Hive (The Color of Water and Sky Book 4)

by Andrew Gates

  “T-minus 10 seconds until another impact!” Krass reported. “We are not slowing them down.”

  “Give me a counter.”

  “Six… five… four… three…”

  “All crew! Brace for-”

  Boom! The ship shook so hard that Azar was tossed across the room. Her body flew through the holographic display and smashed into the ship’s forward window. Then the lights went out, save for a few monitors here and there.

  “Report!” Azar shouted before she could even stand.

  Coughs filled the room, though nobody uttered comprehendible a word.

  “Report!” Azar demanded again.

  “By the Chiefdom, that last wave split our ship in two.” Though she could not see him, this voice clearly belonged to Metfallah. His monitor must have been one of the few still functioning.

  “Are you saying we have lost half our ship, Kho Metfallah?

  “Negative, Captain. It looks more like we have lost two thirds.”

  “The engines?”

  “Still intact, Captain, but separate from this section of the ship. The two pieces are drifting apart. We no longer have any means to control engine activity from here,” Metfallah reported.

  “Kho Ri’Ango, I surely hope you enacted all the necessary processes to initiate detonation prior to that last strike.”

  “Yes, Captain. I did,” Ri’Ango replied through coughs and moans of pain. “Everything should proceed as instructed.”

  Azar sighed and leaned against the cracked glass at her back.

  “Then there is nothing more we can do from here but sit and hope.”

  For a moment, the entire bridge was quiet, but that silence was shortly interrupted by the words of Kal Zeelo.

  “Captain,” she began in an unnerving tone.

  The captain turned to face her general direction, though it was hard to see anything in the darkness without the overhead lights.

  “What is it, Kal Zeelo?”

  “I have one of the fighter pilots on the comm. She wishes to speak to you personally.”

  “Patch her through.”

  The sound of ambient static suddenly echoed through the bridge as the pilot’s comm came in through the speakers.

  “Pilot, this is Captain Kal Azar. I hear you wish to speak with me.”

  “Captain,” the voice said. The single word sounded heavy, as if spoken through tears.

  “What is it, pilot?”

  “I… I cannot do it, Captain.”

  “You cannot do what, pilot?”

  “Self-destruct. I… I tried, but the enemy ships, they did something. My vehicle is frozen. I find my vessel caught in a well of gravity unlike anything I have ever seen. My controls are locked. I have naught but the comm in my helmet at my disposal.”

  “Gravitational manipulation. It’s as I theorized,” Metfallah muttered.

  Azar sat up straight.

  “You need to destroy that ship’s computer, pilot. We cannot allow the enemy to obtain the coordinates to Earth. Do you understand?”

  “I… I understand, Captain, but I do not possess the means. The enemy has me. I have lost all control. They… they… oh my… by the Chiefdom, I can hear them drilling into the cockpit. Captain, I-”

  The transmission ended suddenly, replaced by nothing but an ominous static.

  “Pilot? Pilot?” Azar said. When there was no response, she lowered her head to the floor.

  “Did she do it?” Ri’Ango asked.

  “I… I do not know,” Azar replied. “We can only hope.”

  And with those words, the window suddenly lit up with the glow of the brightest light Azar had ever seen. A white light filled the void of space, emanating from the separate section of Infinitum.

  This was it. The engines were lit. Soon the explosion would engulf them all.

  Azar held her arms out wide and let out a deep breath. She opened her eyes wide and stared at the bright light as it silently engulfed the bridge.

  “We can only hope,” she said again, just before the walls flew apart and her body was forcefully sucked out into the void.

  It was suddenly very quiet. Everything was quiet.

  Outer space: the empty, black, desolate expanse.

  Here everything felt so lonely, so isolated. Even when surrounded by her crew, Captain Kal Azar could not help but feel like she was the only living being for lightseconds in all directions.

