by S. A. Lusher
He shoved the body back and it toppled over, joining the others.
“Damn,” Enzo muttered, breathing heavily, shaky with adrenaline. He laughed nervously, then moved over to the door they'd opened, the only other one in the room besides the lift he'd exited, and poked his head cautiously out.
A hallway extended away from him to the left. There was just a single door at the end of it, and it was closed. Nothing was in the corridor. He pulled his head back in and turned to the bodies. One of them shifted.
“Dammit!” he snapped, remembering what he'd forgotten.
Enzo hurried forward, dropped to his knees and stabbed the chest of the security guard he'd killed. Thankfully the man hadn't been wearing a vest when he was taken over, so it was considerably easier to stab him. Something squealed inside the body and Enzo immediately turned to the final corpse. Already, the Slug within was freeing itself, poking its hideous head from out of the body's mouth. Enzo wrapped his false hand around it and squeezed.
There was a second, muffled squeal of pain that was sharply cut off. The Slug's head was crushed to crimson pulp in his hand, oozing out between his fingers. He made a face and spent a moment wiping his fake hand off on the medic's jumpsuit, staining what was left of the clean white space. The smell of the corpses reignited his memory of how that Slug had gotten halfway down his throat and he gagged, feeling his bile rise.
Enzo spat a few times, bringing himself back under control. With that done, he searched the bodies. The two that had come in from the corridor didn't have anything on them, but the security had one more thing: a single magazine of ammo He reloaded the pistol and then stood, lamenting his lack of ammo. But at least he had a pistol and some real light now.
Before heading deeper into the unknown, he decided to try and get some more information out of his mystery contact.
“Hey, you still out there? Or are you dead?” he asked.
There was a pause, then, finally, “yes, I'm still here. I'm sorry about that. I'm in kind of a delicate situation at the moment. On top of that, our communications gear is in...not the best shape. But listen, now that I've got you back, I need you to-” Enzo cut her off.
“No. I did your favor, you owe me an explanation. You gave your word. Now tell me where the fuck I am and what's going on.”
The woman sighed. “All right, fine. You're on a planet called Syberia. It's a little, snowy mining planet in the middle of nowhere. This whole place is owned by a shadowy branch of the government called Dark Operations, formerly known as the Office of Intelligence. Originally, this was a mining complex, but they found a ship buried in a cavern beneath the surface. It's two levels above you. As far as I've been able to tell, they found these...things onboard the ship.”
Enzo processed this for a moment. “How did I end up here?” he asked finally.
“I'm not a hundred percent, but listen...I'm running on bare minimum power here. I can see that you started up the auxiliary generator, and that's great, it's helping take a lot of the load off of the primary generator. However, all that means for now is that we won't lose power completely, and we'll be able to keep breathing. My lack of power means I don't have access to the files I need. Which is why I need your help,” she explained.
Enzo frowned, closing his eyes for his moment, feeling the steady pulse of his shoulder. He sighed heavily, opened his eyes back up.
“Fine, what do you need done?” he asked begrudgingly.
“A pair of power relays, both in the same section, were damaged during the fighting. I need you to either repair them, or find a way to reroute power through dormant relays, whichever is easier. Where are you at right now?” she asked.
“I'm in the elevator lobby of Level Eight, fresh off the lift, pretty much.”
“Okay, good. Level Eight isn't very big, at least in terms of walking around. It just holds the primary power plant. Head down the hall beyond the lobby to the primary room, then, along the left hand wall, take the third door. That will lead you to the relays and you can assess the damage for yourself...how are you at technical stuff?”
“I'm pretty good,” Enzo replied. It wasn't quite the truth, but it wasn't quite a lie. It was more that he'd picked up a lot of random knowledge. He could handle an eclectic smattering of situations, and some he outright couldn't.
Of course, he wasn't going to tell her that.
“Good. Get there, make the repairs. If you can't, reroute them. There's a terminal in the room. The process should be easy.”
