Nascent Decay (The Goddess of Decay Book 1)

by Hash, Charles

  “We can use the lift devices they used to get in here with,” said Isaar, eyeing the four dead bodies on the floor. “We just need one more. Can you toss another Siirocian down here, Rhylie? Preferably deceased.” Rhylie nodded. There were probably more on their way inside already.

  “I sure can. I’ll come back for you too, Adam, if Bart can’t carry you out of here,” she said. Bart started to say something, but noises coming from the corridor caught everyone’s attention. Rhylie stretched herself up and into it, pulling her way through it by the handholds on the wall.

  She cleared the corridor, letting several bodies slide down it, and erupted from the top in a fury. She formed her fingers into long, slender blades and began slicing through the Siirocian soldiers that had managed to climb up to the docking portal. There was nothing they could do to her could hurt her, or stop her. She was absorbed by her lust for vengeance, consumed by it. She saw Vorcia in the visage of every faceless visor of the Siirocians she viciously mangled, eviscerated, or crushed. Strangely, she had never felt more at peace; existence had never seemed so tranquil. It was as though she were dreaming. She moved so effortlessly; she was so much stronger, faster, and more lethal than them. She was the Alpha, and they didn’t even register on the scale.

  She lashed out at those that had made it to the top of the scaffolding, sending a sweeping spray of fine, barbed tendrils at them that shredded their skin as they lashed through their soft, scaly flesh. The ones that survived the first lash got another, and then another until they toppled from the scaffolding to the floor below. Their shots were absorbed by her body and ricocheted harmlessly off her head, but they kept coming, more and more of them.

  She dropped down, amidst them at the top of the scaffolding without thinking, and was swarmed by them. She was operating on a primal level where there was only reflex and reaction, a brazen, vibrant world devoid of cognizant thought. Dozens of hands grabbed at her and began dragging her away from the asteroid, trying to pull her down to the floor. It angered her. She didn’t enjoy being touched as she once had. She flared up, her entire body becoming white hot in an instant, save for her head. It still remained gray and cool, insulating her from the brutal heat.

  She realized it was the anger within Rahve that had spurred his ability. The hands released her and the mob withdrew from her with a unified shriek. The scaffolding collapsed beneath her as she melted through it, and her and dozens of soldiers tumbled into a heap of bodies and twisted metal alloy on the floor. The ones that landed underneath her quickly pulled themselves from beneath the pile and scrambled away from her, howling and screaming in agony as strips of burnt skin sloughed from their bodies.

  She pushed herself up from the pile of charred flesh and bone beneath her, remnants of those who did not escape. Rhylie stared at them silently from behind the gray featureless visor that hid her face. Her skin was glowing white, and waves of heat were rolling off of her body. She stood there, between them and the asteroid.

  They formed a circle around her as even more soldiers began filling the landing bay. She began to grow hotter and hotter, forcing them to retreat, step by step from the raging inferno emanating from her. The floor began to feel slippery beneath her. Looking down she saw that both of her feet had actually melted into the floor. She pulled them out, the molten alloy sucking at them as though it were mud, and took a step towards the soldiers around her. They fell back from her as she pulled her other foot free and took another step, then another, leaving a trail of smeared footprints behind her in the floor.

  She looked over her shoulder and saw and that Ramirez, Jessica, and Meili were stranded on the lip of the asteroid, staring at her wide-eyed in horrified silence. Isaar, Adam, and Bart were nowhere to be seen. She hoped they could make it down the asteroid with their injuries. None of them would make it out if she didn’t buy them some breathing room.

  She spun, sending a shower of white hot tendrils out at the soldiers around her, mowing them down like weeds, melting effortlessly through flesh and bone and instantly cauterizing the wounds. Scores of Siirocian soldiers fell to the floor at her feet as the rest of them scrambled away. A ring of bodies began to spread and grow around her, writhing in dying agony. And yet more continued to come, training their rifles on her. She allowed her body to begin to cool down; it was getting harder to keep her balance with her feet slipping on the floor.

