by M. R. Forbes
“For whatever it’s worth, I’m sorry it came to that,” Hayden said.
He swung around the side of the Captain’s station, trying to make it forward a row without being seen.
He must have failed, because a pair of rounds slammed into the side of the station, nearly killing him as he dove away, landing on the opposite side. He had seen Pig shoot. He knew the man could have hit him if he had wanted to.
Why hadn’t he?
He heard the Scrapper’s boots closing fast. He pushed himself up, turning as he stood.
Pig was at the station, less than a meter away. He already had Baby in his meaty hand, and he forced Hayden to pull back his arms as the blade whistled toward them before he could shoot.
“Sorry?” the man roared. “You’re grepping sorry?”
Hayden stumbled away, hitting his back on the workstation behind him, the maneuver pressing on whatever had impaled him. He grunted in pain, rolling around the object in an effort to escape.
“She was my best girl,” Pig said. “She always listened. She always did what I said.”
He came around the side of the station, face red, Baby clutched in his hand. Hayden had never been so close to him. He couldn’t believe how large the man was, in size and muscle.
“I was gonna marry her one day, make her an honest girl,” Pig said. “That ain’t gonna happen now.”
Hayden continued to back away. He lifted his hand to shoot again, but the furious Scrapper’s reach was incredible, and he slapped the gun away.
He was going to die. He was sure of it. Painfully. There was no escaping this monster.
He backed into the wall, trapped as Pig closed on him, dropping the revolver and reaching out, putting his massive hand around Hayden’s neck and holding him. He lowered his head to Hayden’s face, eyes bloodshot, face sweaty and flushed.
“You ain’t dying quick, Sheriff,” he growled. “That’s too good for you. I’m gonna cut you, and I’m gonna let you watch me and my boys eat you, one piece at a time.”
Hayden’s heart pounded, his breath cut off. He could feel the tears welling in his eyes. From the pain in his body. From the pain of his failure.
“Natalia,” he said.
Pig looked at him and laughed. “You’ve got a fixed mind, Sheriff. Your bitch is gone. Long gone. You never had a chance of finding her.”
Gone? What did that mean? Was she dead after all? Had she been dead this entire time?
The big man braced his neck with his elbow, using his forearm to push him harder into the wall and his palm to push back his left arm. He held Baby in his other hand, preparing it to strike.
“This is gonna hurt,” Pig warned.
Then he brought the blade forward, severing Hayden’s hand in one smooth stroke. Hayden cried out in agony, screaming and crying at the same time.
“That’s just the start,” Pig promised. “You shoulda stayed Inside.”
Hayden looked at Pig. If Natalia was dead, he was ready to die.
“Oh, I see that look in your eye, Sheriff,” Pig said in response. “Sorry if I confused you. She ain’t dead. I told you, Engineers are worth a grepping fortune out here. She’s on her way.” He paused for a moment, laughing. “I forgot, you don’t know.”
“Don’t know what?” Hayden managed to ask.
Pig didn’t get a chance to answer. His body convulsed, his grip evaporating as he was thrown violently to the side.
A xenotrife crouched where he had been. This one was bigger than the others, thicker and stronger.
Hayden slumped against the wall, looking at the creature through tear-filled eyes. It had snuck up on them both. At least it would kill him quickly, and spare him from the agonizing death Pig had promised.
Except it didn’t kill him. It didn’t attack him at all. It hissed at him. Not a threatening sound, but a vocalization like he had heard earlier between the xenotrife near the lift. Communication of some kind.
Between allies.
It pounced on Pig, claws out, swinging them at the large man. The Scrapper was bleeding, but he wasn’t dead. He reached out a long hand, grabbing at the trife and throwing it over his shoulders. It rolled on the floor, getting back to its feet.
Hayden scanned the room desperately, finding one of his guns a few meters away. He threw himself at it, at the same time the trife charged Pig again.
