by Lee Stephen
Auric fired his shotgun. Dostoevsky turned just in time to see the discharge. In the next instant, the German was gone. The sound of claws against armor rattled out of view.
The second attack came moments later. As Dostoevsky turned his head away, a necrilid leapt from the corner ahead, striking the commander in the chest. The fulcrum was knocked off his feet.
Svetlana screamed and fell backward, dropping her pistol while Esther aimed with her own. From the corner behind them, out of a view, Auric fired another shot.
Dostoevsky howled as claws stabbed through his armor. With a frantic swing, he punched the creature in the side of the head. The necrilid was thrown to the wall.
Esther fired. Several shots pierced the necrilid’s body, and it leapt from wall to wall. It disappeared around the next intersection, its screeching claws echoing.
Dostoevsky groaned, thrust himself up, and reclaimed his gun. “Where did it go?”
“Down the hall,” Esther answered. Eyeing the fresh trail of blood, she said, “Shall I pursue?”
“No. Wait.”
From around the corner behind them, they heard something new—the sound of stumbling boots.
“Get Broll,” Dostoevsky said, waving the two women away. He staggered as blood seeped from claw holes in his armor. “I will get the necrilid.” Down from the intersection, where the creature had fled, came the frantic tearing of claws.
Auric emerged from the corner before either woman could seek him out. Claw marks were etched on his armor, but he still gripped his shotgun firmly.
Clarke’s voice came over the comm. “We heard gunfire—what’s going on?”
Dostoevsky readied his assault rifle again. He was hunched over in pain. “Two necrilids,” he answered through his helmet comm. “One injured, the other…”
“The other is dead,” Auric answered.
Dostoevsky grunted. “We are in pursuit of the injured creature.”
Svetlana stopped him before he could move. Her voice was shaking. “We must get you back to the Pariah. You are hurt.”
“I am fine,” he answered gruffly. “It did not go deep. This armor is good.” His attention returned to the comm. “Captain, be advised—they are mimicking human sounds.”
“They’re doing what?”
“It sounded like a woman. It was drawing us close. Perhaps it was a woman it killed.”
“Noted, commander. Remington, are you getting this?”
“Yes sir,” Scott said. “That’s good to know.”
Esther grabbed Svetlana’s pistol from the floor and jammed it hard into her hand. “Do you know what this is?”
“Of course—”
“Then next time, use it.”
Dostoevsky and Auric rounded the next corner, where a freshly clawed hole had been torn through the ceiling. Flakes of debris fell to the floor.
“Captain,” Dostoevsky said, “the necrilid has gone one level up. It may be near you right now.”
On the level above, Clarke stood still. Around him, David, Oleg, and Derrick fell silent. “Understood, commander.” As soon as the captain was off-comm, he turned to the rear. “Jurgen, Cole, return to the entrance. Make sure it’s not flanking us. Be watchful.”
The two men were about to go when another sound stopped them. It was a loud shriek from deeper in the complex.
David stepped back. “Sir, we need to stay together.”
Clarke shook his head. “No, we don’t. Go back and cover the entrance. Strakhov and I shall proceed ahead.”
“Captain, you’re seriously underestimating—”
“I am a captain, Jurgen. I know a little bit about combat. Go back to the entrance.” He turned to Oleg. “I shall continue at point. Cover my back.”
“Of course, captain,” Oleg answered.
David and Derrick reluctantly backtracked.
Oleg’s stare lingered on Clarke from behind. For several moments, he simply watched the captain in silence. Finally, he turned to check the rear, and together, the two men walked ahead.
On the upper level, Scott was moving ahead with the other Nightmen and Boris. Most of the rooms they passed were offices and storage rooms; some contained outdated computers. Cobwebs adorned every console, and everything was covered in a thick layer of dust.
Dostoevsky’s words over the comm replayed in Scott’s mind. The necrilids were mimicking human sounds. At least to some extent. He’d never heard of that before and wondered if it had ever been encountered.
