by C. Gockel
“How do you know how to use those symbols? I thought only Dr. Brennen…”
“I'm not going to use the symbols,” Alvarez said. He reached into his pack and pulled out a small canister the size of a coffee can. Alvarez placed the canister at the base of the energy source. He flipped switches, punched his Colonel’s key-code, and entered 30.00.
“You're going to blow it up?”
“Whatever we just heard didn't sound friendly,” Alvarez said. “We're setting this detonator, getting our men, and getting off this rock before it blows.”
Alvarez punched the large button, and the countdown began. He synchronized his wrist console. Then he turned to Weston. “Turn your infrared viewer on.”
Weston used his thumb to throw a switch on his rifle. It was both a safety and the on button for the viewer.
“You’re hot now,” Alvarez said.
“Shouldn’t we leave the safety on…until we need it,” Weston said.
“It’s more dangerous on than off, now.”
Alvarez figured Sarge and Jitters would turn on their infrared viewers too. A viewer was small, barely visible until you aimed the weapon. Then it illuminated the room, via heat signatures. Additionally, its auto-aiming system detected the intended target, theoretically ensuring a bullseye. It could be disengaged, of course. Certain situations called for greater prejudice than just hitting the closest warm body.
The two men ran down the eastern tunnel. Soon the glow from the source was gone. Alvarez’s eyes hurt from the contrast between the ambient darkness and his intense infrared viewer.
Alvarez examined their map. Based on the tracker beacons, they were close. His timer said twenty-eight minutes. There had been no new sounds and no comm contact for the last minute and a half. Alvarez saw lights ahead.
“Be ready, but don’t shoot any of ours,” Alvarez told Weston. They slowed their approach.
“Sarge is that you?” Alvarez said.
“Don’t shoot,” said Sarge. Sarge and Jitters were scanning the room with their lights.
Alvarez and Weston entered the new room, another cavern but smaller than the one they had left. There was no visible energy source. That’s good, Alvarez thought. He only brought one detonator.
“We didn’t make it in time,” Sarge said.
“What do you mean?” Alvarez said.
Sarge pointed his light to the corner. What Alvarez saw didn't make sense. Arms, legs, and guts were all over the floor, and blood was smeared against the walls.
“They had their backs against the wall, and this still happened,” Alvarez said.
“We can identify the two grunts. The first one’s here.” Sarge pointed to a helmet with a still recognizable face.
“And here’s the other,” Jitters said pointing to a helmet with shattered glass that was impossible to see through.
“The tracker beacon indicates these were the two grunts,” Sarge said.
“What about Dr. Brennen?”
“We’ve got his beacon…” Sarge pointed to another helmet on the ground. “But we can't find his body.”
“Even if he’s alive, he couldn’t last long in this atmosphere without a helmet.” Alvarez tried the comm. “Brennen, can you hear me? Brennen, do you copy?” There was no answer.
“If he is alive,” Alvarez said, “he’ll go back to the shuttle which is…” He looked at his wrist console. “…that way. North on the same trail he came in on.”
“He can’t get back to the surface without a pressurized suit,” Sarge said. They were silent, the somber reality setting in. There weren't any spare suits on the shuttle, and Brennen couldn't last long without his helmet anyway. He's probably gone, Alvarez thought.
“What about these remains?” Jitters said.
“There’s not enough time. I set this thing to blow, and we’ve got…” He looked, “…less than twenty-five minutes before we’re space debris.”
Weston and Jitters aimlessly shined their lights around the room. Then Sarge tilted his head their way and whispered, “We better get them out of here.”
The eastern wall of the room had the familiar glyphs. Alvarez still couldn't figure out what they were for. The panel on the surface seemed to be a key lock or control panel for the entrance, he thought. But what were all these doing down here in what had only been straight tunnels leading to open rooms.
Alvarez felt the ground vibrate, then the eastern wall shook. “Everybody stay sharp,” Alvarez commanded.
