Belters

by Greg Alldredge

  Over thirty souls huddled under the sturdy tables. Despite her best intentions, Lea found herself cowering under a table, waiting for the end to happen.

  Master Baal dropped her off there while he headed to engineering. Power returned in intermittent spurts. When it did, the doors to the space would open, and a few more survivors would make their way into the mess.

  Too many people were missing. Alone in a sea of orange and gray, Lea felt out of place. Doctor Mindy had deserted her on the bridge. Lea hoped the bitch was dead. For a fleeting moment, she wished the pain in the ass Tian was by her side, clinging to the station that served as the support for the table Lea now cringed under. So much for her impervious control over fear. The programmer was probably still sitting in the small alcove, trying to learn what was happening. While they all faced death huddled in fear, she was surely alone.

  Lea tried to face the reality she might soon die alone, but she wasn’t ready for that. Rather, she worked hard to focus on the impossible tales of survival the refugees around her whispered.

  Too many to be considered crazy were sharing stories of machines coming to life and attacking the inhabitants. Was it possible for the radiation from the event to be affecting the machines? It all sounded more like a horror vid than anything that could happen for real. If this event happened on Earth, the death toll would be astronomical.

  Blue emergency lights flashed back on, and a loud clank echoed through the mess. Screams of fear answered the sound. The compartment shuddered. Something was happening.

  Disconcerting as it might be, there was no indication the noise meant the end for those seeking refuge. Spaceships were known for making all manner of different sounds.

  The clanking only got louder by the second. The thought of mechanical spiders creeping over the ship made her skin crawl.

  Power came back, and the doors opened. Several people screamed when three bodies flew into the space.

  It was Reo and two refugees from the Frazier. The two men carried, more like pushed, the Amazon with the shaved sides of her head. She looked like shit, covered in blood.

  Lea double-checked the injector pen she still carried. The drug sat safely where she placed it.

  The clanking only got louder. The lights went out. The door didn’t completely close.

  A loud, hissing noise followed.

  The mess decks experienced extremely violent shaking before negative gravity lifted the refugees. Their bodies were thrown about like toys. Something moved the ship side to side with a brutal shake. Lea lost her grip on the pipe under the table. She was thrown into the top before the floor slapped into her from the bottom. Her nose bust into a bloody mess as the attack bounced everyone in the compartment around. The lucky ones were knocked unconscious before the inevitable decompression sucked the life from them all.

  Someone screamed, “They’re here!”

  All Lea could think was No shit. This was never the way she thought the end would come. At least she’d leave a decent-looking corpse.

  <=OO=>

  AD 2100 Inner Belt – Unknown

  The sounds of muted sobs filled the void.

  Consciousness returned slowly at first. A brilliant red glow filtered through Jacob’s lids. An unusual scent lingered in his nose, like someone recently struck a match or several hundred of them. The smell was overbearing and ever-present. He coughed to clear his lungs, but nothing came up. They burned with every breath,

  Now an uncomfortable heat permeated his body. Wherever he laid, it was hot. The sweat from his body had soaked into his jumpsuit. The moisture did nothing to cool him off. There was no draft to evaporate the perspiration. The smell of others hung heavy in the thick air. He wasn’t alone.

  Jacob opened his eyes. He was in gravity, stretched out on his back. The ceiling was hidden by the red atmosphere. The impossible red glow came from the hazy air itself.

  He risked running the tips of his fingers on the floor. The deck was unlike any he’d felt before, porous with a texture more of volcanic stone than metal. A feeling he expected to find deep in a mine. If he was still on a ship, the construction was… alien to him.

  The air was thick, maybe with a mist of sorts, and hard to breathe. Given the humidity level of the compartment, it might be fog. Jacob assumed he was on a ship, but he spotted no walls. For all he knew, he had died, and this was hell. The scent of brimstone brought back childhood memories of what he imagined hell might be like. The sobs of others reinforced the feeling of dread.

