Wrath of the Carnelians (Europa)

by Jason Gehlert

  “So, you need my palm DNA to fly the ship.”

  “Well, I’m pretty confident that a smart guy like yourself has already programmed the ship’s course for New Earth. But, I prefer to be in control,” Adrian took a moment, “it’s a obsessive compulsive disorder thing I have.”

  “That’s not going to happen, Chump.” Tommy remained firm. “I’m not flying this ship for you, or those aliens you speak so fondly of.”

  “We are all headed to the same place.” Adrian stood perfectly still.

  “Yeah, but I think for different reasons.”

  “You want to continue to your way of life, and quite frankly, I want to continue our new way of life.”

  “Our way of life?”

  “I had a life-changing experience out there on Jupiter’s moon. I prefer the experience to be called an epiphany of sorts. Some probably would say I hit my mid-life crisis.”

  “You have issues.”

  “Yeah, but I seem to function quite well. My new friends and I just want to return home, and feed on the survivors on the planet. Then, we will rebuild our new army with their bodies.”

  “Survivors? Bodies?”

  “For a military man, you were left out of the loop. The Apollo, landed safely on the planet, and its crew has been living there ever since. And now, with the perfect execution of my ingenious plan, we will use the remaining survivors as hosts, spawning a brand-new echelon of hybrid soldiers.”

  “I heard stories,” Tommy said, still pinning Adrian with his weapon. “How do you know all of this?”

  “I have a mental advantage you could say. However, your fellow survivors will have to contend with my growing army.”

  “Army?”

  “I can sense Carnelian officers on the planet, waiting for my return.”

  “Your return? What makes you so goddamn special?”

  “I’m their Messiah. I am coming home to wage war against mankind.”

  “Why are you telling me of this?”

  “Because once I have you program the ship to my liking, I’m going to kill you, anyway. it’s a bit clichéd, but it works.” Adrian implemented his mental mind games with the pilot while he reached for the shotgun.

  Tommy was caught in a mental tailspin, and didn’t see Adrian raise the gun. He fired off a shot from the Plasma shooter that tore through Adrian’s shoulder, incinerating the muscle on impact.

  “That stings a bit,” Adrian seethed, waving his weapon. His left hand roamed through the perfect hole in his shoulder, wiggling his fingers through the other end. “My turn,” he replied unloading the contents of the shotgun at Tommy.

  Tommy managed to elude the shots, as they pierced the walls, spraying metal and caulking in the air. The red lights immediately swirled about, as the errant shots penetrated the ship’s main hull, damaging the craft’s ability to function.

  “Shit Drake, did you hear that?” Sammy chortled, uneasily mincing the words on hearing the deafening roar of the shotgun blasts.

  “Yeah, I didn’t lose my hearing you know.” Drake watched the corridor become serenaded in a deep red hue, as the warning lights continued to spin wildly about. “I suspect those shots might have damaged the integrity of the ship. We don’t have a lot of time to react.”

  “Can we still land the ship?”

  “Perhaps if we go to auto-pilot. But, we’re going to need Tommy for that.” Drake dragged Logan closer to the control room.

  “The computer’s map’s still up on the screen,” Sammy stated moments before he entered the control room. “Let me try charting a different course. This craft’s equipped with space pods that we can use to land safely on New Earth if we can the ship close enough.”

  “Like a moon?” Drake gently laid Logan across the bench, his own eyes scanned the grid on the screen, locating the rogue moon to the western side of New Earth.

  “We will need to jump to hyperspace,” Sammy added, “we are still millions of light years away from New Earth. We are passing by Neptune as we speak.”

  “Can this ship handle hyperspace?” Drake asked taking a look at the craft’s vitals.

  “I think so,” Sammy noted. “But, after we come out, the damage will be immense, and we will need to land immediately.”

  “So, chart the course to the moon, right there,” Drake ordered while he pointed to the screen. “That oblong, red and orange moon traveling parallel to New Earth. We will have enough in the space pods to get us to the surface?”

  “Yeah, they have enough fuel,” Sammy brought up the pod’s screen with a touch of his finger. “There are only three pods however,” Sammy noted. “We will have to cram two of us into one.”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For right now, we need to stop Adrian and Riley, and get Tommy back.”

