Harbinger

by Stephen Christiansen

  The both of them struggled over the weapon as they wrestled back and forth with it between them. Several shots got off and blasted pieces of equipment around the room.

  Richard rounded one corner and then the next. At the intersection his eyes darted from left to right. They had to be around here somewhere. It was when he heard the sonic blasts echoing from his right did he come to the realization of where they were.

  Quickly he took off again. He couldn’t believe how stupid the both of them were behaving. They were in the middle of being boarded by an alien species that was going to kill them all and these two were going to tear each other apart over a minor incident. He had seen how men from battle fronts had become irrational with PTSD, but that was after a major trauma. Here, there had been nothing to cause this with the exception of stress of what could happen. It simply didn’t make sense.

  As Richard came into the cryo chamber room, two more blasts came his way and ricocheted off of the wall. The sound reverberated throughout the room and made his ears hurt. But that wasn’t the only sound that had caused his attention. He had heard the door behind him close as one of the blasts had triggered the computer override system for the portal.

  ‘No wonder why these were outlawed against people,’ Richard thought as he tried to shake off the near miss.

  A brief look around told him that he had to do something and fast. A couple of the chambers were no longer functioning. Electrical equipment was shooting out sparks. Glass was lying all over the floor and he knew, from that brief experience from the sonic blast, that a direct hit at point blank range could be lethal. He needed to do something and he needed to do it now.

  Richard ran across the room and pulled the two women off of each other while grabbing rifle. A quick and powerful shove had pushed Cleo to one side and Tracy to another and when it was over, he was the one that had the sonic blaster.

  Quickly Richard pointed the weapon straight into the air and squeezed the trigger. The air rippled with the shockwave that followed. The sonic blast let off such a noise that it had startled the two women and for one moment Richard had their undivided attention.

  “Now listen up, the both of you!”

  Richard screamed beyond his reasoning and desire to otherwise calm this situation down without any further form of violence or aggression. Yet here he was, shouting his voice at the top of his lungs pointing the sonic blaster at first Cleo then Tracy and then back again.

  “You both are going to settle down and get back into the our bridge or I’ll shoot the both of you and drag your sorry…”

  The explosion and sudden shift in the ship caught their attention and brought silence to the three of them. Whatever had happened, it had sent its evidence rippling through the ship and it could be felt through the floor. They had all come to the exact same conclusion that whatever had happened, it wasn’t good.

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  Vincent took another look at the scene before him. It wasn’t going good. There were dead squids everywhere, ichor covering almost every inch of the walls and floor, and yet these things still came at them. It was time to fall back into another defensive position, but there was so many of them that it didn’t matter what they did, they would still run out of ammunition. He had to think of something, anything that would give them a fighting chance.

  That was when he saw it. The conduit pipes that ran through this section were up and to the right of the hall. They had been out of the way and painted the same color of the walls so they were easily missed and they had been easily forgotten about. It was in his desperate need to find something of use did he remember that they were here.

  Although the main ship’s power supply ran on the singularity engine, there were still parts of the ship that needed fuel like the secondary engines and the maneuvering thrusters. He didn’t understand why everything just couldn’t run on the same fuel source, but then again, he wasn’t the engineer nor was he asked when the ship was designed.

  “Close the portal on my mark. Ready...now!”

  Vincent’s command came at the same time that he changed his attention from shooting at one of the flying squids to aiming his shot at one of the conduits. He fired off two rounds and rolled backwards in hopes that not only had his memory served him correctly that these pipes did in fact carry rocket fuel, but that Eric could get the door closed in time.

  Eric had heard the request given and was glad that Vincent had made the call to close the portal and fall back or he would have to make the call himself. As soon as Vincent took his shot, he spun and slammed the portal door closed. He was sure that he would be able to spin the door’s wheel and seal it shut. He was wrong.

  The explosion rocked the ship. Its effects were felt rippling through the walls and the floor.

  The door that Eric had attempted to close blew open and knocked him backwards, slamming him up against the wall. Fire of intense heat came barging through their portal with flaming fingers of death trying to reach out and claim any that it could consume.

  On top of the mighty, blaring blast of the explosion, there were the sudden squealing sounds from the flying space squids. Squeals of pain resonated through the adjoining hall followed by sounds of popping as each squid detonated from the overwhelming inferno. Their bodies hissed as the intense flame boiled their ichor

  Eric pressed himself between the ship’s hull and the portal door that just been slammed opened, using it as a shield. The suction caused by the flames eating the up the oxygen gave a tug on the metal door. He felt the door start to warm up, and yet he knew that if he let go, even for a moment, the door would no longer act as a barrier between him and the deadly flames, between his life and death. And when the flames came around the door and threatened to consume him, he continued to hang on for dear life. Even when he felt the door start to become almost intolerable, he wouldn’t let go even if it meant burning or scalding his hands.