  Chapter One

  Jallah

  Mr. Jallah Sane

  Jallah took another step forward, then another, then another. Each step filled him with more confidence than the last. When he finally reached the far wall, he pressed both hands against it and took a moment to admire the cool metal surface. He let out a sigh of relief and felt a smile form across his face as he turned and stared at the interior of the room.

  For the first time today, Jallah managed to walk from one side of the room to the other without so much as stumbling once. He had been practicing his walk all day long. His balance was now near perfect. He no longer felt the ache of his muscles, the dizziness in his head nor the cuts and bruises across his skin, though the bandaged-up bite on his left wrist still stung whenever he flexed his hand.

  The boy was 13, maybe 14-years-old. He had lost track of the days. Had his birthday come yet? He was not sure. He had been through so much. Over the past day, his body had been broken and his mind had been pushed to the brink of losing control. When he finally awoke from that awful battle, part of him even wondered if he had died and been sent to the afterlife by some divine power… not that he even believed in either of those things.

  Jallah wasn’t the only one in need of recovery. The other two kids struggled to stand again, to walk again, to speak, to eat. It had been a day of relearning their muscles and, in a literal sense, getting back on their feet. The battle had nearly killed them all, but alas, here they were, alive and not willing to waste a second wallowing in injury on the floor of this cold, ancient science lab.

  If anyone had told Jallah one year ago that he would be battling a zombie with a robot arm on the surface of the Earth, he would have laughed. That was a tale of nonsense. Not even his imaginative friend, Louis, could have contrived a story so absurd.

  But it had happened. It might not have been a zombie in a literal sense, not a bloodless reanimated corpse like in the old stories, but it couldn’t be called human either. These creatures were savage, eternally hungry, relentless killers with no sense of pain nor weariness nor remorse. They wandered the Earth in search of food, forever carrying a hunger that could not be fulfilled.

  And they would never stop, not for anything.

  Jallah could not forget the face of the zombie he and his friends had fought and killed. It looked so human, like someone who had walked right out of the station. But this was no ordinary zombie; it was one of the first zombies, one of the original humans infected with a virus called Metamorph. Jallah smirked as he recalled the twisted origin of that formula. The Metamorph serum was supposed to cure the people living on the surface in the early days after the nuclear fallout, but instead, it doomed them to this fate. Jallah could not help but find that ironic.

  This science lab was the site where it all went down. Long ago, the first zombie was created here in this very room where Jallah and his friends now tested the strength of their legs. At first, the gas was contained to the confines of this lab. But when the town of Country Roads later tried to burn the gas away with bombs and rockets, they didn’t stop the gas like they hoped. Instead they succeeded only in breaching the walls of the lab. The Metamorph gas inside was not destroyed in the flames, nor were the zombies inside killed. The airborne toxin spread through the cracks and holes of the facility and into the domed town.

  Jallah did not know what happened after that. The ancient video footage he’d seen cut away at that point. He’d watched it on his own a few times. But he could only imagine, with the gas spreading, that the entire town fell victim to its effects mere minutes late
r.

  The zombies no doubt broke out from their glass shell and spread throughout the land, breeding quickly wherever they went. They must have found other domed towns. Maybe the inhabitants of those towns were able to stop them, but Jallah had been around the zombies enough times now to know how the creatures could get past any obstacle, how they could run and climb, and how they could swarm around their prey in numbers so great they would make the ground shake. He knew the odds of stopping the zombies and those odds were slim. The only certain way to survive was to run. Staying put only meant death.

  “Hey, Jallah! Excellent job!” Dan said, suddenly pulling Jallah’s focus back to the here and now.

  Jallah looked up to face the mid-30-year-old man. His dark hair and beard was now ratted and long. His grey jumpsuit, like Jallah’s, was torn in various places and covered in stains of mud, dirt, piss and blood. He probably reeked worse than the station’s sewage level, but if he did, Jallah was so used to the smell, he didn’t even notice it anymore.

  “Thanks,” Jallah replied, nodding and smiling back to Dan. “I made it the whole way without stumbling.”

