“Come on out little fella...come out where I can see you. Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. The others...they want to hurt you. They killed your other kind. They’re murderers. Not me. No, I won’t let anything or anyone hurt you. Come on now...let’s be friends.”
There was something nagging in the back of Cleo’s mind. There was something not right, and she didn’t mean the fact that there was an alien loose. She was acting oddly. These creatures didn’t know how to communicate in the English language, and since she knew this, why in the world was she trying to talk to one? What in the world was she thinking? What in the world was she doing? She shouldn’t be here if one of those things was loose. And yet, here she was and she simply couldn’t help herself.
A noise to Cleo’s left caught her attention. It was still here, in the room. Good. She could still catch it and…
The sound moved to somewhere behind her, then to her right. Each time she spun in place she could hear the thing move in the background. It was testing her. It was stalking her. It was…
Silent.
The room went dead silent.
‘Damn’, she thought to herself. ‘I should have brought one of the sonic blasters.’
She had to admit that the thought had initially crossed her mind, but she didn’t want to alert anyone else as to what she might be doing.
Cleo could hear her heart beat through her chest. She could feel a cold sweat come over her. She could feel the metallic taste in her mouth as adrenaline was starting to kick in.
“Get your alien ass out here right now you son of a bitch! Do you know what I’m going to do to you?! I’m going to dissect you while you’re still alive! I’m going to slice you open! I’m going to remove your insides! I’m going to scramble your brains! I’m going to cut off your slimy tentacles and boil them for dinner! I’m going to…”
The drip of goo upon her head caught her attention. The sanity that she had lost was now coming back. There was a voice in the back of her head screaming at her.
‘Get out of here! Get out of here now!”
However, her feet wouldn’t move. Her body wouldn’t react. She had been paralyzed by fear beyond all forms of comprehension. She was frozen where she stood with the exception of one motion. Cleo looked up.
Despite every rational thought, all she heard herself say was a string of words directed at the alien.
“Get out here! Get out here now!’
All sense and reason that screamed at her was now too late. All thoughts of bolting for her life were now no longer a choice. It was all too late.
The Dagon dropped from the ceiling right upon her face. It tentacles wrapped around her neck. The creature gave a slight scream that mixed with Cleo’s and anyone who had heard it wouldn’t have been able to identify where one began and the other ended. The horrible sound of panic and horror mixed with the screech of the alien echoed off of the walls as the beast opened its beak and started to eat Cleo alive.
The screaming and the screeching only lasted for a short time when both suddenly stopped. The sounds were replaced by a crunching sound of bone being split and broken and a splattering sound of blood gushing from the remains of Cleo’s face.
Chapter: 36
“There, that should do it,” Richard stated as he put in the last bit of coordinates. “I may not be an astro-navigator, but I think that will take us back to Earth. See if you can get the engine online now”
Eric nodded and looked over his set of screens. Richard and he had split the monitors since the other two had left. They were a little bit more complicated than he had thought that they would be, but he was getting the hang of it.
Eric found the controls to the engine room and punched in the commands that he was sure was going to work. Nothing. Nothing happened.
“Try it again.”
Eric went to punch in the commands again when he suddenly saw the command light sequence light up. The singularity containment power light came on. Their only engine came on. The main singularity engine came on. A slight rumble could be felt all over the ship that rippled through the hull and through their bodies.
A smile came over Eric’s face. “I think we’ve got it.”
Richard shook his head. “I’m afraid not. See there? That’s the coolant needed for the engine and the singularity containment field. It will only be a matter of time before we are adrift again.”
“But...aren’t we too far…”
“I’m afraid so,” Richard stated as he shook his head again. “The singularity engine is barely limping along and our only main engine is in the same shape. We should still get out of this system before we make the jump to warp drive. Yes, we’ll hit light speed, but it’ll still take a long time to get back to Earth, if we make it that far. With our engines the way they are and the cryo chambers that are out of commission, our best hope is to find a scout ship or merchant ship and catch a ride back with them.”
“Why don’t you stay here and start broadcasting a distress call?” Richard continued. “Broadcast it on as many channels as the communications array will let us and check every ten minutes or so. I doubt there will any responses this far away from the inner planets, but you never know. I’ll find the others. Perhaps Vincent has cooled down and Cleo would be excited to know that we are heading home. Then I’ll take a shift on communications while you get some rest. You look like you can use some.”
Eric nodded. He had to admit that he had been tired, exhausted actually. It was probably stress and battle fatigue. Now it was all wearing on him and if the doctor was ordering some rest then who was he to say otherwise. He turned to Richard, but he was already gone.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is the Harbinger. We are adrift in unknown territory. Any in the area please respond.”
