Out in the Styx — A Biotech Legacy Adventure

by Chris J. Randolph

  "Not without my gun," Jansen said.

  Marco crossed his arms. "Yeah, see… I still don't have the access codes, Nils. Let me repeat it slowly this time… Only Fleet Command can open it. Only. Fleet. Command."

  "And the radio's dead," Jansen said as he continued to fiddle with his cracking tools. "Story of my fucking life, man. I mean that literally. Nils Jansen was born in a small hospital in the countryside and the radio went dead. It was as if millions of radios suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced."

  Marco shook his head. "Isn't the second suddenly a little redundant?"

  "Yup," Jansen quickly agreed.

  As usual, Hopkins refused to partake in even an instant of levity. "Fine, so let's find a way into the locker. Could we bash it with a wrench?"

  Jansen would've poked fun, but they'd all mastered the delicate art of bashing things with wrenches like god damned monkeys during their months of captivity. When all they'd had were wrenches, every problem started to look like a nail.

  A confused expression shot across Jansen's face at that thought, then was gone.

  He glanced at his phone's display and expanded the window. The machine had tried 1% of all possible passwords, and it estimated three days to exhaust the entire list.

  He could wait, he assured himself. They should be safe and sound inside of Charon Outpost.

  A sound like a giant and terrifying water drum boomed in the distance.

  Jansen stared at the progress bar so hard his eyes began to hurt.

  "What the crap was that?" Hopkins shouted.

  Marco jogged over to his fancy chair and called up The Beagle's sensor readout. He tapped and dragged at the screen with a particularly serious look on his face. "This is weird, guys. Picking up a ton of positron emissions."

  "Antimatter weapon," Jansen said in a gravelly voice, like an old and salty sailor telling tale of the whale that took his leg. "I've read about 'em. Vile stuff." He chose not to mention that the source of his information was a comic book.

  Hopkins glared at him. "Where exactly, Nils? Better Idiots & Jack-Asses Quarterly? Popular Pseudo-Science?"

  Jansen affected a thoughtful expression. "No, I think it was a special edition of I've Been Hiding Spiders In Your Bed Every Night For Three Years. Umm… The magazine. Did I do that right?"

  Hopkins gave Jansen one of his most rare looks. His eyes swelled to monstrous proportions, showing whites the way a shark does the instant before it devours a pretty bikini model. Then the expression entered its second phase. His nostrils flared, his lips curled on both sides, and he resembled a 1930s-era movie vampire trying to hypnotize its unsuspecting victim.

  Jansen knew he would see that very expression the day Hopkins finally strangled him to death.

  Marco chuckled. "You know, I think you may be onto something, Technician. According to the computer, the dispersion patterns are consistent with a matter/antimatter reaction."

  Jansen was more amazed than anyone. "Told ya," he said self-assuredly. "So then, do the aliens have antimatter weapons?"

  "The Oikeyans?" Hopkins asked.

  "Yeah, those aliens."

  "I don't think so. Wouldn't be much Earth left if they did."

  Marco's voice took on a grim tone, as if he were speaking at a wake. "Then it's the Nefrem."

  "It could be the Nefrem," Jansen said.

  Hopkins continued to glare at him. "Who the crap else could it be, Nils? Seriously."

  Jansen could hardly believe how dim and uncreative these two could be. Bullshitting them would've been so much easier if they'd just fill in the blanks every once in a while. "Care to do a little math, gents? There are a few hundred billion stars in our galaxy, multiplied by a handful of planets… That's like a trillion places where life could've evolved. And you think the Nefrem are the only assholes in space?"

  But yeah, he thought to himself, it's the Nefrem. There was no sense getting the other two worked up, though. Not before Jansen had his gun.

  Marco and Hopkins began to argue about something uninteresting, so Jansen turned his attention back to the phone, where a notification throbbed at the edges of his peripheral vision. He accepted it, and a command console jumped to the foreground.