  “Okay, sit down and grab a hold of something. We enter hyperspace in ten seconds.” Sammy also access to the ship’s controls in case Tommy came under duress. He effortlessly glided his left hand over the computer’s touch screen activating the hyper drive.

  Tommy skidded, slipping in the carnage. Adrian was rapidly gaining ground on the scattering pilot. Tommy had reached the pool hall, a few feet away from Adrian.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Adrian boasted. He smoothly throttled the shotgun, charging it for another round.

  Tommy turned around to face Adrian out the corner of his eye. Standing in the doorway, Tommy attempted to take a shot at the approaching enemy.

  “Is that the best you have?” Adrian mocked him, his finger on the trigger.

  “I die proud,” Tommy replied as his finger pressed the Plasma shooter’s trigger letting off a steady stream of laser bullets.

  “Either way you will die,” Adrian snarled, waving his free hand stopping the laser bullets in mid-air. He thwarted Tommy’s attempt, sending the approaching bullets sizzling into the wall. Before he could counter-attack, Adrian felt a sharp jerk in the craft’s course. “No,” he growled. His balance thrown off, the shotgun ripped from his right hand, scattering across the corridor.

  Tommy felt the hard thrust and was thrown backwards, skidding across the pool table, eventually rolling off the felt and landing on his back on the hard floor.

  Adrian walked carefully across the titled corridor, entering the pool hall with sinister vengeance on his mind. The Carnelian’s within his body sent their host aggressive messages, while they squirmed about underneath his skin. Adrian saw Tommy sprawled out on the floor dazed and shaking off the hard blow from the fall.

  “Listen to me cockpit boy,” Adrian urged him. Adrian gained ground on Tommy’s location. “I don’t have much time before the ship leaves hyper drive. I must have full control of this ship.”

  “Fuck off,” Tommy agitated, had awakened Adrian’s inner beast.

  “Get up!” Adrian regained his balance, raising Tommy from the floor, as if were calling the dead from their graveyard tomb.

  “You will never have this ship!” Tommy yelled, trying to break from the imaginary choke

  hold that Adrian had mentally placed around his neck. Tommy’s feet dangled in the air, his breath escaping his constricted lungs.

  “I need you to fly the ship for me. I need to get to New Earth.” Adrian grew impatient with Tommy’s hesitance.

  “Aren’t we headed there anyway?” Tommy wanted to buy more time. He had a last-minute plan of attack if he could get close enough to Adrian.

  “I know that genius.” Adrian stepped forward, definitely making Tommy nervous. He then squeezed his hands tightly around Tommy’s neck. “I want full control of the ship, I don’t need you crashing it or doing something stupid like that before I reach my destination.

  Tommy again attempted to wriggle free from the death grasp, but to no avail. He had to get closer to Adrian. “Okay, okay,” he gave in to Adrian’s fierce demands. “I’ll help you, albeit it’s against my better judgment to help an intergalactic criminal,” he gasped for air. “Just let me down, alright?”

>   “I like that,” Adrian mused, relaxing his grip on Tommy. “Can it be, say, intergalactic world leader?” Adrian paced around the room, not paying any attention to Tommy.

  “Yeah, sure whatever,” Tommy felt his toes touch the ground. Grasping the side of the pool table for balance, he used his fingers to roll across the cue stick that lay horizontally across the green felt surface. “Hey Adrian, ever play pool before?” Tommy asked while he bought more time.

  “What? Yeah, I suppose so. Why? What does that have to with anything?” Adrian turned around in time to see what Tommy was alluding to.

  “This is called a break,” Tommy with a slick motion of his wrist, cleanly hit each ball off the table with deft precision, just as a ballplayer would crush a ball out the ballpark. One after one they screamed at Adrian.

  “I’m impressed,” Adrian with catlike agility, waved off each of the incoming billiard balls.

  “Chew on this one,” Tommy hit the last ball on the table, the black eight ball.