  The new intense weight he experienced overwhelmed his body, weakened from months in space. This wasn’t Earth standard gravity, it felt much higher.

  Not alone, there were others in this huge room splayed out on the floor with him. All lay stretched out, gasping for breath. A few sobbed.

  Jacob croaked, “Where are we?” When no reply came back, Jacob rolled onto his side.

  None of the faces around him looked familiar. All manner of people, men, women, and a few children, were wearing gray and orange jumpsuits. Mostly splayed out against the heavy gravity, struggling against the drag of their bodies. The ETs had the worst of it. Many would die soon if things didn’t change.

  Sweets was missing, lost in the chaos.

  The familiar face of Reo lay not too far away. A woman sat on his chest, slapping him repeatably. The pair offered the only real movement around.

  With effort, the miner rolled onto his belly and started the long drag toward the pair and the familiarity they offered.

  The older woman lifted Reo by the collar and hissed, “You need to pull yourself together. You’re coming across paranoid, almost crazy. Tell me what the fuck is happening to me… to us.”

  Reo chuckled, nearly unhinged. “You say that like it’s a conspiracy.”

  Jacob admitted to himself, Reo did sound deranged, but that was no reason to beat the poor man. “Please stop hitting him…” Jacob’s voice sounded like a stranger’s. It reverberated differently in this alien environment.

  “Where are we?” the woman growled one last time, the back of her hand leaving a red welt on Reo’s face.

  “Why, nowhere, of course…” Reo smiled, the blood running down his cheek from the corner of his eye. “They are coming for us…”

  Jacob tried again, reaching out to stop the woman.

  The crazy lady clenched a fist, ready to punch Jacob before he grabbed her arm. In his weak state, he was no match for her Earthbound strength.

  Another voice called out, “Lea, please stop, you’ll kill them.” A new person staggered up to meet them.

  At least the newcomer stood. The two could move easily enough in this heavy gravity. They must be from Earth or hiding the strength of Amazons.

  “Tian, stay out of this.” Lea pulled her arm back, ready to punch Reo once more.

  Tian and Lea must be the names of the pair. Now he needed to… He felt the overwhelming need to save this unusual man, Reo, from the crazy woman. Like his life depended on it. Never the hero type, Jacob reached once more to stop the pummeling, mentally prepared to be the next one attacked.

  Lea froze, her arm locked in the cocked position. “Damn it all,” her voice screeched.

  “Time to stop.” Reo laughed like a nutter. “It doesn’t matter… They’re here. Everything’s about to change…” Reo’s voice trailed off as he shifted his head.

  Jacob followed the man’s gaze. A door formed where, seconds later, there was no wall.

  Lea muttered, “Fucking magic.”

  Everything froze, the door opened, and in walked the strangest creature Jacob thought he might ever see. Best he could describe the indescribable was a huge, bipedal, short-nosed, wide-faced Komodo dragon. The shape of the mouth left a permanent hungry smile spread over the creature’s jaw.

  The creature wore no clothing, allowing the scales that covered the alien to plainly be seen. Mostly a shade of sickly yellow with palm-sized splotches of dark green, to Jacob’s eye, it was a garish, disgusting color combination. The beast
was huge, over two meters tall. Muscles bulged under the scales. If this was a new enemy, they, humans, were doomed.

  Deep-set golden eyes scanned the scene of sprawled-out humans. The long tail swished in lazy sweeps, like a cat ready to attack. The lizard’s mouth snapped several times and barked a bizarre series of sounds that someone might consider a language. More clicks and whistles than anything a normal person might recognize as vowels and consonants. At least Jacob didn’t spot rows of razor-sharp teeth hidden in the lipless maw.

  Despite the heat, a shiver ran up Jacob’s spine. It looked like the beast was getting ready to order lunch, and he spotted a choice piece of meat he wanted to try. The damned thing licked nonexistent lips with a forked tongue.

  There was a chance Jacob projected his fears of the unknown on this mysterious creature, but he didn’t have the wherewithal to ignore the ingrained stereotypes. The entertainment industry had beaten the worst tropes of the unknown into popular culture.

