by Marc Everitt
All the net had done was hamper the creature’s approach briefly, it paused as it tore the net from its body, before continuing towards them. A beam of energy shot through the air and Kyle heard Cameron yell in pain. He turned his head, still firing and saw the creature had aimed at his cousin’s weapon and hands. Cameron’s hands were burnt and he shouted angrily in pain, but the force of the charge had obviously been meant for the Plasma rifle. It lay melting and useless on the corridor floor. “Get back, Cam. You’re no help now,” shouted Kyle. Pope pushed the young man behind him for protection. Fenchurch was firing his weapon at the creature’s eye and that seemed to be having a little more effect then before.
The Warrior raised one of its arms to try and ward off the blasts. Kyle smiled, at least he knew the creature wasn’t indestructible. “Aim for its eye,” he shouted Pope raised his sights to target the top of the creature’s face as well. Kyle saw the creature stop its slow approach and begin firing its weapon blindly in their direction.
“It doesn’t like your gun, Fenchurch,” Pope noted.
Fenchurch smiled. “Not many people who I shoot with it do.”
Kyle saw that their weapons were halting the creatures now but no more. He wondered why it was just standing there, why not turn and run if it were hurt? One thing was for sure, he intended not to end up like the guards in the entrance area, and if he had to blow this thing’s eye out then so be it.
***
“Now’s our chance,” said Taylor, “let’s get out of here, while it’s busy with these guys.” He ran out of the room and down the corridor behind the Warrior. The unknown men seemed to have found a way to stop the creature for the moment, but Taylor doubted even their formidable weaponry would be able to contain it for long. After all, this was a species that had wiped out whole civilisations and returned to its creators without so much of a scratch.
At least he had been given some time and another chance to prolong his life and the lives of the others. He glanced behind him as he slowed his running. He could see Eli and Chris close behind him, with Lana, Alan, the guard and the Doctor struggling to keep up. “This ought to be far enough for now,” he panted. “Is there any other way out of the bunker other than past that thing?”
The guard thought for a moment before answering. “If we go through the medical centre we can get to the corridor we just left.”
“I really don’t fancy going back to the corridor we just left,” Chris retorted, breathing heavily form his run.
“No, you don’t understand, we would join the corridor at a point near to the main door,” the guard explained.
Taylor finished her sentence for her. “Past that thing.”
Eli spoke, “Then what?”
“I don’t know,” said Taylor, “let’s just concentrate on staying alive for the moment.”
***
Nobody had noticed in the commotion and noise that the fire-fight in the corridor between the creature and the crew of the ‘Cavalry’ entailed, but Sara Crick had taken her own route through the bunker and was no longer with the others. She cursed the cleverness of West, his disclosure made her life more difficult; but she still knew what she had to do. She carefully made her way to the security store section of the bunker, it was right where her training told her it would be. She opened the weapons locker, pulled out a large Laser pistol and left the room, tucking it into the overalls as she did so. Then she set out to hunt down the others and make sure that while they may have stumbled upon the site of her God’s long awaited resurrection, they would not be alive long enough to see it happen.
***
The Warrior worked quickly. It had heard its prey while it had been trying to fend of the strange weapons of the four humans. It was not used to being attacked and certainly had never come across weapons of the type it was being shot at with. The thin human who had run at it first, in particular, had a weapon that was hurting the Warrior’s eye. It could feel small pieces of metal entering its eye and was working quickly to come up with a defence against that.
While it had no worries that it was going to be damaged by the humans’ actions, it was annoyed at the distraction they represented and wanted to deal with them as soon as it could. Inside its engineered mind, it puzzled over the biological adaptation needed to protect itself from the weapons being fired at it. Thousands of years of evolution worked on the Warrior in a matter of minutes, its metabolism devoting itself to what it needed to do.
***
Kyle watched in horror as the creature before him started to move towards them again. While their guns had not been able to kill the beast at least they were keeping it from killing them. That was, however, until the creature’s head had changed shape before his eyes. A bone structure slid down over the creature’s eye, protecting it from the blasts of their weapon. The shape of the creature’s head adapted to push this bone forward and down over the eye. Kyle had never seen anything like it, and had no hesitation in ordering his crew back.
“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled at a flabbergasted Pope and Fenchurch. Cameron was already halfway to the main door by now. The creature walked quickly towards them, its vision obviously not impaired by the adaptation it had grown.
Kyle turned and ran as fast as he could, hoping to get into the open before the creature could catch them. “The damn thing can’t be killed,” he shouted at the backs of his team.
Pope heard his captain and replied over his shoulder, “What do you think we do now?”
Kyle thought it unlikely that a creature with the ability to do what he had seen it do was one that he wanted to have too much to do with. He needed to find a way to get away from it and could only think of one option. “The Hover-paks! I doubt it can fly. Charge them up, we are taking off as soon as we get to the surface.”
***
The Warrior was getting used to the difference its new eye was having on its vision. It was starting to be able to move a little faster now and knew it would be on top of the humans about ten metres outside the door to the bunker. It ran through the bodies of the men it had killed recently and exited the bunker, keen to locate the men it wanted to perform a repeat performance on. It looked around the area outside the bunker the humans had constructed, but could see no signs of its quarry.