  Adrian caught the ball inside his mouth, engulfing the object. With sinister pleasure, he chewed on it with his sharpened teeth. Spitting out the remains, Adrian tightened his fists for combat. “No more parlor tricks. I’m going to beat you to death with my own two hands.” Adrian’s eyebrows narrowed, his pupils dilated while he approached Tommy.

  “It’s your funeral.” Tommy darted at Adrian with the cue stick in hand.

  Both men met at the center of the room. The television screen was directly behind Tommy, and still was playing Johnny Cash’s ‘Folsom Prison Blues.’ Adrian had hit Tommy first, startling the pilot. Tommy survived and attacked using a swift swinging motion of the cue stick. Tommy’s martial arts training had kept him agile and ready for anything.

  “I’m going to wipe up your blood with that purple scarf of yours,” Adrian snarled, enjoying another vicious attack on Tommy.

  Tommy blocked each of Adrian’s devastating blows using the wooden weapon. Twirling it between his fingers, Tommy slammed it repeatedly in the side of Adrian’s face, leaving behind steaks of light-blue cue chalk down Adrian’s cheeks. “What’s the matter, can’t keep up?” Tommy again offensively unleashed another attack on Adrian’s jarred head.

  Adrian felt overwhelmed, but Tommy’s attacks didn’t disrupt Adrian’s persistence for the kill. Adrian used his legs and took out Tommy from underneath, sending the spirited pilot onto his back.

  Adrian leaned over, staring Tommy in the face, extracting the fear from Tommy’s eyes. “You should have listened to me,” Adrian spoke while the aliens’ bodies swam underneath his flaky skin. With one defiant motion, Adrian snapped the cue stick in two pieces, and sent them across the floor.

  “I only listen to my commander,” Tommy snapped back, bringing his right knee to Adrian’s testicles, forcing him to back away.

  “Well then, I guess I will be your new commander, and in time, you will be taking orders from me, otherwise, you will die right where you stand.” Adrian rose from clutching his jarred balls.

  Tommy lunged forward, using his fists as his weapon. One crucial blow after another landed on Adrian’s battered body startling the alien leader.

  Adrian weakly punched Tommy, definitely over matched by his wiry opponent. Tommy’s unique fighting techniques proved difficult for Adrian to defend against.

  “I bet that hurts, don’t it,” Tommy chided Adrian, cornering his attacker to the far corner of the pool hall.

  “Is that all you got Kid?” Adrian spurted blue blood from his mouth, and with it a small Carnelian, that found its early demise after Tommy crushed it with his foot into the floor.

  “Are you quitting on me?” Tommy unloaded a fierce roundhouse kick to Adrian’s face, spraying more blue fluid against the wall. “I thought you’d have more fight left in you, old man.” He complemented the kick with a series of short jabs at Adrian’s aching ribs.

  “Son,” Adrian spoke harshly from the floor, his face bruised, his rib broken, yet, through Tommy’s brutal beatings, his soul still thirsted for the kill. “You are a product of the military. Being a solider you must abide by and even in some cases, die by a code of rules.”

  “And your point?” Tommy had his arms up ready to attack once more, putting the finishing touches on Adrian.

  “Simply put?” Lifting himself off the floor, Adrian wiped away the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Yeah, dumb it down for me,” Tommy wisecracked.

  “I cheat.” Adrian twisted his fingers, bringing to life the jagged pieces the cue stick on the other end of the room, levitating them in the air.

  Tommy’s eyes welled with tears, wincing as each piece of the jagged stick penetrated through his back. His emotions went on a staggering roller coaster, watching the stick’s exit through the lower side of his shredded torso.

  “It doesn’t hurt does it?” Adrian smirked while he grabbed hold of one of the stick and twisted it through Tommy’s body, dragging out his intestines.

  “You’ll never win,” Tommy huffed. Cherry colored blood poured from his wound, and with it, his guts.

  “Ah, no guts, no glory Kid.” Adrian finished off the attack, culling the other stick through, yanking out the rest of Tommy’s entrails.

  Tommy fell to his knees, wobbling back and forth.

  “You see, I always have options. I figure you must have a backup plan if either you or the Commander dies. There must be someone else on board with the ability to fly this ship using their own DNA specific code. Once I have that, I can fly the ship myself, and will no longer need any of your services.” Adrian twirled the bloody sticks about, bringing them down at an angle on each side of Tommy’s neck. “Hold out your hand,” Adrian sadistically ordered.