  Thankfully, the monster didn’t wade into the bodies, searching out the cripple. Rather, it reached down and picked up the nearest person, a young woman wearing a bright orange jumpsuit.

  She screamed and tried to fight. Her fingernails clawed at the oversized wrist. Teeth tried to bite the beast. The victim struggled, at least for a few seconds, but the monster let out a loud whistle-screech. The woman fell silent. Those nearest the door dropped back to the ground, unconscious as well.

  If these aliens were carnivores, the humans didn’t stand a chance. They could subdue the survivors with a screech of their voice. So piercing, a few nearest the paralyzed victims threw up from the racket. The lizard could munch on them while still alive. What hope did they have against that?

  Before any who remained awake rushed to the woman’s aid, the monster slipped out of the door, which promptly closed and disappeared once again.

  “Fuck me…” Lea whispered.

  “I told you so…” Reo lay his head back down on the deck. His eyes closed. “Don’t forget the spiders… The brain is still out there hunting for us.”

  “What the hell was that?” Lea’s eyes remained glued to the door. “Tell me what the hell just happened.”

  “Shush…” Tian hissed. “I’m trying to think.” Her body lowered gracefully to the floor.

  Reo ignored Tian and kept rambling. “I tried to warn you… I think I tried to tell you, in my dream, they were coming… Shit, I can’t remember now. They are here to stay…”

  “Would you guys please shut up! I’m trying to remember something.” Tian slapped the palms of her hands on the stone floor.

  Her outburst gained the others’ attention. While each shifted their gaze towards her, they stopped talking. Some remained silent the entire time, frozen with panic and disbelief. Seemed alien encounters had that effect on some people.

  The woman’s face went blank for several seconds of near silence. When she finally broke that silence, her words came out like she was still forming ideas. “I think… their language… something about it… sounds familiar to me.”

  Lea growled, “The fuck it does. Can you speak it?”

  “How the hell could that be?” Jacob was surprised when the question burst from his lips.

  The others shifted attention from Tian to him. The attention made him feel incredibly small.

  Tian shook her head. “Listen, languages are kind of a hobby for me… That’s why I’m here. If I had time alone to listen to them, I might be able to talk with them. Not every Earth language sounds like… well… Let your white privilege go for a moment. English isn’t the only language around.”

  Jacob muttered, “But I’m not even white…”

  Lea snorted. “That’s great… Not sure they are ready to sit down and have tea just yet.”

  “I’m just trying to help.” Tian shook her head. “If they wanted us dead… well.”

  “Maybe they were stocking up for the long trip home.” Jacob let his eyes drift back to the space the missing woman once occupied. People started to wake up now. Those who had the strength dragged their bodies away from the now-missing door.

  “Do you mind getting off my chest?” Reo pushed on Lea’s legs.

  The woman stood. For a moment, Jacob thought she might crush the sole of her shoe into Reo’s face.

  “There is nothing to say they can eat us and live. Maybe we are poison to them.” Tian shook her head.

  “Or maybe a delicacy…” Lea scoffed.

  Tian ticked off her points on raised fingers. “I’m not so sure. Where did they come from? Why are they here? There are too many unknowns. The list goes on forever. We literally know nothing about these creatures. We need… I hate to say it, we need more data… Where is Doctor Abe?”

  Lea’s voice did nothing to hide her anger. “The bitch did a rabbit on me as soon as the spiders showed up.”

  Tian shouted, “Is Doctor Abe in the house?”

  Jacob scanned the visible space with his eyes, but none answered the call.

  “She must not have made it.” Tian let her shoulders drop under the added weight.

  “Good. Bitch…” Lea showed zero remorse. She let her body slump to the floor.

  “When courage falters…” Reo whispered.

  Tian shook her head. “It is all guesses right now. How about we work on one problem at a time?”

  Jacob asked, “What about the spiders?”

  “What is it with these damned spiders?” Tian asked.