An opening appeared, the same size as the entrance from the surface. They all shined their lights, but nothing penetrated the darkness.
“Sir, nothing’s on our viewer,” Weston said.
Alvarez took his eye off the wall and glanced through his viewer. It was cold, blackness. Nothing.
He looked up, glimpsing something. “Something moved,” he said.
He looked down, but nothing appeared on his viewer. He toggled the resolution, trying to bring out the contrast without success.
He squinted at the opening. A shape expanded with a rough, jagged motion. Then contracted smoothly. Alvarez heard a loud, chattering sound that accompanied the contractions. The sound stopped, and the shape disappeared from view. The men stood motionless as if hiding in plain sight.
A creature, a hominoid beast, stepped through the opening and roared the same scream Alvarez had heard over the comm. It had gorilla-sized arms and legs, and towered at over ten-feet tall, but it was no ape. It looked like no natural or genetically designed creature Alvarez had ever witnessed. Its skin—if that’s what it was—was a dull gray, and its face only slightly resembled a human’s: no hair, eyebrows, or ears. Just a glaring set of recessed eyes, that reflected red when lights were shined on them. Its flap-for-mouth stitched up the middle of its face, like hands clasped together. The orifice opened sideways as the creature screamed, flaps stretched and quivering. Each climax revealed a series of narrowing ribbed hoops—its version of an esophagus.
“Defensive positions—get back!” Alvarez said.
The men fell into formation. The creature screamed again and came towards them.
“Open fire!” Alvarez yelled as he aimed his energy weapon. His first shot missed entirely. He looked through his viewer. The creature still didn’t appear on-screen.
He yelled, “Disengage thermal!”
With a flip of a switch, it was off. He aimed again—this time by visual—and blasted the beast. It stopped in its tracks, but it didn’t go down. It wasn’t even fazed. It stood there taking the continuous current. The blast enveloped the beast, wrapping it like a blanket.
“We’ve got two more from the south tunnel,” Sarge shouted.
Alvarez and Weston continued to fire on the first creature while Sarge and Jitters turned to face the new threats.
Sarge’s shotgun blast was deafening. The sound maxed out Alvarez’s headset. The receiver attempted to compress the sound, but it just distorted into a high-pitched squelch. The energy weapons seemed to have little effect, but Sarge’s shotgun took off chunks of flesh, piece by piece.
The first creature, as if its batteries were recharged, resumed its attack. The blasts didn’t slow it down. The thing swatted Alvarez with its over-sized arm, knocking him into the far corner where the dead bodies were.
Then it turned and dismembered Weston. Alvarez, nearly unconscious, lifted his head. He didn’t know what world he was in. It was a dream, a bad dream.
He saw the first creature on top of Weston’s body, crouched over it doing who-knows-what. Further away he saw Sarge fire shot after shot until one creature finally fell. Jitters continued firing his energy weapon at the third creature to no effect. The blast surrounded the creature just as it had with the first monster.
They weren’t withstanding the blast, he realized. They were absorbing it. The energy made them stronger. He wanted to yell, to warn Jitters, to make him stop. But he couldn’t move. He couldn’t feel. Panic, the same emotion driving him to get up and fight, paralyzed him.
Jitters maintained his blastfire on the creature as Sarge reloaded his shotgun. The creature swept forward, grabbed Jitters’s rifle, and hit him across the face with it. His helmet ruptured. He stumbled backwards. Bent over, Jitters placed both hands over his helmet to stop the leaks. Alvarez heard Jitters over his headset. “C-c-colonel! Colonel!” Alvarez tried to speak. His mouth jawed open, but no words came out. He was frozen.
The beast bludgeoned Jitters with the rifle, then pinned his head against the ground with his foot. Alvarez heard Jitters scream until the pressure from the creature’s foot crushed his skull.
Sarge, having finished reloading, turned to exact retribution. He fired three times at point-blank range. The creature dropped in seconds. Horrified, Alvarez watched the first creature, now done with Weston, bolt towards Sarge who had his back turned.
