Space Eldritch
Page 29
***
“We have the doors locked down, Actual,” Spetzna concluded. “It will take them a while to dig us out. You can burn away. What are you up to now, about 6 Gs?”
“About that,” the Captain said. Already his voice distorted by the different frames of reference. “Can you issue a full burn on the Daedalus?”
“I don’t think so, Actual, we barely found ‘off.’ The place hasn’t been maintained in decades.” Spetzna took a deep breath. “I think we can hold them until you can hit eleven Gs. This ship does, what, ten?”
“Affirmative, Major.”
“Then God speed.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the comm, but the Captain had to consider his crew, and Spetzna was down to fourteen living troopers. “Misha,” the Captain finally said.
“Yes, Actual?”
“You were a good man,” the Captain said. “All your troopers. I’m proud to have commanded all of them.”
“Thank you, Actual.” Spetzna didn’t mention that the man had already slipped into the past tense. They were all past tense, after all.
He cut the comm. Then he turned to his troopers. Fourteen left. Fourteen left to make their last stand.
The secondary bridge was low and filthy, the panels rusted and sagging under centuries of neglect. Three of his most tech-savvy people sat at stations. The rest formed positions around the two doors. Pasha was examining the back-most door.
“How long can you keep them locked out?” he asked Grisha. None of the troopers were idlers on the Catherine. Grisha’s job, when there wasn’t combat, was in engineering and maintenance.
The man shrugged. “It depends on if they have a hacker among their tech serfs. I don’t think they do. Why would they need one?” He looked up at Spetzna around a beak-like nose. “I think they would have taken control by now if they had.”
“What does that leave them?”
“Well, I’ve locked the controls. They could override them with the proper codes, but they haven’t, so they probably lost them centuries ago.”
“And why would they worry about them?” Spetzna said. By the time an enemy force could get here, the ships would already be locked in grapple fields. With damaging a ship proscribed, the greatest of the greatest taboos, there was nothing that an enemy force could accomplish in here. Hell, there was a decent chance the crew didn’t even know about override codes any longer.
“So we have time.”
“They’ll need to cut us out of the command loop manually, and the quick way to do that is in here.” Grisha pointed at a panel on the wall. “I think it will take time to do it otherwise. If I’m reading these plans right.”
“All right. Then we hold here—until the end.”
Grisha nodded. Spetzna scanned the troopers. Igor looked like his mind had finally cracked from the fear, leaving him a robot, ready at Valya’s orders. Pasha had opened that rear door and looked around. He just pulled his head back now.
“Major?” He pulled off his helmet and approached.
“Yes, Pasha?”
“I think that’s just a maintenance area. I don’t think they can get to it except through here.”
“And?”
“And I can see escape pods. For the bridge crew, if the ship were lost, you know.”
A tickle in his mind. “And?” His voice sounded cold and harsh, even to him. “If we go to the pods, this room falls the next time they try an assault.”
“Not us,” Pasha said. “You.”
His people turned to look at him as one. This again. How dare Pasha suggest this again? He almost reached for his power axe... his pulser would be locked into its peace harness by the proscription transmitters in the room. “I’m not abandoning my people.”
“You can die with us or you can make it out. You’re more help out there than dead.”
This son of a bitch thought he could poison the minds of Spetzna’s people right here, in the open. This conversation would ruin morale. This was unacceptable. Unacceptable!
“You will stow that shit, soldier,” Spetzna growled. His fists balled and the skin on his face pulled so tight it might snap.
“Major, you’re not thinking this through—”
Spetzna’s gut wrenched and he planted a fist into that god-damned, lying mouth. Pasha’s teeth shattered under the blow and he went down in a pile, but that wasn’t enough. None of it was enough. He leapt onto the body of his XO, his fists like pistons, smashing, smashing that lying face. That dirty fucking face. Smashing and smashing until it vanished, until it vanished for good.
“Major!” Valya screamed, but she wasn’t cheering him on. The bitch grabbed him instead, but as he put an elbow back into her bitch face the other men were on him, pulling him back, pulling him down. He flailed and screamed and frothed as they drug him to the ground, as they pinned him. He spat and bit and tried to tear their eyes out with words alone. It was only when that strange draining feeling came upon him that the anger finally subsided.
Spetzna lay there shaking, on the verge of tears, his heart screaming at him, the sound almost louder than the silence of his soldiers. Finally, he went limp and one by one they backed away. The rage. That rage was enough for him to kill, to maim, to torture. What had he become? He was no better than these bastards he’d come here to stop. No better than them.
His troopers released him now and he crawled to his feet, the shame too great to look at them, to look at what he’d done to Pasha. He had to control his anger, but how could he? Pasha said himself that Spetzna was the angriest man alive.
And the anger drained out of him, like beer out a tap.
He shuddered. Maybe this was how he ended. Maybe this was the shame he would die with. He had been so angry for so long. Angry at the church, at the state, at the universe. Eventually it had to eat him up, didn’t it? This had, in the end, been inevitable.
He stepped into the corner and lifted a hand to the wall. He couldn’t look at them. He couldn’t face them. Better that they all die here, with his shame.