Enzo set out, leaving the lobby and coming to the corridor. While he still had her, Enzo intended to get some more info out of her.
“So, what's your name? Who are you?” he asked, coming to the door and opening it. Peering through the opening he made, he spied a large, decently-lit room that was the main bay for the primary generator.
While it was obvious that a fair amount of fighting had gone on, there didn't seem to be anything actually alive within the confines of the bay.
“My name is Eve, but how about you go first?” she replied.
Enzo smirked, and then complied. If there was one thing he was addicted to beyond his need to do whatever it took to dull the pain in his shoulder, it was women. There was nothing better than the raw, chemical pleasure of a morphine shot straight to his shoulder, but the unfiltered ecstasy of sex with a hot woman was a very close second. Even in the midst of all this, if there was the slimmest chance that he could meet up with this Eve and maybe relieve some stress with her in a closet somewhere, he'd take it. Who knew?
He'd gotten laid under crazier circumstances.
“My name is Enzo. I'm a mercenary, have been for a long time now. I'm good with guns, all of them. Same for vehicles. I can drive and pilot pretty much anything that moves. I've fought in conflicts on over two dozen worlds, killed a lot of guys and I don't have a home. No family left, no real friends left, either.”
It wasn't quite a script, but it was more or less what he tended to tell most of the women he came across. He augmented it, depending on who was talking to. He put more emphasis on his combat prowess and killing techniques if he was talking to a fellow mercenary or a Marine babe, since they were into that. He focused more on 'seeing the galaxy', all the interesting places he'd been and the traveling he'd done if he was talking to a civvie.
“I see,” Eve replied. He couldn't read her reaction, although he thought she was less than thrilled about his response.
So maybe she was a tougher nut to crack. It didn't matter, he was pretty sure she'd be more impressed when she actually saw him.
“Oh hell,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I need to go again.”
And then she was gone. Enzo sighed. He found the door he was supposed to go through and hit the access button. It opened to reveal a small room that had obviously been heavily damaged in the fighting, as Eve had pointed out. Blood ran down the walls in rivulets, pooled on the floor and even dripped from the ceiling.
The walls themselves were less walls and more instrumentation panels. Several of them were dark and dead, others spat blue-white sparks occasionally. The actual power conduits, square silver boxes mounted on the walls that resembled fuse-boxes of old, still seemed relatively intact, compared to everything else. He walked up to the first one and pulled open the door panel. Staring within, he studied the damage.
Luckily, power relays were things he understood. And the damage to this one was obvious: a stray gunshot had punched right into it. Enzo frowned, taking it all into account. All he had to do was reconnect some wiring, replace a few spare parts...shouldn't be too difficult to get the thing running at least up to minimum capacity. The second one was also fairly simple, he discovered upon examination. One of the large wires that actually connected it to the power equipment had been severed by what might have been a Mutant claw.
He just needed to reconnect it.
Enzo grinned. This part would be easy, at least. And not too stressful. Now all he had to do was find the local maint
enance bay. He stepped back out into the main room, looking around. After a moment he realized that the doors were actually labeled. He began making a slow circuit of the room, checking each door. Most of them were relay centers or other miscellaneous equipment that helped run a massive generator. For a moment, he wondered about why the area was so empty. There was something almost suspicious about it.
He nearly passed that thought out of mind, but...one of them had opened that door. How smart were these things? The ones he'd encountered on Level Nine were slow-moving stupid things, easy to kill, for the most part.
Was he walking into some kind of trap?
Enzo finally located the maintenance bay that would have the supplies, tools and spare parts he'd need to make the appropriate repairs. He opened the door, stepped in...and stopped. The room was a long, low rectangle, the walls adorned with shelves and crates. The first thing that his eyes fell on was a dark mass that hung from the ceiling in the far right corner of the room. He had just enough time to process how downright creepy this was when suddenly there was a blur of motion and something slammed into him.
