Tentacles: An Anthology

by Haley Whitehall

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Tentacles: An Anthology

  Solar Pioneer

  Mr. Sweede

  Zaural

  The Sacrifice

  Author Bios: Eva LeFoy

  D.R. Larsson

  TENTACLES: AN ANTHOLOGY

  ..................

  Copyright Eva Lefoy 2012

  Copyright D.R Larson 2012

  Copyright Haley Whitehall 2012

  Cover Art by Melody Simmons

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the authors and publisher, except for brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entire coincidental.

  SOLAR PIONEER

  ..................

  By Eva LeFoy

  “SOLAR PIONEER, THIS IS ASTRAL Horizon, requesting docking permission. Over.” Coop scrubbed a hand over his face and grunted at the static coming over the comm. “Solar Pioneer, this is Astral Horizon, if you can hear me, please respond. Over.”

  At last, a report on the gaping hole in the station’s inside ring flooded across the screen and he switched his attention to it. Not good. From the looks of things the damage had happened over a decade ago, and nothing had been done to repair the station. Which might mean nobody survived to do the repairs.

  He spared a glance toward the aft storage locker and cursed. Due to the war shortage, it contained only twelve precious body bags, no more. If this wasn’t a rescue mission after all, he’d have to empty out his food coolers to keep the bodies cold during the voyage home – either that, or tow them behind the vessel. He shuddered and turned back to the controls.

  According to the diagram he’d been supplied the closest docking port was E-6. Throttling back, he took over controls and executed a point-perfect landing. Astral Horizon projected its docking clamp. Solar Pioneer’s failed to engage. The station’s AI system should have at least responded to that cue. Unless the ship itself was offline. But that would mean…

  Keying the craft over to automated once again, he thrust himself from the pilot’s seat and made for the dock doors, cursing all the way. “Of all the stupid jack-ass jobs to take, I had to take this one. Better not have to suit up for this fiasco.” He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. First, though, he had to get access to the station.

  He unlocked the duty box next to the dock doors and dug out the extra clamps, the rings, the fusion separator, and finally the ultralight shield he’d use to secure his workspace while he gained entry to the station. Working inside the shield prevented all of the oxygen being sucked out of his vessel if the station had, as he now feared, flatlined.

  He attached the absurdly thin fabric to the ceiling, forming a half-moon behind him, then laid out his tools and brought the rest of the shield around to cover his intended access point.

  “Computer. Inflate vesicle. Maintain at fourteen point seven.”

  The computer’s beep and the rush of warm air driving into the tent reassured him. Good, old reliable computers. They weren’t friends, exactly, but at least they did their job. Most of the time.

  He double-checked the seals before starting. His equipment was in good condition. The outer surface of the station’s docking bay looked pockmarked and worn, however. It hadn’t seen a maintenance bot in forever. He stepped forward toward the station’s surface, slipped his hands through the shield’s pre-formed silicone gloves, attached the separator, and stood back. Heat flared from the fusion point and shot along the crack of the doors. The metal groaned like a sick bovine and popped like a cheap bot casing heating up to room temperature, and he half feared the weakened surface would shatter, penetrate the shield, and suck him into dead airspace. But the unit’s “cycle complete” light flashed and he grasped the pry bar as hard as he could. “Now or never.”

  Four full-body presses later, he still hadn’t pried the doors open. Not even a crack. He threw the bar to the ground and banged on the slowly warming doors with his fists. “Let me in, dammit! Let me in!” For good measure, he gave it a couple of good solid kicks with his heavy boots.

  Coming five thousand light-years to this desolate outpost wasn’t his first choice of jobs, just the one he got stuck with when he volunteered for a so-called “rescue mission.”

  “Should have known better,” he growled.

  He picked up the bar to try again. This time, the doors opened – from the other side.

  ..................

  A smallish copper-headed man stuck his head close to the shield. “Hello? Can I help you?”

  Coop blinked at the living person and then blinked again before quickly scanning

  environmentals and the man standing before him. The old geezer looked and scanned … normal.

  Humanoid. Alive. Weird. “Uh … yeah. Didn’t you hear my call? I’ve been trying to dock here for over a solar hour.”

  The man cocked his head and eyed him like a dog that had never seen a fire hydrant before and found it … fascinating. “No. We didn’t. We—”

  “We? There’s more than one of you here?” Excitement skittered through his veins as Coop opened the thin fabric separating him from the station and visually scanned the long hallway.

  “You’re all alive?”

  “Some of us, yes.” The man smirked.

  Something about his tone and the humor seemed off – flat – but that could have been the space-isolation talking. He took in the man’s well-worn green uniform, his unkempt wad of reddish-blond hair and noted the name tag: Severinson. “Severinson, how many of you are there?”

  “Twelve in all.”

  So, the original crew minus five had survived. Out here. For fifteen years. Alone. The very thought made his stomach go queasy.

  “And you are?”

  “The cavalry.” He held out a hand and the man took it in a flaccid grip. Coop reminded himself of the muscle loss that came from being confined in space for too long and backpedaled on his wince. “Name’s Coop. Captain T.R. Coop. I was hired by Almaren Prime to retrieve you.