  “No,” Tommy held his ground. “I will not give you my fingerprints.”

  “I’m not going to ask you again,” Adrian said, opening his mouth letting out two more small Carnelians. The aliens scurried across Adrian’s face, down his shoulder, and continued along his arm, eventually crawling across the floor heading for Tommy’s right hand.

  Tommy bit hard on his tongue, preventing his enemy from enjoying his terrified screams.

  Adrian’s eyes welled with a victorious pleasure, watching as Tommy slowly succumbed to the Carnelians ravenous hunger.

  Symphony Of Defeat

  “Tommy, do you read me?” Sammy tried getting a fix on his military friend’s position.

  Silence.

  Dead, uncomfortable silence.

  Sammy looked over at Drake, who was still shaken on the hyper drive entry. Shrugging his shoulders, Sammy tried again. “Tommy, are you there?”

  “Tommy’s probably in a dead zone or something,” Drake attempted to assure Sammy of his whereabouts.

  “Dead zone,” the deep, chalky voice hissed over the ear piece. “That’s funny.”

  “Who is this?” Sammy urgently demanded that the mysterious caller reveal their true identity.

  “Adrian Blakely, and I will be joining you shortly for the return trip.”

  “Where’s Tommy?”

  “Tommy? He’s taking a nap right now. A really, really, long nap.”

  “Listen to me you motherfucker,” Sammy snarled. “When I get my hands on you.”

  “Ah, another gracious loser enters the ring,” Adrian’s cryptic answers had become a staple of his sinister conversations.

  Adrian’s fingers pulled the purple scarf from Tommy’s bloodied neck. Dangling it in the air, Adrian leered at the fresh blood stains on the scarf. “I’m in the corridor as we speak. I can see the cockpit from here,” Adrian mocked, tying off the scarf around his neck.

  Sammy’s eyes met Adrian’s. “Close the door,” Sammy urged Drake. “CLOSE IT!!”

  Drake limped over and pressed the clear button on the wall, initiating the steel door to close.

  Adrian ran for the cockpit, but was too far away to make it in time. “You will let me in.” He pressed his face up against the door’s sma
ll window, peering inside the cockpit.

  Sammy stared at the computer screen, and clicked off the ear piece. “Grab hold of something, we’re coming out of hyper drive in ten seconds. That bastard out there will be thrown all over the fucking place once re-entry over New Earth is complete.”

  “Got it,” Drake sat down next to Logan’s stirring body and buckled in tight, grabbing hold of Logan as a precautionary measure.

  Adrian’s eyes caught the tail end of the countdown. He reached for anything, something to hold onto, but there was nothing in reach.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  One.

  Sammy waved to Adrian as the Athena burst from hyper drive, rocking the cockpit, and the spacecraft.

  Adrian was thrown down the corridor, rolling head over heels, eventually crashing against the fire extinguisher, shattering the glass with the back of his head.

  “Your gonna pay for that,” he grumbled, standing up, attempting to balance himself.

  “Need some help, Commander Blakely?” The voice emerged from the darkness.

  “Riley, is it?” Adrian answered, a bit rattled from the fall.

  “Yes, Sir.” Riley approached Adrian. “I have my vision back thanks to you,” he congratulated Adrian’s efforts.

  “Are you feeling better?”

  “Much. Like a million bucks,” Riley replied with a dark smirk. “Let’s take over the cockpit.”

  “Now, that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.” Adrian unleashed a new sinister grin while he and Riley slowly approached the door. The two walked with a methodical pace, as if they were gunslingers getting ready for a showdown at high noon.

  Sammy circled around the computer’s on-board screen. “We are fifty miles from the moon, and about ten-thousand miles from New Earth.”

  Drake unlatched his buckle and checked on Logan, pressing his finger against Logan‘s neck. “He’s still breathing.” Drake felt a faint pulse beating through Logan’s arteries.

  Logan’s eyes stirred about, eventually flickering open. Trying to sustain consciousness, Logan’s voice weakly asked Drake what was going on.