Sarge must have heard the creature’s footsteps. He turned to fire. The creature’s long arm reached forward, blocking the shotgun. Sarge fired into the ceiling before the creature knocked the gun out of his hands. He started to lunge for his weapon, but the beast charged head-first into Sarge, ramming him against the far wall.
Before Sarge could even lift his head, the creature was on top of him. It pinned him—one foot on his legs and the other on his shoulder. Sarge screamed in agony and began punching the creature’s legs with his one free arm.
The beast took its time. It repositioned its feet, crushing new parts of Sarge’s body. With unmistakable intent, the creature pounced and crushed his hips and thigh bones. Sarge’s cry changed. It no longer sounded like the man Alvarez knew.
Alvarez had to do something. He looked to his right. On the ground beside him was blood and body parts. A shattered helmet was at arms-length. On it was a long shard of glass. He knew he couldn’t handle it without ripping his suit.
He looked left and saw a torn, shredded spacesuit. He grabbed the fabric and wrapped it around one half of the shard.
It took every ounce of willpower to lift himself. His footing still unsteady, he glared at his target. With speed that surprised Alvarez, he sprinted toward the creature.
He gripped the shard with both hands raised above his head as his feet left the ground.
The jagged glass entered the creature’s back between its shoulder blades. The shard remained lodged, but Alvarez fell to the ground. He stumbled to his feet.
The creature screeched, turned, and swatted him against the wall. The beast performed a horrific dance, trying to pull the blade from its back. Its arms were long but inflexible.
Alvarez’s body was saturated in pain. One cogent thought remained: the beast was in pain too.
Alvarez had landed next to Sarge’s shotgun. The creature seemed to realize its mistake. It lunged towards Alvarez.
Alvarez grabbed the shotgun, turned, and fired.
He racked the gun. Fired.
Racked it. Fired.
Racked it. Fired.
Racked it. Click . He was out of shells. But by then, it was over. The massive kinetic damage caused by the OO-Buck had nearly taken the head off the beast. It was slumped over on its belly, not moving. Alvarez saw the shard still residing in its back.
Alvarez tried to get up. His legs felt like jelly. He was winded, and he tasted metal when he exhaled. Bent at the waist, he limped over to Sarge.
“Sarge, are you okay?”
“I’ve been better,” he said wheezing.
Alvarez shined his light on what was left of Sarge’s body. He appeared fine from the waist up, but his legs were turned in unnatural directions. His space suit was torn around his knees, and he was lying in a puddle of his own blood.
“Colonel, I’m venting atmosphere. I won’t last much longer, once my oxygen’s gone. Go on and get out of here.”
“Let me patch you up. We can stop the leak.”
Sarge raised his voice. “I’ll bleed out before you figure it out.” It was as if Alvarez made him say something he shouldn’t have to. Sarge regained his composure. “Go on. Get out of here.”
Alvarez looked again, not wanting to give up on him. Blood was pumping out of Sarge’s suit. He must have nicked an artery, he thought.
“Take that shotgun. It’s the only one that seemed to do any damage. And don’t forget this bandolier.”
Sarge struggled to remove the band of shells from his upper body. Helping him, Alvarez realized Sarge wasn’t getting out of there. He was in no condition to move, and they were running out of time.
He looked at his wrist console. Less than eighteen minutes remained before the whole thing blew.
Sarge took a sudden, deep breath. He held it for a moment and exhaled slowly. He closed his eyes and was gone.
Alvarez stepped back. He looked at Sarge’s body. Why did it look different than it did a minute ago?
Shining the light attached to Sarge’s shotgun, he scanned the cavern. He looked past the bodies as if there was something else to see. There was nothing else.
He had to act. He had to do something. He should have felt guilty for losing his men, especially Jitters. But all he could think was that he was alone.
He pulled up the map on his wrist console, irrationally hoping to find another ID beacon. He studied each ID. All but his were faded out, the program’s effort to demonstrate last known positions or inactivity. Usually this meant someone had retired their suits without turning off their beacons. Today it marked tombstones.