A heavy roar followed, and the trife screeched as a round from the Scrapper’s revolver hit it square in the chest, exploding through it with enough force to carry the creature backward.
Hayden landed on the floor, reaching out with his remaining hand and grabbing the pistol. It was the strange weapon that took the battery to charge. How the hell was he supposed to turn it on with one hand?
“What, did you screw that bug or something?” Pig said, getting back to his feet and turning with the revolver in hand.
Hayden brought the gun to his mouth, using his teeth to switch it on. He lay on his stomach, holding it close to his chest. He could sense the Scrapper behind him, approaching slowly.
“You alive, Sheriff?” Pig asked, kicking him in the side.
It hurt like hell, but Hayden didn’t make a sound.
“I ain’t an idiot,” Pig said. “Your back is still bleeding, which means your heart is still pumping.” He grabbed Hayden’s shoulder, pulling him over. “I’ll give you that, Sheriff. You’re a tough man to-”
Hayden pulled the trigger, not knowing what to expect. A bolt of energy launched from the weapon, into the bottom of Pig’s head. It passed through without slowing, burning a perfectly round hole the diameter of the barrel through his chin, tongue, palate, skull, and brain.
49
The Scrapper’s suddenly lifeless corpse collapsed onto him, the weight driving the metal in his back deeper into the tissue. He cried out in pain, at the same time he pushed back, struggling but managing to roll the dead man off him.
He stayed on the floor for a few seconds, trying to catch his breath. He clutched the laser pistol to his chest, working to calm his mind. He wasn’t dead yet. Neither was Natalia.
It wasn’t over.
He rolled over onto his knees, and then to his feet. He looked down at the dead Scrapper, as though the big man was going to come back to life. Then he looked down at the stump at the end of his left arm, feeling nauseous as he did. The wound was still bleeding. He would die if he didn’t stop it.
He looked back at the gun in his hand. He had heard of cauterization. Would this work? What were his other options?
He stayed on his knees, lowering himself to put his stump slightly above the floor. He positioned the pistol over it. Then he depressed the trigger.
He didn’t see anything, but his left wrist began to burn, quickly turning black. He kept the trigger down, sweeping the beam across the area, clenching his teeth against the pain. The burning hurt like nothing he had felt before, but it also sealed the wound and stopped the bleeding.
He leaned over and heaved once he was done, vomiting onto the floor.
He remained in place while a few more minutes passed. Then Hayden remembered the display and looked back up at it, quickly tracing all of the green blobs. His was the only one near the bridge. He found the grouping near Deck Three. Pig had said Natalia was gone, but there was nowhere else she could be.
The Scrapper had been mocking him, teasing him to hurt him more. She was there. She had to be.
He looked down at the laser pistol. The counter had dropped to ninety-six because of his use. That was more shots than any other weapon he could carry in one hand.
He checked the display one last time, finding a route that would keep him away from any of the other green blobs. He could only hope there were no more trife nearby, or that if there were they were from the nest on Deck Thirty and might think he was a friend. He was still shocked by the xenotrife’s actions, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it now.
He stopped at the Captain’s station, finding Malcolm’s chip. He didn’t know
what else to do with it, so he stuck it in his mouth, tucking it in the back of the right side, behind his teeth. Then he made his way off the bridge, following the route he had traced with his eyes. He walked past the bridge, along the starboard side to an access stairwell there. He used his shoulder to push it open cautiously, leading with the pistol as he entered but finding it clear. He ascended one deck to Three, exiting out into the corridors there. Then he started to run, hurrying along the long connecting passage that would lead him toward the central part of the ship.
He slowed as he neared. It wouldn’t help to rush headlong into the Scrappers there. He approached more slowly, the corridor curving slightly as it reached a small bulge in the ship’s waist. He heard soft voices up ahead, along with other noises he didn’t recognize. Snorts and exhales and the jangling of chains. What was that?