  “I’m not sure, but they have a FlyRight logo on them…” Lea’s eyes drifted over each in turn.

  Reo whispered, “The brain controls them. They should be harmless. I’m not sure why they attacked. Something pissed them off, that’s for sure.”

  Tian asked, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Will you tell them, or shall I?” Lea said through clenched teeth.

  Reo retreated, sitting up and crossing his legs. “Tell them what?” He looked ready to bolt.

  Lea pulled an auto-injection pen from her jumpsuit. She held up the container, tipped it side to side, and showed everyone the silver fluid inside.

  Reo reached for the pen. “Where did you find that? I thought I’d lost it… Give it to me.”

  Tian asked, “What is it?”

  Lea played keep-away while she taunted him. “Yeah, doubi, tell them what it is.”

  “It is mine… You stole it.”

  “It became mine when you brought it into my room… after you broke in, I might add… Now tell us, or…” Lea glanced around. “I crush it.”

  “No, you can’t…” Reo’s voice grew higher pitched with each passing second.

  “Then tell us,” Lea kept taunting him.

  The fear in his voice was infectious. Jacob felt his heart starting to race. “If they find out I told you, they will kill me.”

  “If this can help, you need to tell us.” Lea slapped him with the pen on the forehead. “What do you fear more than the big-assed lizards?”

  Reo shook his head before whispering, “The ESPers.”

  Tian laughed, “That’s sci-fi bullshit.”

  “And lizard aliens aren’t?” Jacob pointed to the space left by the missing woman.

  Lea held up the pen just out of Reo’s reach. “Can this help?”

  “No…” Reo shook his head. “Maybe… I don’t know.” His eyes shifted to Tian. “You said if you could be alone with one, you might be able to understand it?”

  Tian’s eyes spread wide. “I think so.” She cleared her throat, “Maybe, given enough time…”

  “This isn’t going to end well if we can’t talk with them…” Jacob did the strangest thing, he made the sign of the cross over his chest.

  “Life was never meant to end well,” Tian added.

  Reo asked, “Don’t people deserve a happy ending?”

  “No… Happily ever after is never a foregone conclusion… not even in a massage parlor.” Lea handed over the pen.

  “That was uncalled for.”
Jacob shook his head.

  Lea shrugged. “Sorry… when I am stressed…”

  “I get it, you become an ass?” Tian asked.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “What is your plan?” Jacob asked.

  “I’m taking us for a meeting.” Reo scooched closer. “We need to sit in a circle and hold hands. Just to be clear, I have no idea if this will work, but it seems we are out of options.”

  Tian paused. “You’re kidding?”

  “You get to do something no one else has ever done. Break on through… Naw your right… too old a reference. Come on, it will be fun.”

  Nobody moved. Reo was talking to himself now.

  “Listen, if someone has a better idea to escape the lizards…” Reo scanned those staring at his odd behavior.

  Lea and Tian helped Jacob into a sitting position. He didn’t want to join this crazy seance, but from his position, he had little choice. Everyone in this room could run faster than him. He would be the next one the lizards picked, he was sure of it.

  Jacob’s jaw dropped when, with a steady hand, Reo jabbed the pen into his neck, thumb pressing the activation button. The silver liquid injected into his bulging artery. A trail of silver disappeared under his hairline. Nothing was left in the pen. This was a one-shot deal.

  Across from him, Reo’s eyes rolled into the back of his skull. Thank goodness the two women held his hands because the man from ESPer started frothing from the mouth, his body wracked with convulsions.

  All Jacob could think was Fuck me.

  Chapter 24:

  AD 2100 Kuiper Belt – Unknown

  Reo opened his eyes. The scene before him was not a surprise. As expected, he stood outside the castle drawbridge. He knew the big bad waited for them inside. The battle that waited was to be expected. All good stories end in battle and sacrifice.

  People were about to die.

  He only hoped those who followed him in this crazy world knew their sacrifices would not be in vain. But they didn’t know the risk, and Reo wasn’t going to tell them.