It scanned the area in vain, extending its vision to cover a radius of over half a kilometre but still could not see the humans. It could not understand how they had managed to get so far away from the bunker as to be out of the visual range of the Warrior in such a short space of time. It knew it had business to attend to, however; while there were still humans in the bunker it had a clear priority. Now the four, armed humans had apparently left the area it did not have to concern itself with them anymore.
Its mission was not one of hunting down the humans, rather the protection of the area from interference. It also had a particular score to settle with the human the others referred to as Taylor West. It turned and walked back to the bunker entrance, puzzled as to the disappearance of the humans but glad they were out of its field of concern now. One quick look to be sure it could not see anything that would lead it to believe they were nearby and the Warrior headed back underground.
***
High above the bunker, Kyle breathed a sigh of relief. He was being carried by Cameron and could see Pope carrying Fenchurch nearby. It had been close but they had managed to use the Hover-paks to rise high enough over the pursuing creature’s head as to be out of its immediate field of vision. There had been a particularly nasty moment when Kyle had thought his cousin was going to drop him and he had images of himself landing on the creature. That would, he was sure, not help the situation much. If the creature had thought of looking upward then it would certainly have had no problem in seeing them.
At the time it came out of the bunker, they were only a couple of metres above its head, and would have been sitting ducks for it to pick them off at leisure. Kyle supposed that the creature had no clue that they could lift themselv
es off the ground and so had not thought the skies were a viable escape route for them. He had been glad to see the creature disappear back into the bunker and, after waiting a few moments to be sure it wasn’t coming back out again, he ordered his crew to glide back to the ground.
“Wow, that was intense,” grinned Cameron, pleased and excited despite the minor burns he had on his hands. Pope had wrapped a cloth around them to try to keep foreign matter from getting in to the wounds and infecting them.
Fenchurch, like Cameron, could only see the positive side of their encounter. “That thing is amazing, did you see?”
“I saw,” Kyle nodded patiently. He had other things on his mind, like whether they should go back to the ‘Cavalry’ or try again to get into the bunker. He knew now that there was great danger in going back in, but if there was a chance of finding a supply of the liquid they had seen work such magic on Alpha Prime he also knew there could be great rewards.
“It was vulnerable to shots at its eye, and so it adapted itself to stop that weakness!” Fenchurch marvelled.
Kyle could not remember a time when he had heard Fenchurch speak so much; but then he knew nothing excited Fenchurch more than the sight of death and the bringers of death. Kyle was only too aware that Fenchurch was stimulated by death like others were stimulated by sex or wealth. The sickness of his crew-mate was never far from the surface, bubbling under ready to spring out when you least expect it to. “Yes, we saw that. Now I say we go back in there, see if we can find anything and get the hell off this rock,” Kyle said.
Cameron nodded his agreement but not everyone thought this was the best course of action to take. Pope disagreed. “I think we are pushing our luck. Let’s get out of here. We don’t know if this stuff is even around here. We only have the word of that crazy monk.”
“I’ve heard you referred to like that a few times,” Kyle pointed out, “but that doesn’t mean I disregard what you tell me.”
“Except for now, right?”
“Right,” Kyle moved towards the entrance, with Cameron in close attendance. The Captain of the ‘Cavalry’ patted his cousin on the shoulder. “Cam, I want you to try to avoid getting shot this time.”
“I avoided getting shot last time,” Cameron looked hurt by the comment. Kyle pointed at Cameron’s hands. “This is the result of getting shot, I believe.”
“No, this is the result of my gun getting blasted. Totally different thing altogether.” This exchange continued as they entered the bunker once more, but Pope was too far behind them to hear the rest of it; something he was not too worried about. He decided he would stay at the rear of the group and keep his eyes open this time. He ushered Fenchurch into the bunker before him and felt a morbid dread as the darkness of the bunker’s entrance came down upon them. He hoped he would live to see the early light of dawn that was spreading over the plains outside, and said a silent prayer to his God.
***
The guard had led Taylor and the others through several rooms and into the medical centre for the bunker. Chris and Lana were talking together and Taylor could not hear the content of their conversation but he did not have to be a mind reader to work out they were more than likely discussing Sara Crick. Alan seemed to be lost in his own thoughts as they walked on, but Taylor’s attention was directed to keeping his eyes open for trouble and trying his best to get through to a sullen and disbelieving Eli. He was worried that his friend had hardly said a word since the disclosure in Carlton’s quarters. Taylor put his arm around Eli’s broad shoulders. “I am sorry you know. I didn’t want things to turn out this way.”
“I can’t believe it. Is there any way you could have made a mistake?” Eli muttered, as if he couldn’t raise the enthusiasm to even ask. Taylor felt a shot of regret run through him, and he wished he could reply differently.
“I’m sorry. That fact that she has disappeared only adds more fuel to the fire.”
“Maybe she has run because she is scared. We should be looking for her.”
“I think she is probably less scared then we are. I just hope she isn’t looking for us,” Taylor replied. He gave his friend a comforting smile. “Come on we need to get out of here if we can.”