He flinched at the thought, the guilt rising with bile. He’d rather them all die than leave with his shame? He was useless, broken, evil. He was damned and even his thoughts made him out to be a monster. A thing that would be better dead than alive. This was the end, he knew, because in his heart he knew the truth. To survive, he had to keep control, but he was beyond that now.
His rage had become uncontrollable.
***
Icarus twisted his neck left, then right, easing the internal pressures of his body. He could feel the attention of the alien on him now, probing him at a cellular level, massaging the composition of his body through biofeedback, shaping it to its will. The nausea and pains hadn’t gone away, but the alien didn’t allow him to succumb to them any longer. He had his purpose, and his purpose loomed.
Out there, he could feel the maelstrom. Also out there, the Russian ship, so full of ripe minds to reave. The maelstrom grew closer by the minute, the ship further away. He just needed to figure out how to drive that ship into the maelstrom. The priests would be blind there, but that’s where he needed them to end. If he could just get them inside, then he would have won.
If he did that, he wouldn’t even need to deal with the damn Russians still loose on his ship. At least he didn’t need to find them anymore. The entire ship knew exactly where they were.
Around him, the bridge crew worked their little drone minds, doing their little drone things. It was such a relief, to finally be able to control them directly. No, wait. It was a relief for the alien to be able to control them directly. For so long, it could do nothing more than nudge their thoughts, but now, he could control them through the mental connection that humans shared. He could crush them with a thought. Humans had innate talents that the alien didn’t quite share.
He turned now and walked across the bridge, new pus and excretions squishing in his shoes as he moved. He stopped at the body by the door. Colin. The priest had challenged him
so many times before he started becoming. Part of Icarus had valued his doubting mind more than anyone on the ship.
Icarus twitched as buds of new flesh moved under the skin of his sides. So far the changes had been primarily internal, but not for much longer. Soon, he’d no longer be able to pass as human.
He stretched and felt the flesh of his sides split, the new, budding growths pressing out against his clothes. That was better. It wouldn’t be long now. Not if he could trick them into entering the maelstrom. It wouldn’t be long.
He looked down at Colin one last time. It was a pity that he’d killed the young man like that.
He should have killed him much more slowly.
***
“Can we make it?” Captain Grigory Petrovich Romanov asked the navigator.
The creature buzzed as the electronics in his brain calculated. “No, sir. The Major’s efforts aside, I don’t think he can stop them from regaining control for long enough. They’ll overtake us before our drive is up to full.”
The bridge smelled of sweat and oil mixed with the ozone of emergency welds from the decks below. They had cut all but the lights of the instruments to save the electrical system. The flickering controls made the tech serfs appear to be puppets, jerking in the spasmodic light.
They had come so far. He wasn’t going to let them die like that. Not after they’d been through so much.
“Comm officer, get me the Father Superior.”
After a minute or two, the man’s voice said,”Yes, Captain?”
“That maelstrom is still in front of us, correct?”
“Yes, Captain.”
It wouldn’t show on any scopes, but every priest on the ship had to know its exact location. “Then send one of your priests to me,” he said.
The Captain stared blindly out the canopy, at a great storm invisible to his eyes. Once past the horizon, they could just vanish into the noise. “I’m taking us inside.”
***
Spetzna had, through a supreme feat of will, kept from vomiting. He still stood in the corner, his helmet off, and he had pressed his face against the cold metal of the wall. He couldn’t run from this. He could do this. He could turn around and face his troops.
“Major,” Valya said. He didn’t turn. He could tell from the sounds behind him that Pasha was still alive. He couldn’t look at him yet. He couldn’t reconcile what he had done with who he was. Who he had been. The murdering man of peace was gone. Only the murderer remained.
“Major, look at me.” She probably just couldn’t stand the chaos. She probably just needed to put Spetzna back in his ordered little box.
Spetzna sighed and turned to Valya. He’d already looked weak enough, standing in the corner. Better they think he fumed than cowered.
“What?” he snapped.
“Major, we’re all feeling it.”
He squinted at her. “Feeling what?”
“You don’t feel it?” She looked around, almost sniffing the air. “It’s hit Igor the worst, but he’s just shut down. It hit you almost as bad, because you’re an angry man.” Only Pasha or a sergeant would feel they could speak to him like that, and the sergeant only when it was time to perform the oldest and most delicate of sergeant duties... bringing the old man in line.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that something is going on. Our emotions are out of control. Can’t you feel it? Can’t you feel that this isn’t normal? Like an itch in the mind.”
“Or a tickle.” He pushed the guilt and the doubt and the shame away for a moment. She was right. If he really tried to be objective about it, she was right. It was a palpable presence all around him. A psychic effect? Was he feeling the Maelstrom?
No. There were maelstroms on Earth... Earth was practically one giant maelstrom—that didn’t explain why it happened out here, in space. They had only just come near the maelstrom.
Moreover, he’d been to Earth, where people had been dying violent deaths for some seven thousand years, and he’d never felt this before. He’d never felt anything remotely like this before.
“You don’t seem to be affected,” he said to Valya.