  Vincent continued his roll until he was able to spring out of it and started his run. Out here, in the middle of the hallway he was unprotected. The fiery blast would continue down the passage of least resistance searching for more oxygen until it burned out. Until then, he had to outrun the inferno death explosion.

  He didn’t get as far as he had hoped. The detonation slammed against his back and tossed him further down the hall. His body flew through the air and smashed hard upon the ground. His back burned from the heat. He could feel the oxygen start to superheat his lungs and it hurt to breath. He knew that in that one brief moment that he could die. His only hope was that his last, dying deed had helped save everyone else. That one brief moment came and went in a heartbeat.

  Chapter: 25

  “What the hell was that?” Tracy exclaimed as she caught her balance from being tossed about.

  “You don’t think it has something to do with…” Cleo started to mention but simply didn’t have the heart to finish.

  “Vincent and Eric…” Richard answered. “Yes...but...you two…”

  Both Tracy and Cleo looked at each other with a sense of embarrassment.

  “I’m...I’m not sure what came over me…” Tracy stuttered. “It was as if…”

  “...as if someone had tossed aside all of my reasoning and left me with raw emotion.” Cleo said finishing her sentence.

  Richard looked at the two of them and then at the sonic blaster in his hand. He had to admit that he knew exactly what they were going through as he had felt the same thing. He was almost certain what had caused it, but his suspicions would have to wait. They had to find Eric and Vincent and find out if they were alright. Yet one thing seemed to bother him enough to keep him here.

  One look at the weapon in his hand told him what the odd feeling was. He was a doctor, not a soldier. Yes, he did have some weapons training, but even then it felt alien in his hands. Now, with this weapon in his hand, he felt the same alien feeling as he did during that training.

 
“Either one of you comfortable with this, and...can I trust either of you with it?” Richard asked as he held up the blaster.

  “I’ll take it,” Cleo stated. “And yes, you can trust me with it. I...l don’t know what had come over me, but I’m much better now, more in control.”

  “Good, then we should…”

  The hiss of melting metal stopped them dead in their tracks.

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  Vincent pulled himself up from the metal floor with a groan. He was sure that the blast was going to kill him. He was glad that he was wrong, although he had to admit that felt like death warmed over. His muscles ached from being blown to the ground, his lungs still felt a bit too warm for his comfort, and his body felt as if he had been roasted alive. All in all he would be fine, he had felt worse, but he had definitely felt better. It wouldn’t be anything that a good cup of coffee, some aspirin, a shot of whiskey and some rest wouldn’t cure. Yet he knew that none of these would come any time soon.

  A quick look back told him that Eric had fared about as well as he had. The young wannabe had been smart enough to take shelter behind the door. It was just too bad he didn’t close it and lock it in time, it would have saved the both of them a lot of agony.

  Eric did his best to pull himself together. He felt like he had been hit by some runaway hover car and had been left in agony on the side of the road. He had only felt like this once before and that was right after the Los Angeles riots.

  “You could have warned me that you intended on blowing up half of the ship,” Eric groaned as he pulled himself off of the floor and from behind the door.

  “It wasn’t ‘half of the ship’, and I didn’t have time to tell you. I was hoping that you would have been able to close the door in time.”

  Eric shook his head. His adrenaline was still pumping and he wanted to argue, but now wasn’t the time. At least they were alive. The real question was, did it work? He looked around the door to check to see what kind of damage and carnage had been done.

  There was black and green goo everywhere. Black ebony body parts had littered the floor. And then there were the tentacles, lots and lots of tentacle were scattered about. A few of the flying Dumbo squid were still alive, twitching on the ground as if trying to cling to some semblance of life. Yet it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before they too perished.

  Eric wanted to get sick. The sight before him was nothing but carnage. It was like some of those “B” rated movies that his bunk mates had watched. Those scenes were almost laughable. This sight before him wasn’t.

  But it was more than just the carnage, singed and fried body parts, and the black and green alien ichor goo that had splattered everywhere that had turned Eric’s stomach. There was the stench as well. It was as if the most horrible, disgusting smelling creature alive had died and had started to rot until its awful smell of decomposition mixed with its regular odor. The stench assaulted his nostrils at a level that he couldn’t describe. The only positive thing about this situation was the fact that the alien squids were all dead.