  “I saw.” Dan nodded back. “It’s good!”

  Dan stood in the doorway of the lab. He was the least injured of any of them and was the only one not knocked unconscious during the fight. But that didn’t mean he was still tip-top. Like the others, Dan was starting to limp with each step, though he did his best to hide it from them.

  Margery walked around the overturned metal table, which now had two fist-sized holes in the center of it. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, then successfully continued along to the far wall.

  “Great job too!” Dan said, motioning to her.

  Margery smiled and nodded back.

  Jallah was glad to see that she was making a quick recovery. Margery had been through the worst of it. He remembered watching her nose shatter under the zombie’s strike. Blood gushed everywhere and covered her face. Then the zombie choked her. It lifted her up from the floor with one hand like she weighed nothing at all.

  But Jallah also remembered trying to save her. Just as the zombie was prepared to make its kill, he ran up to the creature and attacked it. The monster released Margery, tossing her clear across the room. If it weren’t for him, she would have been killed.

  He was a hero. That thought made him smile.

  Margery had cleaned up since the fight. Her face was no longer covered in blood, but her broken nose was swollen and a massive scar still covered the right side of her face. Jallah knew she would keep these marks with her for life. The thought prompted him to look down at his own bandaged wrist.

  And then there was Ophelia, quiet Ophelia. She stood in the corner, eating one of the apples that Dan had collected and quickly tossed into the vault, back when they thought they might spend hours inside of it hiding from the zombie.

  Hours… what a joke. It was only a few minutes before the metal-armed monster broke inside.

  Ophelia was already back to her usual quiet self. She seemed to recover faster than the other kids. She had gotten onto on her feet mere minutes after she woke up and even made several laps around the outside of the facility. Jallah was impressed. She was incredibly resilient.

  “You guys are recovering fast,” Dan noted. He crossed both arms before his chest.

  “Thanks,” Jallah replied.

  The boy took a few steps in Dan’s direction and glanced down at the shotgun leaned against the open doorway. That weapon had saved their lives and now Dan dared not go anywhere without it by his side.

  Secretly, Jallah had his own weapon tucked away too, known only to him. He felt the vial of Metamorph in his pocket as he moved across the room. It was not heavy in a typical sense of the word, but it carried a certain indescribable weight to it. He could feel it wherever he went.

  Somehow, for reasons he could not explain, Jallah felt as if it were his duty to carry the Metamorph with him. His strange dream only confirmed that feeling. Jallah still remembered the dream he’d experienced after the battle. He had not been able to forget it since.

  “The key,” Margery had said to him in his wandering mind. The vial of Metamorph was the key, whatever that meant.

  Jallah had found himself in a world of darkness. He recalled seeing a tentacled monster in the far distance, shrouded in a cloud of fog. The image was ominous and sent a shiver down his spine. But then there was a light and blue overtook the world and everything felt right.

  Blue. The vial’s serum was blue.

  Jallah did not know how, but he took this to mean that the vial would somehow make things right. Blue could save the world. The vial was the key.

  But save the world from what? And how?

  Jallah knew that if Dan found out he was holding onto the vial, he would force Jallah to put it back. He had made that quite clear. So Jallah dared not tell anyone, not even Margery, his own girlfriend.

  It was his burden to bear after all.

  “I have some good news,” Dan said as Jallah stopped before him. “While you guys were busy recovering, it seems like the rain has stopped.”

  “That is good,” Jallah agreed. He hated how muddy and wet it got with all the rain.

  “It looks like the clouds are going to pass. We should get some sunlight for the solar panels soon,” Dan continued.

  Jallah smiled at that news. Solar panels were the lifeblood of this facility. If they didn’t have sunlight, they didn’t have power (not that they really needed power anyway, but it was good to have).

  Dan turned to Jallah and looked down at his left arm.

  “How’s the wound holding up?”

  “Seems to be healing,” Jallah answered. “I still feel it. It stings from time to time, but it’s easy to forget about if I don’t move it much.”