“I smell blood.”
They were Nicolai’s words from across the hallway, where he and Viktor crouched. Both Scott and Boris stopped their advance.
“I smell it as well,” said Viktor. “There is someone dead here. There is no doubt.”
If they said there was no doubt, there was no doubt. Death was something Nicolai and Viktor knew well. You know death well, too, Scott. He quickly repressed his thoughts.
Scott hadn’t been with the David in the Arkansas school when the older man had experienced the stench of the mutilated body. But now, it was approaching Scott’s turn. “Proceed forward. Everyone on high alert.” Glancing back, he looked at Boris. “Check our six.”
“Yes, lieutenant,” the technician said nervously.
For some reason, Scott’s mind flashed to the dog they’d rescued earlier. He wondered if it had smelled blood, too. He wondered if the animal had watched it spill.
“Lieutenant!” Boris whispered frantically.
Scott turned.
It was staring at them from the circular hole in the floor—from the very ladder they’d climbed minutes ago, where his ExTracker was coming up blank.
It was a pair of yellow eyes.
It didn’t move. It didn’t flinch. If Scott hadn’t been staring right at it, he wouldn’t have believed it was real. But there was no mistaking the top of a necrilid’s head, watching them silently from the hole. How long had it been there? Why had it not been detected? How had they not heard it? There was no time for answers.
Scott swung up his assault rifle and unleashed a blast of projectile. Sparks popped against the metal rim around the hole. He heard something thump, and the yellow eyes were gone.
Nicolai and Viktor scurried from the next hall. “Lieutenant?”
“Necrilid, by the ladder. Hold your position.”
David and Derrick were almost back to their starting point when they saw it. It began as a small black blob that darted into their hallway. Moments later, its yellow eyes fixed on them.
Derrick screamed and jumped back.
David’s heart leapt, but he kept his composure. As the creature bounded from wall to wall toward them, the older operative steadied his shotgun. He took a half a second’s aim before pulling the trigger.
The necrilid was stopped in midair. Its body contorted backward, and it fell to the floor. It twitched for a moment, then was still.
“Oh shoot, oh shoot, oh shoot…” Derrick said breathily.
David stared at the dead alien. He took a step toward it and fired. The creature’s head blew apart.
“Oh shoot!”
David spun around. Behind them, bounding again from wall to wall, was another pair of eyes. This time there was no time to fire. David flinched in unexpected fear as the necrilid leapt at them both. Derrick was knocked to the floor as the creature landed claws-down. Its hands pounded on Derrick’s thighs. The southerner screamed.
David hoisted his shotgun and pulled the trigger. The necrilid cut a flip backward as the blast slammed into it.
Derrick scrambled away. “Oh God!” The soldier’s leg was torn open.
The second necrilid twitched on the floor, then finally lay still.
“Two Ex down,” David said through the comm. “Derrick is hurt.”
Farther ahead, Clarke drew to a halt. “Did you just say two?”
“Yes, sir,” David answered through the radio.
The captain stopped moving. “That’s three confirmed dead and we’ve barely begun t
o look.” His next statement was almost a question to himself. He turned to Oleg. “Could that possibly be right?”
Dostoevsky’s assault rifle remained trained on the ceiling as the sound of creatures skittering echoed above. Auric stayed at his side, surveying the halls with his shotgun pointed. Svetlana and Esther remained in the intersection.
Something shrieked, but it wasn’t from the ceiling. It came from deeper into the structure.
Dostoevsky and Auric exchanged a stunned look.
“No way,” said Esther. “That came from farther in…”
“There are this many necrilids in a Cruiser?” asked Auric in amazement.
Gravely, Dostoevsky said, “Captain, we have multiple targets in our immediate area.”
Scott crouched by the hole and the ladder. The necrilid he’d fired at was nowhere to be seen. Had he killed it? It had to be somewhere. Turning around, he motioned to Boris. “Stay right where you are. Don’t move.”
Boris was breathing erratically.