“What’s the point? Where else is there to go?” Eli was disconsolate. He was being hunted by an alien killing machine on a planet that was less than an hour away from tearing itself apart and had just found out his new love was a murderer. He felt he had every reason to feel depressed.
Taylor could not argue with that but he couldn’t bear to see his friend this miserable, however justified. “There might be somewhere to run to, after all,” he pondered aloud.
Eli did not seem enthused about this. “Where would that be?”
“Well, our mystery men who fought with the creature in the corridor weren’t from the bunker, and they weren’t from our station so….” Eli saw what he was getting at and looked up from watching his feet walk along the floor. “So they must have come here recently which means….”
“They must have a ship,” Taylor concluded, “we just have to hope they don’t mind us getting a lift.” The group came out of the other side of the medical centre and found themselves back in the main corridor again. The guard smiled and looked pleased with herself.
“There you go, we are nearly out now,” Dr Skandia patted her on the back. “Good job, young lady.”
Taylor turned to head for the main hatch and almost walked straight into a group of four men coming in the other direction. He recognised them as the men he had seen fighting with the Warrior as they made their escape from Carlton’s room. He was impressed that they had managed to stay alive after such an encounter and thought he should try to stay on the good side if he possibly could.
“Hello, I’m Taylor West. Would you mind awfully if we hitched a lift with you off the planet?” he beamed in as friendly a manner as he could manage. The first of the men, a ruggedly handsome type, looked to his fellows before replying.
“We are not leaving here.”
Taylor frowned. “I really do recommend you do. Dr Skandia, how much longer do we have?”
Dr Skandia looked to the display on his wrist-mounted unit. “About forty five minutes.”
Taylor looked back at the four men, unhappy with the way the thin man was looking at him. Taylor could see murderous intent in that man. His thinking was interrupted as the first man spoke again. “Look we are here to find a special liquid which we have been led to believe is here.”
“It wouldn’t be a kind of translucent goo, that heals all kinds of wounds would it?” Taylor interrupted.
The first man smiled and turned to his cohorts. “See, I told you someone would know where it is.” He turned back to Taylor, “I’m Kyle, this is Cameron, Pope and Fenchurch is the one who is looking at you like he wants to kill you. I think we should have a little chat.”
Kyle moved towards Taylor. “We just want to collect a sample of it and we can all be on our way. If you tell us where we can find some we’ll help you get out of here.”
Fenchurch had other ideas. He would prefer for the people to tell them where they could find what they were looking for and then be killed by him. He saw no sense in carrying passengers off the planet with them, but he knew he would not have his thoughts echoed by the other three members of the ‘Cavalry’ crew. He wished, not for the first time, that he had his own ship; he would certainly run things differently. Less chatting, more slaughtering.
Pope nudged his arm. “I know what you are thinking, forget it.”
Taylor was about to tell Kyle that he did know where to find what he was looking for but that it really would be better if they all left as soon as they could when he was beaten to the punch by Chris. “Look, I don’t know who you guys are, but we have been attacked several times today. There is a creature in here that really isn’t keen for anyone to get too near to that stuff.”
“It’s not the only one,” said a voice from behind them.
Taylor whirled ar
ound to see Sara standing in the shadows of the medical centre doorway, a gun in her hand. She wore an expression of calm on her face and waved the gun in his direction as she spoke again, “I can’t let any of you live, I am afraid.”
Eli moved as if to go to her, but Taylor held him back. “Sara, why are you doing this?” Eli said weakly. Kyle wished he had entered the station with his weapon ready to fire, he could see this woman was not afraid to use hers. He would have to find a way to get a shot at her without her seeing him raising his gun. “Any of you get a shot?” he muttered lowly.
Pope shook his head a fraction, “Not a chance.” Cameron showed his disappointment and Kyle could see that Fenchurch had no way of getting a shot in either. The woman had simply come out of nowhere, and he couldn’t get a clear look at her while she stood in the shadows.
Taylor spoke clearly and slowly. “Sara, you don’t need these people. Let them leave…. and me as well.” She shook her head violently and walked forward into the light. “I don’t think so. You are all intruding on a momentous event. I have waited all my life for this time. You cannot be allowed to witness it.”
“Witness what, Sara, for God’s sake?” started Alan as he moved forward. Sara fired at him without hesitation and a blast of concentrated light struck him in the chest. He moaned weakly and fell to the floor, his internal organs frying within his chest.
Eli moved to try and help him, but once again, Taylor restrained him, “There’s nothing you can do. He was dead before he hit the ground,” he said sadly before looking at Sara in hatred.
She waved the gun at them again, “Nobody moves, everybody dies.”
Kyle had a revelation as he saw her clearly for the first time. When they had been fighting with the creature in the corridor he had not noticed the woman as she left the area, and had not been able to see her face until she had left the shadows. He nudged Pope’s arm gently. “Where have we seen that face before?”
Pope looked at the woman with the gun, thinking hard. It was a few seconds before he realised where he had seen her. “Good lord,” he whispered, “she’s the woman in the painting!”