  "Renaissance OS 0.86 Beta. 0952 GMT. Maintenance Mode, Power On & Self-Test…"

  A huge list of messages scrolled up the screen, detailing all the systems waking from their slumber. Jansen tried to read the whole thing, but his eyes glazed over and he just assumed things were hunky-dory.

  Then a login prompt appeared and began to blink. He entered his credentials and was taken to the admin interface.

  "Guys," Jansen said.

  No one replied.

  "Guys?"

  He minimized the phone's screen and looked around, but his teammates were nowhere to be seen. "Hey guys?!"

  He heard a ruckus from the ship's cargo hold. A minute later, Marco and Hopkins came up the lift carrying a large powertool between them.

  Jansen squinted. "Is that an autohammer?"

  "Yup!" Hopkins said cheerily.

  "Turns out we had something better than a wrench," Marco added.

  Jansen shook his head. "You two are fucking idiots, you know that?"

  "What the hell?"

  "Alright… First, you're seriously using Hop's ideas now? Come on, Marco… I mean, come on. Second, the armory and its contents do the melty thing the instant its outer shell is damaged. You can't crack it with a hammer or it all goes splat. Third… You're idiots. QED."

  "You restated your thesis as an argument," Marco grumbled.

  Hopkins fumed, but the anger vanished a second later. "Okay, what if we neutralize the process somehow? Add something to retard it."

  Jansen was about to strike the soft underbelly of Larry Hopkins' pudgy psyche when he realized there might actually be something there. "Eh, we have a bunch of liquid nitrogen," he said.

  Marco understood immediately and his eyes lit up. "Like two-hundred liters of the stuff."

  It took all three of them to lug the heavy drum out of cargo and waddle it back to the locker where the precious guns were stored, and another twenty minutes to jury-rig one of their fire extinguishers into a spray nozzle. Then they put the autohammer on top of a small crate, drew a target on the side of the locker with a grease pen, and got in position.

  Jansen held the makeshift liquid nitrogen sprayer, while Marco and Hopkins manned the hammer. They each undid their safeties and took a deep breath.

  A notification light throbbed at the edge of Jansen's vision, but he ignored it. He didn't have time right that second.

  Hopkins dialed a few settings into the autohammer, then set his feet and leaned forward. Marco noticed the tubby man's change in posture and hurried to replicate it.

  "Ready?" Hopkins asked.

  "Let her rip," Jansen replied.

  Hopkins gripped the autohammer's handle and squeezed the trigger.

  A loud bark erupted from the armory's wall. Hopkins released the trigger and looked at his handiwork.

  "Didn't do shit," Jansen said.

  Marco said, "Hit it again."

  Hopkins shrugged and started it back up. The hammer-strikes came quickly, as thunderously loud as the four horsemen galloping across their skulls.

  There was a hiss and Hopkins stopped. "Open!" he cried out.

  Jansen jumped forward and jammed the nozzle into the breach, then cranked the handle with all his might. The seal wasn't very good though, and a thick fog bubbled off and filled the air.

  He heard a sound like a big pot boiling, and he felt something slimy drip onto his hand. A few seconds later, the fog cleared to reveal a puddle of green sludge with an assortment of frozen gunparts floating inside. They looked like bits of cauliflower in a soup Jansen would definitely send back to the cook.

  He was about to look away when he saw the surface of the sludge move. It bulged, bubbled, and slipped away to reveal a whole and complete—if slightly frosty—pistol.

 
Jansen snapped it out of the foul smelling sludge with a gloved hand and wiped it off on his jacket. At the same time, he called up his phone and broadcast an override signal to the omnibodies before they could digest the weapon.

  "One fricking gun," Hopkins sighed.

  Jansen smiled and admired his treasure. It was the Legacy Fleet's standard sidearm, a particle pistol called a Lancer. Mist peeled off the device which was all sharp angles and pure aggression. Those had been Donovan's design directives, and Jansen thoroughly approved.

  It'd been so long since Jansen had held one that he felt a sudden rush of elation. He'd been totally unarmed since The Europa Incident, damn that miserable day. No matter how much he tried to forget about that particularly low watermark in his life, it continued to harry him and nip at his heels.