He reached the edge of the curve, pressing against the wall and leaning out slightly to see further around it. A pair of Scrappers were standing in front of an open hatch. The others had to be in the room behind them.
Was Natalia with them?
He was going to find out.
He shifted on the wall, putting his back to it and aiming sideways with his remaining hand, holding the laser pistol out and targeting down the barrel. Then he took three steps out to the center of the corridor, the curvature allowing him to get an angle on the two Scrappers. They were still talking to one another in low voices, and they didn’t notice Hayden’s sudden presence. Each of them toppled over a moment later, hit by an instantaneous, invisible blast of focused light that had no trouble cutting through their flesh and bone.
Hayden ran toward them, slowing in sudden confusion before he made it all the way. Not because the men weren’t dead. They were. But a smell had risen from the hatch behind them, another that he didn’t recognize. The strange noises were more clear now, too. Noises he didn’t understand.
He reached the two bodies, coming around the corner with his laser pistol out and ready to fire.
He froze, his eyes giving sight to his earlier panic while his mind tried to make sense of the scene.
The hatch spilled out into a rectangular space. Inside the space were a dozen creatures Hayden had never seen in person before, but that he knew the name and nature of through his usage of the PASS. They nickered and whined as he moved in front of them, stepping back cautiously in the face of the bloody and beaten stranger.
Hayden’s eyes traveled past them, to the second hatch beyond. It was open, and he could see a long corridor stretching out toward a distant metal box at the far end.
Pig’s words came back to him like a punch to the gut from one of the powerful man’s meaty fists, his heart both pounding and stopping at the same time, the full truth of his situation quickly making itself clear.
“I forgot,” Pig had said. “You don’t know.”
Just like that, Hayden did know, and it took all of his willpower to keep from falling to his knees and sobbing.
One of the horses sidled up to him, its head brushing along Hayden’s suddenly frozen face. His eyes were still locked on the control center that sat two hundred meters opposite the midship airlock on Deck Three of the Pilgrim’s starboard hull.
For three hundred ninety-six years, the people of Metro had been locked inside the belly of a starship they thought was on its way to a new home in the stars, living with the belief that one day they would reach their destination, and that their future generations would flourish and thrive on an unspoiled world.
Only they would never reach that unspoiled world. Not in three hundred years. Not in four hundred years. Not even if they were granted an eternity.
How could they make it to their new home when they had never left the old one?
50
Hayden heard the shouts despite his shock, coming from the corridor beyond the airlock. Someone had noticed the two dead Scrappers. He broke free of the ice cold grip of reality that had frozen him, retreating to the second hatch and looking back into the Pilgrim. There were six Scrappers running toward him, reaching for the revolvers at their belts as they did.
His first instinct was to stand and fight, to move out into the passage and open fire, hoping for the best as he was killed in a blaze of glory.
But while the truth of the Pilgrim’s situation was still sinking in, Pig had made the truth of his wife’s whereabouts abundantly clear.
Too valuable to kill, she was on her way and long gone, spirited from the Pilgrim by the scavengers who had found their way to the place where it rested, who had boarded the starship in search of treasure and had come away with the greatest one of all:
Natalia.
He eyed the horse standing beside him. He had seen the beasts before in the movies the colonists had brought with them. He knew John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Gary Cooper. He knew the animals were for riding, and the saddles on their backs bore that out.
Could he do it? They made it look so easy, and this one seemed to like him.
He tucked his gun into his pants, glanced at the stirrup, and then lifted his foot and put it in, grabbing the saddle horn and pulling himself up. It was awkward and harder than it looked, especially with one hand. He slipped the first couple of times, having to try again. The horse didn’t argue at all, docile and accepting of him on its back. Once steady in the saddle, he pulled his laser pistol again. He didn’t dare drop it to take the reins, though. Instead, he shouted at the horse and kicked its sides with his boots.
It snorted, whined, and started walking, a little too slowly across the long, extended arm that connected the starship to its dock.
“Come on,” Hayden said, digging his heels in a little harder.