She shrugged. “Maybe it’s all the practice I have acting mad or acting calm when I’m not. Maybe I’m just not a very emotional person.” And it would probably offend her sense of structure. She looked at the troops. “Objectively, I feel like it’s affecting me the least.”
He’d never experienced anything like this before. His gut was trying to tell him something. It had been trying to tell him something for a while.
“What do you think is going on?”
“I think there’s something in the air,” she said.
No. His gut didn’t like that. Not something in the air, but she was right. What if the things this crew had been doing weren’t just average, run-of-the-mill evil? What if they were being affected like he was? They hadn’t been near a maelstrom until just now. If they’d been feeling it, they’d been feeling it up and down the border. The Russians hadn’t. Not until they got to this ship.
It was following this ship.
The Greeks might not be the enemy after all. The Greeks might be the first victims.
“I’ve never felt this before,” he said.
“Me neither,” she said.
“That means it’s not some far-reaching force. Not some omnipresence. Not Satan.”
“What are you saying, Major?” she asked.
Not following this ship. No. “I’m saying its on this ship.” He looked over the troops. “Is he going to be all right?” Can’t apologize, have to be the hard-ass CO, for at least a little longer. Find a way to apologize without apologizing later. The burden of command.
“I think so,” Grisha said, kneeling next to Pasha with the others.
“Gear up,” Spetzna said. “We have a new mission objective.”
“We have to hold this room.”
“We’ll have to hope that the Catherine has enough of a head start. The Daedalus was going to catch them eventually. I think we all knew that. We couldn’t hold that long.” The troops nodded. “We were only holding here because it was the best chance, even if it was a long shot.”
“So what’s the new objective, Major?” Valya asked. She wore a wry smile now. For the first time since they stayed behind, Valya looked completely comfortable. A real objective. The old man back on his game. All was right with the universe.
“There’s something on this ship. It’s driving us mad. It’s been driving this entire ship mad.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“What else could it be?” Spetzna said. “It’s not everywhere, just in this ship. It’s been in this ship all along. It’s confounding us into thinking it isn’t a physical thing, that it’s just a presence.”
“How do you know that?”
“I don’t, but an evil like this doesn’t exist without hiding, and the best way to find something hiding is to challenge your assumptions.”
“But what is it?”
“It’s a demon.” He reached back and touched his new pulser, but this was a proscribed area, so it would be locked in its peace harness anyway.
“What can we do against a demon?” Igor asked, his voice hollow and distant.
“I don’t know about you,” Spetzna said, “but I’m going to kill it.”
I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch. I don’t know how, but I’m going to make you pay.
***
“THEY HAVE REGAINED control OF their ENGINES,” the tech serf said.
Captain Grigory Petrovich Romanov cursed inwardly but he kept his veneer calm. They had regained control. That meant two things.
First of all, they were doomed. They might lose the thing in the maelstrom, but only if it wasn’t relying on scopes. They were still just in sensor range. If they had been tracking the Catherine all along, they wouldn’t have lost it yet. If they were relying on their priests to track her, it might not have occurred to them to take up mecha
nical scanning. He could only pray.
Second, Spetzna was dead. Otherwise they couldn’t have taken the secondary bridge.
The ship would have retained all its velocity as it shifted back into FTL. There wasn’t much left to do either way but run.
“Navigation, work with sensors. I want to know their turn-around point.”
The two tech serfs discussed matters for a moment, then the navigator said, “To match speeds for boarding they will have to kick over and start decelerating in thirty-two minutes, forty-six seconds.”
The Captain set the chronograph. “Then in thirty-three minutes or so we’ll know if they’re still tracking us.” It would be difficult to time their deceleration correctly if they weren’t tracking the Catherine. It was a long shot but it was just possible that they’d already traveled enough into the fringe of the maelstrom that they would no longer appear as a cold spot.
The Captain paced as the minutes ticked down. The Daedalus had to lose them. It was their only hope. Dammit, let them be relying on their priests. Most ships did, most of the time. A good priest was accurate enough to time burn data. Just be off mechanical tracking. God dammit, let my people get out of this alive. If I need to die, so be it, but no more of my people.
The chronometer ticked steadily down. He often thought that the most important skill of a ship commander was to watch a clock without looking uncomfortable. The Captain had perfected the mien of a musical connoisseur, closing his eyes and listening to opera in his head, occasionally humming a bar or involuntarily raising his hand to conduct the orchestra. It was complete rubbish, of course, but it put out the proper air of unconcerned patience for the crew. In his head, he positively stewed.
When the timer hit zero, he cracked an eye as if annoyed and climbed to his feet. He casually walked over to the sensor operator. “Report?”
“THE Daedalus HASN’T kicked over.”
It was almost too much to hope for. “That’s good news,” he said casually. He watched the timer tick up from zero. At the two minute mark, he said, “Let’s correct course by... what... twenty degrees? That should keep enough of the maelstrom’s interference on the other side of us while we cut FTL and let them pass.” They needed to lose them before they got far enough away from the maelstrom that they’d need to torture their own crew members to disappear in the background noise.