  Not that it dulled his joy right that moment. He forced himself to stop smiling and said, "It's one more gun than we had, boys. The day's getting better already."

  The notification light of his phone was still beating, so he checked it. The first message said: Armory Password Discovered. Lock Disengaged.

  Jansen said, "Oh," then brought up the second message.

  Open Issues:

  *Memory Fault in Weapon Guidance

  *Internal Communications Failure

  Affected Systems:

  *Defense (Internal, External)

  *Hangar Doors

  *Generator

  *Broadband Sensors

  Hull Breach Detected Intruder Alert!!!

  He slid the pistol into his holster and said, "By the way, fellas. The system's back up in diagnostic mode, but it can't open the hangar doors. One of us has to go outside and hit the local terminal."

  Marco said, "Outside? That's the fourth most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

  Hopkins shook it off. "No, it makes sense. This is an unmanned outpost, so they'd never expect anyone to be trapped inside." He put on a brave face. "I'll go. I'm like the master of unlocking, and shit."

  Jansen nodded. "Good, glad that's settled. Oh, also… the computer seems to think something's broken in, and… I'm just tossing this out here… it probably wants to murder our faces. Or meat masks. Whatever it calls the soft flesh in front of our brain cases."

  A flat groan escaped Hopkins' mouth while Captain Marco stepped forward and smacked the side of Jansen's head. But most tellingly, he didn't countermand the plan.

  "Can I at least have the Lancer?" Hopkins asked pitifully.

  "No can do," Marco said in his very official captain voice. "Our primary responsibility is to protect The Beagle. Her safety is more important than any of us, Crewman. But don't fret. We'll keep a good eye on her while you complete your part of the mission."

  "Cowardly pieces of crap," Hopkins grumbled.

  "Now, now, Hopkins," Jansen said while clasping the other man's shoulder. "Is that any way to talk to the guy with the gun?"

  Space Commando

  "This is the personal log of Crewman Larry Hopkins, assigned to the Interplanetary Shuttle Beagle, Legacy Fleet. If you're listening to this recording, then I'm already dead."

  Larry jogged down a long corridor lit by flashing red bulbs. Unlike the Eireki ships, this outpost wasn't really biological at all, and its interior seemed as slipshod and barebones as a dockside warehouse. It reminded Larry of where he spent most of his childhood, and consequently, he couldn't stand the place.

  He stopped short of an intersection and gave each side-tunnel a tactical peek. Both sides were as clear as his intestines after a curry lunch.

  He moved on. "While on mission to repair an automated defense outpost, the machinery here detected an enemy vessel and opened fired, but some of its malfunctioning system blew out in the process. This left my team and I stranded inside the facility, and being the only one with the requisite skills, I took it upon myself to cross the base and release us from this latest predicament."

  He thought about his teammates with a sneer. They both deserved to rot in Hell, but the Legacy Fleet was badly in need of heroes. Detailing the crap-show idiot circus that went on aboard The Beagle wouldn't help anyone.

  "I've encountered the intruder twice now, and narrowly avoided detection both times thanks to some clever application of emergency hardware. I tapped into the backbone network and have occasionally been able to track the invader's movements by the surges it causes in the power grid."

  He turned a corner and arrived at a non-operational lift. Following Fleet Protocol 286.C, he removed the access panel, keyed in the maintenance code, and engaged emergency power-up procedure. One green light turned on, then another, and a third.

  "Bingo," Larry said. He could hear the distant lift grind into motion far above him, and he triggered doors all over the floor to mask the sound. Then he settled in for what would be an interminably long five-minute wait.

  "This thing that's in here with us… I don't know what it is. I barely saw it both times, and all I caught were glimpses and impressions. A single red-eye set off to the side. A hand with fingers like daggers. Footsteps as loud as a garbage truck."

  He took a deep breath and tried not to shudder. Then he said, "But whatever the heck it is, it moves like a man."

  He checked his phone's display and found four minutes left on the countdown. This dead-end would be a particularly gruesome place to die, backed into the corner with no escape, and no choice but to watch his murderer approach. And what did he have to defend himself with? Nothing but a winning smile.