  She began striding towards the nearest group of soldiers as more of them continued to flood the bay, a seemingly infinite flow of them. They were coming faster than she could kill them, and now she was taking sporadic fire from the platforms and catwalks as well. They trained their rifles on her and opened fire, but she kept walking towards them.

  Step after step she took as their projectiles melted harmlessly into her synthetic flesh. It was starting to get on her nerves. She was halfway across the large bay, between the Outpost lying cocked haphazardly on its side and the nearest entrance, but that wasn’t the only direction they were flooding in from.

  Above her, on catwalks and loading platforms, more and more soldiers were lining the edges to fire down upon her. She threw her arm up reflexively to block the bullets, and turned to look behind her. Ramirez, Meili, and Jessica were making their way down the face of the asteroid using the utility cables and body lifters. They were almost halfway but Isaar was lagging behind them, trying to baby his wounded side. Bart and Adam were nowhere to be seen. They need more time, she thought. She could be a bigger distraction if she had to.

  She leaped into the air, intent on simply springing to the lowest catwalk. What really happened was she slammed into it far harder than she had anticipated. She blew through it, mangling it and nearly tearing it half, which sent her spinning through the air in a slow, graceful arc. When she hit another catwalk on the way down, she managed to hang on. It swung and swayed precariously, dumping a handful of soldiers nearest to her to the floor below. They bounced several feet when they hit. She looked over her shoulder and noticed that the other catwalk had stopped extending itself toward the Outpost.

  She pulled herself over the railing and onto the catwalk as soldiers continued to fire upon her. She turned the fingers on both of her hands into long, slender blades. Each hand began to glow white hot and she turned, slicing through the catwalk, sending the extending portion clattering to the ground below. It stopped extending as well. She leaped to the nearest catwalk and cut it down and kept going. Within a few moments time she had taken out several of them. There were still more coming, but she had delayed them enough to buy a few extra minutes. She leaped to the nearest suspended platform that was shelved against one of the massive walls. There were several dozen of them of varying heights in the landing bay, all of them now teeming with Siirocians, and all of them were extending catwalks towards the Outpost.

  She landed on the nearest platform as the piece of the catwalk collapsed to the floor behind her. It hit the floor with a loud clanging, and went skittering wildly, careening into a group of soldiers that had adjusted their position to get a bead on her. It sent them scattering like marbles.

  She had judged her distance more accurately this time, landing behind the soldiers lined up on the edge of the platform. She eviscerated two of them and flung them off of the platform as quickly as she could. Some even toppled over the edge on their own as fear gripped them, and they instinctively fled from her. She merely lashed out at the remaining soldiers, pushing them from the edge of the platform.

  She jumped to another platform to do the same, and then another, but they never seemed to end. There always seemed to be more and more of them, no matter how many she killed, maimed, or sent fleeing in terror. There are too many of them, she thought. We have to get out of here. Soon.

  She turned and looked over her shoulder to see Ramirez and Jessica helping Isaar across the bay towards the nearest Siirocian ship. A group of Siirocians on the floor below had trained their weapons on them, and opened fire as Rhylie watched. Ramirez and Jessica pulled Isaar behind a
utility cart with Meili as shots began raining down upon them.

  Rhylie flung herself from her perch without forethought, aiming towards the group on the floor. She’d taken some gymnastics long ago, but now she was wildly falling several stories from the best of her judgment.

  She landed in the middle of the group with her arms outstretched, finger blades spread wide. Several of them were slammed to the ground beneath her, and most of the rest were sent flying from the force, scattering them all several feet. She pushed herself up, unharmed. It hadn’t even knocked the breath out of her.

  She lashed out at the last few that were standing, sending her arms through them as long, slender spikes, impaling them where she thought their hearts should be. She really didn’t think they even had hearts, or souls. They were all monsters, just like her. She didn’t even need to finish off the stragglers as they tried to pick themselves up. Siirocian fire rained down upon her and the stragglers, killing them before they could stand. The bullets burst on impact, turning the bodies around her into jagged mounds of flesh, but did not so much as scratch the floor. They almost looked like raindrops falling in the blood around her as a wide pool spread outwards.