Grabbing the sides of the ladder, Scott dropped to the ground level. He swung his assault rifle in every direction, but there were no targets. Reaching up, he switched off his ExTracker; it was going to get him killed. “Ryvkin, have either of you seen anything?”
“Negative, lieutenant. But we still smell blood.”
“Don’t move any farther. Fall back to the ladder. Stay with Evteev.” He wasn’t about to leave Boris alone.
Scott searched the area again. Where did it go? There wasn’t even blood. He must have missed it completely—yet it had to be there somewhere.
He tracked cautiously up the hall. It was only a matter of moments until he’d reached David’s position. He immediately saw Derrick on the ground. The soldier was wounded, his EDEN leg armor ripped open. The necrilid was dead on the floor.
David looked up. Nine times out of ten, there would have been awkwardness between the two men, but this time it was absent.
“Where’d it come from?” Scott asked.
David motioned with his head. “Same direction you did.”
Scott felt a sense of relief. The one David killed had to be the one he’d seen on the ladder. He checked behind again just to be sure.
“That’s not the only one we killed,” said David. “There’s another right there down the hall. I just heard Dostoevsky say he’s after two more.”
“I heard, too. That’s five, and we haven’t seen half this place.”
“Six,” David corrected. “We heard one with the captain before we separated.”
Six necrilids. That was almost too much to believe. Something was very wrong.
“Scott….how often do people come to this place?”
How often did they come to Chernobyl? He had no idea. There were no engineering crews assigned to it anymore. Outside of adventurers such as the ones they were supposedly rescuing, there couldn’t have been many visitors at all. “I wouldn’t think often.”
“What if EDEN was wrong?”
Scott tilted his head.
“What if these necrilids didn’t come from the Cruiser EDEN just shot down? What if they’ve been here for months?”
A knot formed deep in Scott’s gut.
“What if this is a nest?”
Oleg followed Clarke silently, his eyes lingering on the captain from behind. He hadn’t spoken a word since they’d set out on their own.
Clarke’s eyes peeled ahead. “I haven’t heard a thing.” His voice wavered, but barely.
Oleg quietly reached for his belt, where he slid his combat knife from its sheath. His kept his eyes on Clarke. Then he stopped, his hand frozen on the knife in his grasp. He inhaled to smell the air. The knife slid back into place as he swung around with his gun. “Captain…”
Clarke stood back to back with the operative. “I smell it, too. It’s very close.”
Something shuffled in the hallway ahead. Oleg’s attention remained fixed on the rear. A new sound appeared—the scratching of claw against floor. Then it was there.
When the captain saw it, his eyes bulged. The black monster appeared out of nowhere, bounding from one wall to the next. Clarke opened fire.
Something else crashed through the ceiling behind them. It rasped loudly and bared its sharp teeth. Oleg sidestepped to the wall. He fired, and the second creature was struck.
Clarke dove forward to avoid the first necrilid just as it was struck by his bullets. He staggered to his feet and turned to fire again. There were two necrilids in his sight—one dead and one injured. It was impossible to tell who had done what.
Oleg aimed at the injured creature and fired. The alien’s squirming ceased.
Something new hissed. The captain spun around, trained his rifle, and fired. Another creature dropped from the ceiling. He fired again. The alien toppled over, attempted to stand, then was gunned down permanently.
When stillness hit the hallway, it was almost surreal. Clarke breathed furiously as his sweaty hands gripped his assault rifle’s stock. His whole body shook. “Bloody hell.” He turned to find Oleg.
It happened in less than a second—before the captain could think. The blade of Oleg’s combat knife flashed in the darkness. Fresh incisions crisscrossed Clarke’s throat. He was spared no time for a last gasp. Oleg slammed his palm straight into Clarke’s forehead, and the captain collapsed to the floor. He gagged a single mouthful of blood before he went still.
Not a sound could be heard. Through the sky-blue visor belonging to EDEN, the man who was not EDEN’s stared in malevolence. Pulling out a black, unmarked comm, Oleg uttered the Russian words.