He wanted to be anywhere but here. He thought about Nadia and Adam, and if he would ever see his family again.
He stared at his ID beacon, the only blinking signal on the map. Then it stopped blinking and faded out like the others. Alvarez squinted and pulled his wrist closer in view. He shook it, trying to make it work again. Then inexplicably all the IDs, including his, disappeared before the map itself went blank.
“No, no, no, no” he trailed off. His voice stopped to choke back tears.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I shouldn’t even be here, he thought. I should be home, on vacation, or on to my next career. His family had no idea where he was or what he was doing. And now, he was going to die in the explosion or worse, encounter another creature.
His fear turned to anger. He gripped his weapon. “Not like this,” he said aloud. “I’m not going to die like this.”
He threw the bandolier of shells over his shoulder. He counted six shells and fed the tube magazine. He headed back north towards the entrance. He didn’t need the map. He knew the way. It was a straight shot back to the shuttle.
He picked up his pace. Every time he passed glyphs on the wall, he imagined one of the beasts coming out to get him. The more his fear mounted, the angrier he became. And the harder he pushed himself. He didn’t look at his feet where his headlamp shined but ran with his head up, eyeing the darkness in front of him.
He checked the countdown. More than eight minutes remained. He was going to make it. Alvarez’s anger turned to hopeful exuberance. He was going to get off this rock. He would go home to Nadia and Adam and finish that fishing trip.
He saw a faint glow in the distance. It was the entranceway.
As he neared the exit of the tunnel, he checked his time: six minutes. Like a marathon runner bursting through the finish line, Alvarez ran his hardest as he entered the lit room. He stopped to catch his breath, doubled over.
“Well done, John,” said a voice.
A million thoughts ran through Alvarez’s mind. They all pointed to the only conceivable answer.
“Michael?”
Between Alvarez and the steps to the surface stood Michael Brennen.
Chapter Twenty-One
THE TWO MEN stood motionless. Brennen’s skin was an unnatural, dull gray. Alvarez watched him. He couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The tone of Brennen’s voice had been sarcastic, but his face was expressionless. Lying crushed on the ground next to Brennen was the sensory image generator.
“John, I know what you’ve done. It’s not going to work,” Brennen said
.
“What I’ve done?” Alvarez pointed at the broken generator. “What have you done?”
“All in good time, my friend. What’s important is that you give me the code to the detonator and let me shut it down.”
“Shut it down? Didn’t you see what those things did to the rest of the men? They’re all dead. For that matter, you should be too.”
“Why the hostility, John?”
“I’m not the one being hostile. You shouldn’t be breathing this atmosphere. You shouldn’t even be conscious.”
“Those things that you murdered were sentient beings,” Brennen said. “We’re invading their territory, their space, and their outpost. Now you’re about to commit an act of war.”
Alvarez felt like he’d never reach the bottom of this rabbit hole. “How do you know that? How come you have your helmet off and appear fine? And why did you destroy the sensory image generator?”
“John you seem to have a passion for ignorance. I thought you would understand by now.”
“All I know is that you’re acting stranger than normal, and this thing is about to blow. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on.”
“You just keep mucking around with things you don’t understand. Give me those codes, and I’ll show you everything.”
Alvarez looked at his wrist console. “There’s less than four minutes before detonation, Michael. Even if I wanted to turn it off—which I don’t—there’s no way we could get back there in time. It took twelve minutes the first time and half as long sprinting back. It’s too late.”
“Four minutes is plenty of time for me,” Brennen said.
Alvarez would have laughed if he didn’t know Brennen was serious.
“This is an outpost, John. The beings that put this here are part of a collective, sharing consciousness and intent. They placed this outpost as an attempt to contact life forms. That’s what the plasma bursts are all about.”
“You’re saying alien life designed this outpost with plasma bursts to make our probes go wonky and kill people?”
“Life isn’t really the right word for it.”