  “At least it’s over. I think we’ve stopped the…”

  Vincent shook his head. “I doubt it. These look like they were meant to soften us up, overwhelm us. They were meant to be fodder. And look, these creatures aren’t sophisticated enough to pilot a ship. No, I’m sure this was probably just the first wave.”

  Eric looked at him skeptically. He hoped that he wasn’t right, yet deep down he knew that Vincent had a point. “Are you sure? I mean there seemed to be so many…”

  The sound from the airlock caught their attention. It was the sound of something's popping. It was as if dozens of suction cups were being applied to the walls, floor and ceiling and being pulled away. Both of them watched in horror as Vincent’s suspicions had come true.

  From the combined airlocks, flooding from the alien ship, came the creatures that Vincent was sure that he would see, but hoped that he wouldn’t. The creatures were pink in color but as they came upon them, they started to turn a bright red. Their bodies resembled an octopus in many regards. The bodies were nearly two feet across, not counting their eight tentacles that would easily double their size.

  The creatures were crawling along the floor, the walls, and the ceiling. Their suction cupped tentacles kept them clung to the surfaces and helped them scurrying along. There seemed to be no surface that they couldn’t climb on.

  To add to their numbers came another species that Vincent had never seen before. There weren’t as many of these creatures as the others, but this only concerned Vincent more. These creatures were grey in color. Their heads seemed to be pointed in the back and they had two longer tentacles. In all regards they looked more like squids while the first group looked more like octopi.

  The first thought that went through Vincent’s mind was that the squids were more like sergeants, each having a squad that it was in command of. This would be how he would have sectioned off an army and it would stand to reason that any intelligent creature would do the same. The thing was, he hadn’t given any credence to the thought that these creatures were that intelligent. Now, it looked like he had overestimated not only their numbers and their military tactics but their intelligence as well.

  As if on cue and without any further hesitations, the two of them turned and started their barrage of plasma fire yet again. They shot at anything and everything that moved. Bolts of plasma shot across the hall and found their marks. Squid and octopi blew apart and splattered their inner ichor over the rest of the invading force and added their dead bodies to the smaller versions that had come before.

  Eric tried his best to take care of anything that came on the left flank so Vincent could take care of the right. Yet there were still too many of them and since they were coming from the side, up and down, it was hard to keep track of which one was closer. Each time he shot one, another would advance beyond the initial point.

  Vincent took a few more shots. His eyes darted left and right in an attempt to keep up with everything. It was no use. Like the flying squids, there were just too many of them. He had to think of something, but this time he didn’t have any more ideas. There was only one thing left to do.

  “Fall back. Get the door closed and fall back.”

  Eric couldn’t agree more. He took a couple more shots to make sure that he had enough time and then went into action. He spun in place, grabbed the door and slammed it shut. A quick spin of the portal’s wheel sealed the door in place.

  “That should keep them for a while. Perhaps we can find a way to flush them into space or…”

  Vincent shook his head. “There aren’t any connecting halls that go to another airlock that we can operate. Even then, these creatures have incredible strength. They would be able to hold on against almost any vacuum. Besides, we won’t be able to get to our bridge in time to try anything like that. We’re about to have another problem.”

  “Why? What’s that?”

  As if to answer Eric’s question, there was a hissing sound as if metal was being melted. Eric gave a quick look to his left as suspicion played out in his head, a horrific suspension that he hoped that he was wrong about. He wasn’t wrong.

  A small hole started to open from a corrosive that was eating away at the door. At first Eric gave it a curious glance and then understood their predicament. From the small hole that had been created he could see one of the octopi. It had its tentacles all around the hole on the other side of the door. It had pulled itself backward and slightly opened its center beak. Then, it shot itself forward and spat out a globe of green goo.

  “Eric! Don’t! Get back!”

  The warning was too late, but he had already been in the processes of reacting. Just as he moved out of the way, the green goo shot through the hole that had already been created. Its corrosive properties widened the hole around the outsides while the center portion allowed some of the acid to come throu
gh to his side.

  Eric had jumped out of the way nearly being hit by the acid spittle of the creature. From what he could hear, there were several more sounds of hissing across the door. Small holes were starting to open across the portal destroying its integrity.

  “You didn’t tell me that they could spit acid.”

  “We weren’t supposed to get close enough for it to be relevant.”

  “Next time, tell me everything I need to know before sending me into combat.”

  “There won’t be a next time. I’m sure you’ve already thought about that.”