  “Good. Hopefully it doesn’t turn into an infection. Keep close watch on it and let me know if it does anything weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “You know, like if the skin turns purple or starts to swell up or get numb.”

  “Oh.” Jallah paused for a moment, then met Dan’s eyes. “You don’t think I’ll… you know?”

  “What?”

  “Well… the zombie bit me. You don’t think I’ll…”

  “Turn into a zombie?” Dan said, finishing the sentence for him.

  Jallah nodded.

  “No, that’s not going to happen. They’re not really zombies, remember? They’re just mutated humans. The Metamorph doesn’t spread that way. You’re fine. There is no such thing as zombies in the sense you’re thinking. The worst thing you have to worry about is bacteria.”

  “Oh,” Jallah replied, nodding in relief. Dan’s words were good news. Bacteria, he could deal with. Turning into a zombie, no way.

  “The only thing that can turn you into a zombie now is that vial in the back of the vault,” Dan said, motioning to the far side of the room.

  Jallah instinctively felt the vial in his jumpsuit pocket. This stuff can turn me into a zombie. I’d better protect it, better keep it safe. He adjusted himself and stood as straight as possible, hoping not to jostle the vial at all.

  “But you don’t need to worry about that,” Dan continued. “The vial is safe in the back and nobody is going to touch it.”

  Margery took a few hobbled steps toward Dan.

  “I don’t think any of us would be so crazy as to touch that stuff now, not after what we saw it do in that recording,” she said.

  Jallah slowly turned away, not wanting to look her in the eyes after she said those words.

  “I don’t have to remind you guys how dangerous that substance is. It almost destroyed humankind once. It has the potential to do it again.” Dan paused for a moment as he gathered his thoughts, then slowly bobbed his head. “Anyway, that was not what I was going to say. I wanted to tell you that I’m going out for a bit. Now that you’ve all had some time to rest and recover, I trust you can handle yourselves without me for a few minutes, right?”
/>   “Where are you going?” Ophelia asked, her mouth full of apple.

  “Hunting,” Dan explained. “I’ve been sitting here watching you three all day. I haven’t had a chance to catch anything for food.”

  “We do need to eat,” Jallah agreed. He could feel his stomach rumble. “Bring me with you.”

  “I can go too!” Margery proposed.

  “Calm down, calm down. It’s nice of you both to offer, but I don’t need any help. I can manage by myself. You three are still recovering, so you should stay and rest. Plus, I have a gun with me, so I’ll be fine. Just wait here until I come back. It shouldn’t be long.” Dan leaned down and picked up the shotgun. He checked to make sure it was properly loaded, then waved them goodbye.

  “Bye,” Jallah said, waving back to him.

  Before he knew it, Dan turned and exited the doorway, leaving the three kids behind.

  The room was silent for a moment before Jallah turned to face the girls and opened his mouth.

  “Boy, that sure was crazy,” he said with a deep exhale.

  “What was crazy?” Margery asked.

  “What? What do you mean what? You know… that battle earlier, with the zombie with the robot arm! Can you believe we survived?”

  “It’s definitely hard to believe,” Margery agreed. She instinctively felt her broken nose. “By the way, Jallah, I have been so distracted, you know, that I forgot to say thank you for saving me back there. My mind was going in and out, but I still remember what you did. I just wanted to say thanks.”

  Jallah blushed and felt a smile form across his face.

  “No problem,” he said.

  Margery limped over to him and held her arms out wide. Jallah leaned into her embrace and held her tightly. Her body trembled.

  “Thank you, Jallah. Thank you for saving my life. I love you,” she said.

  “You… you what?” Jallah pulled away. He stared into her eyes, which were now starting to tear up.

  “I love you,” Margery repeated.

  Jallah was not sure how to respond to that. He certainly cared about her in ways he had never cared for anyone before, but he was always taught that love was a strong word, one you were not supposed to use lightly. Was this really love he felt for her? He was only a teenager after all. What did he know about love?