The first of the Scrappers had reached the airlock, and he shouted to the others when he saw Hayden on the mount.
“There he is. He killed-”
The shout was cut short, a bolt from Hayden’s pistol burning through the man’s chest and killing him at once. The second Scrapper to turn the corner suffered the same fate, causing the rest of the group to slow and approach more carefully.
“I said, come on,” Hayden shouted, kicking the horse harder.
It snorted again and took off, bolting forward and nearly knocking him from the saddle. He leaned forward, desperately wrapping his left elbow around the horn, staying low against the creature. The Scrappers heard the gallop and rushed forward, entering the airlock and taking quick shots from their revolvers. They all missed the moving target, but the shooting did serve to convince the horse to run faster.
Hayden looked back. The Scrappers were mounting the other horses to give chase. His mount was almost to the other side, and he could see how the small control station was connected by a small corridor leading to a rusted metal lift. He looked at the bridge beneath him, able to see through the grated bottom, one hundred fifty meters down. The Pilgrim was resting against a massive scaffolding apparatus on gigantic treads. There were different machines spread around it, loaders and cranes and dumpers, fuel trucks and water trucks sitting abandoned for all of these years, out of the elements and in great shape. There were people down there, too. More Scrappers who were working on the machines, trying to make them function. They looked up at the sound of gunfire and surely saw him crossing the gap.
Was Natalia down there? Had they taken her to help them fix the vehicles? He didn’t think so. The Scrappers at the bottom seemed to know what they were doing. Why waste an Engineer on that?
He reached the other end of the platform. The horse didn’t slow, and he wasn’t about to argue with it. The creature made a straight line for the open lift, climbing inside and only then coming to a stop. It seemed it had made this trip a few times before.
Hayden stared at the inside of the cage the horse had put them in. There was no control pad in it. Only a single red button in the front corner. He kicked out with his foot, hitting it.
The cage started to close.
The world started to shake.
The horse whinnied, s
tomping its feet as the turb hit, the whole earth quivering. Hayden looked back toward the Pilgrim. The ship was in a massive underground hangar. He could see part of the earth had collapsed above it, sending half of a mountain spilling onto the top and making it one with the ground it was buried below. He could see the shockwaves in that earth, spreading down to the ship and causing it to shake too.
Earthquakes? The turbs were earthquakes?
The cage rattled, bits of dust dislodged around it. There was shouting from below, the Scrappers warning one another about the coming temblors.
Hayden returned his attention to the Scrappers chasing him. They were nearly to the other side of the bridge. If the lift didn’t start to raise, he would be a sitting duck.
It did start to raise, at the same time the forward gate locked into position. The ground shook again, the lift vibrating with it. The Scrappers started shooting, their bullets hitting the cage and ricocheting off.
Hayden and the horse rose away from them. The Scrappers shouted to one another, but they didn’t move. There was no other easy way to reach him.
He wished he could have relaxed. It wasn’t possible. His cauterized wrist hurt. His impaled back hurt. His muscles hurt. He was in a place he never expected he would be, and he wasn’t capable of rationalizing any of it or even trying to come to terms with it. Natalia was gone, and he had no idea to where or how far he would have to track her, or how he would track her in a world he barely understood.
A world overrun by the xenotrife.
But there were still people here. Humankind hadn’t died out completely. Were they all vicious killers like the Scrappers? Was that the only way to survive?
He clenched his teeth against the pain, tightening his grip on the laser pistol.
Whatever it took, he was going to find her.
The lift rose three hundred meters before finally reaching the top. Hayden could see the area ahead through the front cage as they rose to meet it. He was still inside, in a massive building of some kind. A cracked stone floor was spotted with tents and equipment, intermingled with different sized wheeled vehicles, some of which matched the ones he had seen below. They were arranged near another pair of lifts, both of them gigantic compared to the one he was in. They were the ones that had been used to bring equipment down to the Pilgrim.