  You and the other survivors.”

  Severinson yanked his hand back with a quick jerk. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t Almaren send its own delegation?”

  Coop shrugged. “Lack of funding I suppose. The ten-year war’s pretty much depleted the entire region’s resources.”

  “What war?”

  “You mean you haven’t followed the news vids from home?” The look in Severinson’s eyes went steely and Coop braced himself for space mental health diagnostics recall. Isolation was one thing; deliberate withdrawal from reality was both a symptom of, and a precursor of another kind of space syndrome, one not so good to have at your back if you’re a one-man crew.

  “We’re scientists.” Severinson snorted as though offended. “Not political analysts.”

  “Right, well.” Coop dug his hands into his pockets and flashed the old man a no-nonsense look. “Nevertheless, I’m here to retrieve you. Almaren wants a full report of your progress, whatever it is.” He glanced around the hallway once more and noted no more bodies, floating or otherwise. “Uh, what was it you were working on here anyway?”

  Severinson waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, the usual. Saving the universe.”

  “Uh, huh. Right.” Maybe he didn’t look impressed enough, because Severinson’s face

  clouded into a whiny-looking scowl.

  Coop took a step back from the old man, worried he might decide
to bite like a mean old dog.

  He rubbed the suddenly hot back of his neck and decided to feign interest. “Um, I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying. They sent me because I was the only operational cruiser craft available in this sector.”

  “So, you came alone, then?”

  “Yeah. Just me.”

  Severinson’s face lit up and he broke out a big self-satisfied grin. His greenish-brown eyes took on a glossy sheen. “Well, then, let me show you exactly what we’ve been doing, Mr. Coop.

  I’ll give you the full tour.”

  Coop tried to ignore the old man’s hand clutching his bicep by focusing on his scanner readout. Two life signs on the outer ring; that would be him and Severinson. Another blipped onto the screen near their location and immediately vanished. Damn. The hull damage really warped the readings.

  He turned up the sensitivity and scanned again. Eleven more. Humanoid. Inner ring. Wait. He slapped the side of the unit and mentally cursed. The life signs sputtered and fluctuated like dust moats in a sunbeam. Coop momentarily fantasized about throwing the scanner out the nearest trash chute.

  “That’s when I discovered the life form to be perfectly suitable for our plan,” Severinson was saying. “After we found a way to tie it into the computer’s mainframe, all our problems were solved.”

  Coop glanced up. “Huh?”

  “Don’t you see?” Severinson stopped walking and let go of his arm. They were at some kind of crossroads, white hallway leading straight behind them, grey hallway branching to either side, forming the other ring. “We’ve achieved here a symbiosis no one else has ever attempted. Our memories, unique to each of us, will live on. Forever.” He leaned closer and dropped his voice.

  “Longer, actually. For the duration of the universe itself.”

  Coop blinked and tried not to let the shock show. This guy is a quack. “Uh, well, that’s great.

  I’m sure Almaren will be glad to hear about your achievements.” He glanced down the grey hall to the left and positioned himself to take another reading. Still erratic. He muttered a curse through his teeth. “But we need to get you back there first. If you don’t mind, would you contact the others and let them know they need to start packing to evacuate?”

  “No. I can’t do that. I’m afraid we won’t be leaving.”

  Coop pivoted on his heel to face Severinson. “What? Why the hell not?”

  “Because I said so.” The man closed his eyes and shook his head. He paused for a few

  seconds, as if enjoying some internal secret. Then his eyes popped open bug-wide and both hands latched onto Coop’s arms. Hard. “We simply can’t leave. Everything will be ruined.”

  “What are you talking about?” He stared into the man’s crazed-looking gaze searching for a definitive answer on whether or not he’d gone certifiably space-happy. The urge to tranq this spaceball and throw him in the hold, then come back to get the others, grew stronger by the second. Severinson’s fingernails dug into his skin, pissing him off. His right hand was on his pistol when the old man’s gaze shifted to the ceiling.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Coop watched a serpentine white tentacle descend from the ceiling and curl around behind him.

  He wrenched an arm from the old man to slap it away, but not before he felt the sting and knew it had delivered some of its poisonous payload in his neck. His knees buckled beneath him as his thumb depressed the emergency comm. button on his handheld. “Computer, emergency beam-out,” he sputtered.

  The machine whirred as the room went fuzzy – not merely out of focus, but as though too many intersecting lines of reality warred with each other for dominance and his brain could not choose a winner from amongst the chaos.

  He felt, rather than saw Severinson kick the comm. unit from his hand.

  He brought up his pulse pistol and that too, was kicked away.

  “No, I’m afraid not, Captain. But I’m sure you’ll understand the answers to all your questions soon enough. It will all become very, very clear. I promise.”

  Long white tendrils coiled around Coop’s wrists and pulled them above his head. Then he began to slide down the corridor inch by inch, with his legs kicking furiously behind him.

  ..................