“Skweeeeek, squaaaawk…”
The radio only picked up the surrounding ambient radio waves of the solar system. There was still a little time before they got out of the system before he was able to kick on the singularity engine and go into warp. Once that happened he would pay more attention to the controls. Until then he would try to send out a distress call a few more times.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday…”
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Richard rounded the first corner and looked back toward their mock-CIC room. Hopefully between the exhaustion that Eric was obviously feeling and the feeling of importance of watching the communications for some possible help that was never going to come, he had kept the field security agent from following him. He needed to take care of a few things before dealing with that one. Besides, with any luck, Eric will be asleep by the time he got back and that would make everything a whole lot easier. Until then, he needed Eric alive just in case one of the other two circled back around.
And of course help would never come. He really had no idea what buttons he had pushed on the navigations control to get them to work. For as far as he knew they might be flying away from Earth in the opposite direction or even heading into the heart of Dagon space, perhaps they were flying back into the heart of this solar system. Neither of these mattered. Once he dealt with everything, he could use one of the two shuttles if the need ever arose.
Now, what he needed to do first was to get back to the cryo chamber room. This would have his med kit and here he would find his tranquilizers. If his analysis of the situation was accurate then all three remaining crew members were exhibiting symptoms of space sickness and this would make them a hazard and a threat. Cleo was being overly emotional, Vincent was being hyper-aggressive and might have already murdered one if not two individuals already, and Eric, well he might not showing signs of space sickness yet, but the early signs were always tough to tell. Perhaps he was just tired from all the stress. Either way it was best to sedate them all now and then try to get help. Once he was able to get them in cryo stasis then he might be able to cure them back at Earth. Until then, it was safer if they simply flew ar
ound in circles or even as far away from Earth as possible.
Richard continued to move through the ship, checking down every corridor. He had to reach his tranquilizers before anyone caught on to him. He ducked under fallen bulkheads, pushed aside coolant spilling fallen conduits, and avoided the electrical wires that still sparked every now and then. His footsteps echoed off of the empty halls of the near dead ship. The only resemblance of life was the slight tremor of the running engine that barely reverberated throughout the whole craft.
‘At least its heart is still beating,’ Richard thought to himself. ‘But probably not for long. This ship is dead; it just doesn’t know it yet.’
Movement out of the corner of his eye caught the doctor’s attention. It was only a piece of fallen conduit that had been shaken loose by the rumble of the engine. A crackle made Richard spin in place. It was only the snapping of some electrical wiring.
‘Relax. There’s nothing out here. Just do your job.’
Richard nodded to himself as his heart had started to beat faster. He knew that he needed to calm down. He continued his journey, although a little slower and more observant of every movement and every sound.
The door to the cryo chamber room looked as if it had been forced open yet again. Vincent had probably broken some of the mechanics when he had forced it open initially and had left it wide open. But now the door was only halfway open, which meant it had been closed at one point. Someone must have closed it which meant someone was hiding something inside.
Richard peeked through the opening and into the cryo chamber room. At first, everything seemed to be as they had left it. The room was in complete disarray. Several of the chambers were broken, glass was lying all over the ground, electrical wires were spitting out sparks in all directions and Bruce’s body, still in his mining mech, was dead.
The doctor had to gasp as what he saw. He had only heard the detail of Bruce’s condition from Cleo, but he hadn’t seen it for himself. Now that he had, he wished that he hadn’t. In all of his years at his private practice, he had never seen anyone in such a condition. This was beyond any horror that even he could imagine. He had to look away or be scarred for life.
Then he saw her. Cleo’s body was lying motionless upon the floor. A better look inside told him why. She was lying in a pool of her own blood, spilled all over the floor, her face was horribly mutilated. Another look told him the cause. There, beside one of the cryo chambers, was a container with hole that seemed to have been melted from the inside.
It didn’t take long for Richard to put together what had happened. Cleo, the biologist, was trying to smuggle one of the Xenoamorphopseudopods back to Earth and it had escaped. It had apparently killed her and was now on the loose.
Richard slowly went into the room and moved cautiously. His eyes darted from one corner to another. His ears were attuned to every sound. There was nothing. Nothing moved. This didn’t necessarily mean that the creature wasn’t still here; the alien could be waiting patiently.
However, the alien could also be running around somewhere loose on the ship and could be anywhere. It could have been one of the sights that he had seen out of the corner of his eye. It could have been one of the sounds that had echoed down the empty hallways. He had to move fast if he wanted to get the things he needed and save what was left of the crew.
