to reload, while Red opened fire as the creature dived.
Thunder and lightning came in a single blast that left Max’s ears ringing and made his hair stand on end. He dropped the magazine in his hand. The murky chamber went noonday white for an instant. Then a second explosion rocked the bridge as the bolt of energy hit the creature and blew a smoking hole clean through it, the force of the impact propelling it into the far wall of the dome. Max heard its bones shatter over the creature’s keening screech. It slid down the glass, leaving behind a snail trail of inky residue.
Max and Red ran to the tower’s edge and opened fire. The beast was already regenerating, though not at such a fast rate now. It bucked and jerked as the rounds pounded its body.
Max looked back, Dr. Rogers stood in the entrance to the antechamber. An alien cannon in her arms, a wisp of white smoke curled from its five-foot barrel. And she had a similar looking weapon slung over her shoulder.
“Keep that thing pinned down!” Max ordered Red. He sprinted across the bridge toward Dr. Rogers, hurdling Kumar’s corpse, which had rendered down to a pile of smoking meat not even identifiable as human. “Are you all right?”
She met Max’s gaze and nodded. Then her eyes registered movement behind Max. “Kill it!” she cried, yanking free the cannon she’d slung over her shoulder.
Max dropped his rifle and picked up the alien weapon. Christ, practically weightless! He saw no ports for ammo magazines. The weapon’s receiver, though well machined, felt boxy and cumbersome. The power source within comprised most of the weapon’s weight. It lacked a true butt stock, merely a composite handle extending upward from the end.
On the side of the weapon near the handle, a small touchscreen computer glowed orange. A bar barely registered on one side of the screen. Charge indicator? If so, the weapon was damn near dead.
Max ran back to the command center, holding the cannon at port arms. Red filled the beast with lead, keeping it wounded and on the run, but he needed to change the barrel which was glowing a dull red. Not sure how to maneuver the weapon, Max aimed it from his hip, pointing it at the creature and squeezed the handle. A holographic image appeared above the weapon in front of Max’s vision, it reminded him of a heads-up display on a fighter jet. The weapon locked onto the creature, now hopping feebly across the tops of computer stations as it worked its way back to the command center, the hole in its thorax beginning to heal.
Uh-uh, motherfucker!
A bright-yellow circle appeared around the creature, accompanied by a high-pitched chime indicating the lock. Max thumbed the trigger pad on top of the handle and held it down. The initial report sounded like a mini-thunder clap. A blue jolt of solar brilliance hit Max’s eyes and blinded him; after that came a loud crackling sound as he kept the trigger depressed. The weapon vibrated in his hand, and the recoil pushed the barrel about a foot upward before he regained control of the bucking weapon, releasing the trigger after a two-second burst.
It took a second for Max’s eyes to readjust. When he finally cracked open his eyes, Dr. Rogers stood at his side. She asked with a grin, “Care to view your handiwork?”
Max nodded. His vision had returned to normal, his blindness replaced by a throbbing headache. “Sure. I’m guessing it’s safe to look.” He peered over the parapet of computers ringing the command center.
The creature no longer existed. The bolt of energy—Electricity? Plasma?—had reduced it back into a puddle of goo from which rose tendrils of smoke that reminded Max of morning mist on the surface of a placid lake. The substance did not move. Apparently, they had finally killed a creature.
“Stay up here and cover us, Red. That thing moves, pop it again.”
“Shouldn’t be necessary,” Dr. Rogers commented.
“Why?” Max asked her.
“The blasts are so powerful that a direct hit kills it on the cellular level. The beasts can only regenerate if their cells are alive.”
They jogged across the bridge and broke for the left stairway. “Where did you find that thing?”
“In a small-weapons locker in the antechamber. Fortunately, it still had enough power left to be of use. Those cannons are extremely dangerous—like any other gun, it doesn’t discriminate. Any human caught in a blast is as good as dead. The creatures are more resilient—you saw how many times we had to hit it.”
“So, it shoots lightning bolts? I didn’t exactly get a good look.”
“Yes, a concentrated bolt of particle energy. When you fire it, avoid looking directly at the light.”
“Are there more in the armory?”
“Yes, but I can’t say if they’re charged. We’ll know soon enough. Be warned that everything in there is incredibly dangerous. A technician was seriously injured when the weapons were first encountered.”
They came upon the puddle of substance that had engulfed and melded with Dr. Jung. Max could tell it was as inert as tar cooling on a winter day.
“How’s it looking down there?” Red called.
“Dead,” Max replied.
“Yes!” Red pumped a beefy fist into the air. “Finally!”
Max climbed back to the command center. “Now let’s find LT.” He moved to the command chair and pointed to its integral computer. “He was controlling the camera via this computer. Maybe we can figure out how to use it.”
Dr. Rogers scanned the holographic displays and worked her way through a series of unintelligible prompts, that led to prompts, that led to even more prompts. Random holograms projected upward and then died out as Max selected new prompts. They saw surveillance images of various hallways and rooms, a scrolling page of data in alien characters that reminded Max of a stock ticker, and diagrams of straight lines and alien characters that might have been technical drawings of the ship’s vital systems.
“Christ, you could access anything on the ship from this computer if I knew where the fuck to look,” Max grumbled. “There are literally thousands of prompts once you start opening them.”
“I’m sorry,” Dr. Rogers said. “I wish I possessed the knowledge to help you locate your men.”
“That makes two of us. Are you able to access the ships bulk heads to seal off the creatures?”
“No, unfortunately, Dr. Jung has somehow overridden the ships main control systems. We can’t access any of the ship’s main systems from here now. We now have a more pressing problem. It appears Dr. Jung initiated the ship’s cargo hold release procedure. The rest of the creature will be free in a matter of hours.”
“What can we do to stop it?” Max said.
Dr. Rogers breathed deep and held it a moment before letting it out. “You two heard what he said: they’re multiplying, and he was helping them to evolve into intelligent beings.”<
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“I recall that, yes,” Red said.
“We need to destroy this ship. It’s the only way we can contain this threat and be certain all of them die.”
“And how do we accomplish that?” Max asked.
“I think I know how it might be done from the rear of the ship. The main reactor is there, and so is most of the substance in the cargo hold.”
“Uh-huh.” Red scratched at his chin. “So, we need to go where there are more of these creatures about to be set free. That is just great! Is there a big red self-destruct button on the reactor as well?”
Dr. Rogers smiled. “It’s a bit more involved than that.”
“Yeah, yeah, nothing you can explain to mere laymen like us. We’ll just have to trust you. I’m getting used to that answer.”
“It is what it is,” she said with a shrug. “First the armory, though.”
“Yeah, I need to pick up one of those cannons to replace my flamethrower.”
“You might just find one.”
“Then let’s move,” Max urged.
The three walked across the bridge and back into the antechamber where they located Ms. Quinones cowering amongst the electronics.
She shivered, still frightened, but made no attempt to get up and walk.
“Or stay. Completely up to you.”
“I go with you,” she said.
Red offered her a hand up and jerked her to her feet.
Max took one final look over his shoulder at the only starship bridge he would ever visit. Star Wars kind of had it right. Star Trek, not so much.
* * *
Max stood on the threshold of the armory. About half an acre of alien weaponry was racked up neatly inside the long rectangular room. Serious firepower waited to be taken: weapons of all makes and sizes obviously designed for humanoids and yet, unlike anything he had seen outside of a movie theater. He couldn’t wait to get a closer look.
Red stood beside Max in the doorway and marveled. “I am going to enjoy this.” He smiled and rubbed his hands together.
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