  Coop’s raging headache assured him he wasn’t dead. The bed’s auto-restraints digging into his wrists and ankles offered a second confirmation he didn’t need or want. He blinked at the bright yellow light above and swore. A medical bay is the last place he wanted to be.

  Severinson’s head appeared above him. “Oh, you’re awake, Mr. Coop. Good. Good. We

  have much work to do to get you ready.”

  Ready for what? His head swerved side to side as he searched for his handheld, which made his vision go wonky. When his eyes closed, a little shadow of Severinson fell across his eyelids.

  The shadow felt … cold. “Severinson, where are the others?”

  “Alive. For now. Some of them in better shape than others. But one can’t be too picky.” He sighed. “Sacrifices must be made in the name of science.” He gave a resigned grin that chilled Coop’s heart. “How fortunate you arrived when you did. Otherwise,” he swept an arm in a side arc, “you’d never have the chance to experience first-hand what we’ve accomplished.”

  Severinson plucked a syringe and tube from the bedside tray and bent over the arm Coop could not move.

  “What is that? Hey—”

  “Just a blood test, Captain. Don’t worry. I must test your hemoglobin, your DNA and rule out hemophilia before we can proceed. You’ll feel a little prick.”

  “Yeah, right.” What he meant was he saw a little prick right in front of him. The ten-inch needle pierced his skin and he grimaced as it began to leech precious blood out of his vein. How much was Severinson taking? And what would he do with it?

  I want to die.

  He would have bolted upright at the voice in his head, but the restraints said otherwise. A quick glance at Severinson – humming some off-pitch tune to himself – proved he wasn’t the source. So who or what was?

  Please. I want to die. Help me.

  “What? Where—”

  “Easy now, we’re almost finished,” Severinson cooed. His bedside manner went down

  smooth and easy, like a glass of the finest insanity.

  Coop shuddered as goose bumps covered his skin. The tension in his neck and upper back reminded him that he did have an internal comm. implant. The damn thing always made him feel like some sort of robot when he used it. Either that, or schizo for having another entity speaking inside his own head. But he remembered how to access the long-unused node. Hello? Who is this?

  Kill me, please. Before it’s too late.

  Uh, I’m kind of stuck at the moment. Who is this?

  “You’re a wonderful patient, I must say,” Severinson murmured, who slid the needle from its entry point and dropped the tube on the tray. “Now, just a few more tests to make sure you won’t go catatonic on me too quickly…”

  Never mind that. I’ll help you escape him, if you agree to help me.

  Without warning, the bed tilted upright at a 90 degree angle to the floor, then rotated on its axis so Coop’s feet were toward the ceiling. His spinning head adjusted ten seconds later. His stomach took twenty.

  Sure. Anything you want. Can you just get me out of here?

  “Fourteen seconds to lift off!” Severinson was so damn happy. He hopped up and down with nervous energy.

  “Lift off?”

  “Ten, nine, eight…” he chanted.

  Um, now would be a good time.

  “Seven, six…” Severinson grabbed a long rubber tube attached to a massive jar of

  fluorescent green liquid and started feeding the tube toward Coop’s mouth.

  What do you suggest?

  Auto-release of the restraints and engage anti-grav. Can you do that?

  “Five, four…”

  Now?

  Yes! Now!

  “T
hree, two…”

  I’ll try.

  “One.”

  The restraints released, and gravity vanished. Coop was treated to the sight of Severinson’s wide-eyed expression, and then an angry, deep-seated scowl. Before he could re-group with that damn feeding tube, Coop pushed from the exam table and used the momentum to take him all the way to the door. On the way, he executed a mid-flight roll. He jabbed the door’s Open button, but the door didn’t budge. A glance back at Severinson grabbing a serrated stainless knife sold him on the idea of getting out sooner rather than later.

  Get this door open!

  One moment, please.

  Severinson’s glassy-eyed approach gained momentum. His knife-arm swung a wide arc

  precariously close to Coop’s legs

  Hurry. He banged on the door with his fist while searching for a weapon. Out of options, he grabbed the cabinet doors to his left and prepared for defense.

  When Severinson stabbed at him once more, Coop managed to kick the knife away. But the old man grabbed his foot, and held.

  Coop kicked, attempting to shove him off.

  Severinson opened his mouth wide and bit into his ankle.

  “Aaaaag! Mother fucking…” He gave Severinson’s cranium a solid kick with his other foot and the kook drifted away. The doors slid open, and Coop pulled himself through. The image of the kook flying towards him holding the knife like a sword would give him nightmares for a good six months. And his leg hurt like hell.

  Uh, can you contain him?

  Yes, I think so.

  A wave of sparking electrical cords descended from the ceiling. They surrounded Severinson until they wrapped around and around him forming a cocoon. If Severinson were a silk worm, he’d be right at home.

  Thanks. Now, where are my scanner and sidearm?

  A panel popped open on the ceiling and another snake-like cord produced his hand-held and pistol. He twitched away from the spooky thing before reaching for them – careful to maintain maximum arm’s length in case it turned white.

  Thanks.

  The gravity switched back on. His feet crashed to the floor. Ouch.