Richard moved like he had never moved before. He was mindful not to slip on Cleo’s blood that was all over the floor and a type of ooze that had been dripping from the ceiling.
As Richard moved for his medical bag, his eyes continued to dart around the room. Then he stopped. His bag was slightly open and a trail of ooze covered the container. The back of his mind screamed at him to run, run for his life. However, all he could do was watch as he reached for the bag and slowly, delicately, open it.
The alien jumped out of his medical bag and flew through the air. Its body slammed into the doctor’s face. Richard stumbled back, screamed and…
Nothing. Nothing happened.
It wasn’t real. The alien wasn’t here, he had just imagined it. He shook his head and tried to calm his heart. He had heard that these creatures might be telepathic and this could just be a residual psychic disturbance or he was simply hallucinating. Yes, that was probably it. It had to be the stress.
Quickly, Richard reached into his bag, grabbed a half dozen of tranquilizers vials and his injector, and bolted for the door. He had to focus. He had to find Vincent before the alien did.
Chapter: 37
Vincent looked over his monitor. He might be upset over this mission, and didn’t want to be around what was left of this “crew” at this moment, but he wasn’t stupid enough to not keep an eye on them. He wanted to ensure that they weren’t tearing apart what was left of the ship.
The monitor flickered to the view of the cryo chamber room and here Vincent stopped the sequence. Cleo was entering and by the looks of things she seemed to be paranoid, as if she didn’t want anyone to know she was here. She kept looking behind her and down the corresponding halls.
‘What is she up to?’
Time passed. There was no other movement. Whatever Cleo went in to fetch or check up on was taking longer than the short amount of time that Vincent was sure that it would take.
More movement caught Vincent’s attention. This time it was Doctor Richard Atkins, and just like Cleo, he looked nervous.
‘Now what?’
However, unlike Cleo, Richard took his time to look inside the room and seemed to be shocked by what he saw. Vincent knew from the sound of things that Bruce’s body would be in such a condition as to give anyone a pause and he wondered if this was the case with the doctor. It was only with hesitation did Richard enter. But what made everything curious was the fact that he came back out without Cleo. The doctor was up to something and it was time to find out what it was.
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Richard opened yet another door. He had to find Vincent and he was sure that he was probably hiding in one of these rooms. If he had to guess then he was sure that it was going to be his personal room that meant that it was only a matter of time before he stumbled across it.
Most of the rooms were cargo storage areas or rooms filled with machinery that controlled who knew what. He had even found the kitchen and mess hall. This one that he just opened, however, was a personal bedroom, but not the one he was looking for. Yet, it still gave him pause.
Like he would have expected, the room contained a closet, a desk with chair, a nightstand, a dresser and a cryo chamber. However, this chamber wasn’t opened like everyone else’s who had been woken up. If there had been another individual aboard, Vincent should have told them so they could…
Then he saw it. The glass chamber had a hole in its top. It was a small hole, but a hole never-the-less. Depending on when this had happened, this could have horrible repercussions on an individual trying to spend the flight in cryo status. A sleeping individual wouldn’t get the proper nutrition, wouldn’t be kept at the proper temperature and wouldn’t get the proper oxygen for the trip. The individual wouldn’t make the trip.
At first he thought that the alien creature had made its way here and had eaten its way into the chamber, but the hole was too small, even for the Xenoamorphopseudopod. The hole was more like the size of a plasma blast and by the looks of the hole in the person’s head; the individual had been shot while still sleeping in stasis.
The individual was a male, slightly built, and fairly young. There wasn’t anything particular about him and it was hard to tell right off what position on the ship that he held. A quick look at the name plague on the end of the chamber told what he needed to know. His name was Robert and he was the ship’s engineer.
The scenario finally all came together. If Denise was correct with her assumption and there had been sabotage then that would explain why this engineer had to die. Everyone had to die to cover what had happened.
“Find something interesting?”
Vincent’s voice behind him startled the doctor and stopped him in his tracks. His blood froze in his veins. He had wanted to catch the security officer off guard, not the other way around. Now, it was going to be that much more difficult.
Richard’s hand slowly slipped into the bag that he had set down. Once he found the tranquilizer that he was looking for, he paused for just a moment to ensure his grip. Then, suddenly he spun on the security officer.
Vincent took a step back. The doctor’s attack was too sloppy, too slow and too predictable. It had been a while since he had the displeasure of going up against someone this clumsy. The wild swing caught nothing but air.
Harbinger Page 23