  He thought he'd only lost himself in daydream for an instant, but the lift's noisy arrival snapped him out of it. The doors slid open and Larry Hopkins eagerly stepped inside.

  The metal coffin's doors closed, and he looked over the keypad. The nearest external access hatch was on the upper maintenance decks, which meant he should take the lift up to Environmental Control and then climb the last two half-levels. But there was another option…

  A label reading Security Station stared him in the face. Taking a side trip there would probably constitute refusal of a direct order before the courts marshall, but in Larry's defense, those orders were issued by a certifiable jack-ass… nevermind the fact he'd volunteered for it.

  He punched the Security Station button and the lift began its ascent while he checked his phone and discovered he'd lost track of the invader completely. Troubling news. There was also a message from Nils, and Larry decided to leave it unopened for the time being.

  He flicked his recorder back on. "I can't help but think about the astronomical phenomenon we witnessed on the way here. What kind of force could cause such a vast field of space to light up like that? Was that the harbinger of this thing's arrival?"

  The lift lurched to a halt and the keypad blinked. Larry tapped in his access code and the doors slid open revealing another tunnel like the last. If it weren't for his preternatural ability to navigate samey looking hallways, he'd have been lost an hour ago. It was just as well that neither of the two cowards had volunteered for the mission.

  In the absence of good intel, Larry dashed down the corridor from one tactical position to the next. He surveyed quickly, scanned wall-markings that directed him to his goal, and moved with purpose.

  Despite what a hateful, loathsome experience his imprisonment aboard the Copernicus Observatory had been, he nevertheless appreciated the twenty-five kilos it stripped off him. It'd certainly made him more fleet of foot.

  It didn't take long to reach the outpost's meagre armory, which was little more than a closet with a double-sized lock on the door like something out of a cartoon. He entered the captain's security code on the panel (Marco used his birthday… idiot), and tried not to grin too psychotically when the door opened with a click.

  Inside, he found five Lancer carbines in a charging rack. The weapons looked like traditional rifles artfully melted into smooth shapes, with tips that came to a flat edge like a chisel. He snatched one from the rack and slung it over his shoulder by its strap.

  Next, he took a defensive fiel
d projector. The magnetic device could deflect small-caliber bullets, and had proven even more effective against particle weapons in testing. In testing. He affixed the hexagonal puck to his skinsuit's chest-plate and continued to scavenge.

  Next he slipped on a grenade belt, took a demolition charge that looked rather like a throwing disc with a trademarked name, and then finally grabbed a red key hanging on a chain. That was used to engage the station's self-destruct, a move he bitterly hoped would be unnecessary.

  His phone beeped and another message from Nils started to collect cobwebs. Larry engaged the recorder instead.

  "During the course of my mission, I've chosen to requisition small arms under Fleet Ordinance 67-K. I don't know if these will help at all, but I'm grateful for whatever defense I can get. The fate of the whole solar system could be at stake."

  He shut the locker door, turned, and heard a metallic crunch. His heart raced as he unslung the carbine, crouched and aimed down the corridor.

  A single bead of sweat rolled down the soft contours of his face. He never blinked.

  No other noise came.

  Larry flicked open his phone's control panel and checked the power grid; the facility appeared as a glowing wireframe with power nodes marked as red orbs. One pulsed brightly on the level below, then the next, and another.

  The creature must have tunneled through six floors.

  Larry didn't have time to think. The node beneath him began to burn brightly, and he knew it was time to move.

  It was a shame to lose the demolition charge so quickly. He grabbed the platter-like device, set it to Anti-Vehicle with a thirty-second delay, then slapped it on the floor and ran. He dialed down his boots' magnetic attraction as he went, allowing him to spring further off the floor and lengthen his stride, then turned them off completely and rocketed through the air.

  The charge went boom.

  He hit the far wall feet first, turned the magnets back on and sprinted down a side tunnel toward safety. Shrapnel peppered the place where he'd just stood, and he heard a furious roar like a lion made of rusted iron.