Grunting, he flew back out of the room into the main reactor bay, the breath knocked from his lungs. Enzo cried out as he landed on his back and slid a few feet. Dizzy and in pain, trying to get his breath back, he propped himself up on his elbows and looked at the door he'd just been thrown through. A Mutant stood in it, a big one, as its bulk filled the frame of the doorway, blocking sight of the room behind it.
Only...no, this wasn't just a big Mutant, it was different. As he it let out a low warning growl, like a dog letting you know it was very close to biting the shit out of you, Enzo studied its features. It was large, though it arms and legs seemed to be a little on the skinny side. Its torso, however, was the opposite, bulky and powerful. Its head was a lump and there seemed to be no neck. The beast let out a deep roar and came for him.
Enzo knew he had to act fast. His pistol, it was still in the holster. Good thing, or might have been thrown free of his grasp. He gripped it with both hands, aiming down the length of his body directly for the broad chest of the thing, and opened fire. The beast kept running for him, roaring, geysers of blood bursting from his ashen flesh. Enzo kept firing, kept squeezing the trigger over and over again until finally the thing collapsed.
It rolled a few times, landing at his feet.
He let out a deep breath he'd been holding and stood up. Checking the pistol, he confirmed his suspicions: he'd depleted his minimal reserve of bullets.
Enzo kicked the body, rolling it onto its back. This thing was definitely a different breed. Something else. Something new. But what? He remembered seeing that dark mass in the room and an idea began to form. Enzo moved past the body and stepped back into the maintenance bay. Cautiously, he approached the mass. As he drew closer, the stench of the Slugs hit him and he twisted up his nose. The mass appeared to be made out of flesh and muscle and meat. A dark, twisted confusion of cartilage and skin.
It made him sick.
He continued staring at it in fascinated revulsion, trying to determine just what the hell it was, when he was finally given his answer. The mass began to twitch in one particular section. Taking a step back, he brought the pistol up. A useless gesture, given the emptied state of the weapon. The mass continued twitching until something came out of it. A Slug. It slithered from the aperture it'd made and dropped onto the ground.
In a moment of disgusted revelation, he realized what it was.
A nest.
This was how these things bred. Enzo felt his stomach twitch as he did what needed doing. Before it could go anywhere, he stomped on the Slug. For a moment, he considered how to handle this. He couldn't very well leave this horrible thing alive to just keep breeding the Slugs...but how to destroy it? His eyes scanned the room he was in. Surely there was something in here he could use. Enzo began hunting through the various crates and shelves.
After a little bit, he finally had his solution.
A power cell and jumper cables. They were meant to be used as sort of a last resort kind of situation, when all else failed, to jump-start failing equipment. Almost no one used them, but they were standard equipment even among the more prestigious bases. Grinning darkly, he stubbed one end of the jumper cables into the nest, disgusted by the squelching noises it made, and hooked the other end up to the power cell.
Before turning it on, he hunted down and found all the supplies and tools he'd need, because he didn't want to be in here anymore. Enzo waited a moment, relishing the experiencing, and then flipped on the power cell. There was a jolt of raw energy as it hit the nest. Sparks and arcs jumped and dance along its glistening surface. Enzo fell back, already coughing from the reek of burning flesh. He watched it burst into flame before leaving.
As he stepped back out into the main bay, closing the door behind him, his eyes fell on the thing that had tried to kill him. It all fell into place. If that was a nest, then that would make this thing some kind of protector, some kind of...Guardian. His brain assigned the name to the creature, as he was sure to encounter more of these horrors. There was a clear ecosystem at work here, with different niches, different levels and roles.
Enzo pushed all this aside for the moment.
He wanted to see that space ship.
Retreating back to the relay room, he made the appropriate repairs and tried to get into touch with Eve, but she was still offline. He frowned, double-checked his work and then tried once more. Still nothing. Shrugging, Enzo located the next elevator and headed up.