  For the first time, Rhylie truly doubted that they could make it out of this alive. She’d never seen such brutality, even from humans. The Siirocians were willing to murder their own just to stop her. She looked over her shoulder to see Jessica and Ramirez drag Isaar up the ramp of a small ship. Meili was nowhere to be seen. She had bought them just enough time.

  She turned to sprint across the bay towards them, without thought. Halfway there, a movement on the asteroid caught her eye. She turned her head to look, and saw Bart climb out of the portal atop the asteroid with Adam harnessed to his back. He had carried him up the entire length of the corridor by himself. Rhylie froze in shock, her mouth open. He was a sitting duck on that ledge.

  Bart managed to stand up at the lip before Rhylie could warn him to stay down, peering over the edge with an indecisive look on his face. Several groups of Siirocians turned their fire on him at the same time.

  The bullets, designed to shatter and fragment on impact, tore into Bart, ripping across his torso in gouts of blood and gore. Rhylie could see the momentary look of horror on his face before several bullets took huge chunks out of his head, bursting on impact. He stumbled backwards and fell, disappearing from sight, taking Adam with him. From the sounds of their screams, they had both fallen back down the corridor.

  Rhylie stood there, frozen in shock as she watched the two of them vanish. She took a step towards the Outpost as projectiles continued to rain upon her in a downpour of hell-fire. They were so close, she thought, horrified. She probably could have leaped up there and rescued them. She took another step towards the Outpost. Bart was most likely dead or dying, but maybe she could still save Adam…

  “Private Underhill!” Ramirez shouted from behind her. She turned to look over her shoulder. He was standing on the steps leading up to a Siirocian ship. “We have to go NOW!” She turned back to the soldiers. There seemed to be hundreds of them in the landing bay now, and half of them were on the lowest level, advancing on her and the rest of the group. The catwalks had finally extended themselves to the outpost, and dozens of soldiers were flooding into the docking port. For just a moment, she thought about leaping up there, but there were too many. She would never be able to get them out alive. They would be killed in the crossfire, and Isaar and the rest would be captured. She stood there for a moment, frozen by indecisiveness before she finally turned away.

  She sprinted to the ship, running up the ramp leading inside. It retracted behind her, and the ship lurched into the air as the remaining Siirocians kept firing on it. Their projectiles burst harmlessly against its hull as it shot off into space.

  She lowered her atomorphic visor, and stood alone in the airlock, weeping silently, tears flowing down her cheeks for the first time in a very long while. Regardless of how she had felt about him, watching Bart die like that had been horrific. She couldn’t get the shocked look of horror on his face out of her head.

  She took a few moments to regain her composure before joining the rest of the survivors in the cockpit.

  21

  The mood in the cockpit was melancholy, weighted and subdued. Rhylie sat down beside Meili in one of the seats lined up against the wall. Isaar occupied one of the pilot chairs, Jessica the other. Isaar had his back turned to the rest of them as he piloted the ship, and Jessica had hers askew so she could watch what he was doing and still keep engaged with the other two. Ramirez was sitting on the other side of Meili from Rhylie.

  “We can’t just leave them,” said Rhylie, suddenly aware of all the uncomfortable silence. “You know exactly what they’re going to do to them.”

  “We do not have much of a choice,” Isaar responded with a heavy voice. He didn’t bother swiveling his chair to face her. He looked to be pouring over flight logs and maps on several feed screens.

  “We always have a choice. We can save them,” she said angrily. “We can go back and get them.”

  “We cannot, Rhylie,” Isaar said quietly before sighing heavily. “They would have overwhelmed us soon. The only reason they did not is because they were not prepared…for you. None of the rest of us would survive if we went back for them.”

  “I should have been the one to go back for Adam,” she said stubbornly. She looked down and realized she was still clad in dull gray metal. She quickly changed it back to her military uniform. Fitting in seemed so useless now.