“Strakhov to Thoor.” His voice never wavered. “Clarke is exterminated. The Fourteenth is Dostoevsky’s alone.”
Several seconds passed before a reply came. The Terror’s droning voice was the next thing he heard. “Message received.”
No more words were exchanged. Pulling a rag from one of his leg guards, Oleg wiped his bloody blade clean.
“What’s he mean, what if this is a nest?” Derrick asked Scott from the floor. “How fast can they make a nest?”
Scott recalled Lilan’s explanation. “Necrilids can conceive in hours,” he answered, paraphrasing his former colonel. “They can lay eggs and hatch them in a matter of days. All they’d need is food.” While humanity had left Chernobyl alone, it was a well-documented fact that nature hadn’t. Animals flourished in the Zone of Alienation. More than enough sustenance was available for predators to thrive.
“If we continue this operation,” David said, “we’re all going to die.”
Scott stared at the floor under his feet. They’d been operating under the assumption that six, maybe seven necrilids had been present. A nest was altogether different. There could be dozens, if not a hundred.
Scott’s mind was churning. There’s no way we can accomplish this as a large group. There’s no strength in numbers at all.
He knew what the correct course of action would have been. To flee. Head back to The Machine and throw in the towel. Just as they’d done in Khatanga. And Krasnoyarsk. And now Chernobyl. That was why they were never sent on serious missions—because they never got the job done. Not even this was a serious mission when compared to the invasion taking place in Europe. This was a junk job.
He was sick of losing those, too.
“David, take Derrick back to the ship.” No more sneaking around. No more easing around corners like a terrified kid. It was time for a different tactic—time to hit this place hard.
David stared at Scott, then his mouth fell. “Wait a minute—don’t tell me you’re—”
“Get Derrick back to the ship. This mission’s not over.”
“Scott, personal feelings aside, this is not a smart decision—this is out of our league.”
He faced David head on. “I completely agree.”
David stared blankly. When he realized what Scott was saying, his countenance fell. “You’re going to come back in with the Nightmen.”
Scott said nothin
g.
David stepped back in wary concern. “This is not the right thing to do, Scott. I am begging on behalf of the Nightmen—don’t make them go in there. They will not survive.”
David didn’t understand. He couldn’t understand. There wasn’t a doubt in Scott’s mind that this could be finished. “Take him back to the ship,” he said a final time, turning away.
Dostoevsky’s team was tracking deeper into the sub level when Scott’s voice broke through the comm. “All units, attention. We have reason to believe that this is an established necrilid nest. I advise everyone to fall back to the plant’s entrance.”
Far ahead of them down the corridor, something new skittered. Auric and Esther trained their weapons at the sound. Nothing was there.
“I hear you, Remington,” Dostoevsky answered, motioning the operatives behind him to retreat. “We will find you outside.”
Oleg stood motionless over Clarke’s body. He listened to the conversation with concern.
“Captain?” Scott asked over the comm.
Oleg remained quiet.
“Captain Clarke, did you receive my transmission?”
From farther ahead in the compound came an inhuman howl. Oleg turned its direction, but nothing could be seen. Kneeling, he picked up Clarke’s body. He hoisted it over his shoulder. “The captain is dead.”
Upon first hearing them through the comm, Oleg’s words failed to register with Scott. Only after Scott repeated them in his mind did he realize what he’d just been told. The captain is dead. Clarke was dead. Their leader was gone.
Perhaps it was Scott’s determination to finish the mission. Perhaps it was his inner frustration, or the fact that his capacity for grieving had already been drained. Whatever the reason, at the announcement of his captain’s demise only one thought entered Scott’s mind: he was next in command. The captain had given him temporary executive control over Dostoevsky.
For this mission, the Fourteenth was his.
When Svetlana heard Oleg’s announcement, she covered her mouth in shock. Esther was more composed and quickly resumed her defense. Dostoevsky’s shoulders slumped.