Chapter 05
–Aftermath–
Level Seven now.
Enzo felt like he was making progress. He began pacing as he rode the elevator up, knife in hand since the pistol was depleted. There was an anger building up inside of him. Enzo had a long, long career of being a mercenary. For quite a long while now, his life had been lengthy bouts nomadic exploration, drifting across the galaxy from system to system as jobs or his own personal needs and wants had dictated, punctuated with long periods of inactivity whenever he found a place he particularly liked.
He'd never been held prisoner.
Sure, he tangled with the local law enforcement or rival mercenary groups from time to time, but by the time the men with badges and sunglasses showed up looking for him, he was already long gone, catching a flight out of the local starport to wherever. In fact, it was what he'd been doing before this. Before the prison transport, he'd been on Williamson Station. It was closer to the inner ring of galactic society, a place where they ran a tight ship and all your digital papers had to be in order if you wanted to get in and do anything.
Not exactly his kind of place, but he'd been tired of hanging out in the seedy, nasty underworld of the criminal ecology that grew at the edge of civilized space in what some men called the Far Reach. He wanted something nice, a place where there was real sun and the wine was good and the women you could buy were just the right level of trashy. Williamson Station was where he'd planned to stop and crash for a few days before to the planet below its orbit, Mezzanine, and burning through all the credits he'd accumulated.
Unfortunately, it had all gone to shit. Enzo had run afoul with the local law enforcement. Some jackass had wanted to pretend he was tough in the bar during Enzo's third night there and tried to pick a fight with him. Obviously, he'd gotten the shit kicked out of him. How was it Enzo's fault that he was skilled at hand-to-hand combat? In retrospect, Enzo suspected that he probably could have delivered less of a beating, but it was a bad night. His shoulder was really burning and he was pretty drunk. On top of that, the guy was really asking for it.
So they wanted to throw him in a cell overnight. Obviously that was unacceptable. Enzo tried to explain this, but the cops just wouldn't hear it. So he had to beat them up, too. If there was any sense of justice in the universe, he'd have been able to claim self-defense against the officers that had come for him. They'd been hassling him his whole time on the station, just because he
didn't come from what they liked to call 'decent folk'.
So they deserved it, too.
The whole thing had amounted to him having to stow away aboard a cargo freighter bound for the Far Reach, then having to hitchhiker aboard a prison transport. And now, here he was, deep beneath the surface of a frozen world, all his credits, his gear...gone. Enzo was glad he had no personal effects, nothing he kept near and dear to his heart, or he'd probably be losing his shit right now. He was fine traveling light.
Just him and his arm and his pain.
The lift rose to its nest. Enzo wondered what was waiting for him as he slid into place like before, hiding to the right of the door. The higher up he went, the worse this seemed to get. What had Eve said? The ship was two levels above him? If he had to guess, Enzo would say that this level was either a research lab for the vessel and the creatures they'd apparently pulled from it or just more of the same he'd seen below.
The lack of security seemed to indicate more of the same. Initially, he'd had the thought to just ride the elevator higher. Unfortunately, likely for security reasons, these lifts were only built for level-to-level transport. They only went up to the next section of the base. The doors opened. Enzo peered out. Nothing waited for him but blood and death. He frowned, stepping out cautiously. The amount of blood was definitely of a higher volume than below. The lobby looked like it had been subjected to a brutal firefight. Bullet holes stitched into the walls in erratic patterns, an immense pool of old blood in the middle of the room, but...
“No bodies,” Enzo murmured.
Where were the bodies?
His mind flashed back to the Nest and his stomach turned slightly. He headed out of the lobby, coming to a corridor that extended straight away from him for a little bit. His stolen boots squelched in the silence as he moved down the hallway. The door at the end revealed a low, dark room of catwalks and machinery. The only way across the was the catwalks made of dark metal. They were bridges across a sea of all manner of machinery and equipment set into the ground below. Enzo studied some of it as he passed over.