  “Then we all would’ve been killed or captured,” Ramirez interjected. “You got most of us out of there alive. Everyone here owes you their life.” He was struggling to keep his composure, she could tell. He had lost two men today, there was no other way to spin it. He didn’t seem like the type that could just brush that off, but he was doing his best.

  “Thank you, Captain,” she managed to say, but the thought of leaving Adam and Bart behind made her feel sick with the responsibility of it. She kept seeing the look on Bart’s face as his chest and abdomen had erupted under the torrents of projectiles. The event kept repeating in her mind, over and over in lucid, vibrant detail. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something else, but it didn’t work.

  “Well this is not good,” said Isaar.

  “What?” asked Rhylie and Ramirez simultaneously.

  “I was not sure how we were going to find the nearest outpost…or anywhere really, for that matter,” Isaar replied. “But…the coordinates are already programmed in. That is where they were headed to next. They have your outposts and settlements mapped out…and they have your home system…and your home world listed.”

  “We have to warn them,” Rhylie said, the gravity of the situation sinking in. They have all the information they need to completely wipe humanity out of the galaxy, she realized. “They have to begin preparing for the worst.” Her voice wavered as she spoke, betraying her inner fears.

  “We are on our way,” said Isaar. “Jessica, if you would tap the feed screen in front of you and bring up the co-pilot’s controls, I will show you how to fly this thing. I could use the rest.” She turned her back to the group in a hurry and did just that. “It mostly flies itself,” Isaar continued. They continued to discuss the piloting and controls of the ship and its various capabilities as the rest of them sat in silence for a long moment. Rhylie didn’t know what to say anymore, but eventually one of them spoke.

  “What did they do to you, Private?” Ramirez asked from across Meili. Rhylie gave him a bruised look, her face wrought with worry.

  “They…she…tried to break me, Captain. She did break me,” Rhylie said, the truth flooding from her in a torrent. “She turned me into a murderer, a beast. I was so naive…everything that I was, she stripped away and replaced it with anger, fear…hatred. I don’t even know what’s real anymore. I don’t even know if any of this is real, or if it’s just some sick joke of hers.” They both stared at her in stunned si
lence, their mouths slightly ajar. She could hear Isaar and Jessica talking in the background. There was a short, awkward silence.

  “I think what you can do is both amazing…and horrifying, to be honest,” Meili said finally. Rhylie gave a slight laugh as the tension melted away.

  “I appreciate your honesty,” she said.

  “Are you a cyborg now…or what?” Meili asked. Humans had been using mechanical replacements and digital augmentations for a few centuries now, but the tech was crude compared to Rhylie’s. Some chose to embrace the technology, others had refused it, preferring to live pure as they put it. Rhylie hadn’t been old enough to get anything done yet. She really hadn’t made up her mind where she stood on it, until she was given the choice.

  “I’m…I’m not sure what the term would be,” said Rhylie. “This stuff here is called atomorphic tech.” She held up her hand and translucent webs spanned between her fingers. She held it there for a moment before they vanished. “Underneath, I have a cyberbionic skeleton.” She allowed the atomorphic skin to melt back from her hand, exposing the silvery skeletal fingers beneath her synthetic flesh. “There are only four other people in the galaxy with this procedure, I’m told.” Meili’s mouth dropped open in fascination. She quickly returned her hand to normal. She still had that silly little smiley face on her fingernail, grinning stupidly at her. She made it vanish. That part of her was dead now, and far behind her.

  “You just think it…and it happens?” she asked as she wrinkled her nose.

  “Sometimes I don’t even have to think about it,” said Rhylie with a sigh. “Sometimes it’s just…reflexive. I’ve got to learn to control it better.” Meili shrunk away from her a slight bit. “I just don’t want to do something…in anger, or anything that I’ll regret later,” she added quickly.

  “That’s just part of being alive,” said Meili cautiously. Rhylie cast her eyes down to the floor, and didn’t say anything for awhile. She was just glad to be thinking about anything other than the expression on Bart’s face.